Talk:Lexicon Crossing

The quest for a 10+ scoring game...

• Four words can have 4 scoring tiles (square). Thus a maximum of 40 points. 40/4=10.
• Five words can have 6 scoring tiles (adjacent squares). This is a maximum of 56 points. 56/5=11.2
• Six words can have
  • 9 scoring tiles (crosshatch). This is a maximum of 77 points. 77/6=12.8
  • 8 scoring tiles (3 adjacent squares). This is a maximum of 72 points. 72/6=12

Both 5 and 6 word solutions rely on a few words having three (or even four for the 6word, 8 tile method) scoring tiles, so let's concentrate our search there.

Finding words to use

How many words have three tiles that score 4+ and which are seperated by at least one tile

egrep '(Q|Z|X|J|K|V|F|H|Y|W).{1,}(Q|Z|X|J|K|V|F|H|Y|W).{1,}(Q|Z|X|J|K|V|F|H|Y|W)' CSW12_wordsonly.txt | wc -l
5005

...seperated by exactly one tile:

egrep '(Q|Z|X|J|K|V|F|H|Y|W).{1}(Q|Z|X|J|K|V|F|H|Y|W).{1}(Q|Z|X|J|K|V|F|H|Y|W)' CSW12_wordsonly.txt | wc -l
413

...seperated by more than one, but at least one is Z, Q, X or J...

egrep '(Q|Z|X|J|K|V|F|H|Y|W).{1,}(Q|Z|X|J|K|V|F|H|Y|W).{1,}(Q|Z|X|J|K|V|F|H|Y|W)' CSW12_wordsonly.txt | egrep '(Z|Q|X|J)' | wc -l 1320

...some of those words could be removed because they have too many of a single letter...

egrep '(Q|Z|X|J|K|V|F|H|Y|W).{1,}(Q|Z|X|J|K|V|F|H|Y|W).{1,}(Q|Z|X|J|K|V|F|H|Y|W)' CSW12_wordsonly.txt | egrep '(Z|Q|X|J)'  | egrep -v '(Q.*Q.*Q|Z.*Z.*Z|X.*X.*X|J.*J.*J|K.*K.*K|V.*V.*V)' | wc -l
1313

These 1313 will be the basis of the remainder of our search (there is always a minimal chance that words outside this range may assist in achieving a 10+ game, but we'll care about that only once we get the rest of the search method finalised, and if the above cannot solve)

Pointscoring Letter profiles

The next step is to match words together according to their intended pointscoring letters being similarly seperated. For instance:

CHUTZPAH - 2 spaces between H and Z, and Z and H. 
JALFREZI - 2 spaces between J and F, and F and Z. 

AQUASHOW - 3 spaces between Q and H, and 1 between H and W

ZINCKIFY - 3 spaces between Z and K, and 1 between K and F

...all horizontal words need to have the same separation profile, and similarly (but independently) all vertical words need to have the same separation profile.

Note that some words can have multiple separation profiles, or other profile quirkiness

PHOTOSYNTHESIZE - H(4)Y(2)H(3)Z.

This then has profiles of 2-3 (ignoring the H), 6-3 (ignoring Y), 4-5 (ignoring second H), and 4-2 (ignoring Z). (this last profile is probably not suitable to continue with since the 'Z' is one of our core ZQXJ letters that we want to maximise the usage of)

HUZZAH

This has either H(2)Z(1)H or H(1)Z(2)H, depending on which Z is to be ignored. (as they are together, one must be)

FUZZY 

This has just one profile - F(1)Z(1)Y, as there must be at least one letter separating scoring letters - so the second Z must be ignored. (I note that there are 35 words with 'ZZ' in the 1313 list.