Got zip on guess #1. Made up for it with 4 letters in the correct spots on guess #2. Realized that there's A LOT of words that can be made with those four letters and (wisely, IMHO) laid up with guess #3 to eliminate as many potential final letters as possible. It paid off. I could've gotten stuck in the ol' "3 or 4 guesses to find the final letter" trap.
Solid performance today. There was no reasonable way to get it in 2, and my choice for 2 made the solution obvious (I couldn't come up with an alternate word that would work).
Stupid mistake. After eliminating a good number of possibilities on Guess #2, I went for it on Guess #3, a very bad choice when since there were more than two possible words remaining.
Seem like good choices. I often start with SHIRE, but I frequently do others as the mood strikes me. I often follow up with MOUND if I get no vowel hits on Guess #1. There are mathematically determined "best" words that are most likely to narrow the set of possibilities the fastest, but I'm not sure they necessarily lead to quicker solutions. I find it useful to start with a word that has H in it, since it's very frequently preceded by S, T, C, G, P, or W. If the H is in second position, SHIRE lets me know that the first position is probably one of those, and I'll have confirmed or eliminated S. If H is present but not in second position, I will then guess it's in last position, and one of those same letters (except W) will likely precede it. My record's pretty good. I haven't lost a game yet (42 games to date), and my average is probably something like 3.6. I have had a few 6s, though I think those are getting rarer. I came up with EPOXY and NYMPH which are brutal in 5 and 4 guesses, respectively.
Was playing on a practice site and hit this one. I was stunned that guess #4 was it, 'cause I was feeling desperate!
I often use SHARE/SHIRE/SHORE, though I've been going with SALET recently. That one's supposed to be the statistically best choice because it most narrows the set of words, though I'm not convinced that actually results in a better score.
I haven't been able to copy/paste (as you did) without it coming out wrong (as it did for you), so I've been resorting to a screen capture.
I'm guessing NOTES, STONE or TONES would also be good ones to start with, just because they contain four of the five most commonly used letters (and the fifth letter isn't far behind).
