June Daily Duels

Dinos Sfyris · Post by **Dinos Sfyris** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 7:08 am

Thought yesterday's goatblind was a pretty awesome variant as your brain has to juggle remembering the letters, and trying to think of the optimal pick without forgetting them! More please

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 9:56 am

Positive feedback

What's going on?!

D Eadie · Post by **D Eadie** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 10:42 am

I thought it was dogshit. Your game is crap.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 11:46 am

Ah, the warm familiarity of criticism returns

Ian Volante · Post by **Ian Volante** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:27 pm

Dinos Sfyris wrote:Thought yesterday's goatblind was a pretty awesome variant as your brain has to juggle remembering the letters, and trying to think of the optimal pick without forgetting them! More please

For some reason, I found that easier than normal blind.

Kai Laddiman · Post by **Kai Laddiman** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 6:38 pm

Dinos Sfyris wrote:Thought yesterday's goatblind was a pretty awesome variant as your brain has to juggle remembering the letters, and trying to think of the optimal pick without forgetting them! More please

Dittoed, my new fave variant

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 11:08 pm

Hmm some different rounds/order of rounds today. Damian Eadie seems to be the cause.

Simon Myers · Post by **Simon Myers** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 12:42 am

Kirk Bevins wrote:Hmm some different rounds/order of rounds today. Damian Eadie seems to be the cause.

Yeah after I got the WATERSIDE conundrum very late the game froze on me, which caused me to miss the 9 (which I should've got) and instead maxed some bullshit round that had a 5 in it

(FYI Charlie - exact same issue that used to arise when bots buzzed wrongly. I'd post the log in the bugs thread but the log was the same as a normal conundrum round, except after the "round ended on 44000ms" entry, there was nothing except normal chat log stuff.)

Ben Wilson · Post by **Ben Wilson** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 11:19 pm

Oh yes.

I'm surprised I'm the only one to crack round 2 though.

Kai Laddiman · Post by **Kai Laddiman** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 8:50 am

Ben Wilson wrote:Oh yes. I'm surprised I'm the only one to crack round 2 though.

I wrecked my duel by doing (9 + 5) x 4 instead of (9 + 4) x 5 and then EGOSPHERE instead of GEOSPHERE.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 2:09 pm

I wrecked mine by not doing it just gone midnight and then remembered when I was out that I wasn't coming home that day so I didn't do it! I went from 1st to like 14th straight away

Matt Morrison · Post by **Matt Morrison** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 5:57 pm

I chose specifically to not wreck my duel by not playing it at all, the same successful tactic I've employed for the past few weeks.

Neil Zussman · Post by **Neil Zussman** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 8:28 pm

Please can we just end the month now?

Nobody cares about June, anyway, do they? Such a silly month...

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:06 pm

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=72890

Pleased to win this duel, partly thanks to being the only one to nail the 4 large.

Steve Rogers · Post by **Steve Rogers** » Tue Jun 09, 2009 12:02 am

Is there a prize for the worst monthly total score having taken part in all the duels?

I must be in the running with a mere 45 points from the 7 duels played so far this month!

Ian Volante · Post by **Ian Volante** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 4:40 pm

Ooh!

Entrants: 62. Perfect score: 62.

Phil Reynolds · Post by **Phil Reynolds** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:09 pm

No wonder I sucked at yesterday's Duel. In round 7 I was so busy sniggering at the scramble CHARLIESP that I only remembered to start looking for words in the last 3 seconds.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:33 pm

Hmm I got RACONTEURING today as a conundrum but it turns out it's not in the ODE. Odd.

Matt Morrison · Post by **Matt Morrison** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:35 pm

Hmm I got SEGREGATED today as a conundrum but it turns out it's not 12 letters long. Odd.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:40 pm

Matt Morrison wrote:Hmm I got SEGREGATED today as a conundrum but it turns out it's not 12 letters long. Odd.

Yeah, I made the same mistake with PUBLICIZED or something.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 1:07 am

Kirk Bevins wrote:Hmm I got RACONTEURING today as a conundrum but it turns out it's not in the ODE. Odd.

Not really.

Kirk Bevins · Post by **Kirk Bevins** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 3:47 pm

Charlie Reams wrote:
Kirk Bevins wrote:Hmm I got RACONTEURING today as a conundrum but it turns out it's not in the ODE. Odd.
Not really.

Huh? I thought the list should be shorter, not have words in there that aren't in ODE2r!!

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 6:20 pm

Kirk Bevins wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote:
Kirk Bevins wrote:Hmm I got RACONTEURING today as a conundrum but it turns out it's not in the ODE. Odd.
Not really.
Huh? I thought the list should be shorter, not have words in there that aren't in ODE2r!!

If I could remove words that aren't in the ODE, I could just throw a huge lexicon at it (like the UKACD) and produce an almost-perfect copy of the ODE. So, modus tollens, I can't do that.

Kevin Davis · Post by **Kevin Davis** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 11:10 pm

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=78414

It may be Junior.
It may be tied.
But sod it, a win's a win!

If anyone wants me, I'll be in Cuba. See you in a fortnight!

Maxine Silkstone · Post by **Maxine Silkstone** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 4:38 am

Joshua Silkstone has no duels.

He's not paid up yet (cheque on the way) but shouldn't he still get duels on Sat & Sun?

I've just played mine, and then signed off and he's signed on to have a go before school and it's not there.

Is this to stop people with more than one account having two or more goes at the duel perhaps? If so I'll back off on Sat and Sun and let him have them.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 11:16 am

Maxine Silkstone wrote:Joshua Silkstone has no duels.

He's not paid up yet (cheque on the way) but shouldn't he still get duels on Sat & Sun?

I've just played mine, and then signed off and he's signed on to have a go before school and it's not there.

Is this to stop people with more than one account having two or more goes at the duel perhaps? If so I'll back off on Sat and Sun and let him have them.

You have to play at least 3 games before the Duel shows up, because it was confusing to new users to suddenly have some random bot challenging them.

Maxine Silkstone · Post by **Maxine Silkstone** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 6:46 pm

Charlie Reams wrote:
Maxine Silkstone wrote:Joshua Silkstone has no duels.

You have to play at least 3 games before the Duel shows up, because it was confusing to new users to suddenly have some random bot challenging them.

Ah, I see, will let him know

Ross Allatt · Post by **Ross Allatt** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:45 am

Love the daily duels etc, but confused as to the max scores. Kai topped the leaderboard yesterday with 119 out of a max of 126. I had different letters games (we ALL did by the looks of it) and my max score for the whole game was 119. So I'd have needed a perfect game (yeah, I know, I know

) to tie the best score. Robert Shadwick's max score was 116 so he had even less chance.

Sorry if I'm being a bit or a lot thick, but is it just meant to be random which selection you get thus determining your max score?

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 7:11 am

Yeah, yesterday's duel looks a bit screwed. I notice that mine and Kirk's are only out of kilter by 1 round (my round 1 is his round 2 etc) but mine & Kai's are totally different. While our maxes were still the same, the nine available in Kai's game was MARINISES (which he got) whereas in mine it was CAUDILLOS (which I didn't get, unsurprisingly).

Howard Somerset · Post by **Howard Somerset** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 7:47 am

I'd guessed there was something strange in the duel yesterday when I saw myself in the top half of the ratings and noting some of the names appearing below me.

I've just picked six players at random, and they have five different maximums.

Ian Volante · Post by **Ian Volante** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:20 pm

Pleasing to get the only nine in round 2 yesteday. Possibly also the only person that had the opportunity to get it...

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 7:38 am

I move that June's Duel competition be scrapped. The max in my game yesterday was 60, so I have to congratulate Ben who came top with 61.

What's occurring Charlie?

Neil Zussman · Post by **Neil Zussman** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 11:46 am

Jon Corby wrote:I move that June's Duel competition be scrapped.

Hell no.

It's swings and roundabouts anyway, on Monday's duel my max seemed to be higher than most peoples, on Tuesday's it was a bit lower. Obviously it would be best if it was identical but it seems a shame to waste a whole month's effort.

On a sidenote, whatever happened to the idea of having two duels, one normal, one variant? Was that plan scrapped altogether or temporarily put on hold?

Daniel O'Dowd · Post by **Daniel O'Dowd** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 12:03 pm

I've already come 3rd in a duel and I do not want to see this erased because of a minimal variance in duels

over thirty or so the quality in a player will see them rise above those who have had any higher maxes or relatively easier games. If there were a tie for points at the top, surely you could just then rescore it on all the duels that weren't different, or take percentage of max as a tighter margin?

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 1:18 pm

Jon Corby wrote:I move that June's Duel competition be scrapped. The max in my game yesterday was 60, so I have to congratulate Ben who came top with 61.

What's occurring Charlie?

Read news.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 1:20 pm

Charlie Reams wrote:
Jon Corby wrote:I move that June's Duel competition be scrapped. The max in my game yesterday was 60, so I have to congratulate Ben who came top with 61.

What's occurring Charlie?
Read news.

It says that it's now fixed. It doesn't say what action will be taken over the duels in error.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 1:24 pm

Jon Corby wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote:
Jon Corby wrote:I move that June's Duel competition be scrapped. The max in my game yesterday was 60, so I have to congratulate Ben who came top with 61.

What's occurring Charlie?
Read news.
It says that it's now fixed. It doesn't say what action will be taken over the duels in error.

I think I will just give everyone zero for those couple of days, unless they post in here in the next hour or so asking me not to.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 1:26 pm

Charlie Reams wrote:I think I will just give everyone zero for those couple of days, unless they post in here in the next hour or so asking me not to.

Cool, I'd like not to be given zero. In fact, I'd like my points doubled please. MORE!

Daniel O'Dowd · Post by **Daniel O'Dowd** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 1:41 pm

No zero for me please =)

Ben Wilson · Post by **Ben Wilson** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 2:07 pm

Rather obviously, no zero please.

Matt Morrison · Post by **Matt Morrison** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 2:08 pm

Zero please. (Rather obviously.)

Karen Pearson · Post by **Karen Pearson** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 9:00 pm

Hey! I came second yesterday! I definitely don't want zero thanks very much!

I accept, however, that the options I had yielded easier maxes even though they had a lower max overall.

Ian Volante · Post by **Ian Volante** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 10:53 pm

Not zero please...

Neil Zussman · Post by **Neil Zussman** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 9:45 pm

Which duels are you contemplating zeroing? Is it just 22nd and 23rd? I did badly on both, so I'm perfectly happy for them to be zeroed, but to be honest, I didn't do badly cos I had a different duel, I did badly cos I played poorly, so there's no real reason to zero them, imho.

David O'Donnell · Post by **David O'Donnell** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:40 am

I was really happy with spotting somnambulism even if it was in 26 seconds until I saw that Corby had done it in 1.6 seconds - I really am hating apterous conundrums

... so Charlie must be doing something right!

D Eadie · Post by **D Eadie** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 1:22 pm

Okay, some players have had different duel rounds etc, but this isn't deliberate, and if individually, we all tot up the number of hours pleasure and entertainment we get out of Apterous in any one week, then we should really all be extremely grateful to Mr Reams and his team of little helpers for creating, maintaining and enhancing the product to the extent that it's now pretty much THE best thing on the internet.

It's easy to gripe and nitpick, but at the end of the day there is nothing to moan about. Be thankful for what we have and get on with playing and enjoying. In other words, STFU.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 1:33 pm

D Eadie wrote:It's easy to gripe and nitpick

Fun too.

(ftr, my disgust at the duels (and suggestion June be scrapped) wasn't serious, nor do I believe Charlie's suggestion (of zeroising scores) was)

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 1:36 pm

I think I've fixed the "different rounds" thing, which has been an occasional problem for as long as the Duel has been running, in a fairly permanent way now. Obviously people will just move on to complaining about something else but I'm pretty much used to that by now.

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 1:38 pm

Sometimes the clock doesn't look right, and the letters come up funny.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 1:51 pm

Jon Corby wrote:Sometimes the clock doesn't look right, and the letters come up funny.

Have you tried glasses?

Jon Corby · Post by **Jon Corby** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 1:53 pm

Charlie Reams wrote:
Jon Corby wrote:Sometimes the clock doesn't look right, and the letters come up funny.
Have you tried glasses?

And ruin my look?!

D Eadie · Post by **D Eadie** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 11:18 pm

Jon Corby wrote:
Charlie Reams wrote:
Jon Corby wrote:Sometimes the clock doesn't look right, and the letters come up funny.
Have you tried glasses?
And ruin my look?!

I think he meant glasses of strychnine.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 12:44 am

I hope everyone has been following the exciting battle at the top of the rankings this month - after 26 games and with just 3 to play, only 1 point separates the leaders Ben and Neil, and either way we're guaranteed a first-time winner for the month. Probably the most exciting Duel since the legendary October run-in which saw Paul Howe snatch the month from Kirk by a single point.

Junaid Mubeen · Post by **Junaid Mubeen** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 11:02 pm

Grrr, I would've won saturday's duel had I finished it 3 minutes earlier.