c4countdown

Matt Le Tissier has two wins and two centuries so far. Can he make it three in both categories to end the week?

Join the mole, Anthony, for the recap later.

IDOLISER R2

VOMITED R11

4th numbers alt:
100+50+10-1 = 159; 75/25=3; 159x3=477. Not as elegant as Rachel's method, but got it within time at least.

Anyone else get the feeling that they intentionally kept Le Tiss away from Thomas?!

lee nixon wrote:Anyone else get the feeling that they intentionally kept Le Tiss away from Thomas?!

I do as well and I said all along that he would be on first game after his octorun, so he wouldn't have to face a reigning champion.

Certainly looks that way.His 3 opponents haven't been of the best standard.

Channel 4 can "protect" Matt all they like, but sooner or later he's going to come up against a proper player, who will duly kick his butt!

Yep, especially as James Rowan appears on Thursday. I'm surprised they put him in Le Tiss' eight potential opponents, thought they'd play lots of easy ones until he's definitely gone, but that just further proves that the team don't manipulate the running order.

lee nixon wrote:Anyone else get the feeling that they intentionally kept Le Tiss away from Thomas?!

Shut your fucking horse you bitter cheating twat.

I think Le Tissier is a better player than you are giving him credit for, similar to Rhys Benjamin for example, who notched up 5(?) wins, possibly better. Unlike a hell of a lot of contestants he scores on the moderate numbers games, and makes most of the routine 7s and 8s. I would guess he'd be around 1300 - 1400 on Apterous. Sure, he's nowhere near Tom or Jonathon Wynn's standard, but few are. He also works in TV and is clearly more comfortable than most contestants would be in a studio.

What I think is wrong is scheduling a long-standing mate in Graham le Saux in DC at the same time. They could at least have delayed his debut until, say, Le Saux's 4th or 5th programme. I can see why they've done it, the conversation etc. makes good TV. But it's unheard of for a contestant to be included in the banter, let alone talk to "Rache". I think that is unfair to his opponents who are more or less excluded.

Or if they wanted a sports guest perhaps they should have turned the tables by asking journalist and ex-contestant Jonathan Liew to be in DC.

If you really want to be cynical though Tom then you could assume they really do know what they are doing - they know he's not octochamp material, so give him half a dozen easy games, let him bow out to a decent player, and then he comes back as a low seed. But personally I don't see it that way.

Jon Corby if you speak to me like that again then you will regret it.I don't know you or have any wish to.You obviously have a problem with me and a problem in general judging by your language.

Keith Bennett's first paragraph is spot on.

If the team were trying to rig their own system, why schedule James Roper for the same filming block? (Good as Le Tiss is, you'd think Ropey would beat him.) Why bother giving him 'easy' contestants for just a few games when you could do it for 8 games and make it into the papers with "FORMER ENGLAND STAR BECOMES OCTOCHAMP"? Because I don't think they'd struggle to find 8 opponents who he would beat comfortably.

I don't doubt that very strong players are typically kept apart in the prelims, but to suggest he's had some kind of celebrity special treatment with regard to scheduling is cynical and totally unfounded.

Keith Bennett wrote:What I think is wrong is scheduling a long-standing mate in Graham le Saux in DC at the same time. They could at least have delayed his debut until, say, Le Saux's 4th or 5th programme. I can see why they've done it, the conversation etc. makes good TV. But it's unheard of for a contestant to be included in the banter, let alone talk to "Rache". I think that is unfair to his opponents who are more or less excluded.

Not sure about this, though. It's unheard of for a DC guest to be a contestant at a later date, isn't it? So given these unusual circumstances, it would be a bit weird for him not to be a bit more relaxed and personal with the presenters.

Jack Worsley wrote:

lee nixon wrote:Anyone else get the feeling that they intentionally kept Le Tiss away from Thomas?!

I do as well and I said all along that he would be on first game after his octorun, so he wouldn't have to face a reigning champion.

Wouldn't a more likely explanation be that they deliberately started Matt Le Tissier on Wednesday so as to coincide with Graeme Le Saux starting in DC?

Edit: And if we're going to put the tinfoil hat on and say "maybe they did that but deliberately scheduled Tom Carey's first game to be eight games before it", remember that the production team don't know who the octochamps are going to be when they put the running order together. Sure, they might have a vague idea about who the stronger players are, but nobody's guaranteed eight wins. Adam Curran came within a conundrum of beating Tom, for example.

Graeme Cole wrote:

Jack Worsley wrote:

lee nixon wrote:Anyone else get the feeling that they intentionally kept Le Tiss away from Thomas?!

I do as well and I said all along that he would be on first game after his octorun, so he wouldn't have to face a reigning champion.

Wouldn't a more likely explanation be that they deliberately started Matt Le Tissier on Wednesday so as to coincide with Graeme Le Saux starting in DC?

I think it was originally meant to be Tony Jacklin and then, when he couldn't make it or something, they decided that they'd get Le Saux in since they knew MLT was starting that day. Or maybe they replaced Jacklin with Le Saux because of MLT. Who knows.

As for the reigning champion thing, that seems a bit silly. Sure, you're likely to be less nervous after your first game, but other than that the format of the show means it doesn't really matter. If Shaun, Georgie and David had had the first two games, MLT would have come up against - and beaten - a one or two-time winner, but it's the same people really. I can understand them putting him at the start of a block for his filming convenience, like I have heard that they like to let players they think will octo have the last eight games of a block - the two most recent octochamps did. But they obviously haven't moved the list around much - not only with Ropey in his 7th game if he gets that far, but I was very nearly beaten by Adam who would probably have made his way through the rest of what was my run and then comfortably beaten MLT in his sixth.

I kind of forget the point I was making. I think they probably plan the schedules a little bit for convenience and things, but don't alter it too much. This includes spreading out some of the good players, but it's definitely not something they make sure to do (and rightly so) - 2-3 of my opponents were octochamp material, and remember the shitstorm that happened when Zarte hit Dylan? People were accusing them of doing that deliberately iirc but it's just luck of the draw. In my opinion. This post is a trainwreck.

Also look at what Graeme said while I was typing this crap out.

('Them' refers to the Countdown team, except for where it obviously doesn't.)

Over the years, loads of people wrote:Willie Wordsmith and Ann Agramfiend were obviously deliberately kept apart because they want the best players to make the finals!

They also wrote:Apta Rite and Conan Drumgod were obviously deliberately put on the same filming day because they don't want so many anagram nerds in the finals!

I wonder which gets posted most? I genuinely don't know. It's probably about equal.

Being completely blunt about it, even though we have no real definitive proof that at this point in time the production team do anything but draw lots, even if they DO - ultimately, they're running a business. If they decide to keep people apart/put people together etc. etc. that's their prerogative, and bitching about either angle isn't really going to become a relevance to them. This shit's always gonna happen whether purposely or because of chance.

Le Saux v Le Tissier for the Ex-Footballer Countdown Championship of Jersey, surely that is the clash we all want to see!
Come on Channel 4, make it happen!
I would make MLT a slight favourite.

lee nixon wrote:Jon Corby if you speak to me like that again then you will regret it.I don't know you or have any wish to.You obviously have a problem with me and a problem in general judging by your language.

The only two things I know about you:

1. You blatantly tried to cheat in your game against Tom.
2. You seem bitter that you had to play Tom and Matt didn't.

Not great.

Edit: oh, and a quick check reveals that you claim you're better than Judy Bursford. Again, good work.

I didn't cheat and I take major issue with saying I'm bitter about playing Tom,I'm not in any way shape or form.I wonder about your mental state when you are attacking someone you don't know and using the language you did.

Jon Corby wrote:1. You blatantly tried to cheat in your game against Tom.

I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary when I saw it at the time, but I've watched the round again on 4od. Lee declared "8, not written down" and when Nick asked for the word, Lee replied. There was a short hesitation while looking at the letters, but is that really enough evidence to call someone a "bitter cheating twat"? How do you know he wasn't trying to decide between, say, PERINOSE^ and PERONIES^, for example?

Graeme Cole wrote:

Jon Corby wrote:1. You blatantly tried to cheat in your game against Tom.

I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary when I saw it at the time, but I've watched the round again on 4od. Lee declared "8, not written down" and when Nick asked for the word, Lee replied. There was a short hesitation while looking at the letters, but is that really enough evidence to call someone a "bitter cheating twat"? How do you know he wasn't trying to decide between, say, PERINOSE^ and PERONIES^, for example?

I noticed it at the time and initially found it quite dodgy, but came to pretty much the same conclusion as Graeme (could've been cheating, but easily could not've been). This all seems a bit unnecessary.

Graeme Cole wrote:

Jon Corby wrote:1. You blatantly tried to cheat in your game against Tom.

I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary when I saw it at the time, but I've watched the round again on 4od. Lee declared "8, not written down" and when Nick asked for the word, Lee replied. There was a short hesitation while looking at the letters, but is that really enough evidence to call someone a "bitter cheating twat"? How do you know he wasn't trying to decide between, say, PERINOSE^ and PERONIES^, for example?

Cheating - It was as plain as day. He was 20 points behind in the last letters game, so he had to not lose the round to Tom to have any chance. He blatantly copies Tom's declaration and then goes looking for it, absolutely no doubt. Of course, if Lee wants to offer an alternative explanation, I'm all ears.

Bitter - it absolutely stinks of bitterness what he's said in this thread. Somebody before did the same thing when they got beaten by Neil McKenzie (wait, was he called Lee as well? Is there something in the name?)

Twat - see pretty much Lee's only other posts ("I'm better than Judy Bursford").

Plus of course Lee is the only one actually making threats here.

Tragic.

Let's not forget that Matt Le Tissier is Corby's all-time hero, and anything that might come across as undermining his results is clearly going to meet the full force of Corby. I wonder what will happen if Matt Le Tissier himself pauses for too long during a numbers solution or before declaring his word length.

I would watch Lee's declaration in that round again, but the adverts on All 4 put me off too much.

Jon Corby wrote:

John Garcia wrote:4th numbers alt:
100+50+10-1 = 159; 75/25=3; 159x3=477. Not as elegant as Rachel's method, but got it within time at least.

Shut your fucking horse you bitter cheating twat.

Ok it was just after the gong! I didn't think another couple of seconds would matter either way.

Changing the subject but still relating to this edition, I just wonder what the reason was for disallowing David from correcting his declaration in the surrogate round. He changed it quickly before Matt declared so it didn't determine his opponent's declaration. It just seems an unnecessary rule and I don't think it used to be that way.
In an earlier round Matt probably did lose points because David offered a word which included a letter that wasn't in the selection (mortise) and Matt risked a 7 (which wasn't valid) as a result when he would probably have scored with a safe 6 instead.

I think MLT is better than most of you are giving him credit for. He's pretty much not missed any non-apterous words, and his numbers are top drawer (see the elegance of his 784 solve). He'd have given me a decent game in my lounge in all the matches - on the show I wouldn't want to be facing him at all. As one of you said, 1300-1400 standard - my mum actually asked me if he plays apterous by a pseudonym he was that good.