Achievements and Accomplishments Thread

[Naboka]

This is looking promising.

Set a monthly best, which was my second best ever. Next game beat that by a point. Then the next game on a new board hit my third 700 in a row. Think I'll quit while I'm ahead.

A little part of me felt guilty about the games going out of circulation because some of the top players would have topped a 1,ooo points on them, but...


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[2cute]

Since I am a two finger hunt and peck typist, after I click play, I take a glance at the board memorize a section of the board that "looks good" look down at the keyboard and peck through the combinations. With that first look I often get over 100 points, sometimes over 200 points and occasionally over 300 points. I just had a 456 point "one look" opening. That is a record for me (ended up with 579 points with a lot more "looks"). I just felt that I needed to blow my own horn.

That's pretty amazing for a hunt & peck technique! Congrats on your achievements!

[2cute]

I have plants in pots on my deck. We have lots of squirrels. They often dig up plants in those pots, looking for nuts they could never have planted in them. They also dig holes in the garden for the same reason, often destroying plants there, too. So now all the plants on the deck are surrounded by chicken wire to keep the squirrels out. And the little buggers will try to pry the chicken wire cylinders apart to get inside, too. And no, it's not that they want to eat the plants for food; they don't eat the plants, just tear them to pieces and then dig holes in the soil in the pot. They're vandals. I think if I want to tend my garden, I should probably have a greenhouse. With steel doors the squirrels can't chew through.

This would also prevent deer from enjoying your feast as well. I once had a neighbor that had a garden in his back yard, the deer arrived nightly to feast on his accomplishment. Then he got wise, he created a cage w/electrified wire & would turn it on around dusk. After being zapped by cage more than once the animals stayed away.

[JohnAkaMrP]

Hi WordTwist community!

Sorry for this Great Wall of Text. I started this after Naboka graciously replied to an earlier post of mine with a lengthy description of their methods for having improved their scoring in a remarkable and quick fashion (I’ve now moved Naboka onto the list of people who I aspire to beat if I have a one-in-a-hundred game). I wanted to respond in kind at the time, but I found it more difficult to type what I’ve got below than I guessed it would be. In part, I think I can trace that difficulty to the reality that I literally never talk about my playing this game with anyone, including my wife or our two girls. They know I play, but I feel like I might bore them to talk about it.

Anyway, I see now that Naboka may have deleted their earlier reply. At the risk of seeming out-of-context, here’s that wall of text I’ve just finished describing what I think has got me where I am, along with what I’m working on and one potential tool that could bump me up to another tier.

Things I think I do pretty well (these are not unique to me, I’m just saying that they’re part of my skill set):

Orderliness of word entry - if I perceive the appropriate sets of letters are present, I’ll type out what’s available in a reasonably repeatable manner. So instead of having muscle memory for single words, I feel like I have muscle memory for sets of words. When things are really clicking on a suitable board, I can pile on a lot of words/points pretty quickly.

Building new words by adding to the end - I suspect that everyone whose play styles emphasize word/point totals are doing the same thing, but I feel like I really emphasize word sets that build upon each other one letter at a time. I haven’t yet been able to think of one with 8+ letters, but there are a lot of 7-lettered words where the first three letters make a valid word, the first four likewise make a word, etc. NURSERS and PURSERS are two random examples that are available somewhat often. This complements the item just above.

Typing - I consulted Captain Obvious, who says that being able to type pretty quickly is a necessity for reaching beyond a certain plateau of words and total score. I’m 53 and was very interested in computers when I was young. I took a typing class (in 9th grade I think?) and put some energy into doing well and getting to some pretty decent words per minute. I hadn’t actually tested myself in decades until just now, but I got 84 wpm with 98% accuracy, which I think is better than what I could bang out on a typewriter in days of old. Typing speed helps both 1) on boards I could theoretically find many more words than I can actually type in two minutes, and 2) on boards with relatively fewer words, since I can knock those out and then have some time left over to look for words that just don’t jump out at me.

What I’m working on:

Spending less time trying letter combos that just aren’t words - this was another item I talked about with Captain Obvious, who confirmed that time spent typing letter combos that aren’t words is counter-productive (especially if I fear that I’ve mistyped it and try it a second time, doink). At the present time, I could probably improve just as much from teaching myself that certain letter combos just aren’t words as I could from learning new words.

Getting better at -ing’s - I’ve been making a conscious effort for a while to get better at finding legitimate words ending in -ing and likewise not spending time to enter -ing combinations that aren’t words. However, I’m nowhere close to where I’d like to be, so sometimes boards with -ing can be trouble for me. I’ll realize at the end that I’ve spent xx seconds looking for -ing words and have scored fewer points than if I’d simply been working on other parts of the board.

Building new words by adding to the start - at any point in time, I’ve got a very informal and strictly in my head set of words that can serve as the back end of longer words. I then make a conscious effort to find and work on those words and extensions. For example, at the moment, I try to extend EACH whenever it’s available by adding one or two letters at the start to form longer words (beach, leach, meach (?), peach, reach, teach, breach, preach, bleach). My guess is that this particular set of words could be a worthwhile investment since those extended words in many cases can be further supplemented with an -es, -er/ers, -ing/ings, -ed, etc. At some point after I feel like I can find those words without conscious effort, I’ll move on to some other word that can serve as a springboard to many others.

What I think I should start doing that would help me:

Using an appropriate web site to help me learn additional words that end in some other word (i.e. what I mentioned just above). I don’t know why I didn’t think to look until recently, but plenty of web sites will provide a list of words ending in some letter combination. The problem that jumps out is disagreement on what are valid words. Just as one example, I looked at the first three Google results for “words ending in each”. Each agrees on five everyday words, but one adds meach, and another one adds both meach and geach. If anyone knows of a particular site whose dictionary is close to what Wordtwist uses, I’d be grateful for that pointer!

Bonus points to anyone who has reached the end. I hope you’ve found an item or two that might help you on your WordTwist journey!

Cheers,
John

[bwt1213]

Naboka, you keep saying you're a slow typist. I was decent, but I'm going downhill and I don't like it at all but I can't do anything about it. Right now, if I feel like I'm typing at demonic speed, at the end of the game I've done 105 words. The problem is that I've mistyped about as many words as I've typed. I keep typing a "g" in things that have no "g" in them, and similar kinds of things. So, here's the deal: My average score per game is down about ten over the last year. My average words per game is down about five. My average score per game is up -- but the field is up, too. by a lot. If I averaged this many points per word five years ago, I'd certainly have been in the top twenty. Now I might not make the top fifty. Five years ago, I was averaging 108 words per game. Now, I'm averaging 98. I'm probably about the same age as you, but I'm being whacked by the years in a different way than you are.

I am a very fast reader. I'm not as fast as I used to be, though. When I was in grade school, I was timed (they did a LOT of that kind of stuff back then, as I'm sure you remember) at more than 2,000 words per minute. Now, I'm maybe half that. I have a problem with shaky hands and poor fine muscle coordination. I know how to do handwriting and in a number of different languages and alphabets but I can't DO it any more. So I don't do what you do. I can't. But I can read ungodly numbers of words in a short time and I have a superb vocabulary, but my hands just can't translate that for me. If you think "gee, I'll bet that's frustrating", you understand.

My workarounds are different than yours and they're evolving as my physical capabilities diminish and change. I play only 5x5 now, so the following applies only to that game.
1. Select boards that have more than 300 words on the two lowest categories and more than 300 words on the top two categories. This isn't iron-clad, though, because --
2. If I see a board played to a really high score by someone I always surpass, play it anyway. The other stats don't matter.
3. If I see a board with a whole LOT of words and good players have played it to really disappointing results, reject that game. Something's really wrong with the board.
4. Any board played more than 30 times with a top score under 500 isn't worth my time. The number of words doesn't matter.
5. The best boards have total words for the bottom two categories about the same as the top two categories, and ESPECIALLY have large numbers of very long ultra-rare words. Not that I usually get those words, but their fragments are often worth a lot of points, too. Reject boards that have a really large number of rare and ultra-rare words and far fewer words in the other two categories; yeah, those words exist, but they're not in my lexicon and I will never type them except by accident. Also reject boards that have far fewer rare and ultra-rare words than the lower two categories -- high scores on such boards come down to typing contests, and I will lose those contests.
6. I always need a couple of boards to get my mind and hands in the right shape to post a decent score. Any time I post a reasonable score on the first board, I am certain that I would have done far better if I'd played a few others first. Usually, my best scores are on the third or fourth or subsequent boards.
7. There are days I just can't play. I don't see the words, or I'm slow at it, or my hands won't cooperate. Try as I might, I have trouble breaking 400. On those days, I do something else.

[Naboka]

Second day in a row with a score over 800.

New high score.

Yipee!

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[bwt1213]

Second day in a row with a score over 800.

New high score.

Yipee!

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Congratulations! If I were envious, this would trigger it. May tomorrow be better for you.

[mcdonna]

So this is a brag and a wail. I've been a member since 2009, and just set a new word record today:
QUINQUANONAGINTILLIONTH (23 letters, 48 points)

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BUT my Xfinity Internet connection has been flaky the past month and when I pressed SUBMIT the little ball spun and spun and spun ... and finally gave up.

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So I am recording my accomplishment and my frustration here!

And after one hour and 20 minutes of effort (and two more dropped connections) I have an appointment for an Xfinity tech to appear at my home on Monday afternoon to try to fix the problem.

Donna

[Spike1007]

I just posted & then edited my post (adding the word "how"), and the system flagged it as potential spam. It's getting pickier. This time though, it actually told me that & highlighted my post in green, telling me that it won't be visible to others until the moderator OKs it. Anyway, here's my post in case the earlier one doesn't show up:

mcdonna, you have my sympathies (and congratulations just for finding the word).

I have Xfinity too and have intermittent problems where my modem somehow loses the connection to the internet, usually in the mornings. My problem is kind of the opposite though. I'll try to drop a game to maintain my APPW after entering some low-value word, the little spinning ball shows up, the board times out, and the game counts, tanking my average.

Then again, the problem is probably the same, and our symptoms are just different. From what I can tell, once you start a game, it's running both on your computer and the server, with some (but not constant) communication between the two. (I have deliberately disconnected the internet during play, and the game seems to play normally (at least until time is out). It still counts down and I'm able to enter words on my end.) Anyway, if you lose connection before playing a word, it's gone (unless communication does start up again before the game is over). At least some times though, if you lose connection after playing the word, it seems to count, and I assume that communication has taken place somewhere along the line. Now I'm tempted to do some more tests (probably on 4x4 so that I don't screw up my 5x5 stats), and learn more about when communication takes place.

This stuff is probably irrelevant (I just like trying to figure out how things work), but I hope Xfinity fixes things for you. I'd like to know what the tech finds.

[mcdonna]

Thanks, Spike, for the sympathy. I hate to suffer silently. If it had only been a board record or my best for the month, it wouldn't have bothered much, but it's hard to let go of a PR!

I've been switching over to my phone's "personal hotspot" (Verizon) when Xfinity goes down and am almost ready to just cancel Xfinity altogether. At 71 I'm mostly retired. But I'm still doing some web development here and there, and the extra speed comes in handy sometimes.

I'll let you know what we find out at the tech visit.

[Spike1007]

mcdonna, there may be a small bit of hope if this happens to you again. After some tests, I decided that communication between your computer & the WordTwist server happens just twice per game. When you start a game, all necessary info is sent to your computer. From then until the end, you & your computer basically play autonomously, no communication needed. When time runs out, your computer wants to send results and the server waits to get them. However, there doesn't seem to be a real deadline for this. The server will just wait. I started a game, disconnected from the internet, then waited (as much as half an hour) to reconnect, then I refreshed the page. At that point, game results were reported to the server and I got the usual screen showing my play results, with all my words counting. Anyway, if your Xfinity connectivity is intermittent & you lose it during a game, you may be able to wait, hitting "refresh" occasionally, until your connection comes back. With luck, the game will count.

[mcdonna]

Thanks, Spike! I'll keep that in mind.

[2cute]

So this is a brag and a wail. I've been a member since 2009, and just set a new word record today:
QUINQUANONAGINTILLIONTH (23 letters, 48 points)

Wordtwist-lost-QUINQUANONAGINTILLIONTH.png
BUT my Xfinity Internet connection has been flaky the past month and when I pressed SUBMIT the little ball spun and spun and spun ... and finally gave up.

wordtwist__FAIL.png

So I am recording my accomplishment and my frustration here!

And after one hour and 20 minutes of effort (and two more dropped connections) I have an appointment for an Xfinity tech to appear at my home on Monday afternoon to try to fix the problem.

Donna

I also have Xfinity & have noticed problems just streaming TV shows.

I suspect for you, they will give you a new router. You are very lucky to have a tech come to your home to help you. When I changed routers, I had to go to the 'store' & get one myself, then when I couldn't figure out how to set it up & called to talk to someone, the guy just kept on telling me to reboot my computer over & over since he had no idea how to help me. I got frustrated w/him & gave him the boot. It took me a few hours to figure out how to set it up by just guessing. Finally once I did, my internet improved.

Sorry that happened to you. Yes, taking a screen print you at least have proof you achieved it, but of course its not the same as having it added to your 'My Scores' section.

[2cute]

I just posted & then edited my post (adding the word "how"), and the system flagged it as potential spam. It's getting pickier. This time though, it actually told me that & highlighted my post in green, telling me that it won't be visible to others until the moderator OKs it.

Spike the moderator never reads it & we never see it. I think they should remove the edit button because I haven't been able to edit my comments now over 2 years. That green box is annoying & I've actually deleted the entire post & tried to repost the corrected version & nope, it won't let me. I've even rewritten it, so it says about the same thing but in a different way, nope, it won't let me do that either. Its like once I try to edit in that discussion, I'm blocked out of interacting at all. So now I just reread what I've written before I post reply, if there's a mistake, it stays & everyone will just have to guess what I meant so I can continue participating in the given discussion.

[Spike1007]

I'm not sure I've ever seen an flagged post that got approved either. However, I know I've managed small edits in the not-too-distant past without getting flagged. I tried a second edit once before (after the first one slipped through) & that was apparently too much.

By the way, on my post that did get through, I just cut & pasted my previous "spam" post into it & that worked. Anyway, it would be nice to know the rules (aside from "don't edit").