The much-requested counterpart to the Thread of Brag. Obviously I've never done anything bad so I can't contribute further.

Excellent! I'll soon fill this thread up with examples of my rank incompetence. I was going to kick off with the game I just played - a thrashing from Apterous Caesar - but I realised at the end that he got 13/15 maximums and would've dropped only 2 points had I not beaten him in one round, so maybe it wasn't so bad. Never mind, I'll play some more this afternoon and I'm bound to come up with something

My brilliant one today was a target of 897 with a 100, 9 and 3 in the selection. I typed in 100*9-3 into the box but declared 900 instead of 897. Unsurprisingly, my opponent got it right...

I don't think I played too badly, but here's my worst humbling ever:

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=5723

Ouch.

Nothing too bad, but in round 13 of this Goatathon game, it was my turn to pick and the selection before picking the last letter was RCSUEINM. I almost ran out of time, before picking A, as I had at the last second remembered the word MANICURES.

I quickly clicked on A and entered MANICURES in the box and then clicked on the "end the round early button"... only to find out that I had typed MAINCURES (which ain't allowed) instead

Wow, that has to be the nastiest set of conundrums I've ever seen.

I agree, but there are some unusual words there, so it makes for good learning, just incase these come up again, especially if it's a crucial conundrum too

I have just looked at my history and I am absolutely gutted that I, except in a marathon game, have never got a century on apterous

Play against Prune, you should be able to get a century then

I've only just noticed this thread. I think that every one of my games could probably feature here. Even the ones against Prune.

Just had a 9-rounder where the conundrum was HORSESHIT, but after 15.6 seconds, I guessed SHORESHIT

I am

Twice in the same week I've missed PACEMAKER, going for CAPEMAKER (!!!!) on one occasion and PEACEMAKER on the other

The best conundrum has to be COUNTDOWN, I don't know though how many times this has appeared as a conundrum (I think I've come across it twice now).

Ha ha yeah, you went PEACEMAKER and I still didn't guess it. Stupidly I put that in the brag section....

Ok, Plum must have been really pissed at me when I kept beating him on conundrum attack - just check this out

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=10972

Wow, 14 maxes from Plum... This almost belongs more in "weird games" than the thread of scrag, you can't feel too bad about losing when your opponent plays like that.

You're unlikely to see anybody cock up a game as fantastically as this

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=11686

I am now super happy, as I have discovered I scored 107 in a 15 round game! Whoopee! http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=5945

And BTW how do I hyperlink the 107?

This could be a candidate for "Worst Performance Ever":

http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=11790

No fewer than 6 invalid letters game offerings. Not sure where exactly my brain was for most of that.

I still haven't managed to beat Apterous Plum, but I noticed today that Caesar is now ranked lower than Plum (although still higher than me) so I optimistically had a go. This was the result.

http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=12501

Beaten in each of the first three rounds by words I'd never heard of. By round 8, as you may surmise, desperation was setting in. At least I got the (pathetically easy) conundrum.

Caesar and Plum can be freakishly good sometimes. I've noticed their ratings fluctuate between 300 and 600,

I also often declare PURDIEST (too much reading John Steinbeck when I was little). If you ever find PURDIEST, it means you've also found STUPIDER

Two games worthy of scrag... I think.

My first game was against Kirk and I had two successive word rounds, where I declared words that could not be made with the selections (in other words I saw letters that wern't there).

My second game was against Prune and I couldn't even think of a word for round 3. Luckily though an obscure conundrum ensured me a win and not had to go into a tiebreaker conundrum.

Yeah, I think I made them a little too random. Need to sort that out some time.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=12748

and

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=12752

Methinks the settings for the Collins dictionary could use a tweak or two.

This reminds me: Can it be put onto those reviews, Charlie, that he was using a different dictionary as I like learning words from other people's reviews and don't want to end up learning non-ODE words. Thanks.

Done.

Top man.

Yeah, that's the reason.

PETUNIA...

BTW, it was against Plum (your other one).

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=13075

I shouldn't be posting other people's games but is this the first genuine score of 1? Awesome.

LOL at Plum getting the conundrum in 41.3 seconds

I got the conundrum wrong because my computer didn't register that I'd pressed the D.

http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=14101

Quite easily the worst I have ever played in recent memory. Despite the difficulty of the last two spots.

It's sickening to think I've played 700+ games and still get beaten by a newby....

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=14487

I was 32-0 up after Round 3 (with a max of 32) and I slumped to a below 100 score.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=14641

Why put good games in scrag, I don't really get that. Quality spot with FABRICATE

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=15275

Not really sure whether to post this as Scrag or Brag! Astonishingly, I won the game - but only after five of my first six words were disallowed. (The one that passed muster - OUTFLEW - was the only one of the six I thought might not be legit...)

Today I lost a standard nine round game to apterous prune which was very embarrasing!

I was particularly pleased with rounds 7 and 9

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=15346

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=15809

How did I lose this? So far ahead at differing points. Annoyingly, I'm 3-0 up in rounds and then the next round he has a 9 and so I'm 3-1 up but only 4 points ahead!

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=15947

All well and good in victory - however, missed out on bagging 10 points in the last numbers by taking 2 away from 707, thinking, for some reason, that I was going for 705

Definitely not playing unlimited again http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=16032

It gets harder when you play Waldorf

I am a bit pissed off about round 4 , I should've got the max (it probably only applies to me in this forum too anyway )

I used to be a teetotaller when I was younger and I could never understand why people drank for. Then, at 16, I drank champagne at a wedding and enjoyed the feeling of being under the influence. It made me happy and wanted to dance (never violent). Then coming to university, I drank on nights out to boost confidence to dance etc and the best nights tend to be the ones where you drink as you have no inhibitions. I don't like people that drink and get violent from it - just don't bother. I also don't understand those that don't touch alcohol for non-medical reasons.

No middle ground then.

What would the middle ground between drinking and not drinking be? I'm sure Aristotle would love to know.

I'm not with you (again). My post was like a timeline. I didn't understand why people drank but now I've grown up and seen the error of my ways, the story has reversed - why do people stay sober all the time!?

My point is that considering that you were once someone who not only didn't drink, but also couldn't understand why people did, you should at least still be able to understand why some people don't drink, or do you look on your past with complete bafflement?

If you read, it implies I look on my past with complete bafflement. My viewpoint on alcohol was it makes everyone do stupid things and become violent but I was wrong.

You may laugh if you want cause i just lost 137-111 in a numbers attack against Apterous Prune. My rating unfortunately went down by 30! Very embarrassing!

Hahaha, I am laughing. (Of course I'm not - I would never do anything like that to a fellow Laddiman )

In fairness Prune is nowhere near as bad at numbers as he is at letters. But keep practising, you'll get there.

I really shouldn't be posting this, but is John Bradley the only person to have 'lost' to The Duellist?

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=11959

Hell no, not even close. Can't recall specific cases off the top of my head but a few people have blanked entire duels before.

In the old days, though, if you blanked an entire duel it would then throw you up a sudden death conundrum, which would of course count for ten points. So when, one day, the duel was a solitary letters round, many people forfeitted in favour of the guaranteed, and likely superior, ten points.

Only the ten points weren't superior, as the letters round had a niner available.