SALTZMAN: Five simple tips to beating Wordle

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If you haven’t yet played Wordle , chances are you’ve seen little green and yellow squares all over your social media feeds.

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Created last fall by software engineer Josh Wardle as a fun digital diversion for his partner, the free-to-play daily word game now boasts millions of users and was just purchased by The New York Times (for an undisclosed “low seven-figure” sum) to help boost digital subscriptions.

But fret not, Wordle fan, as the game will remain free for everyone — for now.

This web-only puzzler challenges you to guess what the five-letter word is, and you have six tries in which to do it. If the word you guess has a correct letter in the right spot, it’ll turn green. If the letter is in the word of the day but in the wrong place, it’ll turn yellow. If the letters you guess are not in the answer, they’ll be greyed out.

In other words, Wordle may best be described as a cross between Wheel of Fortune (or Hangman, perhaps) and Mastermind, the classic code-breaking puzzle game with coloured pegs.

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If and when you’ve guessed the Wordle for that day, you can tap or click the ‘Share’ button and post your victory to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and so on. But since everyone in the world is working towards the same answer every day, your post only shows how many tries you got it in, and the placement of the green and yellow squares per try, and not the final word itself.

Whether you’ve been playing for months or new to Wordle, the following are a few tips to mastering the game.

Start with a good opening word

The trick is to use lots of vowels, and popular consonants on your first guess, as they will likely be in the answer for that day.

Starter words like ADIEU, AUDIO, and STARE, for example, may include vowels in the final word, plus consonants like R, S, and T are obviously more likely to be in the answer than, say, X, Z, and J.

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And by process of elimination, if A, E and I aren’t in the word of the day (as they’re greyed out), then you know O and perhaps U are in the answer.

You get the idea.

Remember there could be two of the same letter

Gamers often get stumped because they forget a word may contain more than one instance of the same letter.

A couple of weeks back, the answer was ROBOT, followed by the word KNOLL a few days later.

Keep this in mind, but don’t waste a guess by typing in more than one of the same letter early in the game, such as selecting TATTY right off the bat.

Don’t worry about obscure words

You won’t likely need a dictionary to play Wordle, as the game doesn’t include obscure words.

Sometimes players think too hard and attempt to guess uncommon words, but more often than not they will be pretty ordinary five-letter words you’d use in your regular vocabulary.

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In other words (pun intended), don’t expect anything like JUGUM (a connecting ridge or projection, especially on a bone) or ZIBEB (an agricultural fungicide once used on fruits and vegetables).

Practice makes perfect

Like anything, playing every day should improve your score over time. What might have taken you five guesses to get the word of the day may turn into two or three tries, perhaps.

But since there is only one game per day, consider visiting Wordle Archive , created by a Duke University student to archive previous Wordle puzzles – in case you missed the first month or two of words.

There are also copycat games for iPhone and Android, as well as unaffiliated spinoffs, like LEWDLE , a racy version of the game with, um, NSFW (not safe for work) words.

Colour-blind mode

If you’re having trouble playing because it’s difficult to discern the difference between the yellow and green letters, there is a Colour Blind mode tucked away in the Settings of Wordle.

Click the small grey gear in the top right of the website to access the menu. Toggling on the Colour Blind mode changes the yellow and green letters to orange and blue, respectfully.

There is also a Dark Theme mode (which may be easier on your eyes and preserve battery on a mobile device), and a Hard mode (where any revealed hints must be used in subsequent guesses).

Good luck!