5x5 Boards

[Razorflame]

Anyone else finding that it is extraordinarily hard to find high scoring 5x5 boards any longer? I tend to have to look through 20+ boards to usually find one that I consider to be high scoring....it's like they've removed a lot of the highest scoring boards that used to be in rotation....what do you think?

Funnily enough, I found the one board I thought was removed, but turns out wasn't...the nearly 650 word 5x5 board....just got it

[Brisul]

Anyone else finding that it is extraordinarily hard to find high scoring 5x5 boards any longer? I tend to have to look through 20+ boards to usually find one that I consider to be high scoring....it's like they've removed a lot of the highest scoring boards that used to be in rotation....what do you think?

I noticed that a lot last month, but not as much this month. Here's another thing I've noticed, and maybe it's just me, but even though I hold over a thousand high score records in 5x5, I almost NEVER come across my own boards. Anyone else?

[ThunderRock]

Now that you mention it, I don't remember coming across any of my high game boards on 5x5 in a very long time

[Illiteratus]

I don't have that many high score boards but I've never come across ANY of my records. Weird.

[bwt1213]

I come across my own high score records fairly often. Reasons someone might not: (1) Your high score isn't really that high and gets replaced almost immediately; (2) someone else enjoys playing to try to beat your score; (3) someone uses your score as a benchmark (i.e. if so-and-so can get X on that board, I know I can get X + 100); (4) you do so well that the system takes your score down almost immediately and the board is recycled; (5) there are so many game boards that the chances of seeing your own again are really low; (6) the system keeps track of which boards you've played and makes sure you don't see them for a long time, if ever. Actually, #6 is easier to do than you might imagine. Suppose there are 10,000 active boards and they are all displayed to every player in exactly the same order with no repeats, and the only difference is that every user starts the list in a different spot. Then you would repeat your own board only after having gone through 10,000 boards. If the board had someone score more than 600 on it (and thus the board was removed), or if the board had been played more than 50 times (ditto), or if someone had bettered your score, you wouldn't see your board again. For my boards, I think the reason I see my records comes from being really selective, so I burn through a whole lot of boards; plus I keep only the ones I score pretty well on; plus perhaps I'm not a favorite target for many people. I know I will almost always play a board RussDNails has played, though I seldom get a better score, because I've found that if Russ gets a good score, I usually will, too. So, if Russ gets 750, I will usually get more than 600. If Russ gets 600, perhaps I will get lucky and get 620. This last month, I've played Russ's boards far more than a hundred times and kept my score for perhaps 40 of them, and passed Russ twice. Perhaps a number of people are doing that for your scores. I know for a fact that if fasteddieb played only boards I'd played and saved, I wouldn't have any records for high score or most words at all.

[Brisul]

I come across my own high score records fairly often. Reasons someone might not: (1) Your high score isn't really that high and gets replaced almost immediately; (2) someone else enjoys playing to try to beat your score; (3) someone uses your score as a benchmark (i.e. if so-and-so can get X on that board, I know I can get X + 100); (4) you do so well that the system takes your score down almost immediately and the board is recycled; (5) there are so many game boards that the chances of seeing your own again are really low; (6) the system keeps track of which boards you've played and makes sure you don't see them for a long time, if ever. Actually, #6 is easier to do than you might imagine. Suppose there are 10,000 active boards and they are all displayed to every player in exactly the same order with no repeats, and the only difference is that every user starts the list in a different spot. Then you would repeat your own board only after having gone through 10,000 boards. If the board had someone score more than 600 on it (and thus the board was removed), or if the board had been played more than 50 times (ditto), or if someone had bettered your score, you wouldn't see your board again. For my boards, I think the reason I see my records comes from being really selective, so I burn through a whole lot of boards; plus I keep only the ones I score pretty well on; plus perhaps I'm not a favorite target for many people. I know I will almost always play a board RussDNails has played, though I seldom get a better score, because I've found that if Russ gets a good score, I usually will, too. So, if Russ gets 750, I will usually get more than 600. If Russ gets 600, perhaps I will get lucky and get 620. This last month, I've played Russ's boards far more than a hundred times and kept my score for perhaps 40 of them, and passed Russ twice. Perhaps a number of people are doing that for your scores. I know for a fact that if fasteddieb played only boards I'd played and saved, I wouldn't have any records for high score or most words at all.

I'm pretty selective with my scores as well. There are players whose boards I have beaten, but since the score I get isn't over 900 points, I dump out before the bell rings. In this scenario, you, and others whose high scores are in the 600 and 700 point range get to keep your high scores intact.

[bwt1213]

One more thing to consider: If you are really selective, your scores won't last long. Suppose, for example, that I refused to play any board that had fewer than 700 words, or even 800 words. No, I am NOT that selective, but suppose I were. Then, if I failed to exceed 600 points on that board (or it lasted long enough for brisul or any other really good player to see), my score would be replaced with something several hundred points higher at least. I can imagine someone who is modestly good and is trying to play really attractive boards because that's where all the fun is -- not someone who is necessarily trying to set high score records, but just trying to stretch themselves to the max. Such a player would have their really good score, by their standards, wiped out almost every time. It's not enemy action, it's just reality.

[Brisul]

I just came across one of my games from last night where I scored 1098. I wasn't able to beat it but I did score over 1000 on the game! Thank you Universe for listening to the conversation in this thread

[Razorflame]

I was more so talking about the quality of the boards that I have been coming across. The quality seems to be lower than they used to be, where you used to be able to find boards that would be very easy to play fairly quickly, and now, they are taking ages to come across good boards...

[Brisul]

I was more so talking about the quality of the boards that I have been coming across. The quality seems to be lower than they used to be, where you used to be able to find boards that would be very easy to play fairly quickly, and now, they are taking ages to come across good boards...

I know what you meant. Being selfish, I changed the direction of the conversation

[Brisul]

The top three scorers in 5x5 remarkably finished with .999. Sad for me because I set a new personal record with an average score over .970. But if I am going to try to keep up with these players, I'd like to see just how high over .999 they are scoring. I'm willing to bet they are scoring upwards of 1100 to 1300 per game. If that is the case, I may be in over my head. I just think it would suck to average .999 myself and still come in 4th place! If any of the top three scorers could tell me what your true averages were for April, I'd love to hear, because I know they are way over the default .999. Thanks!

[bwt1213]

You can compute it easily enough: points per word times words per game is points per game. Yeah, it would be nice to have the site report the results for those over 999.9 points per game and this way is a little more trouble. If I remember correctly, the top result last month was more than 1300 points per game. And all the really high scorers have points per word high enough to be in the top 50 and are therefore available. That seems logical to me; if you know all the high-scoring 4-letter words, that's going to help your scoring average because they're faster to type, and because they're more points it will increase your points-per-word result, too.

[MegaWord]

You can figure it by taking the average points per word multiplied by the the average words, which in my case both are viewable on the leaderboards. My average points per word was 5.716 X 215.207 (average words) = 1,230 pts

[Estive]

I average just barely over 1000. But normally after I hit an average of 999.999, I tend to play smaller boards just for fun which drags my normal high scoring boards that I pick at first. That being said, I have played Mega's and Fasteddieb's boards before and they blow me away. I tend to score about 80% of their points at any given instance. My highest board ever is only 1250+ which pales in comparison if they are averaging that.

[Brisul]

You can figure it by taking the average points per word multiplied by the the average words, which in my case both are viewable on the leaderboards. My average points per word was 5.716 X 215.207 (average words) = 1,230 pts

I average just barely over 1000. But normally after I hit an average of 999.999, I tend to play smaller boards just for fun which drags my normal high scoring boards that I pick at first. That being said, I have played Mega's and Fasteddieb's boards before and they blow me away. I tend to score about 80% of their points at any given instance. My highest board ever is only 1250+ which pales in comparison if they are averaging that.

Okay then. Now that I know all of this, do you mind if I ask each of you to take this next month off so I can get a trophy?