The most interesting game of Words With Friends I’ve ever played
On New Years’ Day, Tim Ford (@sqlagentman) and I started a game of Words With Friends. The game started out innocently enough – I played ALTER. And then I thought, why not make this more fun? I consulted Tim and said, hey, let’s restrict ourselves to T-SQL keywords. (Those of you not from my SQL Server circles are probably shouting, “Nerd alert!” I won’t be offended if you move on.)
The rules were pretty simple:
- Each word played must be a T-SQL keyword, DDL command, or a SQL Server-related concept.
- “Side effect” words are ok, as long as at least one of the words fits (1).
- Once a word fitting (1) is played, it can’t be changed to a non-key word. For example, USE could be changed to USER, but not to FUSE.
Tim was on board (no pun intended), and played SEED (as in IDENTITY). I played TEXT, and he played BIDS (probably about the only really questionable one all game, which expanded rule (1) to include concepts). Overall the following words were played, in no particular order:
| SQL-related words | “Side effect” words | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
ALTER SEED TEXT BIDS READ GROW GO NEW NEW |
LOB REAL HEAP FOR IF IF LIKE DO BY |
OUT OR TOP TOP OUT TIME AS USE USER |
TO INTO IS IS END NO SET IN OR |
ED GEN OH LIS BED RE JAPE |
AM RITZ IT ID QUEENS HI HE |
|
That’s a pretty good ratio, I think. I might have missed some, and I certainly can’t recall all of the cases where IN became INTO, etc.
Tim kicked my ass, by a large margin. I also think it was my worst WWF score ever. The clear separation came when he played JAPE on a triple word score (the actual SQL-related word played was TOP). That one hurt. Shortly after, he played RITZ off of USE to make USER. Burned again.
Anyway, without further blabbering and nerdiness, here is the board at the end of the game. Click for iPad size:
So, the next time you’re playing Words With Friends against a fellow member of your #sqlfamily, think about playing with SQL keywords only (and feel free to make it more or less strict than Tim & I have).
Ok, off to start a second such game with Tim…
nerd, nerdy, nerdiness
Sick!!!! =)