Strange record times

[puffybob]

Yesterday, after not having broken a record in months, I broke about seven records in one night. And my times weren't even very good. It can't be because the puzzles were new, because at least some of them had comments from months ago on them.

And there were some *very* strange numbers: Sometimes my "record" time would be longer than the "average" time listed for the puzzle! Something very strange is going on.

What's up?

[puffybob]

I see there is some info on this at the end of the "GUEST" high scores thread. It's still not entirely clear, though. How did Admin know that people were not playing by the rules? And how exactly does one go about not playing by the rules? (I suppose I could understand if admin doesn't want to discuss that.)

[imported_Lurker]

Oh, PuffyBob, you have missed a week of angst. There were some people running their own solving programs, producing impossibly low solve times and making the site run slow. Tdog admitted he was doing it, and the others were found out by deduction on Admin's part. A new player with a 16 second AVERAGE time? Who also happens to be a professor in computer science? Had to be running his own programs.

Admin has since removed the offenders and their questionable records. The rest of us get to feel like geniuses until Bansai and JCarlos set their 7-second solves.

[puffybob]

Thanks, Lurker. You're right, I never keep up with what's going on in the forums.

It's interesting. I've been playing pretty regularly over the last couple of weeks and didn't notice any new names regularly popping up in the record fields. Maybe there are just too many puzzles for 700 to be that noticeable. Seemed to me that bansai & co. were as dominant as ever.

I remember when I first started playing these games wondering whether bansai was somehow cheating with some kind of cryptogram-solving program. Then my own times got faster, to the point where I'm within ten seconds of his (her?) times pretty regularly (though many of his times still astound me). And I'm a hunt-and-peck typist! Now I just see him as an outlier who has found the activity he was born to do.

Down with Tdog, though.

[smoochie222]

brother

I emailed the admin about tdog etc

[abra]

Ah, that 'splains it. I read the other topic. I knew that something weird was going on. I'm not a record setter and here I was setting records with pretty high solve times. I do wish my grandson had been here to see it, he'd have been so proud.

[puffybob]

Yes, it will be hard to go back to obscurity after those fifteen minutes of fame . . .