Strange Games

Martin Gardner · Post by **Martin Gardner** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:15 am

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=35368

If this isn't strange I don't know what is...

Kai Laddiman · Post by **Kai Laddiman** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:21 am

Martin Gardner wrote:http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=35368

If this isn't strange I don't know what is...

Martin Gardner · Post by **Martin Gardner** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:49 am

Kai Laddiman wrote:
Martin Gardner wrote:http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=35368

If this isn't strange I don't know what is...
This?

Yeah it gives you ten seconds if you want them or not, oh by the way:

Kai Laddiman wrote:These days, can a chicken not cross a road without a joke being made out of it? Seriously. Some people.

Excellent!

JimBentley · Post by **JimBentley** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 11:29 am

Martin Gardner wrote:
Ben Wilson wrote:Deliberate server breakage attempt? Certainly I can pick out at least one round there I could do within the time limit but the computer couldn't.
Interesting round 9. I'm pretty sure it is possible, although the computer says you can't get within 10.

It is: (((6x5x5)+4)x9x2)-3, although I don't think I'd have managed it in 3 seconds either!

Or 30, for that matter.

Martin Gardner · Post by **Martin Gardner** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 11:58 am

But in a maximums only game, what if the numbers are 1,1,2,2,3,3 for a target of 999. How do you score a max?

Martin Gardner · Post by **Martin Gardner** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 2:55 pm

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=35483

Hmmmmm.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:32 pm

Martin Gardner wrote:http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=35483

Hmmmmm.

Classic.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:39 pm

How many maxes did I get here and look how many non-words Damo offered and I still lose. Not that I'm bitter or anything. Well played mate.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=35495

(Could be a GotW candidate?)

Edit: Oh, and the background colours are wrong for speedgoat.

Ben Wilson · Post by **Ben Wilson** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 9:23 pm

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=38449

Fellow birthday boy Bill Shatner in dictionary corner, and in the other room Mum's watching BBC1 and what should come on but the main characters singing 'Happy Birthday'.

Michael Wallace · Post by **Michael Wallace** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:24 pm

Not quite good enough for brag or GOTW, but pretty epic speedgoat between me and Matthew.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:45 pm

It's good to see words I offer on the show appearing on apterous time and time again and it's also good to see other people learning them (as long as it's not any of my future opponents on the show):

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=39154

Phil Reynolds · Post by **Phil Reynolds** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:50 am

Sometimes, how well (or badly) you play seems to have little impact on the final scoreline. In this game, Matt and I plodded along with 6s and 7s, both missing the max on practically every round (probably because we were too busy talking dirty to each other in the chat pane to concentrate on spotting words), and neither of us got the conundrum. Yet some easy numbers and a good 9 spot by both of us resulted in a highly respectable 89-104.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 12:00 pm

Phil Reynolds wrote:Sometimes, how well (or badly) you play seems to have little impact on the final scoreline. In this game, Matt and I plodded along with 6s and 7s, both missing the max on practically every round (probably because we were too busy talking dirty to each other in the chat pane to concentrate on spotting words), and neither of us got the conundrum. Yet some easy numbers and a good 9 spot by both of us resulted in a highly respectable 89-104.

A bit like this game, which is (apart from Kirk's various astronomical scores) the highest-scoring 15 rounder on Apterous. Yet I only got 8 maxes. You just have to pick the right rounds to concentrate in, I guess.

Michael Wallace · Post by **Michael Wallace** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 1:31 pm

As I (repeatedly) explain to people who are not hardcore Countdown dudes, if you assume you get the numbers and the conundrum (not that unreasonable if they're all one larges) then you only need 60 points from 11 letter rounds to hit the century. Are there any games where someone has scored in every round and *not* managed it?

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 1:44 pm

Michael Wallace wrote:As I (repeatedly) explain to people who are not hardcore Countdown dudes, if you assume you get the numbers and the conundrum (not that unreasonable if they're all one larges) then you only need 60 points from 11 letter rounds to hit the century. Are there any games where someone has scored in every round and *not* managed it?

Obviously I can't say for certain, but it seems pretty unlikely that you could score in 15 rounds and not make 100. But it would be interesting to know the lowest scoring all-rounds-scoring game.

Matt Morrison · Post by **Matt Morrison** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 1:51 pm

Charlie Reams wrote:it seems pretty unlikely that you could score in 15 rounds and not make 100. But it would be interesting to know the lowest scoring all-rounds-scoring game.

This seems like an Aptochallenge suitable for me.

Ian Dent · Post by **Ian Dent** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:20 pm

It does seem unlikely. I'm a fairly weak player but managed to score 95 by scoring in all previous 14 rounds a few days ago. Missed the conundrum though, obviously.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 10:27 pm

11 6 letter words, 3 7s on the numbers and the conundrum gives 97 points. A cracking total for quite a poor game.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 12:12 am

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=40561

Check out the closest you can get on round 79. Brilliant. Rachel sucks.

Daniel O'Dowd · Post by **Daniel O'Dowd** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 2:35 am

Rofl. Only 5621 away? That isn't bad for a newcomer! :lol

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 2:54 am

Charlie Reams wrote:
Michael Wallace wrote:As I (repeatedly) explain to people who are not hardcore Countdown dudes, if you assume you get the numbers and the conundrum (not that unreasonable if they're all one larges) then you only need 60 points from 11 letter rounds to hit the century. Are there any games where someone has scored in every round and *not* managed it?
Obviously I can't say for certain, but it seems pretty unlikely that you could score in 15 rounds and not make 100. But it would be interesting to know the lowest scoring all-rounds-scoring game.

I was right... just. Here's the record, wherein Rob Thomas makes 100... just. Impressive that it's against an actual human, too.

Edit: Having bothered to write this query, I've made a page of it.

Matt Morrison · Post by **Matt Morrison** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 12:04 pm

Charlie Reams wrote:I've made a page of it.

Does that only take into account regular 15 rounders?
Obviously with flat scoring you could abuse it pretty hard.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 1:44 pm

Matt Morrison wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote:I've made a page of it.
Does that only take into account regular 15 rounders?
Obviously with flat scoring you could abuse it pretty hard.

Yes. Only the exact normal format counts. Otherwise you could abuse it quite a bit harder with maxes only.

JackHurst · Post by **JackHurst** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 1:19 pm

http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=41193

In the first numbers round we got better than a maximum.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 1:28 pm

JackHurst wrote:http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=41193

In the first numbers round we got better than a maximum.

I'll do something about this at some point.

Ben Wilson · Post by **Ben Wilson** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 3:01 pm

JackHurst wrote:http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=41193

In the first numbers round we got better than a maximum.

In my HNA record I think I beat the max 3 times causing me to impressively come within one point of the maximum on a numbers attack. Had I not botched an earlier round I'd have beaten the max by a considerable margin.

Kevin Davis · Post by **Kevin Davis** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 10:22 pm

Round Three: Some men can find it, you know.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 11:38 pm

Kevin Davis wrote:Round Three: Some men can find it, you know.

Every time I see CLITORIS recently, ELICITORS is always there. No wonder I'm shit in bed...

Simon Myers · Post by **Simon Myers** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 1:04 am

Kirk Bevins wrote:
Kevin Davis wrote:Round Three: Some men can find it, you know.
Every time I see CLITORIS recently, ELICITORS is always there. No wonder I'm shit in bed...

Every time I see CLITORIS recently, my SOLICITOR is always there. I wish he'd stop following me around...

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:15 am

The only all-darrens 15 rounder ever.

(Statistically a game like this happens about once every 46 thousand.)

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:03 am

Charlie Reams wrote:(Statistically a game like this happens about once every 46 thousand.)

How did you calculate that? Just based on the proportion of rounds which have darrens from your database?

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 12:08 pm

Jon Corby wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote:(Statistically a game like this happens about once every 46 thousand.)
How did you calculate that? Just based on the proportion of rounds which have darrens from your database?

Yep, 65606 darrenic rounds in 15684 games, or 38%. So assuming darrens occur independently (seems roughly reasonable), that gives one all-darrens game in, umm, 41587... I think I messed up the rounding somewhere, but you get the idea.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 12:27 pm

Charlie Reams wrote:
Jon Corby wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote:(Statistically a game like this happens about once every 46 thousand.)
How did you calculate that? Just based on the proportion of rounds which have darrens from your database?
Yep, 65606 darrenic rounds in 15684 games, or 38%. So assuming darrens occur independently (seems roughly reasonable), that gives one all-darrens game in, umm, 41587... I think I messed up the rounding somewhere, but you get the idea.

Aye, makes sense.

Chris Davies · Post by **Chris Davies** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:02 am

Not that strange really, but this is almost certainly my first palindromic nine-letter word.

Junaid Mubeen · Post by **Junaid Mubeen** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:05 am

Chris Davies wrote:Not that strange really, but this is almost certainly my first palindromic nine-letter word.

It was a stunning spot, nice one. By the way Chris, my quietness during games is due to chat not working in case you were wondering.

Chris Davies · Post by **Chris Davies** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:24 am

Junaid Mubeen wrote:
Chris Davies wrote:Not that strange really, but this is almost certainly my first palindromic nine-letter word.
It was a stunning spot, nice one. By the way Chris, my quietness during games is due to chat not working in case you were wondering.

Cheers

Yeah, I reckoned it most likely meant that your chat wasn't working. I often have the same problem.

Neil Zussman · Post by **Neil Zussman** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 2:23 pm

Closest I'll ever get to a perfect speed 9: http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=42146 Pissed me off immensely. I got the first numbers, but for some reason apterous doesn't think 10/2*7 is 35. Which it clearly is. So in a way, I'm glad I messed up the other numbers as well. But it's still infuriating.

I decided to take my anger out on Prune in the next game, trying to only score with words that were maxes. Obviously this meant taking some stupid risks, but on the bright side, I set some records- like the lowest ever winning score

(although it hasn't appeared in statland yet for some reason)
http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=42154

Chris Davies · Post by **Chris Davies** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 3:13 pm

Neil Zussman wrote:Closest I'll ever get to a perfect speed 9: http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=42146 Pissed me off immensely. I got the first numbers, but for some reason apterous doesn't think 10/2*7 is 35. Which it clearly is. So in a way, I'm glad I messed up the other numbers as well. But it's still infuriating.

I decided to take my anger out on Prune in the next game, trying to only score with words that were maxes. Obviously this meant taking some stupid risks, but on the bright side, I set some records- like the lowest ever winning score (although it hasn't appeared in statland yet for some reason)
http://apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=42154

Multiplications are done before any other math operations, including division, so 10/2*7 is understood as 10/(2*7), rather than (10/2)*7.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:47 pm

Chris Davies wrote:
Multiplications are done before any other math operations, including division, so 10/2*7 is understood as 10/(2*7), rather than (10/2)*7.

This is not true. Multiplication and division are worth the same and so if you have an expression containing just multiplication and division, one should read left to right and thus would read it 10/2 then * 7.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:52 pm

Kirk Bevins wrote: This is not true. Multiplication and division are worth the same and so if you have an expression containing just multiplication and division, one should read left to right and thus would read it 10/2 then * 7.

Chris was explaining what Apterous does, not how BIDMAS works.

Stuart Arnot · Post by **Stuart Arnot** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:54 pm

Charlie Reams wrote:
Kirk Bevins wrote: This is not true. Multiplication and division are worth the same and so if you have an expression containing just multiplication and division, one should read left to right and thus would read it 10/2 then * 7.
Chris was explaining what Apterous does, not how BIDMAS works.

It used to trip me up all the time when I started out. Now I bracket the shit out of everything, just to be safe.

Ben Hunter · Post by **Ben Hunter** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 5:37 pm

I just press = after everything.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 7:01 pm

Good to see that in one round on goatdown, there was just a darrenical 4 available and I missed it!

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?ga ... 69#r642069

Kai Laddiman · Post by **Kai Laddiman** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 10:31 pm

Kirk Bevins wrote:Good to see that in one round on goatdown, there was just a darrenical 4 available and I missed it!

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?ga ... 69#r642069

Kirk you got pwned in round 18.

Kieran Child · Post by **Kieran Child** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 3:49 pm

Not a particularly strange game, but I liked round 2 of this, as an oddity:
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=43935

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 8:02 pm

Played okay here but again could easily have been a max game in the hands of someone better.

Matt Morrison · Post by **Matt Morrison** » Wed Apr 08, 2009 2:10 pm

Charlie Reams wrote:Played okay here but again could easily have been a max game in the hands of someone better.

Odd how the conundrum turned out. That was my answer from the first conundrum which you never even got to see (the extra Es didn't even come up on my screen either, I just bashed a load of letters when it didn't let me press enter).

D Eadie · Post by **D Eadie** » Wed Apr 08, 2009 4:37 pm

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?ga ... 97#r640197

Somehow i managed to overcome Rex here, even in the face of his veiled threats in the opening 2 rds.

Oliver Garner · Post by **Oliver Garner** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 11:12 am

Is this me being rubbish or is this a really hard collection of 2 large numbers games?
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=45167

Matt Morrison · Post by **Matt Morrison** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 2:34 pm

Undeniably strange: http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=45286

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Thu Apr 09, 2009 2:53 pm

Matt Morrison wrote:Undeniably strange: http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=45286

Yeah, I was on a mission to cracking the eggs (no pun intended). I ended round early expecting to beat prune but he hit me with a max and I lost 7-0

D Eadie · Post by **D Eadie** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 8:47 pm

it was nonsense.

Ben Wilson · Post by **Ben Wilson** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 11:52 pm

Whoops, I left apterous running in the TARDIS again.

Ben Wilson · Post by **Ben Wilson** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:32 pm

What a difference having the goatpick makes!

Ben Wilson · Post by **Ben Wilson** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 11:02 pm

Probably the most vicious conundrum attack of all time.

Dinos Sfyris · Post by **Dinos Sfyris** » Fri May 01, 2009 4:05 am

Ben Wilson wrote:Probably the most vicious conundrum attack of all time.

Jeez thats harsh! Congrats on the 70 points tho

Dinos Sfyris · Post by **Dinos Sfyris** » Mon May 04, 2009 6:24 pm

Check out the fucking metamax!

Also notice how in rounds 8 and 10 Innis managed to replicate 2 exact selections from todays show! Although what really took the biscuit was his admirably mighty declaration for round 11

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Mon May 04, 2009 6:57 pm

Dinos Sfyris wrote:Check out the fucking metamax!

This game had a higher max than that metamax...

Callum Laddiman · Post by **Callum Laddiman** » Mon May 04, 2009 8:00 pm

Charlie Reams wrote:
Dinos Sfyris wrote:Check out the fucking metamax!
This game had a higher max than that metamax...

Sorry, please may you point out where the max was higher.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Mon May 04, 2009 8:57 pm

Callum Laddiman wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote:
Dinos Sfyris wrote:Check out the fucking metamax!
This game had a higher max than that metamax...

Sorry, please may you point out where the max was higher.

The max was 195, which is higher than 194.