NG 781

New game 781 is now available.

The re-run is episode 44; its rounds are here and its writeup is here.


Round 1: I P N R E D A Y U

I had PINE, an uncertain PINER (valid: "Tasmania a timber-getter employed in the Huon pine trade"), DINER, PAINED, UNREADY, and UNPAIRED.

The other eights are UNDERPAY and UNREPAID.  The other sevens are UNDRAPE and URANIDE.

My selection: UNPAIRED


Round 2: F G S I O A O H R

I had FIGS, SOFA, FROGS, was unsure if OGRISH was acceptable as a variant of OGREISH (it is), GARFISH, and OARFISH.

Those are the only sevens.  The other sixes are GARISH, OAFISH, SHARIF (variant form of SHERIFF), ARIOSO (a musical direction), SHOFAR ("an ancient Jewish musical instrument of the trumpet kind, usually made of the curved horn of a ram, still used in Jewish religious services"), and SORGHO (variant spelling of SORGO: "any of the sweet sorghums").

My selection: OARFISH


Round 3: Target 624 from 50 100 75 9 7 6

The target is 6*104, but that seemed hard to use.  Instead I looked at the standard method, and decided that I wanted to keep the 6 and 7 aside for the offset of 1.  That left me needing to get to 625 with the other four numbers, and soon I had a solution: 624 = 9*75 - 50 - (7 - 6).

After time I found another solution that I kind of like: 624 = 6*100 + (9 + 7)*75/50.

My selection: 624 = 9*75 - 50 - (7 - 6)


Round 4: M L A N I C E U R

I had MAIN, CLAIM, and was struggling badly until that final R.  That brought a familiar NUMERICAL into play; as it turns out, that was one of the two conundrum words during my audition (I missed it at the time).  I also noted down some sevens of NUMERIC, CARLINE, and RECLAIM / MIRACLE.

There's a fair few sevens, but the only eight here is MANICURE.

My selection: NUMERICAL


Round 5: T J H S O A K E A

I had HOST, SHOAT ("a young weaned pig"), JOKES, ETHOS / THOSE, SHAKE, and JAKES (an archaic term for a toilet).

I could not see any longer, but there is a seven here: TAKAHES (TAKAHE: "a rare flightless New Zealand bird [...]").  TAKAHE was just in yesterday's game!  Here I've paid the price for making the new game before scoring the old one.  Oh, well.  The sixes are TAKAHE and HAKEAS (HAKEA being one of various shrubs or trees).

My selection: JOKES
Best: TAKAHES


Round 6: Target 524 from 7 6 2 4 6 4

The target is near 7*75, as should be clear, and we have a seven.  So my goal was to get near to 75 with the other numbers; 72 is a promising value near there, and could be made cheaply as 2*6*6.  That leaves us 20 away on 504, with lots of tweaking options and two 4's left over.  We can make the 20 as 6*4 - 4, and putting it all together gives a solution: 524 = 6*(2*6*7 + 4) - 4.

There is only one other solution, the similar 524 = (7 + 4)*(6 + 2)*6 - 4.

My selection: 524 = 6*(2*6*7 + 4) - 4


Round 7: L O A R E T A N B

I had ORAL, ALTER, BORATE, NOTABLE, and ABALONE.

The eight that I missed is ATONABLE.  The other sevens are BARONET / REBOANT, RATABLE, BLOATER ("British a herring cured by being salted and briefly smoked and dried"), and ABLATOR.

My selection: NOTABLE
Best: ATONABLE


Round 8: Target 227 from 75 1 9 8 5 4

Applying the standard method suggests starting from 3*75, and I was pleased to spot a working option for the final offset: 227 = (4 - 1)*75 + 8 / (9 - 5).  There's a similar option of 227 = (8 - 5)*75 + (9 - 1)/4, and other variants.  Then I considered that 8*9 = 72 is near to 75, and a bit of thinking about how that played into offsets gave me another solution of 227 = 4*75 - 8*9 - 1.

My selection: 227 = (4 - 1)*75 + 8 / (9 - 5)


Round 9: CRECHE NAP

Not the most obvious of combinations, I think, but the -ANCE ending might get one there.

My selection: [N/A -- chosen]
Best: PERCHANCE