NG 20

Game twenty is available here, and the longer writeup for game 19 is now up.


Round 1: R S O O R B E I T

I had ROOS, SOBER, BOOSTER, ROOSTER, and ORBITERS.  A pleasing find, just when an eight looked beyond reach.

My Scrabble list suggests that ROBOTRIES is worth checking, but the Macquarie does not know of it.  ORBITERS is the best to be done, and the only eight.  The other sevens are REBOOTS, ORBITER, ROOTERS / TOREROS (TORERO: "a bullfighter who fights on foot"), ROISTER / RIOTERS, SOOTIER, ROOTIER, and BOOTIES.


Round 2: R F I E P C E R A

I had FIRE, PRICE, RECIPE, and an uncertain CAPERER.  I decided to risk it, and that was the right decision.  After time I noted the somewhat safer seven of PREFACE and checked to confirm my suspicion that PREFACER would not be valid.

The other sevens are FIERCER and PIERCER / REPRICE.


Round 3: Target 462 from 50 8 6 6 10 3

I noticed immediately that the target was 11*42, which is 11*7*6.  With the 6 handy that was tempting, and I soon had the solution 462 = (8*10 - 3)*6.  Then I looked at a more piecemeal approach and found 462 = 8*50 + 6*10 + 6/3.


Round 4: A N C A S O H G E

I had SCAN, HANGS, and CHANGES.  I wish that C had been an X for HEXAGONS...

There is an eight here, though -- a very MasterChef word: GANACHES (GANACHE: "a rich chocolate confection made from semisweet chocolate and cream, often used as a cake icing").  The other sevens are GANACHE and CHOANAE ("the posterior nasal apertures, visible in the inferior view of the skull").


Round 5: S N T M E D O O M

Ah, this round hurts -- appropriate that it ended in DOOM.  I had SENT, MENDS, STONED, MODEST, ENDMOST (I was slightly uncertain, but it is all right), and a rather late spot of MOMENTOS.  I had just enough time to realise that I was thinking of MEMENTOS and cross out the second O to leave the safe seven of MOMENTS.  After time I noted down MOONSET as another seven.

And then I looked up MOMENTO, discovering that it was listed as a variant spelling of MEMENTO after all.  It is speculated to have arisen as a misunderstanding, but it is listed, and MOMENTOS is the only eight.  The other seven is, of course, MOMENTO.


Round 6: Target 708 from 50 25 75 6 10 7

An offset of eight looked a little elusive, and I wrote down a fallback 707 = (10 + 6)*50 - 75 - 25 + 7.  Then I realised that the offset of 42 was very formable and worked rather satisfactorily to give 708 = 10*75 - 6*7.  I finished off with a tweaked version of 708 = 6*(75 + 50 - 7).


Round 7: F A E A W H C L K

I had CHEW, CHAFE, and HACKLE.

A parsimonious mix, with that K proving more useful than it often does.  The other six is FAECAL.


Round 8: Target 182 from 75 100 5 7 2 8

I started with a boring 182 = 100 + 75 + 7, then decided to use the factorisation to get 182 = (8 + 5)*7*2.


Round 9: NICER GEAR

I got lost on this one; I pulled out the -ING but did not see anything usable from the rest of the letters, and then got lost in things like -ANCE and -ANIC.  I think the best I ended up with was GENERIC, and it was not until a minute and a half had elapsed (89.3 seconds, to be pedantic) that I saw CAREERING.  Bother.


A little more to the letters today than at first apparent (which is nice), with ORBITERS, GANACHES, and MOMENTOS interesting finds.  Not much to say about the numbers, alas, and I regret missing that conundrum.