The battle for 33d place (and 8th)

[bwt1213]

I find it fascinating to observe the patterns of scores, as if the total points race were a kind of competition in which the competitors were actually racing each other and trying desperately to pass (or stay ahead) of someone. So, large gaps in the scores show evidence that someone is trying to stay ahead of the "pack" and having some success. Clearly, at the top of the list we have a wide separation. I define "wide" as meaning that the person chasing is well over a day's worth of average scores behind. So, Megaword is several weeks ahead of second place by that measure. We have other large separations in the top five, as well. But 8th place? Why? And even more interesting, 33d place? I confess, I am in 34th place as I write this (though just barely). But 33d place is about a day and an half of my average scores ahead, and even more ahead of the person in 35th place. One of my graduate school classmates went on to a PhD specializing in queueing theory and could probably answer my questions, but to me it seems completely mysterious unless I think of it as a competition and runners bunching up. When I ran cross-country many years ago, that happened all the time and not always the way you expected. I know, queueing theory.

[Speedy]

I've never noticed the differences. I went and checked my status and I'm number 8. I haven't played since probably last November, thus I have dropped down. No big deal, since I just play to play and not to compete. Or play to keep my mind active and my fingers moving to avoid too much arthritis. Happy Typing!

[scheffek]

The hall of fame rankings are not to be trusted. If you calculate the numbers in the 5x5 eg you see immediately that somethings completely wrong. Like my average scores that don't fit, or megaword's +11M words found and still putting him only in 20th place for total points earned ...

[bwt1213]

My comments were only about the monthly competition for the 5x5 game.

[BoggleOtaku]

Along Sheffek's comment, I noticed years ago that av. score and av. words in the 5x5 hall of fame (and on my lifetime stats on my scorecard/profile page) froze and don't seem to update. My monthly av. score is now ~double the frozen value: several years of playing should have nudged the hundredth's place by now...

[admin]

I believe the all-time average score stat should be working better now in the Hall of Fame and Personal Scorecard pages. (All-Time average word stats have been removed as our database never properly separated those stats between 4x4 and 5x5 games - hence the bug - and it is now impossible to recreate those stats faithfully.)

[MegaWord]

Is it possible to display average scores of over 1,000 pts?

[admin]

Sure, if you click the top of the table heading for Average Score it will show you the top players sorted by that metric. The top 19 are all > 1000 pts.

https://wordtwist.puzzlebaron.com/halloffame5.php?o=1

[MegaWord]

That's interesting, I forgot you could do that. But I was really thinking about the monthly competition how it ties people at 999.999 instead of displaying the true average.

[admin]

Ah, gotcha - that should now be fixed so that the very next finished solve will update the monthly Average Score and scores up to 9999 will be allowed now for that field.

[MegaWord]

Wow, you're right. Thank you very much!

[BoggleOtaku]

Wow, that was fast, thanks!

[RussDNails]

The banner at the bottom displaying last month's high points winner is also incorrect...............it seems to lag behind by a month or so.............I'm being displayed as the winner for 5 x5 in October but Megaword was the player with the highest point total.............Stephen, can you correct this as well?

Thanks!