Mar 2009
Interview with Moxie whiz Andy
March 15, 2009 02:12 PM Filed in: Interview: Andy
Andy was the first Moxie player to score over 3500 points, 3645 points in fact. He achieved this milestone last Friday. He was kind enough to grant me the following interview via email:
Q: Hi Andy!
A: Hi Christopher. Moxie is a lot of fun, but I'm not sure I can top this score anytime soon. I may have made a couple of mistakes so perhaps 3800 could have been possible in that game, but I'm not sure. With my current strategy (which I'm still not sure is the BEST strategy) I think 4000 is possible, but getting the right sequence of letters would be key (and probably would only be possible in 1 in 1000 or so games).
Q: Where are you located?
A: San Mateo, California
Q: How many/which Moxie words did you use in your record-setting game?
A: 9 Moxies in my 3645 game (and I had 6 Moxies in my previous high-scoring game of 3388). I think giving away the actual words may reveal part of my strategy so I'm going to hold onto that little piece of information for now.
Q: How many Twaddles in that game?
A: Just one and it may have been intentional, but I can't remember.
Q: What basic strategy hints would you like to share?
A: Moxies are key, don't be afraid of Twaddles and definitely don't be afraid of passing. I don't know for certain, but I probably passed on at least 10 letters in my high-scoring game. You should also be aware of how many of each letter are available at the start and how many are left at any given time.
Q: Is there anything else you'd like to share?
A: I have to assume that the top ten players or so (two of which - KC and Angela - are my co-workers) all use the same strategy. We've only had the game for about a week and we came up with this strategy on the second day and it seems to be the best. I'd say the average score with this strategy is probably around 2200-2400, but with the right sequence of letters you can get much higher than that. As more people adopt this strategy (or maybe even a better strategy) I would expect that scores in the three thousands will start becoming a lot more common. Thanks again for making such a great game!
Andy, thank you for the great interview!
Q: Hi Andy!
A: Hi Christopher. Moxie is a lot of fun, but I'm not sure I can top this score anytime soon. I may have made a couple of mistakes so perhaps 3800 could have been possible in that game, but I'm not sure. With my current strategy (which I'm still not sure is the BEST strategy) I think 4000 is possible, but getting the right sequence of letters would be key (and probably would only be possible in 1 in 1000 or so games).
Q: Where are you located?
A: San Mateo, California
Q: How many/which Moxie words did you use in your record-setting game?
A: 9 Moxies in my 3645 game (and I had 6 Moxies in my previous high-scoring game of 3388). I think giving away the actual words may reveal part of my strategy so I'm going to hold onto that little piece of information for now.
Q: How many Twaddles in that game?
A: Just one and it may have been intentional, but I can't remember.
Q: What basic strategy hints would you like to share?
A: Moxies are key, don't be afraid of Twaddles and definitely don't be afraid of passing. I don't know for certain, but I probably passed on at least 10 letters in my high-scoring game. You should also be aware of how many of each letter are available at the start and how many are left at any given time.
Q: Is there anything else you'd like to share?
A: I have to assume that the top ten players or so (two of which - KC and Angela - are my co-workers) all use the same strategy. We've only had the game for about a week and we came up with this strategy on the second day and it seems to be the best. I'd say the average score with this strategy is probably around 2200-2400, but with the right sequence of letters you can get much higher than that. As more people adopt this strategy (or maybe even a better strategy) I would expect that scores in the three thousands will start becoming a lot more common. Thanks again for making such a great game!
Andy, thank you for the great interview!