Countdown queen Susie Dent says strategy isn’t everything on Wordle as she reveals top tips and mistakes to avoid

metro.co.uk:

insisting she’s not that great at the daily game, which gives users six chances to work out a five-letter word, we have plenty of faith in Susie to help us out.After Richard Osman revealed his strategy, Susie admitted she ‘tries not to be too tactical’.‘Sometimes I’m fairly systematic in that I will go with an opening word that has a lot of vowels,’ she explained to Metro.co.uk. ‘I know that’s what a lot of people like to do.

But vowels for me alone, don’t really do it. So, if I got sort an “o” and an “e” in there, depending on their position, it doesn’t always make it more straightforward.‘So I tend to just dive in, to be honest, with an opening word, and the joy for me is then trying to crack the code.’As for what letters to include in your opening word, Susie said you could base it on letter frequency.‘The letter “e” is the most frequently used word in the English language.

You’ve also got “t” and “r” and “m”. I think the most common letters at the beginning of words are “t”, “w”, “d”, “a”, and “o”.‘If you want to be systematic about it, that’s a good place to start.’Susie pointed out that different people will envision words in different ways so, while starting with a vowel-heavy word (like ‘audio’ or ‘adieu’) could work for some, it might be useless to others.How about any big mistakes to avoid?‘The most obvious mistake, and I have made this one myself, is to repeat a letter quite early on, which is obviously slowing things down a little bit,’ she pointed out.‘Because if that letter is not in, you’ve lost a move.’‘Don’t be too quick,’ she advised. ‘Just pay attention to the ones that you know, or that you have been told aren’t there.