Wordle 5 Killer B's

Braying another of my harebrained, praps boneheaded barbarian YAWPS - Yet Another Wordle-Playable Scheme.

See also: https://rentry.co/wordle-meta-list

CONTENTS:

Intro

Inspired by a desire to somehow stick with my REMIT opener and yet join in with @Eye Are's 5-TU's scheme somehow, without cheating or tanking my game.

I was noodling around with the idea of "five twos" because the original inspiration was @Eye Are calling out how 2/22/2025 contains five 2s.

It occurred to me first that maybe I could play 5 of the same letter, instead of 5 pairs the same as she's calling for the one-shot theme. Then I thought, "well, B is the 2nd letter of the alphabet, so how about five B's?"

And of course the Wordle Bees and Killer Bees come buzzing right into my brain et VOILĂ€: the Wordle 5 Killer B's idea is born.

Exaggerating just a little for effect: B is a potential game-killer (especially if played 5 times!) since the letter B appears only in about 11.5% of the known potential solutions. It's a pretty terrible letter. https://rentry.co/wordle-letter-freq is a little out of date, but I checked and even with the added solutions since those were compiled, B frequency still rounds to 11.5% (268 of 2321 now vs. 266 of 2309 then).

To keep those killer B's concentrated I'm looking only at threepeaters and words with a double-B i.e. BB in them. I don't want to accidentally solve, so I intend to stay away from Not-Used known potential solutions (aka NU words), at least on step 2.

6 B Threepeaters

A quick check of https://rentry.co/all-wordle-triples and we have the six threepeaters (with the non-B letters pulled up front for easy referencing while playing).

  1. AY BABBY + like the A; good for dead- or green-E terminal Y check
  2. IS BIBBS probably not unless I is yellow in REMIT
  3. OY BOBBY Oy! it's NU!
  4. UA BUBBA + like the A
  5. UE BUBBE probably not unless E is yellow in REMIT
  6. UY BUBBY if I need U; good for dead- or green-E terminal Y check

2 Double-B PU as of "today" (2025-02-17)

The BB column here: https://rentry.co/wordle-letter-pairs#2321-known-potential-solutions shows there are still 6 known potential solutions out there with a double-B in them (one of which has a third B as noted above too!).

  1. AEY ABBEY
  2. HOY HOBBY

38 Double-B Non-solutions

  1. AED ABBED
  2. AES ABBES
  3. COS COBBS
  4. COY COBBY
  5. CUY CUBBY
  6. DEY DEBBY
  7. DIS DIBBS
  8. DOY DOBBY
  9. DUO DUBBO
  10. DUY DUBBY
  11. FAO FABBO
  12. FAY FABBY
  13. FUY FUBBY
  14. GAY GABBY
  15. GOE GOBBE
  16. GOI GOBBI
  17. GOY GOBBY
  18. GUA GUBBA
  19. HUA HUBBA
  20. HUY HUBBY
  21. JIA JIBBA
  22. JIS JIBBS
  23. KIE KIBBE
  24. MOY MOBBY
  25. NAY NABBY
  26. NEY NEBBY
  27. NIY NIBBY
  28. NOY NOBBY
  29. NUY NUBBY
  30. POY POBBY
  31. PUY PUBBY
  32. RIY RIBBY
  33. RUY RUBBY
  34. SLU SLUBB
  35. SUY SUBBY
  36. SYE SYBBE
  37. TUY TUBBY
  38. WEY WEBBY

Thoughts on Playing

I think I'm not going to try to pre-plan but rather will follow the lead of what's revealed by REMIT and then by my step two choice.

I'm on the fence about whether step two should be a two-B or not two-B, Horatio. I can see it either way, so I may wait to decide when I play. Or put on a play to help me decide? Nah, terrible idea.

If the nearly-unthinkable happens and step 2 reveals that the solution has two B's in it, then maybe it's better if I've played the threepeater second, so I could go for the solve on three and still get the requisite 5 Killer B's into my game. That might be enough to decide me which way to go.

Edit

Pub: 17 Feb 2025 22:20 UTC

Edit: 21 Feb 2025 14:51 UTC

Views: 195