c4countdown

Martin Gardner

Yes it's VERY convient to me to just add Joseph to the final group as that makes 21 (7 * 3), especially since nobody's objected. I'll add this to the Countdown Wiki right now.

Martin

Martin Gardner

I thought I should comment on my brilliant chance of winning having drawn the highest ranked player in a best-of-two match.

Martin

Martin Gardner

I've put the games up on the Countdownwiki, here they are. Please use the email address on the MSN addresses thread to get in contact with your opponents, and try and play one game a week, minimum. I'll come back with more information about the quarter-finals when we get closer to them.

Martin

Martin Gardner

lol. Anyway I'll have a go Martin (if you're willing to have me in the tournament). Is it going to be 9-round or 15-round games? Also, you said about MSN Messenger and hosts - so are we not using Charlie's apterous site? (haven't had chance to play a game on it yet, so don't really know much about ...

Martin Gardner

Charlie Reams wrote:Good work, Martin. But I was amused to see you've categorised yourself under "Problems".

LOL actually I just wanted to sign my name at the bottom of the page!!

Martin Gardner

I'll be publishing the groups tomorrow morning (although I might be working, yes I do have a job) just to let you know there are 20 people including people who are away during that time. I don't really mind that as long as people "catch up" i.e. they might have to play one game on a Monday...

Martin Gardner

All this reminds me, do we have the Corral rankings somewhere else (like on Soo's computer) so I can correctly seed the top 6 players.

Martin

Martin Gardner

Is there going to be any sort of seeding system? Or can we leave it to chance and give us mere mortals a chance of qualifying from the group stages ;) Actually I had thought of seeding the thing to make sure there's no big clashes in the first round e.g. Paul Howe versus Jon O'Neill. But I'm open t...

Martin Gardner

Is there going to be any sort of seeding system? Or can we leave it to chance and give us mere mortals a chance of qualifying from the group stages ;) Actually I had thought of seeding the thing to make sure there's no big clashes in the first round e.g. Paul Howe versus Jon O'Neill. But I'm open t...

Martin Gardner

Charlie Reams wrote:I am excited, albeit prematurely.

(My girlfriend is used to that.)

You have a girlfriend?

Martin

Martin Gardner

Jason Larsen wrote:I think having a consecutive number of vowels makes the game easier because you can make shorter words!

But the aim is to make the longest word...

Martin

Martin Gardner

We've currently got 17 so 18 would be a nice number for groups of three. I don't mind if people are away for a week so I'll include those two people. I'll leave everything open until the 10th as promised as I'm still waiting for a reply from Tournoff and Wills, we could potentially get to 18. The cu...

Martin Gardner

Having 5 vowels (the maximum number of vowels allowed) in a game, Jason, makes the game harder! Jono is loving it at the moment but it makes it harder. 3 vowels is OK depending on the ugliness of the consonants but 4 vowels is optimal. Funnily enough, people often say that 4 vowels is the optimum, ...

Martin Gardner

Charlie Reams wrote:No, but there will be one in time for your tournament, fear not.

Cheers

Martin

Martin Gardner

I was planning a slightly more organised announcement than this, but oh well. Both sooreams.com and the Countdown Corral are going away for a bit, with a view to a redesign and relaunch, hopefully in September. As a stopgap measure, I'm hosting a rather unsightly version of CountGen on apterous.org...

Martin Gardner

Jason Larsen wrote:Kirk, I thought that was always the case!

What was?

Martin

Martin Gardner

Just to pick up the point I made on the other thread, there are quite a lot of valid words on Countdown but some of them are never them maximum, or never the only maximum. REREADING and GRENADIER for example, you'd only ever need to play one of them. As Gevin points out you might see one and not the...

Martin Gardner

We had an interesting debate on one syllable adjectives when a player had RIGHTEST disallowed and was later invited back to the show as a challenger again, but still lost (I think). Another one that's allowed in Scrabble is MAINEST* which is the sort of word you'd never use in real life, but should ...

Martin Gardner

Hi, Helen, Welcome to the Countdown forum! :) I'm a Newbie this month too. What a lovely little boy Rhys is! :D Some of my children (I have 5) liked pointing out the letters on Countdown when they were younger, but none have wanted to play it when older, although I live in hope. ;) My eldest loves ...

Martin Gardner

Charlie Reams wrote:
Martin Gardner wrote:I've put you on the list, that is nearly 2 months after the thing's due to start, anyway.
You must be running a little behind schedule then.

October is the 10th month of the year! Well damn it!

Martin

Martin Gardner

I'm just wondering how Conor Travers is, I take it there's been no news of him, which is very worrying. Nobody's had an argument with him, have they? Because he seems like quite a calm person and not the sort of person to just disappear without saying anything. Does anyone know anything?

Martin

Martin Gardner

I'll like to play too but I may also be away for some of it. I am away from 4th-13th October. So, if this will mess things up, then feel free to leave me out. I've put you on the list, that is nearly 2 months after the thing's due to start, anyway. In the next few days I'll send a few emails round ...

Martin Gardner

Although I've forgotten one very important thing - CountGen isn't working for the moment (not for me, anyway) so hopefully there will be a working version by the time we start.

Martin

Martin Gardner

Sorry to announce this the day after COLEI finished but it takes a few weeks to get a list of players signed up, so the sooner I post the message, the sooner people can put their name down. COGST stands for Countdown Online Group Stage Tournament. I plan to write a full set of rules later but I'm a ...

Martin Gardner

That's right, plurals are not allowed. I have a bot for irc channels with english dictionary, another bot with french dictionary, and one with italian dictionary. Only need the frecuency for getting letters like tv show. If anyone know this, I can finish them. I'd be interested in acquiring a the S...

Martin Gardner

Gavin Chipper wrote:What's with the word "suite" or am I being stupid?

I just put it at the end of the DCeDL topic to show that it was to follow the previous topic. La suite means "the following bit".

Martin

Martin Gardner

Ben Wilson wrote:£1 an hour!!!!!!!! What is it, 'bring your own walls and ceiling' or something?

Well it's a charity tournament, so the less he charges us, the more we give to charity. I don't make the rules lollll

Martin

Martin Gardner

Francisco Segura wrote:Is the same in DCeDL and Countdown?

Is the first half of the question missing, I don't understand.

Martin

Martin Gardner

I tend to agree with your thoughts David. Susie certainly seems to get help, like when she suddenly gets a word quite late on when she isn't even looking. This happened in one of my games when I went for CORTINA and my opponent went for RATIONAL Dictionary Corner said "we have another seven wi...

Martin Gardner

mgcountdown@htomail.fr (note the deliberate typo) I was surfing on the French MSN at the time hence the French address. In a similar way, I uploaded a photo of myself to Wikimedia Commons (a sister project of Wikipedia) and someone wrote and English version of the text - "Wikipedian Mglovesfun ...

Martin Gardner

I appreciate that and for my money playing for money is not gambling - if it were, you could included tennis tournaments like Wimbledon as gambling. My point (which in fairness, I didn't make very well) is that if you're offering someone the choice between a £4 tournament and a £14 one, you're only...

Martin Gardner

Occaisonally celebrities go for their own words without checking with Susie and it can go wrong. I can remember Ken Bruce offering CUBED in one of my games when there was no C.

Martin

Martin Gardner

Online game: Spanish people plays countdown game on chat rooms since 2003. You all can play there because numbers rounds are the same like english version. I would like to see international games online. I have been playing on chat rooms since 2003, and I have been watching french and spanish tv sh...

Martin Gardner

"If both players tie with the answers, the champion add points on even games and the newbie on odd games." Just to clarify, I think that means that whoever picks the first letter gets the points on a tie-round (e.g. 7 each) which is what Karen described on the "Welcome" thread. M...

Martin Gardner

I can't see the harm in it, if there are any errors they can be corrected.

Martin

Martin Gardner

I would like to come to one of these in the future but I've just had a month's holiday in France and I am 1) knackered and 2) skint, so no now's not the best time.

Martin

Martin Gardner

I appreciate that and for my money playing for money is not gambling - if it were, you could included tennis tournaments like Wimbledon as gambling. My point (which in fairness, I didn't make very well) is that if you're offering someone the choice between a £4 tournament and a £14 one, you're only ...

Martin Gardner

I suppose it's no coincidence that you want to put the Corral back up in September, at the same time that you should get your student loan? In fairness no I hadn't really thought about the cost, so well done for putting in the effort where others might not. Keep up the good work.

Martin

Martin Gardner

It does make me think, I remember when players like Chris Wills and Julian Fell were on that they could certainly have approached the 50 mark has they not been stopped. Also, how good is the standard on Cifras y Letras? One player offered a six when there was a nine, for example (even I had a seven)...

Martin Gardner

Yeah you can do unnecessarily complicated things. When I play against Christine at home I often go over 1000 to solve the numbers. Really it's just the order of the operations for example (50/10)* 75 = 375 becomes 75 * 50 = 3750, 3750 / 10 = 375. The only time it's really useful is when you get an o...

Martin Gardner

The Spanish Wikipedia does a good job of this, apparently the old record on the previous station was 66 wins from 67 games by Carlos Adán Bonilla, which has now been beaten by Francisco.

Martin

Martin Gardner

Not sure if I've already said this, but it's interesting that the people who organise our club don't play ABSP tournaments because they consider it "playing for money". I thought this was bollocks at first until I realised that the tournaments I play in are £4 each and an ABSP tournament i...

Martin Gardner

What is the prize for winning on DCeDL and Countdown shows? The prize for winning one episode of Countdown is the famous goody bag including the exclusive Countdown teapot. After that there are no further prizes unless you win the entire series, for which you receive the complete Oxford English Dic...

Martin Gardner

That's the situation with COLIN, but as COBRIS (and COLEI too I think) have games where everyone plays with the same letters ("Swiss Tournaments" I think the term is), you don't need the 3rd person to host, so its just tables of two then. That's really called duplicate as in duplicate bri...

Martin Gardner

Joseph Bolas wrote:Normally if there are an odd number at COBRIS

If there is?

Anyway with Countdown isn't it usually three to a table, i.e. one to host and the other two to play. That's what we did at Colin 2005.

Martin

Martin Gardner

As Ross has correctly said, there were five confirmed entrants at the time of his posting (now six) but despite this, I can assure you all that the event will go ahead. I thought that with these events, people usually leave it till the last minute to sign up. One of the reasons why that with Scrabb...

Martin Gardner

Is the Corral not working for everyone or just for me? I was trying to do some letters selections to practise for the next tournament.

Martin

Martin Gardner

I've seen quite a lot of non British people on Countdown, I can remember one guy from Australia circa Series 48 and some from Pakistan / India who certainly had a foreign accent but might have been born in this country. And yes if you count the republic of Ireland that would substantially increase t...

Martin Gardner

For people with a long enough memory, I tried to organise a tournament in Leeds, I'd even negociated a venue, but only 4 people signed up including me myself so I cancelled it, although I think one poor bugger didn't get my initial message and paid for train tickets before finding out it was cancell...

Martin Gardner

It's actualy 24, Martin! 20 + 2 + 2 = 24. I have been assured that Countdown will not officially be ruined, as the staff are confident that they will find the right people to replace Des and Carol! It will just be different! If you're a casual Countdown watcher, you expect to see Des and Carol next...

Martin Gardner

It is an end of an era, but on the other hand Countdown's been lucky to have kept both of its presenters for 20 years and Carol for 6 years longer. I don't know what it's going to be like at the end of the Series with Carol leaving definitively. I suppose it had to happen one day, nothing lasts fore...

Martin Gardner

Jon Corby wrote:A mate's just emailed me to say he heard Myleene Klass is the rumoured replacement...

HELL. YES. PLEASE.

I'd watch every day, then. Not sure that Christine would appreciate it much.

Martin

Martin Gardner

IMHO I'm not sure that I'd want Countdown to be much more serious. Might have less chance of getting on if I applied anyway! :) Nerves are bound to knock a few points off home performance, but 100 down to 30?? I doubt it. Oh I don't know, once you factor in invalid words, declaring nothing on a few...

Martin Gardner

I think your post has attracted a disproportionate amount of negative comment. I don't agree with your conclusions but I thought it was interesting to hear the two programmes compared by one of the few people who have reasonable experience of both. The standard of French Scrabble also seems to be v...

Martin Gardner

Can we have that list, then? There hasn't been a post on this list for a while which is a bit worrying.

I'd quite like to organise another online tournament after that, unless someone else has already offered to do so.

Martin

Martin Gardner

The other thing, is for me the style is much better. It's treated like a proper contest a bit like a Scrabble tournament To be honest your argument lost me here. If you think any comparison to a Scrabble tournament positive, then you must accept that a room full of sociopathic, uninteresting, nothi...

Martin Gardner

I've just spent a month in France and I'm struggling with this damn qwerty keyboard now! I also managed to see DCeDL about 15 times in 30 days which is not bad, and I'd like to make some comparisons. Firstly the standard is incredibly high, in one game both contestants got the maximum from all the l...

Martin Gardner

I'll be away from tomorrow afternoon for 25 days and I don't think I'll have an Internet connection at any point during that time. What's more... I won't be able to watch Countdown either! I've got a week of Scrabble in the south of France before heading north and finally meeting my gf's parents aft...

Martin Gardner

Gev - if they don't need to decide what words can be pluralised, then why go to great lengths to list mass nouns in the first place? They list plural nouns, indicating that the plural is the same as the singular, so you'd be forgiven for assuming that when they list mass nouns, these words ought no...

Martin Gardner

Rather than having not fully rated players at the bottom as a text list, why not follow the ABSP example and have "fully rated players" and "semi-rated players" - i.e. that all the players with not enough games or not recently enough appear under the fully rated players even if t...

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