Highlander #19: The Word Game - RESULTS!!!!!

[Abe Sargent]

Since I am on sabbatical, I won't wake up early tomorrow morning and I want to get this out there for the early people.

I wanted to do a game where the answer is a word, instead of a number. Here's the challenge, and it's real simple. Using a random letter generator I am going to generate a random three letter combination until a word in the English dictionary appears. Guess what that word is.

Rules:

1). Whoever is closest alphabetically is the winner. So, if you chose Abe, and the word was Ale, you would be off by ten degrees in the second digit, and would miss if someone else guessed Ape, which is only off by four degress in the secoind digit.

2). For purposes of determining alphabetical closeness, pretend the alphabet is a circle with A and Z next to each other. Therefore, B is closer to Y than it is to G, for example.

This is a nice, simple game with no math involved unless you really want to look under the hood. Good luck! PM me your guess by 7:00 EST tonight (Friday) night. (June 16th) Whoever is closest will win and get to run highlander #20, the More's the Score.


Highlander Hall of Fame

Anxiety #18
BrianD #12, #14
Chas in Cinti #4
digamma #9
Mustang #8, #15
Panerd #17
Passacaglia #11
Pumpy Tudors #2, #6, #13
Raiders Army #10
st.cronin #16
Toddzilla #5
wbatl #1
Wolfpack #3, #7

[Abe Sargent]

Dola -

If you are reading this thread, why not send off a pm with a three letter word? Our participation sometimes has been low, and I hope that's been because of the math involved, not because you guys don't like little games like this.


-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

Bump for the noon folks

[Abe Sargent]

Mid-afternoon bump

[Abe Sargent]

Bump 20 minutes left in my game.


-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

It is seven and I'll have the results shortly.


-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

I want to talk strategy a few seconds before revealeing the word and the winners.

If I had to guess, I'd guess either sob or cob. By guessing a word wthat begins with an S, I get close to the very rich RST vein of words in the language. By guessing Sob, I'd be very close to the middle of the S. Similarly, I'd guess Cob in order to have available to me the deep ABCDE set of three letter words.

By guessing an S word, I'd give up any real chance of hitting a word two degrees away from S, because those two letters are Q and U, and the likelihood of generating a word than begins with Q or U is rare. By guessing C, I'd be in the vicinity of a large number of letters that could easily generate a word.

A lot of players guessed the LMN range of the alphabet, and I have to beleive that is because it is usually viewed as the middle of the alphabet, although in this challenge, there is no middle. Still, I think people continued to associate the LMN section as the middle section psychologically.

-Anxiety

[Abe Sargent]

With that said, the word is:


GUM

Here are the guesses:

Pumpy Tudors - Sod (Almost exactly what I would have chosen as Sob)
Wbatl1 - Mop
TredWel - Set
Wolfpack - Owl
digamma - Mix
Barkeep49 - Log
Eaglesfan27 - Rat
albionmoonlight - Met
Toddzilla - Nub
panerd - New
Maple Leafs - Top
Jeri Rantanen's Shorts - End
tanglewood - Yes

That means the winner is Jeri Rantanen's Shorts with End! Congrats, and good luck with your own game!

-Anxiety

[Toddzilla]

Jeebus - thats like 4 in a row I've been the closest without winning. Blargh.

[Wolfpack]

I'm struggling with how this is scored. Can you explain how you arrived at your tally?

[Barkeep49]

I think I am the MIJB of Highlander.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

I think I am the MIJB of Highlander.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

I'm struggling with how this is scored. Can you explain how you arrived at your tally?

Of the answers, End is the closest to Gum alphabetically.


-Anxiety

[Wolfpack]

Originally Posted by Anxiety

Of the answers, End is the closest to Gum alphabetically.


-Anxiety

Oh. Okay. Completely misunderstood the example in the original post then. (Not that it would've changed my guess any)

[Barkeep49]

Bump. Would love to see a contest for tomorrow.

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

I think I am the MIJB of Highlander.

Keep trying, you will win this thing someday.