c4countdown

So, we've already reached the week's end, but to finish off our 5 preliminaries this week, we have a "young guns" battle of maths v words.

We have Series 71 semi-finalist (and numbers king, if you read UKGameshows.com's Review of 2014) George Ford, against the Series 69 quarter-finalist, who certainly has plenty of words coming out of her all the time, Jen Steadman.

Statistics Corner:

Firstly, Series 71 Semi-Finalist George "The Whittlesey Warrior" Ford - 10 Games, 9 Wins, 999 Points. (Average: 99.9)
Highest Score: 114 vs. John Payne (2nd Game)
Lowest Score: 77 vs. Dan McColm (Semi-Final)
9's Achieved: 1/1
Total Points/Max/%: 999/1233 (81%)
Letters Points/Max/%: 597/739 (81%)
Numbers Points/Max/%: 352/394 (89%)
Conundrum Points/Max/%: 50/100 (50%)

Secondly, Series 69 Quarter-Finalist Jen "The Paddock Wood Princess" Steadman - 9 Games, 8 Wins, 1,057 Points. (Average: 117.44)
Highest Score: 130 vs. Ian Toulson (4th Game)
Lowest Score: 104 vs. Peter Etherington (1st Game)
9's Achieved: 5/6
Total Points/Max/%: 1057/1157 (91%)
Letters Points/Max/%: 672/710 (95%)
Numbers Points/Max/%: 325/357 (91%)
Conundrum Points/Max/%: 60/90 (67%)

Join Anthony for the recap later.

James Robinson wrote:Series 69 semi-finalist... Jen Steadman.

Thanks for improving my street cred, but I'm actually Only A Quarter Finalist Jen Steadman

PERFECTO in R2

Remember being confused as to why PERFECT didn't prompt anyone in DC to put the O on the end at the time.

Zarte Siempre wrote:Remember being confused as to why PERFECT didn't prompt anyone in DC to put the O on the end at the time.

As soon as George said it I saw that, and asked Susie if it was in as they were turning the numbers board around.

Good spirited game, well done both. Strong stuff as Nick would say.

Alt first numbers: 50x6+100/(75-25)
Hoped to beat OATMEAL with OMOPLATE, but latter is Scrabble only

Ford PREFECT would have been more appropriate than Ford PERFECT as it turned out.

Well played Jen!

Got the conundrum quickly as, uniquely among those we've seen so far in CoC, it was used before -- anyone know when?

Johnny Canuck wrote:Got the conundrum quickly as, uniquely among those we've seen so far in CoC, it was used before -- anyone know when?

It was used at some point in the 30th BC, not sure exactly which game it was though.

Jennifer Steadman wrote:

James Robinson wrote:Series 69 semi-finalist... Jen Steadman.

Thanks for improving my street cred, but I'm actually Only A Quarter Finalist Jen Steadman

Even more bizarrely, I had Quarter-Finalist written down on the stats....

Dan McColm wrote:

Johnny Canuck wrote:Got the conundrum quickly as, uniquely among those we've seen so far in CoC, it was used before -- anyone know when?

It was used at some point in the 30th BC, not sure exactly which game it was though.

Game 2, Wayne Kelly v Nick Wainwright. Bizarrely, I got it in the 30BC game while watching it at home, but no while watching this game in the audience

Great show today, lovely atmosphere to the game. High standard too, obviously (though Jen wasn't as good as Dylan yesterday).

Is there another way to make the 302 other than the standard 4L way? George's little smirk as 302 came out made me lol. Probably not what he was hoping for though!

Jon Corby wrote: Is there another way to make the 302 other than the standard 4L way? George's little smirk as 302 came out made me lol. Probably not what he was hoping for though!

50x6 = 300, then you can do 100/(75-25) for the 2 to add on

Dan McColm wrote:

Jon Corby wrote: Is there another way to make the 302 other than the standard 4L way? George's little smirk as 302 came out made me lol. Probably not what he was hoping for though!

50x6 = 300, then you can do 100/(75-25) for the 2 to add on

Of course.

By the way, George's other 4l was brilliant (I did a mundane 9*25+100 way). I can't even remember what it was now, but I remember not being able to follow exactly what he'd done. Anyone want to explain?

Jon Corby wrote:By the way, George's other 4l was brilliant (I did a mundane 9*25+100 way). I can't even remember what it was now, but I remember not being able to follow exactly what he'd done. Anyone want to explain?

((9 + 2) * 50 + 75 * 100) / 25 = 322

He's doing (75 * 100) / 25 which would be 300, but he's adding 550 before dividing by 25 so as to add 22 to the result.

The first time George went through his working, Rachel wrote down an intermediate sum wrong, so when they got to the last step, it was 8100/25 rather than the correct 8050/25. Rachel seemed to have followed the overall reason why the solution worked, so didn't see a problem with his working, but then someone told Rachel in her earpiece that 8100/25 is actually 324, and it looked to me and presumably to most of the audience like George had messed it up.

George said he definitely thought it was right, and then the mistake further up the board was discovered. Fair play to him, he must have been pretty confident that he was right to challenge it like that.

Ah yeah thanks, that makes sense. Really impressive stuff, shame for him that there were more straightforward routes for it (and that the first one was quite routine).

Just finished watching this now,yet another high quality game, excellent performance from Jennifer, George didn't do an awful lot wrong.
Re Gloria's Bee Gees story, they have previous form for behaving like tossers, in fact they used to be called Les Tossers!

Really good game!! George and Jen were both excellent there. George was unlucky in a few of his rounds there.

My 332 method was different, took me a min or two to get (I paused 40D when clock finished, I feel kind of brain dead hence the amount of time to do it, I'm not on form tonight at all)

((((75*2)+9)*50)+100)/25

That's a cool method as well. But I'm afraid you declared 332 so you get no points.

Thanks guys this game was great fun to record

SPEARGUN coming up was clearly a bad omen for George (cf. Episode 6054, his other loss)

Graeme Cole wrote:The first time George went through his working, Rachel wrote down an intermediate sum wrong, so when they got to the last step, it was 8100/25 rather than the correct 8050/25. Rachel seemed to have followed the overall reason why the solution worked, so didn't see a problem with his working, but then someone told Rachel in her earpiece that 8100/25 is actually 324.

You are the Ref!

Did Rachel do the intermediate sum herself, did George do it wrong, or did George do it right and Rachel write it down wrong? Should George have noticed immediately if the mistake was Rachel's? And all the wonderful variants of when the mistake is discovered and who by. For example, George risks a bizarre nine because he's 15 points down and gets lucky. When the mistake is spotted Jen points out that he wouldn't have gone for it if he'd known he was only five points down.

Thank God it was sorted quickly. We'd be debating it for months.

David Williams wrote:

Graeme Cole wrote:The first time George went through his working, Rachel wrote down an intermediate sum wrong, so when they got to the last step, it was 8100/25 rather than the correct 8050/25. Rachel seemed to have followed the overall reason why the solution worked, so didn't see a problem with his working, but then someone told Rachel in her earpiece that 8100/25 is actually 324.

You are the Ref!

Did Rachel do the intermediate sum herself, did George do it wrong, or did George do it right and Rachel write it down wrong? Should George have noticed immediately if the mistake was Rachel's? And all the wonderful variants of when the mistake is discovered and who by. For example, George risks a bizarre nine because he's 15 points down and gets lucky. When the mistake is spotted Jen points out that he wouldn't have gone for it if he'd known he was only five points down.

Thank God it was sorted quickly. We'd be debating it for months.

George gave the correct working, but Rachel wrote something down wrong. I don't remember if she accidentally wrote down 7550 for 75*10 or if the mistake was in mis-summing 7500 and 550, but somehow they ended up with 8100 written on the board.

I wouldn't say that the contestant has to know what their intermediate results are, and certainly shouldn't be expected to be on the lookout for the rare instance of Rachel writing a result on the board incorrectly. As long as their working is correct it's fine. No controversy here.