Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2013 (Birthday Prelim 9)

Discuss anything that happened in recent games. This is the place to post any words you got that beat Dictionary Corner, or numbers games that evaded Rachel.

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Jordan F
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Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2013 (Birthday Prelim 9)

Post by Jordan F »

Today marks the last game of the preliminary round in this 30th birthday championship. And we're going to end it with another clash of the titans (boy we've been saying that a lot this week). Specifically, we have the two most recent people to join the 850 club. The most recent to do this was Jonathan Rawlinson, the series 66 runner up who joined the club by getting exactly 850 points. He faces the man to do this before him, the series 64 champion, Edward McCullagh, who got 896 points, but probably could have gotten more had the letters selection been kinder to him. Both have been practicing for quite some time now, so I'm curious to see how this turns out.

Join James for the recap later.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by James Robinson »

Here are the statistics for this mouth-watering tie:

Firstly, Series 64 Champion Edward McCullagh - 12 Games, 12 Wins, 1,337 Points (Average: 111.42)
Highest Score: 121 vs. Lalitha Thyagajaran (7th Game)
Lowest Score: 97 vs. David Clerkin (2nd Game)
9's Achieved: 4/5
Total Points/Max/%: 1337/1475 (91%)
Letters Points/Max/%: 921/1003 (92%)
Numbers Points/Max/%: 326/352 (93%)
Conundrum Points/Max/%: 90/120 (75%)

Secondly, Series 66 Runner-Up Jonathan Rawlinson - 11 Games, 10 Wins, 1,129 Points (Average: 102.64)
Highest Score: 120 vs. Stewart Calver (3rd Game)
Lowest Score: 70 vs. Jack Worsley (Grand Final)
9's Achieved: 3/5
Total Points/Max/%: 1129/1349 (84%)
Letters Points/Max/%: 763/909 (84%)
Numbers Points/Max/%: 276/330 (84%)
Conundrum Points/Max/%: 90/110 (82%)
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Johnny Canuck »

James Robinson wrote:Total Points/Max/%: 1337/1475 (91%)
Yep, he's elite, all right.
I'm not dead yet. In a rut right now because of stress from work. I'll be back later in S89. I also plan to bring back the Mastergram - if I can find a way to run a timer or clock through pure MediaWiki without having to upload to Vimeo every time.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jon Corby »

Johnny Canuck wrote:
James Robinson wrote:Total Points/Max/%: 1337/1475 (91%)
Yep, he's elite, all right.
Heh, like.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Graeme Cole »

Johnny Canuck wrote:
James Robinson wrote:Total Points/Max/%: 1337/1475 (91%)
Yep, he's elite, all right.
I remember pointing this out in the pub after Ed and I played. Nobody seemed to know what I was talking about.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jon Corby »

Graeme Cole wrote:
Johnny Canuck wrote:
James Robinson wrote:Total Points/Max/%: 1337/1475 (91%)
Yep, he's elite, all right.
I remember pointing this out in the pub after Ed and I played. Nobody seemed to know what I was talking about.
Yeah, I can picture that. Should've taken it to some kind of nerdy forum instead.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Jon Corby wrote:
Graeme Cole wrote:
Johnny Canuck wrote: Yep, he's elite, all right.
I remember pointing this out in the pub after Ed and I played. Nobody seemed to know what I was talking about.
Yeah, I can picture that. Should've taken it to some kind of nerdy forum instead.
I can't imagine it working in a pub anyway.

"Hey guys! Guys, over here! Guys! You know Ed McCullagh? Yeah, he has scored one thousand three hundred and thirty-seven points out of a maximum of one thousand four hundred and seventy-five. That's 91%. That also makes him elite, right? Get it? e-leet? Cos of the points he's scored. See? No?"
Last edited by Gavin Chipper on Thu Jan 17, 2013 1:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jon O'Neill »

I don't think you get the reference?
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Jon O'Neill wrote:I don't think you get the reference?
I'll edit it so that you think I do.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jon O'Neill »

But if everyone understood, you wouldn't need to explain. You would just say "hey guys, Ed's leet, look how many points he's scored - 1337!"
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Jon O'Neill wrote:But if everyone understood, you wouldn't need to explain. You would just say "hey guys, Ed's leet, look how many points he's scored - 1337!"
Check post time 8-)
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Jon O'Neill wrote:But if everyone understood, you wouldn't need to explain. You would just say "hey guys, Ed's leet, look how many points he's scored - 1337!"
But Graeme Cole is not you.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Ned Pendleton »

bit of a shame neither of them shook hands, would've been nice to see
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jordan F »

Oh. my. god.

That was one of the most dramatic and exciting endings I've ever seen. Very well done Jonathan, getting not only one but two hard conundrums and pulling that off. Very very unlucky Ed, to beat something like that at the end would have been a tough feat for most anybody.

Ned: They did shake before the first conundrum. Don't know if it makes a difference to your point, but still.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jojo Apollo »

WOW!!! Great game, best of the series so far, well done lads. Jonathan was superfast on the conundrums, what was the combined total time taken to solve the conundrums? Unlucky Ed especially on the seven letter round.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by szodiac »

Ned Pendleton wrote:bit of a shame neither of them shook hands, would've been nice to see
Saw them both shake hands (twice) before both conundrums - even if they didn't at the end I'm sure there was total respect for each other :)

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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Adam Gillard »

:o :shock: :? :| :evil: :cry: :arrow: :idea: :oops: :?: :!: :roll: :twisted: :x :P 8-) :( ;) :) :D :mrgreen: :geek: :ugeek:

What a game! You both played brilliantly! UNDERSOW and OUTWORN are in, so I thought you were both a bit unlucky in that round (although Rawlo could have tried sticking the N on the end). NEOTENY was particularly brilliant. I was nowhere on the first numbers, well played there as ever, Ed! I could see the double conundrum coming with that 10-point gap being maintained, but my word was it incredible! Rawlo, I don't think it's any secret that I was rooting for Ed, but you absolutely murdered those conundrums - quite something to behold! I was nowhere on the first one, even with the pause while Nick was trying to work out who had buzzed, and I was probably fractionally behind you on the second one. Unbelievable stuff.

Gutted for you, Ed, but well done Rawlo, you can beat anyone in this tournament with that kind of standard and conundrum speed (you beat Ed, after all!). PS - has anyone checked if James Robinson is OK?
Mike Brown: "Round 12: T N R S A E I G U

C1: SIGNATURE (18) ["9; not written down"]
C2: SEATING (7)
Score: 108–16 (max 113)

Another niner for Adam and yet another century. Well done, that man."
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by szodiac »

Wow ! Great final ending, thought it was headed for a tiebreaker. Well played both Ed and Jonathan.

Like the guest said the other day "I didn't even have time to read the conundrum". Super Jonathan - would even match Mark Nyman at his best !

Round 12 was my favourite with PRATESI plus two. Both got my two of favourite anagrams :-)

Round 3 the 'OVERSWORN' round - with so many plausible solutions for 7s, 8s and 9s, shame the max was only 6 !

Mauro
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Michelle Nevitt »

This was my favourite game so far. Some great words from you both and would have been happy to see either of you win. Well done guys!
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Martin Long »

Congratulations Ed and Jonathan. An excellent game and an excellent standard maintained throughout, thoroughly enjoyable.

I got 792 on the first numbers round via. a different method, anyone know if 793 was possible?
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Kirk Bevins »

Yeah, great game and a great ending. I also loved the banter between you both and good spirit the game was played. I was particularly pleased that this was mentioned by Martin Lewis at the end there - nice touch.

Ed, super unlucky. You'll be kicking yourself in the ATOMISE round for a while I'm sure!
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Kirk Bevins »

Martin Long wrote:Congratulations Ed and Jonathan. An excellent game and an excellent standard maintained throughout, thoroughly enjoyable.

I got 792 on the first numbers round via. a different method, anyone know if 793 was possible?
792 is the closest you could have got.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Andy McGurn »

Jonathan did a Mike Pickering
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by James Robinson »

Adam Gillard wrote:PS - has anyone checked if James Robinson is OK?
I think I'm OK, Adam, but I think I might need some CPR shortly. :P :P

SUPER STAGGERING MATCH!!!

Me and Marcus were discussing earlier what our greatest ever games were in the history of the show, and I was saying that following the last series finals, and what we've already seen so far in this tournament, I was gonna have to update it shortly, but I was also promised from all walks of life that this match was the highlight of the tournament so far, and a classic in the making. They were blumming well not wrong :!: :!:

I don't mind being beaten all ends by 2 super awesome competitors, but those conundrums at the end from Jonathan were astronomical :shock: :o :shock: :o :!: :!:

Super unlucky, Eddie/Edward/Ed, whatever you prefer to be called nowadays. :P (I must admit I had you down as a finalist for this series, so I'll have to do a super quick recalculation right now.............. :roll: :P )

Very well done, Jonathan, your match with Andrew should definitely be one to look forward to in 3 weeks time.

Right, I'd better get back to my recapping. This is gonna take quite a while methinks. ;) :) :D :mrgreen: 8-)

P.S. WHAT A MATCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Eoin Monaghan »

Incredible game!

I was rooting for Ed too (probably for the whole tournament) because we live about half an hour away from each other :p but Jonathan is such a likable contestant too that it was a case of I wanted both to win equally as much. As pointed out, the game was played out in just the right spirit, with smiles all round (Jonathan you have a great personality).

Can't believe this is only the the prelims :D

So excited now for travelling on Tuesday. 8-)
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jack Worsley »

Definitely the highlight so far! It was a shame someone had to go out. NEOTENY was a super spot, I was nowhere near! Congrats to both for what I'm sure will be considered an all-time classic and either one of you would have been a worthy winner. I would also like to acknowledge the fabulous spirit in which the game was played in, which highlighted everything that's good about the show.

Well done to both Ed and Jonathan once again for a wonderful match. :D
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Nick Deller »

If they'd offered us that match as the Grand Final of the entire tournament, I think most of us would have said "Brilliant, that'll do nicely!". Just spectacular stuff by both players.

Can't believe that we've had these nine incredible games and the competition "proper" hasn't even started yet. :o
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Heather Styles »

No quantity of emoticons can do justice to this game. Jonathan's speed on those two conundrums was just breathtaking. Well done, guys, and I'm so sorry there could only be one winner.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by David O'Donnell »

Awesome game, definitely the most exciting. I was hoping Ed would win as he's a fellow Norn Irn person but well done Jonathan: to pull out two semi-insta spots when you needed them is all the way hardcore.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Graeme Cole »

The night before this game, the contestants who were staying after that recording day, and the contestants who'd come for the next recording day (and I, who was basically there to get in the way and play bad pool) were at the Black Dog, which is a kind of bar-type thing somewhere in Manchester with pool tables in it. The main attraction of this place is that it has a series of blackboards across an entire wall, because we spent most of the evening writing anagrams on it:

Image

It's a blurry photo, but that's Mark in the blue shirt, that's Jonathan in the foreground (you'd recognise that hair anywhere), Conor is in front of him (you'd recognise that jumper anywhere) and Ed is in the red top (he'd had a haircut - I almost didn't recognise him).

Some time late in the evening, after we'd run out of chalk, Mark, Ed and I were discussing the following day's games. Ed was typically modest about the whole thing, playing down his chances. I reminded him that in his series finals he described his chances as "less than hopeless", then won. I may have had a few drinks by this point, because I was reminding him about this by saying "less than hopeless" repeatedly in something very loosely approximating a Northern Irish accent.

"He's better at conundrums than me", he kept saying. Now, we knew Jonathan's a top player, and we expected the game to be close, but I, and I think Mark as well, thought Ed would eventually win, because, you know, it's Ed.

What we were more certain of was that whatever the result, it would be a great game to play and to watch. I told Ed exactly this before we all scattered our separate ways (and I went back to the hotel I was staying in, The Gardens, which I can recommend as having a thoroughly awesome lift).

It turned out Jonathan did have the edge on conundrums, and it turned out Ed can be beaten, and most importantly, it turned out it was a classic game, the best of the series so far, both for the drama and the good spirit in which it was played. Congratulations to both players, especially to Jonathan - beating someone that plenty of us thought was a likely bet to get to the final is one thing, but doing it by solving two conundrums under that much pressure in one second is extraordinary.
Last edited by Graeme Cole on Fri Jan 18, 2013 12:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jon O'Neill »

That was bloody brilliant. I'd even heard what was going to happen and it still shocked me just how quick they were. In fact I'd even heard what the answers were and I still couldn't get them anything like as quick.

Awesome game. Martin Lewis is great in DC.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

I personally don't like Martin Lewis in DC. Sure, he's informative, but I feel he's looking down the camera in a propaganda-esque way, which doesn't belong on Countdown.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Jordan and Mauro, I think we can fairly safely say that Ned was joking about the handshaking thing considering the number of times that it happened.

But yeah, great game. I'd heard reports in advance that it was a great game, so I kind of knew where it was heading. Personally I think it's probably best if people don't give away these things, so when the excitement comes you aren't already expecting it.

Edit - This was where Charlie made a good post on the subject. It wasn't actually on this forum that I saw these spoilers, but I think it makes sense in all places.
Last edited by Gavin Chipper on Thu Jan 17, 2013 11:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

I thought it would be a tie-break by the poor editing at the start.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Graeme Cole »

Rhys Benjamin wrote:I personally don't like Martin Lewis in DC. Sure, he's informative, but I feel he's looking down the camera in a propaganda-esque way, which doesn't belong on Countdown.
Rhys Benjamin wrote:I thought it would be a tie-break by the poor editing at the start.
Do you even like Countdown, Rhys?
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by szodiac »

Heather Styles wrote:No quantity of emoticons can do justice to this game. Jonathan's speed on those two conundrums was just breathtaking. Well done, guys, and I'm so sorry there could only be one winner.
Still in awe of the two conundrums! Can anybody, physically, time them to the nearest nanosecond! That'd be an awesome stat :D

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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Graeme Cole »

szodiac wrote:
Heather Styles wrote:No quantity of emoticons can do justice to this game. Jonathan's speed on those two conundrums was just breathtaking. Well done, guys, and I'm so sorry there could only be one winner.
Still in awe of the two conundrums! Can anybody, physically, time them to the nearest nanosecond! That'd be an awesome stat :D

Mauro
Stepping through it frame by frame, taking the start point as the frame before the clock hand starts moving, and the end point as the frame in which the light comes on, the first buzz was 0.96 seconds and the second was 0.76 seconds. The thing is, these times are only accurate to the nearest frame (0.04 seconds), and when you're talking about this sort of precision, you have to remember that the clock starting and the flippything turning over don't always happen at exactly the same time so that can have an effect too. Also, 0.96 seconds is probably the wrong side of the 1 second mark, as the 1 second light on the clock has come on.

James's recap gives it as 1 second and 0.75 seconds, and in this case I can't say they're any less accurate than my figures above. If quarter-second resolution is good enough for James, it's good enough for anyone else. :-)
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Matt Morrison »

So amazing. We were blown away. Sad for Ed as we love him and is high on our not-met-yet list. Awesome for young Rawlburgers though.

Good anecdote from Graeme - when you posted that photo I thought it was going to end on a spooky "and we'd written down those exact scrambles the night before" thing!

And in Robbo mode, did anyone else notice the extremely badly dubbed audio when Rachel was saying she couldn't get closer than 792 for the first numbers game? Perhaps not the only time it has happened with this sore throat, I just haven't been paying much attention so apologies if already mentioned.

Countdown.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jordan F »

Gavin Chipper wrote:Jordan and Mauro, I think we can fairly safely say that Ned was joking about the handshaking thing considering the number of times that it happened.
In that case, my mistake, and apologies to Ned for my misinterpretation.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by David Barnard »

Graeme Cole wrote:The night before this game, the contestants who were staying after that recording day, and the contestants who'd come for the next recording day (and I, who was basically there to get in the way and play bad pool) were at the Black Dog, which is a kind of bar-type thing somewhere in Manchester with pool tables in it. The main attraction of this place is that it has a series of blackboards across an entire wall, because we spent most of the evening writing anagrams on it:

Image

It's a blurry photo, but that's Mark in the blue shirt, that's Jonathan in the foreground (you'd recognise that hair anywhere), Conor is in front of him (you'd recognise that jumper anywhere) and Ed is in the red top (he'd had a haircut - I almost didn't recognise him).

Some time late in the evening, after we'd run out of chalk, Mark, Ed and I were discussing the following day's games. Ed was typically modest about the whole thing, playing down his chances. I reminded him that in his series finals he described his chances as "less than hopeless", then won. I may have had a few drinks by this point, because I was reminding him about this by saying "less than hopeless" repeatedly in something very loosely approximating a Northern Irish accent.

"He's better at conundrums than me", he kept saying. Now, we knew Jonathan's a top player, and we expected the game to be close, but I, and I think Mark as well, thought Ed would eventually win, because, you know, it's Ed.

What we were more certain of was that whatever the result, it would be a great game to play and to watch. I told Ed exactly this before we all scattered our separate ways (and I went back to the hotel I was staying in, The Gardens, which I can recommend as having a thoroughly awesome lift).

It turned out Jonathan did have the edge on conundrums, and it turned out Ed can be beaten, and most importantly, it turned out it was a classic game, the best of the series so far, both for the drama and the good spirit in which it was played. Congratulations to both players, especially to Jonathan - beating someone that plenty of us thought was a likely bet to get to the final is one thing, but doing it by solving two conundrums under that much pressure in one second is extraordinary.

And I'm the lanky bastard on the left who doesn't have a clue with some of these words and wishing I'd had a pen and paper handy to note them down
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by szodiac »

Graeme Cole wrote: Stepping through it frame by frame, taking the start point as the frame before the clock hand starts moving, and the end point as the frame in which the light comes on, the first buzz was 0.96 seconds and the second was 0.76 seconds. The thing is, these times are only accurate to the nearest frame (0.04 seconds), and when you're talking about this sort of precision, you have to remember that the clock starting and the flippything turning over don't always happen at exactly the same time so that can have an effect too. Also, 0.96 seconds is probably the wrong side of the 1 second mark, as the 1 second light on the clock has come on.
Thanks Graeme, exactly what I was looking for, truly awesome :D :D :D

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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Countdown Team »

Just looked at our playback of the conundrums in 0.1 second breakdowns.

The first was 0.86 from being the board turning fully over to the button press, and the second was 0.82.

Amazing stuff.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jon Corby »

Countdown Team wrote:Just looked at our playback of the conundrums in 0.1 second breakdowns.

The first was 0.86 from being the board turning fully over to the button press, and the second was 0.82.

Amazing stuff.
How do you get 0.86 and 0.82 from 0.1 second breakdowns?
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by David Williams »

It's also worth a mention that Jonathan sat back with a smile on his face as soon as he buzzed. Unlike some people who arouse your suspicions by continuing to stare intently at the screen.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Countdown Team »

Jon Corby wrote:
Countdown Team wrote:Just looked at our playback of the conundrums in 0.1 second breakdowns.

The first was 0.86 from being the board turning fully over to the button press, and the second was 0.82.

Amazing stuff.
How do you get 0.86 and 0.82 from 0.1 second breakdowns?
0.01 that should have said.
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Jon Corby
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jon Corby »

Countdown Team wrote:0.01 that should have said.
:-D I thought that was probably the case, but I just wanted to show that I was paying attention.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Countdown Team »

Jon Corby wrote:
Countdown Team wrote:0.01 that should have said.
:-D I thought that was probably the case, but I just wanted to show that I was paying attention.

Not enough attention to spot that this thread is dated 2012 though. Call that an equaliser !
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by James Robinson »

Countdown Team wrote:
Jon Corby wrote:
Countdown Team wrote:0.01 that should have said.
:-D I thought that was probably the case, but I just wanted to show that I was paying attention.

Not enough attention to spot that this thread is dated 2012 though. Call that an equaliser !
Or today's for that matter :!: :!:
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Michael Wallace
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Michael Wallace »

James Robinson wrote:
Countdown Team wrote:Not enough attention to spot that this thread is dated 2012 though. Call that an equaliser !
Or today's for that matter :!: :!:
Spoilers!
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Weird. When they got NEOTENY, Martin Lewis mentioned the axolotl, a neotenic animal or something. He also said it probably "comes up on here again". Well, it doesn't... only once, in 1991, and it was spotted by Tuesday's contestant Barry Grossman!
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim

Post by Ned Pendleton »

szodiac wrote:
Ned Pendleton wrote:bit of a shame neither of them shook hands, would've been nice to see
Saw them both shake hands (twice) before both conundrums - even if they didn't at the end I'm sure there was total respect for each other :)

Mauro
Was a joke. They shook hands three times from what I saw. Felt like by the last handshake they were both thinking 'yeah we've shaken hands enough times now, this is getting daft'
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim 9)

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

Surprised the ISOLATED round wasn't excised from the repeat given the public's utter hatred of anything remotely connected to Covid.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim 9)

Post by Mark Deeks »

Rhys Benjamin wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 1:50 pm Surprised the ISOLATED round wasn't excised from the repeat given the public's utter hatred of anything remotely connected to Covid.
Is this a snipe at someone? If so, who? And why? And if it wasn't, then......what the hell was it? I am confused by your post.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim 9)

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

Mark Deeks wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 3:45 pm
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 1:50 pm Surprised the ISOLATED round wasn't excised from the repeat given the public's utter hatred of anything remotely connected to Covid.
Is this a snipe at someone? If so, who? And why? And if it wasn't, then......what the hell was it? I am confused by your post.
Let me try again.

Given that any reference to viruses, illnesses, medicines, etc has been cut out of the Countdown repeats, including a whopping great "THIS WAS FILMED BEFORE COVID-19" taking up a third of the screen, I'm surprised they didn't cut out ISOLATED. As in self-.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim 9)

Post by Graeme Cole »

Rhys Benjamin wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 6:04 pm
Mark Deeks wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 3:45 pm
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 1:50 pm Surprised the ISOLATED round wasn't excised from the repeat given the public's utter hatred of anything remotely connected to Covid.
Is this a snipe at someone? If so, who? And why? And if it wasn't, then......what the hell was it? I am confused by your post.
Let me try again.

Given that any reference to viruses, illnesses, medicines, etc has been cut out of the Countdown repeats, including a whopping great "THIS WAS FILMED BEFORE COVID-19" taking up a third of the screen, I'm surprised they didn't cut out ISOLATED. As in self-.
A bit tenuous, isn't it? Especially as the reason they have that banner explaining it was filmed ages ago is to set expectations accordingly for things like this.

Incidentally, Tom Rowell offers CORONAS later in the series.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim 9)

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Graeme Cole wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 6:52 pm Incidentally, Tom Rowell offers CORONAS later in the series.
OMG spoilerzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim 9)

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

Graeme Cole wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 6:52 pm
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 6:04 pm
Mark Deeks wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 3:45 pm

Is this a snipe at someone? If so, who? And why? And if it wasn't, then......what the hell was it? I am confused by your post.
Let me try again.

Given that any reference to viruses, illnesses, medicines, etc has been cut out of the Countdown repeats, including a whopping great "THIS WAS FILMED BEFORE COVID-19" taking up a third of the screen, I'm surprised they didn't cut out ISOLATED. As in self-.
A bit tenuous, isn't it? Especially as the reason they have that banner explaining it was filmed ages ago is to set expectations accordingly for things like this.

Incidentally, Tom Rowell offers CORONAS later in the series.
Yes, maybe, but then so is Dave Myers talking about his tour plans. Two episodes from 30BC have been pulled outright, or at least that's what I recall Damian saying in Apto, so I guess that's one of them.
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Re: Spoilers for Thursday January 17th 2012 (Birthday Prelim 9)

Post by James Robinson »

Preliminary 9 2020 Word Update

The max would have increased by FOUR points (from 117 to 121) if played today thanks to 8's available in Rounds 3, 7 and 11 that weren't around in 2013.

Also, Ed would've won the game 102-94, as he would've gained another 8 points from OVERWORN being disallowed in this game, but being fine now.

New Words Now Allowed:

R2: HAVEREL
R3: OVERSOWN, OVERWORN (increase the MAX from 6 to 8!!) Also, notably both players' words would have been allowed now, but neither OVERSOW or OVERWORN were valid in 2013.
R4: PEGASID, PIPAGES
R7: OSMICATE (increase the MAX from 7 to 8)
R8: BOTONEE
R11: OUTWRITE (increase the MAX from 7 to 8)
R12: PARIGOTS
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