c4countdown

Posted: **Sat Feb 20, 2016 7:48 am**

Johnny Canuck wrote:Based on (a) prior numbers of wins, (b) prior point totals, and (c) prior average scores, who are the statistically weakest contestants to have ever qualified for Championships of Champions? I would expect at least one of them to be from CoC IX, since all contestants in it were drawn from only one year of heat games as opposed to between 2 and 4 years for the others.

Would you include knockout round reached at all?

I suppose we could have that as a separate metric. So to hijack this question, if this was the first thing to take into account before Johnny's things who would it be?

Also the above if we include supreme and 30th birthday.

Thanks!

Posted: **Sun Feb 28, 2016 8:15 pm**

(SPOILER ALERT for anyone who has been living under a rock for six weeks)

Were the final two games of Championship of Champions XIV the first pair of consecutive games in which the same nine-letter word was available in both games?

Posted: **Wed Mar 02, 2016 10:46 pm**

Matt Bayfield wrote:Would it be possible, in terms of comparing scores for different formats, to go through the entire database, and determine:

Lm = mean score for a Letters round, which I imagine is something below 5, bearing in mind that many contestants score zero because their opponent has a longer word
Nm = mean score for a Numbers round
Cm = mean score for a Conundrum (which must be below 5, since only one player can ever get the conundrum)

Then, for each format, calculate the "mean" score: e.g. 9R mean score would be S(9Rm) = 6Lm + 2Nm + Cm; old 15R mean score would be S(15Rom) = 11Lm + 3Nm + Cm, etc.

You could then even consider converting between format scores using e.g. S(15Ro)equivalent = S(9R)actual x S(15Rom) / S(9Rm). However, I have a feeling this might be a poor conversion at the very low and high ends of the score spectrum.

(Edit: Looks like Gevin has already suggested something similar, but I'm leaving this post here anyway.)

I'm going to answer this question and then also count it as an answer to Gevin's question.

The mean score for a player in a letters round, looking at all televised letters rounds where we know what the player scored, up to the end of the last CoC, is about 4.942.

For numbers, the mean score is 6.328.

For conundrums, the mean score is 3.647.

All these figures are rounded to three decimal places.

Our simulated mean score for a 9 rounder, therefore, is 6Lm + 2Nm + Cm = 45.956.
For 14 rounders it's 72.142.
For old 15 rounders it's 76.995.
For new 15 rounders it's 78.380.

The *actual* mean score for a player in a 9 rounder, looking at all televised 9 rounders, is 45.328. For 14 rounders it's 76.472, for old 15 rounders it's 77.526, and for new 15 rounders it's 78.433. These figures are reasonably close to what the formula predicts, but the actual mean score in 14 rounders is a bit higher, presumably because 14 rounders, being finals, featured stronger than average players.

Posted: **Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:04 pm**

Ben Wilson wrote:Apologies if this has been asked before, but going purely on the average number of maxes achieved by each contestant, which heat games have the highest aggregate average maxes between the two players? I'm particularly interested in a player's average maxes over their entire 'career' (if applicable), not just their heats.

By "average number of maxes" achieved by a contestant, I'm assuming you mean the average number of maxes per game that player achieved.

Average maxes per game achieved by that player in all their televised games up to and including CoC XIV are given in brackets.

Here are the top 10 heat games ordered by the sum of the two players' average maxes per game...

Zarte Siempre (10.167) v Dylan Taylor (12.667)
Thomas Carey (11.400) v Adam Curran (10.000)
Mark Murray (9.286) v Peter Steggle (11.000)
Dave Dyer (8.000) v Edward McCullagh (11.846)
Andy Platt (10.769) v Alex Newton (9.000)
Dylan Taylor (12.667) v Tony Izzard (7.000)
Jason Turner (10.000) v Tricia Pay (9.600)
Julian Fell (11.571) v June Mitchell (8.000)
Giles Hutchings (11.571) v Alan Flanagan (8.000)
John Hardie (9.400) v James Rowan (10.000)

Posted: **Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:18 pm**

Johnny Canuck wrote:Magnificent number-crunching skills as always, Graeme, particularly on the alphabetically closest selections question because I know (or at least strongly suspect) that your database isn't exactly well suited to answering it.

Next up:
Let us call a conundrum scramble "unoriginal" if it has been used three or more times and no other scramble has ever been used for the same word. For example, I believe PARTRIDGE has been scrambled as GREATDRIP three times, with no other scrambles ever used for it, so that would make GREATDRIP unoriginal. However, HYDRANGEA has been scrambled as ANGRYHEAD three times (or could have been two; not sure) and then also as GARDENHAY once, so ANGRYHEAD is not unoriginal.

How many unoriginal scrambles are there, and if there aren't too many, might you be able to list them?

PARTRIDGE isn't an unoriginal scramble by your definition, because GRAPEDIRT has also been used.

For this question, if a conundrum answer appears in the wiki with the order of the letters in the scramble not known, I've assumed that no scramble for that answer can be unoriginal, because we can't prove that the scramble was the same as any other times that conundrum answer was used.

The "unoriginal" conundrum scrambles are as follows:

Code: Select all

SCRAMBLE  ANSWER    FREQUENCY
NATTYBALL BLATANTLY 4
LOVEFRAUD FLAVOURED 4
TOOQUAINT QUOTATION 4
HECUDDLES SCHEDULED 4
ASUNNYMOO ANONYMOUS 3
HOLYTANGO ANTHOLOGY 3
GIANTDENT ATTENDING 3
BREADCUBE BARBECUED 3
DUTCHBEER BUTCHERED 3
ACUTECALL CALCULATE 3
MOTORCARN CORMORANT 3
GREENSODS ENGROSSED 3
HABITLESS ESTABLISH 3
MUMISHEEP EUPHEMISM 3
FREEDRUTH FURTHERED 3
MOOCHYBEN HONEYCOMB 3
QUIETMODS MISQUOTED 3
GIANTCLAP PLACATING 3
WEIRDPONG POWDERING 3
THREELIDS SLITHERED 3
GINGERDES SNIGGERED 3
PLOUGHDIN UPHOLDING 3
LUVLYRITA VIRTUALLY 3
LOVELYGIN VOLLEYING 3
TWINTIGER WITTERING 3

Posted: **Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:21 pm**

Andy McGurn wrote:Question: was Fred Mumford correct when he PM-ed you his CoC predictions based on what people had said on the forum? If not how close was he?

Fred Mumford wrote:My only real prediction was that Jen would get to the final, based on a comment she had made about never having made it to a final, which I interpreted as some kind of double bluff.

Pretty much this.

Posted: **Thu Mar 03, 2016 8:50 am**

Graeme Cole wrote:
Ben Wilson wrote:Apologies if this has been asked before, but going purely on the average number of maxes achieved by each contestant, which heat games have the highest aggregate average maxes between the two players? I'm particularly interested in a player's average maxes over their entire 'career' (if applicable), not just their heats.
By "average number of maxes" achieved by a contestant, I'm assuming you mean the average number of maxes per game that player achieved.

Average maxes per game achieved by that player in all their televised games up to and including CoC XIV are given in brackets.

Here are the top 10 heat games ordered by the sum of the two players' average maxes per game...

Zarte Siempre (10.167) v Dylan Taylor (12.667)
Thomas Carey (11.400) v Adam Curran (10.000)
Mark Murray (9.286) v Peter Steggle (11.000)
Dave Dyer (8.000) v Edward McCullagh (11.846)
Andy Platt (10.769) v Alex Newton (9.000)
Dylan Taylor (12.667) v Tony Izzard (7.000)
Jason Turner (10.000) v Tricia Pay (9.600)
Julian Fell (11.571) v June Mitchell (8.000)
Giles Hutchings (11.571) v Alan Flanagan (8.000)
John Hardie (9.400) v James Rowan (10.000)

Amazing work as always, awesome man.

I'd also be interested to see what would be top of this list if you discounted matches where one or more player reached the finals, please.

Posted: **Tue Mar 08, 2016 4:18 am**

Just so you know, Graeme, if I ever do make it to Britain, I'm buying you a pizza. It's totally on me. Your choice of toppings, too.

Next question, again conundrum-related:
Following on from the infamous FREEDRUTH incident, how many times has a conundrum answer been used more than once in a series? I know PROUDSTEP => SUPPORTED was also used twice, about 2-3 weeks apart, during or around the time of Robbo's original run in Series 49.

Posted: **Fri Mar 11, 2016 3:57 am**

Was this the first game with more than one repdigit target?

Posted: **Wed Mar 23, 2016 9:45 pm**

Dunno if you've answered this but who got the toughest 15r octorun (by combined maxes of the 8 opponents)? That's probably not the best way to do it as 4 good ones and 4 shit ones is a lot harder than 8 mediocre ones. Dunno, squares of maxes? Feel free to suggest a better system. Either way, Mark Murray probably wins it.

Posted: **Thu Mar 24, 2016 8:17 am**

Related to my question above, going by numbers of maxes achieved, what's been the biggest 'upset' in the history of the show? By which I mean, what's the biggest difference between the average number of maxes per game where the player with the lower average won.

Posted: **Wed Mar 30, 2016 3:19 pm**

In Series 47, all 8 finalists were octochamps, and they together achieved 6336 points in their heats. Is this the highest aggregate heat game total among all finalists? If not, what is the highest? What is the lowest? Would you be able to make a ranking of all 15-round finalist aggregate heat game totals?

Posted: **Wed Mar 30, 2016 3:41 pm**

Johnny Canuck wrote:In Series 47, all 8 finalists were octochamps, and they together achieved 6336 points in their heats. Is this the highest aggregate heat game total among all finalists? If not, what is the highest? What is the lowest? Would you be able to make a ranking of all 15-round finalist aggregate heat game totals?

That reminds me, with all the reappearances of former contestants, David Franks (who was the unlucky 9th place with "just" 7 wins) would be a good choice to be given another go, assuming he still wants one.

Posted: **Wed Mar 30, 2016 7:00 pm**

Johnny Canuck wrote:In Series 47, all 8 finalists were octochamps, and they together achieved 6336 points in their heats. Is this the highest aggregate heat game total among all finalists? If not, what is the highest? What is the lowest? Would you be able to make a ranking of all 15-round finalist aggregate heat game totals?

Surely, Series 69 must have a good shout, as it had 3 octochamps who scored over 2800 points between them!!!

Posted: **Wed Mar 30, 2016 9:57 pm**

What month (January, February, etc.; irrespective of year) has had the most episodes, overall, broadcast in it?

Posted: **Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:19 pm**

Could we get a list of 1st QF 15ers (ie, 1st seed vs 8th seed) in descending order of 8th seed score? ty xxxx

Posted: **Tue Apr 05, 2016 11:35 pm**

Matty Artell wrote:Could we get a list of 1st QF 15ers (ie, 1st seed vs 8th seed) in descending order of 8th seed score? ty xxxx

I'll handle this one (manually), sorry Graeme. I can't sleep (with excitement about the finals tomorrow!) and I'm curious too.

Code: Select all

Series   	Contestant        		Score   	Opponent 	       	Wins Points
Series 51	Nicole Hutchings     	105  110	Stewart Holden     	4	444
Series 60	Julie Russell     		90	115	Kirk Bevins        	3	356
Series 73	Matty Artell      		87	124	Thomas Carey       	5	541
Series 47	Brenda Jolley     		86	110	Chris Wills        	8	718
Series 68	Peter Fenton      		86	109	Giles Hutchings    	2	262
Series 55	Phil Watson       		82	72 	Steven Briers      	6	574
Series 56	Stewart Gordon 	   	81	85 	Aaron Webber       	5	553
Series 66	Rob Gibney        		77	101	Jonathan Rawlinson 	4	486
Series 64	Michelle Nevitt 	  	76	117	Adam Gillard       	4	366
Series 69	Gemma Church      		76	108	Dylan Taylor       	6	602
Series 49	Christine Scott  	 	76	105	John Davies        	4	375
Series 62	Claudia Tyson   	  	75	123	Oliver Garner      	6	545
Series 67	Grant Waters    	  	75	103	Paul James         	7	722
Series 57	Mikey Lear       	 	69	106	Craig Beevers      	7	680
Series 59	Patricia Jamieson    	69	82 	Charlie Reams      	3	332
Series 46	Simon Cartwright     	68	83 	Ben Wilson	      	4	467
Series 48	Mike Brown        		67	125	Julian Fell     		5	584
Series 70	Andy Gardner   	   	63	95 	Mark Murray        	6	580
Series 52	Rita Wilmott     	 	61	92 	Paul Gallen        	5	529
Series 71	Paul Worsley     	 	60	109	Dan McColm         	6	647
Series 50	Brian McKeon    	  	58	107	Chris Cummins      	4	437
Series 53	Fred Reynolds   	  	58	75 	John Brackstone	    6	599
Series 58	Ben Hanks        	 	46	92 	David O'Donnell    	6	580
Series 61	Jacqueline Baker     	42	86 	Andrew Hulme       	5	510
Series 63	Peter Godwin    	  	40	108	Jack Hurst	      	7	705
Series 72	Gavin Woolnough      	40	98 	Thomas Cappleman   	5	454
Series 54	Daniel Peake    	  	38	107	Conor Travers      	6	575
Series 65	David Butcher     		21	116	Mark Deeks         	7	620

Some things I learned while doing this:
You almost got the result you were hoping for, but the real winner here is Giles' mum (the only #8 seed to get a century in a finals game)
The only #8 seed to win a finals game is Phil Watson, against a future CoC winner
Players' wins and points seem to be irrelevant to their QF score, with two of the three who didn't manage 4 wins in the top 5
Despite Countdown usually being a massive sausagefest, there's a surprising amount of #8 seed women
This thing is hard to format (or I'm just stupid)

Feel free to add to this, Graeme or anyone else, sorry again for nicking your job

Posted: **Tue Apr 05, 2016 11:58 pm**

3rd ain't bad :p cheers Tom. I considered looking manually but I got bored after about 3 series.

Posted: **Wed Apr 06, 2016 5:04 pm**

What's the most consecutive weekdays that Countdown has been on? (New shows - early morning repeats don't count.)

Posted: **Thu Apr 07, 2016 12:09 pm**

Gavin Chipper wrote:What's the most consecutive weekdays that Countdown has been on? (New shows - early morning repeats don't count.)

I'm tentatively guessing five. Radical idea I know, unless there was once a leap week?

Posted: **Thu Apr 07, 2016 1:41 pm**

Ian Volante wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:What's the most consecutive weekdays that Countdown has been on? (New shows - early morning repeats don't count.)
I'm tentatively guessing five. Radical idea I know, unless there was once a leap week?

As in non-weekend days.

Posted: **Thu Apr 07, 2016 10:58 pm**

Gavin Chipper wrote:
Ian Volante wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:What's the most consecutive weekdays that Countdown has been on? (New shows - early morning repeats don't count.)
I'm tentatively guessing five. Radical idea I know, unless there was once a leap week?
As in non-weekend days.

Yep, sticking on five.

Posted: **Thu Apr 07, 2016 11:11 pm**

Ian Volante wrote:Yep, sticking on five.

Friday and Monday are consecutive weekdays by this metric.

Posted: **Fri Apr 08, 2016 8:03 am**

Gavin Chipper wrote:
Ian Volante wrote:Yep, sticking on five.
Friday and Monday are consecutive weekdays by this metric.

Posted: **Sun Apr 10, 2016 6:01 pm**

Maybe a random one this but who are the tallest players to appear on the show that you know of? I'm 6"4 and three quarters and Graham Nash just edged me being 6"5. There was a guy who appeared in the series after me called Danny Hamilton who was apparently 6"8. I would imagine Ryan Taylor is probably half an inch either side of me and I'd imagine Jon O'Neill to be 6"5-6"6.

Posted: **Mon Apr 11, 2016 8:39 am**

lol jono

Posted: **Tue Apr 12, 2016 11:59 am**

Tom wrote:Maybe a random one this but who are the tallest players to appear on the show that you know of? I'm 6"4 and three quarters and Graham Nash just edged me being 6"5. There was a guy who appeared in the series after me called Danny Hamilton who was apparently 6"8. I would imagine Ryan Taylor is probably half an inch either side of me and I'd imagine Jon O'Neill to be 6"5-6"6.

I'm 6"5. Jono is definitely shorter than me - I reckon he's 6"4. Of course, I'm not sure if I was 6"5 when I was on the show aged 18. Quite possible that I grew a little bit more after that.

Posted: **Mon Apr 18, 2016 10:48 pm**

Is this the only episode in which a contestant is known to have made the same offering in two consecutive rounds?

EDIT: I find it very impressive that I had a spelling mistake in this post for almost 24 hours and nobody pointed it out.

Posted: **Wed Apr 20, 2016 7:36 pm**

Johnny Canuck wrote:Is this the only episode in which a contestant is known to have made the same offering in two consecutive rounds?

EDIT: I find it very impressive that I had a spelling mistake in this post for almost 24 hours and nobody pointed it out.

No, it happened here, and possibly in other episodes as well. http://wiki.apterous.org/Episode_5349

Posted: **Mon Apr 25, 2016 10:35 pm**

I'd be mildly surprised if your database can answer this, so I leave it as an exercise to anyone who studies bus timetables. The bus I'm currently on stops in both Worsley and Pendleton. (Looking forward to being inside both of them). Is this the bus route with the most apterite surnames?

Posted: **Tue Apr 26, 2016 12:01 am**

Matty Artell wrote:I'd be mildly surprised if your database can answer this, so I leave it as an exercise to anyone who studies bus timetables.

As a matter of fact, a news article about Jeffrey Hansford specifically gives this as one of his favourite pastimes, so why don't you call him up right now?

Posted: **Sun May 08, 2016 8:00 pm**

Has the possibility of a match between Dylan Taylor and Conor Travers been mentioned before? I think it would be a great idea if it were to happen. Neither player has an unbeaten record to risk and would be a game between 2 true greats. If Dylan won then he'd have immortality and for Conor, he truly would be the greatest ever player.

Posted: **Sun May 08, 2016 8:35 pm**

Tom wrote:Has the possibility of a match between Dylan Taylor and Conor Travers been mentioned before? I think it would be a great idea if it were to happen. Neither player has an unbeaten record to risk and would be a game between 2 true greats. If Dylan won then he'd have immortality and for Conor, he truly would be the greatest ever player.

Is this an Ask Graeme thing? But I don't think we need to wheel out Conor for the very next CoC winner after the 30th Birthday thing. Just like Harvey Freeman wasn't expected to play Natascha Kearsey when she won the next CoC after the supremes. Give it another few years and we could have another supreme type thing with both of these invited as well as many other great champions.

Posted: **Mon Jun 06, 2016 11:54 pm**

In Round 1 of this game, the first three letters drawn were QXZ. Have all four of the "difficult" letters (those three plus the J) ever appeared in the same round? If not, how many times have three of them appeared?

I also vaguely recall going through the archives, most likely a very early series, and seeing a round with three Ys; can someone please confirm its presence for me to prove I'm not just going slightly mad?

Posted: **Tue Jun 07, 2016 7:29 am**

Johnny Canuck wrote:In Round 1 of this game

Fiona Willis Not a name I recall, but one of the youngest ever female contestants, and pretty successful.

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2016 11:48 am**

Trivia: what record, which stands to this day, did Ian McMenzie set in this episode?

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2016 11:57 am**

Jon O'Neill wrote:Trivia: what record, which stands to this day, did Ian McMenzie set in this episode?

I can't see anything notable done in that episode specifically by Ian, but I thought it was odd that there were four identical starting numbers that appeared in each of the three numbers games.

Why is the trivia just for Graeme though?

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2016 12:12 pm**

Johnny Canuck wrote:
Jon O'Neill wrote:Trivia: what record, which stands to this day, did Ian McMenzie set in this episode?
I can't see anything notable done in that episode specifically by Ian, but I thought it was odd that there were four identical starting numbers that appeared in each of the three numbers games.

Incorrect.

Johnny Canuck wrote:Why is the trivia just for Graeme though?

It's Greamebase-driven.

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2016 2:01 pm**

Jon O'Neill wrote:Trivia: what record, which stands to this day, did Ian McMenzie set in this episode?

Ian used every letter but one (Z) in his declarations, is that the record?

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2016 2:38 pm**

Innis Carson wrote:
Jon O'Neill wrote:Trivia: what record, which stands to this day, did Ian McMenzie set in this episode?
Ian used every letter but one (Z) in his declarations, is that the record?

Ah, that must be it, good catch.

(As an addendum, I also notice that in his numbers game declarations [if the declarations of the targets are included], he used every digit from 0 to 9 as well as every available mathematical operator, including the parentheses.)

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2016 3:11 pm**

Innis Carson wrote:
Jon O'Neill wrote:Trivia: what record, which stands to this day, did Ian McMenzie set in this episode?
Ian used every letter but one (Z) in his declarations, is that the record?

Correct! Very good.

There have been about 1600 episodes since where 25 or 26 different letters appeared in the selections, so over 3,000 chances for that to be matched.. and nobody else has gone over 23.

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2016 6:18 pm**

Jon O'Neill wrote:
Innis Carson wrote:
Jon O'Neill wrote:Trivia: what record, which stands to this day, did Ian McMenzie set in this episode?
Ian used every letter but one (Z) in his declarations, is that the record?
Correct! Very good.

There have been about 1600 episodes since where 25 or 26 different letters appeared in the selections, so over 3,000 chances for that to be matched.. and nobody else has gone over 23.

You could match or beat it in any game by just declaring ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2016 10:11 pm**

Gavin Chipper wrote:
Jon O'Neill wrote:
Innis Carson wrote:Ian used every letter but one (Z) in his declarations, is that the record?
Correct! Very good.

There have been about 1600 episodes since where 25 or 26 different letters appeared in the selections, so over 3,000 chances for that to be matched.. and nobody else has gone over 23.
You could match or beat it in any game by just declaring ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.

Valid declarations only, obviously.

Posted: **Fri Jul 15, 2016 4:54 pm**

I was curious the other day: Since contestants often start making words from the letters that are in place "so far", even before Rachel is finished selecting 9 letters, are words more frequently formed from the letters that are earlier (farther left) in the selection than those that are later (farther right)? Not sure how this could be easily tested completely, but one related test could be done as follows: Among all valid 8-letter words that are declared from selections that contain nine different letters with no repeats, what percentage of these 8-letter words are missing the first (leftmost) letter on the board, what percentage are missing the second letter, and so on? (Example: From a declaration of CHEATING in the round CGNEAIHPT, the P -- which is the eighth letter -- is missing.) I'd expect a bias toward the later letters being omitted more frequently.

Posted: **Tue Jul 26, 2016 6:21 am**

Only Connect........thoughts ?
I bigged your team up so much to my family that I bet them you would win by offering to do the washing up for a month if you lost.
Nearly did it though with that comeback in the end.
Apologies for hijacking your thread.

Posted: **Tue Jul 26, 2016 7:59 pm**

Marc Meakin wrote:Only Connect........thoughts ?
I bigged your team up so much to my family that I bet them you would win by offering to do the washing up for a month if you lost.

Yeah, we know. That's why we lost.

Posted: **Wed Jul 27, 2016 12:20 pm**

lol. I was thoroughly impressed with the missing vowels round. I have a theory that you was nervous in the presence of the goddess Victoria .

Posted: **Wed Jul 27, 2016 5:11 pm**

Graeme Cole wrote:In the 9-round era, at least four contestants' octoruns had no nines available. They were Darryl Francis, Mark Nyman, Lindsay Denyer and James Sinclair. Sharon Bridge had no nines in her first seven games, but we don't have details for her eighth game.

Obviously late to the party here, but some deep digging has unveiled that Sharon escapes this unfortunate crowd -- she had HASTENING available in her 8th game. Judging from her 60+ score, she is likely to have spotted it, too.

Posted: **Sun Aug 21, 2016 7:16 am**

Who has got the lowest percentage (above 0%) of conundrum solves from the total number of shows they have appeared in (including specials)?

Does anyone have 0%?

Posted: **Sun Aug 21, 2016 2:23 pm**

Ryan Taylor wrote:Does anyone have 0%?

Yes. Very yes.

Posted: **Sun Aug 21, 2016 2:24 pm**

Ryan Taylor wrote:Who has got the lowest percentage (above 0%) of conundrum solves from the total number of shows they have appeared in (including specials)?

Does anyone have 0%?

I imagine quite a lot of people have 0%.

Posted: **Mon Aug 22, 2016 6:57 pm**

Gavin Chipper wrote:
Ryan Taylor wrote:Who has got the lowest percentage (above 0%) of conundrum solves from the total number of shows they have appeared in (including specials)?

Does anyone have 0%?
I imagine quite a lot of people have 0%.

Sorry, I meant 0% for 8 games or more. But lowest (positive) % can be for any contestant.

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2016 2:23 pm**

A few people on Apterous have noted that many recent successful Countdown finalists have had the initials CT. Among those of all people who have reached the finals of any series ever, what are the most common initials? Are CT in the top 10?

Posted: **Thu Oct 27, 2016 11:48 pm**

Hi Graeme,

How many times has the conundrum scramble been a valid word (eg. VALIDATES (SALIVATED) on 26/10/16)?

Peter

Posted: **Fri Oct 28, 2016 3:30 pm**

Question - How come Graeme has not answered a question on here since March, despite quite a lot being asked?

Not meaning to be insulting, just curious

Posted: **Fri Oct 28, 2016 3:58 pm**

Peter Thomas wrote:Hi Graeme,

How many times has the conundrum scramble been a valid word (eg. VALIDATES (SALIVATED) on 26/10/16)?

Peter

Spoilers!

Posted: **Fri Oct 28, 2016 4:30 pm**

I always feel that if you don't want to find out what happened on Countdown then you should stay off a Countdown forum.

Posted: **Fri Oct 28, 2016 4:42 pm**

Mark Deeks wrote:I always feel that if you don't want to find out what happened on Countdown then you should stay off a Countdown forum.

I used to hold this opinion in the old Yahoo Group days when there weren't proper separate discussion threads, but this forum has been made to separate out the threads in this way.

Posted: **Sat Dec 24, 2016 12:34 am**

In the first 9 of the 10 letters rounds in this game, the longest word(s) available were all 8 letters in length. Only in the final letters round, was this perfect pattern spoiled, when the maxes were only 7 letters in length.

Is this the closest a televised (old or new) 15R game has ever been, to having the same max score in every letters round? Has the letters max ever been the same length in every letters round, in a game with fewer than 10 letters rounds?

Posted: **Sun Feb 05, 2017 12:28 pm**

Hi Graeme,

Please could you Answer this Thing (well, not just this Thing, but the Thing immediately following this Thing)?

What's the percentage of returning players per (regular) series? (e.g. 100 different players in series n, 10 had played in series <n, therefore 10% were returning players).

c4countdown

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Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

Re: Ask Graeme?

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