Favourite Number Plays/Players

[A Sivaramani]

James Martin's famous 952 is popular, but are there any other numbers plays that you found interesting or any players that are particularly good at the numbers games to you?

[Philip A]

Definitely George Ford and also Jon O’Neill, Noel McIlvenny and Dylan Taylor.

[dan spinks]

James Martin's famous 952 is popular

Should never have been allowed, he started by declaring '3x100' and Carol even started to write it on the board before he changed his solution completely. There was no way to reach 952 starting with 3x100

[Gavin Chipper]

If they change tack quickly it's normally allowed. Some guy did it the other day and it was allowed, although his method ultimately failed.

[JackHurst]

James Rowan

[Jamie Weisenberg]

The 952 method was used twice in last year's CoC. It looks impressive at first glance until you spot it.

[Jon O'Neill]

The 952 method was used twice in last year's CoC. It looks impressive at first glance until you spot it.

That's not really accurate. The 952 solution is based on an extension of the methods I think you're talking about from a quick scan of all the games.

I guess you mean these 2:

James Haughton in the final
25 100 75 50 1 1 → 288
290 = ((75 − 1 − 1) × 100 − 50) ÷ 25

Adam Latchford vs. Tom Stevenson
75 25 100 50 7 3 → 311
311 = ((100 + 3) × 75 + 50) ÷ 25

These are simple applications of what I would call the rule of 146/154/197/203/298/302 where you have a couple of variables to play with. When you add in a multiplier it gets a lot more complex as the number of possibilities increases hugely with the order of operations. Actually there was one missed in Ahmed vs. Ed:

Round 6 in Ahmed Mohamed vs. Ed Byrne
100 75 50 25 4 4 -> 765
765 = ((100 − 4) × 50 × 4 − 75) ÷ 25

Effectively an extension of the 197 rule. I would conceptualise this as 4 x 200 - 4 x (4x2) - 3.
Similarly James Martin's 952 is an extension of the 298 rule. 3 x 300 + 6 x (3x3) - 2.

For this reason, I still think James Martin's solve is the best of all time.

[Thomas Cappleman]

Generous of you Jon, but I'd put your 813 solution even higher. It's just such an extreme version of the 937.5, and to even think of it in 30 seconds yet alone execute it.

I'd give myself some chance of getting one like the 952 in time, but I'm never getting your one.

(Obviously Jack's actually right and 10 10 7 7 6 2 817 is the actual greatest solve)

[Adam S Latchford]

a great 6 small solve will always be better than a great 4 large solve for me. the most impressive 4 larges are just extensions of different formula. my half decent 4 large tv spot i had before the clock started. you cant get that with a genuinely good 6 small

[Gavin Chipper]

For this reason, I still think James Martin's solve is the best of all time.

There was some discussion in this thread, but I think we might have also discussed this off board as well. Basically I think I said before that he picked 4 large fairly regularly and his solve rate wasn't massively high. It's likely that as a suboptimal player, he prioritised different possible methods to you, and while these were generally inferior ways to go, occasionally it will throw something up. The actual method isn't that complicated. But I think you see it as hard from your perspective of where a 4-large player will normally look. From the perspective of a non-4-large player, it's easier than a lot of other solves to see how the method makes the target.

[Jamie Weisenberg]

These are simple applications of what I would call the rule of 146/154/197/203/298/302 where you have a couple of variables to play with. When you add in a multiplier it gets a lot more complex as the number of possibilities increases hugely with the order of operations. Actually there was one missed in Ahmed vs. Ed:

Round 6 in Ahmed Mohamed vs. Ed Byrne
100 75 50 25 4 4 -> 765
765 = ((100 − 4) × 50 × 4 − 75) ÷ 25

Effectively an extension of the 197 rule. I would conceptualise this as 4 x 200 - 4 x (4x2) - 3.
Similarly James Martin's 952 is an extension of the 298 rule. 3 x 300 + 6 x (3x3) - 2.

For this reason, I still think James Martin's solve is the best of all time.

Great post.

I am unaware of the 146/154/197/203/298/302 rule; probably should read up on it.

[Jamie Weisenberg]

Generous of you Jon, but I'd put your 813 solution even higher. It's just such an extreme version of the 937.5, and to even think of it in 30 seconds yet alone execute it.

.

I've seen the video of this. I am interested in knowing how he got there so quickly.

Maybe Jon can please explain how he approached this problem, step by step ?

[Andres Sanchez]

I'll toss my pennies in this thread too, why not?

I think I can safely say that James Martin's 952 is the best numbers game of all time, it's like the NES of numbers games. What it did for maths in Countdown took that to a whole new level.

Echoing Tom's sentiment, I do also agree that Jon's 813 is fucking immaculate. Reasons being already said, calling that the SNES of

I also think that George Ford's 940 is pretty good too, also saying that to give it some love of course.

What I feel like I should also add is Noel McIlvenny's 925 during his semi-final (75 25 100 50 9 8 being the numbers). I know the solution seems straightforward as all hell, but his method cracks me up every time.

In terms of players, I think nowadays people go towards Elliott Mellor on here, and I can't say I disagree because he helped me a bit in maths. A few years ago when I first came on Apterous I asked him to help me with the tough stuff and he greatly obliged; and if Ell's reading this thread, I'd be down to do it again (also ELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!).

Also tossing in Andy Platt, his and Chris Butler's work on 4L is splendid.

[Gavin Chipper]

a great 6 small solve will always be better than a great 4 large solve for me. the most impressive 4 larges are just extensions of different formula. my half decent 4 large tv spot i had before the clock started. you cant get that with a genuinely good 6 small

I think with 6-small it can be hard to pick out individual great spots. Most of them are gettable if you happen to go the right way. I'd say a great 6-small player is seen by their high percentage of solves across many rounds rather than by the impressiveness of any individual solve.

[Adam S Latchford]

a great 6 small solve will always be better than a great 4 large solve for me. the most impressive 4 larges are just extensions of different formula. my half decent 4 large tv spot i had before the clock started. you cant get that with a genuinely good 6 small

I think with 6-small it can be hard to pick out individual great spots. Most of them are gettable if you happen to go the right way. I'd say a great 6-small player is seen by their high percentage of solves across many rounds rather than by the impressiveness of any individual solve.

I think a lot of the memorable numbers games aren't necessarily the most crazy impressive. They're either variations of fairly basic formula or they're memorable for misses (1 1 9 10 8 5 → 959) (50 25 75 100 10 7 → 174)

Regardless, i just in general prefer a good 6 small solve. Probably because i'm better at 4 large than 6 small so it seems more impressive