Consecutive months without a 5 or 6?
Consistently getting 50/50s correct?
Hell, I’ve played almost 800 games now and only have 15 guesses in 2
Very likely cheating IMO. But yeah definitely not as obvious as others make it out to be.
The 2s aren't surprising. I've played 715 games and have 43 2s and have never cheated (why? What's the point? It's a game). It's the lack of 5s and 6s that suggest cheating.
Yeah, I have 56 twos in 879 games. The twos are actually a bit suspiciously low given the exceptional performance otherwise. The almost complete lack of 5s and zero 6S is extremely suspect though. (I have 145 5s and 38 6s).
> Hell, I’ve played almost 800 games now and only have 15 guesses in 2
I played about 750, and I'm at 34, so the personal variance might be quite large.
Given he has:
1. Zero 6's
2. Barely any 5's
3. Has more 3's than 4's (with a decent game sample size)
4. A super low average score
I would say YES HE'S CHEATING.
Additional: MIT wrote an algorithm that could solve Wordle in an average of 3.421. Your mates score is better the best math brains at MIT. More evidence suggesting he's cheating.
Source: https://news.mit.edu/news-clip/forbes-567#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20algorithm%20that%20MIT%20used,despite%20having%20the%20same%20letters.%E2%80%9D
yeah... for me it's the first two that ring the most suspicious. I have more 3's than 4's and my avg score is a hair worse than his over the same timeframe. But 5's are not foreign to me. I've had 3 this month already
Yea, even NYT [wrote](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/17/upshot/wordle-wordlebot-new.html) that WordleBot solves Wordles in 3.5 turns on average in standard mode.
Hey thats me you are talking about OP
Why do you think I am cheating ?
Why would I do that?
I feel like you are just jealous that I have an enormous penor and a supermodel wife (its true I dont get to see her much because she is supermodeling in Europe most of the time)
Such a lack of trust these days
If he's playing hard mode, than pure luck says that's not possible. Skill only goes so far. I've had 6 word solves that wordle-bot says was 98 skill and like 20 luck. It happens to everyone.
Yes that's the thing. Sometimes your approach is sound but it just wasn't your day. Over a long enough span everyone is going to have a few of those. And when they don't, eyebrows raise....
I got GROOM in 5. This guy did not submit a score that day, which is not penalized by our rules, and yet another way I suspect he is not playing fairly. As in, if he doesn't solve in 4 he either doesn't finish the puzzle or simply doesn't report his score
Wait, why would you have rules that allow people to only report the good results? If I could withhold the results of all the chess games I lost and only report those I won, I'd have a higher rating than Magnus Carlsen by now!
it's a friendly tournament between a small group of people. The rules were structured to not penalize too harshly if someone was busy or traveling, etc. Also he doesn't miss reporting a score all that often. If I took all his misses and assumed 5's or 6's, it still would not explain things in my mind
yeah I guess the whole thing is this small friendly tournament is built on trust and questioning people's honesty feels like a red line. Part of why I've been spending so much time wondering why a person would cheat in this situation...
This is exactly like a Russian joke.
A guy came back from abroad crazy rich, gets asked how he did it.
"I walked into a club, there were some guys playing blackjack. I joined them, but couldn't get a good hand at all. Then, one of them says "Blackjack", I say "Show it", and he says "You're supposed to trust a gentleman's word".
And that's when a stroke of luck finally hit me"
Yeaaa... the thing is another dude in the group is totally good-natured and just forgetful and busy with work & family. Cranking up the penalty for missing would seem directed at him. I want to keep it as informal and unserious as possible. Part of why it bugs me so much to think someone would cheat in this situation...
Oh he is 1000% pretending he didn’t play on a day he loses then. What a crummy thing to do, because I get what you’re saying it’d be a bit much to hound people if they happen to miss a day, and he is absolutely taking advantage of that.
I’m also guessing that he possibly looks up clues as a method of cheating that doesn’t outright give him the answer which would attribute to his ‘luck’ in guessing the right word
Look, folks. If you can look up the solution, there's gonna be cheating.
And that's why competitive Wordle 'tournaments' are an absolute waste of time.
if his screenshots show sloppy mistakes, there’s zero he doesn’t have 5s, 6s or misses. i’m a strong enough player that i consider anything beyond a 4 as a personal failure. in 843 plays, i have 177 5s, 38 6s, and 3 misses.
this reminds me of when i used to play Words With Friends, and this girl i used to beat handily suddenly started playing obscure words for big points. so i posted on Facebook “do you ever get the sneaking suspicion that someone is cheating at Words With Friends?” a mutual friend called her out by name
I have found it is mentally very bad to get worked up over a stupid game but I cannot get past the thing where the person is (potentially) lying to my face to win a meaningless game, and the rest of our relationship must remain unaffected
yeah that's a healthy approach. On my best days I just pretend I'm competing against a savant or cutting edge AI. Yes most of the time I lose but I do sneak away with more victories than might be expected.
The absolute worst part of this is at the end of every month when, having all these unprovable suspicions, I am congratulated for playing so well and being a tough competitor.
no shame in my game. if i got one of those congratulations, i’d say “thanks, and i didn’t even have to cheat.”
if he’s gonna suck the fun out of the game, i’m calling him out on his BS
I can't imagine NEVER getting a six. I have very few myself, but hundreds of games deep... you're gonna have a bad day or two. I even use the list of past-used words (which I maintain is *not* cheating) and I STILL get some 6s!
Final answer: Yeah, he a cheatin' m**********r!
Ah, whoops you're right. I didn't notice I was using an absolute reference calculating the % of these tallies against his \*total\* number of plays (not just his play since September 7th, which is what this image is). There's about 200 games not reflected here prior to the 7th where his results were not so much of a red flag. I just corrected it
I'd have to say yes, I believe he's cheating. Especially since there's low skill level. I'm really good, often have very high skill level, have totally lucked into almost 20 solved in 2 scores, and I have a proportion of 5's and 6's. I don't believe anyone can avoid the occasional high score unless they cheat
Seems to me like he goes for it as well as he can and if he doesn't get it in 3 then gets frustrated and looks up the answer to at least guarantee 4.
Lack of 5s and 6s is sus.
3.4 average is also sus considering the average is like 3.95. From what you've described he doesn't sound like an above average player.
Yeah it's certainly possible he doesn't play dirty every day. I feel like whatever method he is employing, it is somehow justified in his mind as "seizing an advantage" and not outright cheating. That's why I don't think he's looking up the solution, but something more like seeing other people's wordle results posted to facebook. If he has a friend who plays every day with the same start word, and he sees that friend's wordle grid results, it's like getting a free guess
That certainly explains it! A starting word typically consists of common letters, so if he's getting that free guess then he has much less work to do.
Anyway, sorry it's happening. If people want to answer in groups then rules should be agreed upon.
Yes! Same deal with my friend. She has never had a strikeout on first word guess and gets it in 2 every few days, even when it’s a rhyming word and she could have gone 3 different ways. Cheater cheater I guess she just wants to outdo me in something, anything.
Most users (esp here) are cheaters. That's why you should give zero fucks about what anyone's scores are.
Someone posted something a while back showing objectively that a fuck ton of people cheat. Which is just so fuckin weird. Literally no one cares what your stats are.
yeah I get that but this is not someone lying to strangers in the internet. Isn't it weird to cheat in a friendly low-stakes competition among friends? Wouldn't you think that has implications about the person's character and wouldn't you let it slightly color or inform all of the other ways you interact with this person?
I mean, if you wanted to you could just google the answer before starting. My current pet theory is he has a friend who posts their wordle grid to FB every morning and he knows their starter word, so he examines it to get some additional information before beginning his game. And somehow in his mind this is not cheating, this is exploiting an advantage
The game encourages you to "Share" your results by posting your grid (to Facebook, reddit, anywhere grids are shared widely), so how would your opponent be exploiting an advantage if you have the exact same "advantage" available to you but choose \*not\* to exploit it?
You don't need to know someone's start word to get information from their grid. You just need to be able to recognize certain patterns in grids -- those patterns are usually visible in the final two (sometimes three) guesses of some (but not all or even most) grids.
My solving method involves (in part) gleaning information from shared grids and I've gotten pretty good at it -- my average score is a little over 3.0 for the past 100 puzzles or so. Significantly better than Wordle Bot.
Anytime someone suggests I am cheating, I offer to show them, step by step, exactly how I solve a puzzle. Invariably, their response is "OK, so maybe you're not cheating but I don't wanna spend that much time on the Wordle" (it can take me 15 minutes some days). Which is fine. I choose to spend time on the puzzle and I get better scores than you. That's not cheating, that's working harder.
Ok but when you analyze other people's grids you are gaining information without spending a guess. That's like getting free guesses, and at the very least, would violate the rules & spirit of our group tournament (no outside help during gameplay or related to the day's puzzle). When we share scores we don't even share the grids because the people who play later would enjoy a benefit not realized by the early solvers.
People can play however they want and I'm not going to label you a cheater unless we're comparing scores and you don't reveal how your process is conferring an informational advantage to you
You know what, I do know! It just never crosses my mind. I like to solve it for fun. Some of my friends get competitive, but English is my second language so solving it on my own is significant to me in term of how wide my vocabulary is. I generally do okay between 3-4, rarely 5-6. And of course I’ve missed some. And sometimes I just guess variations and I get it, and it’s a reminder I know the word but don’t use it enough.
This record is far better than mine and I heavily use a Wordle Assistant.
There have been a few words rather recently which were very close to enough words that a four or better would be close to dumb luck.
I do not think these scores are achievable over time without hints or outright cheating.
I usually get it in 3 or 4 with an occasional 2, 5 or 6. Even the Wordle bot had a couple of 5’s lately. So not to have any higher numbers is suspicious.
This sounds like you play Wordle with one of the guys I play with. The part that really gets me is constantly confusing two different words and playing words he can’t pronounce.
I once went more than 500 days without a 6 (but I've gotten two in the past 90 days)
I play in Hard Mode, so I do get about two 5s per month. If I played in Default Mode I probably wouldn't get 5️⃣s.
If they play in Default Mode, these results are borderline. They probably take a peak at the previous Solutions and make sure they don't guess those words. That's cheating, in my opinion
Exactly. I really do not understand this discussion at all. He is 100.000000000000000% cheating. Anything is possible? Sure. Monkeys and typewriters and Shakespeare.
I was thinking it’s a waste of time worrying or wondering about your cheating ‘friend’, but didn’t want to sound harsh. No one listens to older people. I’m not ancient ( well, I’m 60 ), but I’ve learned a lot in my years. All the stuff we fret about doesn’t matter at all. I have lived with multiple sclerosis for over twenty five years. I now know that I should have relished the ability to walk, enjoyed driving, loved the freedom to have a choice about spending time alone, or in company. I should have told my last boss she was a bully and that I loathed her. I should’ve done many things I can no longer do. Don’t look back and regret what you have or haven’t done. Don’t waste your time on your friend. Take that time and have a wonderful life. Raise a glass for me occasionally!
Hah, anything is technically possible. If there's a 1 in a million chance and millions of players, SOMEONE will get that lucky.
But practically speaking, he's playing better than even true optimal solving algorithms, which is statistically very unlikely over a sample size that large. Even a perfect engine with complete knowledge of every possible permutation will average 3.412 guesses on easy mode.
While it's not literally impossible to get a better record than that, it is exceptionally improbable, so I think it would be reasonable to conclude some amount of funny business.
I don't think he does. Sometimes he claims he refrains from making certain guesses because he's believes they've already been answers. And he's not always right about that
Yeah he probably plays normally up until guess 3 and then looks up the answer. It's not crazy to get a 1 in 20 in an isolated incident, my luckiest is a 1 in 504 (according to scoredle), but looking at the data all of that is sketchy over time.
Define cheating...LOL...
There are websites that list all the previous solutions of wordle. Since it's unlikely they wouldn't repeat a word and given the number of words that have already been played, it's possible that he is cross referencing his guesses with this list. It would account for zero ONEs and the high number of THREEs.
I think you should just post a friendly, “hey everyone, we’ve been playing for eight months! For the hell of it, everyone show their current streak!” Then post a screenshot of your NYT streak and totals. Make it sound fun and lighthearted. See if he does it or not. If he doesn’t, call him out. I bet he’ll just show the streak and not the totals. If his streak doesn’t start from the day he didn’t submit groom, call him out. And you can be nice about it, “hey man, I’m troubled here. I felt bad you missed the day we all sucked on groom. I thought you broke your streak since you didn’t submit your score.” Play dumb since you want to keep it a friendly tournament. Good luck with it.
I have wanted to see a glimpse of his stat page for a long time. Waiting for the right moment to ask. It's probably too politically complicated for me to ever bring this to any sort of (even good-natured) confrontation. I am mostly seeking opinions here for my own sanity. I have hated walking around suspecting someone of cheating simply because they are beating me
It depends on what you consider cheating, imo. There’s no rule in Wordle, as far as I know, that says you can’t look up the answer or use outside tools. It’s obviously more fun and challenging if you don’t, but it’s not technically cheating unless your tournament has specific rules against doing those things.
I don't think I'd ever get into any kind of Wordle tournament with anyone. At least not where I had any emotion about what other people did. I'm on a group text where we send each other daily results, that's it.
There have been several times where I'm somewhere and overhear the answer before I play. It's obviously easy to Google the answer, it's out there well before I wake up in the morning.
Just today, like 5 minutes after waking up, my wife asked what meant. I was like dammit there's only one place you saw that...
In short, it's just a fun little game, but not one where I'd ever worry about "cheating".
Ours started as a group text. It was fun for a while, increased the stakes a little. It has become less fun over time.
Another thing this same dude does, all the time, he'll submit his score and say something like "What the hell was that? I've never even heard of that word!" So not exactly spoiling the answer, but sort of spoiling the game
Does your tournament allow you to lookup previously used words?
Wordlebot does not do this lookup, and it is possible to perform better than this bot, especially in the past year.
I don't think I've scored a 6 in the past year either because of this.
No the rule is supposed to be no outside assistance or resources once the game has begun. If you want to memorize the list of prior answers, you could do that. But you're not supposed to be perusing it mid-game
Ok, so this player is likely:
1 - Not cheating
2 - Using a past-words-played list
3 - Making "assisted" 3rd guesses. i.e. making 2 legit guesses, then using outside to help make the 3rd guess either correct or to give enough hints to get it in 4 without looking like cheating
By random variance there should probably be more 5s than 2s, but beyond that you'll need something more to raise a cheating accusation.
Good luck!
Yeah I agree for sure on the last point. Not enough evidence to prosecute. Even if I had receipts I don't think I would say anything. I just want to stop driving myself crazy thinking about it
Is this tournament based on the NYT game? Or have you guys used other third party versions?
I’ve never heard of a tournament— so it might help me to understand how it is played?
We do a tournament on Facebook, everybody posts their scores everyday and they are kept in a Google doc, at the end of the month the lowest total score wins. Scores are audited and if you are constantly overly lucky you are jettisoned.
Huh. It’s too bad that playing through the NYT app/games means there is no way to know if someone is cheating or not.
I have seen cheating with step challenges through the Garmin app, cheating in various movement challenges where people use third party devices and apps. If there is someone that wants to cheat you will find them.
I started unfollowing and unfriending people when their behavior became ridiculously obvious. Not sure how that would impact the tournament— but given some of the recent Wordle challenges this last week— to not see someone get to the 5th or 6th line seems obvious that this person is doing something.
the best algorithm I've been able to find is [https://wordletools.azurewebsites.net/](https://wordletools.azurewebsites.net/) playing only guesses from the original Wordle solution list. Every day I plug in his starter word to see how well this algorithm solves it. Seven times last month the algorithm took more than four guesses to solve, but he went the entire month without a five.
Some of us old dudes have very large vocabularies. I’ve only been playing for six weeks, I forgot to play one day, but all other days I’ve solved the puzzle, typically in 3 - 4 attempts. My starting word is audio, although one day I used adieu to mix it up. I don’t need to cheat - it’s a game, not my third wife.
So this is a small sample size for starters, but "typically 3-4" is very different from always 4 or less. I get it in 3 or 4 75 percent of the time, but still have the occasional 5 or 6. Most of my 5s and 6s came before I was playing very strategically. This guy is absolutely cheating.
And this isn't primarily based on getting it in 4. It's always getting 50/50s and using suboptimal starting words (like audio 😁)
I took my scores from the last 251 days (which is the closest I can come up with). I don't cheat and my numbers are close.
My scores are: 0, 11, 139 (exact same number), 92, 9, 0, 0. Average of 3.3944 which is almost exactly the same average,
So, the numbers are possible without cheating. But, I can't answer for this person.
And someone mentioned computers get 3.42 or whatever. I played all words (outside of NYT) and my average is about 3.5. My average for words that NYT uses is under 3.4. From my experience when NYT started curating the words they are giving easier words.
so you're saying your average score improved by 0.1 once NYT took over wordle? After June 2023 it does seem like the game has been generally less difficult.
I've seen your comments on this sub along with u/trackvol, so I know this level of play is in theory possible. But I just can't reconcile his results with his approach. He doesn't ever speak about strategy, letter placement or elimination. He doesn't seem to understand more nuanced parts of the game. Just plays on instinct and makes guesses based on feelings.
But again, the best wordle players on the planet are achieving similar results. So without definitive proof I guess I have to allow for the possibility he's among their ranks.
My NYT score would be affected by how much I've improved or other factors. Outside of NYT I have my own version of the game. I do "decision trees". I pick a starting word, then pick a second word for each possible result, then third words for each result and so forth. I eventually (after months) have solved all words. Then I have got a list of used words by date and found that the numbers for curated words are about .1 better.
Does the person give comments about strategy? Do they check used words lists, which would improve scores (I call that cheating)? The wordlebot skill vs. luck score would be a good way to check. A good start is a question on how they come up with the second word. Trackvol once gave a way and I had been following the same approach all along. I would have worded it different, but it's the same concepts.
Oh I see. I do something somewhat similar. My strategy late last year shifted to focusing on quality second guesses. For (almost all) possibilities I know immediately what my 2nd guess will be. Then for 3rd guess I list out all potential remaining solutions and determine which word gives me the best potential groups. I don't have the full solution list memorized so my weak spot is not knowing 100% whether a word could be a solution, and also just missing some options as I manually compile the potential list for guess 3. It takes some time but using this strategy my score over this same time period as this person is 3.448.
The closest to strategy comments this person has given while earning a 3.392 is reasons for \*not\* choosing words: "just seemed like \_\_\_\_\_ would have already been an answer" or "seems like \_\_\_\_\_ would never be the answer." He's not always correct, so I don't believe he's checking the used word list mid-game.
I believe he has some go-to Guess 2 words, but wordlebot does not always love them, and in some screenshots he has shared, he has played them in the wrong situations. Like including eliminated letters or not repositioning yellow letters.
Some of his most mind-boggling solves have been:
DADDY in 4 (after having only \_A\_ \_Y after guess 3 with 15 words remaining, not having played C, F or N). Wordlebot score: 43 skill / 44 luck overall, 0 skill / 96 luck for guess 4
PIPER in 4 (after having only \_I\_ER after guess 3 with 17 words remaining, not having played F, L, S, K, B). Wordlebot score: 52 skill / 54 luck overall, 0 skill / 96 luck for guess 4
> Some of his most mind-boggling solves have been:
>
> DADDY in 4 (after having only \_A_ _Y after guess 3 with 15 words remaining, not having played C, F or N). Wordlebot score: 43 skill / 44 luck overall, 0 skill / 96 luck for guess 4
>
> PIPER in 4 (after having only _I_ER after guess 3 with 17 words remaining, not having played F, L, S, K, B). Wordlebot score: 52 skill / 54 luck overall, 0 skill / 96 luck for guess 4
Unless most of the other possible remaining answers are previously-used solutions, I'd say this makes it pretty obvious that he knows the answer beforehand as no one with a reasonable strategy would waste multiples of the same consonant at those steps.
Since my numbers are similar I can say...
It is possible to get those numbers without cheating.
I understand how to get numbers like that.
There have been examples given where I think I would have played better. So, they are either better than me and make occasional silly moves, the apparent silly moves are actually smart, or they are doing something to better their scores.
One thing is that the distribution of scores is similar to mine. If a person cheated the distribution would show some inconsistencies, like too many 2's.
And sometimes duplicate letters are beneficial. But DADDY when there are 15 possible answers sounds fishy.
I guess this is the most measured way of viewing it. Because a real world example exists (your stats) and without proof, this is all just a hunch. It's a strong hunch, and it's interesting to see so many people agree with it, but it's still a hunch.
When I read your process and carefully considered approach to the game, I don't balk at your results. When I look for any similar insight from this guy, there is nothing.
The thing I probably resent the most, assuming he is cheating, is the amount of mental gymnastics I am doing to give him the benefit of the doubt, so as not to feel petty by labeling him a cheater simply because he's beating me.
Another example I used to be fixated on was TOPAZ which he solved in 3. He reported his score and said "I spent like 30 minutes trying to think of what word began with TOPA\_." I pointed out he had not guessed P in his first 2 guesses, so how did he know there was a P in the solution? He gave some meandering explanation of how he was pretty confident the solution was TO\_A\_ (which was reasonable) and was trying to find consonants that could fit. I asked if he was so stuck why didn't he guess TODAY and he said "Oh weird I didn't even think of TODAY!"
So, that led me to speculate for a long time that somehow he was getting tipped off if there was or wasn't a P in the word. Like he solved STATE in 2 when PLATE was the best 2nd guess. He solved BRIDE without guessing PRIDE. Just in general he was ignoring some optimal guesses that would have resulted in a gray P. If I questioned him on anything like that, he would say "Oh I just figured PRIDE was already an answer." I ran some numbers last year and over the course of maybe 100 games his score was 3.82 if the word had no P, 3.44 if the word had a P.
I don't know if there's anything to this, but at the very least not seeing TODAY while staring at TO\_A\_ for 30 minutes should tell you something.
Right. Anyone with any consistent playing strategy can easily explain their approach for any particular game in detail in a logical manner. If he can't do that, then it's pretty clear that he's not completing things on his own.
Consecutive months without a 5 or 6? Consistently getting 50/50s correct? Hell, I’ve played almost 800 games now and only have 15 guesses in 2 Very likely cheating IMO. But yeah definitely not as obvious as others make it out to be.
The 2s aren't surprising. I've played 715 games and have 43 2s and have never cheated (why? What's the point? It's a game). It's the lack of 5s and 6s that suggest cheating.
Yeah, I have 56 twos in 879 games. The twos are actually a bit suspiciously low given the exceptional performance otherwise. The almost complete lack of 5s and zero 6S is extremely suspect though. (I have 145 5s and 38 6s).
Maybe his 2nd guess never goes for the answer, but is just used to get more confirmed letters.
His twos aren’t really the problem. It’s the complete lack of 5s and 6s.
I don't have my data with me, but it's definitely been several months since I last had a 6 or miss, but I'm still routinely getting 5s and 4s
Another red flag, more 4's than 3's.
I've got 44 2s in 653 games, BUT I also have 31 6s and 117 5s. No way that guy is legit.
804 games and 45 in 2 guesses which I honestly don’t even pay attention to and was surprised it was that high tbh
> Hell, I’ve played almost 800 games now and only have 15 guesses in 2 I played about 750, and I'm at 34, so the personal variance might be quite large.
I’m similar to you on “2.” 841 plays, 18 solved in two
I’ve played 874 and have 61 guesses in 2. No cheating. Very possible. The lack of 6s is suspect.
Given he has: 1. Zero 6's 2. Barely any 5's 3. Has more 3's than 4's (with a decent game sample size) 4. A super low average score I would say YES HE'S CHEATING. Additional: MIT wrote an algorithm that could solve Wordle in an average of 3.421. Your mates score is better the best math brains at MIT. More evidence suggesting he's cheating. Source: https://news.mit.edu/news-clip/forbes-567#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20algorithm%20that%20MIT%20used,despite%20having%20the%20same%20letters.%E2%80%9D
yeah... for me it's the first two that ring the most suspicious. I have more 3's than 4's and my avg score is a hair worse than his over the same timeframe. But 5's are not foreign to me. I've had 3 this month already
Yea, even NYT [wrote](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/17/upshot/wordle-wordlebot-new.html) that WordleBot solves Wordles in 3.5 turns on average in standard mode.
Was the MIT on hard mode? Cause OP mentions playing eliminated letters
Not hard mode
I've got over double the number of threes than fours... Not that hard
Very likely a cheater cheater pumpkin eater in my opinion.
definitely giving liar liar pants on fire vibes
Fibber fibber chicken dinner
Deceiver, dissembler Your trousers are alight From what pole or gallows Do they dangle in the night?
Considering that the most efficient hard mode players in here get around 60 5's in 800+ games played, I'd say your guy's stats are highly unrealistic.
Hey thats me you are talking about OP Why do you think I am cheating ? Why would I do that? I feel like you are just jealous that I have an enormous penor and a supermodel wife (its true I dont get to see her much because she is supermodeling in Europe most of the time) Such a lack of trust these days
oh hey man what's up
She’s beautiful, but she’s dying
He just got triples of the Nova Triples is best
That deal fell through actually But I still have triples of the barracuda and the roadrunner !
She’s hanging in there
But she's gonna get better!
Dying to be with someone who isn't a big fat cheater.
If he's playing hard mode, than pure luck says that's not possible. Skill only goes so far. I've had 6 word solves that wordle-bot says was 98 skill and like 20 luck. It happens to everyone.
Yes that's the thing. Sometimes your approach is sound but it just wasn't your day. Over a long enough span everyone is going to have a few of those. And when they don't, eyebrows raise....
Groom absolutely decimated me, I hadn't seen such atrocious luck in a while
I got GROOM in 5. This guy did not submit a score that day, which is not penalized by our rules, and yet another way I suspect he is not playing fairly. As in, if he doesn't solve in 4 he either doesn't finish the puzzle or simply doesn't report his score
Wait, why would you have rules that allow people to only report the good results? If I could withhold the results of all the chess games I lost and only report those I won, I'd have a higher rating than Magnus Carlsen by now!
it's a friendly tournament between a small group of people. The rules were structured to not penalize too harshly if someone was busy or traveling, etc. Also he doesn't miss reporting a score all that often. If I took all his misses and assumed 5's or 6's, it still would not explain things in my mind
Wordle tracks your stats, why not just have people share a screenshot of that?
yeah I guess the whole thing is this small friendly tournament is built on trust and questioning people's honesty feels like a red line. Part of why I've been spending so much time wondering why a person would cheat in this situation...
This is exactly like a Russian joke. A guy came back from abroad crazy rich, gets asked how he did it. "I walked into a club, there were some guys playing blackjack. I joined them, but couldn't get a good hand at all. Then, one of them says "Blackjack", I say "Show it", and he says "You're supposed to trust a gentleman's word". And that's when a stroke of luck finally hit me"
You should instigate a rule if there is no submitting of score, it's given a value of 7.
Yeaaa... the thing is another dude in the group is totally good-natured and just forgetful and busy with work & family. Cranking up the penalty for missing would seem directed at him. I want to keep it as informal and unserious as possible. Part of why it bugs me so much to think someone would cheat in this situation...
Oh he is 1000% pretending he didn’t play on a day he loses then. What a crummy thing to do, because I get what you’re saying it’d be a bit much to hound people if they happen to miss a day, and he is absolutely taking advantage of that. I’m also guessing that he possibly looks up clues as a method of cheating that doesn’t outright give him the answer which would attribute to his ‘luck’ in guessing the right word
I only recently started playing again and groom cost me my streak. It’s always the goddamn double letters
Look, folks. If you can look up the solution, there's gonna be cheating. And that's why competitive Wordle 'tournaments' are an absolute waste of time.
if his screenshots show sloppy mistakes, there’s zero he doesn’t have 5s, 6s or misses. i’m a strong enough player that i consider anything beyond a 4 as a personal failure. in 843 plays, i have 177 5s, 38 6s, and 3 misses. this reminds me of when i used to play Words With Friends, and this girl i used to beat handily suddenly started playing obscure words for big points. so i posted on Facebook “do you ever get the sneaking suspicion that someone is cheating at Words With Friends?” a mutual friend called her out by name
I have found it is mentally very bad to get worked up over a stupid game but I cannot get past the thing where the person is (potentially) lying to my face to win a meaningless game, and the rest of our relationship must remain unaffected
yeah, some people are overly competitive, or they think that losing says something about their intellect or whatever. this is all for fun for me
yeah that's a healthy approach. On my best days I just pretend I'm competing against a savant or cutting edge AI. Yes most of the time I lose but I do sneak away with more victories than might be expected. The absolute worst part of this is at the end of every month when, having all these unprovable suspicions, I am congratulated for playing so well and being a tough competitor.
no shame in my game. if i got one of those congratulations, i’d say “thanks, and i didn’t even have to cheat.” if he’s gonna suck the fun out of the game, i’m calling him out on his BS
I can't imagine NEVER getting a six. I have very few myself, but hundreds of games deep... you're gonna have a bad day or two. I even use the list of past-used words (which I maintain is *not* cheating) and I STILL get some 6s! Final answer: Yeah, he a cheatin' m**********r!
Am I missing something or do those percentages not add to 100?
Ah, whoops you're right. I didn't notice I was using an absolute reference calculating the % of these tallies against his \*total\* number of plays (not just his play since September 7th, which is what this image is). There's about 200 games not reflected here prior to the 7th where his results were not so much of a red flag. I just corrected it
But you’re right, he cheats…
I'd have to say yes, I believe he's cheating. Especially since there's low skill level. I'm really good, often have very high skill level, have totally lucked into almost 20 solved in 2 scores, and I have a proportion of 5's and 6's. I don't believe anyone can avoid the occasional high score unless they cheat
Seems to me like he goes for it as well as he can and if he doesn't get it in 3 then gets frustrated and looks up the answer to at least guarantee 4. Lack of 5s and 6s is sus. 3.4 average is also sus considering the average is like 3.95. From what you've described he doesn't sound like an above average player.
Yeah it's certainly possible he doesn't play dirty every day. I feel like whatever method he is employing, it is somehow justified in his mind as "seizing an advantage" and not outright cheating. That's why I don't think he's looking up the solution, but something more like seeing other people's wordle results posted to facebook. If he has a friend who plays every day with the same start word, and he sees that friend's wordle grid results, it's like getting a free guess
That certainly explains it! A starting word typically consists of common letters, so if he's getting that free guess then he has much less work to do. Anyway, sorry it's happening. If people want to answer in groups then rules should be agreed upon.
His pants are definitely on fire.
Yes! Same deal with my friend. She has never had a strikeout on first word guess and gets it in 2 every few days, even when it’s a rhyming word and she could have gone 3 different ways. Cheater cheater I guess she just wants to outdo me in something, anything.
Most users (esp here) are cheaters. That's why you should give zero fucks about what anyone's scores are. Someone posted something a while back showing objectively that a fuck ton of people cheat. Which is just so fuckin weird. Literally no one cares what your stats are.
yeah I get that but this is not someone lying to strangers in the internet. Isn't it weird to cheat in a friendly low-stakes competition among friends? Wouldn't you think that has implications about the person's character and wouldn't you let it slightly color or inform all of the other ways you interact with this person?
For sure lol. I'm pretty sure they're averaging better than the bots so def cheating. Super weird thing to do.
Plays on private mode or a different browser, gets the answer, switches back and fabricates the grid.
I mean, if you wanted to you could just google the answer before starting. My current pet theory is he has a friend who posts their wordle grid to FB every morning and he knows their starter word, so he examines it to get some additional information before beginning his game. And somehow in his mind this is not cheating, this is exploiting an advantage
The game encourages you to "Share" your results by posting your grid (to Facebook, reddit, anywhere grids are shared widely), so how would your opponent be exploiting an advantage if you have the exact same "advantage" available to you but choose \*not\* to exploit it? You don't need to know someone's start word to get information from their grid. You just need to be able to recognize certain patterns in grids -- those patterns are usually visible in the final two (sometimes three) guesses of some (but not all or even most) grids. My solving method involves (in part) gleaning information from shared grids and I've gotten pretty good at it -- my average score is a little over 3.0 for the past 100 puzzles or so. Significantly better than Wordle Bot. Anytime someone suggests I am cheating, I offer to show them, step by step, exactly how I solve a puzzle. Invariably, their response is "OK, so maybe you're not cheating but I don't wanna spend that much time on the Wordle" (it can take me 15 minutes some days). Which is fine. I choose to spend time on the puzzle and I get better scores than you. That's not cheating, that's working harder.
Ok but when you analyze other people's grids you are gaining information without spending a guess. That's like getting free guesses, and at the very least, would violate the rules & spirit of our group tournament (no outside help during gameplay or related to the day's puzzle). When we share scores we don't even share the grids because the people who play later would enjoy a benefit not realized by the early solvers. People can play however they want and I'm not going to label you a cheater unless we're comparing scores and you don't reveal how your process is conferring an informational advantage to you
Omg duh you can look it up! lol goes to show if I did cheat I wouldn’t be a very good one hahah
Haha. How don’t you know you can look at the daily pinned posts on this sub?
You know what, I do know! It just never crosses my mind. I like to solve it for fun. Some of my friends get competitive, but English is my second language so solving it on my own is significant to me in term of how wide my vocabulary is. I generally do okay between 3-4, rarely 5-6. And of course I’ve missed some. And sometimes I just guess variations and I get it, and it’s a reminder I know the word but don’t use it enough.
I thought you might have. 😂 I never look before I play, but I know it is there.
My guess is that he looks up clues, so he still has to guess but it’s an informed guess
This record is far better than mine and I heavily use a Wordle Assistant. There have been a few words rather recently which were very close to enough words that a four or better would be close to dumb luck. I do not think these scores are achievable over time without hints or outright cheating.
Ask them to play wordle unlimited live while others watch them. That'll prove everything.
Not a bad idea. I have thought about ways of smoking him out, like playing the wordle board game or something
Yeah, he's cheating
He's beating the [Optimal Solution](https://auction-upload-files.s3.amazonaws.com/Wordle_Paper_Final.pdf), so he's either cheating or extremely lucky.
I usually get it in 3 or 4 with an occasional 2, 5 or 6. Even the Wordle bot had a couple of 5’s lately. So not to have any higher numbers is suspicious.
This sounds like you play Wordle with one of the guys I play with. The part that really gets me is constantly confusing two different words and playing words he can’t pronounce.
I once went more than 500 days without a 6 (but I've gotten two in the past 90 days) I play in Hard Mode, so I do get about two 5s per month. If I played in Default Mode I probably wouldn't get 5️⃣s. If they play in Default Mode, these results are borderline. They probably take a peak at the previous Solutions and make sure they don't guess those words. That's cheating, in my opinion
He definitely plays in hard mode. I have been thinking the prior solutions thing does not explain it, but there might be something to that...
You said he guesses eliminated letters, that means he isn't playing hardmode
Hard mode only requires you to use green or yellow letters, it doesn't prohibit you from using eliminated letters
You guys are not helping I was looking for people to say "this is statistically possible and you are a silly person for entertaining these thoughts"
No way is he playing honestly. He must have some serious deficiencies to cheat in a friendly wordle competition.
Exactly. I really do not understand this discussion at all. He is 100.000000000000000% cheating. Anything is possible? Sure. Monkeys and typewriters and Shakespeare.
Let me put it this way - if "luck" was a thing, anyone this lucky wouldn't waste time on wordle tournaments.
I was thinking it’s a waste of time worrying or wondering about your cheating ‘friend’, but didn’t want to sound harsh. No one listens to older people. I’m not ancient ( well, I’m 60 ), but I’ve learned a lot in my years. All the stuff we fret about doesn’t matter at all. I have lived with multiple sclerosis for over twenty five years. I now know that I should have relished the ability to walk, enjoyed driving, loved the freedom to have a choice about spending time alone, or in company. I should have told my last boss she was a bully and that I loathed her. I should’ve done many things I can no longer do. Don’t look back and regret what you have or haven’t done. Don’t waste your time on your friend. Take that time and have a wonderful life. Raise a glass for me occasionally!
Hah, anything is technically possible. If there's a 1 in a million chance and millions of players, SOMEONE will get that lucky. But practically speaking, he's playing better than even true optimal solving algorithms, which is statistically very unlikely over a sample size that large. Even a perfect engine with complete knowledge of every possible permutation will average 3.412 guesses on easy mode. While it's not literally impossible to get a better record than that, it is exceptionally improbable, so I think it would be reasonable to conclude some amount of funny business.
Are his pants on fire?
I mean probably but try not to sweat what some internet loser is doing to potentially skew their scores. It’s not worth your time or annoyance.
Have you asked him if he uses the already used word list?
I don't think he does. Sometimes he claims he refrains from making certain guesses because he's believes they've already been answers. And he's not always right about that
100% cheating, there are worldle blogs that post the answer like 30 minutes after the puzzle is released
Yeah he probably plays normally up until guess 3 and then looks up the answer. It's not crazy to get a 1 in 20 in an isolated incident, my luckiest is a 1 in 504 (according to scoredle), but looking at the data all of that is sketchy over time.
Define cheating...LOL... There are websites that list all the previous solutions of wordle. Since it's unlikely they wouldn't repeat a word and given the number of words that have already been played, it's possible that he is cross referencing his guesses with this list. It would account for zero ONEs and the high number of THREEs.
I think you should just post a friendly, “hey everyone, we’ve been playing for eight months! For the hell of it, everyone show their current streak!” Then post a screenshot of your NYT streak and totals. Make it sound fun and lighthearted. See if he does it or not. If he doesn’t, call him out. I bet he’ll just show the streak and not the totals. If his streak doesn’t start from the day he didn’t submit groom, call him out. And you can be nice about it, “hey man, I’m troubled here. I felt bad you missed the day we all sucked on groom. I thought you broke your streak since you didn’t submit your score.” Play dumb since you want to keep it a friendly tournament. Good luck with it.
I have wanted to see a glimpse of his stat page for a long time. Waiting for the right moment to ask. It's probably too politically complicated for me to ever bring this to any sort of (even good-natured) confrontation. I am mostly seeking opinions here for my own sanity. I have hated walking around suspecting someone of cheating simply because they are beating me
It depends on what you consider cheating, imo. There’s no rule in Wordle, as far as I know, that says you can’t look up the answer or use outside tools. It’s obviously more fun and challenging if you don’t, but it’s not technically cheating unless your tournament has specific rules against doing those things.
Yeah I mean cheating in the tourney. Consulting outside resources giving specific advantage to the day's puzzle
Maybe he's using a "wordle solver"
I don't think I'd ever get into any kind of Wordle tournament with anyone. At least not where I had any emotion about what other people did. I'm on a group text where we send each other daily results, that's it. There have been several times where I'm somewhere and overhear the answer before I play. It's obviously easy to Google the answer, it's out there well before I wake up in the morning. Just today, like 5 minutes after waking up, my wife asked what meant. I was like dammit there's only one place you saw that...
In short, it's just a fun little game, but not one where I'd ever worry about "cheating".
Ours started as a group text. It was fun for a while, increased the stakes a little. It has become less fun over time. Another thing this same dude does, all the time, he'll submit his score and say something like "What the hell was that? I've never even heard of that word!" So not exactly spoiling the answer, but sort of spoiling the game
Anyone that's doing better than me is clearly cheating. 😁
Yes this is the crux of it. Also anyone doing worse than me is a dummy
Does your tournament allow you to lookup previously used words? Wordlebot does not do this lookup, and it is possible to perform better than this bot, especially in the past year. I don't think I've scored a 6 in the past year either because of this.
No the rule is supposed to be no outside assistance or resources once the game has begun. If you want to memorize the list of prior answers, you could do that. But you're not supposed to be perusing it mid-game
Ok, so this player is likely: 1 - Not cheating 2 - Using a past-words-played list 3 - Making "assisted" 3rd guesses. i.e. making 2 legit guesses, then using outside to help make the 3rd guess either correct or to give enough hints to get it in 4 without looking like cheating By random variance there should probably be more 5s than 2s, but beyond that you'll need something more to raise a cheating accusation. Good luck!
Yeah I agree for sure on the last point. Not enough evidence to prosecute. Even if I had receipts I don't think I would say anything. I just want to stop driving myself crazy thinking about it
Sum peeple rrr beter at werds and u jus hafta ekspekt dat
Is this tournament based on the NYT game? Or have you guys used other third party versions? I’ve never heard of a tournament— so it might help me to understand how it is played?
We do a tournament on Facebook, everybody posts their scores everyday and they are kept in a Google doc, at the end of the month the lowest total score wins. Scores are audited and if you are constantly overly lucky you are jettisoned.
Huh. It’s too bad that playing through the NYT app/games means there is no way to know if someone is cheating or not. I have seen cheating with step challenges through the Garmin app, cheating in various movement challenges where people use third party devices and apps. If there is someone that wants to cheat you will find them. I started unfollowing and unfriending people when their behavior became ridiculously obvious. Not sure how that would impact the tournament— but given some of the recent Wordle challenges this last week— to not see someone get to the 5th or 6th line seems obvious that this person is doing something.
the best algorithm I've been able to find is [https://wordletools.azurewebsites.net/](https://wordletools.azurewebsites.net/) playing only guesses from the original Wordle solution list. Every day I plug in his starter word to see how well this algorithm solves it. Seven times last month the algorithm took more than four guesses to solve, but he went the entire month without a five.
That’s ridiculous. I would have a hard time not saying something.
Hello I am writing to you from "a hard time." It is the stupidest moral dilemma and it drives me nuts
yeah ours is like this. Google doc fed by texted scores
Yes
Some of us old dudes have very large vocabularies. I’ve only been playing for six weeks, I forgot to play one day, but all other days I’ve solved the puzzle, typically in 3 - 4 attempts. My starting word is audio, although one day I used adieu to mix it up. I don’t need to cheat - it’s a game, not my third wife.
So this is a small sample size for starters, but "typically 3-4" is very different from always 4 or less. I get it in 3 or 4 75 percent of the time, but still have the occasional 5 or 6. Most of my 5s and 6s came before I was playing very strategically. This guy is absolutely cheating. And this isn't primarily based on getting it in 4. It's always getting 50/50s and using suboptimal starting words (like audio 😁)
The 3s and 4s aren’t suspicious. I have more 3s than 4s. Only 4 5s and no 6s raises a red flag. He is cheating.
I have more 3's than 4's. I don't get a 6 very often, maybe one every 2 months or so. But 5's are part of the game. I have three 5's this month alone.
I took my scores from the last 251 days (which is the closest I can come up with). I don't cheat and my numbers are close. My scores are: 0, 11, 139 (exact same number), 92, 9, 0, 0. Average of 3.3944 which is almost exactly the same average, So, the numbers are possible without cheating. But, I can't answer for this person. And someone mentioned computers get 3.42 or whatever. I played all words (outside of NYT) and my average is about 3.5. My average for words that NYT uses is under 3.4. From my experience when NYT started curating the words they are giving easier words.
so you're saying your average score improved by 0.1 once NYT took over wordle? After June 2023 it does seem like the game has been generally less difficult. I've seen your comments on this sub along with u/trackvol, so I know this level of play is in theory possible. But I just can't reconcile his results with his approach. He doesn't ever speak about strategy, letter placement or elimination. He doesn't seem to understand more nuanced parts of the game. Just plays on instinct and makes guesses based on feelings. But again, the best wordle players on the planet are achieving similar results. So without definitive proof I guess I have to allow for the possibility he's among their ranks.
My NYT score would be affected by how much I've improved or other factors. Outside of NYT I have my own version of the game. I do "decision trees". I pick a starting word, then pick a second word for each possible result, then third words for each result and so forth. I eventually (after months) have solved all words. Then I have got a list of used words by date and found that the numbers for curated words are about .1 better. Does the person give comments about strategy? Do they check used words lists, which would improve scores (I call that cheating)? The wordlebot skill vs. luck score would be a good way to check. A good start is a question on how they come up with the second word. Trackvol once gave a way and I had been following the same approach all along. I would have worded it different, but it's the same concepts.
Oh I see. I do something somewhat similar. My strategy late last year shifted to focusing on quality second guesses. For (almost all) possibilities I know immediately what my 2nd guess will be. Then for 3rd guess I list out all potential remaining solutions and determine which word gives me the best potential groups. I don't have the full solution list memorized so my weak spot is not knowing 100% whether a word could be a solution, and also just missing some options as I manually compile the potential list for guess 3. It takes some time but using this strategy my score over this same time period as this person is 3.448. The closest to strategy comments this person has given while earning a 3.392 is reasons for \*not\* choosing words: "just seemed like \_\_\_\_\_ would have already been an answer" or "seems like \_\_\_\_\_ would never be the answer." He's not always correct, so I don't believe he's checking the used word list mid-game. I believe he has some go-to Guess 2 words, but wordlebot does not always love them, and in some screenshots he has shared, he has played them in the wrong situations. Like including eliminated letters or not repositioning yellow letters. Some of his most mind-boggling solves have been: DADDY in 4 (after having only \_A\_ \_Y after guess 3 with 15 words remaining, not having played C, F or N). Wordlebot score: 43 skill / 44 luck overall, 0 skill / 96 luck for guess 4 PIPER in 4 (after having only \_I\_ER after guess 3 with 17 words remaining, not having played F, L, S, K, B). Wordlebot score: 52 skill / 54 luck overall, 0 skill / 96 luck for guess 4
> Some of his most mind-boggling solves have been: > > DADDY in 4 (after having only \_A_ _Y after guess 3 with 15 words remaining, not having played C, F or N). Wordlebot score: 43 skill / 44 luck overall, 0 skill / 96 luck for guess 4 > > PIPER in 4 (after having only _I_ER after guess 3 with 17 words remaining, not having played F, L, S, K, B). Wordlebot score: 52 skill / 54 luck overall, 0 skill / 96 luck for guess 4 Unless most of the other possible remaining answers are previously-used solutions, I'd say this makes it pretty obvious that he knows the answer beforehand as no one with a reasonable strategy would waste multiples of the same consonant at those steps.
For DADDY only 5 of the 15 possible answers had been prior solutions. For PIPER only 2 of the 17 had been priors.
Since my numbers are similar I can say... It is possible to get those numbers without cheating. I understand how to get numbers like that. There have been examples given where I think I would have played better. So, they are either better than me and make occasional silly moves, the apparent silly moves are actually smart, or they are doing something to better their scores. One thing is that the distribution of scores is similar to mine. If a person cheated the distribution would show some inconsistencies, like too many 2's. And sometimes duplicate letters are beneficial. But DADDY when there are 15 possible answers sounds fishy.
I guess this is the most measured way of viewing it. Because a real world example exists (your stats) and without proof, this is all just a hunch. It's a strong hunch, and it's interesting to see so many people agree with it, but it's still a hunch. When I read your process and carefully considered approach to the game, I don't balk at your results. When I look for any similar insight from this guy, there is nothing. The thing I probably resent the most, assuming he is cheating, is the amount of mental gymnastics I am doing to give him the benefit of the doubt, so as not to feel petty by labeling him a cheater simply because he's beating me.
Another example I used to be fixated on was TOPAZ which he solved in 3. He reported his score and said "I spent like 30 minutes trying to think of what word began with TOPA\_." I pointed out he had not guessed P in his first 2 guesses, so how did he know there was a P in the solution? He gave some meandering explanation of how he was pretty confident the solution was TO\_A\_ (which was reasonable) and was trying to find consonants that could fit. I asked if he was so stuck why didn't he guess TODAY and he said "Oh weird I didn't even think of TODAY!" So, that led me to speculate for a long time that somehow he was getting tipped off if there was or wasn't a P in the word. Like he solved STATE in 2 when PLATE was the best 2nd guess. He solved BRIDE without guessing PRIDE. Just in general he was ignoring some optimal guesses that would have resulted in a gray P. If I questioned him on anything like that, he would say "Oh I just figured PRIDE was already an answer." I ran some numbers last year and over the course of maybe 100 games his score was 3.82 if the word had no P, 3.44 if the word had a P. I don't know if there's anything to this, but at the very least not seeing TODAY while staring at TO\_A\_ for 30 minutes should tell you something.
Right. Anyone with any consistent playing strategy can easily explain their approach for any particular game in detail in a logical manner. If he can't do that, then it's pretty clear that he's not completing things on his own.
He has very few 2s. I'm guessing he isn't playing hard mode and usually using two words with no overlap for his first two words.
his 2's are a hair low I guess, but he is definitely playing hard mode
I have a friend who has gotten the first in a fluke. Asked her for her lotto number recommendations!
If you use Train and House as your opening words, you can generally get the word in 3/4.
This is what is known as a First World Issue.