Welcome! - Post here first

All discussion relevant to Countdown that is not too spoilerific. New members: come here first to introduce yourself. We don't bite, or at least rarely.
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Adam Gillard
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Post by Adam Gillard »

Welcome, Colm! Don't worry about the spoilers. Did you win? :p
Mike Brown: "Round 12: T N R S A E I G U

C1: SIGNATURE (18) ["9; not written down"]
C2: SEATING (7)
Score: 108–16 (max 113)

Another niner for Adam and yet another century. Well done, that man."
George Pryn
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Post by George Pryn »

AM I TOO LATE I POSTED SOMEWHERE ELSE TOO BUT I AM STILL NEW I GUESS
Fred Mumford
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Post by Fred Mumford »

George Pryn wrote:AM I TOO LATE I POSTED SOMEWHERE ELSE TOO BUT I AM STILL NEW I GUESS
No, unfortunately the strict policy is that you now have to go back and delete all your previous posts in other threads and start from scratch again, so that the one here is your first.

(I didn't do that myself, but then I'm badass).
Mark Mills
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Post by Mark Mills »

Hi Everyone, I am Mark Mills, husband of Tracey Mills, hoping to get much better at Countdown than I am and win a tea pot sometime, catch you around the forums.
Married to Tracey Mills but please don't be put off. :D
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Jules Winslow
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Post by Jules Winslow »

Hi all, I'm Jules and a rather shy character, so you'll catch me lurking more often than posting. I actually came from binge-watching Catsdown while procrastinating my studies, after failing Maths (and that's pretty much the story of how I fell in love with Rachel Riley, ironically). Decided to get into the original Countdown and I can tell it's going to be fun. Cheers, see you all around :D
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Post by lee nixon »

Hi all.Just back from holiday to an e-mail stating that I shall be on the show on Wednesday 5th August :D Really excited,hopefully I don't run into some whizkid and am able to perform well.I'm not a member of Apterous but regularly play the Countdown app.I scored 64 points on my telephone interview which was in Watersones (Upstairs)My phone cut out during both conundrums so it's difficult to predict if I'd have got them or not.Is there anything I should be doing in the meantime to prepare??Also is MURIATE an acceptable word?!
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Post by Thomas Carey »

lee nixon wrote:Hi all.Just back from holiday to an e-mail stating that I shall be on the show on Wednesday 5th August :D Really excited,hopefully I don't run into some whizkid and am able to perform well.I'm not a member of Apterous but regularly play the Countdown app.I scored 64 points on my telephone interview which was in Watersones (Upstairs)My phone cut out during both conundrums so it's difficult to predict if I'd have got them or not.Is there anything I should be doing in the meantime to prepare??Also is MURIATE an acceptable word?!
MURIATE is in, yes.

As for running into some whizkid... we'll see ;)
cheers maus
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Post by Peter Clarke »

Hey, I'm Peter. I have been on hear for a little while but this is my first post (actually my second, since I made a thread introducing myself without noticing this one!)! Some of you may have played games with me on Apterous before. Rubbish at it but love it and the show. Hopefully I am getting better at the letters, I'm strongest at the numbers at least when I am on form.
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Post by Gavin Chipper »

Peter Clarke wrote:Hey, I'm Peter. I have been on hear for a little while but this is my first post (actually my second, since I made a thread introducing myself without noticing this one!)! Some of you may have played games with me on Apterous before. Rubbish at it but love it and the show. Hopefully I am getting better at the letters, I'm strongest at the numbers at least when I am on form.
Where's Jason Larsen to welcome you? I normally ignore this thread, but since everyone has been so rude and not replied, it's fallen to me to do it. Welcome and enjoy your time here. Contribute widely to the Countdown-related and off-topic discussions and you will be well rewarded (not materially, but through general well-being).
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Post by L'oisleatch McGraw »

Hi!

It's weird being able to post here.
I first inadvertently came across the forum (whilst searching -desperately- to find 'Apterous'... it is not easy to find!) back in 2010, but between one thing and another have not become a full member till today.

On TV, a contestant named Jack Hurst indirectly plugged Apterous (without mentioning the name) as "a site where you can play countdown online against former series champions"... so that piqued my interest as I had already had CD on series link since around 2007.

Since then I have had an on/off obsession with Apterous. At the moment it's 'on' again thanks to Eddy Byrne's excellent Co-Dub event which helped re-ignite the spark. Someday I hope to go on the show... to get on Series 77 would be most excellent, but we'll see what happens. I doubt I have the requisite skills to become an Octochamp (best pro-rank = 129th, best ever rolling rating = just under 1200) , but with a favourable draw I should manage to bring home a teapot! :)

My name is Eoin. Often I use "Ayum", "Lamph", "Pintfin" or occasionally "L'oisleatch McGraw" in online forums... I don't mind what name people use for me. I've been called quite a number of things, particularly this year. ;)
:arrow: :arrow: :arrow: S:778-ochamp
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Peter Clarke
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Post by Peter Clarke »

Gavin Chipper wrote:
Peter Clarke wrote:Hey, I'm Peter. I have been on hear for a little while but this is my first post (actually my second, since I made a thread introducing myself without noticing this one!)! Some of you may have played games with me on Apterous before. Rubbish at it but love it and the show. Hopefully I am getting better at the letters, I'm strongest at the numbers at least when I am on form.
Where's Jason Larsen to welcome you? I normally ignore this thread, but since everyone has been so rude and not replied, it's fallen to me to do it. Welcome and enjoy your time here. Contribute widely to the Countdown-related and off-topic discussions and you will be well rewarded (not materially, but through general well-being).
Thank you! :)
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Post by Gavin Chipper »

L'oisleatch McGraw wrote:Hi!

It's weird being able to post here.
I first inadvertently came across the forum (whilst searching -desperately- to find 'Apterous'... it is not easy to find!) back in 2010, but between one thing and another have not become a full member till today.

On TV, a contestant named Jack Hurst indirectly plugged Apterous (without mentioning the name) as "a site where you can play countdown online against former series champions"... so that piqued my interest as I had already had CD on series link since around 2007.

Since then I have had an on/off obsession with Apterous. At the moment it's 'on' again thanks to Eddy Byrne's excellent Co-Dub event which helped re-ignite the spark. Someday I hope to go on the show... to get on Series 77 would be most excellent, but we'll see what happens. I doubt I have the requisite skills to become an Octochamp (best pro-rank = 129th, best ever rolling rating = just under 1200) , but with a favourable draw I should manage to bring home a teapot! :)

My name is Eoin. Often I use "Ayum", "Lamph", "Pintfin" or occasionally "L'oisleatch McGraw" in online forums... I don't mind what name people use for me. I've been called quite a number of things, particularly this year. ;)
Welcome. (This seems to be my job now.)
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L'oisleatch McGraw
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Post by L'oisleatch McGraw »

Gavin Chipper wrote: Welcome. (This seems to be my job now.)
lol. How very professional of you!
Thanks Gavin :mrgreen:
:arrow: :arrow: :arrow: S:778-ochamp
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Jon Corby
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Post by Jon Corby »

Gavin Chipper wrote:(This seems to be my job now.)
About time you got a proper one.
Gavin Chipper
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Post by Gavin Chipper »

Jon Corby wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:(This seems to be my job now.)
About time you got a proper one.
Yeah, alright Dad.
Tim Down
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Post by Tim Down »

Hi.

I'm a recent contestant and highly fortunate octochamp on the TV show and occasional apterite. I also do other things but they're less likely to crop up on a Countdown forum.

I'm currently trying to improve my game in the most time-efficient way possible in time for the finals of series 74, for which history suggests I am likely to qualify. Suggestions welcome.
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Post by Anthony Endsor »

Hi Tim.

Great to have you on board and welcome to the forum and apterous. :)

In answer to your question about improving, my only suggestion is to keep on practising on apterous as much as possible. It is perfectly possible that with a lot of practise you could make a big impact on the Quarter Finals. It has been known for players to qualify for the Quarter Finals as seemingly ordinary-ish players and with practise turn into extremely strong players very quickly. There have also been players yet to appear on the show who have grown a lot stronger within a couple of months, and we once had a series winner who 2 months earlier before the recording of the finals, when he was on the show seemed just an ordinary player. He is on the forum and I will allow him to name himself if he so wishes :)

It's all about identifying your weaknesses and working on them. Perhaps challenge some of the top players on apterous and see how close you can run them, and when you can give them a strong game, you know you're doing something right. :)

Hope this helps.
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Post by Tim Down »

Anthony Endsor wrote:Hi Tim.

Great to have you on board and welcome to the forum and apterous. :)

In answer to your question about improving, my only suggestion is to keep on practising on apterous as much as possible. It is perfectly possible that with a lot of practise you could make a big impact on the Quarter Finals. It has been known for players to qualify for the Quarter Finals as seemingly ordinary-ish players and with practise turn into extremely strong players very quickly. There have also been players yet to appear on the show who have grown a lot stronger within a couple of months, and we once had a series winner who 2 months earlier before the recording of the finals, when he was on the show seemed just an ordinary player. He is on the forum and I will allow him to name himself if he so wishes :)

It's all about identifying your weaknesses and working on them. Perhaps challenge some of the top players on apterous and see how close you can run them, and when you can give them a strong game, you know you're doing something right. :)

Hope this helps.
Thanks Anthony, that is useful and encouraging.

I wrote my own practice tools for letters and numbers games in preparation for the show. The idea was to mimic the experience of playing in the studio as closely as possible, so the letters tool generates a random letters selection, reads the letters out while I write them down on paper, plays the music and then shows solutions at the end of 30 seconds. One effect this has had is that I am now very dependent on writing letters in a 3 x 3 grid, which I find particularly helpful for quickly identifying remaining letters when mechanically working through standard prefixes and suffixes. When I play on apterous, I either have to write the letters down in a grid, giving myself a handicap of 10 seconds or so, or just work with the letters in a line. The result is that I don't do as well on the letters on apterous as I'm capable of, which is discouraging. I guess I should just learn to deal with the letters in a line but I'm not sure I'm ever going to be as good that way.

I think my practice tool was also partially responsible for me writing the letters down wrong four times during my run (on three occasions I declared a word that wasn't in the selection and on one other occasion the word I declared happened not to use the letter I misheard): I got so used to a uniform robotic voice reading out the letters that I never bothered to look at the screen. Rachel, however, is not a robot.
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Post by sean d »

hi Tim
If you'r eplaying on Apterous, with 30 second rounds, why not write the latters in your preferred 3x3 grid anyway? You should have 5 or 6 of the letters on paper before the time starts, then you're only investing 5 second maybe in getting the others down, if that's what you're more comfortable with.

Regarding practice, primarily play for fun and try not to get too obsessed with your ranking or the number of maxes you're getting etc. On Apterous there are lots of fun variations to play with, but I'd ignore all those until after you've recorded the finals. (So ignore Hyper, Omelette, Aegilops, Unlimited, all foreign language variants etc, for now).

have fun though
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Post by Tim Down »

sean d wrote:hi Tim
If you'r eplaying on Apterous, with 30 second rounds, why not write the latters in your preferred 3x3 grid anyway? You should have 5 or 6 of the letters on paper before the time starts, then you're only investing 5 second maybe in getting the others down, if that's what you're more comfortable with.

Regarding practice, primarily play for fun and try not to get too obsessed with your ranking or the number of maxes you're getting etc. On Apterous there are lots of fun variations to play with, but I'd ignore all those until after you've recorded the finals. (So ignore Hyper, Omelette, Aegilops, Unlimited, all foreign language variants etc, for now).

have fun though
Thanks, Sean. I seem to have settled on writing the letters down, although I'm gradually spending more time looking at them in a line. The number of variants in Apterous is overwhelming so I'm definitely pleased to ignore them for now.

I'm too competitive to completely ignore rankings and how many maxes I'm getting and for me that's a big part of the fun, but I take your point. I'll try not to get too obsessed.
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Post by Zarte Siempre »

Hi Tim, good to have you join us.

I'm not necessarily the best person to answer your question, as I'm one of the laziest Apterous players known to mankind when it comes in to putting the effort in to improve more, but to most newbies who ask me, I advise the following:

On the presumption that you can spend roughly an hour a day practising, play the following 5 games daily to get into a routine:

1) A letters attack against Prune
2) An Ascension CA
3) A numbers attack against Prune where you play 4*1L, 4*2L, 4*3L, 4*4L, 4*6s
4) A game against someone you would expect to beat on paper
5) A game against someone considerably better than you at this time

The first 3 ensure that you don't run the risk of either spending too much time on your weaknesses alone, or spending too much time ignoring your weaknesses out of CBA.

The next keeps you in the mindset of being able to win (most of the time), but the losses that will occasionally happen will keep you grounded

The final one will potentially help you see some new words that you're not necessarily likely to know otherwise - and if you can pick up the occasional win, or even just run people close, it could well be a confidence boost.

Whilst it might sound a bit bleh to go into a formalised plan, in reality, this is way less intrusive than some of the ones people have gone in and left themselves jaded by. 5 games a day, and beyond that, if you have the time to play more, play what you enjoy. You should actively see an improvement this way too.

Hope this helps,

Z
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Post by Thomas Carey »

Zarte Siempre wrote:this is way less intrusive than some of the ones people have gone in and left themselves jaded by.
Wish I'd known this when I was on.

Other than that, there's some nice resources on apterous for things like commonly appearing maxes (words like SOUTANE) which it's good to know a lot of. Superstats and the super gym (when it works) are also very useful for learning stuff.

And don't neglect the numbers rounds. They're a big part of the game.
cheers maus
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Post by Zarte Siempre »

Thomas Carey wrote:Wish I'd known this when I was on.
You never asked :P
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Post by Jennifer Steadman »

With common 7s and 8s that you regularly spot (particularly ones that an average player might spot), use the 'Stemmer' tool on Apterous and note down any useful-looking stems. I mean, it's all well and good spotting RATIONS, but if there's a W in the selection then you can have WAITRONS, which would probably win you the round.

If you regularly spot any of the following 8s, it's worth learning their stems as they have lots of them and have common letters: ANGRIEST, NOTARISE, REACTION, ATROPINE, STEERING, CANISTER, PAINTERS, RESINATE. Don't go overboard, but those 8 are definitely worth it. (Some of them also have brand new stems so v few people are unlikely to get them.)

Apart from that, everything Zarte said. Don't overplay. Overplayers rarely win series. Only play if you're enjoying it, don't put pressure on yourself when you're practising, and relax on set.
"There's leaders, and there's followers, but I'd rather be a dick than a swallower" - Aristotle
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Post by Jon O'Neill »

Jennifer Steadman wrote:Don't overplay. Overplayers rarely win series.
Really? Here are how long the last 6 champions have played on Apterous:

Giles Hutchings 63 days
Callum Todd 82 days
Mark Murray 35 days
Dan McColm 55 days
Tom Cappleman 48 days
Jonathan Wynn 49 days

That doesn't really square with your point...
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Post by Jon O'Neill »

I don't know your current level but for 99% of people the best way to improve will be to face as many rounds as possible. Again it depends on your relative levels but I think 60% of your time doing Speed Letters Attacks and 40% doing 20 second Numbers Attacks would be a good split. And put in as many hours as possible. If you're anything like the rest of us you will be motivated enough by your own improvement.
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Jennifer Steadman
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Post by Jennifer Steadman »

Jon O'Neill wrote:
Jennifer Steadman wrote:Don't overplay. Overplayers rarely win series.
Really? Here are how long the last 6 champions have played on Apterous:

Giles Hutchings 63 days
Callum Todd 82 days
Mark Murray 35 days
Dan McColm 55 days
Tom Cappleman 48 days
Jonathan Wynn 49 days

That doesn't really square with your point...
I'm talking about playing literally thousands of games in a few months in the run-up to series finals. The only person who I can think of who's succeeded by doing this is Callum (who played about 3,000 games in the run-up to our series finals).
"There's leaders, and there's followers, but I'd rather be a dick than a swallower" - Aristotle
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Jon O'Neill
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Post by Jon O'Neill »

Jennifer Steadman wrote:
Jon O'Neill wrote:
Jennifer Steadman wrote:Don't overplay. Overplayers rarely win series.
Really? Here are how long the last 6 champions have played on Apterous:

Giles Hutchings 63 days
Callum Todd 82 days
Mark Murray 35 days
Dan McColm 55 days
Tom Cappleman 48 days
Jonathan Wynn 49 days

That doesn't really square with your point...
I'm talking about playing literally thousands of games in a few months in the run-up to series finals. The only person who I can think of who's succeeded by doing this is Callum (who played about 3,000 games in the run-up to our series finals).
I think every single one of those 6 series winners and probably most of the 10 before them put in serious volume before their finals. I've just checked for Giles and Mark, both had over 1000 games in the 3 months leading up to the time their finals were recorded. It's arduous to check and I don't know the recording dates so it's not a scientific measure, but it's clear to me that every single one of those players are Apterous stalwarts who put in a serious number of hours to get good.
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Post by Jennifer Steadman »

Jon O'Neill wrote:
Jennifer Steadman wrote:I'm talking about playing literally thousands of games in a few months in the run-up to series finals. The only person who I can think of who's succeeded by doing this is Callum (who played about 3,000 games in the run-up to our series finals).
I think every single one of those 6 series winners and probably most of the 10 before them put in serious volume before their finals. I've just checked for Giles and Mark, both had over 1000 games in the 3 months leading up to the time their finals were recorded. It's arduous to check and I don't know the recording dates so it's not a scientific measure, but it's clear to me that every single one of those players are Apterous stalwarts who put in a serious number of hours to get good.
Fair enough. I was more going on the people who hadn't won series than the ones who had (Andy, Mark, Rawlo, Gillard) - maybe I'm influenced by how some were in chat prior to their finals.

I'm not doubting that the best players have generally put in the most amount of work OVER TIME, but if you look at the 'most time played' leaderboard, only one of the top 10 has won a series, and - with the greatest of respect to Jack's standard of play at the time - had Rawlo had a break between his octorun and the finals, I'm pretty sure we'd have had a different outcome in series 66.
"There's leaders, and there's followers, but I'd rather be a dick than a swallower" - Aristotle
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Post by Gavin Chipper »

Guys, this is getting ugly. I can't stand arguments.
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Post by Zarte Siempre »

If we're going to use the previous champions ONLY as a measure for how to get good, it would seem the best bit is to fuck up your first attempt and go on again later :P

(Not in any way moaning about people going back on, I hasten to add. Chances are I would)
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Post by Thomas Cappleman »

Zarte Siempre wrote:If we're going to use the previous champions ONLY as a measure for how to get good, it would seem the best bit is to fuck up your first attempt and go on again later :P

(Not in any way moaning about people going back on, I hasten to add. Chances are I would)
This is probably one of the best motivators to improve. If you lost on your very first game, then you absolutely don't want to repeat that, and so have to be sufficiently far above average to reduce that risk.

So maybe a general application would be: find someone to (achievably) become better than, practise until you are, then repeat.
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Post by Tim Down »

Jennifer Steadman wrote:With common 7s and 8s that you regularly spot (particularly ones that an average player might spot), use the 'Stemmer' tool on Apterous and note down any useful-looking stems. I mean, it's all well and good spotting RATIONS, but if there's a W in the selection then you can have WAITRONS, which would probably win you the round.

If you regularly spot any of the following 8s, it's worth learning their stems as they have lots of them and have common letters: ANGRIEST, NOTARISE, REACTION, ATROPINE, STEERING, CANISTER, PAINTERS, RESINATE. Don't go overboard, but those 8 are definitely worth it. (Some of them also have brand new stems so v few people are unlikely to get them.)

Apart from that, everything Zarte said. Don't overplay. Overplayers rarely win series. Only play if you're enjoying it, don't put pressure on yourself when you're practising, and relax on set.
That's great, thank you both for taking the time to answer so thoroughly.

I'd usually expect to spot ANGRIEST (actually more likely RANGIEST, but same thing), REACTION, STEERING and PAINTERS, the others are all maybes. I've made myself another practice tool that shows me a succession of teasers generated from the top 1000 maxes from Apterous, giving me 20 seconds to solve each. I do a bunch of those for a few minutes at a time and I think it's helping me spot common words.
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Hazel Drury
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Post by Hazel Drury »

Hi everyone, I'm Hazel.
I was a (inconsistent) contestant in series 73. I won 4 shows.
I am severely dyslexic (sorry for any typos!), but Countdown has helped me to gradually improve my spelling and grammar. :)
I was born in Preston, but I moved to Ireland when I was 8, and now I am studying Irish and geography at Maynooth University.
I wish that I had known about this forum before my shows, and not while they were being televised! :oops:
Are there any other dyslexic Apterites, or am I an exception?
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Post by Matthew Tassier »

Hi Hazel,
Welcome to the forum!
We nearly got to play each other on the show, if you'd won 7 games then we'd have had an exciting game with you trying to become an octochamp. Well done on the shows you did win though.
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Hazel Drury
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Post by Hazel Drury »

Thanks Matthew,
That would have been an interesting game, although I think that you would have outclassed me on the numbers and probably the letters too!
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Post by Thomas Carey »

he's pretty good at countdown y'know
cheers maus
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Hazel Drury
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Post by Hazel Drury »

I know, I watched Matthew's preliminaries and the series finals.
My numbers skills were below par, and I said ‘probably’, because the finding of a 9 letter word, could completely metamorphosize the outcome of a round.
Apologies, if my original post was unintentionally written ambiguously.
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Thomas Carey
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Post by Thomas Carey »

Hazel Drury wrote:the finding of a 9 letter word, could completely metamorphosize the outcome of a round.
heh


yeah it's cool I didn't mean anything with my shitpost
you were a decent player too tbf
cheers maus
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Hazel Drury
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Post by Hazel Drury »

Thanks Thomas, that's grand.
I am a shy person, and was worried that I had p!ss€d someone off, with something that I had said - not a good idea, as a Newbie.

'heh' - metamorphosize doesn't really make sense in this context, but I often use longer words, to try to compensate for being dyslexic.
What I meant is that an obscure word like solifugid / solifuges (sun spiders) or a nonsense 9 like pianoless (which is actually valid), could change a game.

Congratulations on becoming a semi-finalist and sorry for any confusion.
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Post by Tim Down »

Hazel Drury wrote:I know, I watched Matthew's preliminaries and the series finals.
My numbers skills were below par, and I said ‘probably’, because the finding of a 9 letter word, could completely metamorphosize the outcome of a round.
Apologies, if my original post was unintentionally written ambiguously.
I don't think it was ambiguous and having watched both Matthew's and your runs I agree with your assessment. You did well and I was surprised when you lost.

Anyway, welcome!
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Post by Gavin Chipper »

I think Thomas was just alluding to the fact that Matthew beat him.

Anyway, welcome one and all.
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Post by Hazel Drury »

Thanks Gavin,
I think Thomas was just alluding to the fact that Matthew beat him.
Ooops, yeah that does make sense! :lol:
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Post by Hazel Drury »

Thanks Tim,
Good luck in the finals!
You did well and I was surprised when you lost.
In my last game, I was exhausted, as I had been filming all day. It was the last recording slot of the day & by then my numbers knowledge had completely fallen apart. :(

Also, my apponent was quite immature and he liked mind games. Maybe, this slightly put me off?
* He refused to pass over his sheet when he declared the same word as me (probing). He had to be told by production to pass his sheet to me.
* He told me that Dudley was a “pr*ck” 3 times during the recording, and that he should "lose his job".
* He was rude to Nick when there was an issue with one of his letters selections. (He was annoyed that the letters had to be re-picked.)
* and then when he won, he laughed (dracula style) and said that he “almost felt evil for defeating a little girl” and that he was “a bad man”! - I was actually an adult at the time.

But overall, I really enjoyed my Countdown experience and would love to re-apply for the show one day. :)
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Post by Johnny Canuck »

Hazel Drury wrote:Also, my apponent was quite immature and he liked mind games. Maybe, this slightly put me off?
* He refused to pass over his sheet when he declared the same word as me (probing). He had to be told by production to pass his sheet to me.
* He told me that Dudley was a “pr*ck” 3 times during the recording, and that he should "lose his job".
* He was rude to Nick when there was an issue with one of his letters selections. (He was annoyed that the letters had to be re-picked.)
* and then when he won, he laughed (dracula style) and said that he “almost felt evil for defeating a little girl” and that he was “a bad man”! - I was actually an adult at the time.
Somehow I think this is oddly amusing given that the conundrum in that game was SOCIOPATH...
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Post by Jennifer Steadman »

Hazel Drury wrote:Also, my apponent was quite immature and he liked mind games. Maybe, this slightly put me off?
* He refused to pass over his sheet when he declared the same word as me (probing). He had to be told by production to pass his sheet to me.
* He told me that Dudley was a “pr*ck” 3 times during the recording, and that he should "lose his job".
* He was rude to Nick when there was an issue with one of his letters selections. (He was annoyed that the letters had to be re-picked.)
* and then when he won, he laughed (dracula style) and said that he “almost felt evil for defeating a little girl” and that he was “a bad man”! - I was actually an adult at the time.
UGH. That is so patronising from your opponent, what a creep. :evil: :evil: :evil:

My second opponent acted like he was so superior to me beforehand - just really smug and condescending. Then the game started. He wasn't so superior after he lost by 90 points and his wife told me I'd "destroyed his confidence" :twisted:

But welcome to C4C! Hope to see you at a Co-event soon :D #GirlPower #FashionWatch2k16 #Hashtags
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Post by Hazel Drury »

Somehow I think this is oddly amusing given that the conundrum in that game was SOCIOPATH...
Yeah, it was a bit ironic! :lol:
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Post by Thomas Carey »

Agh, what a knob. He was the standby for my run - wish Lee had acted on his wish to run away before our game so I could have twatted him (and Lee could have had a proper run). Sorry you had to face that :/ but yeah. Realised I never welcomed you so yeah, enjoy your stay here.
Hazel Drury wrote:Thanks Gavin,
I think Thomas was just alluding to the fact that Matthew beat him.
Ooops, yeah that does make sense! :lol:
Yeah, what Gev said. :P
cheers maus
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Post by Hazel Drury »

Thanks Jen!

Anthony Poulton-Smith's attitude was beginning to get tedious towards the end of the game. :roll:
Forgot to mention that Anthony kept trying to flog his books (about place names), to anyone who would listen. He was bragging about his 72 books to Nick, but Nick misheard this and thought that Anthony was 72 years old, and he went mental. :twisted: :evil: :twisted:

Well done on destroying your 2nd opponent's confidence!

I am thinking of attending Co:Dub this year, but I am a little nervous about attending a Focal event, as the standard would be so high!
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Post by Thomas Carey »

Hazel Drury wrote:Thanks Jen!

Anthony Poulton-Smith's attitude was beginning to get tedious towards the end of the game. :roll:
Forgot to mention that Anthony kept trying to flog his books (about place names), to anyone who would listen. He was bragging about his 72 books to Nick, but Nick misheard this and thought that Anthony was 72 years old, and he went mental. :twisted: :evil: :twisted:

Well done on destroying your 2nd opponent's confidence!

I am thinking of attending Co:Dub this year, but I am a little nervous about attending a Focal event, as the standard would be so high!
Straight from the FAQs:


"There’s always a range of abilities represented at events. The high end is staggeringly high, at a level you’ll probably never see bettered. But not to fear – there are plenty of other players who don’t know what an OPOPANAX is. (It’s a tree.) Most importantly, the vast majority of players who have fared badly at one event or another keep coming back for more. No-one will be judged for how they play – in fact, you’ll be encouraged to keep at it!

Additionally, if you have a bad start to a tournament, you’ll end up playing those who have also had a bad start – so you won’t be playing 6 series champions in a row!"


Also, you're not a bad player, so you'll definitely get a few wins in. And there's always apterous to improve :D
cheers maus
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Post by Gavin Chipper »

Thomas Carey wrote:But not to fear – there are plenty of other players who don’t know what an OPOPANAX is. (It’s a tree.)
I'm not entirely convinced that most of the top players know the meanings of any of the words they declare.
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Post by Hazel Drury »

I'm not entirely convinced that most of the top players know the meanings of any of the words they declare.
I'm an average player, but I like to learn the definitions of new, obscure words that I have learnt.
I find them easier to learn this way & you are also prepared for the inevitable fit of giggles if a rude / humorous word appears, e.g cathouse - it's not what it sounds like. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... h/cathouse
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Post by Hazel Drury »

Agh, what a knob. He was the standby for my run - wish Lee had acted on his wish to run away before our game so I could have twatted him (and Lee could have had a proper run). Sorry you had to face that :/ but yeah. Realised I never welcomed you so yeah, enjoy your stay here.
:lol: Thanks, I didn't know that Anthony was originally a standby. The only thing he said to me was that he had written a lot of books.
Yeah, what Gev said :P .

Sorry Thomas for the misunderstanding - blonde moment :)
Straight from the FAQs:

Thanks Thomas for the useful link, I probably will go to Co:Dub after reading it! :P
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Post by Tim Down »

Jennifer Steadman wrote:With common 7s and 8s that you regularly spot (particularly ones that an average player might spot), use the 'Stemmer' tool on Apterous and note down any useful-looking stems. I mean, it's all well and good spotting RATIONS, but if there's a W in the selection then you can have WAITRONS, which would probably win you the round.

If you regularly spot any of the following 8s, it's worth learning their stems as they have lots of them and have common letters: ANGRIEST, NOTARISE, REACTION, ATROPINE, STEERING, CANISTER, PAINTERS, RESINATE. Don't go overboard, but those 8 are definitely worth it. (Some of them also have brand new stems so v few people are unlikely to get them.)
I reckon I've got those down, plus a few others that I've noted as I've gone along. It took me a lot longer than I expected though. Any other stems worth knowing? I imagine this is the kind of thing that has been discussed on here many times before but I've failed to find anything much.
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Post by Mark Deeks »

It's also worth knowing what DOESN'T stem even though it looks like it does. For instance, I don't think any of it is true since the update, but DURATION used to only stem with S, IDOCRASE used to only stem with V, RELATION with FASH, etc. This is useful for when you have those really niney looking selections like CARTEOIDS, cos then you know you won't be missing something.
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Post by Jon O'Neill »

Mark Deeks wrote:It's also worth knowing what DOESN'T stem even though it looks like it does. For instance, I don't think any of it is true since the update, but DURATION used to only stem with S, IDOCRASE used to only stem with V, RELATION with FASH, etc. This is useful for when you have those really niney looking selections like CARTEOIDS, cos then you know you won't be missing something.
What good is that?
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Post by Mark Deeks »

Keeps you calm.
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Post by JJ Smith »

Instead of learning words that are in the dictionary, try to learn every conceivable word that isn't in the dictionary. Then you'll never misdeclare a word.

When you get good enough at this, you can max every game by process of elimination.
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Post by JJ Smith »

Also, something I've found useful is to learn all the prime numbers up to 1000, so you can know if a target is indivisible or not.
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Post by Johnny Canuck »

And rounding off the pantheon of best training practices for each Countdown discipline... it's very useful to learn all 9-letter words that are plurals, present-tense -S verbs, capitalised, not in the ODO or obscene to train for conundrums.
I'm not dead yet. In a rut right now because of stress from work. I'll be back later in S89. I also plan to bring back the Mastergram - if I can find a way to run a timer or clock through pure MediaWiki without having to upload to Vimeo every time.
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