Pick a number from 1 to 10

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 6:21 pm

Here's a game for you. Your job is to pick an integer from 1 to 10 and PM it to me. And those people who pick the least common answer are the winners. Actually I've thought about this and I think the fairest way to do this is to say that if you pick the least commonly picked number (or any joint least common) or a number that's picked one time more than that (so it's only not the least common because of your vote) then you win. And you have until the end of next Monday (so just over a week) to PM me. There's no prize.

Kai Laddiman · Post by **Kai Laddiman** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:18 pm

Is (pi / phi) ^ 2 classed as an integer?

JimBentley · Post by **JimBentley** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:43 pm

Gavin's game is excellently nihilistic. I've had a go. But I don't think I'll win.

Michael Wallace · Post by **Michael Wallace** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:45 pm

Kai Laddiman wrote:Is (pi / phi) ^ 2 classed as an integer?

Why would it be?

Kai Laddiman · Post by **Kai Laddiman** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:48 pm

Michael Wallace wrote:
Kai Laddiman wrote:Is (pi / phi) ^ 2 classed as an integer?
Why would it be?

Cos it's close to 4.

Michael Wallace · Post by **Michael Wallace** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:49 pm

Kai Laddiman wrote:Cos it's close to 4.

That's like saying "can pi be classed as an integer? it's close to 3".

Kai Laddiman · Post by **Kai Laddiman** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:58 pm

Michael Wallace wrote:
Kai Laddiman wrote:Cos it's close to 4.
That's like saying "can pi be classed as an integer? it's close to 3".

That's the Roman way of thinking.

Ian Volante · Post by **Ian Volante** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:01 pm

Kai Laddiman wrote:
Michael Wallace wrote:
Kai Laddiman wrote:Cos it's close to 4.
That's like saying "can pi be classed as an integer? it's close to 3".
That's the Roman way of thinking.

And that's why the Circus Maximus was smaller than it was.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Sun Aug 02, 2009 10:19 pm

Remember you have until midnight at the end of tomorrow (Monday) to PM me with your answer if you still want to enter!

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 6:47 pm

OK, here are the results:

1.
2. Jim Bentley, Neil Zussman
3. Aaron Higgs
4. Ian Volante, Eoin Monaghan*
5. Jon O'Neill, Innis Carson, Richard Brittain, Clive Brooker
6. Peter Crawley*
7.
8. Dinos Sfyris, Peter Mabey
9. Jon Corby
10. Charlie Reams, Derek Hazell

This means that the winners are Aaron Higgs, Peter Crawley and Jon Corby. And the big losers are Jon O'Neill, Innis Carson, Richard Brittain and Clive Brooker. Looking at the results, with 15 entrants, I think 10 is too many options. Maybe I should have gone for 5 or maybe more people should have entered. I just sort of assumed that every single member of the forum would enter this and a few more would join specifically to do so, including Zef and Harvey Freeman.

*Eoin Monaghan sent me his and Peter Crawley's entry in one message, which seems a little bit cheaty to me since if they collaborate they know they won't pick the same as each other. So maybe I could reduce it to two winners. But then would Ian Volante win as well?

Matt Morrison · Post by **Matt Morrison** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 7:38 pm

Fuck, I meant to enter this, apologies! In all honesty I was completely 50-50 torn between choosing 1 and 10.

Derek Hazell · Post by **Derek Hazell** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 8:01 pm

Gavin Chipper wrote:maybe more people should have entered. I just sort of assumed that every single member of the forum would enter this and a few more would join specifically to do so, including Zef and Harvey Freeman.

It wouldn't have hurt Chris Wills to have come in just to enter this, seeing as he is one of the most prolific game contestants of all time! I believe he did make one post here once, but the double draw of both Gevin and such a deceptively simple concept should have had him and many others just flocking back!

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 8:59 pm

Yay, go me.

This was good fun. I guess it was kinda similar to Joseph's Scattergories thing, except not run by a twat.

Ian Volante · Post by **Ian Volante** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:16 am

Gavin Chipper wrote: But then would Ian Volante win as well?

Yes. Yes he would.

Dinos Sfyris · Post by **Dinos Sfyris** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:01 am

Interesting result. I wonder how many that voted for 2, 4, 8 and 10 are cursing their co-voter as we speak?

Jon Corby wrote:This was good fun. I guess it was kinda similar to Joseph's Scattergories thing, except not run by a twat.

I guess the only thing to do now is make it run permanently! What shall we pick next, letters of the alphabet?

Neil Zussman · Post by **Neil Zussman** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:19 pm

Dinos Sfyris wrote:Interesting result. I wonder how many that voted for 2, 4, 8 and 10 are cursing their co-voter as we speak?

Haha yes. Sorry Jim. If it weren't for me, you'd've been the joint winner of this amazing contest.

Would've been more interesting with more entrants though.

Howard Somerset · Post by **Howard Somerset** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:50 pm

Dinos Sfyris wrote:I guess the only thing to do now is make it run permanently! What shall we pick next, letters of the alphabet?

Something I've seen done on another site is "pick the lowest positive integer which is not picked by anyone else". That could well work, no matter how many or how few participate.

Derek Hazell · Post by **Derek Hazell** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 8:38 am

Howard Somerset wrote:Something I've seen done on another site is "pick the lowest positive integer which is not picked by anyone else". That could well work, no matter how many or how few participate.

You get auctions like that as well don't you, where the lowest unique bid wins the item.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 11:26 pm

Howard Somerset wrote:
Dinos Sfyris wrote:I guess the only thing to do now is make it run permanently! What shall we pick next, letters of the alphabet?
Something I've seen done on another site is "pick the lowest positive integer which is not picked by anyone else". That could well work, no matter how many or how few participate.

Yeah, that's probably a better game actually.

Eoin Monaghan · Post by **Eoin Monaghan** » Sat Aug 08, 2009 7:46 pm

Peter asked on apterous for anyone to do it and I just did it for him while I was posting, we didn't collaborate apart from that and I am not that bothered about this anyway

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:48 am

Eoin Monaghan wrote:Peter asked on apterous for anyone to do it and I just did it for him while I was posting, we didn't collaborate apart from that and I am not that bothered about this anyway

That's fine - I'm not bothered either.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:49 am

Gavin Chipper wrote:
Howard Somerset wrote:Something I've seen done on another site is "pick the lowest positive integer which is not picked by anyone else". That could well work, no matter how many or how few participate.
Yeah, that's probably a better game actually.

I was thinking about this but I'm not sure there's a way of controlling properly against the impossibility of a particular person winning like I did with my game. But it's probably better to keep it simple and take it at face value.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 10:08 pm

Howard Somerset wrote:Something I've seen done on another site is "pick the lowest positive integer which is not picked by anyone else". That could well work, no matter how many or how few participate.

Many competitions are using this now. Pay 50p to enter by text to win a car. Lowest unique bid wins.

Kevin Thurlow · Post by **Kevin Thurlow** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 11:25 am

The Chessbase (providers of databases for chessplayers) website recently advertised a competition where the many readers were asked to select a number between 1 and 100 where the winner would be the person who got closest to 2/3 of the average of ALL the guesses. They also asked you to give your chess rating. When they published the final report (they ran two of the competitions, having given the winning answer for the first round before the second round, in which they also asked for reasoning), they revealed that there was no correlation between chess ability and ability to make a sensible "guess" at the right number. A surprisingly large number of people gave an "obviously" silly answer... More later if anyone cares/shows the slightest interest.

Jon O'Neill · Post by **Jon O'Neill** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 11:34 am

Kevin Thurlow wrote:The Chessbase (providers of databases for chessplayers) website recently advertised a competition where the many readers were asked to select a number between 1 and 100 where the winner would be the person who got closest to 2/3 of the average of ALL the guesses. They also asked you to give your chess rating. When they published the final report (they ran two of the competitions, having given the winning answer for the first round before the second round, in which they also asked for reasoning), they revealed that there was no correlation between chess ability and ability to make a sensible "guess" at the right number. A surprisingly large number of people gave an "obviously" silly answer... More later if anyone cares/shows the slightest interest.

This interests me. What was the actual answer?

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 6:55 pm

Jon O'Neill wrote:
Kevin Thurlow wrote:The Chessbase (providers of databases for chessplayers) website recently advertised a competition where the many readers were asked to select a number between 1 and 100 where the winner would be the person who got closest to 2/3 of the average of ALL the guesses. They also asked you to give your chess rating. When they published the final report (they ran two of the competitions, having given the winning answer for the first round before the second round, in which they also asked for reasoning), they revealed that there was no correlation between chess ability and ability to make a sensible "guess" at the right number. A surprisingly large number of people gave an "obviously" silly answer... More later if anyone cares/shows the slightest interest.
This interests me. What was the actual answer?

You have to guess what the answer was first!

So you're saying they ran it twice and gave the answer of the first one before the second? Well, the "obviously" silly answer might be 66 or 67, which is the highest it could be. I think most people would probably assume that most other people would go under 50 which means that most people should go for 33 or less. But I think people would go lower still. I think people would guess that other people would go for something in the 20s. There would also be some high numbers to push things up though (like the 67s). But my answer for 2/3 of the average is 16.

Then in round 2, it should definitely go lower. 2/3 of 16 is 10.667 but since most people will obviously go lower than the previous answer, virtually everyone will go under 10. I'm going to say 4 - but in real life I might give a better answer since I'd know the first round answer. Maybe you should give us the first round answer and let me guess again!

Kai Laddiman · Post by **Kai Laddiman** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 2:40 pm

In all honesty, I was going to pick 7

Peter Mabey · Post by **Peter Mabey** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 3:02 pm

I didn't pick 7 because I thought it was going to be most popular.
So did everyone else

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 7:09 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:The Chessbase (providers of databases for chessplayers) website recently advertised a competition where the many readers were asked to select a number between 1 and 100 where the winner would be the person who got closest to 2/3 of the average of ALL the guesses. They also asked you to give your chess rating. When they published the final report (they ran two of the competitions, having given the winning answer for the first round before the second round, in which they also asked for reasoning), they revealed that there was no correlation between chess ability and ability to make a sensible "guess" at the right number. A surprisingly large number of people gave an "obviously" silly answer... More later if anyone cares/shows the slightest interest.

We've waited over a month for the answer to this!

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 8:46 pm

I ALWAYS CHOOSE NUMBER FOUR WHEN ASKED TO PICK A NUMBER, AND SO DOES EVERYONE. FACT.

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:13 pm

When picking a number from 1 to 10, most people's initial thought is '7', which makes these results curious.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:18 pm

Kieran Child wrote:When picking a number from 1 to 10, most people's initial thought is '7', which makes these results curious.

Perhaps most people thought that as well, so left it.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:44 am

Gavin Chipper wrote:
Kevin Thurlow wrote:The Chessbase (providers of databases for chessplayers) website recently advertised a competition where the many readers were asked to select a number between 1 and 100 where the winner would be the person who got closest to 2/3 of the average of ALL the guesses. They also asked you to give your chess rating. When they published the final report (they ran two of the competitions, having given the winning answer for the first round before the second round, in which they also asked for reasoning), they revealed that there was no correlation between chess ability and ability to make a sensible "guess" at the right number. A surprisingly large number of people gave an "obviously" silly answer... More later if anyone cares/shows the slightest interest.
We've waited over a month for the answer to this!

Still no answer?

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:48 am

^Everyone picked four.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:19 pm

Kieran Child wrote:When picking a number from 1 to 10, most people's initial thought is '7', which makes these results curious.

Possibly because it's the only 2-syllabled single digit number. (excluding 0)

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:23 pm

^ Nice idea. That's why people like saying 'indigo'... supposedly.

Michael Wallace · Post by **Michael Wallace** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:25 pm

I'd assumed it was just because 7 is a 'lucky' number.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:49 pm

Kieran Child wrote:^Everyone picked four.

Kevin Thurlow · Post by **Kevin Thurlow** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 12:38 pm

Oops - Thanks to Gavin Chipper for reminding me to give the answer.... I don't visit this site much nowadays.

"The Chessbase (providers of databases for chessplayers) website recently advertised a competition where the many readers were asked to select a number between 1 and 100 where the winner would be the person who got closest to 2/3 of the average of ALL the guesses."

The report is here http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5621 but for those who can't be bothered to read it, the average was about 21.48.

The highest possible answer is about 66 (assuming everyone else in the world said 100). But the usual tactic seemed to be a guess that people would go for about 50, so you would expect an answer of 33 or so. Nothing to do with the competition, but if you ask people to give a numebr between 1 and 100, a popular answer is 37, so on that basis you would expect an answer of 2/3 of 37, i.e. just under 25.

They didn't find much correlation between chess ability and this guessing game...

Ian Volante · Post by **Ian Volante** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 3:42 pm

Kirk Bevins wrote: Possibly because it's the only 2-syllabled single digit number. (excluding 0)

No-ught?

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Fri Nov 12, 2010 10:19 am

Jon Corby wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:
Kevin Thurlow wrote:The Chessbase (providers of databases for chessplayers) website recently advertised a competition where the many readers were asked to select a number between 1 and 100 where the winner would be the person who got closest to 2/3 of the average of ALL the guesses. They also asked you to give your chess rating. When they published the final report (they ran two of the competitions, having given the winning answer for the first round before the second round, in which they also asked for reasoning), they revealed that there was no correlation between chess ability and ability to make a sensible "guess" at the right number. A surprisingly large number of people gave an "obviously" silly answer... More later if anyone cares/shows the slightest interest.
We've waited over a month for the answer to this!
Still no answer?

Still waiting.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Fri Nov 12, 2010 11:31 pm

He said the average was about 21.48 a couple of posts up. So I presume the "best" answer was 2/3 of this. Dunno about the second round though.

Kai Laddiman · Post by **Kai Laddiman** » Sat Nov 13, 2010 12:43 pm

I think this should be redone. With a prize of a free aptopseudonym, courtesy of Rhys.