{"id":677,"date":"2025-09-24T11:10:35","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T15:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/?p=677"},"modified":"2025-09-24T11:10:35","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T15:10:35","slug":"a-quick-diversion-about-wordle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/a-quick-diversion-about-wordle\/","title":{"rendered":"A quick diversion about Wordle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>SPOILERS FOLLOW<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since I left The Post, I&#8217;ve had more time to ensure that I am attending to other important parts of my life, like not missing days doing the Wordle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One thing I like about the game is that it includes data, measures of one&#8217;s own performance and comparisons against both other players and the Wordle Bot \u2014\u00a0a sniffy, perfect implementation of a Wordle player who is always happy to attribute one&#8217;s best performances to luck rather than skill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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 &#8220;beaten&#8221; when reporting this fact.) I have tied with the robotic manifestation of Wordle perfection seven times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am also outpacing the actual humans who play. Ever since Aug. 13, when the word was the execrable KEFIR, I&#8217;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&#8217;ve beaten the average score of human players 23 times and taken more guesses than the humans on only 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Naturally, I charted this. On the graph below, a lower number is better, indicating fewer guesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"min-height:542px\" id=\"datawrapper-vis-CeAcN\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/CeAcN\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" data-target=\"#datawrapper-vis-CeAcN\"><\/script><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/CeAcN\/full.png\" alt=\"How easy has the Wordle been? (Line chart)\" \/><\/noscript><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>All the times the blue line is under the pink one, that&#8217;s when I outperformed the average player. Or, to show that difference another way, see the chart below. (If you haven&#8217;t done today&#8217;s Wordle and plan to, <strong>note that the answer is revealed<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"min-height:523px\" id=\"datawrapper-vis-fq9uA\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/fq9uA\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" data-target=\"#datawrapper-vis-fq9uA\"><\/script><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/fq9uA\/full.png\" alt=\"How I've fared against everyone else (Column Chart)\" \/><\/noscript><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>On average, I&#8217;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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is true, of course, that luck does play a role in determining how successful you are. There&#8217;s a metaphysical point to be made about all of this, about how a perfectly constructed computer player will still lose to someone who&#8217;s taking an ill-advised chance. But I&#8217;ll leave the philosophy to others. I&#8217;ll just stick to making charts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SPOILERS FOLLOW Since I left The Post, I&#8217;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&#8217;s own performance and comparisons&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":682,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions\/682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}