Five vowel selection

[Martin Thompson]

I've noticed that players tend to avoid selecting five vowels, but I would say there's a reasonably good chance of making 8 and 9 letter words from them.

[Dave Preece]

Surely 4 vowels is far more optimal?

[Martin Thompson]

True. But so is picking one large number instead of four large/six small, but some players like a challenge.

[David Barnard]

Depends on your strengths and weaknesses, most of my fancy words are vowel heavy like THIOUREA etc etc although I have taken to choosing 3 vowels, I'll get some stats from apterous and share them in here for your digestion

[Callum Todd]

I think it says somewhere in the Countdown contestant guidelines that 5C,4V is statistically the most bountiful selection. Not sure which is generally better between 3V and 5V though. I guess players will pick for whatever they feel most comfortable with. Before I joined apterous, I would normally pick 3 vowels, just because to me the selections always looked 'nicer' as they came out that way, and I've noticed most of the non-apterous contestants also pick 3 vowels.

[Martin Thompson]

Or pick what you think your opponent would be weak at.
For example, some players pick 6 small numbers. I doubt that it's what they're most comfortable with, but rather what they perceive to be their opponent's weak spot.

[Ciaran McCarthy]

I prefer 4V but occasionally use 5V when there are no E or made it long word

[sean d]

Some players use 5V to simplify / reduce variability in letters rounds. (There are only 5 different vowels so obviously less variety, if you play a lot of 5V you'll get used to spotting lots of 7 letter words with 4 vowels, for example) A bit like using 4 large numbers it doesn't make it easier but can give you an advantage over players less used to the choice.
Jonathan Rawlinson used 5V to great effect on the show

[Dave Preece]

Statistically speaking, what letters selection is more likelier to get the more points?

There are only 3 different selections you can go for, so clearly it's a lot easier to work out that the numbers.

[Callum Todd]

Statistically speaking, what letters selection is more likelier to get the more points?

I think it says somewhere in the Countdown contestant guidelines that 5C,4V is statistically the most bountiful selection.

[Innis Carson]

Apterous agrees - 7.77 average max for 4V, compared to 7.42 for 3V and 7.26 for 5V. Of course the selections on apterous may not be exactly comparable to those on Countdown (shuffling yada yada) but I'd be very surprised if the difference was great enough to overturn such a clear trend.

Obviously the best choice varies depending on what the first 4 consonants and 3 vowels in a selection are though.

[Andy Platt]

That's why all the best contestants start with 4 consonants

[Matt Morrison]

I can't think of any that do.