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[Misc] Alphaguess. Anyone else playing this word game?



















Greg Bobkin

Silver Seagull
May 22, 2012
16,293
I can't believe no-one's started a table/league yet! But what would it be based on – time or number of guesses?
 


Guinness Boy

Tofu eating wokerati
Helpful Moderator
NSC Patron
Jul 23, 2003
37,653
Up and Coming Sunny Portslade
I can't believe no-one's started a table/league yet! But what would it be based on – time or number of guesses?
I was just going to ask based on @drew 's effort whether people thought speed or guess accuracy was better? As a wordler it's always number of guesses for me. I'm much happier with a three that takes an hour than a six that takes five minutes because only one letter needed changing but there were loads of options for it. I play this the same way, trying to think of a correct word rather than hammering in random words quickly. I suspect others have words come to them quite easily and are happy to play fast.

Good game though @Professor Plum
 




Bodian

Well-known member
May 3, 2012
14,661
Cumbria
Good speed for 17 guesses
Easy 3-4 letter words make it very quick to narrow it down before thinking of what it might actually be. Start with something like mid then things like left, back, keep, goal, net, post, hit, off, red, and so on.
 


drew

Drew
NSC Patron
Oct 3, 2006
23,761
Burgess Hill
I was just going to ask based on @drew 's effort whether people thought speed or guess accuracy was better? As a wordler it's always number of guesses for me. I'm much happier with a three that takes an hour than a six that takes five minutes because only one letter needed changing but there were loads of options for it. I play this the same way, trying to think of a correct word rather than hammering in random words quickly. I suspect others have words come to them quite easily and are happy to play fast.

Good game though @Professor Plum
I don't get too hung up on speed, just using shorter words to narrow down the choices, probably like many, I start with the same word from the middle of the alphabet, ie beginning with M. Then 3 letter words to narrow it down before it get's harder. Unlike Wordle, if you get this in 3 you've been incredibly lucky rather than skillful. Wordle certainly deserves more time.

I note you say you are trying to think of the correct word but unlike wordle there are considerably more options as it's not restricted to 5 letters. Also, let's say your first word begins with L and it shows that the word is earlier in the alphabet, there is no skill that is going to help identify the word with the next go because there are still so many options!
 


Professor Plum

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 27, 2024
783
I was just going to ask based on @drew 's effort whether people thought speed or guess accuracy was better? As a wordler it's always number of guesses for me. I'm much happier with a three that takes an hour than a six that takes five minutes because only one letter needed changing but there were loads of options for it. I play this the same way, trying to think of a correct word rather than hammering in random words quickly. I suspect others have words come to them quite easily and are happy to play fast.

Good game though @Professor Plum
Long answer, sorry.

I asked this very question here a week or so back — guesses or speed? I don’t think anyone responded at the time. You can make an argument for both but my feeling is that speed is probably a better yardstick of skill. Hard to explain but if you decide that time taken doesn’t matter so much there’s still a lot of guesses available and just thinking for longer doesn’t seem to lead to a significantly better chance of guessing the right word. So you could decide to guess a word only once every 5 minutes but is that likely to result in a lower-guess solution than guessing just once a minute?! I don’t think so. You get closer to the right word by guessing a number of other words first and all of these are pretty arbitrary punts until you really home in on the last few realistic possibilities. So speed seems to be the key to me.

Though if you were to attempt some sort of league table then guesses priority would be more practical as guesses would be much easier to tot up and put in order.

To answer Brother @Greg Bobkin, yes I’ve thought about proposing a league table but doesn’t this then take some of the innocent fun out of it? The admin gets a bit cumbersome too. There are some days I don’t do it because I’m too busy or I just forget. Someone would have to commit to collating results every day.

What do people think? Maybe a better idea would be a one-off knockout or tournament rather than trying to maintain an ongoing league.

In general I think Alphaguess is more geared towards here-today-gone-tomorrow temporary fun than is Wordle for instance. With Wordle there’s an archive of solutions and stats available on how you’ve done over a period. It seems more geared towards competition and record keeping. With AG you can’t go back and check your scores or the words that have come up.

But if there was a demand, we could perhaps have a tournament of some kind after Christmas? I don’t think pre-Christmas is very practical. Thoughts welcome.
 




Greg Bobkin

Silver Seagull
May 22, 2012
16,293
Long answer, sorry.

I asked this very question here a week or so back — guesses or speed? I don’t think anyone responded at the time. You can make an argument for both but my feeling is that speed is probably a better yardstick of skill. Hard to explain but if you decide that time taken doesn’t matter so much there’s still a lot of guesses available and just thinking for longer doesn’t seem to lead to a significantly better chance of guessing the right word. So you could decide to guess a word only once every 5 minutes but is that likely to result in a lower-guess solution than guessing just once a minute?! I don’t think so. You get closer to the right word by guessing a number of other words first and all of these are pretty arbitrary punts until you really home in on the last few realistic possibilities. So speed seems to be the key to me.

Though if you were to attempt some sort of league table then guesses priority would be more practical as guesses would be much easier to tot up and put in order.

To answer Brother @Greg Bobkin, yes I’ve thought about proposing a league table but doesn’t this then take some of the innocent fun out of it? The admin gets a bit cumbersome too. There are some days I don’t do it because I’m too busy or I just forget. Someone would have to commit to collating results every day.

What do people think? Maybe a better idea would be a one-off knockout or tournament rather than trying to maintain an ongoing league.

In general I think Alphaguess is more geared towards here-today-gone-tomorrow temporary fun than is Wordle for instance. With Wordle there’s an archive of solutions and stats available on how you’ve done over a period. It seems more geared towards competition and record keeping. With AG you can’t go back and check your scores or the words that have come up.

But if there was a demand, we could perhaps have a tournament of some kind after Christmas? I don’t think pre-Christmas is very practical. Thoughts welcome.
Thanks for the reply PP – and apologies for missing that something along what I asked had been done before. I play the game, but don't post results – or therefore look – on this thread very often. My suggestion was only half in jest because it would be a stats nerd's wet dream with all the numbers and ranking possibilities, but very much a ballache to collate it all I would image (I don't know – I'm very much a words man, not numbers).

There certainly seems more luck in Alphaguess than Wordle (as I think I posted before), but it's still good fun and a nice addition to the growing number of daily games/challenges I take on...
 


Cotton Socks

Skint Supporter
Feb 20, 2017
2,209
I'm slowly getting better! This is my 5th go after stropping somewhere further back in the thread.

🧩 Puzzle #504
🤔 16 guesses
⏱️ 4m 13s
🔗 alphaguess.com


Time is not going to be my thing. I have a routine with Wordle (& other associated games 😁).
I sometimes have to leave Wordle for 20 mins if I'm running late to have a shower. I'm learning to keep it simple, I think I put something like Hypoglycemia on one round. 🤦‍♀️ 😂
 








Uh_huh_him

Well-known member
Sep 28, 2011
12,397
yuck

made a silly mistake but even after that it took ages

🧩 Puzzle #505

🤔 21 guesses

⏱️ 9m 31s

🔗 alphaguess.com
 




blueandwhitestripes

Active member
Mar 18, 2008
441
Sussex
🧩 Puzzle #505

🤔 21 guesses

⏱️ 29m 50s

🔗 alphaguess.com


🥴
 








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