Wordle: Best starting word that you can begin with

If you have been scrolling through your social media pages and have noticed some of your friends creating posts with a bunch of gray, green, and yellow blocks, it means that they have joined the Wordle craze. Wordle is an online game that has taken over the world for the last couple of months. It is an online browser game that can really get the brain flowing.

If you aren’t familiar with how Wordle is played, it is actually fairly simple. The goal of the game is to correctly guess a five-letter word in six attempts. Your word guesses have to be real five-letter words and not a five-letter word that you made up. After you make your first guess, the letters will begin to turn to one of three colors. If the letter turns gray, that means the letter is not part of the word at all. If the letter turns yellow, that means the letter is in the word, but you have it in the wrong position. If the letter turns green, that means you have the letter is in the word and you have it in the correct spot.

There is only one word per 24 hours, so this isn’t a game you can grind all day. Also, everyone’s word is the same, so if you know what the wordle is, don’t spoil it for anyone else!

Anyone can start with any five-letter word that they want. However, Math expert Grant Sanderson, created a YouTube video showcasing the best possible starting word by using the information theory.

Grant Sanderson’s YouTube channel is called 3Blue1Brown and he currently has over 4 million subscribers. The video he created on wordle showed that by using the information theory, the word “crane” was the best possible starting word someone can use. “Crane” has a perfect mix of common consonants and vowels that are great starting point. The information theory that Sanderson showed us used a variety of different components including word frequency for a list of over 13,000 five-letter words.

Just because that is the best starting word based on Grant Sanderson doesn’t mean you are going to automatically solve the word. You must follow up that word with another word that combines the perfect combo of consonants and vowels that weren’t in your first guess maybe with a word like “boils.” This means in two guesses and ten total letters, you have guessed 4 vowels and 6 different, common consonants. From that point on, it can only get easier based on the remaining letters you have left combined with what letters you already found in the Wordle already.

This doesn’t mean that you should start with the word “crane” every day you play. After a while that would get a little boring and unless that is the starting word, you won’t have a chance to guess the word on the first try. There may be that one day where “crane” is the word of the day, but it most likely wouldn’t be the same Wordle more than once.

Obviously, guessing it on the first try is purely luck. However, there are a number of words that will help get you closer to the answer over others.

Whether it is a way to kickstart your morning or a way you end the night, Wordle has been taking over the internet and because of this it has spawned tons of spin off versions. There is slowly becoming a Wordle for almost everything, but if you haven’t gotten the chance to play the original, give it a go. You never know what five-letter word will put your brain into a blender.