How does word cheats work

As for a direct, "J'accuse," that's hard to do without actual proof, which you probably don't have. If enough people stop playing with your friend, either she'll get the message or she'll think she's bested all of you and won. To that I say, a big fat "whatever. Perhaps some young geek will take my friend Amy's advice: Invent an app that could detect a cheating app.

I'd offer a reward for that. Submit your question to Steven at stevenpetrow earthlink. You can also follow Steven on Twitter: StevenPetrow. Or like him on Facebook at facebook.

That's just smart play. In Words With Friends, cheating generally means using a convenient, stylishly designed third party tool probably designed by some wise and physically attractive people.

For real, we know we're offering a cheat tool. That's why we're smart people to ask about cheating; we obviously know the topic. Do you never get a shot at a bonus square? Does your opponent seem to spot where you're going next and fill it? Even the best players don't get mathematically maximum results every time.

Do your opponents always remain well ahead throughout the game? Have they kept that lead despite never having a massive, plus point play? The high-scoring Words With Friends, even more than Scrabble and its other cousins, is a game of luck as well as skill.

That means swings: sometimes you get a good draw, sometimes your opponent does. Do you have to look up half your opponent's plays, not because you plan to challenge - WWF has no challenge mechanic, just the friendly robot - but because you have no idea what those words mean? There's a drawback to WWF having a digital referee verifying all the words.

When you can't cheat obviously anymore, cheating by definition becomes less obvious. In Scrabble, cheating looks like fake words and bad excuses. Put in those wildcards either as question marks? The tool will automatically convert a space into a question mark. Convenient, right? Look just beneath that main search bar where you enter your letters. The four boxes are there to help you find words that start with a certain letter, contain a certain letter, end in a certain letter, or have a certain number of characters.

But wait. So, you might look for words that start with AN, contain an S, end in ING, and are 9 letters long, all bundled up with the letters you put into the main search. Make that search work for you in as simple or as complex a combination that you want!

By default, results are grouped together by word length. So, all the letter words are together, all the 9-letter words are together, and so on. Within each of these groupings, the words are listed in alphabetical order. If you prefer, you can also sort all results by total points instead of word length. Just peep the options along the left. Choose your word, put down your letters, and bask in the glory of a word well played.

The most common way to play this popular word game is on your mobile device of choice. The standard grid is 15 squares by 15 squares, adding up to squares in total.

Some additional game modes, like the Solo Challenge, use a smaller 11 x 11 game board squares for a tighter, faster-paced game. The distribution of letters also differs.

Players take turns placing tiles on the board, forming words, and racking up points. Each time you form a word, it must connect with the letters already on the board. You can only play one word -- either horizontally or vertically -- but if you create additional words by playing that one word, you also get those points too.

Every word you form must be valid. You can do better. Words with friends is a lot of strategy not just word knowledge. 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. 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. What you can do is play two or three games with them simultaneously. Work out their average time they take to make a move. They could cheat in the first game because they could take any length of time, but after their first go, you should be able to tell if you are both playing at the same time. If they don't play their moves regularly, but always beat you on the first game and not the second, then it might indicate that they cheat.

Or if they take unusually longer on their second game, and suddenly get an unusual word, that's also a clue. On their phone check the dictionary of words added - it'll be the letters from their rack s when they entered them on the site.

If it it someone you know, the best thing to do is ask them if they think it's fair to use the cheater apps or sites. My good friend said she thought that was quite legit and I told her I prefer not to play like that. So now we don't. There is really nothing you can do about it except refuse to play the cheater anymore. One good indicator that your opponent is using a cheat program, however, is that these programs only try to score the maximum points while ignoring strategy.