Spoilers for Wednesday, April 1st

[Ben Hunter]

Jerry Springer.

[Ray Folwell]

Monday ???

MILEAGE & EPILATE in R4

[Ben Hunter]

Monday ???

I'm losing my mind.

[tomrowell]

JERRY JERRY JERRY

[Matt Morrison]

Monday ???

I'm losing my mind.

I'm glad it was a mistake Ben, I'd thought for a moment it was an ill-conceived April Fool's 'joke'

[Ben Hunter]

BRINIER for round 9.

[Phil Reynolds]

Simpler round 10:

(4 x 25 + 10 - 7) x 9

[Martin Gardner]

Impressive stuff from Cate. One of the best female players in recent memory, just behind Grace Page perhaps.

[Ben Hunter]

Jeff said that she's currently the number 3 seed, but I'm pretty sure she's number 2 seed, can anyone confirm?

[Ray Folwell]

Jeff said that she's currently the number 3 seed, but I'm pretty sure she's number 2 seed, can anyone confirm?

Yes, she's overtaken Neil's 758.

[Kirk Bevins]

Jeff said that she's currently the number 3 seed, but I'm pretty sure she's number 2 seed, can anyone confirm?

Yes, she's overtaken Neil's 758.

Yeah, I saw this game in the studio and Jeff said number 3 seed and last night I looked at the tables and realised she'd be #2 seed and thought they'd edit out Jeff's comment but they didn't. You never know, if Mr Gough does well and slips into #2 seed, then Cate may finish as #3 seed and Jeff would be correct!

Also, Tom, we did chant JERRY JERRY JERRY when he walked into the studios!

I had a DC beater in round 3 with AMYLASE and a beater with EPIGEAL in round 4.

[Kathleen Batlle]

Congratulations Cate, great performance. I look forward to seeing you again in the finals. Didn't anyone spot TOOTLED in round 7?

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

An excellent string of games by Cate, and all using pretty standard words rather than the obscure that we have become used to.

I like the way she said she suddenly became competitive! Look out in the finals, boys

[Kirk Bevins]

An excellent string of games by Cate, and all using pretty standard words rather than the obscure that we have become used to.

What's wrong with obscure words?

[Tracey Lilly]

Congratulations Cate, great performance. I look forward to seeing you again in the finals. Didn't anyone spot TOOTLED in round 7?

I did!

[Dinos Sfyris]

You never know, if Mr Gough does well and slips into #2 seed...

Ha. Love the way you imply its inconceivable he could be #1 seed

[Dinos Sfyris]

Also how shoddy were the letters today? Think there was only one 8 in the entire game. Wouldn't be surprised if a few people armchair-maxed that as I had 13 maxes. Thought I was on for a max game but then bottled it and missed ANIONS (Although unbeknown to me I'd already missed BRINIER) Still I was happy to prevent Cate from scoring until round 5

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

An excellent string of games by Cate, and all using pretty standard words rather than the obscure that we have become used to.

What's wrong with obscure words?

Nothing wrong with them at all, it just feels better to have been beaten by a word I should have seen rather than one I've never heard of.

[Howard Somerset]

Jeff said that she's currently the number 3 seed, but I'm pretty sure she's number 2 seed, can anyone confirm?

Not only is she number 2 seed, but she's guaranteed a top eight spot and a place in the finals. There are only 55 games left before the finals start and it would take a minimum of 56 for her to be overtaken into 9th place.

[Kirk Bevins]

Nothing wrong with them at all, it just feels better to have been beaten by a word I should have seen rather than one I've never heard of.

Does it? Hmmm. I was wondering about this when I went on - do I offer a word like REARMOST which might get my opponent kicking themselves as they knew the word, or do I offer ROTAMERS which might scare my opponent. I spent ages deciding what to do until a few people said that most people *can* get REARMOST so if you've put the effort in to learn ROTAMERS then offer that instead, so that's what I did - always offered the more obscure word if I could. I had to be 100% sure it was in else I wouldn't offer it - it nearly burnt my back when I had HEDARIM initially disallowed.

[Ben Hunter]

Does it? Hmmm. I was wondering about this when I went on - do I offer a word like REARMOST which might get my opponent kicking themselves as they knew the word, or do I offer ROTAMERS which might scare my opponent. I spent ages deciding what to do until a few people said that most people *can* get REARMOST so if you've put the effort in to learn ROTAMERS then offer that instead, so that's what I did - always offered the more obscure word if I could. I had to be 100% sure it was in else I wouldn't offer it - it nearly burnt my back when I had HEDARIM initially disallowed.

I've not given it much thought, but I reckon the best way to sting your opponent is to declare 'normal' words when you've beaten them, and declare obscure words when you've equalled them (I'm going off doing this on Apterous now though, for various reasons). I know from playing Apterous that when I get beaten by (or if DC declares) an obscure word then I simply think, "oh well, I'll know that for next time," but if it's a word I know then I kick myself throughout the rest of the game, which hurts my performance.

[Charlie Reams]

I've not given it much thought, but I reckon the best way to sting your opponent is to declare 'normal' words when you've beaten them, and declare obscure words when you've equalled them (I'm going off doing this on Apterous now though, for various reasons). I know from playing Apterous that when I get beaten by (or if DC declares) an obscure word then I simply think, "oh well, I'll know that for next time," but if it's a word I know then I kick myself throughout the rest of the game, which hurts my performance.

Interesting point. I think the same psychology would work on a lot of other players too, although personally I get equally annoyed (or not) when I miss stuff regardless of what my opponent does. But maybe that's just because I only play for fun now so I'm not particularly competitive about it, I just like seeing the words in bold.

My experience is that people at different levels of ability have different ideas of what's good. The only word I got in all 15 of my appearances that impressed my dad was NARCOTISE, which any decent player would spot instantly, but obscure nines are more superficially impressive than darrenic sixes. On the other hand I got TEKTITE against Kirk the other day, which impressed him because it's super-low probability (and because he had a 4.) So if you're going for maximum intimidation of the opponent, you have to adjust to how good you think they are, too.