Countdown in Nottingham IV- Saturday 25th July 2015

Discussion and announcements relating to unofficial Countdown competitions, held online or in real life. Observation, discussion, reflection, and other stuff ending in -ion.
Gavin Chipper
Post-apocalypse
Posts: 13215
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 10:37 pm

Re: Countdown in Nottingham IV- Saturday 25th July 2015

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Ben Wilson wrote:
Jack Worsley wrote:One concern I have about the new format is over how the declarations will work. As far as I see it, there are two options:

A): The host asks each of the four players individually.
B): The host says either "player one" or "player two" and they mention the length of their word to their opponent, with the process being repeated for the opponents.

A) seems like the easiest way of doing it but if a player has a word they are doubtful of, their decision could be influenced by first hearing the declaration of a player in the other game. It's widely accepted that it's OK to base your decision on what your opponent declares but I think being influenced by a different game somehow doesn't seem right. B) might not eliminate the possibility completely but it would make it more difficult. I don't see this being an issue for the numbers games, as people rarely change their declared target based on their opponent's declaration.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? There may be a better system than either of the two I've mentioned above, so I'll be interested to hear. Maybe Ben's already thought about this.

One other question: Will the two games taking place simultaneously on the same table have separate conundrums?
There will be separate conundrums for the games, yes- the host will do them one at a time.

As for declarations, I do see your point- what I'd thought originally was to have it like Bristol-style tourneys, where the opponent would first tell their opponent what they got, and then tell the host in case a word needs clarifying or anything like that.

Hope this clears things up. :)
I think this got largely forgotten about on the day. On my tables the declaration orders seemed pretty arbitrary, so perhaps we need some sort of official instruction on this. Maybe I could start a thread on the standard hosting method for each type of game.

When I'm hosting a normal game with two players, I always ask the round selector for their length first, and then ask for the shortest word first. But if they're the same length I always go to the non-round selector first (regardless of whether any word is "risky").
Ryan Taylor
Postmaster General
Posts: 3661
Joined: Sun Oct 25, 2009 6:18 pm

Re: Countdown in Nottingham IV- Saturday 25th July 2015

Post by Ryan Taylor »

Gavin Chipper wrote:I always ask the round selector for their length first
Knew it!
Post Reply