Displayed Word Strength
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@57chevvie
Thanks for this. I just played TINSELY for 78 and it was only showing at about half. I still haven't seen a single 100%, and I'm looking forward to it.
It occurred to me that if it's showing 100 only relatively rarely and it's showing best words at only 50-75, the programming could bump it up. -
It has certainly improved my email game. Just put any word down, check its percentage strength, and from that it's possible to work out what the 'best' score is, although I know from doing the puzzles that there are sometimes words with higher scores that the system misses.
Once you know what the highest score is, you can often work out, from the tiles in your rack and the openings on the board, what the word has to be, even if it's one that isn't in your vocabulary.
One thing it does not take into account, though, is defensive tactics: the highest-scoring word might leave your opponent the chance of a bingo, a treble/treble combo, or something like that, while the lower score gives you a better chance of winning the game. -
I like it a lot. It's most useful for me towards the end of a close game. It's a little game in itself finding the higher scoring words. I think it should simply be renamed 'Score Strength' though to save confusion. It currently implies that the highest scoring move is the smartest move which often isn't the case (tactically, positionally etc). Of course, there are certainly times when it is.
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@rayger I'm not sure I quite get this. If you put down a word it will tell you the number of points it is worth, yes; and on a rough color-coded scale it will give you its "strength" as compared to all possible moves with the letters as they now stand. I'm not sure how you translate that into an exact percentage, but I presume that, given enough time, you can work it out. As for myself, with the speed of game I play (2/1) I am not likely to spend a lot of time fiddling with this to find the best possible move (and, as Dan points out, the highest number of points doesn't necessarily make it the best move for the situation).
It's not at all unlikely that one will often get the "100%" (or "best") word. At the end of the game I will get a message telling me how many times I hit the "best," and even with the hasty moves I make, it is often around 3 or 4 times out of all the moves. -
@thatguythere202 Well, I only play e-mail, and I find that, by hovering over the edge of the play button, as well as getting the rough colour code, I am given an exact percentage of the highest possible score (according to the lexulous bot/algorithm). From this I can calculate the points available for the highest score, and from that sometimes what letters need to go on what coloured squares to achieve it. It sometimes leads me to look for, and find, bingos that I missed. Of course, the highest scoring move isn't always the best in game-play, as you may want to defend, manage your rack, or set up a future move, but I enjoy working out what it is anyway.
As I'm more interested in puzzles, anagrams and word games than I am in competing, I find the new protocol suits me very well, but I can see how it might get in the way if you're interested in playing with a ticking clock. -
@thatguythere202 Ohhhhhhhhh THAT'S what it means by best, that notice at the end of the game! I thought it meant best (but should be 'better' in that case) vs my opp! I always wondered why the total # of best moves didnt add up to the total number of moves! lol @ me.
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@rayger said in Displayed Word Strength:
Well, I only play e-mail, and I find that, by hovering over the edge of the play button, as well as getting the rough colour code, I am given an exact percentage of the highest possible score (according to the lexulous bot/algorithm).
Whoa! I hadn't noticed that. I'll try hovering and see if I get the percentage. Thanks for pointing this out.
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@roymccoy Well, that's quite true. And of course you're aware that the word with the highest strength isn't always the smartest word to play. I used a 100% strong word knowing it opened up a 3x opportunity for my opponent. I checked the "unseen" tiles and calculated that she had only a 20% chance of being able to use the 3x. In the end, of course she could. Fortunately, I'm playing with an old, old friend and we just laughed about it.
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@rayger yes, that makes perfect sense. I just checked on the hover function during a game and found those percentages showing up, just as you said (I had never taken the time to look into it before). Thanks for pointing that out.
I don't mean to contradict anyone but I have the feeling that (contrary to what some have said), there must always be a "100%" move available on the board. It's not unlikely that it would be an extremely obscure word, but the algorithm doesn't care. If there were not a 100% word available, the displayed percentages would make no sense. -
@thatguythere202 You're right, there's always at least one 100% word.
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@dan-mitchell
and sometimes - well, once so far - you can find a word that scores more than their 100% word, and that immediately gets upgraded to the new maximum strength. -
@dan-mitchell, BINGO! As you said: the highest scoring move is not always the best move! How true that is. I learned years ago that this was a game of strategy, not a battle of vocabularies. Hence, sometimes, i forgo the 100% word for strategic reasons. (For those who seem to have a question on this there are 100% word(s) every play based on your rack and the status of the game board at that time.)
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@dan-mitchell The trick is to find it, and then to determine if it's worth it
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Thanks to everyone for their interesting and helpful comments. In addition to these, what has cleared the question up for me has been (1) the announcement at the end of the game, and (2) the realization that Lexulous always has the highest-scoring possible word available, since it appears at the top of the list in the game analyses. Up until now I've generally been getting one 100% word per game while my opponent hasn't gotten any, but I'll try to improve that now that I finally know that the 100% words are always there. It remains curious, however, that though I've scored 100% words, I've never seen the vertical bar completely filled.
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@57chevvie said in Displayed Word Strength:
@roymccoy It seems the good folks at Lexulous have inadvertently created a new game. The heck with your opponent. Just find words with 100% strength.
I strongly remembered this comment as I was playing tonight. You nailed it: a new game and you're just looking for the big one. I had DEEIOSST, which looked like a likely bingo and there were various spots with room where I could start with just about any of those letters. Yet I couldn't bingo. Ordinarily I would have just played five or six letters and moved on, but this time I knew a bingo was available because the percentages indicated the possibility of a 75-point word. So I hassled with the rack for longer than I care to confess, finding two places where a 75-pointer was possible and trying everything I could imagine at these spots. But finally I had to give up and play the shorter word for far fewer points. When I checked the rack at https://www.wordplays.com/anagram-solver/deeiosst, it turned out there was no 8-letter bingo and the only 7-letter one was ISOETES, "sole extant genus of the order Isoetales". As I wrote to my friend and longtime opponent, I'll be beating myself up over this one for weeks, lol.
I note the upvotes for @Dan-Mitchell's suggestion that "Word Strength" be changed to "Score Strength" and that other players share his view. Nobody is defending "Word Strength", so I propose the change be made immediately, thanks.
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