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Comment by stoneman24 | Hacker News Reader

My usual is SALET (high frequency vowels in 2nd and 4th place), followed by CURIO to provide more hints if needed. Then review the information acquired. Usually it’s solved on the 4th attempt, occasionally on the 3rd. Sometimes there are too many options and I bust out. Just my opinion, probably not optimal strategy.

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I go with ATONE GIRLS. Gets me E, T, A, I, N, O, S, R, L, which according to the first link in Google (https://www3.nd.edu/~busiforc/handouts/cryptography/letterfr...) is 9 of the 11 most common letters in English.

They have confirmed that the answer with never be plural so if you have the hope of getting it in 1 guess GIRLS ain't your best guess.

I optimize for finding vowels first (just better for my brain to figure out the next guesses), so my opening is STOAE. I largely follow hard mode so my next guess is highly dependent on what hits, but GUILD is the default if the first completely blanks out.

I normally solve in 3-4, about equally split between the two.

I use CURIO but use YEAST instead of SALET to cover all vowels+y, and YEAST is much more likely (IMO) to pop up as a chance instawin, since I have no idea what SALET means.

By the way, Googling SALET says that it’s piece of historical armour. (a light round helmet extending over the back of the neck)

I do something similar, I always start with RAISE then CLOUT which cover the 10 most common letters. It usually gives good results.

I start with RAISE as well, but follow up with POUTY to get the Y if I blank on the first round.

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