Fewest Words?

[2cute]

I like the boards with very little words. The ones with like 808 words frustrate me, lol

Agree. Not everyone can get hundreds of words. I've gotten as few as 18 as I can't find more.

[2cute]

Ran across a 5x5 board with only 26 words this morning:
5x5 26 words.png

The fewest words I've ever found was 1 word. Course the longest word was 36 letters. It seems the player before me that played the board new, spent the entire time just to find that super long word. So they may have the record for the longest word, but I got the most words @ that time, which I can't remember the amount was probably in the 20-30 word range.

[Arabesque]

Last year when I was playing lots of 4x4, I'd run into boards I'd played every few days. I knew I'd played them because my name was on it. But, having played it before provided absolutely no benefit. Sometimes, I'd end up scoring as much as a hundred points less, though I'd also score more other times. Completely random.

I suppose it might help with finding longest words somewhat, but I have a feeling it's like seeing a chessboard with endless possibilities. Everything's the same, everything's different.

I agree that playing a board you've previously played doesn't automatically confer any advantages - and I always marvel at how, like you, my scores can vary dramatically on the same board on different days. (I keep meaning to do an experiment like noting time of day, coffee consumption, etc. to see if there is an identifiable pattern to my performance, but I'm much too lazy to do more than think about it.)

There are a few times when replaying a board is an advantage, though, at least for me. Usually it relates to long words. For example, the first time I play a board I might be pleased to get a whole lot of "quest" words - question/s/ing, questionable, questionableness(es). Then I look at the word list and realize I missed all the "un" words I could have found - unquestionable, unquestionablenesses, etc. If I'm lucky enough to encounter the same board again before I forget, I'll score much higher because I will remember that.

[DonGuy47]

Sometimes a board seems vaguely familiar to me, is the best my feeble memory can do. Recently I got my highest-scoring word ever, DEDUPLICATIONS, whatever that means. A few days later, there was a board on which I was very pleased to find DUPLICATIONS. Turned out it was the same board. Never occurred to me to look for DEDUPLICATIONS.

[sadied]

Last year when I was playing lots of 4x4, I'd run into boards I'd played every few days. I knew I'd played them because my name was on it. But, having played it before provided absolutely no benefit. Sometimes, I'd end up scoring as much as a hundred points less, though I'd also score more other times. Completely random.

I suppose it might help with finding longest words somewhat, but I have a feeling it's like seeing a chessboard with endless possibilities. Everything's the same, everything's different.

Yeah, that's fair, I have also found the same: I don't necessarily score higher when playing a board again. Sometimes I find it distracting to recognize a board.

[sadied]

(I keep meaning to do an experiment like noting time of day, coffee consumption, etc. to see if there is an identifiable pattern to my performance, but I'm much too lazy to do more than think about it.)

Anyone else get faster after two, and only two, glasses of wine? That's a sweet spot for me...but I'm not endorsing drinking and playing LOL

[bwt1213]

Response to Arabesque:
For me, it's one beer. More than that, I FEEL like I'm motoring along and I'm a hundred points short. But, here are my personal observations:
(1) The first games are always about 100 points short or more. It usually takes at least three and often five games to get a decent score.
(2) If I didn't get enough sleep, I won't score well that whole day. It doesn't even matter if I take a nap later.
(3) I can gauge how well I'm doing by comparing my score to other players. If I ought to get at least 70% of XXX's score and I don't, that's not a good sign. I have a very personal list of players for whom I know how well I ought to do -- 50% of this one, 60% of that one, 70% of those, more than 100% of this other one, etc. Within a few games, once I've warmed up, I can tell if today is going to be good or bad. It is very, very rare that I do relatively poorly for four or five games and then suddenly do really well.
(4) It's the most fun to play if you have a goal in mind. For me, it's been to get more than 50% of fasteddieb's score, which I suddenly seem able to do regularly. But I have a list of other players I would like to outscore, and I will play any game for which they hold the high score record. Some, like RussDNails, I surpass once every six months or so. Others I have more success with. But if you have a goal, it's really great when you meet it.

[Arabesque]

(3) I can gauge how well I'm doing by comparing my score to other players. If I ought to get at least 70% of XXX's score and I don't, that's not a good sign. I have a very personal list of players for whom I know how well I ought to do -- 50% of this one, 60% of that one, 70% of those, more than 100% of this other one, etc. Within a few games, once I've warmed up, I can tell if today is going to be good or bad. It is very, very rare that I do relatively poorly for four or five games and then suddenly do really well..

I think the same way - maybe not with such precision, but I know who I can usually beat (not too many of those), who is a toss-up, and who I'll be lucky to get 50 or 60% of their score.

For the past year or so I've been playing "to hell with my score, I'm just having fun" style, but last month and this I decided to go for a spot on the top 20 average scores. It has reminded me what a huge difference curating your games can make. As I write, I'm in 3rd place. but most of the people in slots 4 through 20 would beat me quite often in a head-to-head competition. I'm just choosing my games more strictly than they are.