c4countdown

Graeme Cole

When plastic milk bottles were introduced, why did they use a completely different colour code from the foil tops on the glass bottles which had used an unchanged colour code for decades and which everyone already knew? It's not like the plastic colour code was invented long after everyone had forgo...

Graeme Cole

R14: First ever numbers round in which both contestants have scored with different 10-away targets.

Graeme Cole

I don't know which was the last contestant whose name is an anagram of a valid 9, but contestants' names have been used as conundrum scrambles before.

Mike Grant had his name used as a scramble a few months after his appearance, and Ian Talbot was given his own name as a conundrum.

Graeme Cole

I like how Colin Murray clearly understands the game and follows along with the match. He knows when the conundrum is crucial, when a trailing contestant is starting a comeback, and why picking an easier/harder numbers selection in R14 is significant. They're little things, but it shows he doesn't s...

Graeme Cole

Rachel would want to cop herself on with the stern referee habit she's picked up in the last year or two. 1000-47 is actually NOT and identical method to 1000-50+3. He should not have had to show over his paper. Close enough to ask them to show their paper, I think. FWIW, Quantum Tombola treats the...

Graeme Cole

Graeme did some maths and worked out that this was what they are using on TV in recent serieseseseses. Not so recent any more - this analysis was based on Series 66 , and the letters distribution used on Countdown may have changed a bit since then. Even at the time there were comments that I'd gues...

Graeme Cole

Johnny Canuck wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 8:17 pm FOUNDEST^ apparently not in, but since it's on Lexplorer it blocks seeing the real maxes. Does anyone have a word list I could use to get all the 7s?

What makes you think FOUNDEST isn't in? They didn't say in the episode that it wouldn't be allowed. Have they disallowed it in a previous game?

Graeme Cole

UNSTINTED for a 9 in round 12. Also (paraphrasing): Moira - CS Lewis died on this day in 1963. Have you read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe? Rachel - No, but let me tell you about some incident with a potty that no-one cares about. Moira - OK... And nobody mentioned the elephant in the room. ...

Graeme Cole

As Fiona mentioned here , Tom Chafer-Cook has made a checker that doesn't require any sort of account . I thought this would be a good place to mention that. I'm not sure exactly how it works though - whether it takes it directly from Apterous or whether it has a stored list from Apterous that may ...

Graeme Cole

We should of had a tournament just like the 30BC that would of been good I think a 40BC would have too many re-returning, or even re-re-returning players. The 30BC was designed to crown the best player over 30 years, and was instead of a CoC which determines the best player over the last 3 or 4 yea...

Graeme Cole

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 2:20 pm He might just mean that the two people in the final play the same game as each other.

Joking aside, I did wonder if it was just an unusually-worded way of saying "the final between the top two will have the selections put on the big screen".

Graeme Cole

Speaking of hybrids, I’m intending on making this event the first Lincoln/Bristol hybrid event, where we’ll have a Bristol-style final phase. Again, more on that next week.😎😎😎 Wait, what? By "Bristol-style final phase" you don't mean splitting the standings table up into divisions after a...

Graeme Cole

This is Countdown Team's fault for leaking it to the contestants, That was a silly thing to do. If they wanted it secret they should have kept it PROPERLY secret. Yes. I know it contains an Octochamp whose run has yet to air... but it will probably be published here early anyway. You can't put the ...

Graeme Cole

Both things are true. Two S86 players are involved Weird, Eddy and Tom! Why would they include these two before the series has been played out? Better to save them for the one after... Do you know it's those two? Tom who hasn't even been on yet... A tip for you all - always be on the lookout for As...

Graeme Cole

It looks like Co:Bra 2022 will use the grouped QF SF Final format, similar to what Co:Man did this year. I'd like to reiterate a point I made earlier this year. Consensus among other players has only grown stronger then what it was when I posted this in February! Another drawback of some Bristol st...

Graeme Cole

Atropine 1.2.1 is out now! There are a few improvements, but the main ones are: As of Atropine 1.2.1, you no longer need to add Prune players. Ever. Prune automatically appears on as many tables as necessary when you generate fixtures. Just enter your human players, stop caring about having a multi...

Graeme Cole

Fiona T wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 10:14 pm
L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 9:32 pm Dear Graeme,

Just wondering
1. Do you edit the Countdown wiki using the pseudonym "Launchballer"?
2. If so, do you actively prefer for people not to know that that user is you?
3. If so... why?!

Thanks
I can answer that.

1. No, he doesn't.

Can confirm. Not me.

Graeme Cole

The real question here is why are mortgage vendors allowed to deny you a mortgage for having been on strike? Is it just that the pay shown for that month would be lower, so you might not meet the lending criteria, or is it a strict "one strike = no mortgage for you" rule?

Graeme Cole

Just because two people were rejected and told to apply again after it had been ten years, doesn't mean it isn't discretionary. "Discretionary" doesn't mean "the rule is never enforced", it just means "occasionally it might be waived depending on circumstances". I usua...

Graeme Cole

:::WARNING::: There seems to have been a serious change of heart at Countdown Towers! :? As we know, there have been quite a number of repeat contestants, particularly over the last decade. The official line was that there had to be a 10 year gap, but unofficially ...if the gap was around 5, that'd...

Graeme Cole

Not that I've ever run a tournament but well done on all this. I've also tweaked how it evaluates player groups so that two people who are on exactly the same standings position are less likely to stick to each other like glue to the detriment of surrounding players. So tables weren't just sorted b...

Graeme Cole

Excellent news! Does this mean that all I need is for *one* more person to request the ability to run Bristol-style QF groupings via Atropine, for it to be added?! One more person for me to count it as popular demand, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be added. To clarify, do you mean the t...

Graeme Cole

Atropine, the program many co-event organisers use to record scores and generate fixtures, had until very recently not had a new version since March 2020. For some reason it didn't get much use after then. Anyway, it's back with such renewed vigour that even the middle component of the version numbe...

Graeme Cole

I am at a loss as to how anyone can have a strong opinion on this.

Graeme Cole

Hi Graeme, OK i get what your saying: 1) could obscure words be omitted from max count? 2) what about possibly using flat 1-0 scoring to count the points (but determine the winner using the normal system) Jack 1. Only if you also want to come up with a fair and easily checkable way to determine whe...

Graeme Cole

Tried to build a better co-event scoresheet. Accidentally spent Sunday creating an entire scoresheet generation tool. This might be useful to co-event organisers. Here it is. https://greem.co.uk/scoresheets/ Enter your event name, choose a layout, and print the page. The scoresheets will be printed ...

Graeme Cole

You could always use max percentage instead of raw points to decide the finalists. For example if the max was 150 and a player scored 90 the percentage would be 60. This would make it fair for everyone. On the surface this sounds like it might be a better system, but IMO it isn't, and it would be q...

Graeme Cole

5. Webrack I don't know enough about this, and no-one has used it for running an event yet... but maybe in the future it will be the one to rule them all and in the darkness bind them? It certainly revolutionised Zoomdown. Maybe it can do the same for the in-person scene? No, WebRack won't get adop...

Graeme Cole

How come ‘alateen’ and ‘marmite’ are allowed yet not ‘Vaseline’ Especially with alateen because all sources point towards the C being capitalised. Alateen is capitalised on Lexico so perhaps this is a dictionary error on Apterous? Marmite is allowed in the sense meaning a cooking pot . The yeast ex...

Graeme Cole

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 12:03 am
JackHurst wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:24 pm What if they suspect that I have put in a back door to exploit on the day
Rohypnol would probably assist you in that mission.

I know you have a weird sense of humour but this comment makes neither humour nor sense.

Graeme Cole

Surely Jack is the 6/6 person? No, Jack won 5. He's only shown at the top of the standings because he won the final. I find that standard quite confusing. It's unclear what's being conveyed. I think the reason I made Atropine do this is so that when you copy-paste the standings table into the big s...

Graeme Cole

Following some consulting with Cal, I can reveal that we'll be trialling something new in Brum... Many of us have become accustomed with Jack Hurst's superb Countdown app. In Brum, I'm going to trial using it to play the Co:Event games. It allows solutions, maxes, and valid words to be checked a lo...

Graeme Cole

And no doubt even more so in a Bristol-esque setting. Which begs the question, is it possible for the 2nd placed player to be on 3/6 wins going into the grand final?! Yes. It's also possible for the first placed player to be on 3/6. Recall that on a 3-player table, if A beats B, B beats C and C bea...

Graeme Cole

#1 seed has 6 wins #2 seed has 4 wins In any version of that scenario, is it mathematically possible for someone to finish on 4 wins and still be positioned 2nd before the grand final? Yes. One way to get there is for the standings table after round 2 to have one person on 4/4 wins and some arbitra...

Graeme Cole

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: ↑Wed Jul 20, 2022 12:13 pm
Fiona T wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 9:40 am
P W Pts
1 Jack Hurst 6 5 373
2 Jonathan DeSouza 6 6 403
Surely Jack is the 6/6 person?

No, Jack won 5. He's only shown at the top of the standings because he won the final.

Graeme Cole

There may be something important I've not considered, otherwise they'd have done this by now, but why not simply allow the athletes to anticipate the gun? Scrap the 0.1 second rule and also scrap the random delay before the bang. Just have an audible 3-2-1-bang countdown to start the race. Then ther...

Graeme Cole

Graeme, what is the average max length for letters rounds in the modern 15Rer? And is there much of a difference in the ave maxes between 3/4/5 vowel selections? The mean average max length for letters rounds is 7.46. This covers 20,890 rounds from the start of the modern 15-rounder to the end of s...

Graeme Cole

How often has 'just add them all together' been given as a valid solution to a numbers round? In a similar vein, how often has 'multiply them all together' been declared and good? The sum of all the numbers in the selection has exactly equalled the target on nine occasions. https://wiki.apterous.or...

Graeme Cole

Has BAMBOOZLE ever been a conundrum? Anyone watching Mcdonald & Dodds last night will understand the relevance of the question :) Yes, four times. https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_M49 https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_1426 https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_3490 https://wiki.apterous.org/Episod...

Graeme Cole

Based on the standard letter distributions mentioned earlier in this thread (you can just pick the most recent one, and ignore the effects of shuffling), what is the least likely 9-letter word that has been available in a selection at least once? What is the least likely 9 that has actually been sp...

Graeme Cole

What is the probability of getting a selection that contains all 4 of the 'bad' consonants? (J, X, Q, and Z) This depends on so many variables that I don't think there's a good answer. It depends how many consonants you pick in each round, and it even varies depending on which round you're in. Obvi...

Graeme Cole

http://www.c4countdown.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=199450#p199450 If we exclude guest runs of fewer than five episodes, there have been four guest runs which have seen no conundrums solved. They are: Rory McGrath's five episodes starting from https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_4819 Dave Spikey's five epis...

Graeme Cole

What is the ranking order of letters in terms of how many times they've been used in declarations? Here are all 26 letters ordered by the number of times they have appeared in any player's declaration (regardless of whether they scored or were valid), along with the number of times that letter has ...

Graeme Cole

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: ↑Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:15 pm
Johnny Canuck wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 10:09 pm How big is the biggest group of people such that everyone in it has played everyone else in an Apterous game at least once?
Might have missed it, but didn't notice an answer to this yet.
I imagine this would be a good jumping off point.

This would have to be an Ask Charlie, I'm afraid.

Graeme Cole

What is the highest numbers target that has ever been declared by a competitor (and/or scored points with it). I'm guessing there have been a few 1000's over time, but has there ever been anything declared in the 1001-1009 range? The highest numbers declaration was "a million and one" by ...

Graeme Cole

Martin Hurst wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 8:14 pm https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_7638

Has there ever been a game before on Countdown between two contestants with fewer characters in their name between them? (7 v 7 = 14)?

I can only find one equal, in episode 6839, and no beaters.

Graeme Cole

What's the highest number of rounds a player has stayed on 0 points for and still ended up winning? Four. Three games have been won by a player who was on 0 points after four rounds, and they were all 9-round games: Derek Roddis in episode 525 , Jane Atkins in episode 1441 , and John Holton in epis...

Graeme Cole

How many episodes have been won by the player who won fewer rounds? I imagine most cases involve the winner spotting a nine that their opponent missed but I know of one episode where this was not the case. https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5555 Are there any others? The winner of the game won fewer...

Graeme Cole

Thanks for all your answers! Inspired by him being on a repeat of the celebrity chase right now - I've had Jon Culshaw as a DC guest for two separate 'runs' - my first 3 heats, and then my CoC QF. How many people have had some DC guest for more than one run? Has anyone had the same guest three sepa...

Graeme Cole

Thanks for all your answers! Inspired by him being on a repeat of the celebrity chase right now - I've had Jon Culshaw as a DC guest for two separate 'runs' - my first 3 heats, and then my CoC QF. How many people have had some DC guest for more than one run? 161 distinct players have had the same D...

Graeme Cole

In how many games have there been more vowels than consonants picked in total across all letters rounds? In the modern 15-rounder, this has only happened twice. https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6442 (44 consonants, 46 vowels) https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6882 (43 consonants, 47 vowels) For th...

Graeme Cole

On average, what letters max % do players achieve? 1) Across all players from the past 10 series? 2) In series Heats (lets say in the last 10 series)? 3) Non series finalists from the last 10 series? I'm assuming "max %" means the number of letters points scored by the player in a game di...

Graeme Cole

I suppose the next question is - what's the closest it's been to 1 round earlier? E.g. in the modern 15-rounder, you'd need a 92-point lead (I think) to win it after round 9. What's the biggest lead anyone's had? The biggest lead anyone has had after 9 rounds of a modern 15-rounder is 86, which was...

Graeme Cole

Do any other countries treat asylum seekers like that? Australia has processed illegal migrants trying to enter their country offshore since 2012. It has cross party support, and has been deemed a success. I didn't know about this before, but you're referring to this , I don't agree with that eithe...

Graeme Cole

Why do some ovens refuse to work until you've set the clock? To encourage you to set it. What if you have visitors over? What if they go into your kitchen and see the oven clock blinking midnight? They'll think you don't know how to set it. They'll think you're the kind of person who phones their n...

Graeme Cole

Isn’t the argument here from the Rwanda nay-sayers is that we simply shouldn’t deport illegal immigrants, which is a different (and disagreeable) argument? No. If someone arrives in this country, legally or otherwise, and claims asylum, we should assess their claim and house them while this claim i...

Graeme Cole

Congratulations Dan, and well played Matt. Great final. I now know what SPACETIME^ is a falseagram for.

Stat of the day: today's episode is 11 years to the day since Matt's first appearance.

R14: ((50-(9-6))*75-100)/25.

Graeme Cole

Also, get rid of the requirement to be within 10. To me this is as arbitrary as requiring words to be at least 5 letters. If you're more than 10 away then it's likely your opponent has beaten you anyway, and if they haven't, it's likely you've got a numbers round where it's difficult or impossible ...

Graeme Cole

Totally agree that requirement to be within 10 should be gone. The other point about this requirement is you can be 11 points up in the last numbers game and pick 6 small in the hope of an impossible-to-score selection and effectively win the game by default, and I think that’s wrong. Has anyone ev...

Graeme Cole

I wouldn't make this change now. But if the show was starting up from scratch I would change the numbers scoring. 10pts - 1pt per 1 away from target Also if it's impossible to be within 10, you get 5 pts for being closer than your opponent anyway. What, so if 9 away is the max you get 1 point for i...

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