NG 89

New game 89 is now available.


Round 1: R D A A R T E E H

I had RADAR, TRADER, EARTHED, RETHREAD / THREADER, and contemplated DEARHEART as a term of affection but correctly rejected it.  Both RETHREAD and THREADER were a bit risky; I went with THREADER but it turns out both are acceptable.

Those are the only eights, in fact.  The other sevens are AERATED, RETREAD / TREADER, HEARTED (HEART being listed with an archaic verb sense of "to encourage"), ADHERER, and HETAERA ("one of a class of cultivated courtesans in ancient Greece").

My selection:THREADER


Round 2: C O A S R A L L U

I had SCAR, CAROLS, COLLARS, and CALLOUS.  After time I saw CAROUSAL as an eight in this mix; I think I just talked myself out of believing that longer than seven was possible within time.  Bother.

That's the only eight; some sources might allow ALLOSAUR, but the Macquarie only knows about ALLOSAURUS.

The other sevens are AROUSAL, CLAUSAL, LOCULAR ("having one or more loculi, chambers, or cells"), and OSCULAR ("relating to the mouth or kissing") / OCULARS (OCULAR: "the eyepiece of an optical instrument") / CAROLUS ("any of various coins issued under monarchs named Charles, especially an English gold coin struck in the reign of Charles I, originally worth 20 and later 23 shillings").

My selection: COLLARS


Round 3: Target 333 from 50 25 75 100 10 10

Gah, I got myself in a terrible tangle with this one.  I became overly obsessed with making the target as (1000 - 1)/3, but it's just not possible.  In the end I was two away with 335 = (100*10 + 50/10) / (75/25), and very nearly had an invalid answer due to writing 5 instead of 50/10.  Fortunately I caught that in time.

After time I returned to the standard method, which needs an offset of 8.  That's not too far from 10, as it turns out, and we can make the remaining 2 from the large numbers.  It was just a question of whether the rest worked out, and it quickly did so to produce the solution 333 = 10*25 + 75 + 10 - 100/50.  This turns out to be the only solution; I paid the price for neglecting the standard method.

My selection: 335 = (100*10 + 50/10) / (75/25)  [2 off]


Round 4: H E A N R O R O T

A very similar mix to one from yesterday's game; I had EARN, HERON, THRONE, ANOTHER, and wondered about HONORER and HONORATE.  I decided against them; that was the right decision for HONORATE, while HONORER might be valid depending on how derived forms of variant spellings are treated.

The other sevens are NORTHER (single-syllable adjective rule) / HORRENT ("bristling; standing erect like bristles").

My selection: ANOTHER


Round 5: E I O T T W E C C

I had TOTE, TWEET, and TWICE.

Five is the best to be done on this uncooperative mix; the others are OCTET ("any group of eight") and TOWIE (colloquial for the driver of a tow truck, or the truck itself).

My selection: TWICE


Round 6: Target 177 from 25 4 2 6 5 5

This time I was determined to pay attention to the standard method, and it worked easily enough to give me the solution 177 = (5 + 2)*25 + 6 - 4.

My selection: 177 = (5 + 2)*25 + 6 - 4


Round 7: M I L E S A T U D

I had LIME, LIMES, STADIUM, DUALISM, and then was rather pleased to spot SIMULATED.  I wonder if the alternating consonant / vowel pattern in both SIMULATED and the letters as presented helped.

The eights here are SIMULATE and MEDALIST (American spelling) / MISDEALT.  Disappointingly, MUSTELID is not listed by the Macquarie.

My selection: SIMULATED


Round 8: Target 748 from 10 4 3 6 5 9

Ooh, a tough 6-small mix.  I noticed the factor of 4 and cofactor 187 = 11*17, but was not able to make that work.  I did manage to get to one away with 747 = (9 + 6)*10*5 - 3, and then tried other approaches.  What I generally do with the six small mix is try dividing by the largest available numbers to see if the cofactors look promising; using 10 led to that one away above.

Trying the division by 9 produced the decomposition 9*83 + 1, which was not too hopeful (83 is prime, and composite numbers are much more useful).  But 84 is just one away and has many factors, and I spotted something which I thought would work and had just enough time to get it down but not check.  Fortunately it turned out to be correct: 748 = 9*(10 + 4)*6 - 5 - 3.

Checking computer solutions after time showed that I could have got the 4*11*17 approach to work.  4 and 11 were easy, but I overlooked the option to make 17 from 3, 9, and 10.  The resulting solution is 748 = 4*(6 + 5)*(3*9 - 10).  A tricky one!

My selection: 748 = 9*(10 + 4)*6 - 5 - 3


Round 9: LISTS HERS

A bit of a trap here with it being very easy to buzz in with SLITHERS and then regret it.  I picked out the -LESS fragment and found SHIRTLESS not too long after.

My selection: SHIRTLESS (4.7s)