Ask Graeme?

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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Sam Cappleman-Lynes wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 8:50 pm In how many games have there been more vowels than consonants picked in total across all letters rounds?
In the modern 15-rounder, this has only happened twice.
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6442 (44 consonants, 46 vowels)
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6882 (43 consonants, 47 vowels)

For the old 15-rounder, the one Sam linked to in a later post is the only example.
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5652 (48 consonants, 51 vowels)

And in the 9-rounder, it only happened once that we know of. The rule limiting contestants to a maximum of five vowels per round was introduced in the following series, probably as a consequence of this game.
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_1651 (26 consonants, 28 vowels)

It never happened in the old 14-round series finals.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Thomas Carey wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 8:38 pm Thanks for all your answers!

Inspired by him being on a repeat of the celebrity chase right now - I've had Jon Culshaw as a DC guest for two separate 'runs' - my first 3 heats, and then my CoC QF. How many people have had some DC guest for more than one run?
161 distinct players have had the same DC guest in more than one distinct guest run.

I had Jon Culshaw in heats and finals, and Mark Foster in a special and 30BC. Getting two distinct guests on two distinct runs each is much rarer than it used to be, because now we get a lot more variety in DC guests than before. In the 80s and 90s it was more like the same old favourites cropping up again and again.

To go on a silly digression because it's a stat that has me in it: about 42 players ("about" because there are issues with this question, see below) have seen at least two distinct guests on two distinct runs, but for only four of those players does that involve a guest appearance later than 1997. Besides myself the other three are Junaid Mubeen, Ed McCullagh and Dylan Taylor.
Thomas Carey wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 8:38 pm Has anyone had the same guest three separate times, or more than two guests at least twice?
33 distinct players have had the same guest in at least three different guest runs.

Beyond three it gets a bit difficult. For example, my script said Joyce Cansfield and Ash Haji were both there for four distinct Nigel Rees and Gyles Brandreth runs respectively, but what actually happened there was Episode 80 got counted as a new run for Gyles because both he and Kenneth Williams were guests, the previous episode being Gyles only. Similarly for Nigel Rees and Ned Sherrin in Episode 191, when the previous day's episode had been Nigel Rees only.

For the same reason, Mark Nyman, David Trace and Mick Keeble appear to have had four distinct Ned Sherrin and Gyles Brandreth runs respectively even though they didn't really.

However, Russell Byers was in four legitimately distinct Gyles runs.

Note that in the early days they did quite a bit of daily alternation between two guests, and each time this happens it's counted as a new "run". This is the main reason the above players have so many distinct runs with the same guest.

Two players have seen at three guests on two distinct guest runs. They are Sydney Price (Nigel Rees, Eve Pollard, Gyles Brandreth) and Kenneth Michie (Richard Stilgoe, Jan Harvey, Rosalind Ayres). Pete Cashmore also got picked up by this but that's the above wrinkle again, this time counting Terry Wogan twice in the series 35 semi-final and final.
Thomas Carey wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 8:38 pm By 'run' I'm going to go with a time that a guest was in DC with no different guest in between, rather than individual filming days as I know some guests have filmed multiple days in a row for whatever reason.
Specifically, I'm counting a guest's "run" here as one or more consecutive appearances of the same guest with no other guests in between, when you order all the episodes by transmission date and ignore unbroadcast episodes. What I didn't take account of was two guests appearing in the same episode, which is why we get issues there.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Carl Harrison wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 9:51 pm
Thomas Carey wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 8:38 pm Thanks for all your answers!

Inspired by him being on a repeat of the celebrity chase right now - I've had Jon Culshaw as a DC guest for two separate 'runs' - my first 3 heats, and then my CoC QF. How many people have had some DC guest for more than one run? Has anyone had the same guest three separate times, or more than two guests at least twice?

By 'run' I'm going to go with a time that a guest was in DC with no different guest in between, rather than individual filming days as I know some guests have filmed multiple days in a row for whatever reason.
Good question. Following on from that, which contestant has had the most number of different DC guests. I've looked at Conor who seems to have had 10 different ones (plus a special match with no DC guest at all!) and I'm guessing that will take some beating, but haven't looked much further.
Besides Conor, Tim Morrissey also appeared with 10 distinct guests, two of which were Gyles Brandreth and Richard Stilgoe in the same game. Natascha Kearsey, Andrew Hulme, Chris Wills, Jon O'Neill and Jack Hurst all appeared with 9 distinct guests.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Jack Worsley wrote: Thu Oct 28, 2021 6:54 pm How many episodes have been won by the player who won fewer rounds? I imagine most cases involve the winner spotting a nine that their opponent missed but I know of one episode where this was not the case. https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5555 Are there any others?
The winner of the game won fewer rounds than their opponent in 14 modern 15-rounders, 28 old 15-rounders, and 24 9-rounders (the 9-rounder figure appears to include some incomplete games, however, so the true number is probably different).

To answer the other question, if you exclude games in which the winner spotted a nine that the loser didn't, this still leaves quite a few examples: 6 modern 15-rounders (most recently episode 7695) and 13 old 15-rounders.
Jack Worsley wrote: Thu Oct 28, 2021 6:54 pm Has anyone ever won despite winning two or more rounds fewer than their opponent?
This has only happened once. In episode 3645 Richard Pay won 4 rounds to Claire Whitaker's 6, but still won the game coming back from 40 points behind. This remains the largest successful comeback in the show's history.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Gavin Chipper wrote: Thu Oct 28, 2021 9:22 pm What's the highest number of rounds a player has stayed on 0 points for and still ended up winning?
Four.

Three games have been won by a player who was on 0 points after four rounds, and they were all 9-round games: Derek Roddis in episode 525, Jane Atkins in episode 1441, and John Holton in episode 2440.

There have been 35 games in which the eventual winner was on 0 points after three rounds, most recently episode 7695, which also happens to be the episode referred to by the "most recently..." bit in the previous post.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Martin Hurst wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 8:14 pm https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_7638

Has there ever been a game before on Countdown between two contestants with fewer characters in their name between them? (7 v 7 = 14)?
I can only find one equal, in episode 6839, and no beaters.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Carl Harrison wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 6:11 pm What is the highest numbers target that has ever been declared by a competitor (and/or scored points with it). I'm guessing there have been a few 1000's over time, but has there ever been anything declared in the 1001-1009 range?
The highest numbers declaration was "a million and one" by Peter Etherington. Philip Aston played similar antics with a declaration of 100,000, and in 1987 Peter Medhurst appears to have declared 5,200. But none of these, of course, scored any points.

For the highest "serious" declaration we find Tim Morrissey who declared 1,008 on a target of 997. Obviously this was slightly too far away to score, but it does appear to have been a genuine attempt - 1,008 would be (75-3)*7*2.

In the same round, Lindsay Denyer declared 1,001 and scored 7 points. This is the only time a numbers declaration of more than 1,000 has scored.

There have been no other numbers declarations, scoring or otherwise, greater than 1,000.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:15 pm
Johnny Canuck wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 10:09 pm How big is the biggest group of people such that everyone in it has played everyone else in an Apterous game at least once?
Might have missed it, but didn't notice an answer to this yet.
I imagine this would be a good jumping off point.
This would have to be an Ask Charlie, I'm afraid.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Gavin Chipper wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:19 pm What is the ranking order of letters in terms of how many times they've been used in declarations?
Here are all 26 letters ordered by the number of times they have appeared in any player's declaration (regardless of whether they scored or were valid), along with the number of times that letter has appeared in a declaration. All televised Countdown episodes for which we have information are included. Note that in some very early episodes they didn't bother asking for the shorter word so we don't know what it was.

Code: Select all

E 117587
A  77955
S  76728
R  70756
T  68265
I  67474
O  60086
N  54237
D  46643
L  40669
P  26455
G  25653
M  25381
U  24954
C  21309
H  12907
B  12785
F  10670
V   8707
W   7549
K   4934
Y   4453
X   1661
J   1548
Q   1289
Z   1172
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Thomas Carey wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 4:45 am viewtopic.php?p=199450#p199450
If we exclude guest runs of fewer than five episodes, there have been four guest runs which have seen no conundrums solved. They are:

Rory McGrath's five episodes starting from https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_4819
Dave Spikey's five episodes starting from https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5334
Alastair Stewart's five episodes starting from https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5498
Suzannah Lipscomb's five episodes starting from https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6620
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Christy Cooper wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 1:57 pm What is the probability of getting a selection that contains all 4 of the 'bad' consonants? (J, X, Q, and Z)
This depends on so many variables that I don't think there's a good answer. It depends how many consonants you pick in each round, and it even varies depending on which round you're in. Obviously if any of those letters have come up in an earlier round the probability is zero, but as you get further into the game without seeing any of those letters come out, the probability that those four letters will come up in the same round that game gets steadily higher.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Johnny Canuck wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:36 am Based on the standard letter distributions mentioned earlier in this thread (you can just pick the most recent one, and ignore the effects of shuffling), what is the least likely 9-letter word that has been available in a selection at least once? What is the least likely 9 that has actually been spotted?
I'm going to use the letter distribution from this post. The distribution has changed over the years and that post was probably wrong even then, but it later found its way into the official Countdown app so at least it has that air of legitimacy.

I'm also going to ignore any effects caused by the number of vowels the contestant picks. To work out how "likely" a letter is, I'm just going to take the number of times it appears in the pack minus the number of times it's appeared so far in the word and divide that by the total length of the vowel and consonant packs. Then to get a score for the word I'll multiply together those values for each letter. This is not an accurate representation of the probability of the word, but it should at least be good enough that we can compare whether one word is more likely than another.

By that measure, the "least likely" nine ever to have been spotted on Countdown was MYOGLOBIN by Michael Calder in the series 42 final. I don't have a way to generate all possible nines.
Last edited by Graeme Cole on Sat Jun 25, 2022 12:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Ian Fitzpatrick wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 9:06 am Has BAMBOOZLE ever been a conundrum?

Anyone watching Mcdonald & Dodds last night will understand the relevance of the question :)
Yes, four times.

https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_M49
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_1426
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_3490
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6669
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Graeme Cole wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 12:47 am
Johnny Canuck wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:36 am Based on the standard letter distributions mentioned earlier in this thread (you can just pick the most recent one, and ignore the effects of shuffling), what is the least likely 9-letter word that has been available in a selection at least once? What is the least likely 9 that has actually been spotted?
I'm going to use the letter distribution from this post. The distribution has changed over the years and that post was probably wrong even then, but it later found its way into the official Countdown app so at least it has that air of legitimacy.

I'm also going to ignore any effects caused by the number of vowels the contestant picks. To work out how "likely" a letter is, I'm just going to take the number of times it appears in the pack minus the number of times it's appeared so far in the word and divide that by the total length of the vowel and consonant packs. Then to get a score for the word I'll multiply together those values for each letter. This is not an accurate representation of the probability of the word, but it should at least be good enough that we can compare whether one word is more likely than another.

By that measure, the "least likely" nine ever to have been spotted on Countdown was MYOGLOBIN by Michael Calder in the series 42 final. I don't have a way to generate all possible nines.
Tidy work as always - thanks. Added to the wiki now as a factoid.

I'm guessing JAMBEAUX by Matthew Tassier takes it for least likely eight.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Now I'm curious on what the least likely seven would be that's been spotted in a televised round.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Great work as always Graeme. Suffering from insomnia?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Graeme Cole wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 12:47 am

By that measure, the "least likely" nine ever to have been spotted on Countdown was MYOGLOBIN by Michael Calder in the series 42 final. I don't have a way to generate all possible nines.
Made all the more impressive by the much more obvious BOOMINGLY (which is invalid) not being declared.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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How often has 'just add them all together' been given as a valid solution to a numbers round?
In a similar vein, how often has 'multiply them all together' been declared and good?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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dan spinks wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 4:22 pm How often has 'just add them all together' been given as a valid solution to a numbers round?
In a similar vein, how often has 'multiply them all together' been declared and good?
The sum of all the numbers in the selection has exactly equalled the target on nine occasions.

https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_163 (round 4)
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_1351 (round 4)
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_1424 (round 4)
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_3605 (round 14)
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_4618 (round 14)
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5001 (round 14)
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5883 (round 14)
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6222 (round 3)
https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_7625 (round 9)

In episodes 1424, 3605, and 5001, one of the contestants did actually submit the sum of all the numbers as their method. The round in episode 3605 is on YouTube, but Carol isn't quite right about it being the first time it's happened.

The product of the numbers has never equalled the target. However, it has been within 10 on eight occasions. The closest was in round 8 of episode 1337, when the target was 902 and the product of the numbers was 900. On none of these occasions did either contestant multiply all the numbers together as their method, though.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by L'oisleatch McGraw »

This thread should have a 'Contents' index.
At the risk of asking a question that has already been asked:-

Graeme, what is the average max length for letters rounds in the modern 15Rer?
And is there much of a difference in the ave maxes between 3/4/5 vowel selections?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 8:27 pm Graeme, what is the average max length for letters rounds in the modern 15Rer?
And is there much of a difference in the ave maxes between 3/4/5 vowel selections?
The mean average max length for letters rounds is 7.46. This covers 20,890 rounds from the start of the modern 15-rounder to the end of series 85.

Dividing that up by vowel count...

3 vowels: 6,890 rounds, average max length 7.42.
4 vowels: 12,990 rounds, average max length 7.50.
5 vowels: 1,010 rounds, average max length 7.27.

This is the average max *length*, so in calculating the mean average a 9-letter word counts as 9, not 18.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Graeme Cole wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 9:21 am
L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 8:27 pm Graeme, what is the average max length for letters rounds in the modern 15Rer?
And is there much of a difference in the ave maxes between 3/4/5 vowel selections?
The mean average max length for letters rounds is 7.46. This covers 20,890 rounds from the start of the modern 15-rounder to the end of series 85.

Dividing that up by vowel count...

3 vowels: 6,890 rounds, average max length 7.42.
4 vowels: 12,990 rounds, average max length 7.50.
5 vowels: 1,010 rounds, average max length 7.27.

This is the average max *length*, so in calculating the mean average a 9-letter word counts as 9, not 18.
Brilliant stuff! Cheers.
In a related, but slightly different question... what % of each round type (i.e. 3-5 vowel) will produce maxes of varying lengths?
From the stats above, I would hazard a guess that 4v selections will produce the highest % of 9-maxes, and 5v selections, the highest % of 5 maxes.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Graeme Cole wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 12:13 am
Gavin Chipper wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:19 pm What is the ranking order of letters in terms of how many times they've been used in declarations?
Here are all 26 letters ordered by the number of times they have appeared in any player's declaration (regardless of whether they scored or were valid), along with the number of times that letter has appeared in a declaration. All televised Countdown episodes for which we have information are included. Note that in some very early episodes they didn't bother asking for the shorter word so we don't know what it was.

Code: Select all

E 117587
A  77955
S  76728
R  70756
T  68265
I  67474
O  60086
N  54237
D  46643
L  40669
P  26455
G  25653
M  25381
U  24954
C  21309
H  12907
B  12785
F  10670
V   8707
W   7549
K   4934
Y   4453
X   1661
J   1548
Q   1289
Z   1172
This means that the "ultimate" 9s are NOTARISED/DERATIONS/ORDINATES/NADORITES.

By the way, I remember years ago in DC they were talking about the 9 most common letters and came up with a 9-letter word out of them. Does anyone remember this or what the word was? I have in my head Gyles Brandreth doing this but this could easily be wrong.

According to Lexico, Samuel Morse counted the letters in English text and the top 9 were ETAINOSHR. This gives HORTENSIA or SENHORITA. However, this is biased towards letters in common words. Going by
an analysis of the letters occurring in the words listed in the main entries of the Concise Oxford Dictionary (11th edition revised, 2004)
The top 9 are EARIOTNSL. This gives ORIENTALS/RELATIONS/ROTALINES/TENSORIAL.

It looks like you get the same two sets of letters from the Wikipedia.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Gavin Chipper wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 7:20 pmstuff
Surprised you haven't mentioned the distribution of letters they use on the show. The five consonants there are most of in the pack are R (9), S (9), T (9), N (8) and D (6), four most common vowels are E A I O, and then a bit of maths with the numbers of each gives that RSTND ans EAIO are the most likely things you'll get if you pick 5 consos and 4 vowels, giving the DERATIONS group. RELATIONS comes a close second - there's 5 Ls.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Gavin Chipper wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:16 pm
Fred Mumford wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:48 pm Joe McElderry as younger?

And yeah, I did have to Google/google to recall his name.
According to the wiki, his first appearance was on 26th June 2015, and as he was born on 16th June 1991, this would have made him 24, so yes younger than Gabby Yorath. In fact he was presumably 23 when he filmed.
Gavin Chipper wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 6:42 pm
Gavin Chipper wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 7:04 pm Gloria Hunniford is 81. Who are the oldest and youngest DC guests? It seems that at one point at least, Gabby Logan/Yorath was the youngest ever female guest.
Stanley Johnson is also 81 at the time of airing his episodes (though clearly 80 during filming as he "forgot" he'd had his birthday).
As well as youngest and oldest guests, another interesting one is earliest and latest date of birth. Obviously it's quite easy to have had an early date of birth if you were a guest in 1982 but that's pretty obvious so it's up to you to factor that in as a guest if you want this record.

Anyway, Gloria Hunniford was born on 10th April 1940 and Stanley Johnson was born on 18th August 1940, so Gloria Hunniford is marginally older of the two. But they would be blown out of the water by guests from the olden days as they would have only been 42 when Countdown started! Mere children!

Ted Moult was the first guest and opens the batting with a fairly solid, if unspectacular, 11th February 1926. The next guest was Kenneth Williams who was just 11 days younger, being born on 22nd February 1926. After a bit of a search I found that we have Humphrey Lyttelton born on 23rd May 1921, but blowing even him out of the water we have Brian Johnston born on 24th June 1912! He first appeared in series 14 in 1987. I went through the first 25 series before giving up. He's the likely winner though. We're into 1993 so you'd have to be 80+ to challenge at that point.

As for youngest guest, I've just found that Mark Nyman was guest back on 29th May 1984. According to the date of birth on his Wikipedia article, he would have been 17. Beat that, Joe McElderry.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Thomas Carey wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 7:32 pm
Gavin Chipper wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 7:20 pmstuff
Surprised you haven't mentioned the distribution of letters they use on the show. The five consonants there are most of in the pack are R (9), S (9), T (9), N (8) and D (6), four most common vowels are E A I O, and then a bit of maths with the numbers of each gives that RSTND ans EAIO are the most likely things you'll get if you pick 5 consos and 4 vowels, giving the DERATIONS group. RELATIONS comes a close second - there's 5 Ls.
I'm not that surprised but thanks. Good info. And that's some good maths.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Graeme Cole wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 12:47 am
Johnny Canuck wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:36 am Based on the standard letter distributions mentioned earlier in this thread (you can just pick the most recent one, and ignore the effects of shuffling), what is the least likely 9-letter word that has been available in a selection at least once? What is the least likely 9 that has actually been spotted?
I'm going to use the letter distribution from this post. The distribution has changed over the years and that post was probably wrong even then, but it later found its way into the official Countdown app so at least it has that air of legitimacy.

I'm also going to ignore any effects caused by the number of vowels the contestant picks. To work out how "likely" a letter is, I'm just going to take the number of times it appears in the pack minus the number of times it's appeared so far in the word and divide that by the total length of the vowel and consonant packs. Then to get a score for the word I'll multiply together those values for each letter. This is not an accurate representation of the probability of the word, but it should at least be good enough that we can compare whether one word is more likely than another.

By that measure, the "least likely" nine ever to have been spotted on Countdown was MYOGLOBIN by Michael Calder in the series 42 final. I don't have a way to generate all possible nines.
By your likeliness metric, would SFORZATOS perhaps be the least likely nine that has actually been available at least once?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by L'oisleatch McGraw »

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 12:15 pm What % of rounds will produce maxes of varying lengths?
In an attempt to answer a very basic version of my recent question, I looked at just the % max length over the last 100 televised letters rounds, and this is what it came up with:-

Max of 4 letters (or fewer) = 0%
Max of 5 letters = 1%
Max of 6 letters = 10%
Max of 7 letters = 42%
Max of 8 letters = 40%
Max of 9 letters = 7%

Although 7-letter is the winner here, if you micro-analyse the data, 57%* of the available 7 maxes were missable / difficult spots, whereas a whopping 70%** of the available 8-maxes were missable / difficult spots.

Assuming the above figures do not change greatly with a larger sample size, it suggests that if a player wants to optimise their word study before appearing on TV, start with the highest probability 8s, then do some 7s before you get to 9s.

[*24/42. **28/40.]
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Post by JackHurst »

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:22 am
L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 12:15 pm What % of rounds will produce maxes of varying lengths?
In an attempt to answer a very basic version of my recent question, I looked at just the % max length over the last 100 televised letters rounds, and this is what it came up with:-

Max of 4 letters (or fewer) = 0%
Max of 5 letters = 1%
Max of 6 letters = 10%
Max of 7 letters = 42%
Max of 8 letters = 40%
Max of 9 letters = 7%
...
Not exactly what you asked for, but some useful info here.
http://c4countdown.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=188935

Interestingly from that post the Android App uses algorithm 3 which produces

Code: Select all

10000 rounds
Total of 81583.0 avg 8.1583

Max of 4: 4
Max of 5: 121
Max of 6: 1095
Max of 7: 3908
Max of 8: 4066
Max of 9: 806
Which is quite close to what you got from the show. Would be interesting to see the stats from a sample larger than 100 :)
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Post by Gavin Chipper »

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:22 amAlthough 7-letter is the winner here, if you micro-analyse the data, 57%* of the available 7 maxes were missable / difficult spots, whereas a whopping 70%** of the available 8-maxes were missable / difficult spots.
How are you defining that?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by L'oisleatch McGraw »

Gavin Chipper wrote: Tue Jul 12, 2022 7:16 am
L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Tue Jul 12, 2022 1:22 amAlthough 7-letter is the winner here, if you micro-analyse the data, 57%* of the available 7 maxes were missable / difficult spots, whereas a whopping 70%** of the available 8-maxes were missable / difficult spots.
How are you defining that?
Gut feeling mostly.
Certainly if Eddy/Daren didn't get it, sometimes if the challenger didn't get it, other times if I didn't get it, or if I almost missed it.
Just wanted some sort of general measure of difficulty that seemed about right from a perceived Joe Bloggs viewpoint.
The goal here is to get an idea of what the best thing a novice should start with, as regards word study... obviously "Rob's list in order" would be a perfect solution. But if you rather learn by word length... 8s = your first port of call.

(I appreciate that you were all over those sloppy percentages so fast. No flies on Gevin!)
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Post by Andres Sanchez »

I've been having this question in my head and thinking about where to post it, and I think here might be a good spot.

I've been using WebRack a lot to host weekly games in my Discord and it's been great fun. Recently though I've been introducing some of the variants that Apterous has through WebRack, specifically Junior and Hyper. Those are the only two games that don't really involve much changing in terms of what's already in the letter and number packs, in this case really just adjusting how much can be chosen and what's in the number packs. I was thinking to myself though, would there ever be a chance of putting these variants on WebRack? I'd really love to try stuff like GoatDown, Nice/Nasty, or even Lockdown through WebRack and honestly I think it might bring some appeal to others. So I bring this question unto thee:

What do you think of bringing some of the Apterous variants over onto WebRack for others to play?
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Post by L'oisleatch McGraw »

Dearest Graeme,
Assuming the subject has not been broached prior to now, I wonder could you furnish us with details of returning contestants, and what the shortest (and perhaps longest, while we're at it) gaps between appearances have been?

Thank you.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Andres Sanchez »

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 10:47 pm Dearest Graeme,
Assuming the subject has not been broached prior to now, I wonder could you furnish us with details of returning contestants, and what the shortest (and perhaps longest, while we're at it) gaps between appearances have been?

Thank you.
Think his could help with some of it, thank Steve Hyde for this.
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Post by L'oisleatch McGraw »

Andres Sanchez wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 1:56 am Thank Steve Hyde for this.
Thanks to Steve Hyde and Andres Sanchez!
This is perfect.
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Post by L'oisleatch McGraw »

Dear Graeme,

Just wondering
1. Do you edit the Countdown wiki using the pseudonym "Launchballer"?
2. If so, do you actively prefer for people not to know that that user is you?
3. If so... why?!

Thanks
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Post by Fiona T »

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Wed Aug 31, 2022 9:32 pm Dear Graeme,

Just wondering
1. Do you edit the Countdown wiki using the pseudonym "Launchballer"?
2. If so, do you actively prefer for people not to know that that user is you?
3. If so... why?!

Thanks
I can answer that.

1. No, he doesn't.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Fiona T wrote: Wed Aug 31, 2022 10:14 pm
L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Wed Aug 31, 2022 9:32 pm Dear Graeme,

Just wondering
1. Do you edit the Countdown wiki using the pseudonym "Launchballer"?
2. If so, do you actively prefer for people not to know that that user is you?
3. If so... why?!

Thanks
I can answer that.

1. No, he doesn't.
Can confirm. Not me.
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Post by L'oisleatch McGraw »

But isn't it true that if you really wanted to keep it secret, you'd have to have everyone believe it wasn't you?
Perhaps it IS some mysterious character who exists only on the wiki, yet nowhere else in Countdownia...
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Steve Hyde »

Graeme Cole wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 11:47 pm
Martin Hurst wrote: Mon Mar 29, 2021 11:34 am Yes, great thread :D

To add to the current surge of questions....

What is a) the biggest margin of defeat, and b) the lowest score, by someone who got 2 or more valid nines in a 15r game?

Same question also for getting one nine.
Lowest score in 15 rounds by someone who got two or more nines was 82 by Glen Webb: https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5838
Love this thread. Liam Moss, episode 7748, has now beaten this record with 78 points vs. Matt O'Connor. Would have been a nigh-on unbeatable 68 were it not for the conundrum controversy
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by JackHurst »

What's the biggest points difference between two Octochamps A and B where A got a higher octo total than B, but B had a better % of available points scored in their octo run?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

JackHurst wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 9:47 am What's the biggest points difference between two Octochamps A and B where A got a higher octo total than B, but B had a better % of available points scored in their octo run?
It's not an exact answer to your question, and "the swap" doesn't quite happen but back in 1982 if you look at laps led, Alain Prost is top on 24.3% and Rene Arnoux second on 19.2%. But if you go to kilometres led, Prost is top on 21.3% and Arnoux just behind on 21.2%. It's quite a swing considering they seem to be very similar measures.
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Post by Fred Mumford »

In fairness I would trust that website more for Countdown queries than F1 queries. The first thing I ever looked up on it was wrong.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

What's the longest we've gone without an E? Consecutive non-E letters and consecutive non-E vowels. (Not time because that would just be a holiday or something.)

I don't think it's too spoilerific to say that today we had four consecutive rounds with no E. 42 letters including 16 vowels, if I've counted correctly.
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Post by Rhys Benjamin »

I noticed that the vast majority of John Hastings's games went to crucial conundrums on his way to running up Series 42. Is 70% a record for games that went to a crucial with contestants with, say, more than 2 games?

(If you discount Hastings's non-crucial 14-round final, it's 7/9 in terms of 9-rounders...!)
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Post by Rhys Benjamin »

Gavin Chipper wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:16 pm
Fred Mumford wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:48 pm Joe McElderry as younger?

And yeah, I did have to Google/google to recall his name.
According to the wiki, his first appearance was on 26th June 2015, and as he was born on 16th June 1991, this would have made him 24, so yes younger than Gabby Yorath. In fact he was presumably 23 when he filmed.
We filmed this on Monday 20 April 2015, so yes, he was 23 at the time of recording.
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Post by Rhys Benjamin »

Graeme Cole wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2015 11:54 pm 6 small: 2650
1 large: 22055
2 large: 4637
3 large: 958
4 large: 1361
This is extracted from a post on numbers success by pick, and is the closest thing I can find to "how often each selection has been picked".

So yeah, how often has each selection been picked, and is that possible as a moving average?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Steve Hyde »

Rita Meston scored in all 10 letters rounds on 14th March 2023, despite only finding the longest available word in two of them. Has anyone ever scored in every letters round without finding any maxes in the 15-round era?
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Post by Matt Rutherford »

What are the chances of a 'Golden Game', on Apto or elsewhere?

Standard 15-player finds a nine in each round, along with all numbers, and the con. This hypothetical game would have a score of 230. Statisically, what are the chances? I imagine there's not a lot, but is there anything the player could do to try and maximize those chances?
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Post by Gavin Chipper »

Has there been a question about the distribution of numbers targets? Like is it what you'd expect? What's the average target over the years? Do individual series have much variance? Do you get the same proportions in each hundred bracket - so 100s, 200s etc.?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 12:15 pm
Graeme Cole wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 9:21 am
L'oisleatch McGraw wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 8:27 pm Graeme, what is the average max length for letters rounds in the modern 15Rer?
And is there much of a difference in the ave maxes between 3/4/5 vowel selections?
The mean average max length for letters rounds is 7.46. This covers 20,890 rounds from the start of the modern 15-rounder to the end of series 85.

Dividing that up by vowel count...

3 vowels: 6,890 rounds, average max length 7.42.
4 vowels: 12,990 rounds, average max length 7.50.
5 vowels: 1,010 rounds, average max length 7.27.

This is the average max *length*, so in calculating the mean average a 9-letter word counts as 9, not 18.
Brilliant stuff! Cheers.
In a related, but slightly different question... what % of each round type (i.e. 3-5 vowel) will produce maxes of varying lengths?
From the stats above, I would hazard a guess that 4v selections will produce the highest % of 9-maxes, and 5v selections, the highest % of 5 maxes.
Just managed to answer this question inside a year.

These results relate to all games up to and including the series 87 final.

3 vowels (30730 rounds):
Max 3: 1 (0.0033%)
Max 4: 21 (0.068%)
Max 5: 446 (1.45%)
Max 6: 3934 (12.80%)
Max 7: 13770 (44.81%)
Max 8: 11088 (36.08%)
Max 9: 1470 (4.78%)

4 vowels (37945 rounds):
Max 3: 1 (0.0026%)
Max 4: 26 (0.069%)
Max 5: 603 (1.59%)
Max 6: 4826 (12.72%)
Max 7: 14978 (39.47%)
Max 8: 14283 (37.64%)
Max 9: 3228 (8.51%)

5 vowels (2380 rounds):
Max 3: 0 (0%)
Max 4: 3 (0.13%)
Max 5: 71 (2.98%)
Max 6: 461 (19.37%)
Max 7: 1008 (42.35%)
Max 8: 742 (31.18%)
Max 9: 95 (3.99%)
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Johnny Canuck wrote: Sun Jul 10, 2022 11:57 am
Graeme Cole wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 12:47 am
Johnny Canuck wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:36 am Based on the standard letter distributions mentioned earlier in this thread (you can just pick the most recent one, and ignore the effects of shuffling), what is the least likely 9-letter word that has been available in a selection at least once? What is the least likely 9 that has actually been spotted?
I'm going to use the letter distribution from this post. The distribution has changed over the years and that post was probably wrong even then, but it later found its way into the official Countdown app so at least it has that air of legitimacy.

I'm also going to ignore any effects caused by the number of vowels the contestant picks. To work out how "likely" a letter is, I'm just going to take the number of times it appears in the pack minus the number of times it's appeared so far in the word and divide that by the total length of the vowel and consonant packs. Then to get a score for the word I'll multiply together those values for each letter. This is not an accurate representation of the probability of the word, but it should at least be good enough that we can compare whether one word is more likely than another.

By that measure, the "least likely" nine ever to have been spotted on Countdown was MYOGLOBIN by Michael Calder in the series 42 final. I don't have a way to generate all possible nines.
By your likeliness metric, would SFORZATOS perhaps be the least likely nine that has actually been available at least once?
Possibly, but this is beyond what my database can answer. It doesn't store all the nines available from every selection.
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Post by Graeme Cole »

Andres Sanchez wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 1:12 am I've been having this question in my head and thinking about where to post it, and I think here might be a good spot.

I've been using WebRack a lot to host weekly games in my Discord and it's been great fun. Recently though I've been introducing some of the variants that Apterous has through WebRack, specifically Junior and Hyper. Those are the only two games that don't really involve much changing in terms of what's already in the letter and number packs, in this case really just adjusting how much can be chosen and what's in the number packs. I was thinking to myself though, would there ever be a chance of putting these variants on WebRack? I'd really love to try stuff like GoatDown, Nice/Nasty, or even Lockdown through WebRack and honestly I think it might bring some appeal to others. So I bring this question unto thee:

What do you think of bringing some of the Apterous variants over onto WebRack for others to play?
I'm not actively developing WebRack any more, although I do maintain it. I built it during the pandemic to facilitate Countdown games or events over Zoom, which it was never widely used for, and for ZoomDown, which it was heavily used for.

I'm not ruling out improvements to WebRack in the future, but it's less relevant than it was so I don't really want to spend too much time on it. I want to avoid implementing features "because Apterous has it", because that's a never-ending task - Apterous has built up an awful lot of features over 15 years and it doesn't make sense to duplicate Apterous when Apterous already exists.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

JackHurst wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 9:47 am What's the biggest points difference between two Octochamps A and B where A got a higher octo total than B, but B had a better % of available points scored in their octo run?
Luke Boynton scored 1032/1149 (89.8%) but Ed McCullagh scored 896/979 (91.5%). This is the biggest octotal difference I can find (136) which has a contrary percentage difference.

However, this compares octoruns from either side of the 2013 15-round format change.

If we only look at the modern 15-rounder (octoruns that started on or after 25th March 2013), the biggest octotal difference between players with a contrary percentage difference is 109: Luke Boynton with 1032/1149 (89.8%) and Tom Carey with 923/1025 (90.0%).

If we only look at the old 15-rounder, the answer is 80: Andrew Hulme with 930/1077 (86.4%) and Jonathan Rawlinson with 850/982 (86.6%)
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Gavin Chipper wrote: Fri Nov 18, 2022 2:39 pm What's the longest we've gone without an E? Consecutive non-E letters and consecutive non-E vowels. (Not time because that would just be a holiday or something.)

I don't think it's too spoilerific to say that today we had four consecutive rounds with no E. 42 letters including 16 vowels, if I've counted correctly.
Between round 5 of Episode 176 and round 2 of Episode 177 there were 43 consecutive non-E letters between two Es.

Between round 11 of Episode 5551 and round 3 of Episode 5552 there were 18 consecutive non-E vowels between two Es.

The highest number of consecutive non-E letters within the same episode is the 42 letters between the Es in round 1 and round 8 of the episode you referred to.

The highest ever number of consecutive non-E vowels in one episode is 17, between rounds 8 and 13 of Episode 7805.
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Post by Graeme Cole »

Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 9:28 pm I noticed that the vast majority of John Hastings's games went to crucial conundrums on his way to running up Series 42. Is 70% a record for games that went to a crucial with contestants with, say, more than 2 games?

(If you discount Hastings's non-crucial 14-round final, it's 7/9 in terms of 9-rounders...!)
Plenty of players have played more than 2 games and had a crucial conundrum in every game. The most games played by a player where all went to crucials is 5 by David McCarron.

For players who played more than five games, the highest percentage of games that went to crucials was 87.5% by Colin Pearce, who had 7 crucials in 8 games.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Rhys Benjamin wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 8:20 pm
Graeme Cole wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2015 11:54 pm 6 small: 2650
1 large: 22055
2 large: 4637
3 large: 958
4 large: 1361
This is extracted from a post on numbers success by pick, and is the closest thing I can find to "how often each selection has been picked".

So yeah, how often has each selection been picked, and is that possible as a moving average?
Number of times each numbers selection has been picked, up to the end of series 87:

6 small: 2199 (9.1%)
1 large: 15238 (63.3%)
2 large: 4418 (18.4%)
3 large: 896 (3.7%)
4 large: 1320 (5.5%)

In Countdown's early history, most contestants picked 1 or 2 large and 4 large was very rare, so that might skew these numbers. If we try to get a more modern picture of numbers preference by arbitrarily taking only the last five years (all episodes since the start of series 79), we get this instead:

6 small: 510 (10.6%)
1 large: 2402 (50.1%)
2 large: 1286 (26.8%)
3 large: 259 (5.4%)
4 large: 335 (7.0%)
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Steve Hyde wrote: Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:41 pm Rita Meston scored in all 10 letters rounds on 14th March 2023, despite only finding the longest available word in two of them. Has anyone ever scored in every letters round without finding any maxes in the 15-round era?
The following seven players have all played a modern 15-rounder in which they didn't get a zero or max in any letters round:

Dave Costello: https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6354
Lucy Westwood: https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6437
Phil Abbott: https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_6723
Andy Evans: https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_7163
Jas Manoor: https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_7713
Craig Fawcett: https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_7737
Lewis Castling-Morey: https://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_7882

It never happened in the old 15-rounder. I'd expect it to be less likely in the old 15-rounder because there was an extra letters round and therefore one more opportunity to get a zero or a max, but I'm still surprised it happened 0 times rather than some positive number less than 7.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Matt Rutherford wrote: Fri Apr 14, 2023 11:37 am What are the chances of a 'Golden Game', on Apto or elsewhere?

Standard 15-player finds a nine in each round, along with all numbers, and the con. This hypothetical game would have a score of 230. Statisically, what are the chances? I imagine there's not a lot, but is there anything the player could do to try and maximize those chances?
I'm not sure how to work out the exact probability, but judging from the empirical data we have from Countdown and Apterous, it's very, very, very close to zero. In over 8,000 episodes of Countdown, and in the hundreds of thousands of games on Apterous, no 9-rounder or 15-rounder has reached the theoretical maximum.

Two 9-rounders on Apterous have had 5 nines available out of 6 letters rounds, but no 15-rounder has even got close.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Andres Sanchez »

Since it's origin up to Series 87, what's the percentage of contestants/finalists/champions that are Apterites? Curious of how much Apterous has had an absolute grasp on the community?
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