c4countdown

I'm sure most of you will have heard of Bacon numbers- the ridiculous phenomenon on the internet whereby every actor can be linked, six degrees of separation style, to Kevin Bacon (using imdb.com as a reference).

The question is, is it possible to link everybody who's ever appeared on the show to Mr. Bevins in this manner, using on-screen and co-event performances? A lot of people are going to emerge with Bevins numbers of 1 (myself included) but it'd be a relatively (allegedly) interesting thing to predict/work out what and where the highest Bevins number would come from- I'd hazard a guess it'd be around the 1997-1998 era. Indeed, there may even be people with infinite Bevins numbers. Anybody feel up to the task of calculating them?

There should be quite a few players with Scrabble connections who would rate a 2 on the scale.

So if we're just looking at Countdowning, rather than just meeting IRL...

Michael Wallace
Stu Horsey (series 55)
Richard Brittain (series 55)
Jon Corby (CoC XIII)
Kirk Bevins (heaps of Co-events, presumably)

Possibly stupid question - what counts as a link?

Gavin Chipper wrote:Possibly stupid question - what counts as a link?

Having played in a game (on screen or at a co-event) is the only acceptable link for these purposes. Once I get my hard drive restored by those arse-scratching apes at PC world I'll post a complete list somewhere.

In the normal run, everyone in a series will be connected, so long as no champion retires undefeated and does not appear in the finals. And successive series are linked by CoC

Just had a look, and I see the winner of the last ordinary programme before the Supreme Championship qualified for the series quarter-finals, so two new players appeared in the next ordinary programme. So every player before that time will be linked to Harvey Freeman, but then there's a potential gap.

But that's the only one. The last daily champion before the next two CoC's reappeared in the following series, and I imagine everyone since must be linked by co-events. And presumably the earlier group will also be linked with the rest by second-chancers and specials. So I reckon everyone who has ever played is connected to everyone else.

David Williams wrote:In the normal run, everyone in a series will be connected, so long as no champion retires undefeated and does not appear in the finals. And successive series are linked by CoC

Just had a look, and I see the winner of the last ordinary programme before the Supreme Championship qualified for the series quarter-finals, so two new players appeared in the next ordinary programme. So every player before that time will be linked to Harvey Freeman, but then there's a potential gap.

But that's the only one. The last daily champion before the next two CoC's reappeared in the following series, and I imagine everyone since must be linked by co-events. And presumably the earlier group will also be linked with the rest by second-chancers and specials. So I reckon everyone who has ever played is connected to everyone else.

There was a ladies' mini-series during Cheltenham week in 2003 which crossed the SC divide, as did the special between Mike Brown and Nita Marr. Not sure if there are any others, but in any event that should be sufficient to make sure that everyone who's appeared in a televised game is linked through televised games only.

Unless I'm not noticing something, everyone who played between Judith Young finishing her octorun and Frank Mulvey "retiring" in Series 53 is isolated from the rest. Don't know whether or not any of them have been in co-events or anything though.

Innis Carson wrote:Unless I'm not noticing something, everyone who played between Judith Young finishing her octorun and Frank Mulvey "retiring" in Series 53 is isolated from the rest. Don't know whether or not any of them have been in co-events or anything though.

""retiring""?

Innis Carson wrote:Unless I'm not noticing something, everyone who played between Judith Young finishing her octorun and Frank Mulvey "retiring" in Series 53 is isolated from the rest. Don't know whether or not any of them have been in co-events or anything though.

Good spot.

Clive Brooker wrote:There was a ladies' mini-series during Cheltenham week in 2003 which crossed the SC divide, as did the special between Mike Brown and Nita Marr. Not sure if there are any others, but in any event that should be sufficient to make sure that everyone who's appeared in a televised game is linked through televised games only.

Eventually, but not yet for the most recent contestants.

David Williams wrote:

Clive Brooker wrote:There was a ladies' mini-series during Cheltenham week in 2003 which crossed the SC divide, as did the special between Mike Brown and Nita Marr. Not sure if there are any others, but in any event that should be sufficient to make sure that everyone who's appeared in a televised game is linked through televised games only.

Eventually, but not yet for the most recent contestants.

Now I'm wondering what else I'm missing. Aren't all recent contestants linked to everyone else via the first appearances of second chancers?

Clive Brooker wrote:

David Williams wrote:

Clive Brooker wrote:There was a ladies' mini-series during Cheltenham week in 2003 which crossed the SC divide, as did the special between Mike Brown and Nita Marr. Not sure if there are any others, but in any event that should be sufficient to make sure that everyone who's appeared in a televised game is linked through televised games only.

Eventually, but not yet for the most recent contestants.

Now I'm wondering what else I'm missing. Aren't all recent contestants linked to everyone else via the first appearances of second chancers?

Just that when an octochamp retires, anyone appearing after that is not linked via the show until the series finals.

If you're counting co-event clashes, let's see I've had to play Kirk at 5 out of 7 co-events I've been to (the first 5 coincidentally) If we disallow co-events the onscreen connection path is a little longer...

Kirk Bevins lost his debut game to Richard Pay...
who lost to Series 51 champion Stewart Holden in the semi-final...
who beat Steve Graston in the series grand final...
who lost to Mark Tournoff in the first round of CoC XII...
who beat Paul Howe in the semi-final of the same competition...
who lost to Conor Travers in an epic Series 54 semi-final battle...
who beat Matthew Shore in the series grand final...
who beat Jon Corby in the semi-final to get there...
who lost a semi-final (AGAIN!) to Charlie Reams in CoCXIII...
who beat Kai Laddiman in their Series 59 semi-final...
who played Dinos Sfyris in an epic special match not to be missed on August 2nd

Phew!

David Williams wrote:Just that when an octochamp retires, anyone appearing after that is not linked via the show until the series finals.

A fair cop.

Possibly more interesting (to me, anyway) is to see how quickly modern players can be linked to a pioneering player, and who better than the first series champion, Joyce Canfield. Surprisinly, Innis Carson gets there in just 7 steps without even using a link provided by a special game:

Chris Bergman (S61)
Denys Hollis (S20)
Derek Coombs (S20 QF)
Liz Barber (S20 Final)
Tim Morrissey (CoC5 QF)
Allan Saldanha (SC SF)
Joyce Cansfield (SC QF)

There's also a path from Chris Davies to Joyce Canfield in 7 steps (starting with Ross Mackenzie) but it needs the special game between Kate Ogilvie and Hilary Hopper to cross the Supreme Championship divide.

There may be shorter routes - I've not done anything scientific to find these.

If we include Co-Events, then the fact that Joyce Cansfield appeared at CoNot08 must considerably reduce the length of the longest needed chain to connect two contestants.

Hoping to get a Bevins number at Colin 2011.

Joseph Krol wrote:Hoping to get a Bevins number at Colin 2011.

Not entirely sure you're his type, but buy him a few drinks and tell him you like Phil Taylor and you might get somewhere.

Matt Morrison wrote:

Joseph Krol wrote:Hoping to get a Bevins number at Colin 2011.

Not entirely sure you're his type, but buy him a few drinks and tell him you like Phil Taylor and you might get somewhere.

My intention was that as soon as I'd played a game against someone who had been to a co-event before that I would get one even if it was quite large. Edit: Can't believe that I didn't get the joke.

I now have a Bevins number of 1. Now to improve it I must wait for significant developments in scientificky things and morph into Kirk himself.

Presumably Kirk has played one of Richard Priest, Phil Collinge, Ben Wilson, Rob Foster, Lee Fisher or Dominic Gallagher?

Gavin Chipper wrote:Presumably Kirk has played one of Richard Priest, Phil Collinge, Ben Wilson, Rob Foster, Lee Fisher or Dominic Gallagher?

He's played BenWilson. Not sure about the others.