title: Why am I getting an additional "*" on some lines of my python app?
body: <p>I've been asked for my A Level computing to create a text based hangman game. For some reason, when the "guessword" is displayed, it contains an additional character at the end, which cannot be solved, and therefore makes the game unwinnable. This only happens on a few circumstances, not every word in the list has this additional character.</p>
  
  <p>Here is the python code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import random
  
  class Hangman():
  
  def Playing(self):
  
      category = raw_input("Please select a category from; EuroCapitals; PremTeams; FruitAndVeg")
      again = True
      while again:
  
          guessword = open(category + ".txt", "r").readlines()[random.randint(0,9)]
          board = "*" * (len(guessword) - 1)
          alreadySaid = set()
          mistakes = 7
  
          print(" ".join(board))
  
          guessed = False
          while not guessed and mistakes &gt; 0:
  
              whatplayersaid = raw_input("Guess a letter: ")
  
              if whatplayersaid in guessword:
                  alreadySaid.add(whatplayersaid)
                  board = "".join([char if char in alreadySaid else "*" for char in guessword])
                  if board == guessword:
                      guessed = True
              else:
                  mistakes -= 1
                  print("Nope.", mistakes, "mistakes left.")
  
              print(" ".join(board))
  
          again = (input("Again [y/n]: ").lower() == 'y')
  
  
  Hangman().Playing()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And the list of words in "EuroCapitals.txt" is as follows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>london
  paris
  madrid
  berlin
  moscow
  rome
  amsterdam
  bern
  zagreb
  stockholm
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Any help would be greatly appreciated.</p>