Random Opponent

[Deb-b]

What are the chances of this. Playing scrabble on line I opted for a random unknown opponent , bear in mind this could be anyone from anywhere in the world. After a few pleasantries with this new opponent it transpires that not only are we from the same English county, and town but live a few hundred yards apart !!!!!!! I have been doing this for a year and 99% of the time opponent is from USA, let alone British .

[ludwig]

I broke down in Canada once and flagged someone down for a lift. They were tourists and lived about two miles from where I do in England.

[FredPuli43]

If we know how many people are online, the odds are one in whatever that number is. That the person is a near neighbour has the same odds as it being anyone other individual.

[jamesnan]

Just curious, do you always chat to the other person, I hardly ever do so, virtually never. Is that what most people do? or are the majority like me? I play every day, never know where the opponents are from but usually guess from the names and words they use, and often USA I think.
I live in UK, Essex, and would be curious to know where other people live who answer on AB and play Scrabble online,

[factor-fiction]

Interesting question, Deb.

What often appear to us to be amazing coincidences are not really so amazing. I have studies statistics but i still find it a difficult subject to grasp at times and many intuitive thoughts on probability are wrong.

When we hear that someone somewhere has won the top prize on the premium bonds we don't think 'what an amazing coincidence that of all the people in the country his/her number was picked out', because we know someone somewhere will win.

Many of us remember meeting someone on holiday who it turns out used to go to our school or knew our mother, but we don't remember all the times it doesn't happen.

Similarly we remember the times we were thinking about Mrs X and then Mrs X rang us 'out of the blue' that same day. We don't remember all the times we thought about Mr Y and Mr Y didn't ring.

I first met my wife in a nightclub. Was it an amazing coincidence that two strangers who were a perfect match for each other both happened to be in the same place at the same time?

In the case of playing Scrabble on line, there may be tens of thousands of people playing each hour. Every day there is probably someone somewhere who plays someone who lives very close by. That person thinks it's an amazing coincidence. But in the scheme of things it isn't. In this case it just happened to be you. (And when playing online anyway aren't there language options- if so that would probably rule out large parts of the world)

[chelle7272]

Janesnan, I play, some with friends and some random. I rarely chat with people I don't know, but will reply if they chat. I'm in Bristol, quite a few of my friends here also play online. Random games do appear to be mostly us opponents, down to population numbers I assume.