Today’s puzzle proved to be a delightful chase, with the M playing an excellent game of hide-and-seek across multiple positions before settling into its proper home.

SALET opened with its usual entropy-driven precision, immediately locking A into position 2. The solver’s suggestion of MARAN for the second guess was brilliant—it confirmed A and R in positions 2 and 3 while revealing that M belonged somewhere else in the word. With 571 candidates narrowed to just 7, we were making excellent progress.

PARMA continued the methodical elimination, keeping M restless in the yellow zone while confirming our AR foundation. HARIM was the breakthrough guess, finally placing M in its correct position 5 and giving us the satisfying _ARM pattern with only two candidates remaining.

CAROM completed the puzzle elegantly—a billiards term where the cue ball contacts two object balls in succession. Rather fitting that the M bounced around multiple positions before finding its mark, much like a perfectly executed carom shot itself. Five guesses well spent!