End of the Word Up tournament

[angie]

By my calculations, the WU tournament is now finished - so who made up the eventual top 10? Bob x 10 or did anyone else, known or unknown, manage to sneak in? What's the process for collecting all the money seeing how, between them, the users of this board must be on for £7-8,000? And EWQ, is a new national high-scores list for the new vocab likely to appear?

I for one am pretty glad to see the back of the tournament, as once all my regular machines in Glasgow stopped paying me any jackpots, £1 per game led to rather big losses. Annoyingly, I couldn't get near my PB, which would have been good for around £100 I think. I just had numerous mid-1500 non-clears. My best actual score was a very disappointing 2002, good enough for c.53rd or something. The best thing to come out of the tournament was EXPLOITATIVELY - though AUTOCRATICALLY was also nice seeing how the relentless focus on getting 2000+ totals meant there weren't many games where you had enough time to build an -ICALLY.

As I say EWQ, I've got a tranche of new high scores to report should you decide to start up a new leaderboard. In the meantime - what were everyone else's highlights from the last few weeks?

[fotherz]

The new dictionary has ruined the game. What on earth will Joe Public think when he sees rubbish like QAIMAQAMS at the top of the high-score list? I hope when the tournament edition is gone, they will revert back to the old dictionary - Word Up was a far better game for it.

I'm disappointed to see my best effort (2253) slip down to about 12th place, which may just about cover the £1's I spent. Especially disappointing since there are apparently players all over the country that beat me... and all during the last couple of days of the competition... none of them having been on the high-score board at all previously... foul play?

Finally let me tip my hat to 2497. It may take a while to beat that. You gits.

[Mattb]

Yes i'd be interested to know how the fruitchat wordup deity figures got on. Surely you must have been up there at the top?

[Istenem]

The new dictionary has ruined the game. What on earth will Joe Public think when he sees rubbish like QAIMAQAMS at the top of the high-score list? I hope when the tournament edition is gone, they will revert back to the old dictionary - Word Up was a far better game for it.

i couldn't agree more. if some of the actual best players actively dislike the new wordlist (sowpods) it must be hated by the minnows. while top players are probably aware of such words as qurush, qiviut, qindarka they lack any elegance but i'm not going into all that again.

as for my highlights for the sowpods version: i'm honestly struggling to think of many. i remember getting HECATOMB which is beautiful and CHTHONIC (again) but aside from a few tenners i was pretty underwhelmed. getting a clearance with the last word being the very dodgy AIA is hardly satisfying.

re. prizes: my pseud finished in the low 40s but i have no recollection of getting 2033 in some pub i've never been to in stratford.

if by any quirk of coincidence BigFizz/LLEE/itbox are looking in, i'll add my voice to Fotherz's: bring back the old wordlist it makes the game so much more accessible. please.

[Cardinal Sin]

Or better still, create a new wordlist without all the omissions from the original one.

[Ernest W. Quality]

I still don't understand why the word list was changed. There doesn't seem to be any reason to do so. As a consequence, 16+ words are now impossible, meaning there is a far more attainable limit for word building.

As for the competition, I think the prize structure was a big issue. The prizes should have declined more steeply from the top 3 or so. To answer Angie's question, there are certainly various unknown players on the leaderboard who have not been seen here or on my scoreboard. Several of them have done considerably better than the supposed top level players of the game (DJ, unkpseud, Angie).

And EWQ, is a new national high-scores list for the new vocab likely to appear?

The first issue is that all parties I have spoken to about this so far agree that the new version is different enough to need its own board. The GM version has allowed the best players to extend the best scores of WU to several over 2400 in a month, whereas on the old version only once was 2300 attained in a number of years.

This means we would need two sets of boards running simultaneously: the first for the old version(s) [Paragon, Gamesnet, Fatbox, non-updated Itbox], and the second for the WUGM edition [updated Itbox only].

I think the GM version has widened the gulf between the best players and the average player even further than before, so the chance for new players to make an impact on our boards will be even lower, as they will be drowned by the volume of scores by the best players (this was apparent even on the old version).

I have been thinking about ways to improve this. The main problems with my board are the duplicate words (QUIZZICAL etc), and the points table: it doesn't make sense for VB and co to write down every score above 1800, given how easily/regularly we can score above that, and our 1800-1900 scores just clog up the table and add nothing. However, moving the lower limit to, say, 2000 would cut out everyone except about 10 players, which is not desirable.

NEW RULES

Myself and Bob propose a new divisional structure to the scoreboard. Each player/team is assigned a minimum target for submitting scores, based on their known scores. E.g. VB only 2000+, unkpseud 1900+, etc. Noob players come in at lower levels, and in fact we can even go lower than 1800. If a player consistently scores above his limit, he can be 'promoted'.

As for words boards, the 300 pt / 11 letter rules are fine(?), but to filter out the multiple filthy words, we will just list each word once per player/team. Or perhaps also give the number of times the word was bagged, rather than listing each bagging.

Any thoughts on these rules, or any alternatives? To see what it might look like, we can just apply them to the old scores.

[QuizMaster]

Fuck me you're a sad bastard Ernest.

[Ernest W. Quality]

Yes, if only I was as cool as you.

[Istenem]

of course we are sad. all of us spend our time posting messages on here about pub quiz games.

anyway. i have just had an sms from 84600 congratulating me on winning a prize in the tournament

[Guest]

I love the new SOWPODS edition, largely because I managed to learn most of the words in it before they introduced it. For myself and our occasional Scrabble genius team member, it's like coming home - I can play far more instinctively than before.

The game is, of course, now MORE accessible to players - all of the possibilities of the old game remain (bar the highly inaccessible 15+ words of yore), coupled with easier clearing (which had become a trivial and uninteresting matter for the best on the old version, anyway).

The only thing that has become LESS accessible are the best players' highest points scores (but this is inevitably the case, by definition) and the potential best score in each game (this is a good thing!).

As far as DIFFICULTY goes, the game remains as difficult as you want it to be - the struggle to eke as many good words out as possible whilst keeping an eye on the clear can be as challenging as you want it to be.

Added to this is the greater difficulty of using a larger range of words.

When the new version came out, I was hitting regular 1850s+ and clearing non-stop. Now, I'm aiming at 2000s and, consequently, clearing less. Aim for 2100s and clearing drops even further. If you play the new game aiming for the same score as the old, you will find it easier. If you play it shooting for an increase of 200pts on old scores, you will find it harder.

Handy hint: I'm sure that a 2000pt non-clear is possible on the new version WITHOUT any setting-up - aim for that; you will find it hard to do!

The lexicon has been updated a number of times - in order of list size, from the smallest: Paragon -> old itbox -> Fatbox -> new itbox. This has been a regular occurence.

Handy hint: if you prefer the older versions, play WU on something other than an itbox.

Hopefully, the word list will stay, as it is infinitely more annoying for a player to find that words have been removed than added (it's like finding that your shotgun has jammed).

To the old guard who are whinging about the sudden gulf that has opened up between the walking dictionaries and the lexicographically deprived, I have another handy hint: LEARN MORE WORDS.

[Ernest W. Quality]

Mostly agree. Good point about the word lists, I find the original list the worst because of its inconsistent omissions of common words (OAT...).

[Istenem]

mostly disagree.

The game is, of course, now MORE accessible to players - all of the possibilities of the old game remain (bar the highly inaccessible 15+ words of yore), coupled with easier clearing (which had become a trivial and uninteresting matter for the best on the old version, anyway).

maybe cretinous players who are happy to bluff and fluke their way to the first clearance of their otherwise pitiable lives. but not any player with good wordpower. (the <16 puts a wholly false constraint on our language: in effect it is saying that there are no words with more than 15 letters, however there are zillions of imported 3s and 4s which are much more valid. this is, of course, hooey.)

As far as DIFFICULTY goes, the game remains as difficult as you want it to be - the struggle to eke as many good words out as possible whilst keeping an eye on the clear can be as challenging as you want it to be.

i agree but we differ on our definition of "good".

Added to this is the greater difficulty of using a larger range of words.

it might make it more difficult to someone who is aiming for 22xx. but that is only one person in the country.
for everybody else it makes the game easier and far less cerebral/worthwhile.

if you prefer the older versions, play WU on something other than an itbox.

thanks for the tip.

Hopefully, the word list will stay, as it is infinitely more annoying for a player to find that words have been removed than added

i really, sincerely hope it doesn't. scrabble players have their own game (scrabble) and afaic they are welcome to it. sowpods was invented for that runt of a word game. people drinking in pubs and playing quiz games do not have (nor need or desire) a memory databank of obscure foreign coinages which are often inaccurate in terms of transliteration/inflection/number. while i have every respect for people who are at the top of their game (whether it be pelota, othello, sumo or scrabble) it is not for me. i just don't like those games.
i do have an issue with sowpods as it is a wordlist rather than a dictionary and i hold it close that a word can have no value without meaning. q.e.d.

the sudden gulf that has opened up between the walking dictionaries and the lexicographically deprived

hmm. lexically maybe, even lexicologically but i don't think lexicography has much relevance to playing WU. i may be wrong but i still hold that a word game should be about words, and words have no function without meaning. anyway LEXICOGRAPHICALLY can't possibly be a word because it has 17 letters.

[Guest]

UP, you can use words that you know the meaning of and avoid the Q-not-U abominations.

I can use words that I don't know the meaning of and play five QIS in one game without being consumed by self-loathing.

The new version permits both approaches: everyone's happy.

PS - your comment on 'cretins bluffing their way to clearances' shows that you would rather the game be inaccessible.

[Ernest W. Quality]

Website updated with new scoreboard. Rules as discussed above, basically as before, except only submit each word once, no need for multiple QUIZZICAL etc.

[jonesey]

Interesting that some previously 'unknown' players have appeared in the winners - I wonder if their previous anonymity was due to people who post here not going to those particular places, or to some general word game bods taking this game up in an effort to get the big prizes. I saw the word BRITZKAS appear at my local Wetherspoons the other day which isn't the sort of word that used to get played in Fareham...

One of the problems with the high score lists is that the 'team attributed to 1 player' strategy adopted by the Vajinal Bob collective means that the high scores list won't actually give most players an accurate idea of where they would be in a notional 'singles' ranking - of course the problem existed with the old lists to a (much) lesser extent.

As for self, have been left with NEUF when on 1550 odd this week, and have had a few other near-Premiership performances - but actually still stuck at 1880 in Conference North...