On a casual Tuesday morning during advisory, I had the opportunity to watch sophomore Maddie Boatright play her daily game of Wordle.
It was anything but casual for Maddie, who’s running a 248-day win streak.
She started off with the word “chase” followed by “mount” (a part of her expert strategy). Only the letters S and O were correct (S being in the wrong place and O being in the right one). So, she tried “soils,” but the only information she got was that the word started with SO. This made her confused and she asked herself, “What is it?” Then, she tried “drips,” but that wasn’t very helpful either. There were no letters to choose from, but after a second of thinking, she said “oh wait” and typed in the word of the day: Soggy.
To achieve her 248-day streak, she came up with two strategies. She starts with the same two words: chase and mount. Her mom told her about those, and they have proved to be very helpful. If she is on the very last try, sometimes she has to get some outside help, but this has only happened twice. To clarify: this only happens if it’s a one-letter difference in the word. When the words are “just really random” (to the point where she hasn’t heard of half of them), these strategies help her add another day to her streak.
Because of the fall in popularity of Wordle at Lovett and among her friends, the fact that she remembers to keep up her streak is impressive. Actually, this streak is the whole reason she still plays. Because it was already so long, she didn’t want to lose it. Even though it’s not as popular anymore, she explains, “My dad and I compete to see who can get it in the least amount of tries.” Her mom used to be in the competition, but she dropped out.
While her dad keeps up with it, he sometimes forgets to send a picture of his game to her, but she doesn’t get mad about that, because sometimes she forgets too.
She doesn’t just keep up with it because of other people, though. In order to keep up with a game for 248 days, there must be something enjoyable about it. For Maddie, she looks forward to having a different word each day. “It’s smart since it’s only once a day,” she explains, so when the next word comes out she’s actually pretty excited to see if she can get it.
If she’s really bored, there are other Wordle variations that she’ll play.
“I don’t care if I lose those, though,” she explains.
With her mom, she occasionally plays Heardle, a game where you hear part of a song and have to guess what it is. There is also another game where you guess multiple words at the same time, and while it looks stressful, she doesn’t think it’s that bad.
There wasn’t much time to celebrate the “soggy” win that Tuesday morning, because the bell rang and we had to get to our first class. Besides, there was win number 249 to think about.
Original source can be found here.
