Theoretically, how many games can one play on Countdown...?

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Rhys Benjamin
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Theoretically, how many games can one play on Countdown...?

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

Picture a person who never ages and has a perfect record on Countdown. How many games would they, theoretically, be playing?

8 heat games, a quarter final, semi final, and final, so that's 11 in their regular series.
Now, for reasons I'll get to later, they'd only play a QF, SF, and GF in their COC, so that's 14.
They would have to never age, as I would want them to win the Supreme Championship too, so they would need to be in Series 28 at the latest, so they could take part in CoC7 or earlier.
In the Supreme Championship, that would be an extra 6 games, taking the total to 20.
Ask them back for 30BC, which, if they were drawn in the prelims, would take their total to 26 games.
(That's 17x30mins and 9x45mins, making a total airtime of 15 hours and 15 minutes.)

If they debuted earlier than that you could probably throw in a Masters game or two and a cricket special as well. So somewhere between 26 and 28.

Now, of course, one could argue that if they just drew ad infinitum in earlier series, presumably the same two contestants would have played out an entire series...? It's difficult, and there really is no maximum number here.

Nonetheless, in this modern era, I expect that the maximum any contestant will ever play - excluding returnees - would be around the 21 mark (8 heats, QF/SF/GF, COC 16/QF/SF/GF, Supreme Championship III in 2030-ish).
The forum's resident JAILBAKER, who has SPONDERED several times...
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