XWord Muggles Forum

A final report as the ship's bar has closed and there are 113 muggles on the shore. Since noon, the following have made their way to the tiki bar
Kris
phofer
Douglas
Arnold
Susan G

Good luck to all winning the mug. I suspect that the odds are pretty long.

Spent way too much time overthinking this one. Finally on shore. I’ll take a gatorade. Need it after all the unnecessary extra work.

Too much Falstaff Beer (but held back posting lest spoilage be done) led to:

Misery acquaints a man with strange mugfellows.

A clue! A clue! My kingdom for a clue!

Friends, Muggles, Countrymen, lend me your beers.

Et tu, Gaffney?

If meta be the food of love, play on.

Once more unto the beach, dear friends, once more.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle… This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this Tiki Bar.

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 10:33 am

pddigi wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 7:02 am A quick solve, and it came out while Dom was driving to an ISI event in Philadelphia, so travel by him again allows me to beat him to shore! Now go Vanderbilt baseball - beat Duke and get to the College World Series!

Did Dom make it to the shore?

He sure did! He drove up to Philadelphia to attend an ISI conference, a group with which he has been active since college days. He had enough down time to respond to my question as to whether he had had a chance to look at the meta with "Yeah, I crushed it". https://isi.org/

This was a popular and successful one. We had 1756 entries, about 91% correct. Given 37 possible solutions to choose from, solvers ranged all over the canon, including the four plays mentioned in the theme entries but also HAMLET (15), ROMEO AND JULIET (11), MACBETH (7) and many others. (Were these just random guesses?)

Congrats to this week's winner, Gideon Fostick of Bergenfield, NJ!

I got this one pretty early, forgot to post but I had it. So this must have been on the easier side for me to get it.

I wonder if it would have been better without the play names in the clues.

I am no Shakespeare buff but I saw Iago and Regan very quickly and I think I would have gotten it without the help of the plays, but may have taken longer.

Richard

MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Jun 10, 2019 3:16 pm This was a popular and successful one. We had 1756 entries, about 91% correct. Given 37 possible solutions to choose from, solvers ranged all over the canon, including the four plays mentioned in the theme entries but also HAMLET (15), ROMEO AND JULIET (11), MACBETH (7) and many others. (Were these just random guesses?)

I submitted THE LITTLE MERMAID. I didn't think WSJ would quibble about minor details like authorship.

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Mon Jun 10, 2019 4:05 pm

MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Jun 10, 2019 3:16 pm This was a popular and successful one. We had 1756 entries, about 91% correct. Given 37 possible solutions to choose from, solvers ranged all over the canon, including the four plays mentioned in the theme entries but also HAMLET (15), ROMEO AND JULIET (11), MACBETH (7) and many others. (Were these just random guesses?)

I submitted THE LITTLE MERMAID. I didn't think WSJ would quibble about minor details like authorship.

The Disney version did sing about buying a drink at the Tiki bar on the beach, didn't she? "What would I pay. to spend a day, warm on that sand?"

MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Jun 10, 2019 3:16 pm This was a popular and successful one. We had 1756 entries, about 91% correct. Given 37 possible solutions to choose from, solvers ranged all over the canon, including the four plays mentioned in the theme entries but also HAMLET (15), ROMEO AND JULIET (11), MACBETH (7) and many others. (Were these just random guesses?)

I always find it amusing to hear that people guess the plays that are specifically mentioned in the puzzle. Those were the only 4 that were guaranteed to NOT be the answer, but of course not everyone knows that rule.
I don't know how anyone could gotten those other plays without guessing. There's no way to know how many people got The Tempest by randomly guessing it.

Interesting take on odds of getting mugged, but the play's the thing:

https://on.wsj.com/2ZePzvB

MikeMillerwsj wrote: ↑Mon Jun 10, 2019 3:16 pm This was a popular and successful one. We had 1756 entries, about 91% correct.

I remember when the contest started almost 4 years ago, and we would get a few hundred correct entries - I saw the possibility of getting to at least half as many correct weekly answers for me as correct answers in a week - thereby bringing my cumulative odds of winning a mug up to 50% or so. However the number of correct answers is now growing so quickly that my odds are going in the wrong direction.

I'll just enjoy using my MGWCC monthly pen to fill out my grids.

Did someone explain the answer to this week’s puzzle?

lyndonpeck wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 11:32 pm Did someone explain the answer to this week’s puzzle?

Each of the theme answers had hidden in it the name of a character from the Shakespeare play from the clue:

chANGELOcations
driedoREGANo
dIAGOnalparking
mincEDGARlic
pulLAFEWstrings

The initial letters of those names are A R I E L, and Ariel is character in The Tempest, so that's the answer.

Joe Ross wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 8:21 am Interesting take on odds of getting mugged, but the play's the thing:

https://on.wsj.com/2ZePzvB

I just happen (who me, a nerd? to have a spreadsheet with the results of the 163 contests since April 29, 2016.

The average number of correct answers is 747. That has been going up - 607 over the earliest 12 months, 913 over the latest.

If someone sent in the correct answer in all of those contests, their odds of winning a mug were 28.5%

For someone who got the easiest 65%, the odds were 11.7%

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2019 7:47 am
I just happen (who me, a nerd? to have a spreadsheet with the results of the 163 contests since April 29, 2016.

I think I love you

Having learned a lesson, I submitted The Tempest.

Did anyone consider / go down this rabbit hole?:

• The 3rd letter of each character in the play answers was "G", with the exception of "F" in "LAFEW" of All’s Well That Ends Well.

• "F" is one letter before "G" alphabetically, so an answer to consider might have been A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Shakespeare play alphabetically before All’s Well That Ends Well.

• Also consider alternatively Troilus and Cressida, the play chronologically before All’s Well That Ends Well.

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2019 7:47 am I just happen (who me, a nerd? to have a spreadsheet with the results of the 163 contests since April 29, 2016.

The average number of correct answers is 747. That has been going up - 607 over the earliest 12 months, 913 over the latest.

If someone sent in the correct answer in all of those contests, their odds of winning a mug were 28.5%

For someone who got the easiest 65%, the odds were 11.7%

You go, Barbara! The power of the spreadsheet versus paper!

Just bumping this to maintain the thread order before the new puzzle comes out.

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 10:38 am

gamera13 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:47 pmYAY! I got it!

Congratuilations. Is this the first time you have been on shore?

Thank you! It's not my first. I've made it to shore before but I think I'm getting the hang of these better. Although it also sounds like they've been easy lately.