c4countdown

Well, I'm actually starting a Friday spoiler for once.

Ryan made a very promising start yesterday and hopefully this can continue up till the 16th, when he'd have to step down, of course.

I must admit I was surprised to find out he was ginger. I have nothing against gingers, nothing against Ryan, Charlie, Dinos, any others I haven't mentioned. My sister is ginger after all.

I think Dr. Hilary Jones has been an interesting guest in DC this week. Is he the best doctor that's been in DC? Or does Dr. Phil Hammond (another ginger of course) get the vote?

Still, let's hope we have a good end to the week.

P.S. I hope there will be a good end to the week since my team have got Dagenham & Redbridge in the FA Cup tonight! Come on you Terriers!

Looking forward to Doctor Hilar(it)y's anecdote today
Hope it's another mistaken identity gem.

Hillary has been excellent - i had expected to be fast forwarding his stories but they were ok... though id presume he wouldnt have enough mistaken identity stories to have another week in DC!

Well, I had QUISLING but I don't know if I'd have had the courage to declare it. One of those words I've heard but haven't every used, so wouldn't have been 100% convinced of the spelling.

MORPHED for a DC equaller.

MORPHED

UNDERGONE

NOUMENAL, round 9.

Marc Meakin wrote:MORPHED

Pants to you Meakin, for peakin' me - though do you see that clever trick of editingmy own quote ands thus getting my offering in first in the thread?

Ha!

COALMEN

((8+3)*7+25)*9+1 for second numbers.
Oh, Rachel got it. Thought she might.

Marc Meakin wrote:UNDERGONE

Only one N????

Sue Sanders wrote:

Marc Meakin wrote:UNDERGONE

Only one N????

Yep, there was an M in the selection. Thought MONGERED might be there for 8 but no.

Sue Sanders wrote:

Marc Meakin wrote:UNDERGONE

Only one N????

Doh

What, 2 Q's in one show.
Unheard of

Wot no numbers solution from RR

Was that you in the back row, Sue?

R14
6x3x2 = 30
30+4=34
8+5=13
34X13= 442

(8+5) x ((3+2)x6+4) = 442

Marc Meakin wrote:What, 2 Q's in one show.
Unheard of

Good spot. This continues into next week's shows as well as two Ws which I think isn't right either.

Liam Tiernan wrote:Was that you in the back row, Sue?

Ha - Do I seem like a 'skulking in the back row' kinda girl?!

Well played Ryan. I love the fact you can impress with your apterous-knowledge of DAIKON and GUERDON yet miss ADIPOSE and DONATED. Funny old game is Countdown.

By the way, I thought FILAGREE was an excellent spot (I missed it myself).

Also, dunno who was in the audience but their screams nearly deafened me at the end! They sounded well excited to get their voices on TV.

Sue Sanders wrote:

Liam Tiernan wrote:Was that you in the back row, Sue?

Ha - Do I seem like a 'skulking in the back row' kinda girl?!

Ehm, let me think for a minute here.




No.

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Marc Meakin wrote:What, 2 Q's in one show.
Unheard of

Good spot. This continues into next week's shows as well as two Ws which I think isn't right either.

There were two Ys as well today in rounds 2 & 3.
This does seem odd. Have they changed the letter distribution or were the letters reshuffled for some reason?

I agree Kirk, I realised I'd missed ADIPOSE when they went over to DC and thats when I spotted it about a minute too late and as for DONATED I was so set on an E coming out for ANECDOTE that I had nothing written down for that round and just fudged DONATE, realising immediately there was a D to add, this was definitely nerves getting to me! I was even more tense when I declared 443 knowing that he could have got 442. When the cameras go to the audience you can see in the top left of your screen a bearded man with a big grin on his face with his hand up. From the moment I sat down in the chair against Jeremy he caught my eye and he kept cheering me on throughout, so when I was getting words to beat Jeremy and Chris I would look at him and he'd give me a big thumbs up! It helped me settle a bit more.

Cool. And isn't Chris Civil on apterous? Another battle of apterites.

Yes when I was speaking about Apterous in the green room he said he had been on but not much, he also mentioned how he had just got back into playing scrabble too so of course I was quite worried! FILAGREE settled me down though and I was genuinely calm up until round 11.

Another way to get 442 would have been
6x8 = 48
-3 = 45
x5 = 225
-4 = 221 x 2
but i certainly didn't do that in time. Nice though

Well done Ryan and hard luck Chris.

Oh and Ryan, was the bearded dude the guy who got the conundrum... he was chuffed!

No, top left, real big beard, grinning away he was!

Once again conratulations Ryan, you were the worthy victor.

I wouldn't want to sully the good name of apterous by claiming to be an apterite, the bulk of my preparation was done with lexpert until I realised all too late that the dictionaries varied greatly between the two.

Chris Civil wrote:Once again conratulations Ryan, you were the worthy victor.

I wouldn't want to sully the good name of apterous by claiming to be an apterite, the bulk of my preparation was done with lexpert until I realised all too late that the dictionaries varied greatly between the two.

Yep, unless you've learnt words specifically for Countdown you pretty much have to forget all vaguely unusual Scrabble words.

Well done again Ryan, although I DIDN'T ENJOY the round where you blatantly didn't have a seven (SOAPIES), heard your opponent declare seven, then declared a seven not written down, then actually looked for one. I think that's kinda cheating, and I'm glad it wasn't in. It's one thing to risk a seven if your opponent has one, quite another to only start looking for one to offer after you've heard their declaration.

Jon Corby wrote:Well done again Ryan, although I DIDN'T ENJOY the round where you blatantly didn't have a seven (SOAPIES), heard your opponent declare seven, then declared a seven not written down, then actually looked for one. I think that's kinda cheating, and I'm glad it wasn't in. It's one thing to risk a seven if your opponent has one, quite another to only start looking for one to offer after you've heard their declaration.

Man - lighten up although I see your point. I remember Eamonn Timmins did this against Chris Cummins. Chris said "9" and Eamonn shot to his screen and said "9...not written down" and then found REGIMENTS.

Any round containing 'not written down' declarations by players declaring second suggests that they got it after the time (especially in numbers rounds).
Unless there is a rule change there will always be a doubt.

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Jon Corby wrote:Well done again Ryan, although I DIDN'T ENJOY the round where you blatantly didn't have a seven (SOAPIES), heard your opponent declare seven, then declared a seven not written down, then actually looked for one. I think that's kinda cheating, and I'm glad it wasn't in. It's one thing to risk a seven if your opponent has one, quite another to only start looking for one to offer after you've heard their declaration.

Man - lighten up although I see your point. I remember Eamonn Timmins did this against Chris Cummins. Chris said "9" and Eamonn shot to his screen and said "9...not written down" and then found REGIMENTS.

Don't think I saw that, but I'd definitely also class that as cheating from what you describe.

Jon Corby wrote:Well done again Ryan, although I DIDN'T ENJOY the round where you blatantly didn't have a seven (SOAPIES), heard your opponent declare seven, then declared a seven not written down, then actually looked for one. I think that's kinda cheating, and I'm glad it wasn't in. It's one thing to risk a seven if your opponent has one, quite another to only start looking for one to offer after you've heard their declaration.

That may or may not have been Ryan's tactic in that particular round, but it's worth noticing that in practically every round so far he's tended to sit back in his chair when asked to declare, then when asked for his word he suddenly leans forward and looks over his paper. Being of a generally charitable frame of mind, I put this down to nerves and momentarily blanking out when asked for his word.

Marc Meakin wrote:Any round containing 'not written down' declarations by players declaring second suggests that they got it after the time (especially in numbers rounds).
Unless there is a rule change there will always be a doubt.

Not really, it's quite common to spot something dead on the time; and with numbers, writing a legible solution can easily take several seconds anyway. There's a big difference between spotting a word on the time (or being slightly unsure of a late calculation), and blatantly looking for a word of [n] letters yourself after hearing an opponent declare one. Obviously had Ryan acted better, I wouldn't be so sure that was what had definitely happened here, and I'd have probably just eyed it slightly suspiciously rather than post about it. There actually isn't really any reason not to have your word written down, and for you to be given a seconds or so grace to finish writing if you're blatantly already writing when the clock music dies. We've already had this discussion in this thread though so I won't go over it again.
(Can't recall if I ever declared not written down on a letters game)

Phil Reynolds wrote:Being of a generally charitable frame of mind, I put this down to nerves and momentarily blanking out when asked for his word.

I'm sure he'll be along shortly to clear this up

I saw it and thought it at the time, but too lazy slash didn't care enough to type out a post about it.
But now it's been said, then yeah - just showing some support for Jon, definitely agree with him.

Just watched this on 4OD. Great game! Brilliant stuff from both Ryan (no relation!) and Chris.

Despite getting both ADIPOSE and QUISLING, I lost against both contestants, which happened in Ryan's previous game against Jeremy, too. This doesn't happen to me very often (losing to both players), which indicates the high calibre of contestant that Ryan is still managing to beat.

This should run and run!

Matt Morrison wrote:But now it's been said, then yeah - just showing some support for Jon, definitely agree with him.

Cheers bro. I'm surprised anyone thinks otherwise tbh, but it seems they do. Above and beyond the whole "well, by the rules you can do it" I do think it shows a certain personality trait which I'm not at all fond of (particularly while being 27 points ahead in the final third).

(In my CoCSF against Charlie it took me about 0.1s to spot DOLOMITE (I actually mouthed "SHIT!" quite clearly) once he'd declared 8, having already declared myself. Had the declarations been the other way around, there's no way on earth that I would have tried to claim it. I probably would have mentioned that I had now seen the eight to save a bit of face, but I'd never have tried to get the points)

I'd have thought if you've seen the word before you're asked, it's OK. Even if you only saw it because you're opponent's declaration suggested it was there. If declare 7 when you haven't got a 7, hoping to spot one, that's a different matter.

David Roe wrote:I'd have thought if you've seen the word before you're asked, it's OK. Even if you only saw it because you're opponent's declaration suggested it was there. If declare 7 when you haven't got a 7, hoping to spot one, that's a different matter.

Hmm tricky can of worms this. Sometimes you might *know* there is a nine there (as you've remembered the stem as, say, ROUTINED + I) but only see ROUTINED and when Jeff asks you you risk it and say "9 not written down" hoping that a few more seconds will be enough for the 9 to hit you....and it might do: ERUDITION.

David Roe wrote:I'd have thought if you've seen the word before you're asked, it's OK. Even if you only saw it because you're opponent's declaration suggested it was there. If declare 7 when you haven't got a 7, hoping to spot one, that's a different matter.

I'd say that's cheating. It's amazing how knowing someone has found an 8/9 helps you find it. It's nice that you can't do this tactic on apterous. You can have a risky 8/9 keyed in which you might use depending on your opponent's declaration (if you see it first) but you can't go looking for new words based on it. I like that a lot.

I did actually have SOAPIES written down on my paper but discarded it as not a word, when hearing Chris declare 7 I did look to see if there was a more plausible 7 but I couldn't find it and so went with the improbable SOAPIES. I don't think it shows a personality trait by looking after the time at all, the aim of Countdown is to beat your opponent and if that meant trying to spot a 7 after the time then I thought that was OK. On this occasion I didn't spot a word after the time. Also on apterous against Kirk the other day I had a 7 knowing he had an 8 and I entered 'M' into the box as a gamble to stall the time and after the time I saw MERIDIAN. I wouldn't class that as cheating or unsporting.

Ryan Taylor wrote:I did actually have SOAPIES written down on my paper but discarded it as not a word, when hearing Chris declare 7 I did look to see if there was a more plausible 7 but I couldn't find it and so went with the improbable SOAPIES. I don't think it shows a personality trait by looking after the time at all, the aim of Countdown is to beat your opponent and if that meant trying to spot a 7 after the time then I thought that was OK. On this occasion I didn't spot a word after the time. Also on apterous against Kirk the other day I had a 7 knowing he had an 8 and I entered 'M' into the box as a gamble to stall the time and after the time I saw MERIDIAN. I wouldn't class that as cheating or unsporting.

That's pretty much the same thing in that you're looking for a seven after your opponent's declaration. The fact that you'd written something down (when you said it wasn't written down) which you didn't want to use isn't particularly here or there. There's a big difference between this and your situation with Kirk - you didn't "know" he had an 8, you thought there was an 8, and you thought it likely started with "M" (I get shit like that all the time where I think I recognise selections and can almost remember a word but not quite). That's fine. Very different, can you honestly not see that?

I did actually know on that occasion that Kirk had an 8.

Ryan Taylor wrote:I did actually know on that occasion that Kirk had an 8.

Oh. How?

On chat

Ryan Taylor wrote:On chat

Oh right. That's not really relevant then, is it?

no

lol