word up gossip

[Istenem]

ta. i'll pop in one day next week. i've not got anywhere near my 20 letters yet, 10 was my best today. SUREFOOTED.

[Ernest W. Quality]

However, we did lay down a 1780 in a pub just off Leicester Square (unconfirmed London record)

It was actually 1787 in "The Sussex".

and removed DAVEJON from 9/10 high score berths with 12 clearances on their home territory (11 more than they seem to have managed): The Rocket on Euston Road. We didn't manage to do much to their high score word /long word lists - the heroic JUXTAPOSITIONS and two QUIZZICALLYs remain at the top.

Their longest/biggest-scoring word boards were impressive, but I think its because they don't go anywhere else to play. In the pub just round the corner, the board was crap and we rinsed the machine. Also the fact they had only cleared once suggest their tactics are poor, and they are playing solely for the glory of finding a giant word.

I pop in the UCL union every now and again during my lunchbreak, but on my own. My scores aren't great but I think Word-Up is very much a two-player game.
I think they had 3 machines in there last time I was in, all on different floors, so I'll have a look out for the 'Cambridge Massive'. I'm a bit disturbed to learn that you know exactly how many games you played that night (18) . Was one of you taking notes?

We only saw one machine in UCL, maybe we should have snooped around a bit more. We took notes mainly to remember which pubs had decent scores etc, but also to see if we could win our train fare back. Since you only win 50p a time, and the game lasts 2 minutes, you could only make 15 quid an hour if you played fast and won every time, so we would have needed three hours continuous winning to recoup the train fare. But we wasted a lot of time looking in pubs that didn't have a machine. Probably do better next time.

the too-many useless Qs is annoying but what gets on my dandruff is that there seem to be so many words the machine doesn't know: zinnia and zebu for example and jete and aquae and ixia and God knows how many more.

The dictionary is quite annoying, as you often get a nice word that it inexplicably denies... however, there are the occasional bonus "words" like LBW. Obviously the more words it allows the easier it would be.

i am getting closer to my personal goal of getting a 20 letter word (am up to 14 of them in sequence now). when i get it (make no mistake she will be mine) i wil post the location and you can all hail the mighty me.

It may not accept the word... I thought of trying electroencephalograph but can't ever seem to see the right letters together to make it worth a go. Other big z words like Razzledazzle, Razzmatazz, Tizzwozz, Mozzarella, Paparazzi, Piazzolla may be accepted (it does accept Pizzazz) .

i assume if you wanted to get an edge over the competition you could download the game from pinkfizz whatever it's called and extract the wordlist. (if anybody can be bothered to do this i demand a copy cos it was my idea)

It isn't the same word list though... the PuzzleWord list is a bit more American I think, and probably longer. It doesn't accept things like Luv, but does accept Greek letters (zeta, psi, etc)..

one other question: has anyone taken the time to work out the multiplication of scores depending on word length?

(Scrabble score + length bonus) x (word length)
where Scrabble score means the sum of the points for each letter, and the length bonus increases per letter, can't remember exactly what it is.

[tka]

However, we did lay down a 1780 in a pub just off Leicester Square (unconfirmed London record).

not on my watch.

[Istenem]

good post EWQ.

quote 2: as i see it there are several ways to play this game, as you say, playing for profit is not financially rewarding (used to be though, £200 in a day was easy).
DAVEJON seem to play for kudos within their own boozer, their tactics may be poor by your own criteria but by theirs they are very successful.

quote 5: well it jolly well had better accept my word. it is in any dictionary worth its keep. but surely PZAZZ (if it's even a word) is spelt my way.

quote 6: mmm. the wordlist on PW is ENABLE which is a massive computer file and couldn't load quickly enough on itbox, seems WU must use something else. does anyoone know what?

quote 7: any idea how the "length bonus" works?

[Ernest W. Quality]

quote 2: as i see it there are several ways to play this game, as you say, playing for profit is not financially rewarding (used to be though, £200 in a day was easy).
DAVEJON seem to play for kudos within their own boozer, their tactics may be poor by your own criteria but by theirs they are very successful.

If you can find a machine that still gives £20 for clearing the grid, then we're in business. I say their tactics are poor because its obvious that clearing the grid is far more likely to give you money than making one giant word, on average. Since the pound mark never seems to go past 1520, clearing almost guarantees the win.

quote 5: well it jolly well had better accept my word. it is in any dictionary worth its keep. but surely PZAZZ (if it's even a word) is spelt my way.

There are certainly a lot of v. long words that it might accept, but I think its only worthwhile for the personal satisfaction of having the longest word. Pizzazz is a standard word, different spellings may work too. The good thing about my way of spelling it is that if you fcuk it up you can still maybe get Pizza or Piazza.

quote 7: any idea how the "length bonus" works?

Yes, its 0 for 3 or 4 letter words, 1 for 5 or 6, 2 for 7 or 8, etc.
(maybe not exactly this but I worked it out once and have forgotten - if you can remember what specific words and letters are worth, you can work it out).

[Istenem]

there must be some out-of-the-way pubs with the old, old version of WU ripe for picking, last i heard there were still 2 in glasgow uni.

are the length bonuses really that low? so my 20 letter word is only going to score me 8 measly bonus points? that is really mean.

[Ernest W. Quality]

are the length bonuses really that low? so my 20 letter word is only going to score me 8 measly bonus points? that is really mean.

Maybe they go up more for longer words. And its 8 bonus times the length remember.

[Ernest W. Quality]

So to sumarise VB and his chum(s) spent a day in London playing Turd Up and spent £54 (108 * 50p) to win £75.

It was more of an exploratory outing. We were hoping to find some places that still had £20 for clearing the grid, in which case we would have made a big sackful of coins. Without the jackpot, there is no money in Word Up, as even if you can clear every time consistently, you will make only at most 50p profit every two minutes (once the level has been pushed to maximum difficulty), i.e. £15 an hour.

[Guest]

So if there's no money in Word-Up generally (and there isn't) , then surely long-word tactics are just as valid as big scores ones? It's just another high-score table after all...
I don't find it too difficult to clear a board but I do find it hard to make really long words, which is why I admire players like DaveJon more than others.

[Ernest W. Quality]

So when you (or your chum VB - if you aren't VB in disguise) wrote "we were playing primarily for cash" you weren't exactly telling the whole truth.

Well what he meant was, when we got there, we would just take the pound each time we got to it, rather than keep going for an honourably large score, since we were going round lots of different places anyway.

I'll give you a clue on how to save 50p in most pubs - if there is a cable (other than the mains lead) coming out the back of the machine - it's connected. This means all the games that have easy wins in them - like Turd Up will have been removed or updated.

True enough, but we generally just stopped to get a few quid anyway. After all, as we are playing mainly for entertainment, we didn't want to just be walking around London peering in pub windows.

So if there's no money in Word-Up generally (and there isn't) , then surely long-word tactics are just as valid as big scores ones? It's just another high-score table after all...

I still think that the most points board is the best indication of overall ability, and getting 1520 regularly is the only way to consistently win the pound on the same machine. Finding long/big words is nice too and we're always on the lookout, but unless its a real mammoth I don't think its worthwhile to spend a whole go making it. Making a very good word and still leaving the grid in a nice shape to clear is difficult, and if we go by DaveJon's scoreboard at The Rocket, they only managed it once. To be honest, their overall scores were very low compared to the words, I mean, if you get Quizzically for 616, and still don't get 1200 points overall, that's pretty weak. To get 2000 points you need to clear AND get some very big words, which is the real challenge. You also need to maintain a good average with lots of medium length 6,7,8 words, rather than one 12, and then the rest 3,4,5.

DaveJon's good words board was very impressive, but less so when we found that they hadn't gone out anywhere else. If you compiled all our good words onto one board, it would be similar.

As our home turf is Cambridge, where the majority of college and pub machines are regularly reset (and high scores lost), its not good for us to build an immense board in one place because it will just get wiped.

[Istenem]

i agree with HH on this one. to my mind it is easier to clear the grid than get a monster word, ergo i think a score of 1520-1800 is so-what? whereas if i notice an elegant long word on the scoreboard (SWORDSMANSHIP, GUILLOTINED...) i am more impressed. each to their own. i have also noticed that some players play it a third way and try to fill the top score of words made.
btw i have abandoned my plans for a 20 letter word it just wasn't happening. i'm gonna try for 15 first and go from there.

just a side thought: would any of us still be playing this game in the pub if it didn't have the scoreboard? there is pride and competition in all of us, i don't think winning 50pence is what keeps us playing. as is posted elsewhere, if you want to win decent cash there are other games.

[Ernest W. Quality]

i agree with HH on this one. to my mind it is easier to clear the grid than get a monster word, ergo i think a score of 1520-1800 is so-what?

But the point is that to get 2000 or above you need at least one killer word, and a good average word score, and a good shape to clear, so its all round challenging. Although to be fair, on my Puzzle Word scoreboard I have got for a lot more long words (e.g. Quintessentially. Multiplications, Equestrianism). BTW Puzzle word doesn't have the length bonus.

i have also noticed that some players play it a third way and try to fill the top score of words made.

This is basically playing fast and going for three letter words only, with only occasional tactics to get a q out or to break up some consonant clusters. The max poss is 39 X 3 letter words, our best attempt at this is 38, anyone seen a 39?

[quote=""unknownpseudonym"]btw i have abandoned my plans for a 20 letter word it just wasn't happening. i'm gonna try for 15 first and go from there.[/quote]

What was the word? Its best to have one that has the first/last X letters as a word too, incase you fcuk it up.

[quote=""unknownpseudonym"]just a side thought: would any of us still be playing this game in the pub if it didn't have the scoreboard? there is pride and competition in all of us, i don't think winning 50pence is what keeps us playing. as is posted elsewhere, if you want to win decent cash there are other games.[/quote]

True, although its still fairly entertaining, its more interesting to see how you compare with others. Shame there isn't an additional national scoreboard.

[Istenem]

okay i'll agree with that, a score of 2000+ would be very impressive maybe they could reinstate the JP if anyone managed to do that.

frankly i couldn't give a tinker's cuss for most words. the fewer the better in my opinion.

the word was (and may be again): PSEUDOPSEUDONYMOUSLY.

i like the idea of a national leaderboard, even if it was online.
(itbox could use it as a super T league game) it would get played more than what was in there before the format changed.)

[Demmerz]

Ever got 'unknown' and 'pseudonym'? That would be good.

So is it better to get two long words (very rare you'll get the combination, then the order, then work it out, I know) or a number of 'mid range' words?

[Istenem]

haven't got them on word up but GWHL's scrabble game has the words UNKNOWN, PSEUDONYM and TRIBUTE all next to each other.
ops:

as for length of words it is probably better (points-wise) to get many average words rather than one behemoth, but it depends on what you are looking to get out of yur game.