Cracking HARDLE

[AribertDeckers]

'Hardle' is completely different to 'Wordle'.

In 'Wordle' one sees, which letter is a yellow or a green, but in 'Hardle' one only is given how many letters in the guessed word are yellow, and how many are green. No hint concerning the position is given.

So we need a completely different strategy. While in 'Wordle' we go forward, in 'Hardle' we go backward!

I will explain this in a series of screenshots.

The following ones only are provisional. The complete explanations will follow. One day...


For the moment being I give you one hint:

The guessed word has 5 letters.

So we guess:

   APRON

If there is at least 1 hit in it, the next guess is

   PORNO

The trick: We use the very same letters, but leave out one. To get this done without inserting an other one (which would spoil our efforts), we have to double one of the letters.

It is not very easy to find fitting words for this.

In the case of APRON --> PORNO we FOR SURE will get an information about the A:

If there is shown 1 hit less, then the A is a hit.
If there is the same number of hits, then the A FOR SURE is no hit. *
IF we are lucky, and the A is shown as a green hit, we even know the position (in this case position 1).

Not very common, but possible: We take out one letter by doubling one of the other, AND THEN we get 1 hit more! BOOM!

This means that the letter taken out is NO hit.

But, on the other hand, the letter we doubled is a hit, AND it occurs twice! A very stunning incident to see.

* A little spoiler: If the A in APRON is a hit, and we take it out and get the same number of hits (say, 2 hits), this can mean that the O is a DOUBLE HIT ...  Oops! So, be very careful!



Have fun!


'Hardle' of 23. July 2023:



'Hardle' of 26. July 2023:

r7 is a double whammy.
1. it flips the key from E to O.
2. it has FOUR letters,and the second O on pos 5 is NOT,which can be seen in r3.
BUT we see that there is NOT one more letter.
1 must be a double.
r5 with r1 cracks the position of the O.




'Hardle' of 27. July 2023:

[AribertDeckers]

[AribertDeckers]

Cracking HARDLE 28.7.2023

This riddle is complicated.

The approach with APRON gives 1 hit.
r2 shows 1 hit, despite the A is gone. So A is not a hit and is marked black.

Which leaves PRON as the container for 1 hit.

VIXEN turns out ugly: 2 hits.

QUACK has zero hits. The A already was black, but now Q, U,C, and K as well are black.

Now let's get to work and insert an I into PRON:

PRION has TWO hits. So the I is a hit. AND it is at the right place. So the I is green now.

From this we can draw conclusions.

APRON has 1 hit. No green.
PORNO has 1 hit. No green.
PRION has... TWO greens. But which letter is the second one?

PRION has
* an N at pos5 - APRON has an N at pos5, but no green. So the N is not a hit.
* an O at pos4 - APRON has an O at pos4, but no green. So the O is not a hit.
* an P at pos1 - PORNO has an P at pos1, but no green. So the P is not a hit.

That is great. because now we know that P, N and O are black.

Which leaves the R at pos2. THAT is the second hit, and it is green.

Big success by now!

But we have to check the other vowels: I and E and Y.

VIXEN we now can mark black on the N, but VIXE? Unknown.

Let's try YARNS.

A, we know, is black, and N as well.
The R, at pos3 is a hit, but the guess does not deliver a green.
YARNS delieves only 1 hit, the one we already know: the R.

So we now know that Y and S are no hits.

We have to looks for words with __ R I __ _
There are a lot of them, like PRICE or PRIZE. Or PRIDE.

So we attack here and try SPICE.

S, we already know, is black.
So is A.
So is C.

Not much gained? Wrong. We have 2 hits, and both are green!

The I and its place we already knew. But now we know about E, and that it is at pos5.

So the word to guess is __ R I __ E

There is a number of them...

Let' try TRIBE. This checks for the T and the B.

That is a good idea. Now we have FOUR hits, 3 of them green.

The green ones are R, I, and E, the positions of which we already knew.

But WHAT is our fourth hit? Is it T or B?

Check with WRITE, one more possible word.

Nope, we only get 3 hits. So both the W and the T are no hits.

Since the fourth hit in TRIBE only gives us a yellow, we now know that the B in TRIBE is at the wrong place. This leaves only pos1 for it.

So try BRIDE.

Bingo!

[AribertDeckers]

Cracking HARDLE 29.7 2023



Who moved, and who didn't?

The R did not move. So we know, from r1, this to be a green.



P, O, and N moved.

If P is green, the word starts with P. But, if so, how can we manage the R in the middle?

If the O is green, which of the two?

If the N is green, which word has ___ ___ R N ___ ?


Quite confusing. Unless your brain tells you that CORNY would fit.

Dunnit. 

[AribertDeckers]

Cracking HARDLE 30.7.2023



The approach APRON --> PORNO works: A is a yellow. The rest is black.

VIXEN, were are lucky with that, is completely black.

So drop in a wild word and see what happens. With the A in it we try BARKS, and are lucky again: The A is a green.

So drop in an other wild word, checking the U.

Ouch, we have 2 hits, and both are green.

Okay, let's give it a try with THICK. This has a C and a T. The I, we know this already from r3, is black. The K is an exchange for the H in r5.

Good one again. This time 1 green and 2 yellows. But since we left out M, U, and L, ... what happened?

Give it a try with L, A, T, C, and H. L is unclear. C might be a green as pos4. And of THCK 3 are a hit.

One more good one. FOUR greens this time. And the L?

In r5 we have 2 greens. If the L were one of them, then at pos1 it would be a yellow. But we do not have a yellow. So the L is out. Which means that ATCH are greens.

Now chase the letter for pos1. The H might be it, because HATCH is a valid word.

Turns out: no, wrong.

Looking at the keyboard, we see: not much left...

So try ... lucky to see it ... a W.

Fine. We got it.

But watch out! GATCH, too, is a valid word. Might well have been it would have taken one more step...

[AribertDeckers]

Cracking HARDLE, 24.8.2023

This one is extremely easy and took me only 4 or 5 minutes. All done with plain logic.

It went like this:

In r1 I did not use APRON. I did this for fun, because some people seem to think that I always start with APRON, and the pattern would give them a starting advantage by even showing WHICH of the letters is yellow or green.

So it is PORNO - and all black. 

Round 2: QUACK. 

What the hell!? THREE hits. This I call luck.

So let's start isolating.

First go with SPICE. Which brings in the I and the E.

But delivers only ONE yellow...

Which reminds us, that r1 still has a trap. So search for A and U with VAGUS.

Not convincing. Only one yellow. But which one?

So there is no other way but to hammer the A directly into the game: APRON.

Oops! ;O) Now we got something.

First, mark the A yellow and the PRON black. Then go back the rows and mark the letters.

The interesting kick is in r2. From VAGUS we know that the U is black. And the Q without a U? No chance. So mark the Q black as well.

Since QUACK has 3 hits, A, C, and K are hits. That went fast, really.

Now comes in r3: The C is just under the C in r2, but we have only one single hit in r3, and it is a yellow. Which means that the C in r2 is not at the right place. It is a yellow.

But since there are TWO greens in r2, the other hits both are green: A at pos3 and K at pos5.

That comes in handy, doesn't it?

Now we go to the last 2 rows: both have one single hit, and we know: it is the A.

Summing up: We have an A at pos3 and a K at pos5. And we do know that the C is not at pos4.

Now it is time for gambling.

The solution is: __ __ A __ K

And the C can only be at pos1 or pos2.

Which word would be __C A __ K ??

No chance. So it is more likely that the word begins with the C: C __ A __ K

Just for fun I used a word I used quite often in the past in other games: CHALK.

OH! That did it. 

[AribertDeckers]

Cracking Hardle, 25.8.2023

This is an amazing shot. I will explain how it worked.

To be frank: it was 100 percent luck. And no word-lister!

In r1 I toyed with PRION. Which would lead to APRON and PORNO in r2 and r3. One can always change the sequence. It is the letters, what counts.

r2 and r3 show: A is no hit. Mark it black. But PRON contains a hit. And the I (compare r1 and r3) is a hit. Mark that yellow.

Throw in SPICE. Not as much as hoped. But on the other side it has ONE hit. Since we know the I is a hit, the only one we have in SPICE is just the I.

This kicks our the P! Done well. The S, C, and E also are black.

Now comes the good old QUACK. A is out. We knew that. And the rest?

Since there is only ONE hit in Quack, let's be keen. First kick out the Q. Without the U the probability is merely zero. (And, sincere is only ONE hit in QUACK, it can not be QU, because that needs TWO hits.)

This leaves the C and the K. Luckily the C already is out with SPICE. But what about the K?

Throw in LUMPY. This checks for the Y, and a bit more. The P, we know from SPICE, is out.

Both QUACK and LUMPY have ONE green. We do not know where it is. Might well be that it is one letter in QUACK and an other one in LUMPY.

But there is something smiling at us: The U in both words is at the same place. Could it be, that..?

Okay, let's take a risk and assume the U is the green. Which eliminates Q, A, C, K and L, M, P, Y.

And now what? We are stuck!

If the word is __ U __ __ __ , where then is the I?

I at pos1? Not likely. At pos3? Leaves a hell with the remaining letters of R, O, N.

I at pos5? What the hell!? Ending with Y, yes, but with an I? I give up.

So take it as pos4: __ U __ I __

Mind-boggling. No chance for me to find a word.

So smash the whole thing and wonder about the I at pos5. The problem is to find words, which use one of R, O, N, but only one.

Phone rings: "Hey there, here is your brain." 

"?"

"Remember the word, which occasionally showed up in other riddles? FUNGI?"

Hm, yes, buried deep in the past, some misty memories appear. FUNGI is a valid word, ..., yes.

Shot the ace.

I wish my brain would call me more often...

[AribertDeckers]

Cracking HARDLE, 26.8.2023

This one is a real beast. But, with pure logic, was cracked.

The first 3 rows weed out the A and the I. That is not much, but a good start.

QUACK is an ice-breaker. You will see this later.

Important here are 2 facts:

1. The A is out. This leaves QU and CK.

2. Both hits are green.

There could be an other combination, say, of U and C or U and K. But this is ruled out by LUMPY.

The U in LUMPY is at the same place as in QUACK. But LUMPY has no green, so U is out. Without the U the Q is out.

Leaves CK, and both at the right place. That is neat.

So we still fight with r1, r2, r3. One of the letters is a hit, but at the wrong place.

The really tricky thing is, that the P in LUMPY is a big bait: If the P is a hit, all 4 rows are clear.

But there is a monster in the background:

A is out.
I is out.
E is out.
U is out.

If P is a hit, then O is out. Whichs means that we have no vowel left. And Y won't help us either. Or do you know a word with YCK at the end?

So, out of pure desperation, a clear cut: It MUST be the O!

AND, the O must be at pos3: __ __ O C K.

LUMPY still lingers with 1 hit. U and P are not, since we weeded them out by now. Y? Very low probability.

So it is either M or L.

Let's try with L, and make a keen guess, even with a double (to get it more precisely by reducing the number of active letters): CLOCK. Just to see, if...

Dunnit.

The double C is a beast.

[AribertDeckers]

Cracking HARDLE, 27.8.2023

This one was fast and easy to crack in less than 5 minutes.

To stir up the soup I started with QUACK.




Instead of zero hits, it has 3!

Let's check with APRON.

Normally APRON has at least 1 hit, but now it has zero. Strange things happen...

So, A, P, R, O and N are out. This makes the A in QUACK black. And leaves a riddle.

QUACK still has 4 valid letters, but only 3 hits, and 2 of them are green.

Throw in SPICE - and get a surprise: 2 hits, and both are green.

Can we clear out with VAGUS?

Not convincing. So try PIECE to check the S.

Surprise! S is a hit, AND one of the greens is less than in SPICE.

So S even is a green. That is fun now.

Next step.

With S being green and P being black, there still is the container with I, C, E - and one of them is a hit. AND it is a green!

VAGUS has 2 hits, but only yellow. The A is out, the S is a yellow (this we know now), but V, U, and G still are unknown.

Time for taking a risk.

Throw out the Q in r1. Assume U, C, K are hits. Which 2 might be green?

Looking at the "green" marks at the right side: in rows with a C, and the C is always at pos4.

Let's assume C is a green.




Since I, C and E ins SPICE contain only one hit, and C is one, this kicks out I and E.

Both I and E could well team up with other letters from QUACK. Like in SLICE.

But I and E are out. Which narrows things a lot.

We still have no idea at all, but can make one more assumption: Let CK be the 2 greens in QUACK. Which means the U is a hit, but at the wrong place.

And, from earlier: The S is a hit. But, Vagus shows it, it is not at pos5, but in pos1.




So far, that looks neat: S __ __ C K.

It could be SLICK or whatever. But we chose C as a green, which eliminated I and E.

So, next step, look at the U, which is a yellow in QUACK, pos2.
Since the S is at pos1, and pos4 and pos5 are used by C and K, we have no choice at all: U must be at pos3:

S __ U C K

We are STUCK. 

[AribertDeckers]

Cracking HARDLE, 28.8.2023

This one does not look so, but it is a wild ride.

First, PRION and APRON rule out a lot.

A, I, O are out. So test for I and E: SPICE.

Not too good...

Since P and R are black, try PRESS to check for E.

Stuck again.

But we still have a trump card: PEACE.

P an A are out. But the C is annoying.

Throw in QUACK !

Quite a pile of garbage now. But we can go backwards now.

We have a single hit in PEACE. It is a green.
The C in QUACK might be a hit, but we see that QUACK has only a yellow. Since the C in both words is at the same position, this is a contradiction - and C is black.

Now, when C in PEACE is black, only 2 letters remain: E at pos2 and E at pos5.

Go upwards and see that the E at pos5 in SPICE ... only delivers a yellow.

This rules E at pos5 out. Now we have a winner: E at pos2 is a green.

7 rows so far - and found out one letter. We know it is a green. But we are out to find FOUR MORE of them.

Since there is a single hit in SPICE, and it is the E, this rules out the other letters. Like the S.

In row 4 still lingers one hit, which we could not isolate: V, G, or U.

The U also appears in QUACK, at pos2.

Let's take a risk.

V or G might be a hit. But the sparrow in the hand...

The hit in VAGUS is a green. So, if it were the U, the U would be a green, and at pos4.

A V at pos1 or a G at pos3 would are unfriendly chaps.

But the U would make:  __ E __ U __

Another case of Klatt's Law: "Look at the figures nicely - and they will tell you the story."

The only word which came to my mind was the nice and friendly DEBUT.

An ace.

[AribertDeckers]

Cracking HARDLE, 29.8.2023

This one was really fast and easy - and I solved it by shooting an ace.

This time, I thought, I would leave the solution to your logical thinking, and show you only the result.

Have fun!

[AribertDeckers]

Cracking HARDLE, 30.8.2023

Fast and easy. Took 10 minutes. BUT this was a case of very generous luck!

First, throw some words into the stew and see, what appears.

APRON PORNO rule out the A.
PRION rules out the I.
SPICE kills the C in QUACK.
Since there is only 1 hit in Quack, kill the Q.

So we are left with U, K, R, O, N, which make up 3 hits.

Take Vagus to check for the U.

PEACE, oh, there I was absent-minded because P, E, A, C are out already.

So far only 1 green.

Take a risk: U in VAGUS is a green.

Check for the N and the U again: INPUT.

Okay, that does it: 1 green with the U at the same place, AND the N is out.

So we know that R and O are hits. But where are they?

I wrote __ __ O U R to make some guesses. OUR is in words like SOUR.

Then I had an idea: FLOUR.

That was in about the last second...

[AribertDeckers]

Cracking HARDLE, 17.1.2024

This time I show the result first:



Short, isn't it? But the fun is NOT ... having found the target so fast. It is a twist between r2 and r3.

r3, PORNO, is a check tor the "I" in r2. If the "I" is not part of the target, then we should have 1 counter less. But PRION has 1 hit, and PORNO has 2 hits instead of zero. Oops!

So the "I" still is in the race. But what have we got? I doubled the "O". This did not result in 1 hit  ("P", "R", "O", "N" -and the "I" would be out), but in TWO hits, which means that the letter now added in is a hit. And the other one???

r3 has 2 hits, one of them being a green. But what is the green? Did we move the still unknown hit from r2 to the right position or is the "O" on pos2 a green? We don't know.

But he have a very funny clue here: The "O" we added in r3 is a hit. So we know that "O" IS a hit. Looking back at r2 we have ONLY ONE hit there, and, since "O" is a hit, it is the "O" in r2! And the "I" is out. We luckily eliminated that.

So we now know that "O" ALREADY is a hit, and we added a second hit, the second "O".

And we now have 1 green, but do not know, where.

So we now have 2 hits, the "O"s. One of them is a green. AND we know that the other one is NOT at pos4.

So the green "O" is either at pos2 or pos5. A word ending with "O"? PIANO or IGLOO. But both have an "I". And PIANO has ONLY ONE "O".

Let's check with assuming that the "O" at pos2 is a green. Since we have no "O" on pos4 or pos5, it could be at pos1 or pos3. A word beginning with "OO"? No chance.

Okay, we try with a guess with "O" at pos2 and pos3: FOOLS.

This gives us 3 hits, 2 being green - just what we had hoped for. So the "O"s are at pos2 and pos3. And "F", "L", or "S" is the third hit.

I tried GOOSE. That's it.

[AribertDeckers]

Cracking HARDLE, 8.4.2024


This one became rather desperate: not a single identification of a hit.

Not a single clue about any of the letters if they a green or a yellow.

And only 2 tries left.

But with some logic AND A POT OF LUCK it could be done in 1 guess:




QU, CK, ON, ... what the hell!?

So I took 2 letters from the first row. Well, I had to do something with that row. It has 2 greens in it.

SHYLY - 1 of the for letters is a hit, but which one?

And either O or N, one of them is a hit.

QUCK = 1 hit
ON = 1 hit
SHYL = 1 hit

That is 4 hits. So I needed one more letter.

I found nothing better than MUNCH. Better something than nothing.

That was not it. Only ONE measly letter is a hit...

But this very letter is a green. So compare with the rows, where are letters identical with those in MUNCH?

Answer: In the first row. C !

This seems to be a hint.

Now, when it is C, then it is NOT QU. At least it is not Q.

This leaves U and K.

But if it is the U at pos2, then C at pos4? No chance to get this fit with the other letters.

Desperate guess: Take CK.

Makes ACK.

ACK with what?

S, H, L ?

Desperate guess: BLOCK.

Did it.