I've thus far played in one round of Wheel of Fortune. Though I agree that it is the more random of the two available challenges, there are some key strategies that should help give your team the edge.
Don't fall in love with RSTLNE. They're great letters, but they're not the best. It doesn't matter what the show tells you. Here is the true distributions of the most common consonants and vowels, according to Wikipedia: TNSHRDLCMWFGYPBVKJXQZ EAOIU
The key difference to be aware of with Tengaged WoF is the fact that this version is solitaire WoF. In three-person WoF, your goal is to amass money without losing control of the board. In solitaire WoF, nobody is going to solve the puzzle out from beneath you. Your only real opponents are the clock and the Bankrupt wedge. Guessing an incorrect letter only costs you time, and nothing more. Because this is not three-person WoF, standard three-person strategies do not necessarily apply.
For starters, one doesn't need to guess the most common letters first. Save them for when they can really score you big!
Here's my full approach:
1. Start out by guessing upper-mid range consonants: DLCMWF.
2. Whenever you have money on hand, buy vowels: EAOIU.
3. If you are ever certain that a letter that will occur multiple times, just sit on it until later.
4. If you are out of upper-mid range consonants and vowels and you still don't know the solution to the puzzle, start guessing the upper range consonants alongside the lower-mid range consonants: TNSHR and GYPB
5. If at any point you know the solution to the puzzle, great! Let's start banking!
6. The goal at this point is to spin a $5000 no matter what. After you hit a $5000, choose the most frequently occurring letter in the puzzle and then solve.
6a. Anytime you spin something other than a $5000, guess a letter in the puzzle other than the most frequently occurring.
6b. If you spin something other than a $5000 and there is only one letter left in the puzzle, intentionally guess an incorrect letter. We want to score that $5000 before we leave.
6c. Don't get discouraged by Bankrupts! They will happen!
6d. Don't get discouraged if that $5000 never comes. Most of the time this strategy will pay off, but sometimes it won't at all. Just keep in mind that in the long run, playing for the $5000 is the way to go.
There are 24 wedges on the wheel. That means that the odds of spinning a $5000 is 1/24. That means that odds are even that a $5000 will occur within the next twelve spins.
Questions? Disagree with anything? Am I missing anything? Please let me know.
Letter frequency analysis is always a tricky area. Everything depends on the methodology. The choice of which study to cite is made even more difficult by the fact that WoF commonly uses proper nouns.
I wonder how Randomize populated Tengaged's WoF dictionary...
I've thus far played in one round of Wheel of Fortune. Though I agree that it is the more random of the two available challenges, there are some key strategies that should help give your team the edge.