I was shocked when I realized that "across all division" includes the Champions division. It seems confounding that to get the Smartest of the Smart one has to beat champions, who already WON that badge. Doesn't really seem fair, especially since the champions seem to play the games over and over again until they can answer the questions in 20 seconds flat.

It would seem to me more fair to win by beating everyone in levels 1-200, in other words, people who do not already have the badge.

You can see when you look at the Winners page that people with the badge get "rewarded" with it time and time again (I know they aren't really getting it but the system keeps naming them as winners). It shows that this really unfair. A non-champion shouldn't have to beat all the champions to enter into the champion league. It doesn't make sense.

I've missed getting it two or three times because of that. I guess that's why it's called Smartest of the Smart. There are some others where you must beat everyone, the Pot of Gold daily badgelet being one. You just need to be on top of your game.

The very point of this award is to become a champion by beating all the champions. Everyone had to earn it that way, even the very first winners, as it was introduced at a time where play of the game by highest level players was at a maximum due to the monthly winner awards still being new and everyone competing for them.

The secret to win that one is really consistency - play a lot, practice and play a very aggressive game. If you want the overall top, you need to play fast, even at the price of accuracy. It's better to play through in 22 seconds with 8 known correct and two guesses (1/16 chance at the overall win by getting the two guesses right) than to spend time on thinking through those missing two and coming in at 10 correct with a 35 second time (No chance at the overall win).

This is the exact opposite strategy to the one you want for the monthly - on the monthly, you want to play it safe, make sure your answers are correct and raise your average with as little variance as possible.

Yes, this is supposed to be an incredibly difficult challenge.

Just think of it this way...

When the smartest game was newer, and before the monthly or divisions, we all had to win the regular hourly badge by beating everybody. Then divisions came, so all you must do for that badge is win against those in your division.

Then the overall smartest of the smart came out as well, and all of us who already won against EVERYBODY had to do it AGAIN. We already had won the "win your division" badge, before divisions.... Now we must do it again. As I recall, some players were not so fond of having to do it again.


In my opinion, it is easier now to win it, because you only have to do it once.


I will echo Wes's thoughts. Keep trying. You never know when you might snag a win. I do recall doing very well in television one day, which I never expected, because I hate the category... Play every hour and do your best. Read the incorrect answers, learn from mistakes. It will come with time.

People in the Champions' Division have not necessarily already won the 'Smartest of the Smart' badge. The requirements to be in that division are as follows:

"Players who have won I'm the Smartest, Achievement, and Monthly badges are crowned champions, and given their own elite division to fight their battles in."

To win the Smartest of the Smart, you have to be the best on the site in that particular hour; as has been said earlier, some of us had to do that simply to win the "I'm the Smartest" badge, before everything was broken down into divisions.

Okay, I am a little confused. I thought that to be a champion in a particular hourly game you had to get all the badges relating to that particular game.

I'm editing this now because I just checked the Champion page for that. Dippo is right, that *is* what it says. I could have sworn it said *all the badges* yesterday.

Now, it does say "all the badges" in the Hourly Mixed Game, so I guess you do have to beat Champions for that one (i.e. gain the Hourly Mix Winner which is the equiv. of Smartest of the Smart)?

I also want to follow up on what WesleyCrusher said. So, to win the Monthly badge in "Who's the Smartest?", the strategy is to play fewer games, selectively playing the ones that you are good at? That makes sense, I think.

But about slowing down and trying to get accuracy. Slower means lower score, even if you get them all right. I mean, I tend to do that, and I find myself often in the middle of pack, even when I get 10/10. So I'm not sure how that's better, even for monthly?

Ahh.... and when did the Hourly games get divided into divisions? (Yes, it certainly is much easier to get the high-score badges, esp. if you are really low-level, by using divisions.)

You want to find the middle ground between game count (which affects your point total) and average. Playing too few categories makes it difficult to get the requisite number of games per days, playing too many drags down your average. You'll have to find out for yourself where your personal optimum is.



Monthly looks only at your absolute scores, not how highly you placed. If you get 10 right in 50 seconds, you have 900 points. Getting only 9 in 20 seconds is 840 - a worse result. Accuracy beats speed in the long run while on the short one-shot win attempt, you must be fastest anyway, so you can't afford trading time for accuracy.

Can you say more about how Monthly works? I read the explanation on the Standngs page, but I can't quite parse it.

Monthly games record two scores - your total points from the game over the month, and your average score on each game. You then get ranked against other players on each of these figures, and the two rankings are added together to give your overall rank. The top player in each column gets 500, so the maximum score you can achieve is 1000.

If you don't play very often, your total points go down, and your ranking drops. It is imoportant to play often to keep those points rolling in. On the other hand, if it's a category you absolutely loath and dread, it's better to miss that hour, or you will affect your average score. Of course, the more games you play during the month, the less effect a single bad game has on your average for the month. That is why you will see a lot of fluctuation early in the month, and much less near the end.

I'll go with Wesley, if you win any badge against the whole set played (eg the daily game) and then find someone else got more than you you'll always know you didn't win a badge against everyone after all and any serious player would then want to do it again properly. You only get the one chance though so if the badge says against everyone it's the hardest to get and then the most valuable in your collection when you get it. It would have ruined it for me had I found out other people had beaten me when I checked the next day after winning one of them. What's the point of saying someone's probably not good enough to compete against everyone else on a single play? It's not as if there isn't a chance every single hour on the smartest, someone has to win it and if it's a subject you happen to know better than the others and recognise some of the questions then it's going to happen whoever else is playing. Even the top players aren't good in every subject.

Well, then, what strategy should you take to win the Monthly Mix badge? The Mixed Game is unlike the other two "Triathlon" hourly games in that it is no fixed category, so there are no categories to avoid. Should you just try to play as many games as possible?

That's what I did. Actually, I won it when I just played every hour every day when I could be online, trying to get as high a score as possible for my team. Then I discovered I had won a badge I didn't even know existed.

Play as many games as you want and have time for. The more you play, the luckier you'll get.

For monthly mixed, you can't strategize with categories since there are none. Play as often as you can and try to improve your skill to raise that average!

I was one of the people that was not happy with the hourly scoring change, and I'm still not happy with it. It just...isn't the same. It feels like a good chunk of the competition has been taken out. Instead of monthly scores being determined by how you directly place every hour against the other players, you get "rated" by your quiz average and how many points you score in those quizzes.

Then it was changed so that the badges were being awarded to the top players who haven't been awarded the badge, so everyone basically would get no matter where they ended up in the rankings. I remember when I had to earn my victory badges with hard work and practice.

Anyway, rant over. Play as much as you can, practice at your skimming and clicking speed. You'll get there eventually. You have to beat the best to become one of the best.

Yes, I will practice, practice!! Someday...

While we are on the subject of Champions, I notice that the Word Wizard says, "Players who have won all of the badges that this game has to offer are crowned champions..."

Does "all" really mean "all", including the elusive Marathon? Or does it just mean Word Wizard, Achievment, and Monthly? I'm guessing it just means those badges, because the others require Gold Membership.

This. The bonus game is considered separate.

100% of the shots you don't take, don't go in
(paraphrase of something said by Wayne Gretzky)

Love this!