Achievements and Accomplishments Thread

[lalatan]

You've provided a new game within the game. Finding lalatan's longest word.

thought I'd try the color feature. Never knew how people did it before. fancy

Lol, I'm glad you're having a good time with it. I am too!

Wow, I just found a huge number word that crossed over from 5x5! (Maybe regular 4x4 players have seen them here before. I dunno.) Way to go, Stephen!! Didn't expect that. Saw decillions right away, septen- a few seconds later. Done and dusted in 12 secs. I get a kick out of the definitions for these meganumbers.
SEPTENDECILLION:
1. Cardinal numeral. (rare US modern British & Australian, short scale) 10⁵⁴. ¹

2. Cardinal numeral. (rare dated British & Australian, long scale) 10¹⁰². ¹

Only a difference of 10⁴⁸ Lol

30 PTS SEPTENDECILLIONS.jpg
The colors you chose in your last post had a Christmaslightlikeness to them.

[Naboka]

No background in chemistry, just 3 semesters of high school chemistry. I thought it was cool how it all worked. I memorized the periodic table in grade 10, which impressed the teacher. I think thereafter he gave me better marks.

I wound up with 82 records for the day yesterday. Of course, it had a lot to do with the new games being presented in shorter time periods than usual to give me an opportunity to play those words. I've been playing the long word game for 8 years now. A lot of things come automatically w/o thinking, just like speed players. My vocabulary has burgeoned beyond what I ever thought it could. The speed with which I spot different components of words seems to keep increasing. I also see which paths of letters will work more quickly. For instance, I played a board before I wrote this: I saw over-, para-meter-ize. Looked at the timer, 2:51 left.[/QUOTE]

Wowzer, lalatan! 9 seconds to find it.

You've provided a new game withing the game. Finding lalatan's longest word.

Just played a board I normally wouldn't just because you had a 16/30. Was really scratching my head on it. Had the -ness, but... nothing else popped out. Saw the tough- and had seen what went between it and figured it had to be that eventhough I thought it was two words normally. It worked--but I barely had enough time to dump the game. It was like sliding under the closing door at the last second in an adventure movie.

Yesterday, wasn't so lucky. Time ran out while still looking for your word. Guess I'll never know what it was. Plus the insult of adding another zero-points game to the accumulating zero games from distractions like messing with the music feed and forgetting that a game is counting down. The ASPG takes a kidney punch each time.

Crazy how fast you can recognize and string together word components with enough practice. Some games it's like a time warp, where all that stuff comes together before your brain has time to logically process it. Words appear in your mind and you check, and sure enough, those words are there.

thought I'd try the color feature. Never knew how people did it before. fancy

[Brisul]

I almost didn't even compete this month. I had a change of heart and have so far scored higher than ever and have done so faster than I had ever previously. It took me only 20 days to reach the number of games needed to qualify for competition. Normally it takes me until the last day of the month!

[lalatan]

lalatan,

Just encountered another 16/33 to your credit.

Most of us are lucky to find one in a month. But, you're steamrolling them.

How in the world do you find some of these esoteric words? This one was a chemical term ending in -azines and beginning with b.

You didn't play the singular, so I don't know if it was tried and not accepted.

With a background in chemistry, I was able to find terms on this board ending in -iridine(s) and -azine(s) but not the 16. Just curious if you also have a background in chemistry or if your success is simpy the result of lots of vocabulary study in different fields--or the serendipity of stringing together word elements and seeing what happens.

Not going to give away too much info on the word--to avoid the piggybacking

For that particular word I spotted BROMO- which I know is the combo form of bromine. So I started looking for a chemistry word. I then spotted -azines, which I know is an ending for some chemical compounds. Then I examined the letters between the 2 and determined which order of those letters might be feasible to join them. I think I succeeded on the second attempt. I never saw the word before. I then submitted the game with over a minute left on the timer. I didn't play the singular because of some carryover from playing 5x5. 33 pts is a very good score in 4x4 but it's middle of the road in 5x5. I thought afterward I could've played the singular but I'm not concerned about pts tallied, just records and then APPW somewhat.

No background in chemistry, just 3 semesters of high school chemistry. I thought it was cool how it all worked. I memorized the periodic table in grade 10, which impressed the teacher. I think thereafter he gave me better marks.

I wound up with 82 records for the day yesterday. Of course, it had a lot to do with the new games being presented in shorter time periods than usual to give me an opportunity to play those words. I've been playing the long word game for 8 years now. A lot of things come automatically w/o thinking, just like speed players. My vocabulary has burgeoned beyond what I ever thought it could. The speed with which I spot different components of words seems to keep increasing. I also see which paths of letters will work more quickly. For instance, I played a board before I wrote this: I saw over-, para-meter-ize. Looked at the timer, 1:51 left.

[bwt1213]

I scored above 800 the other day for the first time, with a score of 807. It wasn't the high score for the board, but I was still pretty happy.

Congratulations! I may never reach that level myself, but I did set my own all-time high of 781 a few days ago, so maybe it's not quite as impossible as I'd always thought. So you have bragging rights, and deserve them!

[Naboka]

lalatan,

Just encountered another 16/33 to your credit.

Most of us are lucky to find one in a month. But, you're steamrolling them.

How in the world do you find some of these esoteric words? This one was a chemical term ending in -azines and beginning with b.

You didn't play the singular, so I don't know if it was tried and not accepted.

With a background in chemistry, I was able to find terms on this board ending in -iridine(s) and -azine(s) but not the 16. Just curious if you also have a background in chemistry or if your success is simpy the result of lots of vocabulary study in different fields--or the serendipity of stringing together word elements and seeing what happens.

Not going to give away too much info on the word--to avoid the piggybacking

[John13verse34]

I scored above 800 the other day for the first time, with a score of 807. It wasn't the high score for the board, but I was still pretty happy.

Well done! :-D

[bionicflutist]

I scored above 800 the other day for the first time, with a score of 807. It wasn't the high score for the board, but I was still pretty happy.

[Naboka]

You posted your question while I was typing my previous one. Haha
I'm not really sure if I've done that before. I never took screenshots of records set in 4x4. I remember I did well on the PHOTOSENSITIZERS string of words but don't recall their pt values. Surprisingly, the brain retool to play 4x4 long words I wrote about isn't applicable now.

Well, I'm glad you're playing 4x4. You were the only play on that board.

If I hadn't seen that you had a 16/33 I wouldn't have been hyperalert to finding it. Caught it just as it sailed over the fence.

The downside: that search slowed finding other words,

but sometimes the sacrifice/reward makes it worth it.

It'll still be back in circulation in a few days, so you can add to your record collection.

ps: sure wish I had my record collection from the 60's and 70's. But, who would have thunk.

[lalatan]

lalatan,

124 points with 4 words in 4x4!

You posted your question while I was typing my previous one. Haha
I'm not really sure if I've done that before. I never took screenshots of records set in 4x4. I remember I did well on the PHOTOSENSITIZERS string of words but don't recall their pt values. Surprisingly, the brain retool to play 4x4 long words I wrote about isn't applicable now.

[lalatan]

I think the difference on the 4x4 side has been more noticeable. I've been finding a much higher percentage of boards with words of 14, 15, or 16 letters than I'm used to seeing.

I tried out 4x4 and you are correct! I collected 70 best/longest word records since yesterday afternoon, solving some new words in under 10 secs. I guess 4x4 now has long words I'm used to seeing in 5x5. Having a blast. Thanks for the intel.

[Naboka]

lalatan,

124 points with 4 words in 4x4!

Wow!

You ever gotten more?

Screen Shot 2022-12-19 at 5.21.29 PM.png

[lalatan]

That's interesting. Are you finding that on the 4x4 boards also?

I haven't played 4x4 for over a year. For a while I thought I might collect more best/longest word records because of the shorter game time. But, as I wrote in the past, I need to retool my brain to the shorter time and smaller board. Then I thought, "What's the point of doing that when my avg solve time in 5x5 was 56 seconds/game? I should just play 5x5." I see John has answered your question so that's good he's seeing more long words. Maybe I'll try it for a few games.

[John13verse34]

That's interesting. Are you finding that on the 4x4 boards also?

I think the difference on the 4x4 side has been more noticeable. I've been finding a much higher percentage of boards with words of 14, 15, or 16 letters than I'm used to seeing.

[Naboka]

In order to get a good feel on the new boards with umpteen ultra-rare words available I waited to weigh in on the topic. My experience is there are so many promising pieces of words that it's more difficult to find one with enough pts to warrant keeping the record. The majority of time the best word available is worth <24 pts. My opinion is confirmed by the plethora of game stats where the best word is <=24 pts with an ultra-rare word count of over 50 9+ letters. I have played many of those games to see if the record holder missed the best word but almost always they found the best one available. So, although the new boards are a boon to speed players intent on achieving new personal bests, for me they sap my desire to find long words because there are so many boards that come up with nothing significant. I've found many new long words, which make it more interesting, but don't want to spend so much time clicking through so many games.

John13verse34, congrats on reaching 10k long word records!

That's interesting. Are you finding that on the 4x4 boards also?

Since the longest/best word isn't my balliwick, the influx of so many 6-12 letter words that weren't included has been a bit exciting.

But, in practical terms, they're not producing higher total points: 100 7-point-words produces the same result regardless of which ones are used. 100x7 will always result in 700, regardless whether it's 700 apples or 700 dust motes.

To avoid inflammation, I purposely try to keep the word totals under 110. Just an easy pace. So, it's common to leave known but unplayed valuable words. Doesn't matter if the unplayed words total 2 or 20, they're still unplayed, worth zero.

My scores are a bit lower on average because the new words act as individual units rather than part of a larger automatic feed. Slows things down until the new ones act as part of automatic groupings. Difference between firing automatic vs semi-automatic weapons.

Stephen did note when introducing the new games and new words, they aren't going to change much for most players.

As long as someone is benefitting, it's probably a good thing. It would be interesting to see a benefit distribution graph. It'd probably be basically flat until around the 95th percentile, then begin an accelerating increase.

Like most economies, the upper couple of percent benefit the most. It's just that this is an economy of words rather than dollars.