(Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
I like to play over my second cup of coffee in the morning. I usually start with ‘TEARS’ or ‘RATES.’
— William Patterson, co-chair of the data protection practice at Chicago firm Swanson, Martin & Bell, offering his advice on playing Wordle, the popular word guessing game that he just helped sell to the New York Times. Patterson represented Josh Wardle, the game’s creator, in the deal. He says that he uses his first two guesses to rule out letters, and prefers to use “rates” because of his “Wheel of Fortune” knowledge: R, S, T, and E are some of the most commonly used letters in the English language. Patterson is on a 10-day winning streak. “Josh and I are very confident that The New York Times are going to be great stewards of the game,” he said.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
