Ask Graeme?

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Ryan Taylor
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Ask Graeme?

Post by Ryan Taylor »

I propose this topic to be used to ask Countdown related questions for Graeme (Cole) to answer. I've not OK'd this with him yet, but I'm sure he'll love this.

Q: Has there ever been a contestant on Countdown whose full name is an anagram of another contestants full name? If not, what's the closest we've come?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Matt Morrison »

Haha, that's an amazing one. Get your matrices of comparative letters programming out.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Ryan Taylor »

There is this page for wikipedia articles that are anagrams of each other, so is this page created quite easily or would this list have taken a lot of time to compile?
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Ryan Taylor wrote:Q: Has there ever been a contestant on Countdown whose full name is an anagram of another contestants full name? If not, what's the closest we've come?
This has happened twice, if you exclude pairs of people whose names are exactly the same, e.g. Chris Davies and Chris Davies.

They are series 5 quarter-finalist Jane Smith with series 47 contestant Jean Smith; and series 64 contestant Dave Roome with series 67 contestant Dave Moore.

It's three if you also count Dick King and King Dick.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Yeah, it's not an anagram if it's the same.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Sorry,that's amazing.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Nick Deller »

Q: Has there been a game in the 15-round era when a player has declared valid words of the same length in all 11 letters rounds? If not, how close have we got?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Nick Deller wrote:Q: Has there been a game in the 15-round era when a player has declared valid words of the same length in all 11 letters rounds? If not, how close have we got?
Up to 19th October 2012 (the limit of the data I have), nobody has offered eleven valid words of the same length in a game, but ten people have had nine.

Seven of these got nine sevens: Simon Cartwright, Grace Page, Danny Hamilton, Bob Beckett, Richard Heald, Edward McCullagh and Paul James. Ed could have had ten had he not gone for ARTSCAPE^. :-) Three had nine sixes: Carl McDermott, Margaret Murphy and Matthew Pickering.

Incidentally, the record for the most valid eights in one game is seven. Charlie Reams and Brian Selway share this honour.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Mark Deeks »

I think what he means is, has any game seen the two players match each other's score in all 11 letters rounds. And if that's not what Nick meant, it's what I mean.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Mark Deeks wrote:I think what he means is, has any game seen the two players match each other's score in all 11 letters rounds. And if that's not what Nick meant, it's what I mean.
Might as well add the numbers on too.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Nick Deller »

Graeme's answered what I meant - and thank you! - but Mark's question's interesting too.

And Gavin's.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Nick Deller wrote:Graeme's answered what I meant - and thank you! - but Mark's question's interesting too.

And Gavin's.
In episode 3268, the players matched each other in every round except the second numbers round.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Jojo Apollo »

Q: Is it possible to program CECIL so that it eliminates impossible targets?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Andy Platt »

What is your favourite film?

Edit: aww shit, Ryan said it had to be Countdown related.

Has there ever been a Countdown-related film?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Mark Ivey »

Andy Platt wrote:Has there ever been a Countdown-related film?
I'm not Graeme, but I know that 'About a Boy' had a couple of references. Hugh Grant's character was a daily watcher, and he's seen watching it with Nicholas Hault later with the kid laughing at one of Richard Stilgoe's bad jokes, much to Grant's annoyance.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Ryan Taylor »

Great questions so far, and excellent answers! Graeme is up to scratch!

My next one: What is the highest consecutive amount of maxes on the show by a player? By this, I mean, say for instance someone maxed the last 9 rounds of the show and then proceeded to max the first 10 rounds of their next show this would be 19 consecutive maxes. I'm guessing Kirk Bevins may be the record-holder due to his max games but this might not be the case. Would be interesting to know!
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Andy Platt »

Ask that one at the end of the 30th Championships to be fair
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Ryan Taylor wrote:Great questions so far, and excellent answers! Graeme is up to scratch!

My next one: What is the highest consecutive amount of maxes on the show by a player? By this, I mean, say for instance someone maxed the last 9 rounds of the show and then proceeded to max the first 10 rounds of their next show this would be 19 consecutive maxes. I'm guessing Kirk Bevins may be the record-holder due to his max games but this might not be the case. Would be interesting to know!
So unlikely not to be KB. He is also in a great position to break his own record.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Clive Brooker »

Great though Graeme's efforts are, he's still limited by the quality of the data. I think I'm right in saying that most historical recaps use the dictionary current at the time the recap was created (usually ODE2r or ODE3). A minority have then been adjusted to remove words not available when the game was played, though I doubt whether any method was available to add in any American spellings that may have been available at the time. So the max data for old games is unreliable.

I did a bit of analysis (in the days when I cared deeply about such things) and found that approximately one round in ten has been given a higher max than it probably should - without of course taking into account the Americanism issue which should be an influence in the opposite direction.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Charlie Reams »

Clive Brooker wrote:I think I'm right in saying that most historical recaps use the dictionary current at the time the recap was created (usually ODE2r or ODE3).
The Recap Writer uses the closest available dictionary that it has, which means ODE2r for all historical recaps.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Clive Brooker wrote:I did a bit of analysis (in the days when I cared deeply about such things) and found that approximately one round in ten has been given a higher max than it probably should - without of course taking into account the Americanism issue which should be an influence in the opposite direction.
Do you remember which series you did this testing on?

I don't think it would be crazily infeasible to get copies of the old dictionaries and check the DC-beaters in every game. Then worry about the Americanism issue afterwards.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Clive Brooker »

Jon O'Neill wrote:Do you remember which series you did this testing on?

I don't think it would be crazily infeasible to get copies of the old dictionaries and check the DC-beaters in every game. Then worry about the Americanism issue afterwards.
It was series 31 I think - certainly a COD9 series.

I did this about 18 months ago, as the historical recap project was careering towards its unexpectedly early conclusion. I hoped at the time that I would inspire the sort of enthusiasm you've just shown, thinking that extracting word-lists from the old dictionaries would be meat and drink to a team of out of work historical recappers. I failed. Perhaps, with Graeme's new initiative, the time is now right.

I do remember Charlie (Reams) telling me in no uncertain terms that if I wanted to do the job properly I should start from scratch, not try to adapt an existing list. My feeling was that to get a good rapid start, slimming the NODE list (that does exist, doesn't it?) down to a COD10 list would be pretty easy, since the latter was effectively a precis of the former. Maybe that process is more susceptible to error, but it should be close enough to make a big improvement to what we have now.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Ideally that's what we'd do. IMO the best way to do it in theory would be to start from scratch with the ODE7 and go from there.

However, for the purposes of significantly improving the data we have, it would surely be enough to just go back and check all the DC beaters? Just looking at the dictionaries page on TCP, this is how many days each dictionary was in force for:

Dictionary - Days
COD7 - 2791
COD7 in reg, COD8 in Masters - 23
COD8 - 1898
COD9 - 1460
COD10 - 7
COD9 - 164
NODE - 1271
NODE in Specials, ODE2 in reg - 511
ODE2 - 359
ODE2r - 1663

Stupid metric I know. But gives some idea of how many rounds would need to be checked so we can compare that to starting new dictionary files. NODE for example - about 1,000 episodes, so 11,000 letters rounds, with (and this number has been plucked from my arse) a DC beater every five rounds means checking 2,200 words. I reckon that's about 30 man-hours... not a lot.

Mods: perhaps this tangent should be split into another thread.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Ryan Taylor »

Andy Platt wrote:Ask that one at the end of the 30th Championships to be fair
I think it will be good to see what the record is currently at, and then after the 30BC see if anyone has surpassed that. This record could help sway people's opinions about greatness too. Because at the end of the 30BC I am really hoping I can have a definitive #1 Countdowner of all time. And I'm also hoping that this potential #1 Countdowner of all time is largely agreed upon, unlike at present where we have such a wide and varied opinion on who is the best ever. Obviously the issue won't ever be settled unanimously.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Nick Deller »

Jon O'Neill wrote:Ideally that's what we'd do. IMO the best way to do it in theory would be to start from scratch with the ODE7 and go from there.

However, for the purposes of significantly improving the data we have, it would surely be enough to just go back and check all the DC beaters? Just looking at the dictionaries page on TCP, this is how many days each dictionary was in force for:

Dictionary - Days
COD7 - 2791
COD7 in reg, COD8 in Masters - 23
COD8 - 1898
COD9 - 1460
COD10 - 7
COD9 - 164
NODE - 1271
NODE in Specials, ODE2 in reg - 511
ODE2 - 359
ODE2r - 1663

Stupid metric I know. But gives some idea of how many rounds would need to be checked so we can compare that to starting new dictionary files. NODE for example - about 1,000 episodes, so 11,000 letters rounds, with (and this number has been plucked from my arse) a DC beater every five rounds means checking 2,200 words. I reckon that's about 30 man-hours... not a lot.

Mods: perhaps this tangent should be split into another thread.
A really talented data miner could probably compare every DC beater per era against every word verified on screen in that era, and spit out an alphabetical list of beaters that were never verified. That would then be a comparative breeze to do a manual checking process on.

Perhaps we should leave this tangent in this thread. ;)
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Yeah, that is clever.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Conor »

The words in the old dictionaries (ignoring Americanisms for now) aren't subsets of the current word list, are they? (e.g. AGRESTAL and DRIFTAGE) So, for total total completeness we'd need an electronic word list of each of the old dictionaries.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Definitely - but inaccuracies as a result of those cases are far outweighed by the reverse (I think?) The jump in size between the CODs and the NODs is pretty big, no?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Jon O'Neill wrote:Definitely - but inaccuracies as a result of those cases are far outweighed by the reverse (I think?) The jump in size between the CODs and the NODs is pretty big, no?
Yeah. The current edition of the COD has 240,000 entries, and the ODE has somewhere around 355,000.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Don't forget that some recappers (notably Mike Brown) did exclude words spawned by the recapping tool which were invalid at the time, whereas most just accepted what it produced. For what it's worth, I think the latter approach was more appropriate as it would have ensured a consistency of approach, and it made sure the main phase of the project was completed in the shortest possible time. Further refinements, with complete listings for each dictionary being the ultimate aim, can be addressed if and when the enthusiasm is there.

Just in case there is any doubt, no criticism of any recapper is intended - you all rock!

There is a PDF version of the complete COD8 around. I have a local copy but I can't remember where I originally found it. Is it possible to parse this in such a way that it can be reasonably quickly moulded into a list?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Graeme, what is the worst ever conundrum guess? Just came to mind with all this talk about HORSEMEAT at the moment, someone guessed ATMOSPHERE in the audience (10 letters) and I just noticed that in one of Darryl Francis's heat games his opponent went for a 7 (DEFTEST) when the solution was STEADFAST. So, basically, what's the shortest and longest word that a player has guessed for a conundrum? Also, if possible, what's the furthest removed from the actual solution that someone has guessed (probably OUBLIETTE -> GANDISEEG)?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by David Williams »

FWIW, as an owner of a NODE, I can remember some recappers sending me words that they thought doubtful. I don't think it happened much, and I don't think I ever had to reject one.

When they first changed to the NODE they made a big deal about how many more words were in the NODE than in the COD. However by far the biggest difference was the inclusion of proper (i.e. capitalised) nouns. On cursory inspection the Countdown-eligible words were much the same.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Clive Brooker »

OK, some real numbers.

In the 64 9-round games in series 31 there were, self-evidently, 384 letters rounds in total.

In 44 of these, the recap shows at least one OT word better than any offered on the show. I looked in further detail at these 44 only since I was mainly interested in cases where the max may have been overstated.

Now the telling statistics. Of 62 OT words, 30 were not in the COD9 (subject to confirmation of course), and in 19 rounds the max was affected. That's 5% rather than the 10% I hinted at earlier - sorry about that. Amongst them is one niner (WATERDOGS).
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Graeme Cole wrote:
Nick Deller wrote:Graeme's answered what I meant - and thank you! - but Mark's question's interesting too.

And Gavin's.
In episode 3268, the players matched each other in every round except the second numbers round.
Looking at just letters, Conor Travers and Paul Howe maxed all the letters so tied on all 11 letters rounds in this game. (Sorry, I know I'm not Graeme.)
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Re: Ask Graeme?

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Jojo Apollo wrote:Q: Is it possible to program CECIL so that it eliminates impossible targets?
In theory yes, if there were some way of telling it what the numbers were. The Instant variant on apterous does this.

Edit: actually, it's not as easy as this. If the numbers are 1 1 2 2 3 3 then it can't. Presumably Instant throws the numbers away and picks new ones if it turns out no target between 101 and 999 is possible.
Ryan Taylor wrote:What is the highest consecutive amount of maxes on the show by a player? By this, I mean, say for instance someone maxed the last 9 rounds of the show and then proceeded to max the first 10 rounds of their next show this would be 19 consecutive maxes. I'm guessing Kirk Bevins may be the record-holder due to his max games but this might not be the case. Would be interesting to know!
17. Six people have done this:

Allan Saldanha, with 17 consecutive maxes up to and including round 8 of a Supreme Championship semi-final;
Mark Tournoff, up to round 11 of the CoC XII final;
Craig Beevers, up to round 8 of Episode 4472;
Kirk Bevins, spanning three games up to round 1 of Episode 4771;
Jack Hurst, up to round 8 of the series 63 final;
Jonathan Rawlinson, up to round 10 of Episode 5505.

I've counted "maxing a round" as scoring the most points available in the round, so if someone's numbers solution is two away and they're not beaten, but the best is one away, that's still a maxed round. If you say that to max a numbers round you have to get the closest possible solution, that eliminates Allan Saldanha.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Andy Platt »

17? OK. We'll review that in 3 weeks' time.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

What's the probability of six people who have all maxed 17 rounds in a row to not max the 18th?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Adam Gillard wrote:Graeme, what is the worst ever conundrum guess? Just came to mind with all this talk about HORSEMEAT at the moment, someone guessed ATMOSPHERE in the audience (10 letters) and I just noticed that in one of Darryl Francis's heat games his opponent went for a 7 (DEFTEST) when the solution was STEADFAST. So, basically, what's the shortest and longest word that a player has guessed for a conundrum? Also, if possible, what's the furthest removed from the actual solution that someone has guessed (probably OUBLIETTE -> GANDISEEG)?
14 players have buzzed in with a seven-letter word. Jimmy Gough is recorded as buzzing in with a six-letter answer, but I don't think we can count that. The longest conundrum answer was 12 letters, which was done four times: episodes M25, 1401, 3530 and 3744.

The conundrum answer with fewest letters in common with the selection appears to be in the last round of a Masters game - FROTTIFY, which has two letters in common with the selection PRANGMAGI. No, I've got no idea what's going on there either.

GANDISEEG from ELITEBOUT is next with three common letters, and three conundrum answers had five letters in common with the answer: they're in episodes 856, 1007 and 5488.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Andy Platt »

I know it was a dickish thing to do but I was laughing so hard at those 12-letter guesses. Love it.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Matt Morrison »

If Graeme doesn't get the best girlfriend ever on the back of this thread, the world is not fair.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Andy Platt wrote:I know it was a dickish thing to do but I was laughing so hard at those 12-letter guesses. Love it.
I'm sure I've gone with CONSCIOUSNESS on apterous before.

Might have been UNCONSCIOUSNESS.

But definitely not UNCONSCIOUSNESSES. I mean, I'm not daft or anything.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Jennifer Steadman »

This is definitely my favourite thread ever.
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Post by David O'Donnell »

Graeme's my new hero. I don't understand the questions or answers but I'm loving the authoritative manner in which these various mosquitoes are being swatted.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Jojo Apollo »

Graeme Cole wrote:
Jojo Apollo wrote:Q: Is it possible to program CECIL so that it eliminates impossible targets?
In theory yes, if there were some way of telling it what the numbers were. The Instant variant on apterous does this.

Edit: actually, it's not as easy as this. If the numbers are 1 1 2 2 3 3 then it can't. Presumably Instant throws the numbers away and picks new ones if it turns out no target between 101 and 999 is possible.
Cheers Graeme :)
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Johnny Canuck »

May not be as useful as the rest of the trivia, but I like coming up with random questions and seeing the scope of your amazing stats, so here goes:

What are the alphabetically first and alphabetically last letters selections that have ever come up on the show? With regard to the latter, Round 1 of this episode must be pretty close.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Johnny Canuck wrote:May not be as useful as the rest of the trivia, but I like coming up with random questions and seeing the scope of your amazing stats, so here goes:

What are the alphabetically first and alphabetically last letters selections that have ever come up on the show? With regard to the latter, Round 1 of this episode must be pretty close.
That one is the last. The first is round 6 in episode 816.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Innis Carson »

Which octochamp was the most consistent in terms of score in their octorun (i.e. lowest standard deviation)? Who was the least consistent?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Innis Carson wrote:Which octochamp was the most consistent in terms of score in their octorun (i.e. lowest standard deviation)? Who was the least consistent?
I'd guess Tom Hargreaves for most.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Please list every 15-round octochamp in order of maximums out of 120. Do it for 9-rounders as well (but not out of 120). And a separate xicount list. Or at least top tens. That would be gruesome.

Edit - I want pro rata scores for top potential octochamps like John Clarke and Helen Grayson.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Innis Carson wrote:Which octochamp was the most consistent in terms of score in their octorun (i.e. lowest standard deviation)? Who was the least consistent?
The most difficult bit about this question is excluding heat games that aren't part of someone's octochamp run, if someone played before and was invited back years later. I've considered only 15-round games, which helps avoid most of this problem, but I've had to manually exclude Peter Lee and Kirk Bevins' first games.

Anyway, the 15-round octochamp with the lowest standard deviation in their heat game scores was Kai Laddiman, with a good grouping of 93, 95, 95, 91, 89, 97, 91 and 105, giving a standard deviation of 4.6637. At the other end of the scale, Steve Briers' octorun had scores ranging from 76 to 136, with a standard deviation of 16.4388.

Here's what I hope is a list of all the 15-round octochamps and how (in)consistently they scored. Gevin, you were close with your guess. :-)

Code: Select all

     1. Kai Laddiman                  4.6637
     2. Tom Hargreaves                4.7368
     3. Jack Welsby                   5.5099
     4. Innis Carson                  6.5753
     5. Joe Zubaidi                   6.8088
     6. John Davies                   6.8145
     7. Jack Hurst                    6.8328
     8. Eoin Monaghan                 6.8875
     9. Rose Boyle                    6.9090
    10. Jack Worsley                  7.0843
    11. Shane Roberts                 7.2758
    12. Tom Rowell                    7.5125
    13. Paul Howe                     7.5405
    14. Brenda Jolley                 7.5457
    15. Cate Henderson                7.5622
    16. Tim Reypert                   7.5818
    17. Edward McCullagh              7.6485
    18. Jon O'Neill                   7.6811
    19. Amey Deshpande                7.7419
    20. David Von Geyer               7.8422
    21. Paul James                    7.9017
    22. Jeffrey Burgin                7.9520
    23. Richard Heald                 7.9677
    24. Nick Wainwright               8.0429
    24. Conor Travers                 8.0429
    26. James Doohan                  8.1202
    27. David Barnard                 8.1844
    27. Craig Beevers                 8.1844
    29. Keith Maynard                 8.2831
    30. Steve Wood                    8.3507
    31. David Thirlwall               8.3815
    32. Adam Gillard                  8.4029
    33. Richard Brittain              8.4261
    34. George Greenhough             8.4474
    35. Michael Bowden                8.5723
    36. Chris Marshall                8.6132
    37. Marcus Hares                  8.7571
    38. Stuart Solomons               8.7607
    39. John Mayhew                   8.9713
    40. Gary Male                     9.0243
    41. Jonathan Rawlinson            9.2162
    42. Heather Styles                9.2390
    43. James Roberts                 9.2601
    44. Grace Page                    9.2728
    45. Judith Young                  9.2862
    46. Ross Allatt                   9.3533
    47. John Gray                     9.3800
    48. Stu Horsey                    9.5786
    49. David O'Donnell               9.6954
    49. Neil Zussman                  9.6954
    51. Julian Fell                   9.8869
    52. Chris McHenry                 9.9239
    53. Jeffrey Hansford              9.9718
    54. Danny Pledger                10.0491
    55. Andrew Hulme                 10.2439
    56. Steven Moir                  10.3070
    57. Scott Gillies                10.3169
    58. Chris Cummins                10.3531
    59. Ned Pendleton                10.3682
    59. Rupert Stokoe                10.3682
    61. Danny Hamilton               10.4694
    62. James Hurrell                10.5919
    63. Mike Pullin                  10.6301
    64. Kirk Bevins                  10.6646
    65. Jean Webby                   10.7325
    66. Paul Keane                   10.7355
    67. Martin Bishop                10.7870
    68. Jon Corby                    10.8628
    69. Daniel Pati                  10.9202
    70. Graeme Cole                  11.0673
    71. Jayne Wisniewski             11.0842
    72. Stuart Earl                  11.1740
    73. Chris Wills                  11.1908
    74. John Brackstone              11.3220
    75. Aaron Webber                 11.3791
    76. Mark Tournoff                11.3846
    77. Richard Pay                  11.4127
    78. Mark Deeks                   11.5758
    79. Wendy Roe                    11.5967
    80. Matthew Shore                11.7659
    81. Paul Gallen                  11.7978
    82. Liam Shaw                    12.0520
    83. Martin Gardner               12.2245
    84. Michael Macdonald-Cooper     12.2678
    85. Julia Wilkinson              12.2984
    86. Jim Bentley                  12.4599
    87. Suzi Purcell                 12.4875
    88. Chris Davies                 12.5897
    89. Junaid Mubeen                12.6763
    90. Oliver Garner                12.8136
    91. Tom Barnes                   12.8623
    92. Tony Warren                  12.8744
    93. Ryan Taylor                  12.9711
    94. Nik Von Uexkull              13.1143
    95. Andy McGurn                  13.1315
    96. David Edwards                13.1761
    97. Sweyn Kirkness               13.2847
    98. John Hunt                    13.4257
    99. Peter Lee                    13.7244
   100. Brian Selway                 13.9799
   101. Jonathan Coles               14.1134
   102. Lee Hartley                  14.4303
   103. Tia Corkish                  14.6581
   104. Carl Williams                15.3867
   105. Charlie Reams                15.5885
   106. Stewart Holden               15.8568
   107. Dave Taylor                  15.9212
   108. Jimmy Gough                  16.2999
   109. Steven Briers                16.4388
   110. Kevin Thurlow                17.8005
Edit: Turns out Kevin Thurlow had an even higher standard deviation: 17.8005.
Last edited by Graeme Cole on Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Gavin Chipper wrote:Please list every 15-round octochamp in order of maximums out of 120. Do it for 9-rounders as well (but not out of 120). And a separate xicount list. Or at least top tens. That would be gruesome.

Edit - I want pro rata scores for top potential octochamps like John Clarke and Helen Grayson.
Here's the first bit - 15 round octochamps ordered by the number of maxes out of 120 in heat games. A maxed round is where the player got the most points available. Tiebreaks aren't counted.

The 9-rounder one is going to need a bit more thought to exclude people who had more than one run, so I'll come back to that one another day.

Code: Select all

     1. Edward McCullagh                  95
     2. Julian Fell                       94
     3. Jack Hurst                        91
     4. Craig Beevers                     89
     4. Jonathan Rawlinson                89
     6. Stewart Holden                    86
     7. Kirk Bevins                       85
     8. Chris Davies                      84
     9. David O'Donnell                   82
    10. Eoin Monaghan                     81
    11. Conor Travers                     80
    12. Chris Wills                       79
    12. Graeme Cole                       79
    14. Adam Gillard                      78
    14. George Greenhough                 78
    14. John Mayhew                       78
    14. Oliver Garner                     78
    14. Paul Gallen                       78
    19. Jack Welsby                       77
    20. Andrew Hulme                      76
    20. Innis Carson                      76
    20. Paul Howe                         76
    23. Peter Lee                         75
    24. Daniel Pati                       74
    25. Marcus Hares                      73
    26. Jimmy Gough                       72
    26. Martin Bishop                     72
    28. Chris Cummins                     71
    28. Ryan Taylor                       71
    28. Tom Barnes                        71
    31. Aaron Webber                      70
    31. David Barnard                     70
    31. Grace Page                        70
    34. Jon Corby                         69
    34. Richard Heald                     69
    36. Lee Hartley                       68
    36. Matthew Shore                     68
    38. Charlie Reams                     67
    38. Mark Deeks                        67
    38. Mark Tournoff                     67
    38. Neil Zussman                      67
    38. Paul James                        67
    38. Steven Briers                     67
    44. Jack Worsley                      66
    45. Andy McGurn                       65
    45. James Hurrell                     65
    45. Jeffrey Hansford                  65
    45. John Brackstone                   65
    45. Tom Rowell                        65
    50. Stuart Earl                       64
    50. Tom Hargreaves                    64
    52. John Hunt                         63
    52. Kevin Thurlow                     63
    52. Scott Gillies                     63
    55. John Davies                       62
    55. Junaid Mubeen                     62
    55. Stuart Solomons                   62
    55. Wendy Roe                         62
    59. Jean Webby                        61
    59. Jon O'Neill                       61
    59. Martin Gardner                    61
    62. Richard Brittain                  60
    62. Shane Roberts                     60
    64. Cate Henderson                    59
    64. John Gray                         59
    64. Jonathan Coles                    59
    64. Michael Bowden                    59
    64. Ross Allatt                       59
    64. Steven Moir                       59
    70. Brian Selway                      58
    70. David Edwards                     58
    70. Mike Pullin                       58
    70. Stu Horsey                        58
    74. Danny Hamilton                    57
    74. Jim Bentley                       57
    74. Keith Maynard                     57
    74. Liam Shaw                         57
    74. Rose Boyle                        57
    79. Nik Von Uexkull                   56
    80. Richard Pay                       55
    80. Rupert Stokoe                     55
    82. David Von Geyer                   54
    82. Jeffrey Burgin                    54
    82. Sweyn Kirkness                    54
    82. Tim Reypert                       54
    86. James Roberts                     53
    86. Kai Laddiman                      53
    86. Nick Wainwright                   53
    86. Paul Keane                        53
    90. Amey Deshpande                    52
    90. Jayne Wisniewski                  52
    90. Ned Pendleton                     52
    93. Carl Williams                     51
    93. Dave Taylor                       51
    93. Heather Styles                    51
    93. Michael Macdonald-Cooper          51
    97. Gary Male                         50
    97. Judith Young                      50
    97. Julia Wilkinson                   50
   100. Danny Pledger                     49
   101. Tony Warren                       48
   102. James Doohan                      46
   103. Joe Zubaidi                       44
   104. Brenda Jolley                     43
   104. Tia Corkish                       43
   106. Chris Marshall                    42
   106. David Thirlwall                   42
   108. Chris McHenry                     37
   108. Steve Wood                        37
   108. Suzi Purcell                      37
Edited to include Rose Boyle, David Barnard and Heather Styles from series 67, and Kevin Thurlow and Richard Pay who weren't in the list due to muppetry on my part.
Last edited by Graeme Cole on Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jon O'Neill
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Julian Fell getting 94/120 is disgusting. How? How!
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Johnny Canuck »

What is the greatest number of consecutive episodes in which the conundrum has been correctly solved? What is the greatest number in which it has gone unsolved?
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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Jon O'Neill
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Also George Greenhough seems like the unluckiest guy on here, to have such a shit QF performance when he was clearly the nuts.
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Michelle Nevitt
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Michelle Nevitt »

Matt Morrison wrote:If Graeme doesn't get the best girlfriend ever on the back of this thread, the world is not fair.

Judging by the fact that Ryan has uttered the words "I fucking love Graeme Cole" on at least 3 occasions in the last 24 hours, I think he might be interested in this position.
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Graeme Cole wrote:The 9-rounder one is going to need a bit more thought to exclude people who had more than one run, so I'll come back to that one another day.
It turns out this isn't a problem, as there are no octochamps from the 9-round era who had appeared previously except Darryl Francis, and the round details for his first game aren't in the database anyway so it's all fine.

However, the fact that some games' round details aren't in the database poses another problem. We've only got round details for seven of Stephen Deakin's eight heat games, and the same goes for Sharon Bridge. Also, Lindsay Denyer has half a game missing. For those players I've taken the number of maxes they were known to get divided by the number of rounds for which the max is known.

Clive Freedman would probably feature highly on this list, but we can't include him. He won the last prelim of series 6 and continued in series 7. We don't have any round details for his series 7 games, only the one game he won in series 6. In that game he got 7/9 maxes, which would put him top of this table with 78%, but this is obviously too small a sample to be meaningful. Furthermore, according to the wiki there was a curious rule in place at the time which meant Clive's win didn't carry over to the next series - he had to start again on zero, which is why he played eight prelims in series 7. So the only heat game of his for which we have details is the one that didn't count.

Nevertheless, here's the table for maxes scored by 9-round octochamps as a proportion of rounds where we know the max. Draws are included. As before, a maxed round is where you score the most points available, even if a closer numbers solution was possible, and tiebreaks aren't counted.

Code: Select all

                                  MAXES      %
     1. Terry Knowles             49/72  68.06
     1. Harvey Freeman            49/72  68.06
     3. Richard Campbell          48/72  66.67
     4. David Acton               46/72  63.89
     4. Kevin McMahon             46/72  63.89
     6. Jonathan Anstey           51/81  62.96
     7. Bhavin Manek              44/72  61.11
     8. Tim Morrissey             49/81  60.49
     9. David Williams            43/72  59.72
    10. Scott Mearns              42/72  58.33
    10. Derek Coombs              42/72  58.33
    10. Gareth Williams           42/72  58.33
    10. Don Reid                  42/72  58.33
    14. Darryl Francis            40/72  55.56
    14. Allan Saldanha            40/72  55.56
    16. Graham Nash               39/72  54.17
    17. Sanjay Mazumder           38/72  52.78
    17. Melvin Hetherington       38/72  52.78
    17. Nic Brown                 38/72  52.78
    17. Anthony Jenkin            38/72  52.78
    21. David Ballheimer          37/72  51.39
    22. Sharon Bridge             32/63  50.79
    23. Dag Griffiths             36/72  50.00
    23. Lucy Roberts              36/72  50.00
    25. Chris Waddington          35/72  48.61
    25. James Martin              35/72  48.61
    25. Satbir Gupta              35/72  48.61
    28. Stephen Deakin            30/63  47.62
    29. Peter Hutchings           34/72  47.22
    29. Simon Cooper              34/72  47.22
    31. Margaret Foster           33/72  45.83
    31. Natascha Kearsey          33/72  45.83
    31. Michael Calder            33/72  45.83
    31. Richard Evans             33/72  45.83
    31. Mark Nyman                33/72  45.83
    36. Lew Schwarz               40/90  44.44
    36. William Bradford          32/72  44.44
    36. Dick Green                32/72  44.44
    36. Ray McPhie                32/72  44.44
    40. Norman Christian          31/72  43.06
    40. Glynn Leaney              31/72  43.06
    40. Kate Ogilvie              31/72  43.06
    40. Maria Boyes               31/72  43.06
    44. Lawrence Pearse           30/72  41.67
    44. Suzanne Miles             30/72  41.67
    44. David Trace               30/72  41.67
    47. Phil Jordan               29/72  40.28
    47. Steve Williams            29/72  40.28
    49. John Hadfield             27/72  37.50
    50. Terence O'Farrell         26/72  36.11
    50. John Wallace              26/72  36.11
    52. Jon Marsh                 26/81  32.10
    53. James Sinclair            23/72  31.94
    54. Lindsay Denyer            17/64  26.56
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Andy McGurn »

Question: At CO events numbers rounds can be awkward when you have to use those flimsy numbers thingys to get a target which can sometimes be 081 or something, so my question to Graeme is this: Could you make at least 10 more of those electronic numbers gadgets of yours and bring them to future CO events so all tables can have one?
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by James Robinson »

Andy McGurn wrote:Question: At CO events numbers rounds can be awkward when you have to use those flimsy numbers thingys to get a target which can sometimes be 081 or something, so my question to Graeme is this: Could you make at least 10 more of those electronic numbers gadgets of yours and bring them to future CO events so all tables can have one?
That would be brilliant. I'd certainly love to have one at COHUD2. 8-) 8-)
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Johnny Canuck wrote:What is the greatest number of consecutive episodes in which the conundrum has been correctly solved? What is the greatest number in which it has gone unsolved?
Some episodes have more than one conundrum, so I'll take this as the greatest number of consecutive (un-)solved conundrums.

32 consecutive conundrums were solved during the Masters series between this episode and this episode. If we disregard Masters episodes, the longest streak of consecutive solves was 24, between episode 4094 and episode 4117, which spanned some of Jon Corby's and Tony Warren's heat games, the series 54 finals, and the first five games in CoC XII. The streak was only broken by the tricky conundrum SNOWFABLE.

The most consecutive unsolved conundrums is six, which has happened on three occasions: the conundrums up to and including episodes 261, 2103 and 5338.
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Re: Ask Graeme?

Post by Mark Deeks »

I wonder if there's any possible screen time for Countdown's version of Benedict.
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