The CHiMPeD Chronicles: Navigating the Middle Tiers of Wordle (SPOILERS!)

This week in our odyssey of Wordle strategies, we’re looking at how to handle words that feature less frequently used letters. Luckily for us, this past week was chock-a-block full of words that fit that bill.

In general, you should start by testing the most frequently used letters in the Wordle corpus or English, depending on your puzzle. By tier two you should’ve used the five most frequently used consonants and three most frequently used vowels. And, you should always use five brand spanking new letters in tier two in almost every circumstance. Often, you’ll get a three just by doing that much.

However, you will run into puzzles where you reach tier three with very few yellows and greens. What should you do then?

Obv, we need to move on to the next tier of frequently used letters. As you can see in the chart somewhere up there, looking at consonant frequencies in the 13,000-word Wordle corpus, some combination of CHiMPeD plus Y is a great thing to check in your third and fourth tiers.

In my early research, I either got some bad information or fell victim to my own prejudices or something because that list differs somewhat from what I developed two years ago. Also, the Wordle corpus expanded from just under three thousand words to thirteen thousand, so that happened.

Case Study 1: When the Puzzle Plays Nice

This puzzle was a challenge. I debated about using LOUND in tier two. First, there’s the U. But, more importantly, the __OUND pattern has nine words in it, two of which are begin with S and R tested in the starter and six are fairly common words. LOUND is not very common, but it tests the L, so I went with it.

CHIMP paid off much more handsomely, though. Once you get five yellows (or even those three yellows), you have to start asking yourself where they would likely go. There is a good chance that the C and H go together, but if they do, it probably is at the end.

Then, you figure the P is probably at the beginning or the third position. So, if we consider P __ __ C H, what fills those blanks? R A or A R? PRACH is not a word, but PARCH is.

At this point, it is important to take a deep breath and consider other possibilities. What if the word began with R? RAPCH? RACHP? We aren’t coming up with any other viable candidates, so now, we try PARCH.

Would it have been better to look for homes for the A R on tier two? Maybe. I don’t know the probability of the AR occurring together in the second and third positions (most likely), first and second, or fourth and fifth. I also don’t know how many words use an A and an R that have been separated or in the reverse order. Perhaps that will become part of my body of knowledge. Perhaps not. I don’t have any way to judge the option other than through experience.

Let’s look at another puzzle where we hunt for homes for yellows found on tier one.

Case Study 2: The Hunt for Homes for the Yellows

Perhaps you noticed that Y is the seventh most frequently occurring letter in the words in the corpus. That makes it worthwhile in testing earlier in the puzzle. With a yellow R and E coming out of tier one, I used an elimination word on tier two. L O N were tested, the P from CHiMPeD, and the Y. That tests seven of the eleven most frequently used consonants in the first two tiers and all three of the most frequently used vowels. All of my goals achieved.

On tier three, I had a choice: I could continue eliminating letters from CHiMPeD, or I could try for the solution — or at least for homes for the E and R. I decided to look for the homes, and if I were lucky, I’d hit the solution.

Notice that with CIDER, I was only up to eight of the first eleven letters. In some ways that argues for an elimination word. If I could’ve found a word that tested the I or U and some combination of D C M H (like DUCHY), I might have been better off.

As it was, I got lucky. I found two more yellows, making four in total. Now it is a game of rearranging the letters until you come up with something that seems plausible. I counted six words, five of them starting with C. That made the choice easy, right?

These two were examples of when the puzzle is playing nice, but what about when it isn’t?

Case Study 3: When the Puzzle isn’t Playing So Nice

Puzzle #1973 from Friday 13 November — of course, amirite? — offered a good example of what happens when less frequently used consonants are used in the solution. That the vowels were the three most frequently used is less helpful since so many words use them (they are the most frequently used, after all).

After tier two, I had two greens and a yellow, all vowels. I decided to use another elimination word on tier three in the hopes of getting some more consonants. MIDGE was a good choice because it tested a likely position for the I, two letters from CHiMPeD (M and D) and the lowly G.

Now I had four greens! The I could only go in the fourth position. With M O __ I E, I had to search for possible words. Don’t rely on your gut reaction because it can and will steer you wrong. According to Win Every Game Wordle Helper there are five words: MOBIE (the musician?!?), MOVIE (very possible), MOXIE (possible), MOMIE (that’s a word?!?), and MOWIE (what?).

The only real contenders are MOVIE and MOXIE, but which do you choose? You can’t know for sure. By the most common word heuristic, MOVIE is the logical pick. Unfortunately, it was wrong. However, there is no way to narrow the odds further than 50-50.

At the end of the day, Wordle is a delicate dance between cold probability and sheer intuition. Whether you lean on high-frequency letter distributions or find yourself sweating out a 50-50 coin flip on row four, mastering the middle tiers is what separates a casual player from a consistent strategist. So the next time your starter words leave you stranded in a vowel-less wasteland, trust the numbers, dig into your secondary consonants, and may your boards forever end in green.

Image Attribution

The image was found on WikiMedia Commons and has a Creative Commons license.

Steve from washington, dc, usa, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons