Countdown tips

[mark patterson]

Hiya, completely new here and only recently got interested in Countdown. Anyway, one thing I've noticed that there aren't many actual tips on the web about how to maximise your scores at home when watching Countdown. I mean like strategies to pursue, particular combinations of letters you should look for, etc. Is it the case that Countdown fans don't wish to talk about simple tips (I'm sure most of you are already pretty good), or is it simply that everyone has their own way of doing things? I personally sometimes get words through intuition, but I find that I could probably get more if I knew what to look for, and I miss a lot of obvious ones (like PAINTERS in particular, gets me everytime!).

Sorry if this is a little elementary to some of you, I'm just curious.

[Dinos Sfyris]

Hi Mark, first of all welcome to the group

In response to your question (which others will probably elaborate upon better than I) probably the easiest way to improve your game is to look out for common endings ie -ING, -ED, -ER, -IER, -EST, -IES, -ISE etc. Of course there are other words like SUNSHINE and TIRAMISU which don't follow any pattern and its just down to your ability to spot them.

Apart from that its really just down to experience. After watching so many games you get a feel for which words are allowed and which aren't eg PATIOED isnt allowed but its anagram OPIATED is. So next time you see PATIOED your brain makes the connection and you remember OPIATED.

Other tips include add-ons: letters that you can add to words to make them longer
eg LATRINE+N=INTERNAL
and CANTERS makes an 8 with any vowel: CATERANS, SARCENET, CANISTER, ANCESTOR, CENTAURS

Hope that helps

[mark patterson]

Cheers! I thought that endings might be something people focused on. One thing I hate is when I look at a set of letters, thinking there must be something there but I just can't see it!

[Jennifer Turner]

Simple tip which may or may not be obvious: don't write the letters down in one line, write them in a 3x3 block or "cloud".

Other endings I look for are -ABLE, -IBLE, -NESS, -LESS, -FUL.

[mark patterson]

Thanks Jennifer. That reminds me, do other people find it helps to write the letters down?

[David Roe]

Big help to write the letters down. I do consonants on top, vowels underneath. But that's unusual, and numbers are my strong point anyway.

When you're actually on the show, write the letters down at least twice, maybe three times, as they come out. Then if you want to check a word is all there, or you've spotted an ending like -ing, you can cross out the letters as you go but still have a clean set to work with.

[mark patterson]

Thanks David, good tips. You won't catch me actually going on the show though I'd embarrass myself!

[Martin Gardner]

Check out what I wrote on anagrams and anagramming (Countdown - General)... that basically outlines my personal experience of learning to play Countdown. I'm a bit disappointed there weren't more replies to that messages

[mark patterson]

Without giving away anything about today's show, your advice is helping!

[Matt Coates]

i have got a tip for the numbers, but everybody uses it i think.

if you get a 50 1 7 2 3 3 and the total is 686

you can go 7 x 2 = 14 x 50 = 700, and you need to take away another 14 but you only have 3, 3, and 1 left

then you go 7 x 2 = 14 x (50-1) = 686

hope that helps, i use that method quite a lot, and it works quite well

[Jennifer Turner]

Another tip for the numbers game: it takes less practice than you'd think to get used to multiplying by 6, 7, 8 and 9. Many contestants lose it a bit when they don't have a five or ten to multiply by, but if you know up to 9x9 and have a pencil and pad to write the solution down, then you can multiply anything.

And remember, you don't always need to use the big numbers as multiplicands. One of Carol's frequently-used techniques (but which contestants almost never use) is to multiply smaller numbers to, for example, 75 away, and then add or subtract the 75 at the end. You might find this technique comes in useful perhaps once a week - the trick is not so much doing it as remembering that you can do it, and recognising the opportunity when it arises. Again, it's mostly a matter of practice.

[Kirk Bevins]

Jennifer said write the letters in a 3x3 formation and somebody else said a good tip is to write the letters down. However, these don't always work. Conor, arguably one of the greatest players of all time, does not write the letters down at all and prefers seeing the letters in a line as displayed on TV.

Practice is the best way to go to the top. Obviously when you start you're looking for -ED, -IER, -IEST or -ING endings but as you progress you recognise sets of letters - so you see POINTEDA is ANTIPODE with no reason to look for -ED endings. Some people (like I used to and still do) learn things like this as POINTED + A or indeed POINTED + PAINTED. Lots of practice will help you spot words from a set of jumbled letters.

I have a book which I have written down words to help me spot real words - e.g. if I spot COMSOLE^ (nearly CONSOLE but a common beginning) I would offer the word COELOMS. LOOIEST^ is OSTIOLE and so on.

Hope this helps. (The ^ mean these are not real words)

[Martin Gardner]

I don't actually look at the letters during the letters rounds, I can usually just remember them. What I'm at home that is, in the studio I checked every word about 15 times before declaring it, but at home I just need to look at the letters once and I can retain them. As I said in my previous post, the letters is 95% about memory, you're not actually doing anagrams but just recalling ones you have already done in the past. So POINTED + A as Kirk suggested, I wouldn't have to "anagram" the letters every time it comes up, I just need to recognise the letters are there and recall ANTIPODE. You can get some strange words doing it this way, as the order of the letters within the word doesn't matter. FAMOUS + T = SFUMATO is another good one.

Martin

[Martin Gardner]

Looking at recent games, a very good tip would be to just check your own solutions. How many times this series has a player gone for a word and found that not all the letters are there? From example we had AROMAS recently when there was only one A.

So my tip is to write the letters down and make a mark against the ones you've used, or at least touch the letters with your pen in which case you're more likely to notice that there's only one A, one E, etc. The same applies to numbers, I think it was Tuesday when a contestant used the 7 twice and would have otherwise got 10 points. It's things like that which are the difference between losing 110 - 40 or losing 90 - 60.

Martin

[Joseph Bolas]

So my tip is to write the letters down and make a mark against the ones you've used, or at least touch the letters with your pen in which case you're more likely to notice that there's only one A, one E, etc. The same applies to numbers, I think it was Tuesday when a contestant used the 7 twice and would have otherwise got 10 points. It's things like that which are the difference between losing 110 - 40 or losing 90 - 60.

When I was on, I remember using my fingers to cover up the letters on the monitor, so you could also try covering the letters up on the TV as you are playing along at home.

EDIT: Or I suppose you could also use a packet of Countdown cards and pick the letters out as Carol puts them on the board and then that way you wont have any letters that aren't there.

[Jason Larsen]

Everyone has their own way of playing Countdown.