Countdown Scattergories III

[Joseph Bolas]

Here is the third installment of the Countdown Scattergories game. Below are 10 word rounds and for each round you are to find a word of a specific length. The idea is to come up with a word, that you think will be the least mentioned by the other players. For each round, there are only 8 possible answers (well hopefully ).

R01: N A B S F L I E S - 7 Letter Word
R02: I N S O L A T E D - 8 Letter Word
R03: G R I T F I N I S - 6 Letter Word
R04: L A R G E S I G N - 8 Letter Word
R05: U S U R P Q U I D - 5 Letter Word
R06: B O L A S W O R M - 6 Letter Word
R07: T E X T C H A I R - 7 Letter Word
R08: V O C A L S I R E - 8 Letter Word
R09: T A J R I T Z E S - 7 Letter Word
R10: T O K E N Y E A R - 6 Letter Word

How To Enter
Please PM me with your answers for each round . You can do this by viewing my Profile and clicking on the PM icon, to send me a private message .

Rules
1. Check that your words are allowed before submitting your entry. The best way to do this (because not everyone will have an OED2r) is to use the Stemmer feature on Apterous. To use the feature, just type in your word but leaving out one letter (eg if word was APTEROUS, type in APTEROU etc) and then it should come up below.
2. Check that your words match the length required for each round before submitting.
3. Check that your words match the selection for each round before submitting.
4. Check that you have spelt your words correctly before submitting.
5. If your word breaks any of the rules above (1 - 4), then you will be allowed to have another attempt for the round. However you will then only score half the points for the word. (Eg if in Game 1, Round 1 you came up with HEARING, which is too short and then after being allowed to guess again, you then said CHEATING, you would then have only scored 3.5 points).
6. Once you have submitted a word, that is acceptable for the round, you can not change your answer.
7. Once you have submitted an entry, you are not allowed to delete it, before I have read it. If this happens, you will be allowed to have another go, but your overall score, at the end, will be halved.

Scoring
Each word is scored by the number of times that it has been mentioned. If a word is only mentioned once, then it will get 10 points, a word mentioned twice will get 9 points and so on down to 0 points for words mentioned more than 10 times. If you end up having another guess for a round, you will then get half the overall score for that word (see rule 5 above).

Time Limit
The competition will close on Thursday 8th January at 12 am . All entries received after this time, will not be counted.

[Kirk Bevins]

Time Limit
The competition will close on Thursday 8th January at 12 am . All entries received after this time, will not be counted.

Without meaning to be too picky here, do you mean Thursday 8th January 11:59pm or Friday 9th January 00:01 or even Thursday 8th January 00:01? You'll learn from train timetabling that trains are never set to depart at 00:00 to avoid confusion!

[Joseph Bolas]

Time Limit
The competition will close on Thursday 8th January at 12 am . All entries received after this time, will not be counted.

Without meaning to be too picky here, do you mean Thursday 8th January 11:59pm or Friday 9th January 00:01 or even Thursday 8th January 00:01? You'll learn from train timetabling that trains are never set to depart at 00:00 to avoid confusion!

What I mean is that on Wednesday 7th at 23:59 (11:59 pm), there would be only 1 minute left to submit entries thus when it turned midnight and the start of Thursday 8th, the competition closes. I could change the time if you prefer .

[Howard Somerset]

Thanks Joseph. I'll try to read the instructions carefully this time, and hopefully get my submission in correctly.

[Kirk Bevins]

What I mean is that on Wednesday 7th at 23:59 (11:59 pm), there would be only 1 minute left to submit entries thus when it turned midnight and the start of Thursday 8th, the competition closes. I could change the time if you prefer .

Thankyou for this, Joseph. I appreciate the honest response without a sarcastic tone to the message.

[Joseph Bolas]

What I mean is that on Wednesday 7th at 23:59 (11:59 pm), there would be only 1 minute left to submit entries thus when it turned midnight and the start of Thursday 8th, the competition closes. I could change the time if you prefer .

Thank you for this, Joseph. I appreciate the honest response without a sarcastic tone to the message.

Oh no, I wasn't being sarcastic at all Kirk, and I do apologise if you thought I was .

[Kirk Bevins]

Oh no, I wasn't being sarcastic at all Kirk, and I do apologise if you thought I was .

Haha - no you weren't! My message was totally sincere. It's some other people who post on the forum nowadays who I would imagine would have replied to my message regarding 11:59 etc with some abuse.

[Phil Reynolds]

Here is the third installment [sic] of the Countdown Scattergories game.
...
4. Check that you have spelt your words correctly before submitting.

Rule 4 obviously doesn't apply to the competition itself.

On a less pedantic note, there is nothing in the rules about how to submit entries. I presume the only acceptable method is via private message (PM) to you, Joseph, but perhaps the rules should make this clear.

[Joseph Bolas]

On a less pedantic note, there is nothing in the rules about how to submit entries. I presume the only acceptable method is via private message (PM) to you, Joseph, but perhaps the rules should make this clear.

My bad . Yeah, if you PM your results, it keeps them hidden from other players

I have now included that in the rules above and also have included a link in my signature to the PM feature (if it works )

[Ian Volante]

Further pedantry would state that midnight is simply 12 midnight, it's not 12am as it's not ante meridien until a minute later.

Now I write however, I'm thinking that this argument only applies to midday. Oh knowledgeable ones, put me out of my misery, for everyone's sake.

[Kevin Thurlow]

12 am is ambiguous..... The RAF operates on a 24 hour system, and certainly used to refer to 0001 or 2359 for midnight, and used 1200 for noon. Presumably they still do?

[Michael Wallace]

For some reason I've always interpreted 12am as midnight - maybe it's just something you do if you're used to counting from 0, rather than 1?

[Rosemary Roberts]

Joseph, you already have 11 replies on this thread, which started out as an announcement rather than a discussion.

I would be interested to know whether you got that many entries in the same time .

Rosemary

[Joseph Bolas]

Joseph, you already have 11 replies on this thread, which started out as an announcement rather than a discussion.

I would be interested to know whether you got that many entries in the same time .

Rosemary

I so far have recieved 13 entries for this competition

When I did the first Countdown Scattergories game, I was struggling with my table design and so decided on a set maximum of 15 players. Now after a redesign of the table (basically just changing the font), the maximum number of players I can have now, is about 30 players.

EDIT: There is now only approximately 30 minutes left to get your entries in, before the competition closes.

[Joseph Bolas]

It's time to close this competition and annouce the winner

The winner of the third Countdown Scattergories game is Kirk Bevins

The overall scoreboard came out as follows:

1st - Kirk Bevins: 85
2nd - Frank Rodolf: 84
3rd - Kai Laddiman: 83
3rd - Naomi Laddiman: 83
5th - Stewart Scott: 81
5th - Rosemary Roberts: 81
7th - Callum Laddiman: 79
7th - Dinos Syfris: 79
9th - Jon O'Neill: 78.5
10th - Phil Reynolds: 78
11th - Howard Somerset: 77
12th - Oliver Garner: 76.5
13th - Jimmy Gough: 76
14th - Michael Wallace: 75
14th - Ian Volante: 75

Everyone's guesses and scores can be found here.

Thank you to all who participted and well done to Kirk

Here are the available words (I had) for each round, that were not mentioned:

R01: FABLESS, FINLESS, SALINES, SILANES
R02: DIASTOLE, TOENAILS
R04: GEARINGS, REGALING
R05: PUDUS
R06: MASOOR
R07: TECTRIX
R08: CALORIES, CLAVIERS, VISCERAL
R09: ARTIEST
R10: EATERY, RYOKAN

[Michael Wallace]

Hmm, maybe I need to rethink my 'strategy'...

[Howard Somerset]

My best result so far has been in the one for which I missed the deadline. So maybe that should be my strategy next time.

Thanks, Joseph.

[Dinos Sfyris]

My strategy failed the moment I could only see LESBIAN! Ironically I was eating out that very evening

[Rosemary Roberts]

Do any of you really list all Joseph's eight words for each round and then pick one? I have great difficulty finding more than a couple in some rounds, which makes my choices more than usually random. Or possibly less, Charlie?

[Charlie Reams]

Do any of you really list all Joseph's eight words for each round and then pick one? I have great difficulty finding more than a couple in some rounds, which makes my choices more than usually random. Or possibly less, Charlie?

I'm not sure if you're mocking (or even aware of) my annoyance with abuse of the word "random", but anyway. I'm pretty sure that having only a subset of the words makes your choices less random, because your pick will tend to be biased towards the words which are easier to spot. The most random approach (as in highest entropy, at least) would be to list all of the words and then pick one uniformly at random, but I'm pretty sure no one does that.

[Rosemary Roberts]

Do any of you really list all Joseph's eight words for each round and then pick one? I have great difficulty finding more than a couple in some rounds, which makes my choices more than usually random. Or possibly less, Charlie?

I'm not sure if you're mocking (or even aware of) my annoyance with abuse of the word "random", but anyway. I'm pretty sure that having only a subset of the words makes your choices less random, because your pick will tend to be biased towards the words which are easier to spot. The most random approach (as in highest entropy, at least) would be to list all of the words and then pick one uniformly at random, but I'm pretty sure no one does that.

Not mocking you, no, mocking the very common misuse of the word. As a mathematician I would expect you to take umbrage at it. But within the small scope of my capability, finding very few words does make my chance of winning (in the popular sense) random. On the other hand, it has already been pointed out that there is no skill involved in this game, which implies that it is not possible to depart from random, no matter how faulty one's reasoning.

[Kirk Bevins]

it has already been pointed out that there is no skill involved in this game, which implies that it is not possible to depart from random, no matter how faulty one's reasoning.

No skill involved in this game? Hmm, I've entered twice and won twice. It surely can't be random?

[Jon O'Neill]

Although Kirk's two wins don't necessarily mean it isn't random... it isn't random.

[David O'Donnell]

it has already been pointed out that there is no skill involved in this game, which implies that it is not possible to depart from random, no matter how faulty one's reasoning.

No skill involved in this game? Hmm, I've entered twice and won twice. It surely can't be random?

I should have thought that was proof of it being totally random.

[Kirk Bevins]

I should have thought that was proof of it being totally random.

Oooohhh was that a cheap dig at me? Nice one.

[Michael Wallace]

Not mocking you, no, mocking the very common misuse of the word. As a mathematician I would expect you to take umbrage at it.

I think you're misremembering who is who. Charlie is the CompSci PhD student, Junaid is the maths PhD student and I'm the statistics PhD student, so you probably want me or Junaid if you need a mathematician to be annoyed at people using the word 'random'.

I disagree with the claim that there is 'no' skill involved (I also disagree with Kirk's "surely it can't be random", but am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and presume he was being tongue in cheek, because I'd be a bit shocked by a maths teacher saying stuff like that seriously). In particular, I noticed that a lot of the words that no-one gets tend to be pretty obscure ones, which would suggest that going for the more obscure ones you can find may yield better results.

Of course, it's not as straight forward as that, but the fact that (presumably) not everyone finds all 8 words means that there's going to be at least some skill involved, even if the skill is just in finding the obscure words rather than selecting the 'best' one. The only way there'd be no skill (as far as I can tell) is if everyone found all the words and then just picked one at random, as has already been mentioned.

[David O'Donnell]

I should have thought that was proof of it being totally random.

Oooohhh was that a cheap dig at me? Nice one.

I told you that your card was marked.

[Rosemary Roberts]

Not mocking you, no, mocking the very common misuse of the word. As a mathematician I would expect you to take umbrage at it.

I think you're misremembering who is who. Charlie is the CompSci PhD student, Junaid is the maths PhD student and I'm the statistics PhD student, so you probably want me or Junaid if you need a mathematician to be annoyed at people using the word 'random'.

I disagree with the claim that there is 'no' skill involved (I also disagree with Kirk's "surely it can't be random", but am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and presume he was being tongue in cheek, because I'd be a bit shocked by a maths teacher saying stuff like that seriously). In particular, I noticed that a lot of the words that no-one gets tend to be pretty obscure ones, which would suggest that going for the more obscure ones you can find may yield better results.

Of course, it's not as straight forward as that, but the fact that (presumably) not everyone finds all 8 words means that there's going to be at least some skill involved, even if the skill is just in finding the obscure words rather than selecting the 'best' one. The only way there'd be no skill (as far as I can tell) is if everyone found all the words and then just picked one at random, as has already been mentioned.

This is where I reveal my extreme age: in my day there was no difference between computer people and mathematicians. And I was both, although at no time in my career did I learn any statistics (I've always considered that quite an achievement).

You're right, of course, as in the real game the skill is in spotting all the words. But I'm working on it.

[Joseph Bolas]

For anyone who wants to partake in the next game, it will be up and running from around midnight tonight

[Kirk Bevins]

I disagree with the claim that there is 'no' skill involved (I also disagree with Kirk's "surely it can't be random", but am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and presume he was being tongue in cheek, because I'd be a bit shocked by a maths teacher saying stuff like that seriously).

I was indeed saying that it's not random and that I use skill by trying to find a relatively obscure word that other people probably won't get (if I can find one).

[Joseph Bolas]

I was indeed saying that it's not random and that I use skill by trying to find a relatively obscure word that other people probably won't get (if I can find one).

Can you make it a hat-trick though

[Clare Sudbery]

Hmmm, but wouldn't there be merit in trying to choose the most obvious word, on the basis that everyone else will be avoiding it? Although of course, people may have already thought of that, making it not such a good strategy after all...

Interstingly, there's nothing in the rules says you can't use word-finding software, which would mean the skill was purely in trying to predict which words will be most commonly picked.

And yes, while Kirk's two wins don't prove it isn't completely random, they do provide *some* evidence that it might not be. Particularly given that we all know he's a very clever chap.

[Michael Wallace]

Hmmm, but wouldn't there be merit in trying to choose the most obvious word, on the basis that everyone else will be avoiding it? Although of course, people may have already thought of that, making it not such a good strategy after all...

Indeed, this was the 'tactic' adopted by several players in the first round (and mine for the next two as well, since I'm lazy).

Interstingly, there's nothing in the rules says you can't use word-finding software, which would mean the skill was purely in trying to predict which words will be most commonly picked.

I'd be interested to know if anyone actually did this, since I'd've thought it implicit that one shouldn't.

[Clare Sudbery]

"implicit"

Why, if not stated? Purely as a problem-solving approach, my first thought was to use software.

Don't worry though, I've never yet used software for Countdown. My abysmal performance on Apterous should bear that out (don't pay attention to my rating, apparently there's a bug - look at my number of wins instead). And anyway I'm practising to go on the show, where no software will be available!

[Michael Wallace]

Why, if not stated? Purely as a problem-solving approach, my first thought was to use software.

If one were allowed to use an anagram solver, why not just provide the list of available words with the selection and save us all the bother?

[Clare Sudbery]

Controversial I know, but looking stuff up can be part of the fun. Like using a dictionary. Don't worry, I'm playing devil's advocate really. Worth explicitly stating in the rules though.

[Michael Wallace]

Worth explicitly stating in the rules though.

Apparently so.

[Clare Sudbery]

:O)