Unplayed Boards?

[LillyLilly]

The most plays I've seen on any board recently is 33. It looks like the new upper limit has been reduced from 50 to 30. That will make it a little easier to retire a board with your score being the best, your word the longest, or your word the most points. It also means that many of the board with no plays are really not all that good; they had just been played more than 30 times. But it still increases the odds of getting a good board! So I do like it.

I didn't know boards were retired. When I never saw a board with more than 50 plays, I thought only 50 players played here.

Why would it be a good thing to retire a board with your name listed as best, if nobody ever sees it?

[Nylimb]

I didn't know boards were retired. When I never saw a board with more than 50 plays, I thought only 50 players played here.

They're not really retired. They just have their statistics reset, so the next 50 players aren't competing against all of the previous ones. Without that reset, all boards would eventually get really high scores and hardly anyone would ever set a new high score.

[bwt1213]

I have seen several hundred boards at least, and I have yet to see even one of them played more than 33 times. In fact, I have only seen that one with 33 and only a couple with 32. I am even more sure now that the upper limit before the boards are recycled is 30 plays. The logic probably has something like "if totalplays > 30" in it somewhere. When the reaper comes through, every board played more than 30 times is cleared and recycled. It's similar to the logic for deciding who has played enough games to get on the lists -- the text SAYS that you have to play at least 50 games, but the real number is 51. There's probably a "> 50" check in there. I still like the changes. Good job!

[pdiddp]

I have seen several hundred boards at least, and I have yet to see even one of them played more than 33 times. In fact, I have only seen that one with 33 and only a couple with 32. I am even more sure now that the upper limit before the boards are recycled is 30 plays. The logic probably has something like "if totalplays > 30" in it somewhere. When the reaper comes through, every board played more than 30 times is cleared and recycled. It's similar to the logic for deciding who has played enough games to get on the lists -- the text SAYS that you have to play at least 50 games, but the real number is 51. There's probably a "> 50" check in there. I still like the changes. Good job!

And that would help explain the large rise in new boards, with 20 or 21 less plays til recycling the refreshed boards show up that much faster.

[rosedraws]

I don't know why, but I LOVE playing a new board! It's like jumping in fresh snow or something.

But then I'm disappointed to not know how well I did... because I don't see how anyone else scored on that one. I like this game's good mix of experiences.

Like seeing that I somehow missed the word, "organoleptically". lol

[DrPlacebo]

I'm more disappointed about this, because I greatly prefer to challenge more difficult records to break by playing boards with more plays.

[flops]

I'm more disappointed about this, because I greatly prefer to challenge more difficult records to break by playing boards with more plays.

Uh huh....out of maybe every five I'm getting a game with over 20 plays, most are zero or one. I'm getting more done around the house, I suppose...anyone want to eat off my floor?

[Naboka]

Uh huh....out of maybe every five I'm getting a game with over 20 plays, most are zero or one. I'm getting more done around the house, I suppose...anyone want to eat off my floor?

What you serving?

[flops]

We had Thai tonight, chicken souvlaki last night...on paper plates.

[bwt1213]

If you follow The Simpsons, you will know the best answer would have been "floor pie". As for a goal with the way the boards are being recycled now, I suggest the following rules: (1) You must set the record for the highest score; (2) you must do so with the fewest number of new words (ideally, zero); and (3) you must do so on a board played the fewest times. A perfect score would be to set a high score on a board played only two times before and do so with no previously unfound words. This is very nearly the opposite of the "green on 50+" thread, being "no green on really small". You could drop the "highest score" idea, and just say that you need to score as high as possible while not finding any new words, and do so on a board played the fewest number of times. I can't remember very many boards I have ever played where I found no new words, but I know there have been a few of them. I'd like to hear from someone willing to try my game variation.

[flops]

There is willing, but incapable (that's me), there is the spirit is willing, but the fingers have Hyperactivity Disorder (also me), there is "mmmm....floor pie!", but still grappling with SpiderPig aspirations (wow! also me..seemingly just me). Anyway...enough about me.... I think you need a catchy name for your game variation, like...catchier than "no green on really small"...

[flops]

Maybe you could call it "floor pie on 2"

[bwt1213]

As a salute to Fred Pohl, I think I'll call it "The Hindmost", after an alien race he hypothesized that was ruled by the one who wanted least to be the ruler (often with darned good reason). So, it will be the HINDMOST GAME. I'm sure someone like Megaword could dominate this one, too, finding a board played maybe six times and posting a 1000+ result with no new words. Dare you!

[Spike1007]

Since 30 seems to be the new 50 here, I've been trying to figure out what goes on behind the scenes. At first, I thought that the only difference would be that boards played 30+ times would be recycled at some set interval. I did assume that when the changeover happened, roughly 40% of the boards (those played 30-50+ times) would suddenly show up as unplayed. That seemed plausible, given the sudden jump in the number of unplayed boards. I also assumed that, due to random assignment from the pool of available boards whenever someone played a new game, that things would go to some kind of steady state, with roughly the same number of available boards played 1, 2, ... 30 times (with a few over 30, just waiting for the next recycling sweep). I've been collecting stats on boards (in a limited way, 100-200 per day) for about the last week to see if I can see this happening. I've noticed a couple of things. First, as I said, I expected the excess number of new boards to kind of diffuse upwards, but that's not really happening. From what I've seen, 50% of the boards have been played 7 or fewer times & that hasn't changed much. Of course, I could just have too small a sample or a week is too short a time to see the spreading out. (Or it could be that there are more reasons boards are recycled. I think before boards where someone scored 500+ points or something were also recycled. I assumed that happened on a statistically insignificant number of boards though.) Second, when boards were recycled at 50, you could see some at 51, fewer at 52, and once in a blue moon, one at 53. Now, Wednedsay & Thursday, I saw one board each at 35 plays, and today, I saw one at 36. (Maybe this is to be expected, but I'd have to think about it more to see why I didn't expect it.)

Anyway, I obviously have too much time on my hands & am curious about things that don't matter much. Thanks for letting me ramble, but if anyone else is curious & has thoughts on the matter, I'd love to hear them.

[Naboka]

I keep reading about the new recycle at 30 games, but I've been seeing quite a few games in the 40's and even an occasional 50. So, I'm a bit confused.

I have noticed a huge uptick in new games. This morning 4 of the boards presented out of 10 were new.

I wonder if allowing games to persist until a certain percent of possible points were gotten would be a viable standard. Since the number of possible words is known, and what those words are is known, then the possible total points would be knowable.

Each game reveals how many words have been played out of those possible. What would be interesting is how many points out of those possible have been played.