Spoilers For Bank Holiday Monday April 25th 2011

[James Robinson]

Well, well, well, Easter has been and gone-ish, but Countdown is still with us during this time of rest and relaxation for the majority of us.

So, to bring you up to date, Chris Childs is the new champion after deposing Mary, who I'm sure many thought would be the first female octochamp in just over 2 years, but 5 wins will probably see her into the finals in 4 weeks time.

In DC this week, we have 2 guests, presumably due to the crappy British transport system. From Wednesday to Friday, we have the always welcome Dr. Phil Hammond.

But, today and tomorrow, we have the Coronation Street actress, Patti Clare, who plays "Mad" Mary Taylor on the show.

Ryan will be along with the recap later, and I'll be along later after the mighty Terriers give Dagenham a good stuffing.

[Mike Brown]

I feel we've been robbed of two days of Dr Phil. Let's hope Patti does a good job!

[Josh Hurst]

Rachel's numbers solution in round 5 was insane!!!

[Ben Wilson]

Opening+a+c=poignance

[Eoin Monaghan]

Opening+a+c=poignance

Aargh, just beat me to it.

[Gavin Chipper]

Rachel's numbers solution in round 5 was insane!!!

It was standard 4-large stuff though. Anything near 300 is likely to have a solution like that.

I thought the guy was robbed with TROLLIED. Although the dictionary has "slang" terms, I think it seems to demand a higher level of usage (or some other criterion) than it does for "normal" words. It shouldn't have this bias.

[Tracey Lilly]

Good game today and Rachel was excellent witht eh numbers.

Any one on here know when the Apterous server will be back online?

[Rhys Benjamin]

I spotted Round 5 - don't be fooled. It's easier done than said. It's as simple as (X x 3 - 2)

[Ryan Taylor]

Opening+a+c=poignance

Aargh, just beat me to it.

Nice spots!

I thought Rachel's solve in round 1 was class although you 4 large people never think anything like that is impressive. I've never bothered to get my head round how to do these number games and for me, going up to 7000 and something taking something off then dividing always impresses me and for most of the Countdown watchers they will have been wowed by this like the audience was.

[Eoin Monaghan]

Opening+a+c=poignance

Aargh, just beat me to it.

Nice spots!

I thought Rachel's solve in round 1 was class although you 4 large people never think anything like that is impressive. I've never bothered to get my head round how to do these number games and for me, going up to 7000 and something taking something off then dividing always impresses me and for most of the Countdown watchers they will have been wowed by this like the audience was.

I agree, I tried my best to learn the 4 large rules for the finals, knowing it was Jack's specialty, but I only learnt the rule of 9, the rest I couldn't grasp. Even though I do know there's a rule, trying to learn it is one thing, mastering it is another but doing it on TV is the most impressive. I think this is why it was most impressive in Jack's semi.

[David Williams]

The impressive thing is working out the intermediate big number! You don't need it to know you've got the right answer. I was equally impressed with her final numbers solution. I'd settled for one away, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Rachel seems to be almost infallible.

[John Gillies]

Jack's semi was most impressive.

Tut-tut young Eoin

[Martin Long]

I have been catching up on Monday and Tuesdays countdown episodes and found the numbers rounds in this episode interesting. I failed to get the solution in the final numbers round (gutted!) but got the round 5 solution fairly easily.

Getting 291 is fairly straight forward - (100-1-2)*(75/25), only the 50 remains and you are 2 away. 50/25 = 2 so you just need to split the 291 solution - ((100-1-2)*75-50)/25 in order to reach the exact target.

[Ryan Taylor]

Getting 291 is fairly straight forward - (100-1-2)*(75/25), only the 50 remains and you are 2 away. 50/25 = 2 so you just need to split the 291 solution - ((100-1-2)*75-50)/25 in order to reach the exact target.

Yeah I understand how it's done I didn't need an explanation of it but what I don't do is the way of thinking how to do it which is what I find impressive with it. Plus the fact that, as David mentioned, she worked out the massive number too just to show off. Rachel is definitely better than Carol on the numbers games.

[Martin Long]

Plus the fact that, as David mentioned, she worked out the massive number too just to show off. Rachel is definitely better than Carol on the numbers games.

Shes been playing Hyper Numbers on apterous imo.

[Jim Treloar]

Someone else might be able to confirm it but Dudley, the warm up man, has said on a couple of occasions when I've been there that her solutions have been looked at and indeed she's proving better than Carol.