Bad luck Chris, but there's no shame in losing to Peter. It was a good game and you both played well.
Andy Platt wrote:Philip Jarvis wrote:Are the Countdown team now intentionally pitching Apterous players against each other to reduce the number of potential Octochamps?
It seems this
is indeed the case. The standard of opponent that Victoria had was comparatively quite low, yet only one of Chris, Matt, Peter, and Niall will get the chance to get up to octochamp? Very harsh. Again, yeah, of course I understand the logic in giving the average player a better chance but it's a little unfair to punish people for being enthusiastic enough to practice before going on.
Do you know for sure that it's intentional? I think it's perfectly adequately explained by coincidence. Battles of the apterites are nothing new.
Marcus Hares, who himself had been on 14 years previously, played three apterites - James Bradley, David Hilton and Oli Moore (who I think, it's only fitting, should get a second chance in 2024). Andy McGurn played Michelle Nevitt (although I don't think she'd found apterous then), Adam Fleetwood, and James Hall.
Incidentally, I watched Andy McGurn v James Hall on what I now realise was the day I had my phone audition, and kept score against them at home. I don't remember whether James or I would have won, but I do remember that it was very close, and I noticed he was a good 6 small player and thought "thank goodness I missed him".
And I was up against Liam Herringshaw, who briefly appeared on apterous but who was naturally skilled at the game, and James Hall on his reprise. Matt Croy, Drew Halliburton, James Wilson and Barry Evans all had their games shown within a few days of each other. I don't think it's fair to expect that just because someone's of a certain standard, eight mediocre opponents should be lined up for them.
Sure, you could argue that just because it's happened quite a few times in the last couple of years doesn't mean they were all by chance. I don't know for sure that there isn't some manual intervention going on with the running order, but I find it easier to believe it's just chance. If you assign contestants' recording days randomly it's expected you might get clusters of two or three in the same fortnight, and four doesn't seem completely improbable. You get what, perhaps a dozen apterites in a 110-episode series? I think it's unlikely that every one should just happen to be nicely spaced out from the others. Someone with a greater grasp of statistics and probability distributions could perhaps give a more concrete analysis, but I don't see anything particularly untoward.
), a very harsh draw. I'd be fuming in your position, but that's just me. 
