A successful strategy for playing Wordle

There are lots of ways to start solving a Wordle puzzle.  I've seen several suggestions to start with ADIEU in order to identify the vowels.  That seems inefficient to me since only six entries are allowed, and all of them will have at least one vowel.  And for me it's easier to suss out a word from component consonants rather than vowels (as illustrated above).

I started playing Wordle in early January, and after missing a word I decided to come up with a strategy that would be more effective than random guessing.  The first four entries allow one to test 20 different letters, so I looked for words that would use the 20 most likely letters, winding up with BRINK, CADGY, WHELM, and POUTS [or SPOUT].  Those four words include all the letters except F and the uncommon J, Q, V, X, and Z. 

What order one enters those words in will make a difference, but there's no way to know a priori which one should go first.  The only "2" I've ever achieved occurred when by chance I started with BRINK and the answer was BRISK.  

In the example above, the first two entries revealed that the word was _ OI _ _, with S and T in two of those blanks.  That narrowed the options to TOILS, FOIST, HOIST, JOIST, and MOIST.  One could simply guess and try to score a rare "3", but entering WHELM eliminated HOIST and identified MOIST.  (see also the example in the last addendum)

This is not necessarily the best strategy, but it does work efficiently (see below).  I'm sure words will come along that will elude solving this way, but it's the best I can offer at this time.  I'll open up the comment thread to let others make suggestions for improvements and to share their own strategies and test words.

Addendum:  A tip of the blogging cap to reader John for recommending The Math of Winning Wordle.

Addendum: The video Solving Wordle Using Information Theory is a highly relevant (and 30 minutes long).

Addendum:  Those who enjoy Wordle might enjoy Squabble.

Addendum:  And there's also Quordle (four words to solve simultaneously).  So I tested the same strategy (entering SPOUT, WHELM, CADGY, BRINK), and it worked perfectly:

- but tbh, it isn't much fun.

Addendum:  And now Phrasle (basically Wheel of Fortune).

Addendum:  This video shows a man using the technique I describe above to solve 10 Wordle puzzles in 69 seconds.  His four starting words are BRICK, PODGY, SHUNT, AND FLAME.  So he has an "F" in his four starters, while I have a "W."  Otherwise we are equivalent.  And Unscramblerer has come up with BRAKE, CLOTS, DYING, and CLUMP - which use the same 20 letters as my grouping, but in words that are more familiar.

See also Wordle Unlimited and this collection of 30 spinoffs from Wordle.

Addendum:  Now there's a Hurdle (instructions at the link).  And a WordleBot at the NYT that will analyze your Wordle entries and explain how a computer would have done better than you did.

And finally (??) Waffle.  Addendum: Waffle turned out to be too easy:

Basically the way to proceed to achieve the maximum 5 stars is to figure out what the six words in the puzzle are.  Then look for a tile switch that will generate two greens; there are usually about 2 of those.  Then look for combos where two tile switches will generate 3 greens; there are usually 2-3 of those.  Then move the final tiles.

Addendum.  Octordle offers 8 simultaneous games.  And not a word puzzle, Yeardle invites you to guess the years of historic events.

Addendum.  Here's a good example of the value of starting with the four standard words.  Recently I decided to break my own rule and try to solve the puzzle in four:

The three standard entries provided four letters including one green.  I tried to randomly guess the answer in four, then in five, then in six... and failed.  Had I entered the "standard" WHELM as the fourth entry, HOUND would have been obvious for the fifth spot.

Addendum:  After a little more than a year, I'm done playing Wordle.  Here are my final stats:

Average score a little under 4.5.  Switching over to a daily challenge at Clickword.