Rosettes galore!

[Morbius]

Yesterday's standard puzzle (SKEDADDLE) yielded more than 130 rosettes.  I can't recall seeing that many in a single game before.  Is it a record?  (I know Alan has provided stats on a previous occasion, but I can't find the thread).

I was also rather pleased that dalek was accepted as a rare word.    

[Alan W]

Yes, Morbius, this seems to be a new world record, by a wide margin.

In the discussion last October, I revealed that the biggest number of rosettes up until then was 89, so 130 is well ahead of that. I haven't looked at the puzzles between October and now to see if there was another one even higher, but I doubt it.

Yesterday's puzzle also beats the previous high value for the percentage of players getting a rosette. Previous record 20.5%, yesterday 29.9%.

[Tom44]

I also set a personal record.  Rosettes two days in a row (yesterday and today)!  I must be getting good at this.

[TRex]

Wow. Records by large margins. ... which leads to an obvious question: has that word previously appeared and if so, was the required letter an 'A'?

[Morbius]

Nice one Tom44!  It was a record for me too - I got the rosette in 3 minutes, easily beating my previous record of 8 minutes.  A record-breaking game all round, it seems.  When we're old(er) and grey(er) we'll no doubt reminisce fondly about the famous SKEDADDLE game of 2013!   

[mkenuk]

Without wanting to pour cold water on anyone's achievements (least of all mine- I managed a rosette with a 100% hit rate (a very rare achievement), it's a fact that 8 of the 27 words required for a rosette were past tense forms of other words (eg ease / eased) so that the actual target was in reality only 19.

MK

[pat]

Wow. Records by large margins. ... which leads to an obvious question: has that word previously appeared and if so, was the required letter an 'A'?

Why do you think that's an obvious question, TRex? I remember Alan saying some time ago that the puzzles would start to recycle but I've never yet done one that I remember seeing before. Even if a puzzle was repeated after just a few months I doubt that many people who got all the words the first time round would necessarily get them all again (apart from those who get all the common words in all the puzzles every day).

I imagine that it's just a case of all the common words contained in 'skedaddle' being easily accessible.

[Alan W]

Wow. Records by large margins. ... which leads to an obvious question: has that word previously appeared and if so, was the required letter an 'A'?

I wondered that myself, TRex. SKEDADDLE has been used just once before in a daily puzzle, way back in 2006, but the mandatory letter that time was L.

[Barbaram]

I think that you're right Pat - I also (unusually!) got a rosette simply because all the common words were indeed common words. Not that I'm complaining. While sometimes I'm frustrated by the fact some of the common words elude me (usually because I've just never heard of them) I kind of like the fact that it's quite a challenge for me, and I'm definitely learning more "common" words!
Barb.

[TRex]

Why do you think that's an obvious question, TRex?

Because if SKEDADDLE with letter A required was so easy (as it seems to have been based on the number and percentage of rosettes), one would have expected similar results if it had previously occurred. And obviously Alan wondered the same thing. But, of course, changing the required letter changes the puzzle and the words one finds.

[mkenuk]

Looks like being another big total today - perhaps not as high as 'skedaddle' though. The ingredients are much the same: a fairly low target for a rosette (28), with a high proportion of -ed words among them, and a vowel (e) as the key letter.
MK

[Morbius]

Yep, you were right MK.  114 rosettes by my reckoning - second highest ever.