c4countdown

I missed most of the last series, but have heard a lot about this guy and his 'trick' on the conundrum.

What is he actually supposed to have done?

Douglas Wilson wrote:I missed most of the last series, but have heard a lot about this guy and his 'trick' on the conundrum.

What is he actually supposed to have done?

In his quarter- and semi-finals he (seemed to) buzz before he could have possibly known the answer (I seem to remember playing back his quarter-final spot in slow motion and seeing that he had buzzed before the letters had spun round). He got away with it in the quarters where he declared PARQUETRY without too much hesitation, but it looked like Des had been warned about him when it came to his semi, since he declared MALACHITE, but a bit too slowly and was disallowed (although then the clock restarted and Steve was given the option of buzzing in and 'stealing' the answer, or just sit there - then some cheeky bugger in the audience got a free mug out of it).

He allegedly did some even more dodgy stuff to do with cheating on numbers games and things, but it's probably better someone else tell that story, since I wasn't there to see it.

But how the hell would he know the conundrum before the letters have spun around?

Douglas Wilson wrote:But how the hell would he know the conundrum before the letters have spun around?

He didn't. He buzzed then solved it in the time it took Des to say "wow, that was quick, er... Jeffrey, what do you think it is?" or in the case of PARQUETRY he just decided to interrupt Des.

How is that cheating?

Douglas Wilson wrote:How is that cheating?

No one said it was cheating, in the sense of contravening any explicit rule. But it's clearly unsporting, because you're claiming to have solved something when you haven't.

But its still super human to solve it in the ammount of time he had.

Also it's surely a huge gamble for him as if he doesn't get it in the time then his chance has gone.

What was the rumour about numbers games?

Douglas Wilson wrote:But its still super human to solve it in the ammount of time he had.

Also it's surely a huge gamble for him as if he doesn't get it in the time then his chance has gone.

A) No it is not superhuman. Many good players get conundrums in like 1 second.
B) Yes it is a gamble which sometimes doesn't pay off.

Douglas Wilson wrote:But its still super human to solve it in the ammount of time he had.

Also it's surely a huge gamble for him as if he doesn't get it in the time then his chance has gone.

It puts his opponent in a very unfair position if, as with MALACHITE, the opponent has heard the answer but has to decide whether it's fair to buzz. Steve "Lovely" Baines chose not to, but it's not a decision I'd want to be faced with, especially if it were a crucial conundrum.

Douglas Wilson wrote:How is that cheating?

It isn't. The problem was that he wasn't always answering immediately. Usually, this doesn't really cause trouble, as it's very rare for people to try this trick. Jeff was simply taking the piss and playing in an unsporting manner at best, and by the semi-final he'd more than worn away any good will that may have been extended in usual circumstances.

Was Jeffrey invited to play on the last c of c?

I watched the QF clip pretty recently on YouTube, he said PARQUETRY straight away, before Des had asked him what it was. He'd actually said the word before I'd even seen the letters. Which reminds me, what the frig does it mean?

Isn't it something to do with wooden floors, laying the wood into patterns ?

Some people tend to have this 'sporting' code about them. Nothing done is illegal or unfair, but its as if they are being made a fool of and need to draw attention to it. An example was the case of Manchester United vs Arsenal in the FA Cup last year when Nani was running rings around Arsenal. Arsene Wenger complained Nani was showboating, but really Nani showed the skills he is there to do.

I only had admiration for Geoffery. He has skills that make up for any lacking in his personality due to the possibility of Aspergers. All down to opinion at the end of the day.

Was he not also accused of verbally giving an identical numbers solution to his opponent, and then shredding his written version before it could be verified?

Jojo Apollo wrote:Was Jeffrey invited to play on the last c of c?

Probably not, at the series 58 finals I heard a rumour that they didn't want him back because of the trouble he'd caused.

David Williams wrote:Was he not also accused of verbally giving an identical numbers solution to his opponent, and then shredding his written version before it could be verified?

There's loads of different versions of this story, yeah. I know that in one game, he gave an identical solution to his opponent, (seemingly) without realising it, and they didn't check his paper. Still, it was a really pretty simple one, I think, the type that when you're at home you've got it in the first 5 seconds.

I think the actual accusation was when he played Steve Baines (could have been a different game, though) that he declared the right answer on the numbers game, when his opponent went first he then tried to 'steal' his opponent's numbers game, and tore up his piece of paper to hide the fact he didn't have it. They had to re-shoot the scene and Jeffrey just said 'my mind's gone blank' - I do remember seeing that on TV, and thinking nothing of it. As for why he said that, I only have other people's commentaries to go on.

There used to be a clip on various video sites, including YouTube, that shows Jeffrey quite clearly looking over at Dave von Geyer's paper during their semi-final and then, oddly enough, declaring the same word (GROSSES). It's round 8 in this game: http://www.apterous.org/cdb/game.php?game=1281 . Anyone know what happened to the clip?

Mike Brailsford wrote: He has skills that make up for any lacking in his personality due to the possibility of Aspergers.

It's strange, I'd say the opposite.

Mike Brailsford wrote:Some people tend to have this 'sporting' code about them. Nothing done is illegal or unfair, but its as if they are being made a fool of and need to draw attention to it. An example was the case of Manchester United vs Arsenal in the FA Cup last year when Nani was running rings around Arsenal. Arsene Wenger complained Nani was showboating, but really Nani showed the skills he is there to do.

That doesn't strike me as analogous at all - that's more like deliberately doing a really complicated numbers solution for no reason.

I'd say the conundrum buzzing thing is somewhat subjective though - I would assume that you are 'supposed' to buzz when you know the answer, and suspect that most people would assume their opponent held the same belief. My analogy would be using an anagram solver whilst playing on apterous - before we had a thread explicitly detailing what cheating was, it wasn't explicit that you weren't allowed to use one, but to most people this would obviously be unfair. But as I say, it's going to be a bit subjective because it all depends on one's interpretation of what the 'unwritten rules' are.

Charlie Reams wrote:There used to be a clip on various video sites, including YouTube, that shows Jeffrey quite clearly looking over at Dave von Geyer's paper during their semi-final and then, oddly enough, declaring the same word (GROSSES). It's round 8 in this game: http://www.apterous.org/cdb/game.php?game=1281 . Anyone know what happened to the clip?

For that one he interrupted Dave as he was part-way through declaring the word and finished it off.


As for what other people have said above Jeffrey did the same trick in the final too, he just waited slightly longer. There's nothing remotely exceptional about what he did, most top players could pull this 'tactic' and solve the conundrum in time.

Craig just said to me that he tried getting out his laptop in the middle of a round once. He assured me its a true story, but its so unbelievable i don't know what to think.


Does anybody have any general clips of Jeffrey, i want to watch them for comedy purposes.

JackHurst wrote:Craig just said to me that he tried getting out his laptop in the middle of a round once. He assured me its a true story, but its so unbelievable i don't know what to think.


Does anybody have any general clips of Jeffrey, i want to watch them for comedy purposes.

Yeah I saw your conversation with Craig on apterous, maybe he's pulling your leg? It would be hilarious if true though

I also seem to remember him getting a conumdrum where the soloution was GERANIUMS. This strikes me as quite odd, because its an anagram of MEASURING, and i thought conumdrums only ever had one soloution, if he said measuring would he have been wrong?

JackHurst wrote:I also seem to remember him getting a conumdrum where the soloution was GERANIUMS. This strikes me as quite odd, because its an anagram of MEASURING, and i thought conumdrums only ever had one soloution, if he said measuring would he have been wrong?

I think you misremembered a lot of the details, but this wiki article should answer your questions.

JackHurst wrote:I thought conumdrums only ever had one soloution, if he said measuring would he have been wrong?

There was at least one occasion, probably 10+ years ago, when a contestant buzzed in and said some word which sounded to me like one of Jo Brand's words, but RW said let's see if you're right, and it was. He then added as an aside that it could also be *********, which was a much more common word. (Nothing obscene, just can't remember the details.)

So in that case at least, if you come up with any valid 9-letter word (other than what's already on the board, because that wouldn't be an anagram), you get the points; even if it wasn't the word they had in mind.

David Roe wrote:

JackHurst wrote:I thought conumdrums only ever had one soloution, if he said measuring would he have been wrong?

There was at least one occasion, probably 10+ years ago, when a contestant buzzed in and said some word which sounded to me like one of Jo Brand's words, but RW said let's see if you're right, and it was. He then added as an aside that it could also be *********, which was a much more common word. (Nothing obscene, just can't remember the details.)

So in that case at least, if you come up with any valid 9-letter word (other than what's already on the board, because that wouldn't be an anagram), you get the points; even if it wasn't the word they had in mind.

SPANGLIER / RELAPSING?

David Roe wrote:

JackHurst wrote:I thought conumdrums only ever had one soloution, if he said measuring would he have been wrong?

There was at least one occasion, probably 10+ years ago, when a contestant buzzed in and said some word which sounded to me like one of Jo Brand's words, but RW said let's see if you're right, and it was. He then added as an aside that it could also be *********, which was a much more common word. (Nothing obscene, just can't remember the details.)

So in that case at least, if you come up with any valid 9-letter word (other than what's already on the board, because that wouldn't be an anagram), you get the points; even if it wasn't the word they had in mind.

Chris Waddington posted in one of the other sections how he got an anagram of the intended answer once so they reshot it and had the original intended answer as the jumble.

As I said the last time, technically GERANIUMS is a valid answer, so they should accept it. Or better yet, don't set it in the first place!

Martin Gardner wrote:As I said the last time, technically GERANIUMS is a valid answer, so they should accept it. Or better yet, don't set it in the first place!

And as everyone else said last time, you'd have to be a fucking retard to think the answer was GERANIUMS.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:As I said the last time, technically GERANIUMS is a valid answer, so they should accept it. Or better yet, don't set it in the first place!

And as everyone else said last time, you'd have to be a fucking retard to think the answer was GERANIUMS.

Doesn't invalidate my point though, does it?

Martin Gardner wrote:As I said the last time, technically GERANIUMS is a valid answer, so they should accept it. Or better yet, don't set it in the first place!

"Technically"? I don't remember any explicit rules about conundrums in the thing they sent me as a player. I'd've thought you could only talk about it being 'technically a valid answer' if you knew precisely what the rules were, otherwise it's guesswork at best. Or do they specify it?

Actually I just dug out the right messages on the old mailing list, and most of the people at the time said they should have allowed it.

Martin Gardner wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:As I said the last time, technically GERANIUMS is a valid answer, so they should accept it. Or better yet, don't set it in the first place!

And as everyone else said last time, you'd have to be a fucking retard to think the answer was GERANIUMS.

Doesn't invalidate my point though, does it?

You were just making a blind assertion. Give me some reasons and I'll refute them. Then we'll be getting somewhere.

Actually, I think I can settle this. It says it should have been valid here - bad luck Charlie.

Martin Gardner wrote:Actually I just dug out the right messages on the old mailing list, and most of the people at the time said they should have allowed it.

To allow it and give the points would be crazy - at best they could have decided it was unwise and set another conundrum.

Gavin Chipper wrote:
To allow it and give the points would be crazy - at best they could have decided it was unwise and set another conundrum.

It would have been hilarious - taking a whole 2 seconds to just read the word. Anyway, conundrums can't be plurals (it says so in the guidelines) so GERANIUMS is obviously wrong. Settled.

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:
To allow it and give the points would be crazy - at best they could have decided it was unwise and set another conundrum.

It would have been hilarious - taking a whole 2 seconds to just read the word. Anyway, conundrums can't be plurals (it says so in the guidelines) so GERANIUMS is obviously wrong. Settled.

As I recall, it doesn't specifically say that conundrums can't be plurals. If it does, then it's stupid.

It does refer to the conundrum as a 9-lettered anagram though, and by my definition of an anagram, GERANIUMS is not an anagram of GERANIUMS. So for that reason, I think it's settled. But I don't see why they should be used; it's a bit silly to cause confusion.

Michael Wallace wrote:Actually, I think I can settle this. It says it should have been valid here - bad luck Charlie.

No not really because I wrote that, and I'm not claiming I'm absolutely right! I'll summarise some of the points I read on the old forum. Btw I do think I mentioned that it would be useful to photocopy the rules and pass them around, so everyone can see them.

One person pointed out that not everybody reads the conundrum in the right order, they might just look at the letters and try and find the anagram. Something like RIGHTWANT, you might see in the -ING before you've read the letters in the right order. Also, does it actually say the conundrum is an anagram? Because yes strictly speaking you can't say that RETAINS is an anagram of RETAINS, it's just the same word. But if you ask me to make as many valid words as I can out of the letters RETAINS, RETAINS is valid because the word 'anagram' does appear in the question. Also, from experience, a lot of people don't know the 'no plural' rule for conundrums, like the conundrum CANVASSED the first player buzzed in with ADVANCES; it wouldn't be hard to find other examples on the Database.

I suppose it is ridiculous to just read the letters in order and get ten points for it - but it's not Lester's fault, he's not broken any rules. A couple of people just side-stepped the issue and just said "you should never deliberately set a conundrum with two valid answer".

Another good quote from the ABSP handbook (2005, paraphrased here) is "it's not possible to outline everything that is unacceptable in tournament play". Technically there's no rule saying during a round, you can't screw up a piece of paper and throw it at your opponent, but I don't think anyone would argue therefore that it's allowable!

Martin Gardner wrote:

Michael Wallace wrote:Actually, I think I can settle this. It says it should have been valid here - bad luck Charlie.

No not really because I wrote that, and I'm not claiming I'm absolutely right!

Yeah sorry, that was a not particularly obvious joke.

Michael Wallace wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:

Michael Wallace wrote:Actually, I think I can settle this. It says it should have been valid here - bad luck Charlie.

No not really because I wrote that, and I'm not claiming I'm absolutely right!

Yeah sorry, that was a not particularly obvious joke.

If it's any consolation, in my mind there was an 85% chance that it was a joke.

I would have been one of the 'tards mentioned by Charlie who was arguing the case for last time around. I won't go over the perfectly valid 'but people don't read it as a word' argument as mentioned by Martin above, but consider how the conundrum differs from a regular letters round. It's the same principle isn't it, other than that it's predetermined and you have to answer with a 9 letter word? If GERANIUMS comes straight out of the boxes in a regular letters round, you can declare it. Surely the same applies. Obviously it would have been lunacy to give him the points, but it's equally mad to disallow it. That conundrum should have been scrapped, or better still not even used in the first place.

Jon Corby wrote:I would have been one of the 'tards mentioned by Charlie who was arguing the case for last time around. I won't go over the perfectly valid 'but people don't read it as a word' argument as mentioned by Martin above, but consider how the conundrum differs from a regular letters round. It's the same principle isn't it, other than that it's predetermined and you have to answer with a 9 letter word? If GERANIUMS comes straight out of the boxes in a regular letters round, you can declare it. Surely the same applies. Obviously it would have been lunacy to give him the points, but it's equally mad to disallow it. That conundrum should have been scrapped, or better still not even used in the first place.

The way I see it, the difference is:

Letters round - you are given letters one at a time => "make a word from these letters"
Conundrum - you are given a word (albeit a nonsense word or amalgamation of two words) => "make another word from this word"

If a conundrum is GERANIUMS, you are being given "GERANIUMS" to work with, so you've done no work if you buzz and declare "GERANIUMS" as that is where you started.
If a letters round comes out GERANIUMS, you are not being given "GERANIUMS", you are being given G + E + R + A + N + I + U + M + S to work with, so you've still technically put the letters together to create "GERANIUMS".

I don't know if I've explained that well, but the fundamental issue for me is the difference between being given letters and being given a word.

Matt Morrison wrote:The way I see it, the difference is:

Letters round - you are given letters one at a time => "make a word from these letters"
Conundrum - you are given a word (albeit a nonsense word or amalgamation of two words) => "make another word from this word"

Or, to go back to what's already been said: assuming (sorry Kirk) that Jono is correct and that the rules say that the final round involves being shown a 9-letter anagram which you have to solve, then GERANIUMS cannot be a valid answer according to the rules because it's not an anagram of GERANIUMS. End of.

Phil Reynolds wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:The way I see it, the difference is:

Letters round - you are given letters one at a time => "make a word from these letters"
Conundrum - you are given a word (albeit a nonsense word or amalgamation of two words) => "make another word from this word"

Or, to go back to what's already been said: assuming (sorry Kirk) that Jono is correct and that the rules say that the final round involves being shown a 9-letter anagram which you have to solve, then GERANIUMS cannot be a valid answer according to the rules because it's not an anagram of GERANIUMS. End of.

Oi. Don't shoot me down. I know it had basically been said before - but did it prove to be "end of" ? No. I was just expanding and from what I remember nobody had made the specific comment before that what is on the conundrum board is one word, and what is on the letters board is never a word, only 9 individual letters.

I think this thread wins the prize for most abuses of the word "technically".

Charlie Reams wrote:I think this thread wins the prize for most abuses of the word "technically".

Basically, you're technically correct, but literally wrong.

Matt Morrison wrote:If a conundrum is GERANIUMS, you are being given "GERANIUMS" to work with, so you've done no work if you buzz and declare "GERANIUMS" as that is where you started.
If a letters round comes out GERANIUMS, you are not being given "GERANIUMS", you are being given G + E + R + A + N + I + U + M + S to work with, so you've still technically put the letters together to create "GERANIUMS".

I don't know if I've explained that well, but the fundamental issue for me is the difference between being given letters and being given a word.

IAWTP

Maybe this geraniums guy thought it was a trick question.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:As I said the last time, technically GERANIUMS is a valid answer, so they should accept it. Or better yet, don't set it in the first place!

And as everyone else said last time, you'd have to be a fucking retard to think the answer was GERANIUMS.

Not quite everyone, I think you may have just called Corby a fucking retard.

**sits back with popcorn and waits for suitable retaliation from Corby**

David O'Donnell wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Martin Gardner wrote:As I said the last time, technically GERANIUMS is a valid answer, so they should accept it. Or better yet, don't set it in the first place!

And as everyone else said last time, you'd have to be a fucking retard to think the answer was GERANIUMS.

Not quite everyone, I think you may have just called Corby a fucking retard.

**sits back with popcorn and waits for suitable retaliation from Corby**

I don't think Corby actually disputes that you'd have to be a retard to think that. Just that people shouldn't be put in a position where such retardary could occur.

But still, "Hansford" would be an excellent name for an ITV drama about a no-nonsence barrister who doesn't play by the rules. "Normative jurisprudence? Yer 'avin' a larf ainchya? Put yer knickers on and make me a cuppa tea."

Ahem.

Kirk Bevins wrote:conundrums can't be plurals (it says so in the guidelines)

When was this added? I looked over my sheets from 2004 and didn't see anything about the conundrums. The authorititive tome that is the Countdown Bumper Puzzle Book states "As a rule of thumb, we never use 8-letter plurals as conundrums - so words like TROMBONES will never appear"

Gary Male wrote:The authorititive tome that is the Countdown Bumper Puzzle Book states "As a rule of thumb, we never use 8-letter plurals as conundrums - so words like TROMBONES will never appear"

OK, I take back my post. Without checking, it sounds like I might be wrong. I guess I picked it up from Spreading the Word or your aforementioned puzzle book. Sorry.

Kirk Bevins wrote:conundrums can't be plurals (it says so in the guidelines)

Really? I never knew that in all the years I've been watching the show.

Charlie Reams wrote:

David O'Donnell wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:And as everyone else said last time, you'd have to be a fucking retard to think the answer was GERANIUMS.

Not quite everyone, I think you may have just called Corby a fucking retard.

**sits back with popcorn and waits for suitable retaliation from Corby**

I don't think Corby actually disputes that you'd have to be a retard to think that. Just that people shouldn't be put in a position where such retardary could occur.

Yeah, a bit of both. Or all three, or however many things I might be referencing there. It is obviously retarded, in the cold light of day, to think that the answer to a conundrum set as "geraniums" is "geraniums". What I don't agree with (and never have) was the accusation that the contestant was retarded to buzz in with that answer, as he may not be fully aware that he was actually just reading the scramble, rather than performing some other "reasonable" check that all the letters are there. I don't think the contestant should be concerned with such things - likewise the plural rule, it's purely one for the setters. If you give the "unofficial" plural 'rule' the same credence as the "unofficial" you-can't-give-the-valid-answer-that's-written-there rule, you could end up with multiple solution conundrums where one answer is a plural (and would be rejected) and one isn't. I'd be as unhappy about that as I am with GERANIUMS. I've got dribble on my colourful dungarees.