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SUBMIT YOUR IDEAOnly did the first part.
my first attempt took 1hr22mins to run with correct results.
my second attempt, and with thanks to @NicoleJohnson took 1.5 seconds.
Both attempts in WB
What was the answer for the 1 and 2 blank hands? I had SQUAB for the one blank and QOPH or QUIP for the two blank hand.
In the course of this, I built a macro that makes permutation lists for 9 or less items, but my actual answer did not need it in the end. The macro uses look-up tables so runs quick, the 9 item list takes 10 secs to build. Also, because it uses lookups, the list is right once in the table, and so the chance of a bug in the result is much smaller. It can be found here... https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Community-Gallery/Permutations/ta-p/1069277
I did the spelling bee challenge prior to this one, so thankfully could take lessons learned from there to reach the solution.