Achievements and Accomplishments Thread

[mdyak]

I've never seen that. That's an amazing find!

No, actually that means some sort of machine did that... definitely no a human

[2cute]

Looking at the board stats before playing: played 31 times, a good player with a high score of 394.

Figured maybe beating 400 was possible.

And with the 3 longest ultra rare words unplayed (because the longest played word was 6 letters) thought... possible.

But never expected...

A bit of a thrill...

Woohoo!

That is a an achievement, congrats. To beat all the totals AFTER it was PLAYED 31 times is fantastic.

[Naboka]

To demonstrate the sisyphean nature of this game, for months I'ma been working hard to learn new words and type faster. Today I scored 694 and 703 on the 4x4's

but still only increased my "highest scores" in "current records" held by a single point. Despite all the 500 and 600 point games today.

The competition here is brutal.

Makes me wonder if pushing the rock up the hill is even worth the effort.

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[jbud1980]

Kicked my butt this evening... Haha!

I upgraded to premium membership because the banner ad kept popping-up in front of the area of the grid where you can see the word you typed. It recently started, but premium membership is only $40/year, which is nothing.

Total points: 542 New record!
Total words: 104 (40 common,17 wide,6 rare,41 ultra rare) New record!
Best word: RAUNCHINESSES (24 pts.)
Longest word: RAUNCHINESSES (13 letters)

PUZZLE STATS:
Played: 13 times
Average Score: 291 points
Average Words: 65.8 words
High Score: 450 points by jbud1980
Most Words: 92 words by jbud1980
Best Word: RAUNCHINESSES (24 pts) by jbud1980
Longest Word: RAUNCHINESSES (13 letters) by jbud1980

[Naboka]

To demonstrate the sisyphean nature of this game, for months I'ma been working hard to learn new words and type faster. Today I scored 694 and 703 on the 4x4's

but still only increased my "highest scores" in "current records" held by a single point. Despite all the 500 and 600 point games today.

The competition here is brutal.

Makes me wonder if pushing the rock up the hill is even worth the effort.

Screen Shot 2022-04-18 at 6.38.09 PM.png Screen Shot 2022-04-18 at 6.35.39 PM.png

Guess this explains why so many of my records disappear. The scores are highly vulnerable. This must have been hanging around for months. Amazing that it accumulated 30 plays without getting crushed.

Learned about "diapause" wondering (while gardening and finding those critters) why and how insects survive the harsh winters.

Playing the game, found "pausing," then "dia-" for "diapausing" and gambled the "non" would work for "nondiapausing."

Eureka! A new word!

Didn't play that way months ago. Big difference learning to string together word elements, accumulating them during the game, queuing them up as possibilities while searching for connections.

All while rushing through arrays of anagrams that produce lots of points.

Almost doubled the score on the old game.

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[admin]

the banner ad kept popping-up in front of the area of the grid where you can see the word you typed.

Hmmm, that definitely should not be happening! If you or anyone else ever sees an ad interfering with gameplay, please email a screenshot of what you're seeing to me at admin@puzzlebaron.com and I will fix it ASAP.

[Naboka]

So, I was cruising along,

minding my own business,

listening to the best of slow blues rock ballads on YouTube

when this slapped me in the face!

image_800.png

I always examine the gameboard stats to see what to expects (sic) and what to looks for. A board with 152 ultra rare words is normally a high point gold mine. It's the kind of board the top players might get 1,000 points or more. Especially with 48 and 46 words that are only 4-5 letters.

But! It had been played 34 times and the person with the most words is perpetually in the top 10 on point averages. So, how had 418 total points survived 34 tries?!!!

Curious, had to take a screen shot for possible later reference.

Screen Shot 2022-04-23 at 2.49.07 PM.png

How this board eluded all the top scorers in all categories is just plain weird. There's probably a longer word or two, worth more points that lalatan and others would have found, but... Guess they'll just have to wait until they find the 152 word mystery board.

btw, -metries is a useful word segment. Also got algometries, which I knew from algometry, but the alkalimetries was mostly a gamble.

[lalatan]

Excellent job on bumping up your score and finding the best/longest word. I doubt if there was anything more in that board worth more pts.

It's interesting that 20 mins prior to your post I played a 5x5 board that contained haemo- and alkali-. I spent too long trying to pair the 2 and time expired. I took a screenshot of it and the post-mortem revealed that alkalimeters had been available. In my experience a word and its variations are often released in puzzles simultaneously. I have dubbed it "theme week" in my thinking. For instance, this week I played RHINOLARYNGOLOGIES (no oto- available). Then today I found OTORHINOLARYNGOLOGICAL. (I hadn't seen either word for months til now.) I was unaware that the phenomenon also occurred in 4x4 and 5x5 at the same time.

[lalatan]

Post flagged as spam after edit:

Naboka, excellent job on significantly bumping up your score and finding the best/longest word. I doubt if there was anything more in that board worth more pts.

It's interesting that 20 mins prior to your post I played a 5x5 board that contained haemo- and alkali-. I spent too long trying to pair the 2 and time expired. I took a screenshot of it and the post-mortem revealed that alkalimeters had been available. In my experience a word and its variations are often released in puzzles simultaneously. I have dubbed it "theme week" in my thinking. For instance, this week I played RHINOLARYNGOLOGIES (no oto- available). Then today I found OTORHINOLARYNGOLOGICAL. (I hadn't seen either word for months til now.) I was unaware that the phenomenon also occurred in 4x4 and 5x5 at the same time.

[Naboka]

Post flagged as spam after edit:

Naboka, excellent job on significantly bumping up your score and finding the best/longest word. I doubt if there was anything more in that board worth more pts.

It's interesting that 20 mins prior to your post I played a 5x5 board that contained haemo- and alkali-. I spent too long trying to pair the 2 and time expired. I took a screenshot of it and the post-mortem revealed that alkalimeters had been available. In my experience a word and its variations are often released in puzzles simultaneously. I have dubbed it "theme week" in my thinking. For instance, this week I played RHINOLARYNGOLOGIES (no oto- available). Then today I found OTORHINOLARYNGOLOGICAL. (I hadn't seen either word for months til now.) I was unaware that the phenomenon also occurred in 4x4 and 5x5 at the same time.

Thanks.

Despite the psychologist's view of synchronicity, I find great pleasure in hearing stories about timely and parallel experiences. You finding "alkalimeters" ( though post mortem) made me smile.

I doubt that most players pay much attention to the details and discoveries you mention. The details are just so...tedious.

Mostly, progress in any field stems from analysis and synthesis. Taking things apart to understand them, and putting the elements back together in new and creative ways. The real genius comes from taking disparate elements and learning how to connect them so they work in harmony.

In art, visual contrast brings excitement.

Or not. If the artist fails to properly balance and connect. Then: cacophony, disharmony, inconsonance, failure.

This applies to most things: music, cooking, conversation.

Here's a game just played that might impress you somewhat--though probably won't mean diddley to most. The board stats showed almost 400 words available. The high score was a hair under 600, and just short of 140 most words. Didn't register as necessarily being high on points per word average, but...

the dilution factor can distort what's possible. Most players will type in every word they see regardless of point value. So, a bunch of 3 point words will dilute the average points per word.

Anyway, -ing jumped out, then -ings. The difference between -ing and -ings is dramatic. "Mastering" is worth 8 points, "masterings" worth 18! 10 points for a single key stroke.

Eating-5 points, eatings-12 points. resting-6, restings 14, rosetting-10, rosettings 18, rostering-8, rosterings-18. sorting-6, sortings-14. And on and on.

(Though smattering is 9 points and smatterings is 10, so the wide disparity isn't constant. )

With the "-ings" in mind, and noting the "rostie" anagram, the possibility of getting lots of points per word made the old heart pitter-patter.

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Eventhough I saw a lot more words (such as resting and eating) I ignored them and concentrated on the potential point getters. Some of the -ing words wouldn't take the "s" so that wasted time. And I had to retype several of the longer words, like rosettings and rosterings, because the fingers were just too excited

Still, finishing with over 8 points a word was a first.

And, getting the most total points despite having more than 60 fewer words?

Priceless.

[lalatan]

Screen Shot 2022-04-24 at 6.36.30 AM.png
Even though I saw a lot more words (such as resting and eating) I ignored them and concentrated on the potential point getters. Some of the -ing words wouldn't take the "s" so that wasted time. And I had to retype several of the longer words, like rosettings and rosterings, because the fingers were just too excited

Still, finishing with over 8 points a word was a first.

And, getting the most total points despite having more than 60 fewer words?

Priceless.

Wow, I don't ever recall seeing a Total Words stat line w that many words found and w such a high proportion of ultra-rare. You showed good discipline and skill ignoring the lesser value words. 8 pts/word w 75 words played is amazing. Congrats!

[dannyb]

I just played a board and found 106 words while only scoring 399 points. Has anyone found more words and scored less than 400 points?

[Naboka]

Used to seem like an impossible task.

Then two in one morning.

Lot of work paying off.

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[lalatan]

Very impressive. Congrats! With your successes you are probably changing how some people play the game.
You're tantalizingly close to getting 100 ultra-rare words...

[Naboka]

[QUOTE=lalatan;n29680]Very impressive. Congrats! With your successes you are probably changing how some people play the game.
You're tantalizingly close to getting 100 ultra-rare words...[/QUOTE

100 ultra-rare words. That's an interesting goal.

Though I haven't studied whether all the high point words are rare or ultra rare. I wouldn't sacrifice a wide word that's only 4 letters for 6 points. Zoo is probably a common word, as is tax. Quiet, quite, quit. Lot of words with k, x, z or q are probably common or wide but provide good points, so...

Did you notice that the last game above had zero common words? And the previous best had 40-50 more total words, so there is that advantage, as all that extra verbage wasn't even sufficient to get 600 points.

Necessity being the mother it is forced a poor typer to find a more efficient way to run up points. Exceptional typists wouldn't benefit much from what I do. Plus it takes hours and hours and hours of memorizing what is and what isn't worth typing. You can learn a lot of high point words watching Megaword's Youtube videos. Freeze the image of the played results and write down what's juicy.

I doubt many players would be interested in learning what words NOT to play. Most are interested in finding and learning words of any sort.

The main takeaway is that learning a lot of high point words can make a difference. And avoiding the opportunity costs of typing in low value words provides more time to take advantage of the juicies.

I probably wouldn't have typed either of the longest words in the above downloads except the board stats indicated they would be records. I sure didn't type non, restrict, restricted, measure or less even though they were obviously there.

This hybrid approach also demands a nearly masochistic willingness to fail. Just played a game that was crash and burn. By the time I realized the ultra-rare and rare words that I recognized were too sparsely populated to make a difference, the clock left me with the race status of the hare but with only tortoise speed to try to make up the difference.

Here's that board. Just so people don't get the idea I'm killing it consistently.

Screen Shot 2022-04-30 at 3.15.39 PM.png

This against a player I beat by nearly a hundred points earlier in the day.

The ego just shrugs and grabs a carmel to sooth the shattering wounds.

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