Ask Graeme?

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Fred Mumford
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Fred Mumford »

Thanks again Clive, great stuff.

Yes I did wonder if the lack of opportunites for division when playing 6 small meant that 99%ers in that category were rare, despite being by far the trickiest category overall.

No joy yet on solving those new examples though, even with the advantage of knowing their difficulty in advance.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by George Pryn »

Clive Brooker wrote:
Fred Mumford wrote:Cheers Clive, that certainly covers one of the areas I was looking for.

I wonder which pot all the games with 90%-98% difficulty get shoved into?
I'm pretty sure that the proportion of games getting the 99% rating is much lower than 1%.

I've always assumed that William T-P's criteria value division more highly than anything, and division is not often a feature of 6 small solutions. However it doesn't seem to be essential to have a division operation to score 99%, and 6 small examples do exist. Good luck with these:

8 7 5 5 3 3 : target 391
8 8 6 6 5 4 : target 471
9 9 7 5 3 1 : target 669
Middle one seemed to jump out at me: (8*8*5-6)*6/4
Can't see the others though
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

George Pryn wrote:What's the longest string of games in which the challengers' surnames have been in alphabetical order?

1. A string starting from any letter i.e DEFGHI
The longest string of games whose challengers' surnames began with consecutive letters of the alphabet seems to be only three.
  • Chris Kennedy, Anne Langford and David McCarron, starting here
  • William Cussen, Steve Dannell and Richard Egerton, starting here
  • Elena Bonetti, Janet Creamer and Carl Dyke, starting here
  • Inderjit Bedi, Will Cantrell and Sarah Devlin, starting here
  • Alistair Kinnon, Nick Locock and Samira Mohamed, starting here
  • David Howard, Tony Izzard and Dominic James, starting here
  • Peter Littleton, Mark Murray and Chris Newbury, starting here
George Pryn wrote:2. Just generally alphabetical i.e AeAzBCaCeD
The longest run of challengers whose surnames were in alphabetical order was 7: Gen Baker, Niall Breen, Rory Coleman, Cherry Ann Grant, Graham Harrison, Zarte Siempre, Ian Talbot and Brenda Widger, starting here.
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

George Pryn wrote:What's the smallest score range of an Octochamp over their 8 games? By this I mean the difference between their lowest and highest score, not their highest winning margin :o

YOU ROCK :D
In new 15 round games, Dylan Taylor scored most consistently, his highest score being 129 and the lowest 113.
In old 15 round games, it was Tom Hargreaves, who had a highest score of 111 and a lowest score of 98.
In 9 round games, it was Sharon Bridge, with 63 and 51.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Thomas Carey »

Graeme Cole wrote:
George Pryn wrote:What's the smallest score range of an Octochamp over their 8 games? By this I mean the difference between their lowest and highest score, not their highest winning margin :o

YOU ROCK :D
In new 15 round games, Dylan Taylor scored most consistently, his highest score being 129 and the lowest 113.
In old 15 round games, it was Tom Hargreaves, who had a highest score of 111 and a lowest score of 98.
In 9 round games, it was Sharon Bridge, with 63 and 51.
Interesting, but nines could skew this a lot (unless you're George). Could you please repeat this with most consistent in terms of points lost from the max?

Also, two things.
Graeme Cole wrote:
George Pryn wrote:2. Just generally alphabetical i.e AeAzBCaCeD
The longest run of challengers whose surnames were in alphabetical order was 7: Gen Baker, Niall Breen, Rory Coleman, Cherry Ann Grant, Graham Harrison, Zarte Siempre, Ian Talbot and Brenda Widger, starting here.
Is this not 8?
Graeme Cole wrote: 11 contestants whose names are anagrams of nine letter words, for you to have a go at at home. Some easy, some difficult.

Lester Mak
Bet Callum wishes he visited this thread more, especially as this was posted the day before CoHud...
cheers maus
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Thomas Carey wrote:
Graeme Cole wrote:
George Pryn wrote:2. Just generally alphabetical i.e AeAzBCaCeD
The longest run of challengers whose surnames were in alphabetical order was 7: Gen Baker, Niall Breen, Rory Coleman, Cherry Ann Grant, Graham Harrison, Zarte Siempre, Ian Talbot and Brenda Widger, starting here.
Is this not 8?
Um. Yes.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Jono came up with what he calls the "TV GOAT list", which is a player's most number of maxes over three consecutive games. He reckons that he's done this himself (and that he's second with 41 out of 45) but is refusing to publish it, but it sounds like a good idea. Maybe it could be done as % of maxes so that we could compare players in 9-round games and 14-round finals as well.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by George Pryn »

HI GRAEME!!! Big fan

Have any players ever scored 0 over all letters rounds in a game? (competitive score not raw)

thx
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Rhys Benjamin
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

Apologies if this has been asked before, but who's the best player at each numbers selection? I imagine Scott Mearns must be quite high up the 6 small board.
The forum's resident JAILBAKER, who has SPONDERED several times...
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Rhys Benjamin wrote:Apologies if this has been asked before, but who's the best player at each numbers selection? I imagine Scott Mearns must be quite high up the 6 small board.
It's not up to Graeme to decide who's the best! Obviously you can have percentage success rate, but then you have to look at statistical significance etc.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Charlie Reams »

Graeme Cole wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote:Slightly niche but I'm on the hunt for games which may be "forgotten classics". Could you tell us the game with the highest joint score in which neither contestant made the finals? (And, maybe better, highest joint maxes?)
Top 20 by joint score in 15 rounders:

Code: Select all

EP     TX DATE                              SCORE                          JOINT
5791   2013-10-15    Abdirizak Hirsi       107  119  Mark Hartnett         226   (Fred's breakfast survives)
3869   2005-02-11    Frank Mulvey          133  86   Kevin Warner          219
S11    2003-09-11    Melanie Beaumont      83   126  Linda Dawe            209
4560   2008-03-19    Andrew Swale          96   106  Tony Durrant          202
3536   2003-08-12    Colin Askew           79   121  Nick Smith            200
3705   2004-05-17    Chris White           93   104  Laura Taylor          197
4069   2006-03-30    Tuck Broadbent        95   101  Dan Webster           196
4272   2007-01-15    Ian Volante           102  93   George Rhodes         195
5739   2013-07-24    Rory Coleman          76   118  Zarte Siempre         194
3916   2005-04-27    David Ryan            91   102  Kieran Coppinger      193
3325   2002-09-23    Robert Lee            91   101  Dez Hussey            192
5296   2011-06-29    Andrew Halliburton    100  92   Barry Evans           192
3445   2003-03-24    Beth Sutton           103  88   Keith Williams        191
4132   2006-06-23    Graham Dugdale        90   101  Alan O'Donnell        191
4186   2006-09-07    Sheri Evans           93   98   Sarah Duncan          191
5868   2014-02-13    Andrew Farr           89   102  Adrian Day            191
4967   2010-01-28    James Rawson          100  90   Toni Balestra         190
5486   2012-05-17    Stuart Wright         111  79   Jamie Ainge           190
3630   2004-01-26    Eric Wright           123  66   Jonathan De Souza     189
4075   2006-04-06    Heather Culpin        106  83   Steven Kidner         189
Top 20 plus ties by joint score in 9 rounders:

Code: Select all

EP     TX DATE                              SCORE                          JOINT
905    1989-08-30    Clive Everill         70   60   Chris Magill          130
2720   2000-02-29    Andy Brown            70   60   Barry Scaum           130
2563   1999-07-12    Kay Powick            71   53   Derek Harrison        124
1920   1997-01-15    Jeff Youell           53   70   Steve Erskine         123
900    1989-08-23    Ann Rutter            63   59   Mark Pont             122
2365   1998-10-07    Sally Hutchings       53   68   Joe Bridal            121
2948   2001-02-14    Nicola Smith          63   58   Daryl Brooks          121
2154   1997-12-09    Christine Kavanagh    58   62   Michael Joy           120
2427   1999-01-01    Emma Brown            55   65   Ted Smith             120
2513   1999-05-03    Keith Loveys          56   64   Colin Sinnett         120
2782   2000-05-30    Jacqueline Carter     62   57   Eddy Ignace           119
2918   2001-01-03    Dom Glennon           57   62   Richard Leaper        119
1278   1992-07-20    Felicity Gelder       54   64   Terry Doughty         118
1076   1991-01-10    Robert Houston        64   53   Ewen Alexander        117
2959   2001-03-01    Ralph Lubkowski       69   48   Mansoor Undre         117
2609   1999-09-28    Billy Davidson        68   48   Jacqui Darby          116
647    1987-10-07    Jim Findlay           66   49   Ray Clements          115
1171   1991-08-22    Thelma Bell           55   60   Howard Spencer        115
1793   1996-07-15    Martin Wright         54   61   Kim Poole             115
1829   1996-09-03    Jean Frost            60   55   George Gruner         115
2304   1998-07-14    Simon Cobb            65   50   Vasudeo Joshi         115
2405   1998-12-02    Phil Hunt             60   55   Claire O'Neil         115
3011   2001-05-14    Peter Wild            53   62   Debbie Allen          115
Top 20 plus ties by joint maxes in 15 rounders:

Code: Select all

EP     TX DATE                              SCORE                           MAXES    JOINT
5293   2011-06-24    Matt Croy             90   91   Andrew Halliburton    12   12   24 
3445   2003-03-24    Beth Sutton           103  88   Keith Williams        12   9    21 
4235   2006-11-15    Phil Matthams         96   86   Christine Smith       11   10   21 
4560   2008-03-19    Andrew Swale          96   106  Tony Durrant          10   11   21 
3997   2005-12-21    Sue Alexander         84   98   Nick Rafferty         9    11   20 
4069   2006-03-30    Tuck Broadbent        95   101  Dan Webster           9    11   20 
3426   2003-02-25    John Clarke           96   77   David Poyser          10   9    19     (not the same John Clarke I mentioned in the post above, who won series 11)
S11    2003-09-11    Melanie Beaumont      83   126  Linda Dawe            7    12   19 
3915   2005-04-26    Jenny Scudamore       83   86   David Ryan            9    10   19 
3919   2005-05-03    Kieran Coppinger      72   82   Sally Bassinder       9    10   19 
3921   2005-05-05    Sally Bassinder       84   90   Bob Beckett           9    10   19 
3923   2005-05-09    Michael Edwards       79   71   Jim Anderson          10   9    19 
5388   2011-12-02    Phyllis Styles        109  71   Rachel Shirley        11   8    19 
5791   2013-10-15    Abdirizak Hirsi       107  119  Mark Hartnett         9    10   19 
5816   2013-11-19    Simon Whiteley        81   87   Philip Creed          8    11   19 
3212   2002-03-19    Tony Harding          87   83   Paul Burlinson        10   8    18 
3827   2004-11-30    Judith Armstrong      85   82   Andrew Byrne          9    9    18 
3917   2005-04-28    Kieran Coppinger      101  85   Ian Laming            10   8    18 
3986   2005-12-06    Rosemary Ilsley       87   98   Clive Johnson         9    9    18 
4575   2008-04-09    Matthew Coates        87   97   David Sandbach        9    9    18 
4870   2009-08-25    Paul Varlaam          67   105  Ed Rossiter           7    11   18 
4987   2010-02-25    Clarke Carlisle       101  78   Alexander Johnston    10   8    18 
5427   2012-02-16    Chris Butler          93   73   Matthew Conway        10   8    18
Top 20 plus ties (so top 38) by joint maxes in 9 rounders:

Code: Select all

EP     TX DATE                              SCORE                           MAXES    JOINT
1076   1991-01-10    Robert Houston        64   53   Ewen Alexander        7    6    13 
1421   1993-08-12    Eileen Slack          43   50   Alec Webb             6    7    13 
2529   1999-05-25    Susan Shilton         63   41   Joan Trinder          8    5    13 
2720   2000-02-29    Andy Brown            70   60   Barry Scaum           7    6    13 
2839   2000-09-14    David Healey          40   67   Kris Jones            5    8    13 
1335   1993-01-13    'A.J.' Marriot        45   55   Barbi Birdseye        5    7    12 
1463   1994-01-10    Jim Crawford          37   62   John Carter           5    7    12 
1748   1996-02-12    Seamus McAteer        41   62   Steve Gruzd           5    7    12 
1819   1996-08-20    Mike Llewellin        58   54   June Ruskin           6    6    12 
1912   1997-01-03    Paul Wells            48   62   Mike Kindred          5    7    12 
2513   1999-05-03    Keith Loveys          56   64   Colin Sinnett         6    6    12 
2623   1999-10-18    Alix Anderson         52   59   Dee Voce              6    6    12 
2636   1999-11-04    Anthony Moorhouse     53   52   Olive Martin          6    6    12 
2867   2000-10-24    Andrew Ferguson       46   49   Helen Smith           6    6    12 
2928   2001-01-17    Stuart Anderson       41   57   Bill Rennie           5    7    12 
451    1986-10-21    Steve Wood            53   49   Paul Robson           5    6    11 
649    1987-10-09    Jim Findlay           50   54   Ian Cook              5    6    11 
788    1988-08-01    Wayne Blackburn       30   63   Cliff Boynton         4    7    11 
898    1989-08-21    Debbie Williams       45   65   Mark Pont             5    6    11 
1495   1994-02-23    Gus Stewart           45   56   Gordon McLurey        5    6    11 
1505   1994-03-09    Julia Perthen         46   62   John Mullings         5    6    11 
2005   1997-05-14    Natasha Casie Chetty  40   47   Robert Shaw           5    6    11 
2044   1997-07-08    Paul Harrison         45   52   Joy Hill              5    6    11 
2268   1998-05-25    Daniel Summers        59   55   Helen Ross            6    5    11 
2356   1998-09-24    Alan Dyson            39   46   Peter Preston Igweke  5    6    11 
2461   1999-02-18    David Andrew          57   34   Ian Knox              7    4    11 
2591   1999-09-02    Mickie O'Neill        41   53   Geraldine Curran      5    6    11 
2607   1999-09-24    Jean O'Neill          47   54   Christine Silverwood  5    6    11 
2696   2000-01-26    John Snedden          45   60   Joel Davey            5    6    11 
2708   2000-02-11    Barbara Rogers        30   65   Daniel Vanniasingham  3    8    11 
2726   2000-03-08    Lisa Hermann          57   29   Geoffrey Masters      7    4    11 
2773   2000-05-12    Davina Forrester      55   56   Naomi Thorburn        6    5    11 
2776   2000-05-17    Peter McGuigan        65   41   Chris Harris          7    4    11 
2781   2000-05-29    Mei Ling Simons       54   57   Jacqueline Carter     5    6    11 
2782   2000-05-30    Jacqueline Carter     62   57   Eddy Ignace           6    5    11 
2902   2000-12-12    Stephen Briggs        45   55   James Aukett          5    6    11 
3021   2001-05-31    Alison Moore          44   59   Stuart Moore          5    6    11
Just realised I never checked back for this; great work, thank you!
Jack Worsley
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Jack Worsley »

Not sure if this has been asked before but what's the lowest raw score in a game by a contestant, for both 9 and 15 rounders? Can you produce separate results where:

1. The raw score is calculated by assuming that unheard numbers solutions are correct
2. They are assumed to be incorrect?

Thanks.
Gavin Chipper
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

I don't think this has been asked before - can you list the octochamps in order of the lowest number of maxes they got in a game? Can't think where I got that idea from.
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

James Laverty wrote:With the exception of Samir Pilica and Mark Davies, all of the octochamps in 2014 have finished their run on the last filmed show of their second day of recording (ie final day of a DC guest). Does this imply that making your debut straight after the lunch break gives you an advantage or a mere coincidence?
Ages ago I did some analysis on Mike Brown's octochamp data which found that most octochamps start their run in an episode shown on a Monday.

(By the way Mike, you've got Neil Zussman starting in 1998 rather than 2009 - sorry, I meant to mention that at the time.)

The breakdown as of the end of series 70 is as follows:

Monday: 46
Tuesday: 32
Wednesday: 40
Thursday: 33
Friday: 31
Saturday: 1

Since the start of 2009 (so series 60-70), 9 octochamps started on a Friday, 11 octochamps started on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and 14 started on a Wednesday.

However, in the last year or so it's been more common for the first episode recorded in a day not to be the Monday episode.

I can't say whether making your debut on the third game of a recording day confers an advantage, or whether expected octochamps are sometimes deliberately started then for convenience's sake as Jack suggests.
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Philip Wilson wrote:Sorry if this has been asked before, but what are the lowest scores achieved by a contestant sitting next to DC? Newest format will do ;)
New 15 round format: 34.
Old 15 round format: 21.
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Fred Mumford wrote:This might be more of an "Ask Anyone" but I'm on the lookout for any exceptionally difficult numbers games (ie. games that score 99% on the solver tool, and ideally with just a single solution) that anyone may have come across that meet any of the following criteria:-

- Six small selections
- A relatively small target (say below 400)
- Any that might look easy at first glance (eg. 50 25 7 6 3 3 => 712 from the solver FAQ example list)
- Any that are particularly interesting for any other reason (eg 75 50 25 8 7 3 => 939 from the series 19 final. Not a complicated solution arithmetically, (50x25-8)/3+75x7, but a work of beauty, who would even think of approaching it that way?)

I've seen the excellent list that Clive Brooker did earlier in this thread, so I'm not talking about any games that have actually appeared on the show, but any that anyone may have stumbled across on apterous or via some fancy complicated database mining blah blah stuff.

Many thanks.
I don't have any fancy program that finds hard numbers games, but once I came across this one: 100 6 5 8 7 7 -> 405

It's by no means a 99% difficulty puzzle, but it's certainly harder than it first looks. There are quite a few ways of solving it - my solver finds seven non-trivially different solutions - but I wouldn't say any are very intuitive.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Fred Mumford »

Thank you, yes that one is a bit tricky, I'm surprised it is rated at only 70% on the WTP solver tool (although I've long believed that it sometimes knocks off too many difficulty points for games with solutions that don't happen to use all 6 numbers).
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Clive Brooker
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Clive Brooker »

Fred Mumford wrote:Thank you, yes that one is a bit tricky, I'm surprised it is rated at only 70% on the WTP solver tool (although I've long believed that it sometimes knocks off too many difficulty points for games with solutions that don't happen to use all 6 numbers).
When I was hunting for 6 small examples I simply ran through all selections for a chosen target and picked out the 99%ers afterwards - nothing subtle or pretty. So I have many thousands of results, including the WTP rating, and if you're interested in trying to decode what he's doing I can send them to you. Scanning through the results you quickly start to get a sense of what constructions lead to each score, particularly when WTP only finds one solution.

Send me a suitable email address via PM if you'd like to have a look.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Jon Corby wrote:Yo.

This has probably been asked before, but: words spelt out in the selection. What can you tell me about these please? What's the longest? When have contestants offered such words? When have they wasted effort and offered a different word (same length) to one spelt out? etc.
Here are all the seven-letter words which have been spelt out in the selection:

STINGER was spelt out in round 1 in this episode - the contestants spotted an 8 and a 9.
Round 2 in this episode was more unusual - WICKING was spelt out, but both contestants went for RICKING, which I would say is the more unusual word.
Both contestants got FORESTS in round 2 of this game, but missed the 8, BOASTERS.
TALBOTS appeared in this game, but the contestants went for alternative, perhaps more well known, sevens.
LOUNGED appeared in round 8 of this game, but both offered other sevens.
In round 9 of this game, ORIENTS was easily picked out by one contestant but beaten by POINTERS.
In round 12 of this game, Conor Travers and Andrew Christley got a tnetennba for PILOTED.
Round 1 of this game had the unusual word LISTELS spelt out in it, but the contestants found better words.
MEANDER appeared in round 1 of this game.
TISANES appeared in round 13 of this game.
I'd never heard of the word GASTRIN, but it was spelt out in round 13 of this game between Michelle Nevitt and Andy McGurn, both of whom found longer words.
Similarly, GOALIES appeared in round 4 here but it wasn't the best on offer.
Most recently, round 4 in this game last series contained the word REFINES. Both contestants went for longer words, but Samir realised his word wasn't in the selection.

No eight or nine letter word has appeared spelt out in the selection.

Contestants have offered words spelt out in the selection 81 times up to the end of series 71, the most recent being round 8 of this game. On two of those occasions the word was not valid: PONS in round 8 of this game and LOSABLE in round 6 of this game.

The longest words contestants have found in the selection are FORESTS, ORIENTS, PILOTED and MEANDER, which appear above.

Based on the maxes given by the wiki, which are known in some cases to be wrong, only nine tnettenbae have been achieved on Countdown - that is, a word offered which is spelt out in the selection and the best available. They were for DEITY (twice), TAINT, FIXED, PILOTED (twice), PAEANS, BROKEN and JIHADI.
Jon Corby wrote:If possible I'd be interested in "how likely" you are to get words spelt out (although I haven't really thought this through fully, and it might not make sense because it requires the contestant to pick the letters in a certain way).
Quite likely, if you include words like "a".
Jon Corby wrote:Any information on rounds abandoned because of (presumably offensive) words being spelt out would also be great. Would/has a round be scrapped if there was an obvious max spelt out?
Obviously this wouldn't show up in the wiki, but I personally know of at least one case where a round was scrapped because a swear word was not quite spelt out.
Jon Corby wrote:Also amusing words that have been spelt out (and left in) would be fun to know about.
When one of the worse words appear, they redo the round, although TWAT did slip through once. Milder words have a better chance of making it to air: ARSE has appeared 31 times, FART twice and PISS once (video).
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Thomas Carey wrote:
Graeme Cole wrote:
George Pryn wrote:What's the smallest score range of an Octochamp over their 8 games? By this I mean the difference between their lowest and highest score, not their highest winning margin :o

YOU ROCK :D
In new 15 round games, Dylan Taylor scored most consistently, his highest score being 129 and the lowest 113.
In old 15 round games, it was Tom Hargreaves, who had a highest score of 111 and a lowest score of 98.
In 9 round games, it was Sharon Bridge, with 63 and 51.
Interesting, but nines could skew this a lot (unless you're George). Could you please repeat this with most consistent in terms of points lost from the max?
9 rounder: Lindsay Denyer, who dropped no more than 27 and no fewer than 17 points in any game in her octorun.
Old 15: Andrew Hulme dropped no more than 22 and no fewer than 15 points.
New 15: George Ford dropped no more than 29 and no fewer than 12 - a difference of 17 - but Andy Platt, who did half his octorun in the new format, dropped no more than 24 and no fewer than 11, a difference of 13.
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Jack Worsley wrote:Not sure if this has been asked before but what's the lowest raw score in a game by a contestant, for both 9 and 15 rounders? Can you produce separate results where:

1. The raw score is calculated by assuming that unheard numbers solutions are correct
2. They are assumed to be incorrect?

Thanks.
Assuming unheard numbers solutions are correct:
9 rounder: 16.
Old 15 rounder: 44.
New 15 rounder: 31.

Assuming unheard numbers solutions were incorrect:
9 rounder: Still 16.
Old 15 rounder: 39.
New 15 rounder: still 31, but this one is now also joint lowest.
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

George Pryn wrote:HI GRAEME!!! Big fan

Have any players ever scored 0 over all letters rounds in a game? (competitive score not raw)

thx
In the 9 round format it happened six times, in episodes 466, 637, 646, 1554, 2343 and 3035. In episode 1061 in 1990, Denys Hollis scored no points on letters but I haven't included this because he should have scored 4 - his opponent was incorrectly allowed a word that wasn't in the selection.

It's never happened in 15 rounds.
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Gavin Chipper wrote:Jono came up with what he calls the "TV GOAT list", which is a player's most number of maxes over three consecutive games. He reckons that he's done this himself (and that he's second with 41 out of 45) but is refusing to publish it, but it sounds like a good idea. Maybe it could be done as % of maxes so that we could compare players in 9-round games and 14-round finals as well.
The following tables contain the top 100 plus ties. The highest number of maxes achieved by a player in three consecutive games appears in the last column. The column before it is the episode number of the last game of the three. Each table is sorted by the last column, and then in arbitrary order after that. Tiebreak rounds are not counted. This is up to date to the end of series 71.

15 rounders (either flavour):

Code: Select all

    1. Conor Travers          5653  45
    2. Jon O'Neill            5653  41
    3. Kirk Bevins            5650  40
    3. Paul Gallen            4127  40
    3. Dylan Taylor           5833  40
    3. Jen Steadman           5762  40
    7. Craig Beevers          4472  39
    7. Edward McCullagh       5200  39
    7. Dan McColm             6013  39
    7. Jack Worsley           5649  39
    7. Jonathan Rawlinson     5505  39
   12. Julian Fell            3345  38
   12. Innis Carson           5645  38
   12. Jack Hurst             5636  38
   12. Andy Platt             5668  38
   16. Chris Davies           4878  37
   16. Giles Hutchings        5675  37
   16. Callum Todd            5839  37
   19. Mark Murray            5909  36
   19. Chris Wills            3169  36
   19. Mark Tournoff          4127  36
   22. Tricia Pay             5964  35
   22. Stewart Holden         3656  35
   22. Paul Howe              4117  35
   22. Bradley Cates          5798  35
   22. David O'Donnell        5644  35
   22. Adam Gillard           5185  35
   28. Glen Webb              5835  34
   28. Eoin Monaghan          5114  34
   28. Samir Pilica           5929  34
   31. Marcus Hares           5150  33
   31. Oliver Garner          4962  33
   31. Graeme Cole            5282  33
   31. Zarte Siempre          5742  33
   35. Junaid Mubeen          4732  32
   35. Tom Hargreaves         3278  32
   35. Grace Page             3287  32
   35. Chris Cummins          4120  32
   35. Jack Welsby            3753  32
   35. Chris Hunt             3883  32
   35. David Barnard          5596  32
   35. Abdirizak Hirsi        5789  32
   35. George Ford            6053  32
   44. Paul James             5612  31
   44. Andrew Hulme           5639  31
   44. George Greenhough      3359  31
   44. Neil Green             5918  31
   44. John Mayhew            3954  31
   44. Matthew Shore          4121  31
   44. Jimmy Gough            4816  31
   51. Peter Lee              5435  30
   51. David Nickeas          3292  30
   51. John Davies            4122  30
   51. Richard Heald          3956  30
   51. Jon Corby              4746  30
   51. Simon Born             4169  30
   51. Steven Briers          4745  30
   51. Neil Zussman           4841  30
   51. Daniel Pati            5174  30
   51. Jason Turner           5962  30
   61. Graham Nash            3404  29
   61. Adam Laws              3611  29
   61. John Brackstone        3933  29
   61. Aaron Webber           4380  29
   61. James Hurrell          4374  29
   61. Charlie Reams          4746  29
   61. Martin Bishop          4707  29
   61. Ryan Taylor            4927  29
   61. Scott Gillies          5175  29
   61. Tom Barnes             5265  29
   61. Mark Davies            5977  29
   61. Paul Worsley           5996  29
   61. Laurence Killen        6034  29
   74. Darryl Francis         5641  28
   74. Ben Wilson             5618  28
   74. Andrew Naylor          5878  28
   74. Steven Moir            3810  28
   74. David Edwards          4505  28
   74. Jeffrey Hansford       4431  28
   74. Jonathan Coles         4738  28
   74. Ed Rossiter            4872  28
   74. Greg Hayhurst          5166  28
   74. Andy McGurn            5226  28
   74. Mark Deeks             5617  28
   74. Phyllis Styles         5390  28
   74. Rob Gibney             5458  28
   74. Mark Hartnett          5794  28
   88. John Rawnsley          3402  27
   88. Kevin Thurlow          3178  27
   88. Beth Sutton            3445  27
   88. Stuart Solomons        3613  27
   88. Alex Fish              5836  27
   88. Stuart Earl            3592  27
   88. Steve Graston          3617  27
   88. Kieran Coppinger       3919  27
   88. Anita Freeland         4738  27
   88. Jean Webby             4306  27
   88. Richard Priest         4568  27
   88. Jonny Rye              6017  27
  100. Tony Durrant           4562  26
  100. Ian Linton             5956  26
  100. Lee Hartley            3195  26
  100. Mike Pullin            3274  26
  100. Michael Clarke         3316  26
  100. Eamonn Timmins         4119  26
  100. Nicole Hutchings       3722  26
  100. Roy Thearle            3760  26
  100. John Gray              3784  26
  100. John Hunt              3801  26
  100. Sally Bassinder        3921  26
  100. Richard Brittain       4195  26
  100. Nick Wainwright        4737  26
  100. James Rawson           4967  26
  100. Lee Graham             5034  26
  100. Tom Rowell             5092  26
  100. Andrew Halliburton     5295  26
  100. Chris Butler           5428  26
  100. Farhan Ahmed           5992  26
  100. Antoinette Ryan        6056  26
9 rounders:

Code: Select all

    1. Helen Grayson                269  22
    1. Harvey Freeman               488  22
    1. Allan Saldanha              1906  22
    4. Jonathan Anstey              892  21
    4. Damian Eadie                1533  21
    6. Mark Nyman                   185  20
    6. Tim Morrissey               1906  20
    6. Don Reid                    1855  20
    6. Richard Campbell            1502  20
    6. Pete Cashmore               1982  20
    6. Susan Shilton               2529  20
   12. Clive Spate                  362  19
   12. Tony Vick                   1899  19
   12. Darren Shacklady            1623  19
   12. David Acton                 1766  19
   12. Bhavin Manek                2093  19
   12. Terry Knowles               2396  19
   12. Scott Mearns                2677  19
   12. James Sheppard              2872  19
   12. Kevin McMahon               2970  19
   21. Darryl Francis               596  18
   21. Robert Violett              1870  18
   21. John Clarke                  538  18
   21. Liz Barber                  1068  18
   21. Derek Coombs                1016  18
   21. Chris Waddington            1332  18
   21. Andy Bodle                  1415  18
   21. Alec Webb                   1423  18
   21. Andy Cusworth               1640  18
   21. Catriona Cappleman          1685  18
   21. Graham Cross                1692  18
   21. Harshan Lamabadusuriya      2164  18
   21. Tony Killilea               1926  18
   21. Ricky Zinger                2141  18
   21. Pamela Roud                 2538  18
   21. Rory Dunlop                 2589  18
   21. Mickie O'Neill              2591  18
   21. Melvin Hetherington         2656  18
   21. David Ballheimer            2795  18
   21. Peter McGuigan              2777  18
   21. David Williams              2831  18
   21. Matthew Turner              2895  18
   43. Joyce Cansfield             1903  17
   43. Robert Richland              152  17
   43. Olivia Lloyd                 286  17
   43. David Whiting                458  17
   43. Mike Whiteoak                639  17
   43. Jenny Haldane                794  17
   43. David Poulter                823  17
   43. Evan Simpson                 841  17
   43. Nick Saloman                1100  17
   43. David Webb                  1195  17
   43. Robert Teuton               1156  17
   43. Gareth Williams             1256  17
   43. David Elias                 1473  17
   43. Gregg Magee                 1565  17
   43. Anthony Jenkin              1724  17
   43. Kenneth Michie              1853  17
   43. Steve Gruzd                 1750  17
   43. Satbir Gupta                1841  17
   43. Keith Burton                2211  17
   43. Chris Toyne                 2286  17
   43. Terence English             2674  17
   43. Ricky Cohen                 2464  17
   43. Peter Hutchings             2525  17
   43. Simon Cooper                2604  17
   43. Dee Voce                    2627  17
   43. Jonathan Storey             2804  17
   43. Kate Ritchie                2809  17
   43. Graham Nash                 2817  17
   71. Russell Byers               1881  16
   71. Esther Byers                 130  16
   71. Clive Freedman              1866  16
   71. David Trace                 1881  16
   71. Hilary Hopper               1904  16
   71. Nic Brown                    818  16
   71. Nigel Gardner                763  16
   71. Steve Williams               817  16
   71. John Widdowson               811  16
   71. Mark Pont                    900  16
   71. Gino Corr                   1073  16
   71. Andrew Perry                1902  16
   71. Daniel Simonis              1517  16
   71. Sharon Bridge               1525  16
   71. Mary Horswill               1597  16
   71. Chris Rogers                1638  16
   71. Chris Williams              1781  16
   71. Graeme Sugarman             1844  16
   71. Craig Douglas               1811  16
   71. James Martin                1966  16
   71. Natascha Kearsey            2176  16
   71. Maria Boyes                 2055  16
   71. Tony Baylis                 2069  16
   71. Simon Pryde                 2165  16
   71. Malcolm Fairy               2088  16
   71. Kate Surtees                2118  16
   71. Gerry Pearce                2289  16
   71. Nick Buttle                 2319  16
   71. Kate Ogilvie                2676  16
   71. Barry Lyons                 2449  16
   71. David Andrew                2462  16
   71. Sanjay Mazumder             2670  16
   71. Lucy Roberts                2639  16
   71. Margaret Foster             2652  16
   71. Rodney Marrison             2759  16
   71. Jacqueline Carter           2783  16
   71. Clare Wright                2850  16
   71. Andrew Ferguson             2867  16
All formats, sorted by percentage of rounds maxed in three consecutive games:

Code: Select all

    1. Conor Travers               5653  100.00%
    2. Jon O'Neill                 5653   91.11%
    3. Dylan Taylor                5833   88.89%
    3. Kirk Bevins                 5650   88.89%
    3. Jen Steadman                5762   88.89%
    3. Paul Gallen                 4127   88.89%
    7. Craig Beevers               4472   86.67%
    7. Edward McCullagh            5200   86.67%
    7. Dan McColm                  6013   86.67%
    7. Jack Worsley                5649   86.67%
    7. Jonathan Rawlinson          5505   86.67%
   12. Innis Carson                5645   84.44%
   12. Jack Hurst                  5636   84.44%
   12. Julian Fell                 3345   84.44%
   12. Andy Platt                  5668   84.44%
   16. Giles Hutchings             5675   82.22%
   16. Chris Davies                4878   82.22%
   16. Callum Todd                 5839   82.22%
   19. Helen Grayson                269   81.48%
   19. Harvey Freeman               488   81.48%
   19. Allan Saldanha              1906   81.48%
   22. Mark Murray                 5909   80.00%
   22. Chris Wills                 3169   80.00%
   22. Mark Tournoff               4127   80.00%
   25. David O'Donnell             5644   77.78%
   25. Tricia Pay                  5964   77.78%
   25. Jonathan Anstey              892   77.78%
   25. Adam Gillard                5185   77.78%
   25. Stewart Holden              3656   77.78%
   25. Damian Eadie                1533   77.78%
   25. Bradley Cates               5798   77.78%
   25. Paul Howe                   4117   77.78%
   33. Glen Webb                   5835   75.56%
   33. Eoin Monaghan               5114   75.56%
   33. Samir Pilica                5929   75.56%
   36. Tim Morrissey               1906   74.07%
   36. Richard Campbell            1502   74.07%
   36. Susan Shilton               2529   74.07%
   36. Pete Cashmore               1982   74.07%
   40. Graeme Cole                 5282   73.33%
   40. Zarte Siempre               5742   73.33%
   40. Oliver Garner               4962   73.33%
   40. Marcus Hares                5150   73.33%
   44. Mark Nyman                   132   71.88%
   45. Junaid Mubeen               4732   71.11%
   45. Chris Cummins               4120   71.11%
   45. George Ford                 6053   71.11%
   45. Jack Welsby                 3753   71.11%
   45. Tom Hargreaves              3278   71.11%
   45. Grace Page                  3287   71.11%
   45. David Barnard               5596   71.11%
   45. Abdirizak Hirsi             5789   71.11%
   45. Chris Hunt                  3883   71.11%
   54. Terry Knowles               2396   70.37%
   54. Scott Mearns                2557   70.37%
   54. Clive Spate                  362   70.37%
   54. James Sheppard              2872   70.37%
   54. Darren Shacklady            1623   70.37%
   54. Kevin McMahon               2970   70.37%
   54. David Acton                 1766   70.37%
   54. Bhavin Manek                2093   70.37%
   62. Harshan Lamabadusuriya        S7   69.70%
   63. Andrew Hulme                5639   68.89%
   63. Jimmy Gough                 4816   68.89%
   63. George Greenhough           3359   68.89%
   63. Neil Green                  5918   68.89%
   63. John Mayhew                 3954   68.89%
   63. Matthew Shore               4121   68.89%
   63. Paul James                  5612   68.89%
   70. Nic Brown                    818   68.75%
   70. Don Reid                    1855   68.75%
   70. John Ashmore                2292   68.75%
   73. Darryl Francis               287   66.67%
   73. Melvin Hetherington         2656   66.67%
   73. Pamela Roud                 2538   66.67%
   73. Rory Dunlop                 2589   66.67%
   73. Mickie O'Neill              2591   66.67%
   73. Neil Zussman                4841   66.67%
   73. David Ballheimer            2795   66.67%
   73. John Clarke                  538   66.67%
   73. Peter McGuigan              2777   66.67%
   73. Matthew Turner              2895   66.67%
   73. Daniel Pati                 5174   66.67%
   73. Peter Lee                   5435   66.67%
   73. John Davies                 4122   66.67%
   73. Derek Coombs                1016   66.67%
   73. Chris Waddington            1195   66.67%
   73. David Williams              2831   66.67%
   73. Andy Bodle                  1415   66.67%
   73. Alec Webb                   1423   66.67%
   73. Andy Cusworth               1640   66.67%
   73. Jason Turner                5962   66.67%
   73. Catriona Cappleman          1685   66.67%
   73. Graham Cross                1692   66.67%
   73. Richard Heald               3956   66.67%
   73. Tony Killilea               1926   66.67%
   73. Jon Corby                   4746   66.67%
   73. Simon Born                  4169   66.67%
   73. David Nickeas               3292   66.67%
   73. Ricky Zinger                2141   66.67%
   73. Steven Briers               4745   66.67%
User avatar
Graeme Cole
Series 65 Champion
Posts: 2025
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2010 9:59 pm

Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Gavin Chipper wrote:I don't think this has been asked before - can you list the octochamps in order of the lowest number of maxes they got in a game? Can't think where I got that idea from.
15 round octochamps, and the lowest number of maxes they scored in any game in their octorun:

Code: Select all

     1. Dylan Taylor                 11
     2. Edward McCullagh             10
     2. Jack Hurst                   10
     2. Jen Steadman                 10
     2. Julian Fell                  10
     6. Andy Platt                    9
     6. Craig Beevers                 9
     6. Giles Hutchings               9
     6. Jonathan Rawlinson            9
    10. Andrew Hulme                  8
    10. Chris Davies                  8
    10. Conor Travers                 8
    10. Eoin Monaghan                 8
    10. George Greenhough             8
    10. Graeme Cole                   8
    10. Mark Murray                   8
    10. Peter Lee                     8
    10. Stewart Holden                8
    19. Adam Gillard                  7
    19. Cate Henderson                7
    19. Chris Cummins                 7
    19. Chris Wills                   7
    19. Dan McColm                    7
    19. Daniel Pati                   7
    19. David Barnard                 7
    19. David O'Donnell               7
    19. Glen Webb                     7
    19. Innis Carson                  7
    19. Jack Welsby                   7
    19. Jack Worsley                  7
    19. John Mayhew                   7
    19. Jon Corby                     7
    19. Kirk Bevins                   7
    19. Mark Davies                   7
    19. Mark Deeks                    7
    19. Martin Bishop                 7
    19. Paul Howe                     7
    19. Steven Briers                 7
    19. Stuart Earl                   7
    19. Tom Hargreaves                7
    19. Tom Rowell                    7
    19. Tricia Pay                    7
    43. Aaron Webber                  6
    43. Alex Fish                     6
    43. Bradley Cates                 6
    43. Eileen Taylor                 6
    43. George Ford                   6
    43. James Hurrell                 6
    43. John Davies                   6
    43. John Hunt                     6
    43. Jon O'Neill                   6
    43. Kevin Thurlow                 6
    43. Lee Hartley                   6
    43. Marcus Hares                  6
    43. Martin Gardner                6
    43. Mike Pullin                   6
    43. Oliver Garner                 6
    43. Richard Heald                 6
    43. Ross Allatt                   6
    43. Ryan Taylor                   6
    43. Samir Pilica                  6
    43. Shane Roberts                 6
    43. Tom Barnes                    6
    43. Wendy Roe                     6
    65. Amey Deshpande                5
    65. Andrew Naylor                 5
    65. Andy McGurn                   5
    65. Antoinette Ryan               5
    65. Charlie Reams                 5
    65. David Von Geyer               5
    65. Gary Male                     5
    65. Jean Webby                    5
    65. Jim Bentley                   5
    65. Jimmy Gough                   5
    65. John Brackstone               5
    65. Junaid Mubeen                 5
    65. Kai Laddiman                  5
    65. Keith Maynard                 5
    65. Liam Shaw                     5
    65. Mark Tournoff                 5
    65. Matthew Shore                 5
    65. Ned Pendleton                 5
    65. Neil Zussman                  5
    65. Nik Von Uexkull               5
    65. Paul Gallen                   5
    65. Richard Brittain              5
    65. Rupert Stokoe                 5
    65. Scott Gillies                 5
    65. Stu Horsey                    5
    65. Stuart Solomons               5
    65. Sweyn Kirkness                5
    65. Tim Reypert                   5
    93. Chris McHenry                 4
    93. Danny Hamilton                4
    93. Danny Pledger                 4
    93. Dave Taylor                   4
    93. David Edwards                 4
    93. Grace Page                    4
    93. Heather Styles                4
    93. James Roberts                 4
    93. Jayne Wisniewski              4
    93. Jeffrey Burgin                4
    93. Jeffrey Hansford              4
    93. Joe McGonigle                 4
    93. Joe Zubaidi                   4
    93. John Gray                     4
    93. Jonathan Liew                 4
    93. Laurence Killen               4
    93. Michael Bowden                4
    93. Michael Macdonald-Cooper      4
    93. Nick Wainwright               4
    93. Paul James                    4
    93. Paul Keane                    4
    93. Richard Pay                   4
    93. Rose Boyle                    4
    93. Steven Moir                   4
   117. Brenda Jolley                 3
   117. Brian Selway                  3
   117. Carl Williams                 3
   117. David Thirlwall               3
   117. Jonathan Coles                3
   117. Judith Young                  3
   117. Julia Wilkinson               3
   117. Tony Warren                   3
   125. Chris Marshall                2
   125. James Doohan                  2
   125. Suzi Purcell                  2
   128. Steve Wood                    1
   128. Tia Corkish                   1
For 9 rounders, incomplete data makes it a bit more tricky. For example, my database query thinks Lindsay Denyer got no maxes in this game because the max column is full of question marks and she didn't score question mark minus question mark in any of those rounds. However, the record holders appear to be Bhavin Manek, David Acton, Gareth Williams, Harvey Freeman, Jonathan Anstey, Kevin McMahon, Sanjay Mazumder, Terry Knowles and Tim Morrissey, who scored at least four maxes in every game of their octoruns.
George Pryn
Acolyte
Posts: 184
Joined: Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:55 pm

Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by George Pryn »

Graeme Cole wrote:
Thomas Carey wrote:
Graeme Cole wrote: In new 15 round games, Dylan Taylor scored most consistently, his highest score being 129 and the lowest 113.
In old 15 round games, it was Tom Hargreaves, who had a highest score of 111 and a lowest score of 98.
In 9 round games, it was Sharon Bridge, with 63 and 51.
Interesting, but nines could skew this a lot (unless you're George). Could you please repeat this with most consistent in terms of points lost from the max?
9 rounder: Lindsay Denyer, who dropped no more than 27 and no fewer than 17 points in any game in her octorun.
Old 15: Andrew Hulme dropped no more than 22 and no fewer than 15 points.
New 15: George Ford dropped no more than 29 and no fewer than 12 - a difference of 17 - but Andy Platt, who did half his octorun in the new format, dropped no more than 24 and no fewer than 11, a difference of 13.
omg THAT'S MY NAME
Gavin Chipper
Post-apocalypse
Posts: 13214
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 10:37 pm

Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Excellent work as always Graeme. A lot of that was expected but there were one or two surprises. I wasn't surprised at all to see Helen Grayson, Harvey Freeman and Allan Saldanha at the top of the 9-round table for maxes in three consecutive games, although it was very close so could have gone differently. The more I see the more I think that those three reached the highest level in the 9-round era.

A couple of surprises though - Simon Born getting 30 maxes in three consecutive games. Also, Susan Shilton getting 20 in the 9-round era. I had to look both of these people up. Also, that no-one managed a minimum of five maxes (the minimum you need for most of the maxes in a game) in their octorun in the 9-round era. 19 people have got a minimum of eight or more in the 15-round era. I know it's not exactly the same, but it's still slightly surprising.
User avatar
Clive Brooker
Devotee
Posts: 505
Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2009 7:37 pm
Location: San Toy

Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Clive Brooker »

Gavin Chipper wrote:A couple of surprises though - Simon Born getting 30 maxes in three consecutive games. Also, Susan Shilton getting 20 in the 9-round era. I had to look both of these people up. Also, that no-one managed a minimum of five maxes (the minimum you need for most of the maxes in a game) in their octorun in the 9-round era. 19 people have got a minimum of eight or more in the 15-round era. I know it's not exactly the same, but it's still slightly surprising.
All 9-rounders were played using a version of the COD, so the recaps, typically created with a version of the ODE, are liable to overstate the max available at the time. Has no-one pointed this out before?

So it could have happened.
Gavin Chipper
Post-apocalypse
Posts: 13214
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 10:37 pm

Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Clive Brooker wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:A couple of surprises though - Simon Born getting 30 maxes in three consecutive games. Also, Susan Shilton getting 20 in the 9-round era. I had to look both of these people up. Also, that no-one managed a minimum of five maxes (the minimum you need for most of the maxes in a game) in their octorun in the 9-round era. 19 people have got a minimum of eight or more in the 15-round era. I know it's not exactly the same, but it's still slightly surprising.
All 9-rounders were played using a version of the COD, so the recaps, typically created with a version of the ODE, are liable to overstate the max available at the time. Has no-one pointed this out before?

So it could have happened.
They (you) have indeed!
User avatar
Ben Wilson
Legend
Posts: 4539
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 5:05 pm
Location: North Hykeham

Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Ben Wilson »

Graeme Cole wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:I don't think this has been asked before - can you list the octochamps in order of the lowest number of maxes they got in a game? Can't think where I got that idea from.
15 round octochamps, and the lowest number of maxes they scored in any game in their octorun:

Code: Select all

     1. Dylan Taylor                 11
     2. Edward McCullagh             10
     2. Jack Hurst                   10
     2. Jen Steadman                 10
     2. Julian Fell                  10
     6. Andy Platt                    9
     6. Craig Beevers                 9
     6. Giles Hutchings               9
     6. Jonathan Rawlinson            9
    10. Andrew Hulme                  8
    10. Chris Davies                  8
    10. Conor Travers                 8
    10. Eoin Monaghan                 8
    10. George Greenhough             8
    10. Graeme Cole                   8
    10. Mark Murray                   8
    10. Peter Lee                     8
    10. Stewart Holden                8
    19. Adam Gillard                  7
    19. Cate Henderson                7
    19. Chris Cummins                 7
    19. Chris Wills                   7
    19. Dan McColm                    7
    19. Daniel Pati                   7
    19. David Barnard                 7
    19. David O'Donnell               7
    19. Glen Webb                     7
    19. Innis Carson                  7
    19. Jack Welsby                   7
    19. Jack Worsley                  7
    19. John Mayhew                   7
    19. Jon Corby                     7
    19. Kirk Bevins                   7
    19. Mark Davies                   7
    19. Mark Deeks                    7
    19. Martin Bishop                 7
    19. Paul Howe                     7
    19. Steven Briers                 7
    19. Stuart Earl                   7
    19. Tom Hargreaves                7
    19. Tom Rowell                    7
    19. Tricia Pay                    7
    43. Aaron Webber                  6
    43. Alex Fish                     6
    43. Bradley Cates                 6
    43. Eileen Taylor                 6
    43. George Ford                   6
    43. James Hurrell                 6
    43. John Davies                   6
    43. John Hunt                     6
    43. Jon O'Neill                   6
    43. Kevin Thurlow                 6
    43. Lee Hartley                   6
    43. Marcus Hares                  6
    43. Martin Gardner                6
    43. Mike Pullin                   6
    43. Oliver Garner                 6
    43. Richard Heald                 6
    43. Ross Allatt                   6
    43. Ryan Taylor                   6
    43. Samir Pilica                  6
    43. Shane Roberts                 6
    43. Tom Barnes                    6
    43. Wendy Roe                     6
    65. Amey Deshpande                5
    65. Andrew Naylor                 5
    65. Andy McGurn                   5
    65. Antoinette Ryan               5
    65. Charlie Reams                 5
    65. David Von Geyer               5
    65. Gary Male                     5
    65. Jean Webby                    5
    65. Jim Bentley                   5
    65. Jimmy Gough                   5
    65. John Brackstone               5
    65. Junaid Mubeen                 5
    65. Kai Laddiman                  5
    65. Keith Maynard                 5
    65. Liam Shaw                     5
    65. Mark Tournoff                 5
    65. Matthew Shore                 5
    65. Ned Pendleton                 5
    65. Neil Zussman                  5
    65. Nik Von Uexkull               5
    65. Paul Gallen                   5
    65. Richard Brittain              5
    65. Rupert Stokoe                 5
    65. Scott Gillies                 5
    65. Stu Horsey                    5
    65. Stuart Solomons               5
    65. Sweyn Kirkness                5
    65. Tim Reypert                   5
    93. Chris McHenry                 4
    93. Danny Hamilton                4
    93. Danny Pledger                 4
    93. Dave Taylor                   4
    93. David Edwards                 4
    93. Grace Page                    4
    93. Heather Styles                4
    93. James Roberts                 4
    93. Jayne Wisniewski              4
    93. Jeffrey Burgin                4
    93. Jeffrey Hansford              4
    93. Joe McGonigle                 4
    93. Joe Zubaidi                   4
    93. John Gray                     4
    93. Jonathan Liew                 4
    93. Laurence Killen               4
    93. Michael Bowden                4
    93. Michael Macdonald-Cooper      4
    93. Nick Wainwright               4
    93. Paul James                    4
    93. Paul Keane                    4
    93. Richard Pay                   4
    93. Rose Boyle                    4
    93. Steven Moir                   4
   117. Brenda Jolley                 3
   117. Brian Selway                  3
   117. Carl Williams                 3
   117. David Thirlwall               3
   117. Jonathan Coles                3
   117. Judith Young                  3
   117. Julia Wilkinson               3
   117. Tony Warren                   3
   125. Chris Marshall                2
   125. James Doohan                  2
   125. Suzi Purcell                  2
   128. Steve Wood                    1
   128. Tia Corkish                   1
For 9 rounders, incomplete data makes it a bit more tricky. For example, my database query thinks Lindsay Denyer got no maxes in this game because the max column is full of question marks and she didn't score question mark minus question mark in any of those rounds. However, the record holders appear to be Bhavin Manek, David Acton, Gareth Williams, Harvey Freeman, Jonathan Anstey, Kevin McMahon, Sanjay Mazumder, Terry Knowles and Tim Morrissey, who scored at least four maxes in every game of their octoruns.
All your work in this thread has been awesome and we can't underestimate enough just how amazing it is to trawl through all these stats, especially those about Octochamps.

Speaking as a Viscount, however, I feel overwhelmingly like this -> :cry:
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Ben Wilson wrote:All your work in this thread has been awesome and we can't underestimate enough just how amazing it is to trawl through all these stats, especially those about Octochamps.

Speaking as a Viscount, however, I feel overwhelmingly like this -> :cry:
Lowest number of maxes scored by viscounts in heat games:

Code: Select all

   1. Ben Wilson       6
   2. Phil Wass        5
   2. Loz Sands        5
   4. Ian McMenzie     3
   4. Paul Ryan        3
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Post by Ben Wilson »

Graeme Cole wrote:
Ben Wilson wrote:All your work in this thread has been awesome and we can't underestimate enough just how amazing it is to trawl through all these stats, especially those about Octochamps.

Speaking as a Viscount, however, I feel overwhelmingly like this -> :cry:
Lowest number of maxes scored by viscounts in heat games:

Code: Select all

   1. Ben Wilson       6
   2. Phil Wass        5
   2. Loz Sands        5
   4. Ian McMenzie     3
   4. Paul Ryan        3
:mrgreen: Awesome as always, Mr. C.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Clive Brooker »

Gavin Chipper wrote:
Clive Brooker wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:A couple of surprises though - Simon Born getting 30 maxes in three consecutive games. Also, Susan Shilton getting 20 in the 9-round era. I had to look both of these people up. Also, that no-one managed a minimum of five maxes (the minimum you need for most of the maxes in a game) in their octorun in the 9-round era. 19 people have got a minimum of eight or more in the 15-round era. I know it's not exactly the same, but it's still slightly surprising.
All 9-rounders were played using a version of the COD, so the recaps, typically created with a version of the ODE, are liable to overstate the max available at the time. Has no-one pointed this out before?

So it could have happened.
They (you) have indeed!
Whenever I see conclusions drawn which are based on compromised data, I'm always likely to point this out.

In the past I've estimated that due largely to the COD's smaller word-base, there is a round with an overstated max in every other game or thereabouts. Many of the missing words are extremely familiar to modern players. So in a typical octorun there is plenty of time for errors in max-count to occur.

Just to show that my objection is not entirely theoretical, a quick look at David Acton's record shows that his only 4-max game was this one. Patronne is not a COD9 word, and if there is no other compensating error, such as an Amercanism which the recapper didn't find, his minimum max-count goes up to 5.

I picked Mr Acton at random - I haven't looked at anyone else. My check was entirely manual so it's possible that I've missed something.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Interesting finding, Clive. And good work.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

FWIW, I do usually point out that information about letters maxes prior to the introduction of the ODE2r can be wrong (example, example, example, example, example), I just forgot to include such a note in this instance.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Clive Brooker »

Graeme Cole wrote:FWIW, I do usually point out that information about letters maxes prior to the introduction of the ODE2r can be wrong (example, example, example, example, example), I just forgot to include such a note in this instance.
I'm certainly not intentionally having a go at anyone - just glad of the opportunity to play my record yet again whilst clinging to the hope that things can be improved without a disproportionate amount of effort!

A couple of questions Graeme: I seem to remember you commenting that you've found and corrected many errors in the Wiki. Does this mean that the narrative versions of the recaps are now frequently out of step? I doubt whether this would worry most users nowadays as everyone seems to use links to the Wiki when they want to refer to a particular game, but maybe the historical recap area needs to be given some sort of health warning.

IMO one of the biggest issues with the Wiki, and therefore with your database is that not all recappers used the same approach, some using the output as it emerged from the recapping tool, others (notably Mike Brown) manually removing words that weren't in the dictionary of the day. And it is impossible to tell by looking at a recap what approach was used.

Would it be possible, without too much effort, to regenerate the max data for all Wikicaps using a single word-list? I'm not sure which is regarded as the most reliable - ODE2r perhaps? Then, knowing what we're working with, it would be relatively simple to manually mark any words which don't appear to have been valid when a game was played, and when that's finished, max data can be regenerated. The old dictionaries are not hard to find in secondhand bookshops or on eBay, with the possible exception of the original roadsidegate version of COD10 which was withdrawn after a few months.

This doesn't of course deal with the opposite problem - that of words which have disappeared (possibly not a big problem) and more particularly American spellings. I have a suggestion here: I have a pdf version of the COD8. The site I originally downloaded it from seems to have gone but I can make it available to anyone interested. I don't think it would be difficult for someone with the appropriate skills (sorry I think I'm looking at you again Graeme) to extract any American variants. I did a rough exercise a while ago and there seemed to be a few hundred at most. Using a COD8 American spellings list across the board is obviously not perfect but it would remove much of the bias introduced by not including American spellings at all.

I know I've managed to inspire some enthusiasm for change in the past, but a coordinated approach has failed to emerge. I have the impression that counting maxes is seen as the most straightforward and robust measure of a player's overall strength, in which case shouldn't some priority be given to removing some of the obvious bias in the recaps of older games?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Clive Brooker wrote: A couple of questions Graeme: I seem to remember you commenting that you've found and corrected many errors in the Wiki. Does this mean that the narrative versions of the recaps are now frequently out of step? I doubt whether this would worry most users nowadays as everyone seems to use links to the Wiki when they want to refer to a particular game, but maybe the historical recap area needs to be given some sort of health warning.
The wiki errors I corrected (see my contributions for 24th to 29th March 2013) came from consistency checks I did on the database to make sure there weren't any nonsensical situations, such as both players scoring different nonzero amounts in the same round, somebody scoring a number of points other than what their declaration would suggest, and (very common) the game's score or max on the series page not agreeing with what the episode page says.

Most of the errors seemed to come from arithmetic errors in manually-generated recaps. If I pick one of the affected episodes more or less at random, the mistake I fixed in that one (the cumulative max column was wrong from R10 onwards) doesn't seem to have affected the recap. If I look at an older game, such as the series 13 final, which had the score for R7 the wrong way round, the recap for that isn't affected either.

On the other hand, the error in the wikicap for episode 939 is in the historical recap (the spelling of VISAGE in R1).

So in answer to your question, some of these errors affect the wikicaps only, and some affect both the wikicaps and the historical recaps. It all depends where the error crept in.
Clive Brooker wrote: IMO one of the biggest issues with the Wiki, and therefore with your database is that not all recappers used the same approach, some using the output as it emerged from the recapping tool, others (notably Mike Brown) manually removing words that weren't in the dictionary of the day. And it is impossible to tell by looking at a recap what approach was used.

Would it be possible, without too much effort, to regenerate the max data for all Wikicaps using a single word-list? I'm not sure which is regarded as the most reliable - ODE2r perhaps? Then, knowing what we're working with, it would be relatively simple to manually mark any words which don't appear to have been valid when a game was played, and when that's finished, max data can be regenerated. The old dictionaries are not hard to find in secondhand bookshops or on eBay, with the possible exception of the original roadsidegate version of COD10 which was withdrawn after a few months.

This doesn't of course deal with the opposite problem - that of words which have disappeared (possibly not a big problem) and more particularly American spellings. I have a suggestion here: I have a pdf version of the COD8. The site I originally downloaded it from seems to have gone but I can make it available to anyone interested. I don't think it would be difficult for someone with the appropriate skills (sorry I think I'm looking at you again Graeme) to extract any American variants. I did a rough exercise a while ago and there seemed to be a few hundred at most. Using a COD8 American spellings list across the board is obviously not perfect but it would remove much of the bias introduced by not including American spellings at all.
It's certainly possible in principle to write a script that reads the wikitext of an episode, recalculates the max according to a supplied wordlist, and then updates the page. Getting the wordlist isn't trivial, though, even with a copy of the dictionary. It's not something that can be done entirely automatically, because for some words you'd still have to check the definition to see if a plural is acceptable, etc.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Clive Brooker »

Graeme Cole wrote:It's certainly possible in principle to write a script that reads the wikitext of an episode, recalculates the max according to a supplied wordlist, and then updates the page. Getting the wordlist isn't trivial, though, even with a copy of the dictionary. It's not something that can be done entirely automatically, because for some words you'd still have to check the definition to see if a plural is acceptable, etc.
Presumably you mean "even with an electronic copy of the dictionary"?

This is why I've tried to scale back my ambition to something which will remove much of the bias in the Wiki without attempting to be a 100% solution. I'm no longer suggesting building a complete word-list for the COD8 or anything else. The process can use any recent Countdown word-list to get all the Wikicaps on an even footing (NODE, ODE2r, ODE3, whichever is regarded as the soundest) and adjust things from there.

Sometimes I can't really understand why I should care about this at all. I think it's because having seen all the hard work that went into the historical recap project, and the extraordinary level of analysis you've been able to apply to the resulting database, it seems a pity not to try to eradicate the obvious bias in the data undermining many of the analyses people ask you for. But that still doesn't really explain it.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Graeme Cole wrote:On the other hand, the error in the wikicap for episode 939 is in the historical recap (the spelling of VISAGE in R1).
It's probably worth mentioning these in the recap threads.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Clive Brooker wrote:
Graeme Cole wrote:It's certainly possible in principle to write a script that reads the wikitext of an episode, recalculates the max according to a supplied wordlist, and then updates the page. Getting the wordlist isn't trivial, though, even with a copy of the dictionary. It's not something that can be done entirely automatically, because for some words you'd still have to check the definition to see if a plural is acceptable, etc.
Presumably you mean "even with an electronic copy of the dictionary"?
Yes.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Andy McGurn made a post wondering whether Ryan or Graeme should make the 1000th post or reply (can't remember which he said) and then deleted it. Maybe he realised that as his post was the 999th reply it made it the 1000th post so he didn't want it to be so. But don't worry guys. You're in safe hands. I've got this covered. This is now the 1000th post.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

And this is the 1000th reply.

No need to thank me. All in a day's work.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Andy McGurn »

Yes indeed.

But since you're a politician, you can get away with it and I can't.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by JimBentley »

Andy McGurn wrote:Yes indeed.

But since you're a politician, you can get away with it and I can't.
I find it quite concerning that Gevin is wasting time on posts like these rather than thinking about the needs of his electorate. It's almost like he views them with contempt.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by James Robinson »

George Pryn wrote:HI GRAEME!!! Big fan

Have any players ever scored 0 over all letters rounds in a game? (competitive score not raw)

thx
They certainly have now :!: (Not that it should be shouted out.......)
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Zarte Siempre »

Hello Graeme - apologies if this has been asked before, but...

For all octochamps - what's been the greatest difference between someone's letter max percentage and someone's numbers max percentage?
Possibly the first contestant to accelerate with a mic clipped...
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Stewart Gordon »

Gavin Chipper wrote:Yeah, it's not an anagram if it's the same.
Even if the two is and the two ss have been swapped over? :)
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Stewart Gordon wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:Yeah, it's not an anagram if it's the same.
Even if the two is and the two ss have been swapped over? :)
They're fungible!
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

What's the lowest total score and number of maxes for a one-time winner, two-time winner and so on?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Zarte Siempre wrote:Hello Graeme - apologies if this has been asked before, but...

For all octochamps - what's been the greatest difference between someone's letter max percentage and someone's numbers max percentage?
I'm assuming this means the maxes in their octorun, and that you mean the difference in percentage points between the percentage of letters rounds they maxed and the percentage of numbers rounds they maxed.

A numbers round max is when you score the most points available. (Gevin begs to differ.)

Letters maxes from before the ODE2r are sometimes wrong.

The biggest disparity is with Suzanne Miles, who maxed 25% of her letters rounds but 81.25% of her numbers rounds, a difference of 56.25 percentage points.

The next is Jim Bentley, who maxed 35.23% of his letters rounds and 87.5% of his numbers rounds, a difference of 52.27 percentage points.

Third, Jack Worsley maxed 44.32% of his letters rounds, but maxed all but one numbers round, 95.83%, giving him a difference of 51.52 percentage points. (Note these figures are to two decimal places, so in case you try doing the subtraction yourself to check it, there are rounding errors.)

Fourth is Laurence Killen from last series: 36.25% on the letters, 87.5% on the numbers, making the difference 51.25.

Sharon Bridge appears next on the data we do have, but round details for her last heat aren't known so we don't have the exact figures.

The list is overwhelmingly populated with talented numberists whose letters max rate, good enough though it was to win them eight games, was still nowhere near their numbers performance. Since the introduction of the ODE2r, only about 12% of octochamps have had a higher max rate on the letters than the numbers. The highest such disparity is that of Samir Pilica, who maxed 68.75% of his letters rounds and 46.875% of his numbers rounds.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Gavin Chipper wrote:What's the lowest total score and number of maxes for a one-time winner, two-time winner and so on?
Lowest total scores:

15 rounds:

1 win: Bev Jones (88)
2 wins: Rob Jennings (165)
3 wins: Ken Jenkins (251)
4 wins: Ben Nicholson (328)
5 wins: Brian Roles (427)
6 wins: Ian McMenzie (511)
7 wins: Peter Zyss (617)
8 wins: Danny Pledger (635)

9 rounds:

1 win: Duncan Dale-Emberton (48)
2 wins: Mark Cooper (89)
3 wins: Elizabeth Thomson (131)
4 wins: Kathleen Vickers (187)
5 wins: Eleanor Crosby (245)
6 wins: Nancy Roberts (308)
7 wins: Joan Orchard (329)
8 wins: Lindsay Denyer (386)

Lowest maxes:

I've only included 15 round games for this one, as round score and/or max data for the early 9 round games is often not there, to the point where the conclusions aren't very useful.

1 win: Brian Morley and Bev Jones (2)
2 wins: Rob Jennings (6)
3 wins: Ken Jenkins (10)
4 wins: Margaret Lawless (16)
5 wins: Brian Roles and Neil MacKenzie (26)
6 wins: Paul Ryan (32)
7 wins: David Stanford (33)
8 wins: Chris McHenry, Steve Wood and Suzi Purcell (37)
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Thanks Graeme. Nice work as always. Also, sorry to be a pain, but would it be possible to do that including just winning games as well, so not including their final, losing game?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Ben Wilson »

Graeme Cole wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:What's the lowest total score and number of maxes for a one-time winner, two-time winner and so on?
Lowest total scores:

15 rounds:

1 win: Bev Jones (88)
2 wins: Rob Jennings (165)
3 wins: Ken Jenkins (251)
4 wins: Ben Nicholson (328)
5 wins: Brian Roles (427)
6 wins: Ian McMenzie (511)
7 wins: Peter Zyss (617)
8 wins: Danny Pledger (635)

9 rounds:

1 win: Duncan Dale-Emberton (48)
2 wins: Mark Cooper (89)
3 wins: Elizabeth Thomson (131)
4 wins: Kathleen Vickers (187)
5 wins: Eleanor Crosby (245)
6 wins: Nancy Roberts (308)
7 wins: Joan Orchard (329)
8 wins: Lindsay Denyer (386)

Lowest maxes:

I've only included 15 round games for this one, as round score and/or max data for the early 9 round games is often not there, to the point where the conclusions aren't very useful.

1 win: Brian Morley and Bev Jones (2)
2 wins: Rob Jennings (6)
3 wins: Ken Jenkins (10)
4 wins: Margaret Lawless (16)
5 wins: Brian Roles and Neil MacKenzie (26)
6 wins: Paul Ryan (32)
7 wins: David Stanford (33)
8 wins: Chris McHenry, Steve Wood and Suzi Purcell (37)
For once, we viscounts get recognised!

...though in this case, I'm not entirely sure it's warranted. Obviously I wouldn't dare speak for Gev but I'm reasonably sure for 6-time winners he'd be interested in those who won 6 games by subsequently lost their 7th. At the very least, I would be. :-)
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Yes Neb. That would make the most sense, but only on the list that includes winning and losing games. The reason I (belatedly) asked about just the winning games was because I was wondering about the minimum level people have had to reach to scrape a certain number of wins.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Adam Gillard »

Don't know if there's enough data on this, but...

What's the highest number of maxes achieved by DC in a 9-round / 15-round game, and how many times have they achieved it?
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: Ask Graeme?

Post by Fred Mumford »

Graeme Cole wrote:The highest such disparity is that of Samir Pilica, who maxed 68.75% of his letters rounds and 46.875% of his numbers rounds.
I know your database won't cover any of this series, but I believe Andy Noden has an even bigger disparity (76.25% on letters, 53.13% on numbers). That's using the stricter Gevin numbers max definition though, which may or may not affect the results.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Fred Mumford wrote:
Graeme Cole wrote:The highest such disparity is that of Samir Pilica, who maxed 68.75% of his letters rounds and 46.875% of his numbers rounds.
I know your database won't cover any of this series, but I believe Andy Noden has an even bigger disparity (76.25% on letters, 53.13% on numbers). That's using the stricter Gevin numbers max definition though, which may or may not affect the results.
The sensible definition of max you mean. It's not just me anyway. I'd be surprised if a majority didn't feel it was the better definition.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Fred Mumford »

Gavin Chipper wrote:The sensible definition of max you mean. It's not just me anyway.
I agree completely, that's why it's the definiton I use too.

A max should be "doing the best that it's possible to do" rather than "scoring the most available points, even though you might not have done so if your opponent had been a bit better".

The problem with the "doing the best that it's possible to do" definition is that you can't really apply it to conundrums - to discount a successful guess that took 1.5 seconds on the grounds that it could have been beaten is a little ludicrous. But for numbers games, it's the right thing to do.

Anyway, I checked the wiki, and it didn't affect any of Samir's or Andy's games.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Fred Mumford wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:rather than "scoring the most available points
Or to phrase it slightly differently.. "scoring the maximum available points".
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Matt Morrison »

Could you quote it 'differently' too Jono?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Ben Wilson wrote:For once, we viscounts get recognised!

...though in this case, I'm not entirely sure it's warranted. Obviously I wouldn't dare speak for Gev but I'm reasonably sure for 6-time winners he'd be interested in those who won 6 games by subsequently lost their 7th. At the very least, I would be. :-)
Quite right, of course. The next lowest maxes for six-time champions is 36, by Priscilla Munday, Daniel Peake, Graham Hill and Nick Hall.
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