c4countdown

Martin Gardner

Right no not like that... Just for the information, I won 3 games out of 4 this afternoon to finish my weekend with 6 wins out of 10. It was a good laugh but to be honest I'd rather have had a lie in. Still I don't have another tournament for months now, so next weekend I can have a lie in! My high ...

Martin Gardner

Errr no not really since we didn't bring a camera, unless Ben has some.

Martin Gardner

Not as good as SYMPODIA but there is DAIMYOS for 7 which beats the panel.

Martin

Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner wrote: Can anyone get a 7 letter bingo from AAEUQR?
Martin

I just checked; AQUAFER is the only one (no places for an 8).

Martin

Martin Gardner

I've just got back from the tournament, I thought Ben might have already written a reply to this. I won three and lost three, beaten by the mercurial tournament winner Ben Wilson who won 5 games out of 6 +640 (ish) in spread (score A - score B). I had a really good time, but due to the fact I don't ...

Martin Gardner

Will there be any live coverage games that will be shown online move-by-move like with the WSC in Mumbai last year? I think only the North American championships which use the North American (and Thailand) dictionary, but still I usually like to follow them. I suspect they are in August or close to...

Martin Gardner

By the way do you know who's going? You're the only person that I know about. Martin I got the list online, I don't think there's anyone on that list that I know apart from Mark Hollingsworth, who I invited to travel with us and never got back to me, apparently he decided to travel on his own. He's...

Martin Gardner

Ben Wilson wrote: And 10 games in 48 hours? Try doing 24 (rated!) games in 24 hours...

I wasn't boasting I was just pointing out that I'd mismanaged the situation a little.

By the way do you know who's going? You're the only person that I know about.

Martin

Martin Gardner

Charlie Reams wrote:
Likewise, and August onwards is dandy for me. Hopefully I'll be applying to the show around the same time.

Miracles do happen, yes!

Martin

Martin Gardner

For people who aren't aware, Series 33 was the Countdown Supreme Championship. So by my count Series 66 ought to be the next one. If you count from Series 34 to 65 inclusive, that's 32 right? I know Damian has said he's not going to do it, which is really a shame because its the only chance that mos...

Martin Gardner

True but I don't really have the money at the moment while I'm a student. If I become a teacher like I want to do I'll obviously have loads of time and hopefully enough money to do tournaments during the summer, Easter, etc.

Martin

Martin Gardner

I thought I'd say that me and Ben Wilson are both doing the Peterborough Scrabble tournament this Saturday the 29th. By chance I have a charity tournament on the 30th, so I'll be playing 10 games of Scrabble in 48 hours. Unfortunately I live in one of the worst places in the country for ABSP Scrabbl...

Martin Gardner

I have no reply to this message, only I have 99 messages sent and I need to think of something to make it 100, so here it is.

Martin

Martin Gardner

I got distracted when the conundrum took three seconds to turn over.

Martin

Martin Gardner

I had CLEATING in that round, although I think maybe it's not specified as a verb, just CLEATED as an adjective. I'm surprised they missed all the -ING words like ELATING.

Martin

Martin Gardner

What I find with playing something like a 7-2, say you're in the small blind and you just have to call, although a 7 is as likely to come down as any other card it's unlikely to be top pair. So if the flop comes down K-Q-7 you're now losing to any king or queen or indeed a seven with a medium kicker...

Martin Gardner

Is this all true?

Martin

Martin Gardner

I got CAULDRON as well, did that beat the panel?

Martin

Martin Gardner

Well it's in French which is why I didn't mention it - maybe Jeff could read it!

Martin

Martin Gardner

I'm just looking at the Countdownwiki and the article of Frank, it seems to me that he never actually lost he just retired for personal reasons after a score of 133? I assume this was the last recording of the day and on the date of the next recordings, he was ill or had to work or something? What a...

Martin Gardner

Well I think both are true - I've just read "In the money" by Antonio Esfandiari and I thought it was quite good - my first book was a beginner's guide to poker type thing which goes through all the betting, the hands, what beats what, etc which you do need to know but you also need more t...

Martin Gardner

Jeff, My countdown MSN is mgcountdown@hotmail.fr, if you want to add me then maybe we can have a few practice games together, as the only practice I get is watching Countdown in English and checking the words in the Scrabble dictionary. We could probably both improve if we hooked up for a few online...

Martin Gardner

Jason Larsen wrote:Jeff, you weren't the original poster of this thread. So, I don't understand how you just chimed in.

I have no idea what you're talking about! Jeff is the one that knows most about this subject!

Martin

Martin Gardner

A cash game is not actually a tournament at all - you can pick up and chips and leave at any time, and cash them in, like you see in the Monte Carlo films. The idea is the chips are worth real money, and the idea is to make as much profit as you can and then leaves. The game has not fixed finish, an...

Martin Gardner

We do a "fake cash game" - that is to say if you lose all your money you can buy in again. It means if you do get eliminated you can just buy in again. But still people don't play as if its real money. I might suggest we all put £5 or something just to make people take it seriously but I d...

Martin Gardner

What nine is this?

Martin Gardner

Yes if I were to compare it with Scrabble, you can't pass your tiles before the flop in Scrabble! If the blinds are low enough you can keep passing until you get a good hand, and if you're disciplined enough to pass when you don't have anything you will (IMO) make money in the long run, although we ...

Martin Gardner

We'd get more nines if he picked 4 vowels more often.

Martin

Martin Gardner

Not too hard this one

50+7 = 57
3*3+1 = 10
10*57-2 = 568

Martin Gardner

LITHARGE is an equaller I think.

Martin Gardner

I thought I'd get a thread started on my other favourite hobby, poker. Well that's not true I only play no-limit Texas hold 'em. That's the only type of poker you see on TV, well of the channels I have anyway, and it annoys me a bit when they call it "poker" all the time, as there are abou...

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,...

Martin Gardner

Would it not be informative to keep track of (I appreciate this can't be done retrospectively) the letters each player had during the game? Also, how good are the good scrabble bots? Do they just look for the best individual word they can make? Or are they more tactical (not setting up triple words...

Martin Gardner

I got OUTPACES which beats the contestants, but didn't get COPULATES.

Martin Gardner

I apologise if this doesn't work Martin Quackle A Quackle B Spread Spread Winners Nb. wins 1 416 429 -13 13 B 1 2 355 475 -120 120 B 2 3 604 384 220 220 A 1 4 413 440 -27 27 B 3 5 309 466 -157 157 B 4 6 576 321 255 255 A 2 7 329 468 -139 139 B 5 8 487 389 98 98 A 3 9 451 459 -8 8 B 6 10 456 391 65 6...

Martin Gardner

*Insert clever rhetoric here*

Martin Gardner

Have now got to 40 simulations using SOWPODS (British English) the results are : Quackle A 20 - 20 Quackle B Mean score : 436 Median score : 439 Total spread : +369 for Quackle A Total spread, ignoring negative numbers : 3447 Mean spread : 86.19 Median spread : 79 Biggest spread : Quackle A won by 2...

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

Martin Gardner · Re: Spoilers for Monday 29 September 2014 100 + 1 for the first numbers...

100 + 1 for the first numbers...

Martin Gardner

Basically there are too many players for everyone to play everyone. Say it's a massive tournament you play 16 games against the others players, so maybe 16 players out of 40 or something. Players - just like at Countdown competitions - are sorted by wins first, and spread second rather than just poi...

Martin Gardner

Presumably all the words have been checked against whatever dictionary was used at the time (whichever one it was)? That would be the ideal solution yes, but I don't know anyone who has the dictionary. I checked my own games on the Countdownwiki and there were a few invalid ones there - DOORCASES f...

Martin Gardner

Oh btw I just checked, the numbers game can't be solved exactly

Martin

Martin Gardner

What a brilliant game, I can't believe he lost after just one win. Very very high quality too, HUMANISE beat me, I didn't get FROWNED but did get CRAYONED at the end. You can also got 927 on the numbers, get to 925 in the way they did then do (25-5)/10, which is pointless of course but would score 7...

Martin Gardner

Conor Travers beat Chris Wills 2-0 in the best of three, the second of those games is here : http://www.countdownwiki.com/COMA_-_Chr ... %2C_game_2.

Martin

Martin Gardner

For Jason, you can have any word in the current Oxford Dictionary of English as long as it follows Countdown rules - i.e. no proper nouns, no abbreviations, no words with hyphens or commas in (like re-elect or wasn't, although reelect might be ok I don't know). It doesn't matter where the word's fro...

Martin Gardner

jasoncullen wrote:REDIALING?

I think in British English it would be double L. I got DERAILING too.

Martin

Martin Gardner

I know from one of the computer simulations I just did, the only two words I knew the meaning of in the whole games were REPULSE and EX! All of the other ones were obscure. I know in one of the games it played MINDFUCK^ which I thought was hilarious, although I don't know exactly what it means it's ...

Martin Gardner

I know on Des chiffres et des lettres (in French) the show is about an hour long with 14 rounds, and the first 15 minutes they just spend talking. I remember one guy was a retired primary school teacher and then it turned out that the two contestants had played each other in a tournament and they al...

Martin Gardner

Hi I've checked all the games of http://www.countdownwiki.com/Series_33 on the Countdown Wiki. Not all games have round details, but all of the group finals plus the seven finals games all have checked rounds details. Of note is Allan Saldanha's perfect score before the conundrum in his game against...

Martin Gardner

In fairness no I do like the game and I'm not really biased one way or the other. In French with have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duplicate_Scrabble which is more popular by about a 15:1 ratio (21 000 rated players in duplicate, 1500 players in match play) and match play has a reputation for being ...

Martin Gardner

Well you're wrong and right. If you're trying to measure "luck" (ok I did say random chance variable) then things like one player starting first, one player having both blanks, those are things that happen in real tournaments and online games. The main argument on the forum has been that s...

Martin Gardner

Well no I think it's random starts, it certainly wasn't one player starting every game. It's statistically an advantage to go first for a few reasons. Firstly you can have one more go than your opponent. Imagine you've played 12 moves each, player one plays all his tiles on his 13th move, player two...

Martin Gardner

I've been doing a somewhat interesting investigation using Quackle in French. I hope to replicate it in English when I have the time (or more realistically, patience!). Basically I got Quackle's championship player to play against Quackle's championship player. If both players are identical and use ...

Martin Gardner

1. T R L M Y L I E E I 2. X V N R T M O O E A 3. T R C N S N I I E E 4. 8, 10, 5, 100, 9 4, TARGET : 645 5. W N S N T A I O U I 6. S S P R R O E E O A 7. B R Z D D S A E A E 8. 6, 2, 50, 9, 8 4, TARGET : 662 9. (CONUNDRUM) EIGHTHSOUL Using an anagrammer, I get MILLERITE (9), extremely tough that on...

Martin Gardner

Jason Larsen wrote:David, I'm not sure what he means.

Do you mind if I ask how old you are Jason?

Martin Gardner

Can you tell me how to get it in the UK? Do I need Sky or can I get it with Freeview?

Martin

Martin Gardner

Without counting the conundrum (which I set myself) I can get 63. Possibly a few points higher if I checked words in the dictionary.

Martin

Martin Gardner

Because I'm bored and there's no Countdown today I thought I'd post a normal game of Countdown but with 10 letters instead of nine, in the same way that I posted some 10-letter conundrums a few years ago. 9 letter words score 9 points, a ten gets 20. I'm too lazy to do 15 rounds so it's going to be ...

Martin Gardner

Craig Beevers wrote:Am I the only one that thinks PATIOED sounds stupid then?

I would have thought you could say "I patioed my back garden in may" but no, it's not in the dictionary. It's easier to use that in a sentence than it is to use opiated.

Martin

Martin Gardner

I'll try and give definitions otherwise it doesn't make much sense. IMAGISTE (8) - presumably someone who makes images. MOUILLÉ (7) - only 7 here, it means wet or wetted. ÉCLISSÉES (9) - note that this doesn't score 18 points. Une éclisse is like a supporting piece of wood, so éclisser means to supp...

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