Achievements and Accomplishments Thread

[dannyb]

Sorry for posting again, but I have really been into playing 5X5 as the 4X4 grids have been abysmal. I hit the 1100 club! I will continue to challenge myself and try and beat my records. Have fun playing, everyone.

Total points: 1132 New record!
Total words: 133 (38 common,25 wide,10 rare,60 ultra rare) New record!

Very nice. We are always our own best opponents. Every board brings a challenge.

[jbud1980]

Sorry for posting again, but I have really been into playing 5X5 as the 4X4 grids have been abysmal. I hit the 1100 club! I will continue to challenge myself and try and beat my records. Have fun playing, everyone.

Total points: 1132 New record!
Total words: 133 (38 common,25 wide,10 rare,60 ultra rare) New record!

[folkslinger]

Congratulations! The best opponent is always yourself; you can't lie, can't cheat, and always tell on yourself if you try to do either. So, if you beat yourself you've always won against a worthy opponent. But it gets better: you can always find a game within that game to play, and you've already begun. You're playing number of words and highest score. Soon enough, you'll be playing for longest word and highest point per word. There are countless ways to get better. May you find most of them and find pleasure in them all.

Well said!

[bwt1213]

Congratulations! The best opponent is always yourself; you can't lie, can't cheat, and always tell on yourself if you try to do either. So, if you beat yourself you've always won against a worthy opponent. But it gets better: you can always find a game within that game to play, and you've already begun. You're playing number of words and highest score. Soon enough, you'll be playing for longest word and highest point per word. There are countless ways to get better. May you find most of them and find pleasure in them all.

[Nyannecca]

Just set a personal record for words found (110, beating my prior record of 98). Still trying to beat my best score, 445.

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[jbud1980]

Congratulations! I sincerely doubt I will ever match that score. And you averaged more than 8 points per word, too!

Thank you, bwt. You are an amazing player and it wouldn't surprise me if you bested my best.

[bwt1213]

Congratulations! I sincerely doubt I will ever match that score. And you averaged more than 8 points per word, too!

[jbud1980]

I feel a bit silly posting this considering the recent aforementioned accomplishments, but I bested my all time high score playing 5X5 this evening. Happy Friday, all.

Total points: 1070 New record!
Total words: 125 (25 common,17 wide,9 rare,74 ultra rare) New record!

[Emerging]

Well I have to wonder if there was something distracting MegaWord, but for the first time I beat his high score. First time I think - hopefully not the last.







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[Emerging]

I don't play 5 by 5 very much, but I don't think I've gotten over a 1000 when I have played it. Even in 6 by 6, it's hard for me to get over a 1000. Great job again - I look forward to getting half as much someday.

[mpd]

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A pretty sizable improvement on my previous 5x5 best. Missed a couple big Q's that would have put it over 25, but quite happy nonetheless.

[Emerging]

Thank you MPD. If I ever get to 900 or especially 1000, I'll probably be using this message board again.

[mpd]

Congratulations! Always nice to pb, but especially so when you break through to the next 100. Great score!

[Emerging]

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Nowhere near the territory of a few players above, but I'm happy to finally have joined the 800-club. A z in an otherwise high-probability board helped make it happen.

[Naboka]

I do play as chubtrub, though I'm a little unclear if you're asking for the origin of the username, or why I use a second handle.

With regard to the former, it's just the handle I use for my fantasy hockey team. The friend group often refers to each other by variations of "Chubbs".

With regard to the latter, I use chubtrub to play when I'm playing in suboptimal conditions, or if I want to be a bit more relaxed with the goal of learning and implementing less familiar words and combos. This leaves this handle's high-scoring average in tact to more easily monitor if I'm improving, and to compete in the monthly. Generally I'll play against the scores of top players (including my own), or play boards where reaching 700 points is unlikely so that other people can compete against my scores and use the wordlist to learn words.

I'd personally like it if the recycling point were raised to open up more of those midrange boards. In addition to widening the competitive window, the wordlist is the easiest place to learn new words, especially those outside of the Collins dictionary. It seems a shame to erase a list compiled by however many number of plays just because someone scores an arbitrary number of points. Another workaround would be to keep the list, but to reset the records. *Speaking of Collins (formerly SOWPODS), their editors recently included another 2k or so words for Scrabble play, many of which are not valid here (yet?).

That clears up a few things. The chub made me wonder about fish and excess weight.

I entertained the idea of having another handle because I spent hundreds of games practising and dumping--trying out what is and isn't accepted. Playing under another name would certainly allow more freedom for the inevitable avalanche of mistakes and failures. (I'm still amazed by words that seem common to me but which aren't accepted). The problem with taking that approach seemed to be missed opportunities. If I ran across a game with 300 UR words and finally managed to beat my personal best, the credit would be lost. Keeping the same handle and dumping the disasters just seemed more practical.

Just where the cutoff point should be to recycle games will always be moot. What is fair. And to whom? Usually I feel a bit guilty closing out boards when someone has scored something obviously high for them. Like a normal 450 player hitting 650. To me, it seems that person should be able to keep that record.

Long word players would be at an increased disadvantage if games were harder to recycle. As it is, there are only a few players who can consistently put games with long words back into play. Once the best/longest word is gotten, it remains dormant as a record until the game is put back into the system. Players like lalatan who strive to increase their accumulated records would be harmed.

For me, seeing new words has little value. Several months ago, I stopped trying to accumulate new words. The diminishing returns made it impractical. Because I have to pace my typing to around a hundred words a game, there are only so many words I can enter. It's not unusual to know fifty more words to enter but not have the speed to accomplish this. My mind works far faster than my fingers these days.

As is, I enjoy seeing how many green words I can add to the list. Added value. And, I suppose, that recycling the game before other players can benefit from that added value has an argument. But, there's also the element of personally gained value that one has to work for versus inherited/abducted value, where one has done nothing except benefit from the work of someone else. That happens more in the longword department, where someone will discover through their knowledge and efforts a very rare long word, only to see that word cropping up as others are exposed to it, but have neither the knowledge or effort to have "earned" that word.

I get a kick out of adding green words to the played words readout. Getting 50 or more on a game that's been played 20 or more times is always an ego boost. If the games weren't recycled as they are now, those green words would just be part of reds--already played and nothing special.

Putting in the effort to earn what one gets has been ingrained in me. Sometimes I'm torn between wanting to make things easier for other players by providing tips and combinations. I used to post the list of words that enabled me to accomplish Red Boards. I just thought other players could benefit from knowing the involved combinations. But, I seriously doubt that anyone really took the time to learn any of them. When something isn't earned, it often has no value.

I'm still scratching my head over how easily I have beaten your scores, while you're able to put up such stellar numbers. Part of me wonders. Part of me could care less. As a lifelong member of the I've Never Met a Rule I Didn't Want to Break Club, worrying about whether someone has somehow managed to skirt the rules would be disingenuous and hypercritical. I don't even play the game as imagined. It's mostly memory tricks. Magic of the mind.

Anyway, just played the following game this morning before I had to run errands with the wife. Hope you can understand the confusion as to how I'm managing to beat a 1500 point player when I've never managed 900.


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Oh, well. I waste too much time on Wordtwist. Both playing and posting. It's proven to be an expensive pastime considering the opportunity costs. Playing may help exercise my mind, but perhaps not as much as it once did. And posting seems more like recitation deep in the forest where no one listens. Probably be more profitable to spend my remaining minutes communicating with those with ears to hear. A tree falling in the forest makes no sound unless there is something capable of hearing. No hearing, no sound. Just vibrations.