c4countdown

Graeme Cole

Essentially the question was, what if what's shown on TV isn't the same as what happens in the studio. C1 and C2 are level going into the conundrum. Nobody gets it. They're given a tiebreak, and C1 gets it. The first conundrum is cut out for some reason. Does it count as a tiebreak? I think this is ...

Graeme Cole

I've never organised an event, so I'll leave the advice about event planning to someone else, but since you ask about the "best" format to use, here are my observations from events I've attended over the years. Personally I prefer Edinburgh (or "Lincoln") style, but a recent poll on Facebook shows a...

Graeme Cole

Q: in event of a TB which is cut from broadcast (such as my first show), will this go down as a margin of 10 or a TB? Here’s how it will work: … In the event of a tie-break conundrum, this will be taken to be a 0 point win. ... Best of luck! I don't think that answers the question as well as you th...

Graeme Cole

I need specific. Where people are sending me ranges I'm taking the middle value. (If anyone who gave a range reads this, I will allow them to pick a number within their range to be more specific, but otherwise, middle value) People have actually done that? What kind of lunatic would send you a rang...

Graeme Cole

I sent Zarte a list of my predicted winners and margins for each game. It was decided entirely by random dice rolls. My only goal is not to come last in the prediction game so that at least one person loses to random chance. But at least my entry complied with the rules.

Graeme Cole

What if... It wouldn't remove the perhaps disproportionate advantage you get from finishing mid-table at a large event compared to winning a smaller one Then why even invent such a weird system? There are systems that sort that problem out with adding weird arbitrary numbers on the end as an aftert...

Graeme Cole

That the mechanic was simple to explain to anyone who happened to ask, to the point where they could reasonably work out exactly how they'd done on the day. And equally that it would be easy to follow in terms of looking over the spreadsheet. For this reason, things with a curve (except perhaps a c...

Graeme Cole

I agree that the current scoring system does reward the top positions at smaller events less than it should compared to the middling positions at large events. However, I'm not convinced that the points value of an event (number of points given to the winner) needs to be decided in advance of the ev...

Graeme Cole

Rhys Benjamin wrote: ↑
Thu Aug 09, 2018 11:33 pm

Ray Wilding wrote: ↑
Thu Aug 09, 2018 12:15 pm
Please no... I don't wanna go back to PAINEDER/PAINEDEST, CANEDER/CANEDEST, CAGEDER/CAGEDEST and so on...
All of those are 2 syllables, though, if you take “-ed” as a second syllable as I do.

Are you one of those infuriating people who say "Horn-ed Viper"?

Graeme Cole

I'm sure I used to read books regularly as a child, but some time around Year 9 at school, the Reading Record was introduced, on which you were meant to record all the books you read, the details of them, what you thought of them, etc. I just ignored it. Then at some point my English teacher was puz...

Graeme Cole

Terrible idea. That co-event with 4,000 people was an utter shambles. The event started on time at 11am, with 3,998 people present, Tom Carey at home having got the date wrong, and Anthony Endsor wandering round a similarly-named town a hundred miles away. So far so average, but things went downhill...

Graeme Cole

Well, it's Sam who spotted it, I can't take credit for that. This is an amazing spot. I've run some queries on the database to see if I can find any other strange patterns. To start with, I've only looked at "new CECIL", that is, starting from this game in 2013 when the introduced the new displays,...

Graeme Cole

Bryan's buzz was after the 30 seconds lit up on the clock, and after the "boom", but perhaps before the echo of the "boom" had finished tailing off. If he'd got it right, would it have been accepted? Are the buzzers not automatically disabled when the time runs out?

Graeme Cole

The arguments about not having a random draw could end up with some people deliberately throwing their last prelim in their original series if they want to play the long game. I don't follow Rhys - can you explain? Taking cue from Graeme, I'm going to a logical extreme here, but if you imagine the ...

Graeme Cole

At the last CoC, the QF’s were Winner 1 v 2, Winner 3 v 4, etc., and this time you’ve reverted to the 1 v 8, 2 v 7, etc. And yes, I realise that in the previous one before that, it was reverted again, and hasn’t been consistent all the way through the history of the show. Some might say there might...

Graeme Cole

Some believe that 100 is not a valid target since if the number 100 is in the rack and the target is also 100 then there is no computations to be done. Using this assumption (many believe that this is the case with C4 countdown) there are only 898 targets. The valid targets are between 101 and 999 ...

Graeme Cole

Thomas Cappleman wrote: ↑
Thu Jun 28, 2018 11:57 pm

Elliott Mellor wrote: ↑
Thu Jun 28, 2018 8:39 pm
Very nice, what'll your specialist subject be (if you can say)?
Doing the New Testament letters

The only advice I can give is to never put a sock in a toaster.

Graeme Cole

Congratulations, both of you. Great final. Highest scoring final ever, and the fourth-highest-scoring of any type, the top three coming in CoCs and the 30th Birthday Championship (this one, this one and this one).

EORTHMAN in R8?

Graeme Cole

Zarte Siempre wrote: ↑
Sun Jun 17, 2018 12:28 pm

Graeme Cole wrote: ↑
Sun Jun 17, 2018 9:31 am
Callum Todd 69 - 34 Zarte Siempre
This is incorrect. Must have been 69-54, as it was a crucial.

Fixed.

Graeme Cole

STANDINGS Players are ranked by wins, then points. P W Pts 1 Callum Todd 6 5 428 2 James Robinson 6 5 383 3 Jen Steadman 6 5 365 4 Jonathan Wynn 6 5 362 5 Zarte Siempre 6 4 371 6 Graeme Cole 6 4 344 7 Tim Down 6 4 341 8 Jeff Clayton 6 4 310 9 Mike Brown 6 4 296 10 Robin McKay 6 3 377 11 Tom Carey 6 ...

Graeme Cole

Guys for when that British game show service comes out in July, if it'll have the 30bc, for anyone who watched it, when Nick is explaining the contestant's history in the show do we get a brief footage of them in the show like we did for the supreme championship? No, I don't think they did that, at...

Graeme Cole

Guys for when that British game show service comes out in July, if it'll have the 30bc, for anyone who watched it, when Nick is explaining the contestant's history in the show do we get a brief footage of them in the show like we did for the supreme championship? No, I don't think they did that, at...

Graeme Cole

Here are the results and final standings. Oliver Garner and Mark Murray played in the final, and Oliver won 65-47. STANDINGS Players are ranked by wins, then points. P W Pts 1 Oliver Garner 6 5 389 2 Mark Murray 6 5 384 3 James Robinson 6 5 373 4 Tom Cappleman 6 5 354 5 Eddy Byrne 6 5 350 6 Paul Erd...

Graeme Cole

I thought Clarkson hadn't been too bad as host, but that howler with the ibex question was unforgivable. As examples of What Not To Do As A Quiz Show Host go, saying (exact words) "I'm not even going to look at the screen" before confidently telling the contestant they've got the answer right must b...

Graeme Cole

The first guy ended up being the best one. Didn't take the game-ending risk that the others did. I didn't think he was that bad anyway. Yes. Some people on Facebook's Quiz Discussion Group were bemoaning the general knowledge level of the contestants (as you'd expect from a group of quizzing enthus...

Graeme Cole

And well done personally on your performance as captain, encouraging your team throughout (despite what the Mail claims!) I had no idea what this was a reference to, so I looked for it. Anyone else can find it too, so I won't help the Mail by linking to the article. Suffice to say that all they've ...

Graeme Cole

I'd have thought a low-budget remake of Blockbusters themed entirely around internet and old-computer-game-related questions was a pretty niche interest, but I guess the Venn diagram intersection between fans of old technology and fans of old game shows isn't exactly small. Enjoy: https://www.youtub...

Graeme Cole

I'm in.

Graeme Cole

0.068 tonnes.

Graeme Cole

Yesterday: Crap standard of play today. "2 good players" mmm...yeah.... No disrespect intended but it stretches the definition of good a bit... And today: Quality still at a low level today. At least some rise in play today with an alright challenger.. Still quite dire though Sigh. Barbed comments l...

Graeme Cole

The little "4" logo in the corner of the screen has moved from the top left corner to the top right corner.

Graeme Cole

In Round 1 of this game , the first three letters drawn were QXZ. Have all four of the "difficult" letters (those three plus the J) ever appeared in the same round? If not, how many times have three of them appeared? No selection has ever had J, Q, X and Z in it. 18 selections have had three of tho...

Graeme Cole

Turns out this thread is still a thing. Following on from the infamous FREEDRUTH incident, how many times has a conundrum answer been used more than once in a series? I know PROUDSTEP => SUPPORTED was also used twice, about 2-3 weeks apart, during or around the time of Robbo's original run in Series...

Graeme Cole

Pete Cashmore puts the view that the long-running game show Countdown has become "a hunched, wan shadow of its glorious former self". Dull, past its prime, and out of new ideas, Pete Cashmore is a former series champion.

Graeme Cole

I hope nobody at the Express or Sun is reading this. What if they found out that thousands of past contestants, including us, received the same guidelines about wardrobe and game procedure when they went on the show and didn't give them to the press, on the paper-thin pretext that we didn't think it...

Graeme Cole

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑
Sun Dec 17, 2017 3:20 pm
Detectors

Detectorists!

(Edit: clip I wanted to include with this post but couldn't find at the time.)

Graeme Cole

I think I know the answer to this question, but I'm genuinely curious: All spots for the Series 77 finals are now claimed, and there are still seven heats left in the series. If someone wins the next six games and loses the seventh and last heat, and six wins proves to be enough to make it into the...

Graeme Cole

I just came on here to paste the results in, thinking I was doing it really early. Then I find that Ben has been even keener and has already done it.

Still one result to go, though...

Rob Foster won the final against Jen Steadman, 76-42.

Graeme Cole

The conundrum round is filmed with both contestants positioned in clear view of the camera, so it's relatively easy to see who's hand pressed first in these instances. We look back on the hard-drive and see that Graeme pressed first. Not ideal, but fair. Thanks for clarifying. I take back the bit a...

Graeme Cole

I was in the studio for this one, the conundrum was actually very controversial. I think Nick said 'good luck to you both' or something on those lines after asking to roll the crucial conundrum. So the board flipped a good second or two before the clock began, and I think they both tried to buzz. G...

Graeme Cole

If you want even more commentary on the New Crystal Maze, Iain Weaver's Weaver's Week article has done a similar analysis of the series. The main difference is that he realised the series was over at the time he wrote his article, and when I started this thread on Thursday I thought we were still in...

Graeme Cole

Good essay. They've made those games harder as well - you have to get two out of three, when Mumsie would have been happy with just one (content warning: wrong aspect ratio). For the new maths game, the Jailer puzzle in the Medieval zone, it looks like they're still tinkering with the format. In mo...

Graeme Cole

Also in the Aztec Zone... you know that game with the balls on the circular tray suspended by four pulleys? I'm not sure if it's a nice idea with the difficulty pitched wrong, or if the teams have just been rubbish at it. It seems infuriatingly fiddly. You decide: [1] [2] I think this game is ridic...

Graeme Cole

(Starting a new thread on this rather than using the existing "Crystal Maze" thread, because that's about the experience in London rather than the TV show.) Now we're a few episodes in to the reboot of the Crystal Maze, here is what started as a reply to Gevin's post in another thread, quickly grew ...

Graeme Cole

I've just playtested this further. Out of 15 rounds, I solved 3 exactly, was 1-5 away on 8 of them and was 6-10 away on 1 of them. It seems that as long as you get a reasonable selection, getting 1 or 2 away is usually doable.

Graeme Cole

You've heard of chess boxing . You've heard of... erm... yes, it turns out there are other hybrid sports . Now, inspired by a recent Facebook comment thread, I've invented Dartsdown! One-sentence synopsis Dartsdown is the Countdown numbers game, but you pick your starting numbers by throwing six dar...

Graeme Cole

Disillusioned with the price of the weekend at the Thorpe-on-the-Hill Travelbodge stubbornly refusing to drop below £100 for several months? Wish there was a way of spending only a small fortune on the hotel this year rather than a large one? Well, this weekend they're doing a discount, and it expir...

Graeme Cole

Calibration score Mean confidence: 71.60% Actual percent correct: 70.00% You want your mean confidence and actual score to be as close as possible. Mean confidence on correct answers: 76.00% Mean confidence on incorrect answers: 61.33% You want your mean confidence to be low for incorrect answers a...

Graeme Cole

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑
Mon Sep 11, 2017 3:15 pm
It can take years of studying CSW in order to win the WSC.

I studied the ODE for ages. Where's my Duke of Edinburgh award?

Graeme Cole

Martin Hurst wrote: ↑
Thu Aug 24, 2017 9:03 pm
And when will someone notice that someone has nicked the K tile?

I hadn't noticed this. Turns out we haven't seen a K since a month ago.

Graeme Cole

Here are the results. All games were 9-rounders except the final, which was 15 rounds. The final was between the two previous Co:KL winners, Stephen Read and Rob Foster. Rob won the final 109-73 to win Co:KL 2017 and effectively the Co:KL Championship of Champions. Many thanks to Mike for putting th...

Graeme Cole

Johnny Canuck wrote: ↑
Sun May 21, 2017 12:52 am
Gotta admit, I don't really get it...

A few months ago, actor Ricky Tomlinson claimed that Richard Whiteley was an MI5 spy. Details here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-39141060

Graeme Cole

Oliver Garner beat Rob Foster 65-62 on the crucial conundrum BUMPROBES to become CO:LON 2017 champion. Here's the rest of the copy-pasta.... STANDINGS Players are ranked by wins, then points. P W Pts 1 Rob Foster 6 6 378 2 Oliver Garner 6 6 360 3 Conor Travers 6 5 392 4 Dan McColm 6 5 352 4 Giles Hu...

Graeme Cole

I kept expecting Nick to go off on a rant about immigration. I think it was his tie.

Graeme Cole

In please!

Graeme Cole

I dreamed that I was on Countdown and Susie's origins bit was something interesting about words related to marine animals. It was interesting enough that well into the next round I was distracted thinking about various fish parts and how they got their name, so I could only find a three letter word...

Graeme Cole

I dreamed that I was on Countdown and Susie's origins bit was something interesting about words related to marine animals. It was interesting enough that well into the next round I was distracted thinking about various fish parts and how they got their name, so I could only find a three letter word....

Graeme Cole

The round 2 fixtures are almost complete, except for two tables which contain Nick Wainwright, Hugh Binnie, Mark James, CF, Phil Makepeace and Heather Badcock in some configuration. A picture shows that Nick was playing Hugh. Phil and CF had already played each other in R1 so would have been on dif...

Graeme Cole

Adam Gillard wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:29 pm
Seagull was flying tonight.

And shitting over everyone else.

Graeme Cole

Elliott Mellor wrote: ↑
Thu Jan 26, 2017 7:45 pm
VERY consistent! Wonder if that has happened before?

According to the database, no, not in a 15-round game. That's the first time a contestant has offered the same length word in every letters round.

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