Ask Graeme?

[Graeme Cole]

What's the highest number you can get to such that all whole numbers from 1 up to that number have had their spelling appear in letters selections in a single episode.

So for example, if an episode had:
SWTEEOCRN
TREEHOUSE (kudos to readers who spot the falsie)
FORTUNESE

as selections, but no selection contained all of the letters "FIVE" then it would score 4.

4.

Up to the end of series 82, there were 13 episodes containing selections which can make ONE, TWO, THREE and FOUR, but none that can make all those and FIVE. They are:

https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_3403
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_4077
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_4121
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_4205
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_4217
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_4688
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5336
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5630
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5816
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6357
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6462
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_7248
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_S16

[Graeme Cole]

This apterous game holds the record for biggest letters deficit overcome: Vincent Barcet gave up 46 points on the letters and still won the game. What's the record on Countdown?

(Sorry if this got asked before; maybe by page 25 it's time we made an index for this topic!)

30.

In episode 6374, Jonny Peppiatt won despite Peter Davies scoring 30 more points on letters.

Carl Moore comes in a close second on 29, and Bob Selby and Dundas Keating are third having both won despite their opponents outscoring them by 28 on letters.

[Graeme Cole]

Happy birthday Graeme!

Q that came up in aptochat -

What percentage of players who have won n games go on to be octochamps?

So if you win 0 games then you've got 0% chance, to 8 games 100% chance, but what are your chances when you've won 4 or 6 or any other?

TIA

If I've understood the question correctly, this can be answered with a table of how often each count of wins comes up. This takes all prelim runs we have records for since the show began, up to the end of series 82...

Code: Select all

NUMBER OF WINS    FREQUENCY
             0         4713
             1          758
             2          425
             3          274
             4          170
             5          109
             6           83
             7           45
             8          258
             9            1

This has a few minor issues - for example, it would count the series 82 carry-over champion Daniel Jonathan as having 4 wins, and in series 46 contestants retired after 6 wins, and some earlier series have gaps in the data, but it will be good enough to paint a rough picture.

Clive Freedman, uniquely, got 9 wins, because apparently when he played his first game in the last prelim of series 6 they didn't count it towards his total in series 7 for some reason. I'm going to count him as having 8 wins for the purpose of this question.

What we're asking is, of all contestants, how many go on to win 8 games? Then, of all contestants who win at least 1 game, what percentage go on to win 8? And so on. If a contestant came back for a second run, I'm counting that as two separate contestants.

The 259 octochamps are...

... 3.8% of the 6,836 contestants who have appeared.
... 12.2% of the 2,123 contestants who won at least 1 game.
... 19.0% of the 1,365 contestants who won at least 2 games.
... 27.6% of the 940 contestants who won at least 3 games.
... 38.9% of the 666 contestants who won at least 4 games.
... 52.2% of the 496 contestants who won at least 5 games.
... 66.9% of the 387 contestants who won at least 6 games.
... 85.2% of the 304 contestants who won at least 7 games.
... 100% of the 259 contestants who won 8 games (obviously).

In other words, if a contestant has already won five games, based on past experience it's slightly more likely than not that they'll go on to win eight.

[Graeme Cole]

With Ruth Cappleman and Chloe Lavan playing today (08/03/2021), it got me wondering when the last time there was an all female Apto-registered game on Countdown (if there even has been one?). I guess it's maybe not that easy to quantify given the use of pseudonyms and registrations being possibly taken out after being on the show.

I'm afraid your guess is correct - the database doesn't know contestant gender and certainly doesn't know whether someone's on apterous.

[Graeme Cole]

When will new 15s overtake old 15s?

Up to the end of series 82 there have been 1,757 new 15 rounders (2013-present), compared to the 2,609 old 15 rounders (2001-2013). If we say a series has roughly 120 episodes in it, that makes 240 episodes a year. New 15 rounders will overtake old 15 rounders when 853 episodes are played post series 82. So I'd guess summer 2024.

[Graeme Cole]

Apologies if already done but what’s the highest possible available octorun score in the 15 round era? And what’s the average possible octorun score?

To avoid format changes affecting anything, I'm only looking at the new 15-round era, from 2013.

The highest available octorun score in any eight-prelim run was 1,179, which was available in the eight episodes from https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_7116 to https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_7123.

Across all the possible sequences of eight prelims in the new 15 round era, the average octomax is about 1,049.5. If you only consider games since 2018 (year chosen arbitrarily), the average octomax is 1062. I expect this increase is caused by the dictionary inflating over time.

[Graeme Cole]

Since people are asking in aptochat -

what's the longest run of heat games without any player reaching n wins, for all n from 2 to 8?

Where there are ties, only the latest run is shown.

Without 2 wins: the 7 episodes up to and including https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_7349.
Without 3 wins: the 15 episodes up to and including https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_1470.
Without 4 wins: the 31 episodes up to and including https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_407.

Sadly the 2^(n+1)-1 rule breaks down after that:

Without 5 wins: the 79 episodes up to and including https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_220.
Without 6 wins: the 80 episodes up to and including https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_221 (John Wallace went on to win 8 after ages without a 5-time winner).
Without 7 wins: the 155 episodes up to and including https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_1726.
Without 8 wins: the 175 episodes up to and including https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_2353.

[Graeme Cole]

Yes, great thread

To add to the current surge of questions....

What is a) the biggest margin of defeat, and b) the lowest score, by someone who got 2 or more valid nines in a 15r game?

Same question also for getting one nine.

Heaviest loss by someone who got two or more nines was 50 by Ross Mackenzie: https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_4877
Lowest score in 15 rounds by someone who got two or more nines was 82 by Glen Webb: https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5838

For one nine, the heaviest loss is 91, held jointly by Dave Burch and Helen Millington (interestingly enough it was the same nine, RUMINATES, on both occasions): https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6779 https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_7176
The lowest 15R score by someone who got a nine was 39 by Dave Burch in episode 6779 above.

[Graeme Cole]

For Graeme or someone else with too much time on their hands. How many numbers games have Carol and Rachel each presided over? Seeing as there are twice as many now as there were for most of Carol's time it could be close.
And probably for Graeme alone. Which of them is better (at numbers)??

The database contains 21,444 numbers rounds (up to the end of series 82) in broadcast episodes, of which 9,858 are from 2009 onwards when Rachel took over. This leaves 11,586 from the pre-Rachel era. In the early series Carol shared the numbers duties with other people, but I don't have specific numbers on that, so it may be closer than we think.

As Gevin says, see here for a comparison between the two, although that post is eight years old now.

[Graeme Cole]

Has anyone scored 0 on the show and if so, does this usually not get broadcasted?

Yes, twice, both in the 9-round era:
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_637
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_2343

It hasn't happened since the show grew to 15 rounds. I'm not aware of any episode not being broadcast because a contestant scored zero.

[Graeme Cole]

Graeme:

How do you answer all these questions so readily?
Do you have a whole bunch of Countdown stats entered into a database that can be manipulated in different ways?
And if so, what sort of database? Access? MySQL?

I used to use MySQL, but now I use an SQLite database. I update it once per series using a rickety set of Python scripts which scrape the information from the wiki. Most questions can be answered with SQL, but sometimes it's easier to answer a question with a custom Python script which churns through the output of a specific query.

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

I used to use MySQL, but now I use an SQLite database.

Interesting, ofc now I'm wondering, why the switch?
(No real need to answer this question tbf)
Databases fascinate me, as do those mercurial creatures who compile them.

[Fiona T]

Happy birthday Graeme!

Q that came up in aptochat -

What percentage of players who have won n games go on to be octochamps?

So if you win 0 games then you've got 0% chance, to 8 games 100% chance, but what are your chances when you've won 4 or 6 or any other?

TIA

If I've understood the question correctly, this can be answered with a table of how often each count of wins comes up. This takes all prelim runs we have records for since the show began, up to the end of series 82...

Code: Select all

NUMBER OF WINS    FREQUENCY
             0         4713
             1          758
             2          425
             3          274
             4          170
             5          109
             6           83
             7           45
             8          258
             9            1

This has a few minor issues - for example, it would count the series 82 carry-over champion Daniel Jonathan as having 4 wins, and in series 46 contestants retired after 6 wins, and some earlier series have gaps in the data, but it will be good enough to paint a rough picture.

Clive Freedman, uniquely, got 9 wins, because apparently when he played his first game in the last prelim of series 6 they didn't count it towards his total in series 7 for some reason. I'm going to count him as having 8 wins for the purpose of this question.

What we're asking is, of all contestants, how many go on to win 8 games? Then, of all contestants who win at least 1 game, what percentage go on to win 8? And so on. If a contestant came back for a second run, I'm counting that as two separate contestants.

The 259 octochamps are...

... 3.8% of the 6,836 contestants who have appeared.
... 12.2% of the 2,123 contestants who won at least 1 game.
... 19.0% of the 1,365 contestants who won at least 2 games.
... 27.6% of the 940 contestants who won at least 3 games.
... 38.9% of the 666 contestants who won at least 4 games.
... 52.2% of the 496 contestants who won at least 5 games.
... 66.9% of the 387 contestants who won at least 6 games.
... 85.2% of the 304 contestants who won at least 7 games.
... 100% of the 259 contestants who won 8 games (obviously).

In other words, if a contestant has already won five games, based on past experience it's slightly more likely than not that they'll go on to win eight.

Perfect - thanks Graeme

[Max Benkel]

Is there any interesting b-roll or outtake footage that is available to watch somewhere?

[Ian Volante]

Happy birthday Graeme!

Q that came up in aptochat -

What percentage of players who have won n games go on to be octochamps?

So if you win 0 games then you've got 0% chance, to 8 games 100% chance, but what are your chances when you've won 4 or 6 or any other?

TIA

If I've understood the question correctly, this can be answered with a table of how often each count of wins comes up. This takes all prelim runs we have records for since the show began, up to the end of series 82...

Code: Select all

NUMBER OF WINS    FREQUENCY
             0         4713
             1          758
             2          425
             3          274
             4          170
             5          109
             6           83
             7           45
             8          258
             9            1

This has a few minor issues - for example, it would count the series 82 carry-over champion Daniel Jonathan as having 4 wins, and in series 46 contestants retired after 6 wins, and some earlier series have gaps in the data, but it will be good enough to paint a rough picture.

Clive Freedman, uniquely, got 9 wins, because apparently when he played his first game in the last prelim of series 6 they didn't count it towards his total in series 7 for some reason. I'm going to count him as having 8 wins for the purpose of this question.

What we're asking is, of all contestants, how many go on to win 8 games? Then, of all contestants who win at least 1 game, what percentage go on to win 8? And so on. If a contestant came back for a second run, I'm counting that as two separate contestants.

The 259 octochamps are...

... 3.8% of the 6,836 contestants who have appeared.
... 12.2% of the 2,123 contestants who won at least 1 game.
... 19.0% of the 1,365 contestants who won at least 2 games.
... 27.6% of the 940 contestants who won at least 3 games.
... 38.9% of the 666 contestants who won at least 4 games.
... 52.2% of the 496 contestants who won at least 5 games.
... 66.9% of the 387 contestants who won at least 6 games.
... 85.2% of the 304 contestants who won at least 7 games.
... 100% of the 259 contestants who won 8 games (obviously).

In other words, if a contestant has already won five games, based on past experience it's slightly more likely than not that they'll go on to win eight.

Perfect - thanks Graeme

My assessment of the curve was bollocks, a lot more defeats for multiple winners than I'd anticipated. The equation relating wins (x) and proportion winning 8 (y) is close to: y = 0.009x^2 + 0.0475x + 0.0601

So there you go.

[Ian Volante]

My assessment of the curve was bollocks, a lot more defeats for multiple winners than I'd anticipated. The equation relating wins (x) and proportion winning 8 (y) is close to: y = 0.009x^2 + 0.0475x + 0.0601

So there you go.

Or, including 0 gives a better (closer to actual data) intercept. This curve-fitting has flaws, I wouldn't recommend writing a paper on it.

y = 0.0071x2 + 0.0661x + 0.0204

[Thomas Cappleman]

My assessment of the curve was bollocks, a lot more defeats for multiple winners than I'd anticipated. The equation relating wins (x) and proportion winning 8 (y) is close to: y = 0.009x^2 + 0.0475x + 0.0601

So there you go.

Or, including 0 gives a better (closer to actual data) intercept. This curve-fitting has flaws, I wouldn't recommend writing a paper on it.

y = 0.0071x2 + 0.0661x + 0.0204

I tried doing something like this (ignoring the octochamps themselves) to try and predict how many would end up on 9, 10 wins etc. but wasn't getting close enough matches with anything I tried. Would expect the number of people finishing on each number of wins to be roughly some multiple of 1/some function of the number of wins, to allow a long tail. That would then be ruined by the fact that it's not an entirely random draw anyway, like with top players typically finishing their run at the end of a day's filming.

[Gavin Chipper]

A long time ago (perhaps even the late 80s or early 90s but I'm not sure) I'm pretty sure a woman gave a 1-away solution to a numbers round but started by doing something like 100 x 1. So she could have saved the 1 but seemingly didn't realise until afterwards. Assuming this game was recapped, could it be found?

[Graeme Cole]

A long time ago (perhaps even the late 80s or early 90s but I'm not sure) I'm pretty sure a woman gave a 1-away solution to a numbers round but started by doing something like 100 x 1. So she could have saved the 1 but seemingly didn't realise until afterwards. Assuming this game was recapped, could it be found?

I couldn't find anything by searching the method column for "× 1", "1 ×", and "÷ 1", including variations on those symbols. There are a few times where someone has multiplied or divided by 1, but not on anything other than an exact solution.

However, all this assumed it was a 1 from the selection, rather than a 1 built out of other numbers. There are of course many ways of building a 1 out of other numbers, but I tried a few obvious ones, and found Episode 566 in 1987, in which Linda Chamberlain's R8 method may be what you were thinking of.

[Gavin Chipper]

Might have been that. Thanks!

[James Nguyen]

What are you watching at the mo?

[Jon O'Neill]

A long time ago (perhaps even the late 80s or early 90s but I'm not sure) I'm pretty sure a woman gave a 1-away solution to a numbers round but started by doing something like 100 x 1. So she could have saved the 1 but seemingly didn't realise until afterwards. Assuming this game was recapped, could it be found?

I couldn't find anything by searching the method column for "× 1", "1 ×", and "÷ 1", including variations on those symbols. There are a few times where someone has multiplied or divided by 1, but not on anything other than an exact solution.

However, all this assumed it was a 1 from the selection, rather than a 1 built out of other numbers. There are of course many ways of building a 1 out of other numbers, but I tried a few obvious ones, and found Episode 566 in 1987, in which Linda Chamberlain's R8 method may be what you were thinking of.

Question and answer are both amazing. The fact she manufactured the 1 makes it all the more extraordinary.

[Gavin Chipper]

From the live chat in the Zoomdown final:

Ken Bruce, Richard Digance, Jo Brand, Pam Ayres, Nicholas Owen and Paul Zenon are the only people to have been a guest in DC with all five hosts (not counting temporary host Colin Murray).

​Have any of those guests also done Colin, Graeme?

Looking at the wiki page for S83, no.

[Gavin Chipper]

Gloria Hunniford is 81. Who are the oldest and youngest DC guests? It seems that at one point at least, Gabby Logan/Yorath was the youngest ever female guest.

[Johnny Canuck]

Gloria Hunniford is 81. Who are the oldest and youngest DC guests? It seems that at one point at least, Gabby Logan/Yorath was the youngest ever female guest.

Didn't Rachel bring Maven into the studio shortly after her birth?

[Gavin Chipper]

Gloria Hunniford is 81. Who are the oldest and youngest DC guests? It seems that at one point at least, Gabby Logan/Yorath was the youngest ever female guest.

Didn't Rachel bring Maven into the studio shortly after her birth?

Yeah, probably.

I wouldn't expect the Graeme database to have answers to this, so if anyone thinks of someone who might have been younger than Gabby Logan/Yorath or older than Gloria Hunniford, then mention it here.

[Fred Mumford]

Joe McElderry as younger?

And yeah, I did have to Google/google to recall his name.

[Rhys Benjamin]

Joe McElderry as younger?

And yeah, I did have to Google/google to recall his name.

He was such a letdown compared to Colin Murray the previous day when I was there.

[Rhys Benjamin]

I'm not aware of any episode not being broadcast because a contestant scored zero.

*laughs in Harry Peters*

[Carl Harrison]

What are the highest and lowest total "max" scores from an 8-game consecutive run during heats (in the 15-round era). Not necessarily looking at just the record from octochamps runs, but any consecutive set of 8 games.

There was a bit of a discussion around this in the "1000 club" thread - the max score available from Luke Boynton's 8 games in the current series was 1149, which would be the 3rd highest max ever available from an Mocktorun on Apterous - so it would be interesting to see how this compares with the history of the show, and show how much variability there is in the maximum score available over 8 games depending on when you happen to appear. (Although I presume the averages have been moving up over time, particularly post-2016 when the large dictionary update came in)

[Gavin Chipper]

Joe McElderry as younger?

And yeah, I did have to Google/google to recall his name.

According to the wiki, his first appearance was on 26th June 2015, and as he was born on 16th June 1991, this would have made him 24, so yes younger than Gabby Yorath. In fact he was presumably 23 when he filmed.

[Thomas Carey]

Not really sure what I'm asking here but - teatime teasers. I'm part of the 8-9-8 gang - I had 8 letter teasers on my original series, 9 letters in my CoC and 8 letters in my Christmas special. I can't imagine there's too many people who've gone 8-9-8 (I'm the only one of the six who played the Christmas specials) - am I the only one?

Are there any other people who've played in 3 different eras of teatime teaser? Has anyone done more than 3?

(The dates for the 'eras' of TTT can be found here if it helps https://wiki.apterous.org/Teatime_Teaser )

[Rhys Benjamin]

I guess Conor did 8-0-8...

[Thomas Carey]

Most disallowed words total by both contestants in

a) any game
b) any non-prelim game
c) across all seven games in a series finals?

Asking because, hoo boy, the series 83 finals have a lot.

[Jack Worsley]

Great to see this is still going. A couple relating to my Christmas special against Conor:

First of all, every letters round in our game contained nine distinct letters. Has this ever happened before or since in any format?

The second question relates to teatime teasers, so I'm not sure if it's answerable from your database, but here it is anyway. The second TTT in our special was the same as the second in my fourth heat, in terms of the scramble and the answer, although the clue was slightly different. Has any other contestant had the same TTT answer (would be cool if they were the same scramble and clue too but not essential) in different episodes?

[JackHurst]

Spoilery stuff

Spoilers!

[JackHurst]

Spoilery Question below



I believe the highest score in the series finals just finished was 101. i.e among all of the 7 games making up the finals, 101 was the highest score.

Is 101 the lowest highest score from a series finals? If not which series had lower?

[Gavin Chipper]

Spoilery Question below



I believe the highest score in the series finals just finished was 101. i.e among all of the 7 games making up the finals, 101 was the highest score.

Is 101 the lowest highest score from a series finals? If not which series had lower?

Presumably in the 15-round era? A quick non-exhaustive check reveals that series 46 (Ben Wilson's series) equals this.

[Fiona T]

oops spoilery -

With no intention of detracting from his awesome win, Adam Latchford became series 84 champ without declaring a valid 9 in either his prelims or finals! Is he the only one?

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

With no intention of detracting from his awesome win, Adam Latchford became series 84 champ without declaring a valid 9 in either his prelims or finals! Is he the only one?

S84 as well as S83!
Well jammy!

[JackHurst]

With no intention of ...

Spoilers!!

[Fiona T]

With no intention of ...

Spoilers!!

oops - soz! fixed

[Gavin Chipper]

Eoin's post though.

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

Some may have noticed that I edited my latest post -like- 1000 times or so.
I was trying to find a good "no spoilers" colour.

Based on that, my latest "Ask Graeme" (or anyone else who knows) questions are:-
1. What is the code for the bluey-grey colour that appears as the background colour for posts here?
2. What is the code for the creamy-tan colour that appears as the background colour for quoted text here?

[EDIT: Possibly answering my own question with this handy link.]
[2nd EDIT: After extensive experimentation, it appears the precise shades used on this website are not among the colours listed at the link above... time to go deeper]
[3rd EDIT: If you are a perfectionist about this shit... this is the site!

[Fiona T]

Well color picker gives

grey - #ebeadd grey
darker blue - #e1ebf2 darker blue
lighter blue - #ecf3f7 lighter blue

[Jack Worsley]

With no intention of detracting from his awesome win, Adam Latchford became series 84 champ without declaring a valid 9 in either his prelims or finals! Is he the only one?

It's happened before many times. Joyce Cansfield, Darryl Francis, Andrew Guy, Brian Hudson, Peter Evans, Ian Bebbington, David Trace, Hilary Hopper, Tony Vick, Rajaretnam Yogasagarar, Michael Wareham, Barry Grossman, Wayne Summers, Don Reid, Andy Bodle, Darren Shacklady, Verity Joubert, Huw Morgan, Pete Cashmore, Tony Baylis, Ray McPhie, Stuart Wood, Ben Wilson and Nick Wainwright all won their series without having offered a valid nine.

Of those 24 series winners, 18 of them also never offered a valid nine in any subsequent appearance either. They are Joyce Cansfield, Andrew Guy, Brian Hudson, Peter Evans, Ian Bebbington, Hilary Hopper, Rajaretnam Yogasagarar, Michael Wareham, Barry Grossman, Wayne Summers, Don Reid, Andy Bodle, Darren Shacklady, Verity Joubert, Huw Morgan, Tony Baylis, Ray McPhie and Stuart Wood.

Note that for some of the very early series we don't have complete records of all the rounds, so there may be one or two false positives towards the beginning of the above lists.

[Fred Mumford]

Spoiler alert - if excessive wanking doesn't make you go blind (and I can confirm that it doesn't), then staring at the above text for a few seconds soon will.

[Marc Meakin]

What is the percentage of not written down declarations?
Which contestant had the most during an octorun?
Has anybody completed an octorun without any not written down declarations?

[JackHurst]

On average, what letters max % do players achieve?

1) Across all players from the past 10 series?
2) In series Heats (lets say in the last 10 series)?
3) Non series finalists from the last 10 series?

[Gavin Chipper]

What do the stats say about the letter shuffling this series? I think the selections have been awful, with about 34 of the same vowel coming out consecutively on at least 9 occasions.

[Tom S]

Any non-finalist who averaged over 90 in their games? (excluding those who couldn't make the finals)

The following list is sort of that - I haven't got a way to exclude people who qualified for the finals but didn't turn up for whatever reason. Furthermore, I've taken the relevant series finals to be the finals in the same series as their last heat game, because that's the only way I could get it to include people who averaged 90+ in one run but only qualified for the finals in a subsequent run (e.g. Zarte). From this I've manually removed Annie Humphries who was a rare case of someone not being available for "their" finals but being put into the next series finals instead.

Code: Select all

                      SERIES     GAMES   AVERAGE
Jean Goodman              46         2      94.0
Alan Swift                47         3      92.0
David Franks              47         8      93.0
David Stainer             47         5      92.0
Elfie Winterton           47         1      92.0
John Mitchell             47         4      92.25
Peter Lee                 47         1      93.0
Terry Rattle              47         1     107.0
Dez Hussey                48         2      91.5
Michael Clarke            48         4      94.5
Tony Slade                48         1      92.0
Andrew Naylor             49         1      95.0
Austin Shin               49         1      91.0
Frank Blake               49         1      90.0
Jerry Humphreys           49         1      93.0
Ruth Hartley              49         3      91.33333
Saji Kamalananthan        49         1      90.0
Nick Smith                50         3      92.0
Paul Skingsley            50         1      90.0
Andy Page                 51         3      91.0
Ben Walden                51         3      95.66666
Chris White               51         1      93.0
Eric Wright               51         4      91.5
Steve Hyde                51         3      94.0
Ben Tamplin               52         3      91.33333
Roy Thearle               52         5      97.8
Tim Charlton              52         2      96.5
Frank Mulvey              53         5      93.6
Jane Hoskyn               53         1      91.0
Kieran Coppinger          53         4      91.75
Andrew Gedney             54         2      91.5
Ian Graham                54         6      91.16666
Marie Hayden              54         6      98.83333
Robin Sutherland          54         1      91.0
Rosemary Ilsley           54         2      91.5
Tuck Broadbent            54         4      93.25
Bernie Corrigan           55         2      95.0
Dan Ward                  55         1      93.0
Danny Shears              55         1      92.0
Graham Dugdale            55         3     102.0
Ian Hilton                55         5      96.2
Phil Watkins              55         1      90.0
Robin Brown               55         5      91.6
Sheri Evans               55         6      91.83333
George Rhodes             56         1      93.0
Martin May                56         2      90.5
Paul Richards             56         1      93.0
Rob Waters                56         2      92.0
Alan Gray                 57         3      93.66666
Martin May                57         5      93.0
Roy Gerrish               57         1      96.0
Sam Butcher               57         3      95.66666
Andrew Swale              58         2      93.0
Gayle Smith               58         3      97.0
Ian Lamb                  58         3      90.0
Matthew Coates            58         4      97.25
Tony Durrant              58         4      97.25
Colin Westacott           59         1      91.0
Anita Fairhurst           60         1      94.0
Chris Kirby               60         3      90.33333
James Robinson            60         3      94.0
Ed Rossiter               61         4      93.25
Lesley Hines              61         1     104.0
Micheal Harris            61         2      95.0
Robert Brownlie           61         3      95.0
Clarke Carlisle           62         3      92.0
James Rawson              62         5      97.2
Steve Tamplin             62         1      90.0
Toni Balestra             62         1      90.0
Greg Hayhurst             63         6      90.0
Barbara Grice             64         1      95.0
Dave Dyer                 64         3      93.33333
Anne Haley                65         2      92.5
Barry Evans               65         1      92.0
Syed Bukhari              65         1      91.0
Chris Butler              66         4      90.5
Stephen Senior            66         1      93.0
Anthea Rata               67         2      90.0
Abdirizak Hirsi           69         6     103.3333
Mark Hartnett             69         4     101.25
Sarah Hadaway             69         4      96.0
Zarte Siempre             69         6     109.3333
Bobby Johnson             70         4      90.0
Ciaran McCarthy           70         1     104.0
Ciarán Crawley            70         4      92.5
Cliff Lee                 70         6      91.5
Peter Steggle             70         1      95.0
Damen Bramwell            71         2      90.5
Duncan McGregor           71         1      98.0
Farhan Ahmed              71         4      93.5
Ian Linton                71         3      96.0
Jamie Ilett-Jones         71         2     101.5
Jason Turner              71         3     102.3333
Jonny Rye                 71         3      94.0
Kieran O'Driscoll         71         1      90.0
Vicki Landriau            71         2      96.5
David Pooley              72         4      92.5
Lee Worth                 72         1      95.0
Liam Thorne               72         2      90.0
Mark Perrett              72         1      91.0
Neil Stephenson           72         4      92.75
Adam Curran               73         1     100.0
James Rowan               73         1      97.0
Alasdair Haines           74         2      92.5
Jon Hinchliffe            74         1      93.0
Aidan Linge               75         4      98.5
Chris Leaney              75         2      90.5
Jamie Smith               75         5      93.8
Mark Gourley              75         1      92.0
Norm Ahmad                75         2      98.5
Stephen Bloom             75         3      90.66666
Dave Ryan                 76         3      92.0
Suzy Turner               76         4      90.75
Ben Leyburn               77         6      93.0
Chris Weldon              77         5      91.0
Sarah Holey               77         4      95.0
Jason Palmer              78         4      93.25
Robin Johnson             79         8      93.125
Harry Clark               80         3      96.66666
Ewen Alexander            81         1      93.0
Mike Woodberry            81         1      94.0
Paul Anderson             81         7     105.2857
Stephen Mellor            81         6      90.83333

Was thinking about this again as there have been a fair few good players who've missed out on the finals, so are therefore eligible...

Code: Select all

                          SERIES     GAMES   AVERAGE
Paul Hindess          82           3            94.3333333
Chris Johnston       82           3            93
Dave O'Donnell      82           6             98.6666666667
Martyn Simpson     82           7            113.428571429
Nicola Newton       82           1            93
Conor Morgan        83           3            90
James Notton        83           4            90.75
Adam Collett         83           2            91
Mike Lee               84           3             93.3333333
Jason Dias             84            5           94.6
Ryan Sutton          84            5           100.4
Steven Grady        84            2            94.5
Rachael Montgomery 84        3            95

[Rhys Benjamin]

It's happened before many times. Joyce Cansfield, Darryl Francis, Andrew Guy, Brian Hudson, Peter Evans, Ian Bebbington, David Trace, Hilary Hopper, Tony Vick, Rajaretnam Yogasagarar, Michael Wareham, Barry Grossman, Wayne Summers, Don Reid, Andy Bodle, Darren Shacklady, Verity Joubert, Huw Morgan, Pete Cashmore, Tony Baylis, Ray McPhie, Stuart Wood, Ben Wilson and Nick Wainwright all won their series without having offered a valid nine.

Of those 24 series winners, 18 of them also never offered a valid nine in any subsequent appearance either. They are Joyce Cansfield, Andrew Guy, Brian Hudson, Peter Evans, Ian Bebbington, Hilary Hopper, Rajaretnam Yogasagarar, Michael Wareham, Barry Grossman, Wayne Summers, Don Reid, Andy Bodle, Darren Shacklady, Verity Joubert, Huw Morgan, Tony Baylis, Ray McPhie and Stuart Wood.

Note that for some of the very early series we don't have complete records of all the rounds, so there may be one or two false positives towards the beginning of the above lists.

Well, I can tell you that Cansfield is not a false positive. In the Series 1 games I recapped last year, Richard Whiteley commented no one had declared a nine "yet", and these went out after Cansfield's episodes.

[Adam Latchford]

Might seem like a boring one but I saw this the other day...

Series 83 February had someone who made the finals on every single episode. Has this ever happened before?

How many back to back octochamps have their ever been?

[Gavin Chipper]

Who has had a Countdown-related dream for the most consecutive nights?

[JackHurst]

What is the smallest positive whole number such that there is no standard numbers selection that would be able to solve it?

For example, 937500001 is one such number, because the largest possible number that one can make from a countdown selection is 100*75*50*25*10*10 = 937500000.

[Johnny Canuck]

How many back to back octochamps have their ever been?

Unless it's been beaten since, it was three (Adam Rolston, Tony Manwani and Dave Ashton) in Series 79.

[Fred Mumford]

What is the smallest positive whole number such that there is no standard numbers selection that would be able to solve it?

For example, 937500001 is one such number, because the largest possible number that one can make from a countdown selection is 100*75*50*25*10*10 = 937500000.

Apparently it is 62,663 according to a very old post on this forum.

[Gavin Chipper]

What is the smallest positive whole number such that there is no standard numbers selection that would be able to solve it?

For example, 937500001 is one such number, because the largest possible number that one can make from a countdown selection is 100*75*50*25*10*10 = 937500000.

Apparently it is 62,663 according to a very old post on this forum.

Link.

[Johnny Canuck]

How big is the biggest group of people such that everyone in it has played everyone else in an Apterous game at least once?

Have any groups of three or more people done the same thing on televised Countdown?

[Thomas Carey]

How big is the biggest group of people such that everyone in it has played everyone else in an Apterous game at least once?

Have any groups of three or more people done the same thing on televised Countdown?

One I can immediate think of is Briggs, Moloney and Bursford from my series alone. I feel like there may be some 4s if you look at coc and stuff (two of my above three played Jonathan Wynn, so swap him out with Judy for a different three), but I wouldn't be too surprised if 3 is best