You know that feeling. You're staring at a grid of gray boxes. It's guess four. You’ve already burned through the obvious vowels. Now you’re sweating because you don’t want to lose that 200-day streak. This is exactly when people start hunting for try hard words wordle enthusiasts swear by.
It sounds a bit desperate. Using "try hard" tactics for a simple word game? Maybe. But if you’re tired of failing because the answer was something stupid like "proxy" or "foyer," you start to realize that Wordle isn't just about vocabulary. It’s about math.
Honestly, the game changed when the New York Times bought it. They didn't change the dictionary immediately, but the "vibe" of the solutions shifted. We moved away from totally random common nouns to things that feel a bit more... curated. To beat the curator, you have to play like a pro. That means ditching "ADIEU" even though everyone loves it.
The Problem With Your Favorite Opener
Everyone uses ADIEU. It's the ultimate "low effort" try hard word. You get four vowels out of the way immediately. It feels productive. But here’s the thing: it’s actually not that great.
Statisticians who spend way too much time looking at the Wordle source code—people like Matt Lefeber or the folks running the WordleBot—will tell you that "CRANE" or "TRACE" are mathematically superior. Why? Because consonants like R, S, T, and N are way more valuable for narrowing down the actual word structure than just knowing there's an 'I' somewhere.
If you use ADIEU and get a yellow 'E' and 'U,' you still have basically the entire alphabet to sift through for the skeleton of the word. If you use STARE and get a yellow 'S' and 'T,' you've already eliminated the most common word-starting clusters in the English language.
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High-Level Try Hard Words Wordle Strategies
Real try-hards don't just have one starting word. They have a system.
Usually, the goal is to cover the most "information-dense" letters in the first two turns. If your first word is something like SLATE, and you get nothing but gray, your second word shouldn't be another "normal" guess. It should be a scorched-earth tactical strike. Think CRONY. Between those two words, you’ve checked S, L, A, T, E, C, R, O, N, and Y.
If you still haven't seen a green or yellow tile after ten of the most common letters, the word is probably something weird like "MUMMY" or "VIVID."
The Letter Frequency Hierarchy
Let's look at the actual data. In the original Wordle solution list (which is about 2,315 words), the most common letters aren't what you'd expect from a Scrabble board.
- E
- A
- R
- O
- T
- L
- I
- S
Notice how far down 'S' is? It's the 8th most common letter. Yet, most people start their words with S. This is a classic trap. While S starts many words, it doesn't appear in the middle or end nearly as often as R or T.
Hard Mode vs. Normal Mode
There is a massive divide in the community here. Hard Mode requires you to use any revealed hints in subsequent guesses. If you get a green 'G' in the first slot, every guess after that must start with G.
Normal mode players? They can be total savages. They'll see a green 'A' in the middle and then guess "PILOT" just to eliminate five new letters. This is the peak of the try hard words wordle mindset. It's called "burning" a turn to guarantee a win on guess four or five. It’s effective. It’s also slightly controversial among purists who think you should try to solve it every single time.
Why "JAZZY" and "FUZZY" Ruin Everything
The biggest threat to your streak isn't a hard word. It's a "trap" word.
Imagine you have _A_E.
It could be BAKE.
Or CAKE.
Or LAKE.
Or MAKE.
Or RAKE.
Or TAKE.
Or WAKE.
If you are on guess four and you have this pattern, you are statistically likely to lose. This is where the "try hard" approach saves you. Instead of guessing "BAKE" and hoping for the best, a pro will guess a word like "WOMBAT."
Wait, why WOMBAT? Because WOMBAT checks W, M, and B all at once. If the 'W' turns yellow, the answer is WAKE. If the 'M' turns yellow, it's MAKE. If the 'B' turns yellow, it's BAKE. You’ve used one turn to solve four different possibilities.
The NYT WordleBot Influence
Since the New York Times integrated the WordleBot, the "meta" has shifted. The bot loves the word CRANE. It used to love ROATE, but it's since pivoted.
The bot plays with a cold, calculating efficiency that most humans find boring. It prioritizes "expected bits of information." It's basically trying to cut the list of possible remaining words in half with every single keystroke.
But humans aren't bots. We have intuition. Sometimes you just know it’s going to be something related to a recent news event or a holiday, even though the NYT claims the word list is pre-generated and not reactionary. (A lot of people still don't believe them on that one).
Common Mistakes Even "Try Hards" Make
Double letters. They are the absolute worst.
Most people don't guess double letters until they are forced to. If you haven't found the right letters by guess five, start looking for the "doubles." Words like ABBEY, KAPPA, or SALLY kill streaks because our brains are wired to look for five unique sounds.
Also, don't forget the 'Y.' People treat it like a consonant when it's almost always acting as a vowel at the end of the word. If you're stuck, throw a 'Y' at the end of your next guess. It’s a high-percentage play.
Practical Steps to Protect Your Streak
If you want to actually improve and stop just guessing randomly, you need a protocol.
First, pick a high-efficiency starting word and stick to it for a month. Whether it’s ARISE, STARE, or CRANE, consistency helps you learn the patterns. You start to see how the board reacts to those specific letters.
Second, if you find yourself in a "one-letter-off" trap (like the BAKE/CAKE example), stop. Do not guess the next word in the pattern. Look at how many guesses you have left. If there are more possibilities than guesses, you must use a filler word to eliminate the competing consonants.
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Third, pay attention to the letters that aren't there. Knowing 'S' isn't in the word is often more valuable than knowing 'E' is.
Finally, stop using ADIEU. Seriously. It’s a crutch. It gives you a false sense of security while leaving the most dangerous consonants on the table. Switch to SLATE or TRACE and watch your average score drop from 4.5 to 3.8.
The goal isn't just to find the word. It's to find it before your morning coffee gets cold.
Actionable Next Steps:
- Switch your starting word to STARE or CRANE for the next seven days to see how it affects your second-guess success rate.
- Memorize one "eliminator" word like CHOMP or WHELK to use when you're stuck in a rhyming trap.
- Check the WordleBot after your game to see the "luck vs. skill" rating; it helps identify if your try hard words wordle strategy is actually working or if you just got lucky.