How many cheateres are in the game?

[John13verse34]

I've personally found all of the words cited in the original post, and I've never cheated in any way. As has been explained, it's usually a case of finding a base word and then adding suffixes and prefixes to get longer words... OVER + INTELLECTUAL +IZ(E) + ATION + S. And I pay attention to what the best words are on the boards I play and I try to expand my vocabulary of word stems and strategies.

I can't type fast, so I go instead for the longest and best-scoring words I can find, so I sometimes may find only one word no a board (or just a few). It's just a different way of playing.

[bwt1213]

There's something about Latin that sticks with you. I remember teaching an evening geometry class in a Community College, and one chapter in the text showed a full page of Euclid but written in Latin instead of Greek. It was actually germane to that chapter, too, so I entertained myself (and I hope, the class) by translating it for them. And that was more than 45 years since I had previously translated any Latin whatever. It's good it wasn't in Greek; while I can read the Greek letters and sound out the words, few of them have any meaning to me and I know practically nothing of Greek grammar. But at least I had Latin!

[kjambur]

I just select games where the best word is 15 and above and/or games that have been played less than 10 times and there are more than 15 8+ long words. The average number of words per game for me is usually less than 2. Have never had a problem finding long words.

[crazykate]

I'm getting tired of posts accusing people with realistically achievable scores of cheating... Even more so when the person who started the thread then scarpers, not even bothering to respond.

I have played this game with a number of different goals and tactics, because I'm not an outstanding player overall. I can achieve good scores on the 4x4 boards, but then I rarely find long words. On the 5x5 boards, I'm consistently below average if I try to find as many words as I can. I also miss the long words if I spend my time entering shorter words. If I don't attempt to type or swipe, just scanning the board for promising syllables or pre- or suffixes, I can usually find a good long word within the first minute. If I'm going for a high points-per-word average, if I find a 20+ letter word and it looks like it's the best-scoring word possible, I don't look for any other words and submit the game immediately.

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.

Don't get me wrong, we do get cheaters in this game who actually do use bots. But they are easily recognisable because they achieve completely impossible results, like finding every word in every game. It's just that you've probably never encountered their scores because obvious cheaters do get banned sooner or later.

[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, I don't know you and you don't know me. I've been playing Wordtwist boggle for almost 5 years now and so far I have played 68,000+ games under 4 different usernames. (I looked at your scorecard and you've played 3,000+ games in less than 2 years.) I doubt that you looked at my lalatan scorecard so to make it easy for you: I've played 44,000+ games, hold almost 5,000 4x4 best/longest word records and 27,000+ 5x5 records. For the last 3 years or so I have played the long word game exclusively, about 40,000 games worth. I know it may be hard for you to believe but I've become pretty good at it. I memorized all the 38+ pt words, read the best words competitions lists all the time, read dictionary lists etc. So far I've collected 49 gold trophies for avg pts/word competitions.

Onto the situation you mentioned: I like to keep my lalatan avg around 28 to 29 pts/word for the month. If I play a new game and find a good word, I won't play any other words that may move my average downward. I submit the game with 1 word played. I don't go looking for new games to play but will not refuse them if they are offered to me. (2 speed players seem to do that regularly but I don't think that's an ethical way to play, although not against the rules. For every game I've played there are at least an avg of 10-20 games that I clicked through after analyzing the games stats so I think I have a good feel for who's doing what.) That is precisely what I want to achieve each time I play: to find the best/longest word and have them remain so. And there are many others trying to do the same.

You wrote "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." My questions for you are: why would you choose to slander me and my accomplishments if you "could be wrong?" Is that something you enjoy doing? Do you think I used a boggle solver for all 40k games or just for the ones you saw?

You are in fact DEAD WRONG!! The boggle solver I use to find words is my brain!! I find your allegation malicious, disgusting and devoid of any evidence.

[Brisul]

It just dawned on me that "cheateres" might be something else entirely. We've all been discussing cheaters this whole time while the author of the original post may have been talking about a whole different subject.

[MegaWord]

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

[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.

[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!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.)