NYT Spelling Bee

[Langue_doc]

I made it to genius, but can't find the pangram.

[ciao_yall]

I'm doing yesterday's in the NYT Magazine. Found the panagram fairly early but am completely stuck at Excellent (17) and so far away from Genius (26) that I'm wondering when that breakthrough will happen.

The rules and scoring is different on these.

NCEHORV are the letters - N is the required one. Words must be 5 letters or longer and each is worth 1 point. Panagram is 3 points.

8 = good; 17 = excellent; 26 = genius.

Feel free to play along at home, folks. I'd rather get tips from you than look at the answers.

[ab_grp]

We finally got to QB yesterday after I found the final "word"... anyhoo.  Ugh.  Husband found wanna and wannabe the day before. 

Today I have about 26 points left to QB but am running out of steam.  Got the (a?) pangram, but it took a bit. 

I'm doing yesterday's in the NYT Magazine. Found the panagram fairly early but am completely stuck at Excellent (17) and so far away from Genius (26) that I'm wondering when that breakthrough will happen.

The rules and scoring is different on these.

NCEHORV are the letters - N is the required one. Words must be 5 letters or longer and each is worth 1 point. Panagram is 3 points.

8 = good; 17 = excellent; 26 = genius.

Feel free to play along at home, folks. I'd rather get tips from you than look at the answers.

Interesting! I will see what list I can come up with and what tips might come from that.  ETA: I am assuming letters can be repeated in this one as well.

[ciao_yall]

We finally got to QB yesterday after I found the final "word"... anyhoo.  Ugh.  Husband found wanna and wannabe the day before. 

Today I have about 26 points left to QB but am running out of steam.  Got the (a?) pangram, but it took a bit. 

I'm doing yesterday's in the NYT Magazine. Found the panagram fairly early but am completely stuck at Excellent (17) and so far away from Genius (26) that I'm wondering when that breakthrough will happen.

The rules and scoring is different on these.

NCEHORV are the letters - N is the required one. Words must be 5 letters or longer and each is worth 1 point. Panagram is 3 points.

8 = good; 17 = excellent; 26 = genius.

Feel free to play along at home, folks. I'd rather get tips from you than look at the answers.

Interesting! I will see what list I can come up with and what tips might come from that.  ETA: I am assuming letters can be repeated in this one as well.

Yes, letters can be repeated. Ooh, fun! Feel free to start posting words you find, if you don't think that ruins the game.

If you ask, I will share the panagram I found and any words starting with a letter of your choice.

[Langue_doc]

I found the pangram and a couple of words which brings my total to 5. I usually find words when I can shuffle the letters.

[ab_grp]

I got one pangram and 17 other things I think are words in the game posted by ciao_yall.  I'm not sure if they count, though.  It's hard when you can't shuffle letters or try answers. 

[Langue_doc]

I'll scan the page referred to by ciao_yall later tonight. The visual layout results in more words. I found the pangram early on, but now that I'm looking at the page, I'm finding more words.

Back to grading, alas.

[ciao_yall]

I got one pangram and 17 other things I think are words in the game posted by ciao_yall.  I'm not sure if they count, though.  It's hard when you can't shuffle letters or try answers.

If it can be found in the dictionary, it counts. We're on the honor system.

I'm at 23 right now.

[Langue_doc]

I don't think I can attach files here. I do have the scanned page. If anyone know if and how files can be attached to these posts, please let me know.

I'm still looking for the elusive pangram in today's SB.

[ab_grp]

I still haven't figured out how to add an attachment in posts or PMs, but I haven't had time to look into it too carefully yet.  It says "Attachments and other options" under the reply window, but I don't see any way to add an attachment.  That option might have been turned off by admins, if it existed?

As for the pangram in today's bee, let me know if you want a hint (first letter or whatever).  It would be neat if we could change the font color (e.g., to white) so it could be invisible until highlighted. 

[ciao_yall]

I'm at 22 now. I put in a word that didn't have an N in it.

The word was REVERE.

I have:

POINTS / STARTING LETTER
3 / (panagram, not telling, but I suspect there might be two?)
3 / N
7 / C
1 / E
4 / H
1 / O
2 / R
1 / V
------
22

[ab_grp]

Stealing your structure and just modifying for my number of each, so far I (think I) have:
POINTS / STARTING LETTER
3 / (panagram, not telling, but I suspect there might be two?)
3 / N
6 / C
1 / E
6 / H
1 / O (not sure... looks like it's supposed to be hyphenated)
2 / R
0 / V
------
22

Three of my words have red lines under them, but I did look them up, and they appear to have dictionary entries.  I had to keep updating this tally, because while I was looking for a V word I found a couple others. 

[ciao_yall]

Stealing your structure and just modifying for my number of each, so far I (think I) have:
POINTS / STARTING LETTER
3 / (panagram, not telling, but I suspect there might be two?)
3 / N
6 / C
1 / E
6 / H
1 / O (not sure... looks like it's supposed to be hyphenated)
2 / R
0 / V
------
22

Three of my words have red lines under them, but I did look them up, and they appear to have dictionary entries.  I had to keep updating this tally, because while I was looking for a V word I found a couple others.

Yes, if it's in the dictionary it counts. Huh, you have two more H words than me.

[ciao_yall]

POINTS / STARTING LETTER
3 / (panagram, not telling, but I suspect there might be two?)
3 / N
7 / C
1 / E
5 / H
1 / O
2 / R
1 / V
------
22 23

[ab_grp]

Okay, I did some research, figuring there has to be some app or something that allows customization to be able to shuffle the letters.  I found the "Letter Hive" app (available at least for iOS), which I downloaded.  It lets you create custom puzzles, enter the required letter, enter the remaining letters.  I did this with the paper bee's letters, and it let me shuffle them, enter words just like in the online bee, etc.  Got me a few more words, in fact! Like the online bee, the app requires only that words be at least four letters (not five).  But it could still be a useful tool if you want to be able to shuffle the letters and check to see if words are in that list, at least.  And you could also enter four letter words for more fun if you would like. My O word was not accepted, for example.  Aside from the custom puzzles, it also makes other letter combo puzzles available, so if you are done with the bee and jonesing for more, more you shall have.

For those interested in aspects related to solving programs, I also found this: http://varianceexplained.org/r/honeycomb-puzzle/  It focuses on efficient computation in R to find which 7-letter "honeycomb" would result in the highest total score.  But, along the way there is some interesting stuff on approaches to solving the puzzle.  They use a different dictionary than the program I wrote.  I can't remember if my husband uses this particular list in his. 

Now I have added another C, subtracted an O, and have found no Vs yet.  Still at 22.  Hopefully the app will help me visualize this!