How Do You Play?

1) Look for the pangram first, but almost never get it. My brain just doesn't seem to work that way. Then I go for charismatic words: tasty foods, adorable animals, words I just learned, words I love but would never use in everyday life for fear of sounding pretentious.

2) Systematically through the obvious words -- the drudge work. COCA, COCOA, CACAO... *snore*

3) At this point Lucy the cat usually starts jumping all over my computer desk and showing me her butt, so I go do something else. I keep a pad of paper nearby with the hive drawn on it, and write down words as I think of them. This stage lasts somewhere between ten minutes and several hours, depending on what I'm doing all day. It's usually at this point that I find the pangram.

4) After I enter all those words, which presumably makes genius level, I look on NYTBee.com to see if there are more pangrams. My goal is always to hit genius and find the pangrams.

5) If there are juicy letters and I'm in the mood and don't need my brain for other things, I may go for QB. But I won't if it means sitting at the computer typing out a bunch of random letter sequences that might or might not work, for example adding NON- to everything.

I used to try for QB streaks, but gave that up when I missed a third straight QB by one word that isn't really a word: DUETTED. I've checked out the Shunn site, but don't use it.

/r/NYTSpellingBee Thread