Achievements and Accomplishments Thread

[dannyb]

Looks like 900 is just around the corner. I'm sure that you will get there.

[Naboka]

Am beginning to recognize which games to speed up on. Third personal best high score this month: 882, then 890, then 894.

If I could only figure out how to relax through the frazzles and jitters towards the end of the game--where getting too excited and too sped-up causes all those errors.

As it is, my wrists, hands and fingers have to take a break after games like this to recover.

(helps finding a game with relevant z's and k's.)

record 894 .png

[Brisul]

Congratulations!

Thank you! Let's see if I can hang on to 3rd place this month.

[fasteddieb]

New high score. I think that will be my last game for the month.

Congratulations!

[Brisul]

New high score. I think that will be my last game for the month.

[Naboka]

I enjoy your posts on a number of topics, even if they don't apply to me directly.
Looks like you're going to have to record video screen captures to convince the skeptics just like MegaWord and I had to do. One of the best time investments in WordTwist I made. Stopped all the accusations of cheating just like that.

carmelcorn22, I'm a long word player so I'll defer your question to naboka.
In the meantime have a look at this thread, watch the videos and expand your concept of what is humanly possible with talent, skill, study and a lot of determination:

https://forum.puzzlebaron.com/forum/puzzle-baron/wordtwist/22984-how-good-is-megaword

I enjoy your posts too.

As for recording...

That someone thinks I'm cheating is a weird sort of compliment by default. They've got to think I'm performing beyond what's probable. Just wish the dirty rats who keep wiping out my records would come to terms with that greatness and leave my games alone. grumble, grumble, grumble. Wish I could figure a way to cheat myself a thousand point game. Then I could be so proud of myself I could stop people in the mall and tell them how good I am.

There have been a few players that I wondered about. They were either exceptionally good with no learning curve evident, or they were using some kind of computer assist.

I wouldn't know how to do the record video screen captures. Might be interesting to try it. Though most of my games are failures and not worth recording. Might be tedious trying to capture a success.

[Naboka]

Question for you lalatan and Naboka: Can you explain how one could get "only" rare words in a 3 minute game of Wordtwist? How could you not slip in a few common words accidentally? Getting that many obscure words without a common seems impossible. I'm probably unaware of a different way to play or a different version that allows the game to be slowed down. Please explain, that would help a lot!

That quest to find ultrarare words is documented in lots of earlier posts. But, a summation:

I got bored doing the everyday words, so decided to set a challenge for myself of finding what I called a Red Board. Arbitrarily, I decided it had to be at least a hundred words. Otherwise, you type in one UR word and you've got a Red Board.

When you finish a game, the found words are listed to the left in the color category. Red, orange, yellow, green.

After over a year of trying and eliminating any words that weren't ultrarare, I finally managed to get the Red Board. Took lots of study, lots of failures, lots of discipline. Lots of mistyped words ruined the attempts. Probably a lot of players remember that quest, the near misses and final success.

I'm essentially playing a different game. I see the eat, ate, tea, eta and tae but don't type in the first 4. Only the tae is UR. I'm seeing many of those common and wide words but ignoring them. There are literally hundreds of those anagram groupings to learn. The trick is to eliminate the non-reds.

Why?

Why not?

I approached it as a foreign language. In that language certain words are used, others are not. But the only meaning assigned to those words is binary: red/not red.

I only do 4x4. Those two minutes are laborious enough for my hands. My digits start getting tired after about a minute and a half. So it's not even the 3 minutes of 5x5.

Most of the games I play end up with all 4 categories. Trying to find only UR words gets a little boring too. I like words like seity and aseity. One's ultra rare, one isn't. Or if I see a fairly common word like repudiations that will likely be the longest word I'll type it.

I sometimes post the screenshot readouts of a board's completed words list just because I think others are curious. I'd rather other players understood that it's not a big mystery about how I do it. The listed words are there in the order typed. They're mostly words we see lots and lots if we study the board results after playing. It's just a matter of memorizing those words and finding commonalities.

I place words in clusters according to commonalities. It creates a 3 dimensional Venn diagram of word possibilities. Sometimes, I'll have 3, 4, 5 or more clusters that I'm trying to drain simultaneously. I'll jump back and forth between the clusters, assessing what comes next. It organized chaos. Much like the middle finish line of a large cross country meet.

I don't know of a way to slow down the game. I do know that lots of us dump games that are failing miserably. I finish less than a third of the games I start. Often, that's predetermined because I'm looking to get a certain number of ultra rare words in a certain number of seconds. That's an exercise I use a lot to view and mentally organise a board so that it can be organised into words.

I help my wife with her kindergarten class most days. The mental process is similar. You get the kids to recognize what's on the page, then convert that information to usable memory. They look at because, spell b-e-c-a-u-s-e while looking at the page, then try to spell it from memory. Then they come back the next day and attempt to spell it. Sometimes they can, sometimes not after weeks of trying. People are different.

A mind is capable of ungodly amounts of data storage. What I do on Wordtwist is simply a more complex version of spelling because.

But it all comes down converting patterns of information into usable groupings. And hopefully usable patterns like lalatan has mastered to piece together long words from word segments. You don't want to be dependent on what you know. You want to be able to create with that knowledge and extrapolate further information.

As the wife tells me, I talk to much and overthink everything.

Apologies if I failed to make this stuff comprehensible.

ps: I would have given your post a like, but those bars under your user name indicate social interaction. If I give a single like to a new poster it will fill all the bars to orange. Seems unfair that my being loquacious should merit that influence. So, consider your post liked.

[lalatan]

Oh well. Sure very few are interested in all this, so... Sometimes, I wonder why I even bother to post at all. Though I write to sort out my thoughts, so it's beneficial to me if no one else.

I enjoy your posts on a number of topics, even if they don't apply to me directly.
Looks like you're going to have to record video screen captures to convince the skeptics just like MegaWord and I had to do. One of the best time investments in WordTwist I made. Stopped all the accusations of cheating just like that.

carmelcorn22, I'm a long word player so I'll defer your question to naboka.
In the meantime have a look at this thread, watch the videos and expand your concept of what is humanly possible with talent, skill, study and a lot of determination:

https://forum.puzzlebaron.com/forum/puzzle-baron/wordtwist/22984-how-good-is-megaword

[carmelcorn22]

Question for you lalatan and Naboka: Can you explain how one could get "only" rare words in a 3 minute game of Wordtwist? How could you not slip in a few common words accidentally? Getting that many obscure words without a common seems impossible. I'm probably unaware of a different way to play or a different version that allows the game to be slowed down. Please explain, that would help a lot!

[Naboka]

Interesting. I filtered for last week and didn't see that post. Nor did an advanced search for 114 yield anything. So if your mark was bettered we all know you pioneered the technique.

Re: tedium of learning and practice: I calculated that the 92k games I've played have taken 157.7 24-hr days of my life. (I am not the leader in that category.) Of course that doesn't include the amount of time spent sifting through games to find a promising one. That would easily double or triple it. Regardless, I consider it time well wasted. It has alleviated crushing boredom and probably saved me from dementia and preserved my sanity, such as it is.

Yep. Staving off dementia keeps me at this. The mental exercise coupled with physical exercise helps.

157.74 24 hour days! Wow!

Considering the fascinating words you've found, it's definitely time well wasted.

As for "sanity" I'm not always a fan. Nor can I give you a definition that isn't full of holes. Some of the most incredible things in life come from people who see what the rest of us don't.

Though, it's "crazy" how much time some of us spend on this game.

The person who got 114 UR words was:

Screen Shot 2024-02-22 at 12.09.40 PM.png

I posted it with the list of words.

If anyone can beat it, that's fine. I'm just challenging myself and have little interest in competing. Too much stress.

One exercise I've found to be detrimental to my health is typing fast. Just causes all sorts of inflammation. So, I let my fingers coast.

If I could better predict which games were going to be extremely productive, I might pick up the pace. But, knowing the available letters and getting them to connect into words within the board are two different things. I just finished a game that had over 200 possible UR words. I fell flat. Found 80, but ...

Trying to race against every possibility just has proven counterproductive.

Usually, I'm coasting along, then discover 2/3's of the way through the game that I hit a goldmine--but don't have enough time to capitalize. When the game ends, I may have typed over 100 UR words but will still have 10-20 or more queued in overlapping clusters that I just can't get to. If I knew what was there in advance, I'd be typing at 130-140 words per game rate rather than pacing at 100 ish.

Not to mention that I'm also looking for longer words these days just to up the APPW. And that takes up time.

Oh well. Sure very few are interested in all this, so... Sometimes, I wonder why I even bother to post at all. Though I write to sort out my thoughts, so it's beneficial to me if no one else.

It's almost 70 outside, so I'm gonna get out the electric bike and ride up to school to help the wife. Electric bikes certainly are a game changer.

[lalatan]

Though, someone got 114 UR word. (post on 2-17-24)

As they say: records are made to be broken...

without mentioning that willingness to suffer the endless tedium of learning and practice required to do it.

Interesting. I filtered for last week and didn't see that post. Nor did an advanced search for 114 yield anything. So if your mark was bettered we all know you pioneered the technique.

Re: tedium of learning and practice: I calculated that the 92k games I've played have taken 157.7 24-hr days of my life. (I am not the leader in that category.) Of course that doesn't include the amount of time spent sifting through games to find a promising one. That would easily double or triple it. Regardless, I consider it time well wasted. It has alleviated crushing boredom and probably saved me from dementia and preserved my sanity, such as it is.

[Naboka]

I agree with Brisul that 111 u-r words found in 2 minutes is a phenomenal achievement! Congrats!! I doubt very much that anyone will ever eclipse your record or even come close to it.

Thanks. lalatan. Appreciate it.

Though, someone got 114 UR word. (post on 2-17-24)

As they say: records are made to be broken...

without mentioning that willingness to suffer the endless tedium of learning and practice required to do it.

[lalatan]

Tied my best number of UR words the other day.

Was gonna post it, but decided not...

Then beat that today, so...

I agree with Brisul that 111 u-r words found in 2 minutes is a phenomenal achievement! Congrats!! I doubt very much that anyone will ever eclipse your record or even come close to it.

[admin]

The last post got flagged as potential spam.

Guess I've lost my trusted poster status.

First I can't find my keys, then I lose my status.

Life is just sooooo hard sometimes.

Sorry about that Naboka - not sure why you're not in the Trusted Users category. But I've manually added you now so hopefully you should be queue-free from here on out.

[Brisul]

Tied my best number of UR words the other day.

Was gonna post it, but decided not...

Then beat that today, so...

Like always: it's mostly common ultra rare words. Not mysterious. Just learning them.

Today's record is in the following post.

e.png



b.png b.png c.png d.png

This is phenomenal!!!!