A quick diversion about Wordle

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Since I left The Post, I’ve had more time to ensure that I am attending to other important parts of my life, like not missing days doing the Wordle.

One thing I like about the game is that it includes data, measures of one’s own performance and comparisons against both other players and the Wordle Bot — a sniffy, perfect implementation of a Wordle player who is always happy to attribute one’s best performances to luck rather than skill.

I am happy to report that I have beaten Wordle Bot to the answer three times in the past two weeks. (Wordle Bot, true to form, puts scare quotes around the word “beaten” when reporting this fact.) I have tied with the robotic manifestation of Wordle perfection seven times.

I am also outpacing the actual humans who play. Ever since Aug. 13, when the word was the execrable KEFIR, I’ve found the answer in two guesses three times and in six guesses only twice. For the uninitiated, this is pretty good. In fact, I’ve beaten the average score of human players 23 times and taken more guesses than the humans on only 17.

Naturally, I charted this. On the graph below, a lower number is better, indicating fewer guesses.

All the times the blue line is under the pink one, that’s when I outperformed the average player. Or, to show that difference another way, see the chart below. (If you haven’t done today’s Wordle and plan to, note that the answer is revealed.)

On average, I’ve beaten the average player by about 0.1 guesses since Aug. 13. My average number of guesses over that period is 3.74; theirs is 3.83.

It is true, of course, that luck does play a role in determining how successful you are. There’s a metaphysical point to be made about all of this, about how a perfectly constructed computer player will still lose to someone who’s taking an ill-advised chance. But I’ll leave the philosophy to others. I’ll just stick to making charts.