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Comment by billforsternz | Hacker News Reader

I prefer the numbers round in Countdown as well, but much (much, much) prefer Wordle to Nerdle. Nerdle is an attempt to make a Wordle for numbers, but to me it just doesn't work. Today I quickly got 2+?+8=1?. Clearly ? can be any digit from 0 to 9. I had four tries left so a 40% chance of winning with no skill involved (I lost incidentally).

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That situation is exactly what my first paragraph was about.

> As others have said, you can (and often should) make guesses that don't satisfy all the clues you've found so far. That way you can find / eliminate symbols much more quickly.

Just fyi, that paragraph is clear and unambiguous. Ironic that billforsternz chose to post his concerns in response to a comment which had addressed them.

In retrospect I agree with you actually, not my best and brightest moment.

Well first, the ? can't be 1, 2, or 8, right?

And second, you could guess equations without 1, 2, or 8 to narrow down the missing digit in only two more guesses.

Edit: Brain fart on the first part, but I think the second part would have helped within three more guesses.

I think the answer was 8, I can't quite remember. Your second point is definitely a good one though, didn't think of that.

Yes it could unfortunately. The solution repeated a number, making it almost impossible to guarantee a correct answer even if you had the majority down fairly early.

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