Bristol auditions 18th march

[tonywarren]

My wife Carol has been invited to audition at 1130 at the marriot hotel in Bristol. Anyone else likely to be there?

[Jimmy Gough]

Mine's 9th of March in Canterbury, anyone going to be there?

[Paul Howe]

My wife Carol has been invited to audition at 1130 at the marriot hotel in Bristol. Anyone else likely to be there?

Weird, by a strange coincidence I actually was there last night. On a non-Countdown related endeavour, unfortunately. It's pretty nice, if you're getting the train go to Temple Meads as the taxi from Parkway is a small fortune.

[Hannah O]

Ooh, the Marriot. Is that the one near the council house? I'm not auditioning, but it's interesting to know where everything's taking place.

[tonywarren]

Ooh, the Marriot. Is that the one near the council house? I'm not auditioning, but it's interesting to know where everything's taking place.

I don't know the council house, but it's the one on College Green if that's any help

[Ben Hunter]

Mine's 9th of March in Canterbury, anyone going to be there?

I thought you were applying in like a year's time, what's changed since?

[Hannah O]

That'd be the one I was thinking of! Watch out for the crazy skateboarding kids on College Green, it's the centre of the crazy-skateboarder-universe.

[Jimmy Gough]

Mine's 9th of March in Canterbury, anyone going to be there?

I thought you were applying in like a year's time, what's changed since?

Yeah, I was going to but I just wanna get it over and done with. I've become seriously obsessive with Countdown and I need to get it out of my system. I did have aspirations of being a brilliant player but I suppose I don't have the patience. I'm going in with no expectations, I don't think I'll be an octochamp but I'll just do my best and see what happens .

I feel I could never be a great Countdowner, my enthusiasm would wane and word learning and all of that bullshit just sucks the enjoyment out of it for me and I don't want it to become like a chore. I think if I didn't apply now I never would. Having said that, even now I'm thinking of bottling it, the thought of being up there in front of all those people scares the shit out of me. So I dunno. Hopefully I'll make series 60. Haha, I bet you I fail my audition now I've said this!

[Kirk Bevins]

word learning and all of that bullshit just sucks the enjoyment out of it for me and I don't want it to become like a chore

I've heard this before somewhere but can't remember where. Word learning doesn't suck the enjoyment out of it for me because what keeps me going is the satisfaction feeling of winning, especially against the top players at CO-events. In the early days when I was starting out, I felt on top of the world that I'd learnt from previous mistakes and put POINTED and PAINTED together to make ANTIPODE and I used to beat my dad with little things like that. It's just scaled mightily out of proportion now where I'm setting higher targets such as 15/15 max games more regularly and that involves more word learning. It's great to have a goal, one step at a time though. This goal of 15/15 max game has taken years to develop, Jimmy, and you're right, patience is needed!

[Jimmy Gough]

Speaking of word learning, on Craig's website he says he got through "well over 20,000 words". What percentage of the dictionary is that? I mean that is crazy, then again he is the greatest player ever, in terms of ability. That figure's just staggering though.

[Kirk Bevins]

I mean that is crazy, then again he is the greatest player ever, in terms of ability.

In terms of percentage max, yes (according to data we have). Other statistics don't necessarily prove he is - e.g. he offered disallowed words a lot thanks to scrabble. Some may class him then as a Scrabbler and not a true Countdowner.

[Charlie Reams]

Speaking of word learning, on Craig's website he says he got through "well over 20,000 words". What percentage of the dictionary is that? I mean that is crazy, then again he is the greatest player ever, in terms of ability. That figure's just staggering though.

The dictionary is about 100K words, although obviously that includes a load of junk that isn't ever worth learning (2s, 3s, 4s, words with two Ks, etc.) So yes, 20K is fucking insane, especially when you think of all the words he had to unlearn from Scrabble.

[Kai Laddiman]

Mine's 9th of March in Canterbury, anyone going to be there?

I thought you were applying in like a year's time, what's changed since?

Yeah, I was going to but I just wanna get it over and done with. I've become seriously obsessive with Countdown and I need to get it out of my system. I did have aspirations of being a brilliant player but I suppose I don't have the patience. I'm going in with no expectations, I don't think I'll be an octochamp but I'll just do my best and see what happens .

I feel I could never be a great Countdowner, my enthusiasm would wane and word learning and all of that bullshit just sucks the enjoyment out of it for me and I don't want it to become like a chore. I think if I didn't apply now I never would. Having said that, even now I'm thinking of bottling it, the thought of being up there in front of all those people scares the shit out of me. So I dunno. Hopefully I'll make series 60. Haha, I bet you I fail my audition now I've said this!

(Sorry Kai)

This is a similar attitude I took. I just went to have fun, not expecting anything like what happened. I didn't learn word lists, stems, fancy tricks, anything at all before I went, and, hey. I didn't even have apterous.org to help me. Just believe in yourself and try your best and you will be brilliant! And eating lots of Custard Creams really gets your brain into gear.

I faced a bit of a dilemma whether I should go on sooner or later, but I stuck with myself, and I ended up in the best Series ever. So make sure you go for it! Don't chicken out in any way. his advice goes to anyone thinking of going on and anyone who can be bothered to read all of this. Good luck!

That's my longest post for a while.

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

.................

That's my longest post for a while.

Good to know you're not just a one word boy.

Good post Kai.

[Craig Beevers]

My word knowledge improved a lot between the heats and the finals. I think I hit 10000 probability in 7s-9s, but only with a few days to go before filming so the latter ones wouldn't have been learnt properly.

Since then I've gone past the 30,000 racks mark in the cardboxes on Zyzzyva for Scrabble. I reckon I'll comfortably get past 50,000 before the two big events in Malaysia end of November/start of December. Note that's racks as opposed to words, 30,000 racks might equate to about 40,000-45,000 words because some have multiple anagrams. But at present I certainly wouldn't say my word knowledge for Scrabble is any better than other top players, in fact I'd say it was a fair bit worse - most will know far more 7s and 8s than me.

[Charlie Reams]

Yeah, I think my desire to practise was starting to tail off just before I applied; then getting recording dates totally re-energised me and I practised even more. The same happened again after the heats and first round of the finals.

Oddly enough I didn't really practise much for CoC. Maybe that improved my performance overall, because I felt totally relaxed (for most the time) and like I had nothing to prove. But I gave away some soft numbers games just by being rusty on the basics. So I wouldn't advise it unless you feel pretty strong on the letters.

[Jon Corby]

I faced a bit of a dilemma whether I should go on sooner or later, but I stuck with myself, and I ended up in the best Series ever.

I wonder if everyone thinks that their own series was the best? I got asked quite a bit if I wish I'd applied at a different time (to stand a better chance of being a series winner) rather than ending up in what often gets referred to as 'one of the strongest series ever'. Ignoring the fact that my 'born loser' mentality meant I was never gonna be a series champ regardless, my answer was always 'no' because I had such a ball doing the finals with great people like Conor, Paul, Matt, Christine, Dan and Michael that I simply wouldn't have changed it for anything.

Being in a series with you, Charlie and Junaid would have also been cool, but then I effectively just did that by doing the CoC. Which, incidentally, I would definitely rather have been in than the last one. Maybe it all comes down to the fact that most people generally are pretty sound, but you don't always fully appreciate that when you see them on TV (as it's quite difficult to display your personality in the show!) and instead you think "well he didn't have much of a sense of humour" or "he seemed to take it all too seriously" and therefore "I'm glad I didn't film with him".

So is anyone gonna own up to thinking "yeah, my series was a bit shit actually, I wish I was in a different one"?

[Martin Gardner]

I faced a bit of a dilemma whether I should go on sooner or later, but I stuck with myself, and I ended up in the best Series ever.

I wonder if everyone thinks that their own series was the best? I got asked quite a bit if I wish I'd applied at a different time (to stand a better chance of being a series winner) rather than ending up in what often gets referred to as 'one of the strongest series ever'. Ignoring the fact that my 'born loser' mentality meant I was never gonna be a series champ regardless, my answer was always 'no' because I had such a ball doing the finals with great people like Conor, Paul, Matt, Christine, Dan and Michael that I simply wouldn't have changed it for anything.

Being in a series with you, Charlie and Junaid would have also been cool, but then I effectively just did that by doing the CoC. Which, incidentally, I would definitely rather have been in than the last one. Maybe it all comes down to the fact that most people generally are pretty sound, but you don't always fully appreciate that when you see them on TV (as it's quite difficult to display your personality in the show!) and instead you think "well he didn't have much of a sense of humour" or "he seemed to take it all too seriously" and therefore "I'm glad I didn't film with him".

So is anyone gonna own up to thinking "yeah, my series was a bit shit actually, I wish I was in a different one"?

Mine was a bit shit because it only had two Octochamps, and the #3 seed only had 5 wins. Still, if I'd have been in Series 47 I probably wouldn't have made the quarter-finals, or else I would have lost in the quarter. I think I worked out that with 746 points I'd have been facing Tom Hargreaves in the first round.

[Jon O'Neill]

I think I can be quite objective about this... my series was pretty weak, especially compared to 52 and 54, which were probably the strongest ever. "Best" and "strongest" are two different things though. Best is even harder to quantify than strongest, which, as we've established through hundreds of tedious conversations about the strongest player ever, is next to impossible.

[Lee Simmonds]

I never bothered with word lists before my heats as I didn't really go in with any real expectations. Like most people I guess, I just didn't want to come up against someone in an Octochamp run or a young kid (Hi Kai) and hoped to win 3 or 4. My intention was that if I did well enough to know that I would be back for the finals, then I would start going through the dictionary and learning word lists then. Obviously I never expected to be back with just 3 wins so it ended up that I had 3 weeks to learn as many new words as I could. The ones I did learn though unfortunately never came up for me.

I still have mixed feelings about getting to the q/finals as I felt a bit of a fraud. For the whole of the series I was kicking myself at what I perceived to be a missed opportunity, only to get the call to say I had made it back. Ultimately though it was fantastic to meet all my fellow finalists and it ended up as a positive experience.

[Hannah O]

So far I've learned ANTIPODES and all the variants of LEGATE thanks to watching Countdown, but if I apply myself more and really put my heart into it I could force myself to actually learn words. However, I think I'd better learn the lists of 3 small number products and so on.

[Roxanne]

Mine's 9th of March in Canterbury, anyone going to be there?

are you sure it's the 9th? my audition's in Canterbury on the 8th of March

[Jimmy Gough]

Mine's 9th of March in Canterbury, anyone going to be there?

are you sure it's the 9th? my audition's in Canterbury on the 8th of March

Yeah I probably got it wrong, see you there!

EDIT: I checked, it is the 8th

[Kirk Bevins]

However, I think I'd better learn the lists of 3 small number products and so on.

No, you're really not better off learning these. 99.99% of countdown champions don't know those from memory but do know words like TANGELOS and LEGATES.

[Hannah O]

Really? I'm really atrocious at 6 small, so I was thinking of memorising a few ways to get to the nearest hundred with 3/4 smalls.

[Kirk Bevins]

Really? I'm really atrocious at 6 small, so I was thinking of memorising a few ways to get to the nearest hundred with 3/4 smalls.

Just do 1 large. Seriously. Only geeks will go 6 small.

[Neil Zussman]

This is a similar attitude I took. I just went to have fun, not expecting anything like what happened. I didn't learn word lists, stems, fancy tricks, anything at all before I went, and, hey. I didn't even have apterous.org to help me. Just believe in yourself and try your best and you will be brilliant! And eating lots of Custard Creams really gets your brain into gear.

I faced a bit of a dilemma whether I should go on sooner or later, but I stuck with myself, and I ended up in the best Series ever. So make sure you go for it! Don't chicken out in any way. his advice goes to anyone thinking of going on and anyone who can be bothered to read all of this. Good luck!

That's my longest post for a while.

My thinking was largely the same as this. In fact, I joined this forum and apterous the day after my shows were recorded!

Only geeks will go 6 small.

So true...

[Jimmy Gough]

I wonder if everyone thinks that their own series was the best? I got asked quite a bit if I wish I'd applied at a different time (to stand a better chance of being a series winner) rather than ending up in what often gets referred to as 'one of the strongest series ever'. Ignoring the fact that my 'born loser' mentality meant I was never gonna be a series champ regardless, my answer was always 'no' because I had such a ball doing the finals with great people like Conor, Paul, Matt, Christine, Dan and Michael that I simply wouldn't have changed it for anything.

I think your series was certainly the best and most famous. I'd say Jono's and Martin's were the worst. DoD must have been the biggest favourite for any series, I think he had a pretty easy series. I'm basing a lot of this just on looking at the stats so feel free to disagree, I'm probably totally wrong but that's my opinion anyway!

[Kai Laddiman]

However, I think I'd better learn the lists of 3 small number products and so on.

No, you're really not better off learning these. 99.99% of countdown champions don't know those from memory but do know words like TANGELOS and LEGATES.

Does that mean I'm not a Countdown champion?

[Junaid Mubeen]

Only geeks will go 6 small.

Thanks, buddy

[Ben Wilson]

I wonder if everyone thinks that their own series was the best? I got asked quite a bit if I wish I'd applied at a different time (to stand a better chance of being a series winner) rather than ending up in what often gets referred to as 'one of the strongest series ever'. Ignoring the fact that my 'born loser' mentality meant I was never gonna be a series champ regardless, my answer was always 'no' because I had such a ball doing the finals with great people like Conor, Paul, Matt, Christine, Dan and Michael that I simply wouldn't have changed it for anything.

I think your series was certainly the best and most famous. I'd say Jono's and Martin's were the worst. DoD must have been the biggest favourite for any series, I think he had a pretty easy series. I'm basing a lot of this just on looking at the stats so feel free to disagree, I'm probably totally wrong but that's my opinion anyway!

I dunno, I reckon Stewart Holden stood further ahead of his finalists than Doddy did from his, though they were both pretty damn strong.

As for most exciting finals, it's hard to argue with series 54. Worst? Ehh... don't want to slag off anyone by hinting in that way.

[Martin Gardner]

Series 47 hasn't got a mention yet - 8 Octochamps, including Chris Wills (875 pts) and Tom Hargreaves (850 pts). There were also three players than won seven games, and didn't make the finals*! Admittedly the final turned out to be a bit of a procession, but it was still fantastic. Plus I didn't see S 52 or S 54, so it's harder for me to comment.

*Julia Wilkinson won the first game of Series 48 (her 8th), and qualified for the finals of that Series.

[Martin Gardner]

Only geeks will go 6 small.

Thanks, buddy

In fairness, you can come up with all the arguments you like why I kept going for four large - in all honesty, it was just for a laugh.

[Clive Brooker]

My wife Carol has been invited to audition at 1130 at the marriot hotel in Bristol. Anyone else likely to be there?

32 replies and none anywhere near your question!

I've just switched my audition from 9:30 to 11:30 - not because I particularly want to meet your wife but to fit in with childcare. Apparently there are just four of us (possibly five including me) and I'm certainly not a nerd.

[Lesley Jeavons]

Good luck to all of you who've attended / are attending auditions. It'll be good to see more of you (inc Tony's Carol) on our screens. *fingers crossed* Keep us posted y'all.

[Clive Brooker]

The Bristol auditions have been cancelled, due to illness apparently.

[Hannah O]

No! At such short notice? What a shame! Hope they're rescheduled soon.

[Ben Wilson]

No! At such short notice? What a shame! Hope they're rescheduled soon.

My first audition was cancelled due to extreme bad weather on the morning of the audition itself (after I'd arranged the day off school and everything)- you'll hear the new date soon enough.