c4countdown

Gavin Chipper

I think it would make sense for Rachel to say how she knows it's impossible. It comes across as a bit odd at the moment. People will be wondering how she knows. Has it been checked on a computer? Is she so good she just knows?

Gavin Chipper

So, it's finally here. The grand final of the shortest 15 round series to date I think it's joint as it had the same number of episodes as series 46, so that's an interesting fact. (You might want to check that though.) But anyway, two great players in the final. It probably wasn't the greatest act...

Gavin Chipper

Jack Worsley wrote:Well done Giles, not your absolute best but you weren't really troubled in fairness. I would have gone for RAVIOLIS^.

We had a discussion about this not so long ago.

Gavin Chipper

I sent them an e-mail (see below). Obviously you can send your own too, either basing it on mine or not. I also got an automated response (also below). I sent it to odo.eds@oup.com taken from this site. I am a viewer of the show Countdown, and your dictionaries have been an invaluable resource to me...

Gavin Chipper

75*50/6+2=627 as an alternative in the last numbers. I have to say I did think that was all a bit patronising towards Eileen at the end. The subtext was definitely "Well done for doing so well despite being so old at 75! Normally people have completely lost their marbles by the time they're 75,...

Gavin Chipper

I'm on Apterous all the time motherfuckers. And I'm all over this tournament.

Gavin Chipper

From the previous day's thread - should be in today's: Susie allowed BAIZES, which I thought was interesting. BAIZE is a mass noun but they can be pluralised if there's more than one type. But her reason for deciding that there's more than one type was that it's listed as "typically green"...

Gavin Chipper

Did I post that in the wrong day?

Gavin Chipper

[Moved to correct day - 25th June]

Gavin Chipper

Factoid: this is the first heat-final rematch in nearly three years. :ugeek: I wonder when the last time was that 2 women have faced off in the heats then met again in the finals? If it's ever happened that is.Can't think it has ATM. In series 6, Helen Grayson beat Olivia Lloyd-Potts in a heat game...

Gavin Chipper

No-one's pointed out in this or the previous game that Myleene Klass seems to think she can get away with wearing comedy glasses without anyone noticing.

Gavin Chipper

Yeah, it is disappointing The Guardian have written an article about it and why it's not the same as just saying that psychic powers don't exist. In any case, reading what I've read, it seems that the Daily Mail caved in rather than the judge ruling against them, although you'd probably only do that...

Gavin Chipper

Lol, I voted Eileen as well. I didn't expect Giles to be quite so far ahead to be honest (I was 4 maxes behind him over 8 games with tougher selections, am winning our H2H in the new format online, etc) but the public has spoken :( lol. But that's a result of the all or nothing voting system. Ask p...

Gavin Chipper

I don't think that dip's probably got much to do with impossible numbers.

Gavin Chipper

Pretty rubbish programme all in all.

Gavin Chipper

Tony Atkins wrote:So Glen lives up to his reputation and scores the fourth place on the high points table behind 143 and the two 146s.
Well done to him! Looks like the max was 145 so the top record was safe without an extra 9 letter word.

Different formats, different records.

Gavin Chipper

What happens if Glen carries on into the next series but then loses his 8th game and then, as it's a full-length series, his score is overtaken by 8 other people, so he doesn't make the finals? Is that possible? If so it might be better to deliberately lose game 7 to ensure a place in This series' ...

Gavin Chipper

This whole month sees 3 new people grace Dictionary Corner. The first of them is Blue Peter action girl, Helen Skelton, who amazingly is only the 3rd youngest female guest, if you go by age of 1st appearance. (Bonus points for naming the 2 younger ones. 8-) :geek: :ugeek: ) No-one bothered to answe...

Gavin Chipper

Is BLEATING marked as a mass noun in ODE3 then? I don't remember Susie actually saying so (though I might just not have heard her) and it wasn't in ODE2r. If she's disallowing a plural of a count noun just because she 'doesn't think' it sounds right, that's pretty questionable to say the least. Yea...

Gavin Chipper

I can't see that a few obscure words from Dictionary Corner would alienate anyone. They're not going to impress anyone. Some might, the "nice" words - while it's always subjective as to what makes a nice word, stuff the general public might actually encounter at some point probably counts...

Gavin Chipper

It seems that sometimes Rachel deliberately avoids showing where a contestant went wrong (not to embarrass them?) by choosing an entirely different method. For example, when Chris was 30 short in R6 by doing 9-6=3,(25+4)x5x3, the corrected alternative would have been 7-4=3,(25+6)x5x3. The easy way ...

Gavin Chipper

Having been a Countdown fan for many years I now find that I have to give it up. Who in their right mind insists on bringing back that very unfunny lady, Jo Brand. The format has to be changed. Get rid of the so called celebrities which seems to consist of out of work second rate magicians, comedia...

Gavin Chipper

I can't see that a few obscure words from Dictionary Corner would alienate anyone.

Gavin Chipper

I'll beat an animal with another animal, PENGUINS as a beater in the BUNNIES round. Alt. second numbers: ((25 x 4) - 7) x 5 I did that numbers solution as well as (75×2-8)×6-7 for the 3rd one. What do we make of Rachel deliberately showboating these numbers games? Is it better to provide a more &qu...

Gavin Chipper

I got MOUTHER as a beater in round 2 and PENGUINS in 4.

Gavin Chipper

Some DC guests may be better than others and various aspects of the non-game part of the show might not be to your liking, and by all means moan about them, but if you're primarily watching for the game none of that should stop you watching.

Gavin Chipper

I remember once in the Carol days someone had a solution disallowed because it looked like he'd just accidentally missed out a step. Basically he'd said something like 5... when there wasn't a 5 but there was an unused 3 and 2. If Carol had noticed straight away she would have asked how he made the ...

Gavin Chipper

What do you mean you no longer want or need them? You definitely need them and I'm disappointed you don't want them.

Gavin Chipper

The probability of the same target (not just 893) coming up in 2 specified number games is 1/900. There are 6 pairs of numbers games (1,2; 1,3; 1,4; 2,3, 2,4; 3,4), so the probability of the same target cropping up twice in a show is 6/900 or 1/150, or once every 8 months or so. I would do 1 - (899...

Gavin Chipper

By the way what are the rules on referee errors? If a referee miscounted a break and insisted he was right, would that be final? If so, you could have a total clearance of -79. And yeah the game would end because the referee says so. Edit - Is a football referee required to keep count of the scores ...

Gavin Chipper

PS A total clearance is a TOTAL clearance of all 21 balls that ends the game. Even by this definition you could have a 'total clearance' of 0, if you twice fail to hit a red on the opening shot, and on the third attempt, pot all 21 balls having hit the pink first. By failing three times to hit the ...

Gavin Chipper

But that wouldnt be a scenario for the lowest possible total clearance wold it? 37 is the LOWEST POSSIBLE total clearnce, the table will be totally cleared of ALL BALLS, and the break will be 37! If your scenario counts then so does mine and the lowest possible is 0. So it seems that the answer has...

Gavin Chipper

Going off on a tangent here, but in the early days, it was quite standard for contestants to specify which rows they wanted the small numbers from - you still get hangovers from that era like the "Whitehall" (1-2-1-2) or the inverted T, but generally such formalities seem to have been dis...

Gavin Chipper

Explain that then! Presumably you go in-off the final black, so your break would score 37 and 7 foul points would be awarded to your opponent. That's not a total clearance then, as the final black would be respotted, although this is moot as the frame would be over anyway. Yeah, cos if that counts,...

Gavin Chipper

Presumably Matt Bayfield was waiting for the extra numbers round before he applied.

Gavin Chipper

Chris Moyles?

Gavin Chipper

Jon O'Neill wrote:
Andy Platt wrote:Good question, is it possible to apply flat scoring to the database?

I wouldn't mind seeing Dave's hypothetical bell.
I reckon a bell with a little dip for impossible numbers or something.

I wouldn't mind seeing the graph for maxes-only scoring.

Stepdown too.

Gavin Chipper

Another way to do one of the numberses was (75-10)*(8+6)-9-8 = 893

Gavin Chipper

Rhys Benjamin wrote:I think S68 really can't be compared with the other 15-rounders, bearing in mind that we've had a format change.

Are you talking about in relation to the number of prelims? If so, I don't really see a connection.

Gavin Chipper

James Robinson wrote:The über-popular Eileen Taylor is just hours away from becoming the oldest octochamp in the show's 30 and a half year history.

Was that even established?

Edit - Is this all we're going by?

Innis Carson wrote:CDB says that John Hunt was 69, so he must be a likely candidate for oldest.

Gavin Chipper

We know that (notwithstanding Nick's remarks) several games are recorded in a day. Eileen didn't seem to be her usual self yesterday - would that have been at the end of a long day for her? Is there any evidence on how other multiple winners have fared at the end of a whole day recording? Well no, ...

Gavin Chipper

I'm doing something the night before so it's probably a bit far to travel up in the morning. Unless someone's flying and wants to pick me up on the way?

Gavin Chipper

James Robinson wrote:
James Roper wrote:With Eileen going strong, unless it's been asked before: who have been the oldest and youngest ever octochamps?
Youngest is Allan Saldanha, not even in double figures when he was an octo all those years ago.

This came up recently. Urban myth. He was 10.

Gavin Chipper

Tony Atkins wrote:Eileen got 550 and Rachel had to show 548 by the method I got too late: ((8+3)x25-(6-5))x2.

Eileen got diagnosed quite quickly to end 111-31

(5×6-8)×25-2 was the standard method for that one.

Gavin Chipper

I was thinking I might do a top ten for players that have never won a championship. Anyone else can join in too!

Gavin Chipper

Why are the high-value colours near the non-baulk end where they're easier to get to after potting reds? After you've potted a red, it's likely to be easier to pot the black or pink than one of the baulk colours, but you get more points for the easier shot than for the harder one. Surely it makes m...

Gavin Chipper

Haha nice, always wanted my own rule. However I still it's the same as the Gev rule. Can you show me an example where you can go higher and the multiplication/division can't be rearranged? I thought Sean was referring to the rule that you'd used to solve it (like the 937.5 rule) rather than the rul...

Gavin Chipper

Applying the Gev rule, I'm pretty sure the best you can do is 99,900 as follows: (((50+3)*25+7)*75)/100 = 999 Anything higher can be rearranged, I think. Of course, there are other ways to get 999 from those numbers though... Wow... I'd just about got my head around getting to 937.5, but this is a ...

Gavin Chipper

No match for much of Graeme's analysis, but I finally got around to adding the new format to CDB's " best/worst available octoruns " page, with an interesting outcome! I think the most interesting thing about that is that it would appear that Helen Grayson had literally the worst run of r...

Gavin Chipper

Ben Wilson wrote:
Matt Morrison wrote:Why is it obvious they can't be contestants? Simply a "free time" issue?
Presumably because they're all employees of ITV?

He said they can't obviously be contestants. I'd agree with that. Maybe they can be but it isn't obvious.

Gavin Chipper

I have no idea how to prove it, but I'm pretty sure that the 750k examples are the maximum possible. What I'd love to know is what is the highest possible whereby it's actually a necessity to go that high (rather than a flashy alternative). No idea where to start with it! I think with those 750k ex...

Gavin Chipper

How come mine and Giles stats aren't loading yet in those tables, does the whole series have to be completed first? For the record, mine was 21/28 ( translated equivalent out of 24 = 18 ) and Giles's was 26/32 ( translated equivalent out of 24 = 19.5 ), and that's if we include the two rounds where...

Gavin Chipper

How many numbers maxes have all the octochamps/xicounts had? 15 round octochamps (counting heats only): NUMBERS MAXES 1. Jack Worsley 23 1. Jack Hurst 23 3. Edward McCullagh 22 3. Chris Cummins 22 5. Jim Bentley 21 5. Steven Briers 21 5. Mark Deeks 21 5. Eoin Monaghan 21 5. Jon O'Neill 21 10. John ...

Gavin Chipper

All very interesting. Goes to show that there's a lot of available pencils out there.

Gavin Chipper

And I got the DC-beater IDIOLECT as well (surely a professional lexicographer should know the word?) But you don't always get every word you know! NB: Hansfording/ Gandiseeging is buzzing in almost immediately when the letters reveal themselves, what Lee did has been done countless times on the sho...

Gavin Chipper

Andy Platt wrote:Ah, erm, you, um, passed, the, uh, test! Well, er, done

No! He's failed the test!

Gavin Chipper

Ryan Taylor wrote:How does it not work for numbers? Conundrums as you say are problematic but you'll always get a true result against at least one of the contestants.

If one is closer than the other you won't know if the further away declaration is valid. If you beat them it doesn't matter though obviously.

Gavin Chipper

You've missed out probably the most common one: (5) Playing against both contestants simultaneously, keeping two separate scores Yip, that's what I always do (did) if keeping score. Yeah that seems to be the way a lot of the geeks on here do it. But I think the simplest system (known as "the s...

Gavin Chipper

I might be tempted to mention the FLORUITED/EXEUNTED thing, but that seems to be more of a Countdown thing than anything to do with the dictionary although I seem to remember some talk of there being communication with the dictionary people.

Gavin Chipper

Round 3: 50, 25, 8, 1, 1, 2. Target: 594. C1: 600. C2: 596. ((50 + 25) x 8) - 2 - 1 - 1 (7) RR: 594. ((50 + 25 - 1) x 8) + 2 (10) Score: 12–19 (max 25) The art of split multiplication seems to be lost to our players, but Dan takes the first lead with his 2 away method. If we're talking about Rachel...

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