c4countdown

Gavin Chipper

How many points per game does Giles average? Dunno but why haven't you commented that he doesn't look away from the conundrum scramble straight away when he buzzes? Currently on 603 overall, so 120.6 right now. And truthfully, I do solve the conundrum before I buzz. I just want to make sure the let...

Gavin Chipper

Jon Corby wrote:How many points per game does Giles average?

Dunno but why haven't you commented that he doesn't look away from the conundrum scramble straight away when he buzzes?

Gavin Chipper

James Robinson wrote:
Round 7: T W A E T S A O D

C1: TOASTED (7)
C2: SWATTED (7)
DC: SWOTTED (7) TOSTADA (7)
Score: 49–28 (max 58)

I didn't think C2's spelling was specified.

Gavin Chipper

Just got ENDGATES in round 2 to equal DC and beat the contestants.

Gavin Chipper

Some comundrums pretty much are spelt out so would they qualify for this thread? The conundrum for the first ever game pretty much was I seem to remember (from watching it recently).

Gavin Chipper

Fair enough.

Gavin Chipper

Awesome again, harsh of Nick to say you were slow on the conundrum but probably meant as a kind of convoluted compliment. People criticised Nick for a similar remark aimed at Jack in his first few games. We shouldn't be too sensitive about a bit of pantomime booing and Nick knows quite enough not t...

Gavin Chipper

Mark Ivey wrote:R2 - treaded (Checked on Lexplorer to find it's invalid, which surprised me since you can Tread. Also, if I'd inserted the H I could have had THREADED)

TREAD, TROD, TRODDEN

Edit - People can talk about treaded tyres though.

Gavin Chipper

In the crush around the Houses of Parliament at the Queen's jubilee celebrations, with 1.5 million people in attendance, Ryan SWEARS he saw me. I didn't see him back, but I do honestly remember thinking at the time that I heard someone shout "MAAHHHHK!!!", so I believe him. Why were eithe...

Gavin Chipper

Yep. Oh well. But Jono was saying in another discussion that every time he sees the solution, it takes him a minute or so to get his head round it (presumably even when the 3 and 6 are the right way round). That's very different from just saying it's not a route you'd normally think of. Unless he ju...

Gavin Chipper

What made me go for 4L, and again, this is presumably the same for other players, was seeing all the clever tricks you can do involving 4 large numbers, e.g. James Martin's classic 4L solve Yes, I'd seen that a few times - of course it looks rather more impressive than it actually is once you menta...

Gavin Chipper

Rhys Benjamin wrote:One should not wish ill of the dead. Despite your hatred of her, I find the thought of people rejoicing over the death of someone quite repulsive...

You need to finish the last sentence.

Gavin Chipper

Just realised that What a Wonderful World and We Have All the Time in the World by Louis Armstrong are two songs. This thread will do.

Gavin Chipper

Series 61 and 63 are the obvious highlights. I suggest that one of the reasons people noticed more "thrashings" in series 63 is that it came immediately after the 15-round series with the lowest median margin in finalists' heats. If you wanted to put a Penelope spin on it, you'd have said...

Gavin Chipper

Weird article. It was posted on 1st April though.

Gavin Chipper

I too liked the Harry Peters thing. For a minute I thought he was real! (I didn't.)

Gavin Chipper

Under "Did you know?" it says "...that, speaking statistically, a choice of 2 large in the numbers game offers the easiest solutions?" - is that right? I didn't think it was. And I still don't.

Gavin Chipper

Erm, I don't think so, Tony............... :roll: :oops: :P There is always someone looking for typos before you have finished entering the recaps. Thanks. Did you spot the theme on the number targets (selected from a list in random order)? Are they all targets that can be solved using the standard...

Gavin Chipper

I think it was also decided that there isn't a distinction made between a variant spelling and a variant word (specifically for whether something is a US spelling), like with ASSHOLE.

Gavin Chipper

Cheers Ryan! Cheers Peter. I just munched a few stats for you from the top secret notes I was keeping. Weirdly, this is normally the sort of thing I'd be all obsessive and bothered about but for some reason I'm actually not: My score: 114+112+108+109+100+116+120+110 = 889. Opponent's combined score...

Gavin Chipper

I was only a maybe anyway, but I'm going to have to pull out of this. I was looking at transport, and I won't be able to get there by the standard method. Sorry.

Gavin Chipper

Charlie Reams wrote:Pretty much anything from DW would be a good place to start.

Yep. Good link.

By the way, something I probably wouldn't mention is the SALMONS/RAVIOLIS debate, because I think it's not that the dictionary is unclear, but that Dictionary Corner have made incorrect decisions in the past.

Gavin Chipper

I would tell them to get rid of silly words like LOSINGEST and DELIA and put in proper words like MOTELIER and put OUTDARE(S) back in. :P Out of interest why is there an exclusive deal with Oxford dictionaries anyway? Chambers and Cambridge etc dictionaries would work just as well. I'm not too both...

Gavin Chipper

ISOBUTANE reminds me of Paul Howe's ISOGAMETE, which for me is still one of the greatest nines of all time, alongside MYOGLOBIN I think. Can anybody else think of any good contenders for greatest nine of all time? I remember first reading about Michael Calder spotting MYOGLOBIN in the first round o...

Gavin Chipper

Mass nouns is an obvious one. When can they be pluralied? Also derivatives/variant spellings and words don't get the same treatment as the main word. You get a lot of -NESSES words on Unlimited on Apterous - words that would be mass nouns if they had their own entry. Most of these are probably over ...

Gavin Chipper

I was thinking that Countdown must be brilliant advertising for the Oxford dictionaries, so I don't think it's unreasonable to write to them making suggestions for improvements in later editions regarding the relevance of their dictionary to Countdown. I'm not saying they would be compelled to take...

Gavin Chipper

I was thinking that Countdown must be brilliant advertising for the Oxford dictionaries, so I don't think it's unreasonable to write to them making suggestions for improvements in later editions regarding the relevance of their dictionary to Countdown. I'm not saying they would be compelled to take ...

Gavin Chipper

I don't think disallowing DOTAGES is necessarily wrong. If the Countdown team asked OUP about it, and they replied that you can only talk about people in their dotage, and there's no usage case for "dotages", it shouldn't be allowed. I wonder, though, how often OUP gives specific guidance...

Gavin Chipper

Saying that Apterites should be put against each other is a bit like saying that in the quarter finals it should be seed 1 v seed 2, 3 v 4 etc.

Gavin Chipper

Did Carl Williams use Apterous? If not, you'd probably have to put him top, given how close he came to winning the series. But he might have gone on under a different name. Cate Henderson's octorun was pretty good, although she lost in the quarters, and Nicki Sellars made the final. I don't think Ni...

Gavin Chipper

Would you be able to do 9-round xicount max counts? Thanks!

Gavin Chipper

It's just English conjugations of Latin verbs that are now banned. Sounds a bit ridiculous to me. I always thought the "ORIGIN" section was for information only. These two words aren't exactly common in English, but there could be an example that is and people might start using the past t...

Gavin Chipper

FLORUITED and EXEUNTED will no longer be accepted. I was a bit surprised that this (from the "Good News, Gevin!" thread) attracted no comment at all. I'm guessing that it means that all derivatives, not just plurals of mass nouns and comparatives/superlatives of single syllable adjectives...

Gavin Chipper

I'm not sure what that post originally said, Keith, but if it still says that it led to the question x, then that still looks pretty spoilerific to me.

Gavin Chipper

Question. Has anyone ever tried to have Countdown as a special subject on Mastermind? Not as far as I know. I keep saying James Robinson should. I don't know enough about how narrow the specialist subject can be to know whether they'd accept it though. There have been some pretty narrow ones. There...

Gavin Chipper

Matt Morrison wrote:
Andy Platt wrote:Sounds more like a celebrity mini series!
I did have to look up Rob Beckett though.

He's on regular 8/10 Cats quite a bit. He also used to do open mic at the Lions Den before he was famous(ish).

Gavin Chipper

There are also players who have been on but have since improved massively, so haven't been on in anything like the form they are now. E.g. Dan McColm and Bob De Caux.

Edit - Also Drew Halliburton.

Gavin Chipper

We've seen that there's no evidence that the letters are deliberately arranged to produce longer words or higher scores. Isn't it that there is evidence, but no evidence that it's done for particular games over others? How do you mean? The only thing I can see evidence for is that clusters of ident...

Gavin Chipper

Graeme Cole wrote:We've seen that there's no evidence that the letters are deliberately arranged to produce longer words or higher scores.

Isn't it that there is evidence, but no evidence that it's done for particular games over others?

Gavin Chipper

I'd love to know who gave the mocktorun 2.

Gavin Chipper

Yeah, I'd say it would increase average scores, but decrease the chances of a 146 or 146-beater. However, 146 can be beaten with three 9s, so essentially there's only a 3/11 chance that by reducing the letters rounds to 10 you'd actually take away one of your nines. So the extra numbers could still ...

Gavin Chipper

How do you reckon previous octochamps' totals in the classic 15 rounder format convert into the new 10-letter, 4-number 15 rounder format? Much difference? Maybe a few points a game on average? This will be interesting to see over the next few series Although I'm not Graeme, I think when scores wer...

Gavin Chipper

[Kirk Bevins was a step up because he was the first to get to a level where a max game became a serious possibility I suppose this is the main bit I'd take issue with. He was certainly the first to make a max game an actuality (in the 15-round era), but I don't think he was playing any better than ...

Gavin Chipper

I'll go for this ten contestants thing, even if it hasn't proven popular so far. In chronological order of first appearance: Mark Nyman Harvey Freeman Allan Saldanha Don Reid Graham Nash Julian Fell Paul Gallen Conor Travers Jack Hurst Edward McCullagh I was thinking that when these "great&quo...

Gavin Chipper

I definitely remember at least once in the past someone hadn't written down a numbers solution or word and then said "You've got to believe me" and he got away with it.

Gavin Chipper

I'm not sure if this has been said, but I was thinking that even after Jack missed the nine, the game was theoretically winnable. If he'd got the 4-large game, he could have forced a crucial.

Gavin Chipper

I'm basing this to a large extent on subjectivity; people who in my judgment have had the most profound impact on the game and the way it's played nowadays: I wasn't going to bother with this one, but I really like that definition. So here's mine. Mark Nyman Harvey Freeman Chris Wills Julian Fell C...

Gavin Chipper

I'll go for this ten contestants thing, even if it hasn't proven popular so far. In chronological order of first appearance: Mark Nyman Harvey Freeman Allan Saldanha Don Reid Graham Nash Julian Fell Paul Gallen Conor Travers Jack Hurst Edward McCullagh Some quite tough choices here. Mark Nyman is in...

Gavin Chipper

I remember the thing about the Js. With the vowels you could look at how the probability of each vowel changes depending on what has come up already to work out actual numbers.

Gavin Chipper

It was Jojo, and I experienced it as well when watching a Sky+ recording, which I'm guessing is the problem? At some point somebody mentioned that the buzzers come through different audio channels (Champion's buzzer left, Challenger's right) so maybe Sky+ only records one channel? Jojo do you watch...

Gavin Chipper

Didn't know what Jojo? Jordan? someone? was on about with the buzzer noises before but, yup, contestant buzzer made no noise today on our TV. It was Jojo, and I experienced it as well when watching a Sky+ recording, which I'm guessing is the problem? At some point somebody mentioned that the buzzer...

Gavin Chipper

I asked that question several years ago and I'm still waiting for an answer. Corby asks and gets an answer in 18 minutes. Not on.

Gavin Chipper

Yeah but in goat there is a substantial advantage from delaying on the last letter as you get longer to form a cunning word. I remember back in the day the timer first appeared for just the last letter in goatdown before its wider adoption, and it was needed because people were taking aaaages. Havi...

Gavin Chipper

Not sure yet. The whole appeal of Goat is in the letters, after all, but you can't completely excise the numbers games without losing a key feature of the game. Christ, this is a lot to think about and I haven't even booked the hall yet... But it's just the letters that you're goatifying anyway (ob...

Gavin Chipper

Chris Philpot wrote:Numbers: 3, 70, 108, 23, 69, 417. Target: 605.

I can get one away quite easily, but can't see how to do it - but I was never any good at spoilage anyway.

Gavin Chipper

We'll never get a single hall of fame that we agree on. I think you could quite reasonably ask people to make their own individual lists and post them here. Basically what I said here. ANd then if you want, you could collate them and see which x have the most appearances.

Gavin Chipper

How does the dynamics of "timing out" when choosing the last letter work when you play it live? On apterous you have something like 3s, in real life it seems a bit fiddly both for someone to time it, and for the picker to be aware of exactly how much time they have left without the visual...

Gavin Chipper

There was a version of Countdown on C4 sketch programme Anna and Katy today. There was an interesting numbers round with a spoilage like selection but a target of 605 I think, but it wasn't up for long enough to make a decent attempt at it. Anyone written it down?

Gavin Chipper

Graeme Cole wrote:this marathon 25-hour 450-round game.

Variant idea?

Gavin Chipper

Can we do - what's the lowest highest number that's come out in a selection? So in 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, the highest is 3, and that would be the lowest possible. Or, how often has no number been higher than 5?

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