End of the Word Up tournament

cool · Post by **cool** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 6:55 pm

how can you be sure in the wake of the panorama expose of the tv quizzes that some of the high scores are not generated by non-existent players. Why should the swp industry be clean and tv be not. However, the people I have come into contact with within the industry personally seem honest.

jonesey · Post by **jonesey** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 7:41 pm

For myself, I can't be sure. But if you added up the prizes being won by 'unknowns' I would guess it would be so small compared to the total profit made by running the tournament it would be stupid to save a few hundred quid by taking a risk by cheating.

The fuss about these phone quizzes is a bit of a media confection I think. The Times said that 'people did not have a hope of winning' which is rubbish - they did have a hope of winning - they just didn't have a chance. Ah well - suppose that's how they make a living...

angie · Post by **angie** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 9:57 pm

Lol EWQ, I like the way you've removed the players' initials column from the new WU scoreboard so none of us will never know how many of the top scores in GrandMasters involved ARG or NFM. Actually I don't like it at all - can we have that column back please?

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 10:20 am

jonesey wrote: 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.

i would hazard a guess that top ten solo players include at least seven members of this forum, Bob's bro, the mysterious WORD UP from nottingham and a. n. other.

i doubt that there are many more than 20 people nationwide who can clear solo consistently. if you look at Ernest's understudies section it would appear to support this.

pity about NEUF, that is a much less obscure foreign word than some which the new version allows.

Ernest W. Quality · Post by **Ernest W. Quality** » Tue May 01, 2007 7:22 pm

unknownpseudonym wrote:i would hazard a guess that top ten solo players include at least seven members of this forum, Bob's bro, the mysterious WORD UP from nottingham and a. n. other.

Judging from the scores in the tmt, you can add at least three players that we've never encountered before who can score very highly.

unknownpseudonym wrote:i doubt that there are many more than 20 people nationwide who can clear solo consistently. if you look at Ernest's understudies section it would appear to support this.

There are some we didn't bother to write down since they were only in one pub or they were clearly just stabbing. And in any case we have not been to the majority of towns in the country yet, so that number is an absolute minimum. I would assume that maybe a total of about 50 consistent clearers for the country is more likely, maybe more.

The reason I removed the players column was that it was too long in some rows and in many others consisted of only a question mark. The whole table became rather wide and untidy, and since that column is the least useful generally, I ditched it. Almost all teams/players are identifiable by their score names anyway.

fotherz · Post by **fotherz** » Tue May 01, 2007 11:38 pm

unknownpseudonym wrote:i doubt that there are many more than 20 people nationwide who can clear solo consistently.

There are loads of consistent clearers. The Legendre boys, Hyena, Messiah, GJ etc. We have seen loads of 1600 scores on our travels (i.e. consistent clears).

We used to think that nobody outside of this forum could get 2000, but Bob's trip to Nottingham proved otherwise.

Basically we have no idea whats out there.

cool · Post by **cool** » Tue May 01, 2007 11:42 pm

If HYENA can clear a word up board it must be easier than I thought, a missed opportunity.

Ernest W. Quality · Post by **Ernest W. Quality** » Wed May 02, 2007 12:15 am

If you play with the aim of JUST clearing (i.e. no thought given to getting good words) then it can be done by just filthing out small words quickly, and making sure you have decent letters near the end. Ideally the shape as square as possible as well.

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Thu May 03, 2007 1:30 pm

agree with Ernest. a 39 word clearance on WUGM is doable with luck and craft. not sure i've ever seen a hyena clearance though. plenty of 12xx but can't remember seeing 16xx+

angie · Post by **angie** » Tue May 29, 2007 8:46 pm

What's become of the Word Up gossip thread and its 40-odd pages chronicling the history of the game? Is it still somewhere on here and I'm just too dim to notice it? (and have I spelt chronicling correctly? It looks weird written down)

I was looking for said thread to post the rather mundane news that ANGIE LIAM got a 1951 in Bar Radio if EWQ would like to add that to the website...

Only it doesn't seem to be EWQ any more. And UP has changed. What's going on?! Is nothing in the Word Up world sacred?

cool · Post by **cool** » Tue May 29, 2007 11:58 pm

has anybody actually received their winnings?

roberto la vigna · Post by **roberto la vigna** » Wed May 30, 2007 6:30 pm

cool wrote:has anybody actually received their winnings?

Unscramble the following anagram to reveal the answer:

ON

Can you see what it is yet?

PS - Got another ZOOXANTHELLAE today, as well as a 22sth.

cool · Post by **cool** » Wed May 30, 2007 10:54 pm

after half an hour serious thought I managed to unscramble your fiendishly difficult anagram. Next stop the conundrum on countdown!

roberto la vigna · Post by **roberto la vigna** » Thu May 31, 2007 11:17 pm

Update: SEY

fotherz · Post by **fotherz** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 12:29 am

75 quid. Yay.