How does Beth Hochsprung beat those cold North Dakota winters?

Date: Wednesday April 28th 1999

 A lot of you will laugh at me to find out that I am from North Dakota, since it seems like such a barren place to those who have never been here.  Of course I would do well at jezzball, I have nothing better to do, right?  I have a 5 year old son named Keenon and a wonderful fiancee named Kory.  I am in sales for a cellular company in Minot, and even though there are only about 35,000 people in my area, it isn't that bad of a place.

My favorite time has to be that spent with Keenon and Kory.  Motherhood has been such a joy to me, and it has been quite an experience finding out that I am just like my parents.  I may seem boring to those of you who come from bigger cities, but I have great friends to spend my time with, I love to read suspense novels, and the people that I work with keep me on my toes.

As you can see by what others write on jezzball.com, this game is an addiction.  My mother got a new computer about a year ago, and she introduced me to the game.  When I first played jezzball, I thought it was kind of neat but not worth my time.  But the more I played, the more I was hooked.  I soon had jezzball on my own computer, and we began a competition to see who would have the higher score.  Sorry, Mom, I blew you out of the water.

I had a score of around 800k when I discovered this web site.  I suddenly knew that there was a lot more to the game, and I had to figure it out.  Within about 3 months or so, I sent my high scores to David.  The funny thing about this game is that I thought I wouldn't play it again for a long time, but now I am thinking that I could beat my own score.

When I began my game, I had 12 million on the first day.  I started on a Saturday when I didn't have to work.  The next Sunday I played most of the day, and then a couple of hours a day for the next week.  On the second week I was slacking a bit, and that is when my computer locked up on me.  I know I could have done better had I not gotten lazy.

The key to jezzball is one word - PATIENCE!  Maybe some of you have figured out the shortcuts that I haven't, but for me it just took time.  The others who have tips can explain it all better than I can, but after you find a certain groove, it just comes naturally after that.  I would make walls big enough to trap 3 atoms into, but only trapping 2. I would start from the right and moving to the left.  After I had the bottom filled, I would start again from one side and work to the other until there were few enough atoms that I could trap them easily.  I could finish a session in about 5-10 minutes, with a bonus of around 250,000 on average.

I suppose when the time is right I will start another game to see if I can knock myself out of the top 20, but until then I can enjoy the stories of the other great people on this site.  Good luck with your game, and I hope to hear from you with your own stories!!!

Beth Hochsprung

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