Ask Graeme?

Graeme Cole · Post by **Graeme Cole** » Tue Nov 05, 2013 11:32 pm

Jordan F wrote:*Again, by R-M% stat, who was the best contestant to never make the finals? To make life easier, I'll also add the criteria of at least 5 games won.

Top 10 non-finalists by raw score divided by max score, where the player won at least five games:

Code: Select all

Marie Hayden          83.64
Greg Hayhurst         81.81
Matt Croy             81.56
Judith Armstrong      81.43
Phyllis Styles        81.05
Dee Voce              80.48
Clive Johnson         79.62
David Franks          79.27
Ian Graham            79.21
Richard Harris        78.60

Also, of anyone who made their Countdown debut and lost, who got the most maxes?

In 15 rounds, David Morgans, Paul Lyne and Christine Smith lost their first games with 10 maxes. In 9 rounds, Tom Bradshaw and Gareth Fuller maxed seven rounds on their debuts and lost.

Graeme Cole · Post by **Graeme Cole** » Tue Nov 05, 2013 11:39 pm

Jack Worsley wrote:How many people have offered their own name (can be first name or surname) on the show?

I think it happened in the James Martin 952 episode but have there been any more cases? Thanks.

It's happened twice. One was the word FOSTER by Gerald Foster in the episode you mention. The other was BROWN by Chris Brown.

Graeme Cole · Post by **Graeme Cole** » Wed Nov 06, 2013 12:05 am

Dave Preece wrote:Who are the best players, say top five, not to make a series finals. Going by the current finals qualification rules IE players are sorted by number of wins then by number of points. Points from both wins and losses count.

Top 10 non-finalists in 15 rounds:

Code: Select all

                   WINS    PTS
David Franks          7    744  
Peter Coutts          7    662  
Phyllis Styles        6    576  
Ryan Loughborough     6    554  
Marie Hayden          5    593  
Sheri Evans           5    551  
Ian Graham            5    547  
Greg Hayhurst         5    540  
Matt Croy             5    538
Richard Harris        5    535

Note that Michael Chadwick did qualify for the series 63 finals with 7 wins and 706 points, but as I recall he ran off to Singapore at very short notice.
Graham Hill qualified for the series 64 finals with 6 wins and 577 points, but then booked a holiday over the finals or something like that.

Top 10 non-finalists in 9 rounds:

Code: Select all

                   WINS    PTS
Dee Voce              5    356  
Kay Powick            5    318  
Rita Bean             5    310  
John Morrison         5    305  
Daniel Holloway       5    300  
Paul Kerry            5    281  
Graham Bucknall       4    290  
John Snedden          4    282  
Stephen Dodds         4    281  
Denis Allan           4    281

Sheila Mann, whom some of you might remember from the Edinburgh Countdown Club, was #4 seed in series 2 with 6 wins and 299 points. She didn't reach the quarter finals, but she was defeated in the last 16, or "qualifying preliminaries" which they had in series 2.

Graeme Cole · Post by **Graeme Cole** » Wed Nov 06, 2013 12:24 am

sean d wrote:Has anyone ever declared a numbers solution of over 1,000? There are at least a couple of combinations that yield a 'max' solution of just over 1,000 for a high target just under 1,000 (eg 1 3 4 4 7 7 -- 999. Best solution is 1,001)

There have been occasional joke declarations. Peter Medhurst declared 5200 in this game. This was the record until very recently when Peter Etherington declared a million and one. At the other end of the scale, there have been two declarations under 100, neither of them entirely serious: David Affleck declared 25 and Tim Davies declared 2 in the last numbers round of a series 7 quarter-final.

Other than the above, there have only been two declarations greater than 1000, and they came in the same round of this CoC game. One player declared 1001 and the other declared 1008. Tim Morrissey's declaration of 1008, while not a scoring declaration in this case, is 63*16 and 72*14, so it can be a more useful number than some might think.

Dave Preece · Post by **Dave Preece** » Wed Nov 06, 2013 12:32 am

Ironically the 5,200 declared-game was VERY easy to solve, even for me!

Ben Wilson · Post by **Ben Wilson** » Wed Nov 06, 2013 7:39 am

Graeme Cole wrote: Top 10 non-finalists in 9 rounds:

Code: Select all

                   WINS    PTS
John Rawnsley         7    409  
Geraldine Hylands     7    355  
Craig Richardson      6    352  
Phil Bennett          6    321

Weren't these four the finalists of series 45? Though I suppose technically they never reached the quarter-finals...

Graeme Cole · Post by **Graeme Cole** » Wed Nov 06, 2013 9:07 am

Ben Wilson wrote:
Graeme Cole wrote: Top 10 non-finalists in 9 rounds:
Code: Select all
                   WINS    PTS
John Rawnsley         7    409  
Geraldine Hylands     7    355  
Craig Richardson      6    352  
Phil Bennett          6    321  
Weren't these four the finalists of series 45? Though I suppose technically they never reached the quarter-finals...

Well spotted. The query I ran just checked if they'd appeared in a quarter final. I'll edit the table.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Wed Nov 06, 2013 9:35 am

Dave Preece wrote:Ironically the 5,200 declared-game was VERY easy to solve, even for me!

This is the risk you take with joke declarations; if you just go "nope sorry, lost it", you might have been nearly there, you might have actually had it but got a bit confused at the last second, whatever. By declaring 5,200 you're sort of going "I haven't got it, and it's ridiculous for you to even ask", so you do end up with a bit of egg on your face if it solves easily. IMO.

Dave Preece · Post by **Dave Preece** » Wed Nov 06, 2013 4:50 pm

Graeme Cole wrote:
Dave Preece wrote:Who are the best players, say top five, not to make a series finals. Going by the current finals qualification rules IE players are sorted by number of wins then by number of points. Points from both wins and losses count.
Top 10 non-finalists in 15 rounds:
Code: Select all
                   WINS    PTS
David Franks          7    744  
Peter Coutts          7    662  
Phyllis Styles        6    576  
Ryan Loughborough     6    554  
Marie Hayden          5    593  
Sheri Evans           5    551  
Ian Graham            5    547  
Greg Hayhurst         5    540  
Matt Croy             5    538
Richard Harris        5    535  
Note that Michael Chadwick did qualify for the series 63 finals with 7 wins and 706 points, but as I recall he ran off to Singapore at very short notice.
Graham Hill qualified for the series 64 finals with 6 wins and 577 points, but then booked a holiday over the finals or something like that.

Top 10 non-finalists in 9 rounds:
Code: Select all
                   WINS    PTS
Dee Voce              5    356  
Kay Powick            5    318  
Rita Bean             5    310  
John Morrison         5    305  
Daniel Holloway       5    300  
Paul Kerry            5    281  
Graham Bucknall       4    290  
John Snedden          4    282  
Stephen Dodds         4    281  
Denis Allan           4    281  
Sheila Mann, whom some of you might remember from the Edinburgh Countdown Club, was #4 seed in series 2 with 6 wins and 299 points. She didn't reach the quarter finals, but she was defeated in the last 16, or "qualifying preliminaries" which they had in series 2.

Thanking you Graeme!

An unusually high percentage of ladies in both lists, or not?

Andy Platt · Post by **Andy Platt** » Wed Nov 06, 2013 7:09 pm

What are the mode and mean margins of victory?

And would it be possible to compare that to apterous?

Thanks

David Williams · Post by **David Williams** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 12:20 pm

Graeme Cole wrote:
sean d wrote:Has anyone ever declared a numbers solution of over 1,000?
there have only been two declarations greater than 1000, and they came in the same round of this CoC game. One player declared 1001 and the other declared 1008. Tim Morrissey's declaration of 1008, while not a scoring declaration in this case, is 63*16 and 72*14, so it can be a more useful number than some might think.

Is it just me that is somehow very impressed that someone actually scored points with a declaration outside the range of possible targets?

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 3:21 pm

What about declarations under 100?

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 9:43 am

Andy Platt wrote:What are the mode and mean margins of victory?

And would it be possible to compare that to apterous?

Thanks

For apterous, considering only bog-standard 15 Rounders (new format) in human-vs-human games and ignoring extra conundrums (i.e. if it's tied after 15 rounds, take the winning margin to be zero), the stats for winning margin are:

Mean: 23.85
Median: 20
Mode: 3 (1146 times)

Dave Preece · Post by **Dave Preece** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 4:07 pm

I've never understood why mode is used, it can be very inaccurate compared to the mean?

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 4:21 pm

Dave Preece wrote:I'e never understood why mode is used, it can be very inaccurate compared to the mean?

It has its uses.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 2:23 am

Dave Preece wrote:I've never understood why mode is used, it can be very inaccurate compared to the mean?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(statistics)#Use

Andy Platt · Post by **Andy Platt** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 12:46 pm

Nice work. Didn't think it'd be so close to be honest.

I had a feeling 17 might be a good shout for mode (slightly better player wins conundrum and one letters/tricky numbers). Interesting stuff

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 2:04 pm

Andy Platt wrote: I had a feeling 17 might be a good shout for mode (slightly better player wins conundrum and one letters/tricky numbers). Interesting stuff

I think you're overweighting expert-level games. In evenly matched games of average-level players, they miss a lot of stuff and score a lot of winners. So it's very volatile. The mode is not very relevant here anyway, I only included it because you asked for it -- the next most common margin is 10 and then it's all over the place after that.

Graeme Cole · Post by **Graeme Cole** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 2:59 pm

Gavin Chipper wrote:What's the latest in the game that the first E has appeared? Today (massive spoiler), I think the first E appeared as the last letter of the third letters round, so the 27th letter. Are there any that beat that?

Episode 577 holds the record. The first E was the 33rd letter to come out.
In episode M87 it was the 32nd letter.
In episode 800 it was the 30th letter.
In episode 1870 it was the 29th letter.
Episodes 560, 782, 1448 and 4002 match what we saw the other day, with the first E being the 27th letter out.

Graeme Cole · Post by **Graeme Cole** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 3:12 pm

Jordan F wrote:One other interesting question that I thought of just a minute ago.

Has anyone ever done what I'll refer to as a reverse Peter Lee/Philip Jarvis? In other words, has anyone ever been on the show in an initial appearance where they won at least one game, and then came back in another series and lost in their first(and only) appearance? For fairly obvious reasons I'm ruling out anyone who lost their first game in the Supreme Championship or 30th Birthday Championship.

Only Bruce Lambert has won fewer games on a later run than on an earlier one.

The query I ran also gave me Duncan Dale-Emberton and Helen Wrigglesworth, because it looks to the database like they had two runs, but actually they both had a single run which happened not to be continuous. So they don't count.

Graeme Cole · Post by **Graeme Cole** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 3:37 pm

Andy Platt wrote:What are the mode and mean margins of victory?

And would it be possible to compare that to apterous?

Thanks

As with Charlie's apterous stats, if a game was decided by a tiebreak the margin is zero.

Mean margin in 9 rounders
Prelims: 16.97
Finals: 16.15
All: 16.79

Mean margin in old 15 rounders
Prelims: 29.40
Finals: 27.11
All: 28.95

Mean margin in new 15 rounders (up to the end of series 68)
Prelims: 42.20
Finals: 38.71
All: 41.77

Mode
I've not divided these into prelims and finals, because with only the finals there'd be so little data the mode won't mean much.

9 rounder: 10 (146 times), followed by 4 (131 times) and 7 (109 times)
Old 15 rounder: 5 (71 times), followed by 16 (65 times) and 3 (62 times)
New 15 rounder up to end of S68: 39 (3 times), followed by loads of different margins twice.

Graeme Cole · Post by **Graeme Cole** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 3:38 pm

Gavin Chipper wrote:What about declarations under 100?

There haven't been any besides the two I mentioned.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 3:41 pm

Graeme Cole wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:What about declarations under 100?
There haven't been any besides the two I mentioned.

Oh yeah. For some reason I didn't read that bit.

sean d · Post by **sean d** » Wed Nov 13, 2013 12:30 am

Thanks Graeme. That's a big and increasing average margin of victory. A couple of factors, I suppose, are the increase in the number of really good top end players and possibly a drop off in the quality at the other end.... certainly they seem to be finding it harder to find the 200+ contestants required per year.

Martin Sinclair · Post by **Martin Sinclair** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 4:08 pm

How about a table which shows the top 10 players who have the highest % of max from their time on the show in a series? They can have played however many games. The equation for this should be: = (Total Points scored / Total max available) x 100. An example, let's look at Jack Hurst's run. He had 1276 points out of 1377. If I've done the calculation correctly, that should get 92.6652142338. Surely that's in the top 10?!

Fred Mumford · Post by **Fred Mumford** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 4:33 pm

Graeme has already done a similar table, but it's buried in the spoilers thread for 10th September 2013, not coincidentally the day a great octorun ended.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 4:35 pm

Fred Mumford wrote:Graeme has already done a similar table, but it's buried in the spoilers thread for 10th September 2013, not coincidentally the day a great octorun ended.

Are you sure that's the precise equation he used though?

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 4:37 pm

If they can play any number of games there will be loads of people on 100%.

Fred Mumford · Post by **Fred Mumford** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 4:40 pm

Jon Corby wrote:
Fred Mumford wrote:Are you sure that's the precise equation he used though?

No, but I thought it easier to use the word "similar" than dig out the thread to check......

If not, it will at least give a good pointer until Graeme replies though.

Martin Sinclair · Post by **Martin Sinclair** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 5:06 pm

How, Gavin?

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 6:23 pm

Are you an American Indian Martin?

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 7:31 pm

Martin Sinclair wrote:How, Gavin?

People who lost their first game but had easy numbers.

Martin Sinclair · Post by **Martin Sinclair** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 8:44 pm

It's impossible to get 100% max percentage if you lose, though. And no, I'm not, Jon.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 9:20 pm

Martin Sinclair wrote:It's impossible to get 100% max percentage if you lose, though. And no, I'm not, Jon.

For some reason I thought you were talking about numbers rounds.

Martin Sinclair · Post by **Martin Sinclair** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 9:40 pm

No, I didn't mention "numbers" once in it

Dave Preece · Post by **Dave Preece** » Fri Nov 15, 2013 12:49 am

Not quite what you asked, but...

Graeme Cole wrote:
Dave Preece wrote:Highest ever % of max???
I meant to look into this when I read this post a few days ago, but only got round to it now.

In a word, yes.

Jen got 952 out of 1024, which is 92.97%. This beats Dylan Taylor (974/1050 = 92.76%) who in turn beat Craig Beevers, who had held the record for years (907/987 = 91.89%).

However, there is the question of the new format. There are more numbers rounds now and you might say these are usually easier to max than letters rounds. So let's just look at letters...

Top ten 15-round octochamps ordered by percentage of max on letters in their heats. Jen's still top.
Code: Select all
                           LETTERS SCORE    MAX        %
   1 Jen Steadman                    597    627    95.22
   2 Dylan Taylor                    613    653    93.87
   3 Julian Fell                     650    701    92.72
   4 Jack Hurst                      655    717    91.35
   5 Edward McCullagh                602    659    91.35
   6 Craig Beevers                   609    667    91.30
   7 Giles Hutchings                 609    669    91.03
   8 Andy Platt                      620    682    90.91
   9 Kirk Bevins                     644    711    90.58
  10 Chris Davies                    626    693    90.33
It's a similar story if we also include conundrums. But we can do better than that. If we adapt new 15-rounder scores to the old 15-round format, by multiplying letters scores by 11/10 and multiplying numbers scores by 3/4, then we can include letters, numbers and conundrums for everyone. And the table of octotals ordered by percentage of max looks like this...
Code: Select all
                                 OCTOTAL       MAX        %
   1 Jen Steadman                 937.95   1007.45    93.10
   2 Dylan Taylor                 957.55   1036.05    92.42
   3 Craig Beevers                907       987       91.89
   4 Jack Hurst                   946      1031       91.76
   5 Edward McCullagh             896       979       91.52
   6 Julian Fell                  924      1015       91.03
   7 Giles Hutchings              954.40   1049.15    90.97
   8 Kirk Bevins                  925      1031       89.72
   9 David O'Donnell              880       995       88.44
  10 Chris Davies                 892      1013       88.06
Best octorun ever.

Dave Preece · Post by **Dave Preece** » Fri Nov 15, 2013 12:50 am

Jen has the best total % of max if all games are considered, this of course may go down...

Martin Sinclair · Post by **Martin Sinclair** » Sat Nov 30, 2013 9:31 pm

I've just done some research on something which I'm sure many will have briefly thought about doing (apologies if it already has and I'm an idiot). It's the calculation for what your score would've been if your opponent maxed every single round throughout. So, the way to do this is by taking all the rounds which you did score on (but didn't max on), and subtract the score which got in those rounds from your overall total. You can ignore any rounds which you failed to score on altogether. Also, I feel all the points which you scored on in the conundrum rounds need to be subtracted from the total, as your opponent could've hansforded you each time. Harsh, but true. I've looked up a few impressive octoruns, and here's how it currently stands.

1) Dylan Taylor, 823 (151 points lost). Octorun maximum: 1050
2) Jen Steadman, 786 (166 points lost). Octorun maximum: 1024
3) Giles Hutchings, 748 (217 points lost). Octorun maximum: 1060
4) Edward McCullagh, 744 (152 points lost). Octorun maximum: 979
5) Julian Fell, 737 (187 point lost). Octorun maximum:

However, some octoruns obviously have higher scores available in theirs than others, so perhaps it would be best to judge it by the lowest amount of points lost. As you can see, Dylan's still top. Another good way would be to measure the percentage achieved from your maximum with your new "impossible to get lower" score. With this, here's the new leaderboard:

1) Dylan Taylor: 78.380952381%
2) Jen Steadman: 76.7578125%
3) Edward McCullagh: 75.9959141982%
4) Jack Hurst: 71.4839961203%
5) Julian Fell: 71.4285714286%

Martin Sinclair · Post by **Martin Sinclair** » Sat Nov 30, 2013 9:33 pm

which you got in those rounds*, "impossible to get lower than"*

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 12:30 am

Martin Sinclair wrote:I've just done some research on something which I'm sure many will have briefly thought about doing (apologies if it already has and I'm an idiot). It's the calculation for what your score would've been if your opponent maxed every single round throughout. So, the way to do this is by taking all the rounds which you did score on (but didn't max on), and subtract the score which got in those rounds from your overall total. You can ignore any rounds which you failed to score on altogether. Also, I feel all the points which you scored on in the conundrum rounds need to be subtracted from the total, as your opponent could've hansforded you each time. Harsh, but true. I've looked up a few impressive octoruns, and here's how it currently stands.

1) Dylan Taylor, 823 (151 points lost). Octorun maximum: 1050
2) Jen Steadman, 786 (166 points lost). Octorun maximum: 1024
3) Giles Hutchings, 748 (217 points lost). Octorun maximum: 1060
4) Edward McCullagh, 744 (152 points lost). Octorun maximum: 979
5) Julian Fell, 737 (187 point lost). Octorun maximum:

However, some octoruns obviously have higher scores available in theirs than others, so perhaps it would be best to judge it by the lowest amount of points lost. As you can see, Dylan's still top. Another good way would be to measure the percentage achieved from your maximum with your new "impossible to get lower" score. With this, here's the new leaderboard:

1) Dylan Taylor: 78.380952381%
2) Jen Steadman: 76.7578125%
3) Edward McCullagh: 75.9959141982%
4) Jack Hurst: 71.4839961203%
5) Julian Fell: 71.4285714286%

This is all getting a bit complicated. Number of maxes is simpler and probably just as good. And because of your system, conundrums are totally ignored.

It would be interesting to see the like of Jen and Dylan added to the number of maxes list. Thanks Graeme!

Jennifer Steadman · Post by **Jennifer Steadman** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 11:39 am

Dylan got 101 maxes and I got 99.

Any form of ranking people by overall game performance should include conundrums. The fact that you can be beaten on them by anyone Hansfording quick enough doesn't make them irrelevant...

Martin Sinclair · Post by **Martin Sinclair** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 12:07 pm

Yeah, the conundrum aspect is definitely debatable. If we were to include the points got from those, it would look like this:

1) Dylan Taylor - 873
2) Jennifer Steadman - 846
3) Giles Hutchings - 818
4) Edward McCullagh - 804
5) Jack Hurst - 797

But, this goes back to my point of "impossible to get lower than". The above aren't the correct figures. For example, in Dylan's run, he got a conundrum in 28 seconds, so he easily could have not got it.

Not sure what the best way of looking at this is

Maybe only do the calculations for letters and numbers?

Martin Sinclair · Post by **Martin Sinclair** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 4:21 pm

If we are to do that, then the points will remain the same, but the percentages will probably increase, as there's a lower maximum available. The equation for this is: ("impossible to get lower than" score) / (octorun maximum - 80 points) x 100 = percentage. Here's the top 5:

1) Dylan Taylor: 84.8453608247%
2) Jen Steadman: 83.2627118644%
3) Edward McCullagh: 82.7586206897%
4) Julian Fell: 77.5401069519%
5) Jack Hurst: 77.4973711882%

Dave Preece · Post by **Dave Preece** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 7:38 pm

Surely pure and simple points scored / available points x 100 is the best and only way to 'rank' players?

Jon O'Neill · Post by **Jon O'Neill** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 7:42 pm

Dave Preece wrote:Surely pure and simple points scored / available points x 100 is the best and only way to 'rank' players?

I think you should multiply by 7.12349867123409781293 actually.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Sun Dec 01, 2013 8:06 pm

Jon O'Neill wrote:
Dave Preece wrote:Surely pure and simple points scored / available points x 100 is the best and only way to 'rank' players?
I think you should multiply by 7.12349867123409781293 actually.

Well that's at least two methods already then.

Dave Preece · Post by **Dave Preece** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 12:11 am

Jon O'Neill wrote:
Dave Preece wrote:Surely pure and simple points scored / available points x 100 is the best and only way to 'rank' players?
I think you should multiply by 7.12349867123409781293 actually.

Inaccurate.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 12:27 am

At the moment, number of maxes seems to be considered a good way to judge things, but it ignores anything less than the max, so if the max is 8, then 5, 6, and 7 are all the same (worthless). So a way round this would be to if y points for the xth best word. So if there's 3 words that have 8 letters, 4 with 7 and 10 with 6, the words would be ranked at 1 (for 8 letters), 4 (for 7 letters), 8 (for 6 letters) and 18 (for 5 letters). The rank, x, then has to be converted into a score, y. You could have y=1/x, which I think would be quite neat. Another way of doing the rankings would be to take the middle rather than the top position for each rank. So if there's 3 words with 8 letters, they're all ranked at 2, so you'd get 1/2 points rather than 1. Or you could even go to the other extreme and give 1/3 points for a max.

Unfortunately recaps don't record the number of words at each length below the max, but we do have the number at the max, so we could use some formula based on statistical likelihood. It might be if there's 3 8s and that's the max, then on average there's 6 7s. So you could go by that.

For numbers, you could see how many solutions there are according to here and base a system on that. But obviously how many solutions there are isn't an open and shut case.

I've written stuff about this before actually. See here and here.

Just make sure you multiply by 100 at the end.

Dave Preece · Post by **Dave Preece** » Mon Dec 02, 2013 5:21 pm

Graeme Cole wrote:
Jon O'Neill wrote:Which person who lost their first game got the most maxes?
In 15-round games, three people lost their debut with ten maxes. They are David Morgans, Paul Lyne and Christine Smith.

In 9-round games, Tom Bradshaw and Gareth Fuller both lost their debuts with seven maxes.

Amazingly, not one of these five contestants returned for a second go, for whatever reason?

Martin Sinclair · Post by **Martin Sinclair** » Tue Dec 03, 2013 2:10 pm

Yeah, as someone mentioned at the end of Jen's run, your amount of maximums is definitely a better way of measuring than % of overall maximum achieved. This is because, say, in a certain round, you could lose 18 points with that way of measuring. The collection of maximums is better as whenever you fail to get the max, you only lose 1 point, every time. The leaderboard for it could do with updating:

1) Dylan Taylor - 101/120 (84.1666666667%)
2) Jen Steadman - 99/120 (82.5%)
3) Edward McCullagh - 95/120 (79.1666666667%)

....

It's also good that I included the %, as I feel that can be more representative. For example, in Zarte's run, he only played 6 games, but got 61/90 maximums. That's 67.7777777778%, which is higher than anyone who got 81 or lower maximums from an octorun.

Jen and Dylan's octoruns are the two best, undoubtedly.

Clive Brooker · Post by **Clive Brooker** » Tue Dec 03, 2013 5:24 pm

This game, recently made famous, illustrates one of the problems with counting the number of maxes, at least whilst the data remains less than 100% perfect. The recap denies Tim Morrissey the max on round 5, but I don't believe SPREITEN was valid at the time. A system which awarded Tim 6/7 for that round as opposed to 0/1 would appear to be introducing less systematic bias against earlier players.

Martin Sinclair · Post by **Martin Sinclair** » Tue Dec 03, 2013 5:33 pm

Yeah, this is an issue. I wonder if anyone's thought about going through someone's entire octorun with the ODO, making changes to valid/invalid words. Dylan's run would change, as he'd have OWLERIES allowed, giving him 982 and the highest % of maximum achieved. I'm sure plenty others would be affected too...

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Tue Dec 03, 2013 5:37 pm

Clive Brooker wrote:This game, recently made famous, illustrates one of the problems with counting the number of maxes, at least whilst the data remains less than 100% perfect. The recap denies Tim Morrissey the max on round 5, but I don't believe SPREITEN was valid at the time. A system which awarded Tim 6/7 for that round as opposed to 0/1 would appear to be introducing less systematic bias against earlier players.

Yes, but that's just an error in the recap, and I thought people had gone through the earlier games with the old dictionary.

But in any case, I don't think errors from earlier games should entirely dictate the system we use. I think 6/7 gives it too much. I think someone who gets the max of 7 6 times in a row and blobs one round has done a better job than someone who gets 6 (when the max is 7) 7 times in a row.

I also think maxes is a poor measure for players who aren't that great. Sometimes a player will thrash another player but it might still be something like 3 all in maxes or 4-3 because all the non-maxed rounds where there is a difference between the two is ignored.

Innis Carson · Post by **Innis Carson** » Tue Dec 03, 2013 6:46 pm

Martin Sinclair wrote:Yeah, this is an issue. I wonder if anyone's thought about going through someone's entire octorun with the ODO, making changes to valid/invalid words. Dylan's run would change, as he'd have OWLERIES allowed, giving him 982 and the highest % of maximum achieved. I'm sure plenty others would be affected too...

We don't yet know all the words valid in ODO that aren't in previous dictionaries, or vice versa, so it wouldn't be possible to calculate the % of maximum at present. And besides, it wouldn't be a very meaningful statistic anyway since nobody was trying to play by the ODO.

Martin Sinclair · Post by **Martin Sinclair** » Wed Dec 04, 2013 12:57 am

If we were to do the letters and numbers thing, then the top 3 would look like this:

1) Dylan Taylor: 96/112 (85.7142857143%)
2) Jen Steadman: 93/112 (83.0357142857)
3) Edward McCullagh: 89/112 (79.4642857143%)

... This means that it's a guarantee that the 3 above would have score in at least the amount of rounds shown above from the letters and numbers.

Clive Brooker · Post by **Clive Brooker** » Wed Dec 04, 2013 12:13 pm

Gavin Chipper wrote:Yes, but that's just an error in the recap, and I thought people had gone through the earlier games with the old dictionary.

But in any case, I don't think errors from earlier games should entirely dictate the system we use. I think 6/7 gives it too much. I think someone who gets the max of 7 6 times in a row and blobs one round has done a better job than someone who gets 6 (when the max is 7) 7 times in a row.

I'm not sure if the old recaps have been checked against the then current dictionary in a systematic way. Also I don't think any which have been so checked (some recappers did this as a matter of course) have been marked accordingly.

I did of course mean 7/8, not that this affects the argument.

Blobbing a round is often caused by a player taking a risk to try and match an opponent's declaration. This is a problem to any system which uses actual scores, but with the counting maxes system the player is not additionally penalized for what may well have been good game-play.

Jon O'Neill · Post by **Jon O'Neill** » Wed Dec 04, 2013 11:44 pm

Graeme Cole wrote:Here's the first bit - 15 round octochamps ordered by the number of maxes out of 120 in heat games. A maxed round is where the player got the most points available. Tiebreaks aren't counted.

The 9-rounder one is going to need a bit more thought to exclude people who had more than one run, so I'll come back to that one another day.

Code: Select all

     1. Edward McCullagh                  95
     2. Julian Fell                       94
     3. Jack Hurst                        91
     4. Craig Beevers                     89
     4. Jonathan Rawlinson                89
     6. Stewart Holden                    86
     7. Kirk Bevins                       85
     8. Chris Davies                      84
     9. David O'Donnell                   82
    10. Eoin Monaghan                     81
    11. Conor Travers                     80
    12. Chris Wills                       79
    12. Graeme Cole                       79
    14. Adam Gillard                      78
    14. George Greenhough                 78
    14. John Mayhew                       78
    14. Oliver Garner                     78
    14. Paul Gallen                       78
    19. Jack Welsby                       77
    20. Andrew Hulme                      76
    20. Innis Carson                      76
    20. Paul Howe                         76
    23. Peter Lee                         75
    24. Daniel Pati                       74
    25. Marcus Hares                      73
    26. Jimmy Gough                       72
    26. Martin Bishop                     72
    28. Chris Cummins                     71
    28. Ryan Taylor                       71
    28. Tom Barnes                        71
    31. Aaron Webber                      70
    31. David Barnard                     70
    31. Grace Page                        70
    34. Jon Corby                         69
    34. Richard Heald                     69
    36. Lee Hartley                       68
    36. Matthew Shore                     68
    38. Charlie Reams                     67
    38. Mark Deeks                        67
    38. Mark Tournoff                     67
    38. Neil Zussman                      67
    38. Paul James                        67
    38. Steven Briers                     67
    44. Jack Worsley                      66
    45. Andy McGurn                       65
    45. James Hurrell                     65
    45. Jeffrey Hansford                  65
    45. John Brackstone                   65
    45. Tom Rowell                        65
    50. Stuart Earl                       64
    50. Tom Hargreaves                    64
    52. John Hunt                         63
    52. Kevin Thurlow                     63
    52. Scott Gillies                     63
    55. John Davies                       62
    55. Junaid Mubeen                     62
    55. Stuart Solomons                   62
    55. Wendy Roe                         62
    59. Jean Webby                        61
    59. Jon O'Neill                       61
    59. Martin Gardner                    61
    62. Richard Brittain                  60
    62. Shane Roberts                     60
    64. Cate Henderson                    59
    64. John Gray                         59
    64. Jonathan Coles                    59
    64. Michael Bowden                    59
    64. Ross Allatt                       59
    64. Steven Moir                       59
    70. Brian Selway                      58
    70. David Edwards                     58
    70. Mike Pullin                       58
    70. Stu Horsey                        58
    74. Danny Hamilton                    57
    74. Jim Bentley                       57
    74. Keith Maynard                     57
    74. Liam Shaw                         57
    74. Rose Boyle                        57
    79. Nik Von Uexkull                   56
    80. Richard Pay                       55
    80. Rupert Stokoe                     55
    82. David Von Geyer                   54
    82. Jeffrey Burgin                    54
    82. Sweyn Kirkness                    54
    82. Tim Reypert                       54
    86. James Roberts                     53
    86. Kai Laddiman                      53
    86. Nick Wainwright                   53
    86. Paul Keane                        53
    90. Amey Deshpande                    52
    90. Jayne Wisniewski                  52
    90. Ned Pendleton                     52
    93. Carl Williams                     51
    93. Dave Taylor                       51
    93. Heather Styles                    51
    93. Michael Macdonald-Cooper          51
    97. Gary Male                         50
    97. Judith Young                      50
    97. Julia Wilkinson                   50
   100. Danny Pledger                     49
   101. Tony Warren                       48
   102. James Doohan                      46
   103. Joe Zubaidi                       44
   104. Brenda Jolley                     43
   104. Tia Corkish                       43
   106. Chris Marshall                    42
   106. David Thirlwall                   42
   108. Chris McHenry                     37
   108. Steve Wood                        37
   108. Suzi Purcell                      37

Edited to include Rose Boyle, David Barnard and Heather Styles from series 67, and Kevin Thurlow and Richard Pay who weren't in the list due to muppetry on my part.

Sorry for asking for an update, but I'd love to see this one up-to-date. Also if possible with what series they were from or what date they debuted

JackHurst · Post by **JackHurst** » Thu Dec 05, 2013 1:04 pm

Which contestant who played all of their games in the old format would have the biggest difference between their total score then, and their total score converted into new money (ie their numbers score multiplied by 4/3 and their letters score multiplied by 10/11)?

Zarte Siempre · Post by **Zarte Siempre** » Thu Dec 05, 2013 1:59 pm

JackHurst wrote:Which contestant who played all of their games in the old format would have the biggest difference between their total score then, and their total score converted into new money (ie their numbers score multiplied by 4/3 and their letters score multiplied by 10/11)?

Now that's a fucking question!

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Thu Dec 05, 2013 2:00 pm

JackHurst wrote:Which contestant who played all of their games in the old format would have the biggest difference between their total score then, and their total score converted into new money (ie their numbers score multiplied by 4/3 and their letters score multiplied by 10/11)?

What's your score in new money? (It might be on here somewhere but I can't be bothered to look.)