A simple strategy can help improve your chances of completing DailyMail.com’s FREE new puzzle GuessWord.
Players often find themselves stuck with too many possible words to choose from and not enough guesses left to try them all.
For example, after four guesses, a player might have identified the last four letters of the five-letter mystery word as being ‘_RAIN’. With only two guesses left, they would need to choose between three possible words: GRAIN, TRAIN and BRAIN.
If they simply cycle through those options they could easily get unlucky and run out of guesses before landing on the right word.
So it can be wise to play a word that eliminates or verifies all of those starting letters. For example, something like ‘BEGET’.
THE PROBLEM: With only two guesses left, the player needs to choose between three possible words, GRAIN, TRAIN or BRAIN
THE SOLUTION: Playing BEGET enabled the player to determine that the mystery word was GRAIN and not DRAIN or TRAIN
If B, G, or T are present in the word, the player can determine what the word is and make a successful final guess.
That’s because if either B, G or T show as orange or blue – meaning they are present in the word – that would confirm it was BRAIN, GRAIN or TRAIN, respectively.
If, on the other hand, you can’t think of any word that works for the next guess, players have suggested the best move might just be to try and use any letters that haven’t been played yet.
‘If I’m stuck I try a completely new word with none of the used letters,’ said one GuessWord player explaining their strategy.
Last week we revealed the average player solves the puzzle in 2 minutes 40 seconds, and the leaderboards indicate five percent can solve in under a minute.
GuessWord is unique from other interpretations of the five-letter puzzle because it provides players with a starting letter which can appear anywhere within the mystery word.
While that’s an advantage in some senses, it also forces the player to think a little harder about which word they use to start the game.
The average GuessWord player takes around 2 minutes and 40 seconds to solve the puzzle
And in GuessWord, players need to pay attention to both the number of guesses they are using and the time it takes to reach the end.
The longer they spend on each guess, the lower down the rankings they will slide.
Also on offer in the new puzzle section are multiple-choice quizzes like MasterQuiz, Mindbender and Quick Quiz. MasterQuiz is a six-round quiz that tests readers on their current affairs and general knowledge.
Mindbender measures your mental acuity with a handful of questions on arithmetic and verbal reasoning. Fastest of the bunch is Quick Quiz – a quick-fire game consisting of five short questions.
And every Saturday a ten-round quiz – Pub Quiz – will be updated with ten general trivia questions.
Try all of our new puzzles today by clicking HERE or visiting www.dailymail.co.uk/puzzles on any device.