Spoilers for Thursday May 30th 2013 (Series 68 Prelim 51)

[Jordan F]

Stuart Scholes is on 2 wins now, and if he can get the third, he'll put himself in the current field of finalists. Can he do it? He probably will need the win, because the only way he can get into the top 8 by losing is if he scores more than a century. If he scores 94 or more in a loss, he'll take Philip Jarvis' place as the alternate. We'll see what happens.

Join...I think James Roper but it could be Andy...for the recap later.

[Andy Platt]

Yeah I'd quite like to do it - your choice, JR.

[Philip Jarvis]

If he scores 94 or more in a loss, he'll take Philip Jarvis' place as the alternate.

I'll be cheering on the challenger then. Lol

[Jordan F]

I'll beat an animal with another animal, PENGUINS as a beater in the BUNNIES round.

Alt. second numbers: ((25 x 4) - 7) x 5

[Gavin Chipper]

I got MOUTHER as a beater in round 2 and PENGUINS in 4.

[Jack Worsley]

NOUMENA in round 7.

[Tony Atkins]

Alt 3rd numbers (((2x75)-8)x6)-7

[Gavin Chipper]

I'll beat an animal with another animal, PENGUINS as a beater in the BUNNIES round.

Alt. second numbers: ((25 x 4) - 7) x 5

I did that numbers solution as well as (75×2-8)×6-7 for the 3rd one. What do we make of Rachel deliberately showboating these numbers games? Is it better to provide a more "obvious" solution?

[Jordan F]

As I think Peter and Philip are retroactively relieved at Stuart's loss, I think Chris has some potential, in particular BOOTLEGS and the conundrum were fantastic spots, so we'll see how she goes.

[Peter Fenton]

What do we make of Rachel deliberately showboating these numbers games? Is it better to provide a more "obvious" solution?

I think it's officially called 'doing an Andy Platt', isn't it? It's quite entertaining when you've got it with a 'standard method', but when I can't even get that, it can be bloody infuriating! What I find more annoying though is when Rachel says 'there are a few ways of doing this one' and I haven't managed to get any of them

Alt. final numbers (50-2) x ((4 x (3+1)) + 5

[Andy Platt]

Agree - I find that a bit patronising too to be honest

[Philip Wilson]

What do we make of Rachel deliberately showboating these numbers games? Is it better to provide a more "obvious" solution?

I'd actually like to see Rachel explain [briefly] why she does things sometimes. I mean when taking a small number away from the big number before multiplying. Eg 50-7 x 3 will equal 21 less than 50 x 3 because 3x7 = 21.
Also when the small number needed to multiply the big number by [sorry i forgot the word for that!] is itself made by multiplying two small numbers together [eg: 3 x 4 (=12) x 75 to get near 900] Rachel could say it equals the same in any order so you can add or subtract another number if available in the selection before multiplying by the third number to get it exact. Maybe it's too much for some but I just think it would help people who mentally switch off during the numbers rounds if they understood a bit better what she was doing.

[Graeme Cole]

What do we make of Rachel deliberately showboating these numbers games? Is it better to provide a more "obvious" solution?

I think it's officially called 'doing an Andy Platt', isn't it? It's quite entertaining when you've got it with a 'standard method', but when I can't even get that, it can be bloody infuriating! What I find more annoying though is when Rachel says 'there are a few ways of doing this one' and I haven't managed to get any of them

Agree - I find that a bit patronising too to be honest

I think Rachel should first ask if they want the easy way or the fun way.

[Andy Platt]

Seconded!!

[Zarte Siempre]

My game for today - not as good as the last few days, but still chirpy enough

[James Robinson]

SOSATIE and TAJINES in round 5.

2nd Numbers Alt.: ((25 x 4) - 7) x 5 = 465
4th Numbers Alt.: (((50 x 5) + (4 x 2)) x 3) - 1 = 773

Nice to be back and after watching 6 episodes back-to-back in just under 4 hours, I now seem fully energised for next week and my first recaps in donkey's ages.

[Andy Platt]

Mental bastard

[Andy McGurn]

I was gutted to miss DIAZEPAM, I'm supposed to take three a day but today i forgot one and only took two

[Peter Mabey]

It seems that sometimes Rachel deliberately avoids showing where a contestant went wrong (not to embarrass them?) by choosing an entirely different method. For example, when Chris was 30 short in R6 by doing 9-6=3,(25+4)x5x3, the corrected alternative would have been 7-4=3,(25+6)x5x3.
The easy way in R9 was (75-10)x(6+7), as 845 is obviously 5x13^2
I also think that with two large, she may like to go for an easier target that differs by one of them which can be added or subtracted at the end.
What we really need is for Rachel to have an occasional spot (or even a blog ) where she can talk about the best way to go about solving the numbers.

[Gavin Chipper]

It seems that sometimes Rachel deliberately avoids showing where a contestant went wrong (not to embarrass them?) by choosing an entirely different method. For example, when Chris was 30 short in R6 by doing 9-6=3,(25+4)x5x3, the corrected alternative would have been 7-4=3,(25+6)x5x3.
The easy way in R9 was (75-10)x(6+7), as 845 is obviously 5x13^2
I also think that with two large, she may like to go for an easier target that differs by one of them which can be added or subtracted at the end.
What we really need is for Rachel to have an occasional spot (or even a blog ) where she can talk about the best way to go about solving the numbers.

I find it slightly frustrating if Rachel doesn't simply tidy up a wrong method, as it sort of leaves the impression that she didn't see that and had to go a roundabout way to do it, even if that's not what happened. I'm sure there's lots of people at home saying "Why didn't she just do that?"

I tend to prefer it when she goes for the simplest method, rather than creating the impression that a numbers game was harder than it really was.

[David Barnard]

Nah, if there is a sweet 4L trick like 937.5 she should just go into the thousands shamelessly