How many cheateres are in the game?

[lalatan]

...Your screen looks so different from mine.

So you play only to find the longest word and when you do you stop the game. That is so different than how I play. I've never tried to find only the longest word. I would probably take the entire time, yet; for you that really doesn't matter as that part isn't counted only the score average. Fascinating. Thanks again for sharing.

I use a custom color scheme on my browser because white backgrounds give me headaches.

I started out as a speed player but after a while I started developing tendinitis in my hands and forearms from the typing. Consequently I slowly morphed into a long word specialist and am now firmly entrenched in my sesquipedalian ways. I'm glad you found the information helpful.

[2cute]

To provide further evidence of my long word spotting skills, here are some videos I recorded this month:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1rvlUBdtjk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vR5HpCoAF4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfETzaPjAwY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gTDVOXRCTg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezQu3Rz15X4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVxcA2ZkU4c

Thanks fasteddie!

Thanks for posting your play, its very informative. Your screen looks so different from mine.

So you play only to find the longest word and when you do you stop the game. That is so different than how I play. I've never tried to find only the longest word. I would probably take the entire time, yet; for you that really doesn't matter as that part isn't counted only the score average. Fascinating. Thanks again for sharing.

[2cute]

305 words, 5x5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fp82lNTXUM

The 256 words was achieved last month. These are the highest recorded words games for 4x4 and 5x5 that I know of. It occurred through much toil and time.

That's amazing! Thanks for sharing. I'm a turtle compared to you.

I learned some interesting things watching you: (a) You turn OFF the sound. I've never done that, now I'll give it a try. (b) You know lots of smaller words like myself & don't spend a lot of time trying to find the ultra long words. (c) You sort through the puzzles to find just the right one and so do I. I can't compete w/the people who know the super long words (well, not yet) and I want my experience to be fun or I might as well go play on another site or do something else. (d) You can type really really fast. I wonder how many words per minute you clock. You got me licked, no problem.

One question: In the background, I can hear strange sounds. Is your computer near a major highway? My guess is that those are trucks driving past your location. Am I right?

[lalatan]

To provide further evidence of my long word spotting skills, here are some videos I recorded this month:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1rvlUBdtjk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vR5HpCoAF4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfETzaPjAwY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gTDVOXRCTg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezQu3Rz15X4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVxcA2ZkU4c

Very nicely done lalatan

Thanks fasteddie!

[fasteddieb]

Very nicely done lalatan

[lalatan]

I have come across numerous boards that have only been played 1 time, and only 1 word is played, a really big one which, of course, remains the best and longest word. All of these boards were played by the same person. I could be wrong, but I suspect they only have time to enter the letters into some kind of solver. I won't mention any names, but it rhymes with lalala.

MistMC and the Trogs,

I downloaded a screen recorder today and recorded the attached video. As you can see, I have no need for a Boggle solver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kZv...ature=youtu.be

[Arabesque]

Typing speed is a somewhat variable concept these days. I'm old enough to remember when the boss (a man, of course) would handwrite a letter, and hand it to his secretary (a woman), who would type it for him on a manual typewriter or IBM Selectric. Mistakes had to be laboriously whited out, or sometimes you had a white ribbon that you could use to type over the mistake.

Fast, accurate typing ability was a distinct skill, measured by typing tests. You sat down in front of a typewriter and were given an unfamiliar text to type as quickly as you could. Then they'd time you for 3 minutes or so, at the end of which all the words were counted up (with every error a one-point deduction), divide by three, and voila - that was your typing speed.

That kind of scenario no longer exists. It's quite rare to be inputting pre-existing text; most likely you are thinking and typing at the same time, so your "brain speed" is probably more significant than your finger speed. You can also hit the delete button the moment you make a typing error, if you see it. So you could measure typing speed the old fashioned way, but in almost all situations the number would be meaningless.

Back when typing speed was still a thing and workplace roles were more inevitably gender-linked than they are now, a woman about to graduate from HLS had a job interview. She was asked, "how fast can you type." Her answer? 'I'm sorry, they don't teach typing at Harvard Law School." Hah! But times have changed thanks to technology. My son chomped at the bit in elementary school, hating to write by hand and looking forward to the day when they'd let him type all his homework.

Sorry for the digression. Typing is just an interesting lens through which to view changing gender roles over the past few decades. Or interesting to me, anyway!

(FWIW, I used to be a great typist - around 90+ words per minute, if I recall correctly. No idea how I'd fare on an old-fashioned typing test now.)

[mclag]

There are for sure some cheats, but they are obvious. When someone gets every single possible word, you know that's not legit. However, people like MegaWord, for example, who get really high scores, are just plain good. At this point, I know I won't match MegaWord's score (or other players of similar caliber), but I like to try. It gives me something to shoot at. Same with Lalatan. Otherwise, Lalatan would have the longest word on every game he/she played. As has been pointed out, different people have different goals and, thus play differently. I personally like to see if I can at least get the number of remaining common words into single digits. Also, I'm not the world's fastest typist. Therefore, I only play games with less than 50 possible common words. It seems too much much like a typing contest with the boards with lots of words. I don't find that to be nearly as much fun.

[crazykate]

I have to admit that when I first started playing Wordtwist, I didn't expect to be as thoroughly below average as I was. I was my family's undisputed Boggle champion (of the pen-and-paper variety) and often won games against English and Australian friends. When I first got here, I was surprised that my scores didn't seem to mean much. I also suspected a few of the top-scoring players of cheating, and I think I may even have voiced my doubts in a similar thread to this one (though I can't check as it's gone with the old forum). I don't think I was quite as accusatory though, and I allowed myself to be convinced of the amazing skills of my betters. Learning the legal loopholes of the high score boards was a hard lesson for me as well, but subsequently trying out different styles made me a better player overall.

[Naboka]

I average about 1o5 words per 3 minutes, and I can absolutely guarantee you that I do not use a solver, nor have I ever. I don't use any artificial means to get my scores. None of the people currently competing do, either; there are videos of them typing the words in, complete with the sound of the keys being pressed. If you want to know what a REAL CHEAT looks like, there have been some. Such people average well over 200 words PER MINUTE, and seem to peak at more than 300 words PER MINUTE, with top scores of more than 5,000 points. The mother of one of my high school friends was once a world champion speed typist -- the best in the whole world. Her words per minute: 212. She didn't have to find any words, look at a grid, or do anything more complicated than type text as fast as possible. On my good days, I can probably still type 45 - 50 words per minute, and the best I've ever done in this game is (I believe) 134 words in 3 minutes. I DO NOT DOUBT FOR AN INSTANT THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO TYPE 100 WORDS PER MINUTE AND FIND WORDS QUICKLY ENOUGH TO MAINTAIN THAT SPEED. That's what the best players DO. Go play some of their videos if you doubt it. I know it's hard to believe that you're not as good as you would wish, but it is probably time that you started to at least entertain the possibility.

People are going to view the world as the want. I'd just prefer to trust and admire.

In college I typed around 65 wpm but can't now. As I play more games and the patterns become second nature, I don't even look at the board to run off a series of (?) 8-15 words from common groupings. If I looked, I'd get distracted with new groups and miss words from the first. I've watched some of the videos you referenced and guess those players were doing something similar but on a much higher level. Some people just have better minds and function at a level I can't even imagine. I'm still trying to discipline my attention and find new strategies.

You can grow and learn going up against people better than you. Discovering that someone else can do so much better than you that you can't imagine ever getting that good probably is unnerving for someone who wants to win and be admired so badly that they tear down those who have achieved excellence. What a blow to the ego to not be the brightest and best at everything.

A better approach might be to accept the challenge, learn and grow. Each day I'd try to do better, try to accumulate more words weapons for the fight. That Lalatan memorized so many words and studied these boards for the best words over years deserves some appreciation, not condemnation.

Pretty cool that you knew the best in the world at typing. Wow.

ps: was going to comment on the comment you commented on while including yours, but... I'm barely functional with computers.

Also, one thing I've learned being on the internet is that most people would much rather be right than convinced. No amount of fact or explanation will change the mind of someone who doesn't want to learn.

[bwt1213]

It's not the long words that are the problem. I also play for long words, and often like challenging myself against boards where Lalatan has found them. The issue I have problems with is people who manage to find 100-125 words within 3 minutes. That's likely a boggle-solver player.

I average about 1o5 words per 3 minutes, and I can absolutely guarantee you that I do not use a solver, nor have I ever. I don't use any artificial means to get my scores. None of the people currently competing do, either; there are videos of them typing the words in, complete with the sound of the keys being pressed. If you want to know what a REAL CHEAT looks like, there have been some. Such people average well over 200 words PER MINUTE, and seem to peak at more than 300 words PER MINUTE, with top scores of more than 5,000 points. The mother of one of my high school friends was once a world champion speed typist -- the best in the whole world. Her words per minute: 212. She didn't have to find any words, look at a grid, or do anything more complicated than type text as fast as possible. On my good days, I can probably still type 45 - 50 words per minute, and the best I've ever done in this game is (I believe) 134 words in 3 minutes. I DO NOT DOUBT FOR AN INSTANT THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO TYPE 100 WORDS PER MINUTE AND FIND WORDS QUICKLY ENOUGH TO MAINTAIN THAT SPEED. That's what the best players DO. Go play some of their videos if you doubt it. I know it's hard to believe that you're not as good as you would wish, but it is probably time that you started to at least entertain the possibility.

[MYehuda]

It's not the long words that are the problem. I also play for long words, and often like challenging myself against boards where Lalatan has found them. The issue I have problems with is people who manage to find 100-125 words within 3 minutes. That's likely a boggle-solver player.

[lalatan]

Thank you everyone for your support through the latest cheating accusation. I appreciate you all taking the time to compose and type what you did.

As for lalatan: the accusation that he'd use up all the available time entering letters into a boggle solver is truly laughable. He's good enough at finding words that I'm sure his average playing time per game is 30 seconds at most. Which is just as well, because he probably uses a lot of time clicking the "load new random game" button until he finds a promising board.

I don't know what my average playing time would be for sure. I know I'm getting faster at finding words. I'm seeing more words in the first 3 seconds than I previously have. (You know how that goes. It takes 3 seconds to look at the board and then move your eyes over to the timer.) I usually find the word within 30 seconds if I've seen the board before but sometimes up to a minute. New boards can take up to 2 minutes. And there are always a few where I get skunked or the word doesn't have a high enough value.
While I'm playing for records it seems I don't usually have to click through too many games to find something suitable. But maybe I'm comparing that to competing for APPW, where the wait for a good game can be brutal sometimes. I decided to count once and quit doing so at 100 games.

Well spoken Lalatan. You've done well, be not discouraged by the unbelieving, they only increase your fame.

Thanks for your encouragement, MegaWord! Haha, that's a good way of looking at it. I agree with folkslinger that was eloquently worded.
I'm currently close to 35k lifetime best/longest word records. I've surpassed Aussiemum's and MatD's totals. As far as I know you are the only person (with a total of 47k+) left to overtake. So it's only fair to warn you that I'm gunning for you. Lol, you're probably not too concerned though. It'll take me over a year to get there, if I ever do. If you wanted to you could leave me in the dust too.

I haven't weighed in on this because I am still having trouble typing. (I am competing but barely getting my 51 games in.) I've been following this thread and waiting for Spike1007 and lalatan to address the post first. As the rookie of the big word hunt, I was a little reluctant to express my ire at the implication that lalatan and the rest of us who play for large words are cheating. I know that I am not and I am absolutely sure that my heroes are not. I congratulate lalatan on the restraint used in the reply and completely agree with the support expressed, especially the eloquent statement by MegaWord.

Haha, well, I didn't reply for a few days so I could cool down. And I'm glad I did. The only trouble was that I got fired up again while I was drafting my reply.
As I've written before (you may not have seen it) there is no challenge in cheating. If I'm going to play a game I want it to challenge me. There is no point to even play while cheating.
Sorry that your hand is still bothering you after surgery. The recovery and rehab afterward take some time, as you are likely aware. My wife had to have 50% of her Achilles tendon removed due to calcification. It took her 18 months to get back to normal. Not an easy pathway back to health sometimes. Hang in there.

Enjoy the games everyone!

[folkslinger]

I haven't weighed in on this because I am still having trouble typing. (I am competing but barely getting my 51 games in.) I've been following this thread and waiting for Spike1007 and lalatan to address the post first. As the rookie of the big word hunt, I was a little reluctant to express my ire at the implication that lalatan and the rest of us who play for large words are cheating. I know that I am not and I am absolutely sure that my heroes are not. I congratulate lalatan on the restraint used in the reply and completely agree with the support expressed, especially the eloquent statement by MegaWord.

[MegaWord]

Well spoken Lalatan. You've done well, be not discouraged by the unbelieving, they only increase your fame.