c4countdown

Two wins over Ian:
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=69899
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=69910

And Andrew's first defeat:
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=69914

Great game that one.

Edit: I see he beat me to it.

Neil Zussman wrote:Two wins over Ian:
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=69899
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=69910

And Andrew's first defeat:
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=69914

Great game that one.

Edit: I see he beat me to it.

WHOA someone whose name isn't Chris Davies or Paul Howe beat Andrew at Goatdown. I can usually get close to him in regular Countdown but in Goatdown it's a different story.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=69933
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=69927
two losses to Oliver

Oliver Garner wrote:WHOA someone whose name isn't Chris Davies or Paul Howe beat Andrew at Goatdown

Hey!

Kai Laddiman wrote:

Oliver Garner wrote:WHOA someone whose name isn't Chris Davies or Paul Howe beat Andrew at Goatdown

Hey!

Yeah. I've beaten Andrew loads before too. He's shit.

Another two results:

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=69910
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=69899

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70015

A win for me against Steve Rogers in the normal game.

Goatdown vs. Ian Dent:

Ian Dent 69-89 Mark Harrison

Division A:

1 Andrew Hulme (P9, W7, D1 Tiebreak 1, L1) 15.5

2 Neil Zussman (P7, W5, D1 Tiebreak 0, L1) 11.0

3 Oliver Garner (P6, W3, D0, L3) 6.0

4 Aaron Higgs (P6, W2, D0, L4) 4.0 (Pts Scored 469)

5 Ian Volante (P5, W2, D0, L3) 4.0 (Pts Scored 354)

5 Daniel O'Dowd (P8, W1, D0, L7) 2.0 (Pts Scored 531)

7 Tom Rowell (P3, W1, D0, L2) 2.0 (Pts Scored 205)

__________________________________________________________

Division B:

1 Mark Harrison (P8, W7, D0, L1) 14.0

2 Andrew Feist (P7, W4, D1 Tiebreak 1, L2) 9.5

3 Niall Seymour (P7, W4, D0, L3) 8.0

4 J Levison (P7, W3, D0, L4) 6.0 (Pts Scored 540)

5 James Hall (P3, W3, D0, L0) 6.0 (Pts Scored 239)

6 Ian Dent (P7, W1, D1 Tiebreak 0, L5) 3.0

7 Steve Rogers (P7, W0, D0, L7) 0.0

Jimmy Gough wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:

Oliver Garner wrote:WHOA someone whose name isn't Chris Davies or Paul Howe beat Andrew at Goatdown

Hey!

Yeah. I've beaten Andrew loads before too. He's shit.

Maybe I was exaggerating a bit but he's still pretty good.

I am wet.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=69856

I think I'm going to get relegated before we even begin!

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70375
goat vs Ian
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70386
standard vs Ian

I'm losing some great games today!

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70346

My 2 games against Tom Rowell
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70290
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70298

Myself and James Hall have played our two league games. The normal game J.H. had a poor start which he couldnt come back from meaning a win for me.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70475

The goatdown however, was much closer. Going down to a second tie-breaker, which i luckily got straight after the last letter was revealed.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70491

games vs Neil, both went to Crucials..
standard
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70489
goat
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70501

Yes, two close games with Aaron, which he's already posted. The first victory was totally undeserved, I was behind all the way. Second could've gone either way. This league definitely has some incredibly entertaining games.
Can I still catch Andrew, or has he won the laegue mathematically yet?

Having only lost to each other, at the moment your games with Oliver will be critical Neil. Should you win those, Andrew has quite a large points for, but it's far from impossible I'll update everything tomorrow afternoon then work on my own unrelegation...

Daniel O'Dowd wrote:Having only lost to each other, at the moment your games with Oliver will be critical Neil. Should you win those, Andrew has quite a large points for, but it's far from impossible I'll update everything tomorrow afternoon then work on my own unrelegation...

Actually I lost the Goatdown to Oliver, it's already been counted, so that probably means I can't catch Andrew. I just have Goatdown against Tom, and two games against you. So no offence, but I hope you get a bit closer to relegation...

You've split the games with Oliver, and drew one game with Andrew and won the other. You both only have one loss and one draw, your spread before tonight's games was about 10% behind Andrew. You have equal chance!

Daniel O'Dowd wrote:You've split the games with Oliver, and drew one game with Andrew and won the other. You both only have one loss and one draw, your spread before tonight's games was about 10% behind Andrew. You have equal chance!

Yes, but he 'won' the draw, and got an extra half point. So if he wins all the other games, he is the champion.

One a piece between me and Andrew:
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70541
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70537

Finished the goat with Ian:
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?ke ... 7724545129

My goat vs. Ian

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70560

I don't know what you've got going on over there, but would it be possible (maybe not every time, but sometimes) to get a crosstable thing sort of like this: (assuming I've got all the games right) so that we can see how many games people have left, and against who, and the fact that I'm crap at goatdown, and so on? (BTW, ± is meant to be plus/minus for a won drawn game.)

[Edit: order word]

Since I don't know the code, I can't do that lol. But that is pretty much what I have on my comp with formulae and points scored etc.

Division A Remaining Fixtures:

Goat+Standard:
Andrew Hulme-Tom Rowell
Oliver Garner-Ian Volante
Ian Volante-Tom Rowell
Neil Zussman-Daniel O'Dowd
Tom Rowell-Aaron Higgs

Goat:
Oliver Garner-Daniel O'Dowd
Neil Zussman-Tom Rowell

Division B Remaining Fixtures:

Goat+Standard:
Mark Harrison-James Hall
James Hall-Steve Rogers
Andrew Feist-Niall Seymour
Ian Dent-Steve Rogers

Goat:
Mark Harrison-James Levison
Mark Harrison-Niall Syemour
James Hall-Niall Seymour
James Levison-Steve Rogers
Neil Seymour-Ian Dent

Full tables as of 17.05, 4 June:

Division A:

1 Andrew Hulme (P10, W8, D1 Tiebreak 1, L1) 17.5 Points Scored 1070

2 Neil Zussman (P9, W7, D1 Tiebreak 0, L1) 15.0 Points Scored 904

3 Oliver Garner (P9, W6, D0, L3) 12.0 Points Scored 809

4 Aaron Higgs (P10, W4, D0, L6) 8.0 Points Scored 823

5 Ian Volante (P8, W2, D0, L6) 4.0 Points Scored 592

6 Daniel O'Dowd (P9, W1, D0, L8) 2.0 Points Scored 607

7 Tom Rowell (P5, W1, D0, L4) 2.0 Points Scored 341

__________________________________________________________

Division B:

1 Mark Harrison (P8, W7, D0, L1) 14.0 Points Scored 715

2 Andrew Feist (P9, W6, D1 Tiebreak 1, L3) 13.5 Points Scored 821

3 J Levison (P10, W5, D1 Tiebreak 1, L4) 11.5 Pointsts Scored 819

4 James Hall (P6, W4, D1 Tiebreak 0, L2) 9.0 Points Scored 534

5 Niall Seymour (P7, W4, D0, L3) 8.0 Points Scored 509

6 Ian Dent (P9, W1, D1 Tiebreak 0, L7) 3.0 Points Scored 632

7 Steve Rogers (P7, W0, D0, L7) 0.0 Points Scored 362

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70828
standard vs Tom
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70835
goat vs Tom

What happens after completion?

Daniel O'Dowd wrote:Since I don't know the code, I can't do that lol.

I think you're assuming I did that by means other than literally typing it in, which is incorrect. (I used the "code" button in the edit box to get fixed-width fonts, also known as "lying about what the data actually is so that the web browser will display it the way I want".) I have hopes of one day making something that will spit that out automatically. Might happen.

Yet more close battles:

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70854
http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=70843

Andrew Feist wrote:

Daniel O'Dowd wrote:Since I don't know the code, I can't do that lol.

I think you're assuming I did that by means other than literally typing it in, which is incorrect. (I used the "code" button in the edit box to get fixed-width fonts, also known as "lying about what the data actually is so that the web browser will display it the way I want".) I have hopes of one day making something that will spit that out automatically. Might happen.

Ooh Does that also work for spaces? That was why I couldn't tabulate previously and had to handtype the first table.

Re: after this, the winners of each division will be allowed to play up one more division than would be sorted by nominal rating area. Those who have been relegated I would prefer not to play above their rated group unless the ratings are proving unstable. I'm so pleased with how regular everyone has been with games (we've nearly finished the whole thing in Div A already and we're not even at the 7 game target!) that I'll be rolling it out as soon as the current lot ends, gauging interest, then deciding how many divisions I want to run and how many to hand over

Like I said earlier, it is really good fun.

I have played above myself in these games.

Presumably for the full thing you'd want to get a proper website set up which can compute tables and fixtures and the likes when results are entered.
<bitter> Something I would have helped with if I hadn't been left out. Grr. </bitter>

Mind you there's probably some tournament organising sites out there that are pretty user-friendly that you could adapt to quite easily.

Matt Morrison wrote:Presumably for the full thing you'd want to get a proper website set up which can compute tables and fixtures and the likes when results are entered.
<bitter> Something I would have helped with if I hadn't been left out. Grr. </bitter>

Mind you there's probably some tournament organising sites out there that are pretty user-friendly that you could adapt to quite easily.

Erm, not really. I have a spreadsheet which I can easily use to do such things Nothing else is needed, as I can copy and paste the format of formulae and tables for each division into a separate page, and now that I know to use code, it's very easy to just copy and paste those into here I'll later on go through my list of all those who have expressed interest, and if anyone else out there wants to participate in future editions, do say

Daniel O'Dowd wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:Presumably for the full thing you'd want to get a proper website set up which can compute tables and fixtures and the likes when results are entered.
<bitter> Something I would have helped with if I hadn't been left out. Grr. </bitter>

Mind you there's probably some tournament organising sites out there that are pretty user-friendly that you could adapt to quite easily.

Erm, not really. I have a spreadsheet which I can easily use to do such things Nothing else is needed, as I can copy and paste the format of formulae and tables for each division into a separate page, and now that I know to use code, it's very easy to just copy and paste those into here I'll later on go through my list of all those who have expressed interest, and if anyone else out there wants to participate in future editions, do say

Which bit are you saying "Erm, not really" to?

You seem to be confusing the importance of needs and desires. You're right that nothing else is needed, but you could aim higher. Would it not be wonderful for everyone to be able to update results themselves (ok, that involves a level of trust and control that you might not be willing to relinquish) and most importantly for people to be able to access stats, tables, and fixtures without waiting for you to post them.

What on earth would apterous itself be like if there were no ratings, no game results, and you had to e-mail Charlie or wait for him to post updates every time you wanted to find out anything about anything? The rising popularity of Superstats proves that people love more and more information, not just the bare minimum (both in terms of quantity and means of delivery).

Erm not really to my want of a full website, though if the majority would prefer this then I can certainly look into it Atm I'm doing mostly daily updates, of course it's fair to say if we get huge interest this will be a bit underloaded by sheer volume of games. People, have your say!

One day, I'm going to whoop your smooth bottom Matt.

Ian Dent wrote:One day, I'm going to whoop your smooth bottom Matt.

Unless you're going to do the shaving, your chances of that happening evaporated about 10 years ago.

Two types of ouch for the price of one here!

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=71076

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=71096

Just a quick update: the last games I've received have seen Aaron impressively complete his twelve, with a total score of 10 points, Neil has temporarily taken the lead, but Andrew has a game in hand. I am in deep relegationy sheep. =/ Any more Div B games?

Daniel O'Dowd wrote:Neil has temporarily taken the lead

Can we just stop now?

But if I do that I have to stop time, since it was only temporary in some universes. That means I have to never get any better! And I can't break the laws of physics just for you! Try Kirk, he might come up with some mindbending equation that solves both these problems

James Levison 81-89 Mark Harrison

A very high quality goatdown game, pretty much won on the numbers in the end!

My numbers are usually pretty decent so im gutted with that game .

Only one game now for me, Stever Rogers, when do you think you will be available to play out goat game?

I can't find Steve.

Me and Andrew Feist have just played our games.

Andrew won the standard, I won the goat.

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?ke ... 8213763097

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?ke ... 6054485472

Anyone else feel like Goatdown should be removed from these contests for the future?

1. I agree that some sort of auto-generation would be nice. I did a Google search for league management, but didn't seem to find much free, but I didn't delve too deeply either. I've built a tool that currently generates some HTML tables, but: a) it's command-line based, so typing! b) it currently uses a flat text file "database" for the results c) I haven't built any sorting in it, so it always displays things in the original "seed" order. (I can't attach the output, so far as I can tell, but it's kind-of like the crosstable I posted earlier, except I've got the scores in the table too.) If there's interest, I can keep working on it, and either a) develop my PHP skills to a nonzero degree or b) hand it off to someone who has PHP skills.

2. (Full disclosure: My normal winning percentage was 0.958 for this season, while my goatdown winning percentage was 0.333.) I like having one variant round in the league; and if we have a variant goat seems like the obvious choice -- it's (almost) a normal game, while having a letters/numbers/conundrum attack doesn't fit the tone, and I think goat would be more popular than blind. Perhaps there'd be some support for hyper or unlimited. If we keep the leagues relatively small (<10 or so) we could probably get on with a triple-round, two normal and one weird.

3. I vacillate a little bit on extra points for "feats" like centuries or the like, but I'm mostly against. You'll get the TB points, and I'm not convinced that 2 wins with 100+ should equal 3 "normal" wins. If we had to do anything like that (and I wish we wouldn't), I would rather see some sort of "4 points per win and 1 point for every hundred total points scored". Actually, isn't that why we're running this sample league? Let's look, at the end, what difference it will make and go from there.

4. It looks like the timing was way too slow. If I, 5 time zones away, can get my games finished less than halfway through then we can afford to cut down some time/add some games/whatever.

Ian Dent wrote:Anyone else feel like Goatdown should be removed from these contests for the future?

Not at all, I love it, love it, love it.

How about a bonus point as in rugby for a certain margin of victory (say 25 or 30 points), rather than just a century?

News update: I am relegated

Liam Tiernan wrote:How about a bonus point as in rugby for a certain margin of victory (say 25 or 30 points), rather than just a century?

I like this idea, although a percentage would be better.

As for dropping goatdown, I think it works quite well. Separate record of the different formats could be published as well however.

Long post warning. I ramble lol.

I don't see how one can use percentage or margin of victory as a determinant for a bonus, unless you say in division n, all those scoring over x maxes in a game get a bonus, and because margin is again semidependent on max and ease of words. But it becomes obsolete with goat because the game is entirely different. I have already outlined my disagreements with century points. I do also intend to publish separate goat and standard tables after the leagues, this reminds me of the Melody Amber Blindfold Rapid chess tournament held yearly, in which performances between the two disciplines can often vary wildly.

Re: full disclosure and automating tables, the closest thing I can think of to help people would be to offer them the blank formulaed printscreen or such or by email of my spreadsheet, so that those who were so interested could also keep as much track of things as they wanted. I do think that if this went big, I'd be easily able and willing to do 24 hourly updates: would this be enough for most? I personally could not see any support across the board for hyper or unlimited, those are entirely different games, hyper numbers would put people off, and the games would almost in even high level resemble random encounters. I would be happy to administrate a third cycle, we could even that way have different third cycles per division and or voting for what people want in that, so that we have the classics, but we also have interactivity

To reduce point scoring to algebra temporarily may be better so people can see the scale of potential inflation in the system. So far, out of all games, we have had three tiebreaks, which is roughly one in fourteen games. This may be the difference between the title and 2nd in Div A, but is mostly (disregarding the higher value this has) an inconsequential point at the mo.

N for a win, n/2 for a draw, n/4 for a won tiebreak, and 0 for a loss is what we currently have. If we went to 4 for a win, we'd have n, n/4, n/8, which would punish those who ended up drawing, and tiebreak would even be insignificant. The only potential problem atm is if we did end up with lots of draws, the system would skew towards those players, because their games would inflte the system by half a point each, so to remedy this, we could say 3 for a win, 1 for a draw and a bonus 1 for tiebreak. Since only one in fourteen games ends in a draw at the mo, eight players each playing two games, you'd have some on six, some on 3, someone on 2, someone on 1, and a couple on zero. However, given so few draws, this (and therefore to a greater extent, 4 for a win, assuming this be the only change; otherwise you're simply increasing the constants and not changing the formulae) would make it completely unfair on those drawing one game for their title chances. Since this isn't football, I have no intent to penalise draws given their anyway happenstance nature.

So. In real terms, what we're currently doing is equivalent to 1/0.75/0.5/0. If you play two games, win two tiebreaks, this means you can be leading against someone who has lost one and won one. The fundamental question, regardless of potential, is is this an acceptable outcome?

I realise this post doesn't answer many questions, and as such probably isn't that useful, but, the tiebreaks are there for a reason. Why not just have Win = 1pt, Lose = 0pt. If there's not to be bonus points awarded for winning/losing by less than x, then why should the points be affected just because x happens to equal 0?

Tie-breaks conundrums are part of the game. Whoever gets the conundrum wins; whoever doesn't, unlucky. If you don't want a tie-break conundrum then either:
a) Don't play countdown.
b) Win by 50 odd.

I kinda agree with Andrew for this one, because if apterous is meant to mirror countdown, and especially if there is lots of interest (I would be interested in playing in the first league after this test too) then it will make the scoring system so much simpler if there is just one point for a win and 0 for a loss.

The other way of doing it is just scrapping the tiebreak conundrums, and just end it after the first conundrum. If it is meant to mirror a league, such as that of football rather than a cup, then it seems nonsensical for someone to win on a "penalty shootout" or "golden goal" when a draw is a draw. I think the less complications and the more transparency, the better with the league.

Goatdown: Niall Seymour 89-53 Ian Dent

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?ke ... 4158038802

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=72325

http://www.apterous.org/viewgame.php?game=72316

my 2 vs andrew hulme