> It's easy to assume making a word disappear is always the right choice, but you forget it changes the word it leaves behind as well. Very clever.

It's also easy to make the opposite assumption, that the goal is to change the other word. I initially felt weird about changing from a letter at position 3 to the same letter at position 1, but eventually realised that the goal is just to slide the word around, not necessarily to make a new word.