Re: Ask Graeme?
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 2:55 pm
lol <3 Kirk! Have there ever been any declarations where the contestant knew the word from real life?
A group for contestants and lovers of the Channel 4 game show 'Countdown'.
http://www.c4countdown.co.uk/
Gosh I hope Graeme hasn't been keeping a record of contestants' alcohol consumption before recording their shows?JackHurst wrote:Which contestant(s) with at least one wine has the highest loss:win ratio?
If we list all the DC guests in order of the average joint score in all 15-round heat games they appeared in, the top five are:Zarte Siempre wrote:I'm expecting this to take far too much time and effort to be worthwhile answering, but on the off-chance.
Are there lucky omens in Dictionary Corner? i.e. - does one produce the highest average scores, and does one (excluding finals week obviously) preside over more future series champions in their heats than anyone else?
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Tony Christie 178.60
Steve Davis 178.20
Clare Balding 174.25
Ingrid Tarrant 171.80
Jonathan Maitland 167.00
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Sue MacGregor 164.20
Joan Bakewell 163.80
Kathryn Apanowicz 162.80
Dr Hilary Jones 161.90
Matt Le Tissier 161.40
18 contestants have offered words with two phantoms. Nobody's managed more.Jack Worsley wrote:Who's used the most phantom letters in a letters round?
Mark Deeks wrote:Have there ever been any declarations on Countdown that would be pencils on Apterous today? So, valid as maxes, valid in ODE3 now, still unpencilled.
Anything regarding apterous pencils is a dead end I'm afraid - I don't have access to the apterous database, only the one I made from the wiki.Kirk Bevins wrote:Have there been any declarations (during 15 round Countdown) that had a) never come up on the show before and b) were pencils at the time on apterous, i.e. the contestant knew the word from life or, if an apterite, had never offered it before as a max.
There has definitely been at least one - MYOGLOBIN remains unpencilled.Mark Deeks wrote:Have there ever been any declarations on Countdown that would be pencils on Apterous today? So, valid as maxes, valid in ODE3 now, still unpencilled.
Well fuck a duck, Michael Calder. That's a brilliant spot.Innis Carson wrote:There has definitely been at least one - MYOGLOBIN remains unpencilled.Mark Deeks wrote:Have there ever been any declarations on Countdown that would be pencils on Apterous today? So, valid as maxes, valid in ODE3 now, still unpencilled.
There was a discussion about this a while back, and it seems to be the case that all contestants are linked in this way, apart from a small isolated group in Series 53. So that answers the first part of the question at least, would be interesting to know the answer to the other part.JackHurst wrote:If we had a graph, consisting of all contestants joined to other contestants they had played, what would be the largest connected bit of the graph? Which player in that part has the least degrees of separation from any other player? Finally, how many degrees of separation am I away from that player?
Finally finally, can you answer this question again after the championship has finished?
Thanks <3
I'm guessing that 68 & 33 should perhaps be disregarded for this question.Nick Deller wrote:Measured by (number of maxed rounds/number of rounds played), which was the best series in Countdown history?
Fair point, though 68 isn't in the Graemebase anyway. Not sure what to do about series which started with a CoC, also.Ben Wilson wrote:I'm guessing that 68 & 33 should perhaps be disregarded for this question.Nick Deller wrote:Measured by (number of maxed rounds/number of rounds played), which was the best series in Countdown history?
For a curio, include these series and see how they compare with regular ones.Ben Wilson wrote:I'm guessing that 68 & 33 should perhaps be disregarded for this question.Nick Deller wrote:Measured by (number of maxed rounds/number of rounds played), which was the best series in Countdown history?
Yes. Good question.Nick Deller wrote:Measured by (number of maxed rounds/number of rounds played), which was the best series in Countdown history?
I remember Paul Howe doing this in his heats, the lady he was against got DESPERADO in round 1. You've gotta be thinking your time's up when that happens.Zarte Siempre wrote:After the great answer to my last question:
How many people have won a game, after missing a 9 that their opponent didn't miss?
Stewart Holden with UNMAILED. Although he did manage to pull it back in round 2 with a 9er...Andy Platt wrote:Which contestant was the most successful after declaring an invalid word in round one of their first game?
Me. Incidentally, that round would also answer my previous question - DISPERSER is unpencilled.Zarte Siempre wrote:After the great answer to my last question:
How many people have won a game, after missing a 9 that their opponent didn't miss?
Well I'm not in Stewart Holden's league but my first declaration was mascule. It's valid in Latin as it happens but I was probably getting mixed up with MACULES.Andy Platt wrote:Which contestant was the most successful after declaring an invalid word in round one of their first game?
I've counted letters and numbers rounds as two maxable rounds, so if both players maxed it that counts as 2 out of 2. For conundrums I've only counted them once - they're either 0/1 or 1/1. As expected, the top of this table is dominated by CoCs. The highest ordinary series is series 29, in which 43.92% of offerings were maxes.Ben Wilson wrote:I'm guessing that 68 & 33 should perhaps be disregarded for this question.Nick Deller wrote:Measured by (number of maxed rounds/number of rounds played), which was the best series in Countdown history?
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Championship of Champions XII 66.90
Championship of Champions XI 58.39
Championship of Champions IV 57.36
Championship of Champions XIII 57.24
Championship of Champions V 57.03
Championship of Champions VI 57.03
Championship of Champions VII 54.69
Series 33 (Supreme Championship) 53.83
Championship of Champions III 53.15
Championship of Champions I 52.94
Masters Series 1 50.59
Championship of Champions IX 49.06
Masters Series 2 47.74
Special episodes 47.00
Championship of Champions VIII 45.31
Junior Championship 45.10
Series 29 43.92
Series 27 43.36
Series 63 42.91
Series 31 42.88
That's when I most enjoyed watching. Isn't that the time of the likes of Saldahna?Nick Deller wrote:Ooh that's interesting, thank you! 29, 27 and 31 all in the top four regular series suggests 1993-1995 as an unsuspected and surprising golden era for the show, and I can't really remember why that would be the case.
It's a little bit after Saldanha's time. The winners of those series were Darren Shacklady, David Elias and David Acton respectively though, so definitely three quality players.Ian Volante wrote:That's when I most enjoyed watching. Isn't that the time of the likes of Saldahna?Nick Deller wrote:Ooh that's interesting, thank you! 29, 27 and 31 all in the top four regular series suggests 1993-1995 as an unsuspected and surprising golden era for the show, and I can't really remember why that would be the case.
If you discount the Master Series, which a lot of people do, then it's Harvey Freeman, who never lost a match on the show, and he played 19 of themLee Kelly wrote:What is the longest undefeated streak in countdown.. i know jack hurst is on 14 at this time and just wondering who and what is the best undefeated streak??
Can you give Gevin access to the database please?Gavin Chipper wrote:Also, instead of maxes, how would everyone have scored with the following system - with letters, 1 point for a max, 1/2 for one off the max, 1/4 for two off the max (halving each time), regardless of whether their opponent beat them. For conundrums, just 1 point if they got it and nothing otherwise. For numbers, 1 for a max, 1/2 for one off, 1/3 for two off, 1/4 for three off (denominator goes up by 1 each time). Obviously they can't score if their opponent beat them because no valid method is verified. It seems intuitively right to have the drop-off less in the numbers than the letters. So as above, all the same information as with the max stats - thanks in advance!!!
No system is perfect, and you'll be able to find scenarios like that in all of them. I don't think your scenario would happen too often anyway. If you're looking at maxes or points scored, for example, then people will lose out from playing safe when their opponent has declared first so they know they will score anyway.Clive Brooker wrote:Can you give Gevin access to the database please?Gavin Chipper wrote:Also, instead of maxes, how would everyone have scored with the following system - with letters, 1 point for a max, 1/2 for one off the max, 1/4 for two off the max (halving each time), regardless of whether their opponent beat them. For conundrums, just 1 point if they got it and nothing otherwise. For numbers, 1 for a max, 1/2 for one off, 1/3 for two off, 1/4 for three off (denominator goes up by 1 each time). Obviously they can't score if their opponent beat them because no valid method is verified. It seems intuitively right to have the drop-off less in the numbers than the letters. So as above, all the same information as with the max stats - thanks in advance!!!
If you're going to start crediting players (or groupings of players) for what they did whether they scored in a round or not, you may be unfairly penalising them for trying to match their opponent with a word they know is probably invalid, which it could be argued shows better awareness and stronger gameplay.
Some sort of distribution around the average would also be quite useful.Adam Gillard wrote:Graeme, what is the average maximum available for a letters round and for a numbers round? Just wondering how much difference on average the proposed format change will make (I'm guessing about 2-3 points).
On this subject, it would be pretty sweet to see series-by-series breakdowns, to see if an apto-effect can be identified.Jon O'Neill wrote:Some sort of distribution around the average would also be quite useful.Adam Gillard wrote:Graeme, what is the average maximum available for a letters round and for a numbers round? Just wondering how much difference on average the proposed format change will make (I'm guessing about 2-3 points).
Average maximum points available is 7.7783 for letters, 9.8723 for numbers. However, some of the maxes for earlier games might be wrong as they use the ODE2r rather than the COD. If we just look at 15 rounders, the average maximum in a letters round is 7.9277. If we look only at 15 rounders since the start of 2011 (the introduction of the ODE3) it's 7.8368.Adam Gillard wrote:Graeme, what is the average maximum available for a letters round and for a numbers round? Just wondering how much difference on average the proposed format change will make (I'm guessing about 2-3 points).
For a given player's offerings during a game (e.g. 7,7,7,6,5,8,8,6,7,8,7) we take the maximum value. (So the max length of a word offered during the show). In that example, it's 8. He's wondering which player had the smallest maximum value in a game.Dave Preece wrote:Surely a three letter word is the smallest offered ever? But then again, I'm sure I've seen someone just give up and offer nothing; when probably there was a two or a three letter word there?
Arrr, right, I see - sorry - new to all this.Conor wrote:For a given player's offerings during a game (e.g. 7,7,7,6,5,8,8,6,7,8,7) we take the maximum value. (So the max length of a word offered during the show). In that example, it's 8. He's wondering which player had the smallest maximum value in a game.Dave Preece wrote:Surely a three letter word is the smallest offered ever? But then again, I'm sure I've seen someone just give up and offer nothing; when probably there was a two or a three letter word there?
Yeah, no-one has gone lower than 3 in terms of declaration or winning points.Dave Preece wrote:Q. What is the shortest word declared in any round, I've seen a three, surely no one has ever declared a two?
COUNTDOWN would have if Phil bloody Watkins had picked a final consonant. http://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_4145Mark Ivey wrote:Here's a question that's come to mind...
Have the words COUNTDOWN or CONUNDRUM ever popped up in a game (either during the letters or as the conundrum)?
This.Matt Bayfield wrote:Graeme: I'm interested in how Numbers skills have evolved over the series of Countdown, specifically with regard to the Numbers round picks that contestants have selected. I seem to recall that in the early days, when Countdown was dominated by Scrabblers, it was very rare that anyone would pick anything other than 1 or 2 large. Nowadays, the 6-small specialists, and those who have put in effort to learn 4 large tricks, have come to the fore, realising how much of an advantage it confers to go for these traditionally more difficult selections.
For each series, what percentage of Numbers games have been 1 large, 2 large, 3 large, 4 large, and 6 small?
What were the selections availableJames Robinson wrote:Yeah, no-one has gone lower than 3 in terms of declaration or winning points.Dave Preece wrote:Q. What is the shortest word declared in any round, I've seen a three, surely no one has ever declared a two?
Looking over series 46 to 67, it doesn't vary much. In the following table, only valid declarations are counted, and, in the case where the opponent's word was longer, the number of points that would have been scored otherwise are counted.Michael Wallace wrote:Oh yeah, just realized my query doesn't make sense given that I thought we were talking about declarations, rather than maxes. If we could have stats on declarations over the past few series that would be fun (and arguably more indicative of what sort of change the new format would have on scores).
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Series Average raw letters round score
46 6.5655
47 6.6532
48 6.6655
49 6.4315
50 6.5692
51 6.6875
52 6.6582
53 6.6728
54 6.6059
55 6.5168
56 6.6033
57 6.5465
58 6.4486
59 6.4981
60 6.5070
61 6.6052
62 6.4805
63 6.6236
64 6.4590
65 6.4398
66 6.3961
67 6.5213
I refer the honourable gentleman to...Dave Preece wrote:Arrr, right, I see - sorry - new to all this.Conor wrote:For a given player's offerings during a game (e.g. 7,7,7,6,5,8,8,6,7,8,7) we take the maximum value. (So the max length of a word offered during the show). In that example, it's 8. He's wondering which player had the smallest maximum value in a game.Dave Preece wrote:Surely a three letter word is the smallest offered ever? But then again, I'm sure I've seen someone just give up and offer nothing; when probably there was a two or a three letter word there?
Q. What is the shortest word declared in any round, I've seen a three, surely no one has ever declared a two?
Thank you!Graeme Cole wrote:Average maximum points available is 7.7783 for letters, 9.8723 for numbers. However, some of the maxes for earlier games might be wrong as they use the ODE2r rather than the COD. If we just look at 15 rounders, the average maximum in a letters round is 7.9277. If we look only at 15 rounders since the start of 2011 (the introduction of the ODE3) it's 7.8368.Adam Gillard wrote:Graeme, what is the average maximum available for a letters round and for a numbers round? Just wondering how much difference on average the proposed format change will make (I'm guessing about 2-3 points).
Okay. Who are you, and what have you done with Matt?Matt Bayfield wrote:Graeme: I'm interested in how Numbers skills have evolved over the series of Countdown
According to the database, the show was nearly seven years old before anyone thought to pick 4 large. The caveat to this is that series 1 and 2 have hardly any round details associated with them, so we can't say for certain that it didn't happen then.Matt Bayfield wrote:specifically with regard to the Numbers round picks that contestants have selected. I seem to recall that in the early days, when Countdown was dominated by Scrabblers, it was very rare that anyone would pick anything other than 1 or 2 large. Nowadays, the 6-small specialists, and those who have put in effort to learn 4 large tricks, have come to the fore, realising how much of an advantage it confers to go for these traditionally more difficult selections.
For each series, what percentage of Numbers games have been 1 large, 2 large, 3 large, 4 large, and 6 small?
Neat, thanks. Any chance you could run the same but only include the finalists?Graeme Cole wrote:Looking over series 46 to 67, it doesn't vary much. In the following table, only valid declarations are counted, and, in the case where the opponent's word was longer, the number of points that would have been scored otherwise are counted.Michael Wallace wrote:Oh yeah, just realized my query doesn't make sense given that I thought we were talking about declarations, rather than maxes. If we could have stats on declarations over the past few series that would be fun (and arguably more indicative of what sort of change the new format would have on scores).
The most consecutive games where the conundrum was not crucial was 26, which were the 26 games up to and including this game in series 63, and which included the heat games of Eoin Monaghan, Daniel Pati, Tom Rowell and Peter Godwin. The special between Charlie Reams and Junaid Mubeen provided the crucial before this 26-game drought. If you exclude all specials, this run of non-crucials would have been 33 games long: between here and here.Liam Tiernan wrote:Most consective crucial conundrums? Most consecutive non-crucials?(I'm guessing series 63 or 64 for that one)
Given that I missed very little of Series 1 and 2 (even though I didn't start recaps straight away), I'm pretty certain that this is the first ever occurrence, especially as I noted "MB's dream" next to it at the time (sad, I know). What was the first 4 large in a non-Masters game? (sorry if I've missed it in the veritable sea of stats!)Graeme Cole wrote: According to the database, the show was nearly seven years old before anyone thought to pick 4 large. The caveat to this is that series 1 and 2 have hardly any round details associated with them, so we can't say for certain that it didn't happen then.
Episode 954 was the first in a non-Masters game.Mike Brown wrote:Given that I missed very little of Series 1 and 2 (even though I didn't start recaps straight away), I'm pretty certain that this is the first ever occurrence, especially as I noted "MB's dream" next to it at the time (sad, I know). What was the first 4 large in a non-Masters game? (sorry if I've missed it in the veritable sea of stats!)Graeme Cole wrote: According to the database, the show was nearly seven years old before anyone thought to pick 4 large. The caveat to this is that series 1 and 2 have hardly any round details associated with them, so we can't say for certain that it didn't happen then.
Great stuff, Graeme, loving it...