Spoilers for Thursday March 28th 2013 (Series 68 Prelim 15)

[Jordan F]

I swear I keep messing up on these prelim numbers. If I don't know that 14 comes after 13, I'll never make it on Countdown.

Regardless of my mistakes, one thing is clear. Andy Platt is one game away from becoming an octochamp, the first of the series and the new format. There's a lot of other fun things on the line too, he has a chance to be only the seventh player in history to score at least 100 points in all 8 of his prelims, and his potential octochamp total could be the highest we've seen in over a year. I hope he can do it, we'll see when it airs.

Join someone who I have never seen recap before, Conor, do his thing later.

[Tony Atkins]

You have to admire Andy for his interesting numbers methods.
A simpler alt is (100+10-2)x(50/25)

[Marc Meakin]

Touch and go for the century I reckon.

[Jojo Apollo]

Very well done Andy, superb run of eight tons.

Were you thinking of risking AIRSHOT in the TOVARISH round?

[Dave Preece]

Very easy conundrum I thought, even I got it, in about 1 sec...

Strange ending RE conundrum too???

[John Garcia]

Great game to finish off a great run Andy. Congrats on the 8 centuries.

Just as an aside you hesitated on vowel/consonant choice in the UPSTAIR round where you chose consononant (Z) for: TSPRIAIUZ
Had you gone for a vowel, you would have gotten an E, to give PARITIES for a possible 8 (which I'm guessing you would have easily spotted).

[Zarte Siempre]

N would have given PURITANS, too

[Innis Carson]

Strange ending RE conundrum too???

Indeed, looks like there was a fair amount of editing in that round. I liked Bob's quip though.

Very impressive run Andy, congrats! Been quite a while since there's been an octochamp score as high as that.

[Adam Gillard]

Congratulations, octochamp! Excellent run, very high standard throughout. A few of your games were against tough opposition and you had to keep that high standard up and did very well to come through those games with aplomb. Congratulations too on the 8 centuries, a great achievement. I don't know what your octototal is but it'll certainly be top of the leaderboard for players who've had a 4 Old 15, 4 New 15 octorun! You had some really nice words too, like ISOBUTANE, and got to show off your numbers skills and give Rachel a run for her money at times! Well done Andy, looking forward to seeing you in the finals, presumably as one of the highest seeds.

[Niall Seymour]

Very good run Andy well played

Shame Bob couldn't have been held back til tomorrow, seemed like one of your best opponents in terms of quality and was a bit of a lad to boot.

[Philip Jarvis]

Congratulations on becoming an Octochamp Andy.

I'm looking forward to meeting up with you again at the recording of the finals in May. Is it your round next?

[Adam Gillard]

I also liked how Bob said he had 10 when Andy declared 9. Has that happened much before?

[Andy Platt]

Yeah Dave, I need to work on my conundrums quite a lot, it seems! Fair play to you if you had it instantly. I was too tense, just flinched when the letters kind of looked familiar, which is a ridiculous thing to do. I reckon for the finals I'm gonna go back to what I did in my first 4 games, which is to leave my finger raised off the button (unless your TV is awesome this probably wasn't obvious when watching) to avoid what I did in game 6* and game 8. (*you saw a re-filmed version of the conundrum on TV and my actual buzz was pretty much instant)

Cheers Jojo, I certainly SUSTAINED the run of centuries there (Tracey Mills school of wit there, chortle chortle ). I have no idea what I was thinking of in the TOVARISH round, haha, probably something crap or I'd have gone for it. Maybe I was just saying safe 6 to cover my ass cos it felt like there was more?

Great game to finish off a great run Andy. Congrats on the 8 centuries.
Just as an aside you hesitated on vowel/consonant choice in the UPSTAIR round where you chose consononant (Z) for: TSPRIAIUZ
Had you gone for a vowel, you would have gotten an E, to give PARITIES for a possible 8 (which I'm guessing you would have easily spotted).

Cheers John and yep, E was the next vowel, great call! The only pick I could see was N for PURITANS as Zarte said but you're much less likely to hit any consonant than you are to hit an E, and I must have forgotten that the last round before it was the DUENNA/NUANCED round so an N was even less likely.

Cheers Innis, thanks for keeping up with it! And you too Adam. ISOBUTANE definitely the highlight round for me. I finished on 889 points, which, when speaking to Conor just before recording (or possibly even between games 4 and 5), was the score he politely asked me to get (i.e. as high as possible without overtaking him). The stupid mistakes I did once per game were clearly deliberate and solely out of respect and admiration for Conor, and absolutely nothing to do with my below average levels of concentration and my lack of consistency

Cheers Niall, yeah Bob was a good guy. You know he said to me at lunch, that he's been watching Countdown for ages but he actually stopped watching for periods during the 30BC because he didn't like losing to the contestants when he was playing from the comfort of his own home. He says he kind of regretted doing that as he felt he was a bit rusty on the day. I wonder if he'd have kept up with it, he might have been a bit more on the ball and really given me a run for my money.

Congratulations on becoming an Octochamp Andy.
I'm looking forward to meeting up with you again at the recording of the finals in May. Is it your round next?

Haha, for some reason I can't remember! Cheers again Mr Jarvis.

[Peter Fenton]

Very easy conundrum I thought, even I got it, in about 1 sec...

Strange ending RE conundrum too???

Quite a few technical things went wrong in the studio that day and revealing the correct solution prematurely before anyone in the audience could answer it was one of them.

Well done Andy on another convincing victory again despite a strong performance by Bob on the letters. Brilliant consistency over the eight game run, shown by being one of the few players to score a century in each game.

Can't remember the exact score for yesterday's game (about 120-30?) but by my reckoning you've definitely beaten the score for restricting your opponents to the lowest combined score (about 330) compared to Jonathan Rawlinson's 347 and may well have beaten Eoin Monaghan's combined total winning margin of 544 - I reckon you got about 550. Can anyone confirm?

http://www.c4countdown.co.uk/viewtopic. ... 60#p138721

Whatever, brilliant stuff and a pleasure to have the privilege of watching your last two games live.

[Peter Fenton]

I have no idea what I was thinking of in the TOVARISH round, haha, probably something crap or I'd have gone for it. Maybe I was just saying safe 6 to cover my ass cos it felt like there was more?

Maybe TRAVOIS?

[Ryan Taylor]

Well done on octochamp status Andy! From what I saw you made the task of winning 8 consecutive games appear straightforward.

[Andy Platt]

Cheers Ryan!

Cheers Peter. I just munched a few stats for you from the top secret notes I was keeping. Weirdly, this is normally the sort of thing I'd be all obsessive and bothered about but for some reason I'm actually not:
My score: 114+112+108+109+100+116+120+110 = 889. Opponent's combined scores: 67+25+32+7+33+80+29+51 = 324. Looks like it beats both Jonathan's and Eoin's records.

[Jojo Apollo]

Cheers Ryan!

Cheers Peter. I just munched a few stats for you from the top secret notes I was keeping. Weirdly, this is normally the sort of thing I'd be all obsessive and bothered about but for some reason I'm actually not:
My score: 114+112+108+109+100+116+120+110 = 889. Opponent's combined scores: 67+25+32+7+33+80+29+51 = 324. Looks like it beats both Jonathan's and Eoin's records.

Andy are you a secret trainspotter?

[Edward McCullagh]

Well done on a cracking octototal, Andy.

Some of the 4 large solves were ridiculously impressive under the pressure of being in the studio, and with a guaranteed two numbers picks in the new format, you're gonna be tough to beat regardless of who you come up against.

[Jack Worsley]

Great run Andy, congrats on octochamp status which has never really looked in any doubt! Some nice words and brilliant numbers solutions along the way! I'd say you had a mixed set of opponents overall but very few people would have given you any sort of game throughout your run. Well done also for getting the eight centuries, glad you didn't do what I did and cock it up in the last game. Looking forward to seeing you again in the finals, when I expect you to be in contention to win the series, with some strong competition from Giles and possibly one or two others.

[Eoin Monaghan]

Cheers Ryan!

Cheers Peter. I just munched a few stats for you from the top secret notes I was keeping. Weirdly, this is normally the sort of thing I'd be all obsessive and bothered about but for some reason I'm actually not:
My score: 114+112+108+109+100+116+120+110 = 889. Opponent's combined scores: 67+25+32+7+33+80+29+51 = 324. Looks like it beats both Jonathan's and Eoin's records.

The one record I had :'(

Nah seriously well up Andy, you made those 8 shows look real easy. Great run! You/Giles will be an awesome tussle. (assuming Giles does the business as well).

[Graeme Cole]

Very easy conundrum I thought, even I got it, in about 1 sec...

Strange ending RE conundrum too???

Quite a few technical things went wrong in the studio that day and revealing the correct solution prematurely before anyone in the audience could answer it was one of them.

Are you sure that was a mistake? They did the same thing in Innis and Kirk's game after both of them got the conundrum wrong.

[Graeme Cole]

Congratulations Andy. 11th highest octotal ever, and the seventh person to do it with all centuries.

[Gavin Chipper]

Cheers Ryan!

Cheers Peter. I just munched a few stats for you from the top secret notes I was keeping. Weirdly, this is normally the sort of thing I'd be all obsessive and bothered about but for some reason I'm actually not:
My score: 114+112+108+109+100+116+120+110 = 889. Opponent's combined scores: 67+25+32+7+33+80+29+51 = 324. Looks like it beats both Jonathan's and Eoin's records.

The one record I had :'(

Didn't you also have the record for lowest octotal with 8 centuries? Seems as though you've lost that too.

[Peter Fenton]

Very easy conundrum I thought, even I got it, in about 1 sec...

Strange ending RE conundrum too???

Quite a few technical things went wrong in the studio that day and revealing the correct solution prematurely before anyone in the audience could answer it was one of them.

Are you sure that was a mistake? They did the same thing in Innis and Kirk's game after both of them got the conundrum wrong.

No, not 100% and in all honesty I can't remember exactly what happened but there was definitely some confusion in the studio. I seem to remember Nick asking the audience if anyone had got it even though the solution had already been revealed and I think they refilmed the reveal a few times for some reason. I'm not really sure why an unsolved conundrum wouldn't be offered to the audience in that situation, even when both players get it wrong. Any ideas?

[Eoin Monaghan]

Cheers Ryan!

Cheers Peter. I just munched a few stats for you from the top secret notes I was keeping. Weirdly, this is normally the sort of thing I'd be all obsessive and bothered about but for some reason I'm actually not:
My score: 114+112+108+109+100+116+120+110 = 889. Opponent's combined scores: 67+25+32+7+33+80+29+51 = 324. Looks like it beats both Jonathan's and Eoin's records.

The one record I had :'(

Didn't you also have the record for lowest octotal with 8 centuries? Seems as though you've lost that too.

Oh... well that one I'm not complaining about too much .

[Rose Boyle]

Octochamp and octo centurian Andy! Nice one

[Innis Carson]

Are you sure that was a mistake? They did the same thing in Innis and Kirk's game after both of them got the conundrum wrong.

No, not 100% and in all honesty I can't remember exactly what happened but there was definitely some confusion in the studio. I seem to remember Nick asking the audience if anyone had got it even though the solution had already been revealed and I think they refilmed the reveal a few times for some reason. I'm not really sure why an unsolved conundrum wouldn't be offered to the audience in that situation, even when both players get it wrong. Any ideas?

Yeah I'd expect it probably was a mistake, or maybe a poorly thought-out spur-of-the-moment decision they regretted straight afterwards. It made sense to do it with Kirk and I as there was going to be another conundrum, and they never go to the audience in that situation anyway.

[Keith Bennett]

Well played Andy, very impressive run and entertaining to watch (for the right reasons). Looking forward to seeing you in the finals. Presume it's too early for recording dates? Haven't been in the audience since it moved to Media City, could do with grabbing a day or two off and puting that right.

Only disappointment today was to learn that Six Mile Bottom, a place I passed through many times in my youth, isn't named after a two ton Tessie that lived nearby.

[Graeme Cole]

Well played Andy, very impressive run and entertaining to watch (for the right reasons). Looking forward to seeing you in the finals. Presume it's too early for recording dates? Haven't been in the audience since it moved to Media City, could do with grabbing a day or two off and puting that right.

Finals are recorded 14-15 May, but when I applied for tickets to the 15th the final session was already full so they're putting people on a waiting list.

[Andy Platt]

Cheers Ed & Jack, weirdly it's easier to do trick 4 large solves than it is to like, calculate fiddly 1 larges. Conor explained why -memory and intuition hold up better.
Thanks Rose, even if you can't spell centurion and you too, Graeme, Eoin, Keith, did I miss anyone? :p

With regards to the finals, if it's full, I really do hope that it's because there are a lot of older folk or students who actually are genuine fans of the show and understand the significance of a series finals and have thus got them in early. I truly hope we do not have a situation like the (quarter?) finals in series 67 which was full of a bunch of loud and obnoxious sixth form media studies students who really didn't want to be there, were more there to see how the production and camera team organised themselves than enjoy the actual content of the show, and, for the most part, left half way through because they simply couldn't be arsed. It would kill me if you guys, my family/friends, or Beryl the retired geography teacher who has been watching avidly for 15 years, couldn't make it because someone with less fundamental interest in the show was in your seat.

[Giles]

I also liked how Bob said he had 10 when Andy declared 9. Has that happened much before?

I think in one of Kirk's game the opponent joked and said 10. He was also the opponent who went 4L at the end and beat Kirk to the conundrum!

[Martin Long]

Congratulations Andy, I found your run very entertaining and of a very high standard. I particularly enjoyed the 4L solves that had Rachel very confused!

Good luck in the finals!

[Andy Platt]

Cheers Martin

With how badly I was doing at 1 large and 2 large you can rest assured there's a lot more 4 large coming.

[Anthony Endsor]

Well done Andy on a great run.
I was in the audience for 3 of your games, (25th, 26th and 27th) and it was great to watch. Just a pity one or two gremlins put a spanner in the works
I'll just miss the finals as I've booked tickets for the 13th May, not knowing when the finals would be.
Still I'll be watching avidly from the living room