I caved in and took a look at Wordle, which is basically the 1970s 'Mastermind' game but the answer is a word instead of a combination of colours.
If you want to get the answer in the shortest time possible with the least mental effort (rather than using up the least guesses, which requires concentration), you can use a brute force strategy by entering up to five initial guesses to work out which letters are in the actual answer, with a bit of luck, some will have been in the right place, but worst case you have an anagram. The strategy could go wrong if the answer is RIVAL and you guessed VIRAL etc, but there's a new puzzle every day.
For brute forcing it, you need five five-letter words for your initial guesses, that between them use as many letters in the alphabet as possible at least once i.e. the best outcome would be using 25, with a less commonly used letter like X, Y or Z left over.
So I took a Scrabble alphabet and got to work shuffling. Here's the closest I've got so far (not sure yet what the best order is):
WRACK
MYTHS
VIXEN
BUDGE
FLOPS
These five words use 23 letters of the alphabet at least once (E and S used twice), with J, Q and Z left over. So not perfect, but as close as I've got so far.
With a bit of luck, you won't need them all. If your first guess is WRACK and RACK is right letter/right place and the T in MYTHS is right letter, wrong place, you know the answer is TRACK.
Debate Magazine
