Today’s Wordle Review: August 23, 2023

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Our columnist reviews the day’s puzzle. Warning: Contains spoilers!

By Elie Levine

Welcome to The Wordle Review. Be warned: This article contains spoilers for today’s puzzle. Solve Wordle first, or scroll at your own risk.

Note the date before you comment. To avoid spoiling the game for others, make sure you are posting a comment about Wordle 795.

This month’s featured artist is Mojo Wang. You can read more about them here.

★★★★

Wordle 795 4/6*

⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ CURIO🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩 VERGE🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩 VERSE🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 VERVE

My ideal Wordle score is three. It combines just the right amount of luck with ingenuity. And by my imperfect, unscientific rating system, a four-stepper isn’t too shabby. It means that I woke up this morning, put some thought into my strategy, guessed words that made sense with the information I had, and made it out the other side. It’s when I get into five-step and six-step territory that I start to judge myself, so I always try to aim for three. A solve in one remains elusive for me, two feels exceptionally lucky, and three is a success. I also see a three or a four as a harbinger of a good day to come.

CURIO to VERGE was a bit of a quantum leap. (A Wordle Review commenter once used that phrase to describe a jump I made from one turn to the next, and I have not gotten it out of my head.) Without that move, I can imagine this puzzle would have taken a lot longer.

Looking back on my solve, CURIO strikes me as a brilliant starter, if I do say so myself. I will definitely be using it again. I may be blessed today with an especially positive outlook, but, friends, I hope we can all push self-criticism to the curb today, regardless of how well we solved.

Today’s word is VERVE, a noun. According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, it means vigor and energy, as in movement or portrayal.

Today’s word is moderately challenging because of uncertainty. It is relatively uncommon and has a common letter pattern with five or six possible answers. Getting the word in six guesses requires strategic choices at every attempt.

For more in-depth analysis, visit our friend, WordleBot.

Mojo Wang is an award-winning illustrator based in New York City whose work focuses on building his own visual world. He is a fan of creating harmony with detailed and compositionally structured images set in seemingly chaotic scenery. Mr. Wang is a former photo editor of Elle Men and a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program in illustration at the School of Visual Arts.

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moderately challenging because of uncertainty.