How can I tell if my opponent is cheating in Words with Friends?

Question

I would deem cheating in Words with Friends to use a dictionary or site that generates words in a manner of best score.

I have had opponents play 100 + point words that I didn't even know existed.

Is there anyway without being with them / watching them play to see if my opponent is 'cheating' ?

Asked by Foxtrot

Answer

It is totally impossible to be able to tell if someone is 'cheating' unless you go to their house and check their phone browser history for any of those word helping websites. Other than that, what's to say they aren't just good with words?

It is also important to note that the complexity of the word or length mean nothing in comparison to playing the game well. Knowing words helps, but dropping those big point letters on the triple letters and dropping those big point words on the triple words is what nets you the big points. I bet you could score 100 point with the word Zoo if you placed it well enough. Words with friends is a lot of strategy not just word knowledge.

A couple tips to beat them at their own game.

1. Take longshots: What's the worst that can happen if you try to put in a word that's not real? It's not like someone is looking over your shoulder saying "Haha you loser, you don't even know what a word is.". Try to land those high letters on those triples.

2. Don't set them up: If you're making a word, be very concious of where they will be able to go next round with your word. Did you just open up a path to a double word? A triple word? Make sure you're leaving them with basically nothing awesome.

Answered by Emerica.

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Words with Friends summary?

Question

In Words With Friends (or any With Friends game), is there anyway I can check the summary of my games - how much did I win/lose? Or compare my standings with another player? It is frustrating when you play quite a number of games and it does not give you a perspective of how well you did.

Asked by Kash

Answer

I don't believe there is a way to check these stats. These games are supposed to be just for fun, but some people do like to know their stats. You could alternativley sign up for a site such as THIS if you're really serious about your stats.

Answered by Emerica.

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What formal rules are there around place names in Words with Friends?

Question

So I was playing Words with Friends for iOS, and I thought I was cleverly using up my "Q" without a "U" by playing "Qatar". However my word was rejected.

Are there any place names, such as landmarks, cities, countries etc that are allowed in Words with Friends?

Answer

All names starting with capital letter are forbidden. Places, cities, countries, rivers, but also first and last names,

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Is it possible to see the dictionary for Words With Friends?

Question

Is it possible to see the dictionary used by Words With Friends? Occasionally the game creator includes dictionary updates with updates to the game itself, and it would be nice to know what words have been added or removed.

Answer

Words With Friends uses the Enhanced North American Benchmark Lexicon (ENABLE), with a few custom additions such as 'Zen' and 'Qi'. The base word list can be found here, but I don't have a source for any of the custom additions at this time.

Source

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How can I unstick a game of Words With Friends?

Question

Near the end of a game of Words With Friends, the game seems to be stuck in a mode where neither player can make a move. On the main screen on both phones it indicates that it's my move, but when I go into the game board it shows my last move instead of my opponent's. The pass, recall, and swap buttons are all disabled, and I'm not allowed to resign because the game doesn't recognize that it's my move on this screen.

I've tried rebooting my phone to unstick the game (so did my opponent), and that didn't work. This is the free version of the game on Android if that helps. Has anyone else experienced this particular problem? If so, how do I get this game unstuck?

Answer

I've had this problem before too, never really looked into how to solve it, but now that I think about it.

Wiping the application data for words with friends (Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> Words Free -> Clear Data), then starting the application again (requiring you to log in since you wiped the data) should refresh your game.

As I was typing the above I saw that there's a "clear cache" button below the "clear data" button. That might solve the issue too. Clearing the cache would empty what is there and force a refresh from the servers. If clearing the cache doesn't work, the the paragraph above should solve the problem.

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What's the time limit for turns in Words With Friends?

Question

When I accidentally clicked "resign" while the game was on my opponent's turn, I got this message:

You can only resign when it is your turn. But fear not! If your opponent does not make a move in a reasonable amount of time they will be resigned automatically.

What is the "reasonable amount of time" referred to, here?

Answer

A post on Zynga's blog says that resignation times are now 11 days without a move for an invite game and 5 days without a move for a random game. (Previous times were 22 days and 7 days, respectively.)

Update: Based on Iszi's comments below, I've done a little more digging and found the following information about the Android version (no idea whether this applies to the iOS version as well):

Q: Some of my games are resigning early. Why?

A: This usually means the data on your app is out of sync with our server. Again, try deleting and reinstalling the app and seeing if the resigned-early games come back.

I can now confirm from personal experience that games do not always take as long as Zynga says to resign. I started an invite game at 8:59 PM Sunday local time and made no moves; when I checked Tuesday at about 10:18 AM local time, I had lost. I have my account set to update every 5 minutes, so it seems as though in this case, my game was resigned in a little over 36 hours. (I also tried deleting and reinstalling the app, and the game did not come back.)

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