rec.puzzles Archive

What are the word records for games?

language/english/spelling/relations.to.other.words/subset.of.word/games New

New entry, edited from material collected for the archive and not yet in a released version.

Problem

What are the word records for games?
(Spelling / Relations to Other Words / Subset of Word)

  a.  Hangman, best words to play
  b.  Jotto [1-21,22-206]
  c.  Ghost [20-206]
  i.  shortest guaranteed win when used as first word in game
  d.  Scrabble [5-99,9-211,12-134,153,222,14-11,78,184,230, 15-19,86,107,183,239,16-19,79,155,188,229,17-30,34]
  i.  highest single word score
  e.  Poker [5-105,173]
  f.  Boggle [15-166,212]
  g.  Shelling Peas [23-166,169]
  h.  Chess [3-148,14-251]
  i.  Merology [23-12,92,93]

[ Editor: question framed by the editor from the headings of the Taxonomy of Wordplay. ]
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[ Editor: from the Taxonomy of Wordplay, www.questrel.com, retrieved 28 Oct 2026. Classes (common, uncommon, hyphenated words, phrases), scores, ties (-t) and the source codes in brackets are explained in language/english/word.records.introduction. ]

a.  Hangman, best words to play
        see "Hangman" article
b.  Jotto [1-21,22-206]
        see "Crashing Words" article
c.  Ghost [20-206]
        i.  shortest guaranteed win when used as first word in game
                Qungs, Qutbs
d.  Scrabble [5-99,9-211,12-134,153,222,14-11,78,184,230, 15-19,86,107,183,239,16-19,79,155,188,229,17-30,34]
        i.  highest single word score
                common word: psychoanalyzing (1427)
                uncommon word: oxyphenbutazone (1508)
e.  Poker [5-105,173]
f.  Boggle [15-166,212]
g.  Shelling Peas [23-166,169]
h.  Chess [3-148,14-251]
i.  Merology [23-12,92,93]

-- Taxonomy of Wordplay, www.questrel.com