Spoilers For Tuesday February 9th 2010

[James Robinson]

Craig is now the new champ, following his good win over Jay. Can he keep it up, unlike his Southend United last night.

Did anyone see that weird first goal That was one of the most bizarre that I've seen in a good while.

[Kirk Bevins]

Can he keep it up, unlike last night.

Brewer's Droop hey?

[Kirk Bevins]

HASTATE as a beater in round 2.

[Marc Meakin]

HASTATE as a beater in round 2.

And SEPTATE

[Matt Morrison]

if the first vowel in round 6 is a U we could have had EVOLUTION in round 4...

[Matt Morrison]

more 'obvious' method for 1st numbers:
7 x (9+2) x 10 = 770, -1 -2 = 767

[Marc Meakin]

Did the challenger declare MEDDLES?

[Marc Meakin]

MOONACRES would have been a nice one had it been there.

[Matt Morrison]

I was thinking MARACONES* as the Spanish word for bollocks, but that's MARICONES I think. I could be talking bollocks altogether though (half a pun intended).

[Peter Mabey]

I was distracted by seeing CAMEROONSx

[Clive Brooker]

more 'obvious' method for 1st numbers:
7 x (9+2) x 10 = 770, -1 -2 = 767

I did this Craig's way. Possibly the mark of a factoriser, which I admit to being.

I'm liking Mark Foster on the show.

[Kirk Bevins]

Possibly the mark of a factoriser, which I admit to being.

I don't understand this. The target was 767, which is close to 770. Factorising gives 7x11x10, which is easily obtainable, keeping the 2 and 1 by to subtract afterwards. I did it Matt's more intuitive way.

[Charlie Reams]

I was thinking MARACONES* as the Spanish word for bollocks, but that's MARICONES I think. I could be talking bollocks altogether though (half a pun intended).

Don't speak any Spanish but isn't it COJONES?

[Matt Morrison]

I was thinking MARACONES* as the Spanish word for bollocks, but that's MARICONES I think. I could be talking bollocks altogether though (half a pun intended).

Don't speak any Spanish but isn't it COJONES?

Oh yeah, course. Having just looked it up this time, MARICONES are gays. My bad. Lesson learned: if you're gonna pick up slang from a Spanish friend you really ought to know what the words mean.

[Ben Hunter]

Anyone else's Channel 4+1 just disappeared?

[Clive Brooker]

Possibly the mark of a factoriser, which I admit to being.

I don't understand this. The target was 767, which is close to 770. Factorising gives 7x11x10, which is easily obtainable, keeping the 2 and 1 by to subtract afterwards. I did it Matt's more intuitive way.

The 770 route looks painfully obvious when you've seen it, so I'm wondering what logic led Craig, like me, to approach the target via 765.

My first instinct, rightly or wrongly, is to factorise the target or something close to it. If 767 has factors I didn't know what they are. I regarded 770 as unpromising because if you want to be spot on you only have 4 numbers left to make 770. But 765 and 768 are both readily factorisable (?) and since there's a 9 in the selection, I started by looking at 765. As it happens 768 gets there as well.

[craig]

767 divides by 13 to give 59 I believe. Can't see that method working though. I can't remember what went through my mind, I usually look to use the 10 as in the other method. Maybe it was because there wasn't a 3 there to minus. Oh well I got the points at least, any other methods people found?

[Richard Priest]

Did the challenger declare MEDDLES?

I thought he meant MEDALS.

[James Robinson]

Anyone else's Channel 4+1 just disappeared?

No.

Did the challenger declare MEDDLES?

No, MEDALS like what Mark Foster has.

[Liam Tiernan]

Possibly the mark of a factoriser, which I admit to being.

I don't understand this. The target was 767, which is close to 770. Factorising gives 7x11x10, which is easily obtainable, keeping the 2 and 1 by to subtract afterwards. I did it Matt's more intuitive way.

The 770 route looks painfully obvious when you've seen it, so I'm wondering what logic led Craig, like me, to approach the target via 765.

My first instinct, rightly or wrongly, is to factorise the target or something close to it. If 767 has factors I didn't know what they are. I regarded 770 as unpromising because if you want to be spot on you only have 4 numbers left to make 770. But 765 and 768 are both readily factorisable (?) and since there's a 9 in the selection, I started by looking at 765. As it happens 768 gets there as well.

I also did it the same way as Craig. I started by dividing the target by 9 to get 85 with 2 remaining. So now I had to find a way to make 85 without using the 2 or 9. If I hadn't spotted one I would have moved on to try dividing the target by 7 (or maybe 10, which was Matt & Kirk's way). I think I chose the 9 to start with because it seemed the most likely at first glance to divide evenly into the target.

[Gavin Chipper]

767 divides by 13 to give 59 I believe. Can't see that method working though. I can't remember what went through my mind, I usually look to use the 10 as in the other method. Maybe it was because there wasn't a 3 there to minus. Oh well I got the points at least, any other methods people found?

Personally I fucked it up and was a bit annoyed with myself. But I've still got my 200 in bullet numbers attack. How's it going for you?

[craig]

Personally I fucked it up and was a bit annoyed with myself. But I've still got my 200 in bullet numbers attack. How's it going for you?

Hope that worked, I'm still very noobish at this quoting business. I got another 190 yesterday, this time I mis clicked though so I'm getting closer. Might just give up on it considering I've tried over 100 times!

[Matthew Tassier]

Clive:"Possibly the mark of a factoriser, which I admit to being."


I don't understand this. The target was 767, which is close to 770. Factorising gives 7x11x10, which is easily obtainable, keeping the 2 and 1 by to subtract afterwards. I did it Matt's more intuitive way.

The 770 route looks painfully obvious when you've seen it, so I'm wondering what logic led Craig, like me, to approach the target via 765.

My first instinct, rightly or wrongly, is to factorise the target or something close to it. If 767 has factors I didn't know what they are. I regarded 770 as unpromising because if you want to be spot on you only have 4 numbers left to make 770. But 765 and 768 are both readily factorisable (?) and since there's a 9 in the selection, I started by looking at 765. As it happens 768 gets there as well.

I also did it the same way as Craig. I started by dividing the target by 9 to get 85 with 2 remaining. So now I had to find a way to make 85 without using the 2 or 9. If I hadn't spotted one I would have moved on to try dividing the target by 7 (or maybe 10, which was Matt & Kirk's way). I think I chose the 9 to start with because it seemed the most likely at first glance to divide evenly into the target.

I did it Craig's way, but not really deliberately. The best solution almost certainly had to be based upon multiplying the three big numbers together so I worked from 630 and found the extra 137 (2 lots of 63 plus 9 plus 2). I didn't work out how many 9s went into 765. If I had carried on looking after solving it I may well have found 2*70-2-1 as well in the remaining time.
The problem with factorising and working backwards is that it very often leads you down dead ends. I have improved pretty well at 6 small by working forwards, and think I am more likely to get the answer spot on and much more likely to get a some points from a close answer when I don't. It's just a case of spotting a reasonable starting point.

I'd love to hear how Junaid did it (and thought about doing it) as his 6 small figures are phenomenal.

[Gavin Chipper]

Personally I fucked it up and was a bit annoyed with myself. But I've still got my 200 in bullet numbers attack. How's it going for you?

Hope that worked, I'm still very noobish at this quoting business. I got another 190 yesterday, this time I mis clicked though so I'm getting closer. Might just give up on it considering I've tried over 100 times!

Don't give up! Do you always see them through to the end? Maybe you'd see it as cheating, but if I got a solution wrong before about the 8th round, I'd normally quit and start again.

[Junaid Mubeen]

I'd love to hear how Junaid did it (and thought about doing it) as his 6 small figures are phenomenal.

Aw thanks, I'm flattered. If I recall correctly, I went for 11x70-3. With 6 small, I typically aim to get close to the target with 3-5 of the numbers, hoping there'll be enough left over to negotiate the difference. There's often more than one way to go; here 63x12=756 gets you there too (which I think is what Craig did), but I think the 770 route was more intuitive.