1 - 0 (0%)
2 - 7 (17%)
3 - 13 (32%)
4 - 16 (39%)
5 - 4 (10%)
6 - 1 (2%)
lose - 0 (0%)
My strategy:
- Always start with the same word, one that has the most common letters
- Prefer more common letters to less common letters
- Prefer more common words to less common words
- Starting with round three, never guess until I know all possible common words
- Don't repeat a letter unless the only other possible words are uncommon
- Prefer consonant combinations at the start of the word over staring with a vowel
- Never do plurals (I think the game does not use them)
A guiding principle is maximize learning at each round. I have a manual written process for listing all possible combinations at each step and iterating on each to find all possible words. I usually start that on the third round.
I've written a small program that takes a pattern (like ??EA?) and a list of eliminated letters and spits out all possible words. My wife says it's cheating, so I rarely use it.
I don't think it's cheating because it only saves me time going through all possible combinations on paper. I guess there's some chance it will suggest a common word I would have never hit on manually.
I don't deny that my high rate of second guess wins is partly luck. But I contend that the N is large enough by now that it's at least partly my strategy.