c4countdown

Good luck to Matt on his 2nd game.

CANTORIAL

I think you can have RAINCOAT too (only for 8 though).

FESSED.

That was a stinker of a conundrum IMO. I normally like the harder ones, but I couldn't get BATTALION.

It wasn't that hard. The first thing you look for with that set of letters is a word ending in '-TION', which BATTALION almost ends in.

i had CANTORIAL written down but didnt want to risk it after my REASONATE mistake on friday, i was gutted about the conundrum if i got that i would have scored in every round, i should have got PERIANTHS as well PAINTERS + H, never mind

Matt Coates wrote:i had CANTORIAL written down but didnt want to risk it after my REASONATE mistake on friday, i was gutted about the conundrum if i got that i would have scored in every round, i should have got PERIANTHS as well PAINTERS + H, never mind

You may not have got any of the 9's and the conundrum, but you still scored over a century, which I personally think is a very good score (although others may disagree).

Only caught the last 15 mins, but another v good game Matt. Toughish conundrum. I spotted it at about 13 secs but before that I blurted out ABOLITION. I've never even heard of PERIANTHS (tho I've not heard of much!) so well done for spotting that even if you didnt say it.

Just realised you said it was CANTORIAL you spotted, not PERIANTHS. Well I'd not heard of that one either!

that REASONATE mistake really dented my confidence in going for risky words i kept doubting myself even tho i knew a lot of words were right

Matt Coates wrote:that REASONATE mistake really dented my confidence in going for risky words i kept doubting myself even tho i knew a lot of words were right

CANTORIAL was near the beginning of the game, so if you had risked it and it wasn't in, you still had a lot of games in which to catch up. I personally think its just a matter of working out whether you can afford to take a risk.

Hmmm...there's a few reasons that I don't think that's true, Joseph. When I was on, I went for loads of risky words (i.e. stuff I vaguely remembered, stuff I'd just made up, etc.) and I reckon that going for a dodgy one near the start of a game is quite harmful, as I found that it really threw me off-balance if it turned out to be wrong. For the rest of the game I'd play a lot safer than usual, and generally the subsequent dodgy ones I came up with would be OK, but I'd not risk them because of the disallowed one earlier.

Of course, this is nonsense. It doesn't matter at what point in the game you have a word disallowed, but humans are human, and therefore prone to this kind of woolly thinking from time to time.

jimbentley wrote:Of course, this is nonsense. It doesn't matter at what point in the game you have a word disallowed, but humans are human, and therefore prone to this kind of woolly thinking from time to time.

Occasionally it's true. Gary Male's wild stab at GREENOUTS was his only chance of winning the game, so in a situation like that you might as well go for it. I get furious with myself when I have a word disallowed so I prefer to play safe unless my hand is forced, but sometimes strategy has to dominate personal preference.

jimbentley wrote:Hmmm...there's a few reasons that I don't think that's true, Joseph. When I was on, I went for loads of risky words (i.e. stuff I vaguely remembered, stuff I'd just made up, etc.) and I reckon that going for a dodgy one near the start of a game is quite harmful, as I found that it really threw me off-balance if it turned out to be wrong. For the rest of the game I'd play a lot safer than usual, and generally the subsequent dodgy ones I came up with would be OK, but I'd not risk them because of the disallowed one earlier.

Well you don't want to take too many risks. The more risks you take, the more uneasy you will feel as the game progresses. I still think you can take a stab at a risky word at the beginning, because your opponent could take a risk later on and you can come back to win it.

I think that how cool you look when you get a good word outweighs how stupid you look when you make shit up.

I had ten words disallowed on the show

I reckon you should only risk words when you know they're valid.

I got CANTORIAL as it came up as a nine in my game against Dave Mackenzie. Also I was wondering about CURARINE (^) which I know is good in Scrabble but less sure for Countdown as Jim didn't put it in his recap. It doesn't seem to be in my NODE but of course that's not the current dictionary.

Martin

Yeah a bit like in Scrabble where if you're significantly ahead at the end of the game, avoid at all costs playing an invalid word because it might be the only way to lose the game.

Martin

Corby wrote:I reckon you should only risk words when you know they're valid.

I don't know about that. I came up with INSOLATED straight away in my game against Jack Welsby, which I knew as a Scrabble word so was convinced that it would be allowed in Countdown too.

It was quite an achievement though, coming up with a 9 that IS a word, but just not listed in the ODE.

Corby wrote:I reckon you should only risk words when you know they're valid.

Surely this sentence is illogical? If you know its vaild then how can it be a risk?

Hahaha, Corby, facet is not welcome on this thread.

Matthew Green wrote:Surely this sentence is illogical? If you know its vaild then how can it be a risk?

There could be a bomb?

Ginger Jono wrote:I think that how cool you look when you get a good word outweighs how stupid you look when you make shit up.

I had ten words disallowed on the show

And no good words to show for it.