Achievements and Accomplishments Thread

[Naboka]

When my approach works it works very well. When you transpose a letter or two my method becomes a "horror show". That can really ruin a great board. I almost hit 500 points on one "look" today. If I used my other method: taking a "flyer" on if the S I know is somewhere over there is next to the t and n . . . I didn't take the "flyer", I looked up and saw I was at 483 points and sure enough the S was touching the n and t. I would have been well over 500 points with my opening look at the board.

I too hate when I mistype one of my rare "long" words. Then again, if I am looking for "long" words I'm usually sunk anyway.

Wow! 483 points on one look is crazy. My brain ain't that good.

Seriously doubt that I've ever done 200 since I'm frequently glancing over to refresh the deck.

Spelling is often my undoing. Ran across a board that had transcendence (at least I'm 99.9% positive it was there) but I kept trying trancendence without the s. Would have been the longest word if ... ended up dumping the game because it ate such a hole in the time budget. Though, before I pulled the trigger, I had time to examin the letter chain and realize the s was the missing element.

But...failures are part of it. No big deal.

Anyway, keep on truckin'.

[dannyb]

When my approach works it works very well. When you transpose a letter or two my method becomes a "horror show". That can really ruin a great board. I almost hit 500 points on one "look" today. If I used my other method: taking a "flyer" on if the S I know is somewhere over there is next to the t and n . . . I didn't take the "flyer", I looked up and saw I was at 483 points and sure enough the S was touching the n and t. I would have been well over 500 points with my opening look at the board.

I too hate when I mistype one of my rare "long" words. Then again, if I am looking for "long" words I'm usually sunk anyway.

[Naboka]

Unbelievable!!! Have you been visiting BALCO? Keep going strong. 600+ points and over 7 points per word for several months might even be more impressive.

Would if I could, considering the success of Barry Bonds, but Bay Area Labs be deceasednesses.

Though I do take creatine; and maybe the heart medicines and/or herbs are having some mysterious influence.

Taking the mystery out of what's happening is why I posted the read out of the game above. It's mostly a matter of approaching the game as a foreign language of ultra-rare words without the burden of meaning. It's just pattern recognition. Almost all the "ultra-rare" words on the list are pretty common in the game.

Then assembling chunks of anagrams from those letter combinations. Then memorizing and drilling those chunks.

As you know, I've partially adopted your approach of concentrating on what's in me skull rather than what's on the board. If I tried to trace words through their various weavings on the board, I'd fall flat. tangled and confused. Much of what goes on is educated guessing and extrapolation.

We all know that "averages" are pure bunk.

Most of the games I play start with have high potential outcomes rather than obviously low producers. The determinate is how many 3 letter words, 5, 6 and 7 letter words exist in the ultra rare categorty for that game. (notice 4 letter words isn't on that list.) 3 letters = 6 points, 5=8, 6=10, 7=12. Getting high APW depends on hitting that sweet spot of 5-7 letter words in abundance. My typing skills aren't good enough to spend lots of time on longer words, even if 8=14.9=16. 10=18 etc. (not including the impact of K, Q, Z, X)

Wasting time retyping long words wil deflate the balloon pretty quickly. And getting the same points (6) for either 3 or 4 letter words means expending an extra 33% effort for the same result. (see how silly this becomes?)

Then if certain standards aren't reached by 30 seconds and 60 seconds, the game gets dumped.

The failures far, far outnumber the successes. And if we averaged in the failures we'd be talking about decent but unspectacular results.

But, magic grows from pedestrian soil, so...

[dannyb]

Unbelievable!!! Have you been visiting BALCO? Keep going strong. 600+ points and over 7 points per word for several months might even be more impressive.

[Naboka]

I have to say that when you lay it out like that it is an object of wonderment. Such a symphony of rapid recall, accumulated knowledge, muscle memory, typing skill and eye movements to come up with results like that. I doubt there is anyone else who could rack up 105 ultra-rare words in 2 minutes. So congrats on your achievement!
I don't know where Stephen bought his word usage stats but there seem to be plenty of anomalies. Makes attaining all ultra-rare really tricky. I think you will do it though.

Thanks for the compliments and show of support.

Yeah, probably just a matter of time. The hardest part seems to be giving up on treasured words that are rated rare.

Well, that and not making mistakes typing.

The anomolies used to drive me crazy. But, now, it's just part of the exercise.

And since I mostly do this to exercise my brain, adding to the difficulty isn't necessarily offputting.

At the gym, it's common to hear advice that you should do the things you're worst at or like the least. Part of improvement.

The four categories from common to ultra-rare are illusions anyway. Ultra-rare runs the gamut from ho-hum-see-that-word every few games, to wow!-can't-believe-I've-finally-found-this after thousands of games. There are ultra-rare words here that pretty much every player learns fairly early and plays often. Then there are the really fun ones that require a lot of study--accompanied by a hope and prayer.

After all the effort sorting out which word falls into which category, if Stephen were to scrap the current sortment, I'd probably just move on to something else. Too much effort stultified to bother reincarnating a ghost who has so many other destinations and aspirations.

[lalatan]

I have to say that when you lay it out like that it is an object of wonderment. Such a symphony of rapid recall, accumulated knowledge, muscle memory, typing skill and eye movements to come up with results like that. I doubt there is anyone else who could rack up 105 ultra-rare words in 2 minutes. So congrats on your achievement!
I don't know where Stephen bought his word usage stats but there seem to be plenty of anomalies. Makes attaining all ultra-rare really tricky. I think you will do it though.

[Naboka]

Still in pursuit of a perfect game with all ultra-rare words.

A purely red unfolding.

Kind of tough to remember which is and which isn't. When cose is ultra-rare but coses is wide. Or eserine is rare but eserines is ultra-rare. And the hundreds of similar events.

Not to mention mistypes--like ice instead of tice.

Which makes for the challenge.

sigh

Not to mention the thought it was typed like eens when it wasn't.

Thought I'd post the read out, which will give a list of ultra-rares for people learning. It also provides the order they were entered.

Screen Shot 2023-05-18 at 8.38.43 PM.png

Screen Shot 2023-05-18 at 8.33.35 PM.png Screen Shot 2023-05-18 at 8.34.08 PM.png Screen Shot 2023-05-18 at 8.34.44 PM.png Screen Shot 2023-05-18 at 8.35.35 PM.png



Hope they're big enough to read. And the methodology comprehensible. In case anyone is interested....

[JedMedGrey]

Thanks, my friend!

[bwt1213]

Congratulations! It's always nice to find a good one; it can make your day, or even your month!

[JedMedGrey]

My best for April . . .
Best word: ENGINEERINGS (22 pts.) New record!
Longest word: ENGINEERINGS (12 letters) New record!

[JedMedGrey]

Most times when I try to add "-ness" to a word I get the "invalid word" message. This time it was accepted, and was a new record for the board.
Best word: TERSENESSES (20 pts.) New record!
Longest word: TERSENESSES (11 letters) New record!

previous record:
PUZZLE STATS:
Best Word: LITENESSES (18 pts)
Longest Word: LITENESSES (10 letters)

With Spring attempting to beat back Winter, perhaps we'll get a board with "vernalization" or "vernalisation" in it!

[bwt1213]

Congratulations, Kate! That's really impressive! In 8+ years of playing, I've never surpassed a standing record by that much.

[crazykate]

Screenshot_20230402-165326.png
I just managed to get a new high score for this board, which had been played 15 times, by nearly 100 points more than the previous record holder (the previous high score was 389), and undercutting the total word record by 20 words. (46 words is a LOT for my current playing style, I usually get between 20 and 40 words on a 5x5 grid.) I'm pretty much just competing against myself, but getting the odd record here and there is pretty gratifying.

[crazykate]

I just attempted to play a board which supposedly had more than 150 9+ letter words hidden in a 5x5 grid. I managed to (probably temporarily) snag the best& longest word records, and I got a score of 506 points with 51 words played.
Here's an extract of my word list (if the screenshot works...)Screenshot_20230326-213638.png

[lalatan]

The definition I saw for CIRCUMDUCTING was leading in circles. (I guess the way I used the word was a bit of stretch. I had the image of someone confused and going round in circles.) Don't know which dictionary it was and I can't find it again. PROBLEMATIZTION meant something more than what I thought it did: a process of stripping away common or conventional understandings of a subject matter in order to gain new insights. In a sense that's what we're doing by using an unorthodox way of playing Boggle.