NG 119

New game 119 is now available.


Round 1: C H I U D R A D A

I had CHAIR, DRUID, CHARD ("the blanched summer shoots of the globe artichoke [...] used as a vegetable"), and CHADDAR (variant spelling of CHADOR: "a dark voluminous mantle which envelops the body leaving only a narrow slit for the eyes, worn by some Muslim women as an outer garment").

Two other variant spellings of CHADOR are also makeable here: CHADUR and CHUDDAR.  (For some reason the latter is not listed in the main entry but does have a separate one pointing to it.)

Those are the only sevens; the other sixes are CAUDAD ("Anatomy, Zoology towards the tail or posterior end of the body") and ACARID ("any animal belonging to the Acari (or Acarina), an order of arachnids including the mites, ticks, etc.").

My selection: CHADDAR


Round 2: P N F I E E F T T

I had PINE, FEINT, INEPT, and FIFTEEN.

FIFTEEN is the only seven; the only six is PETITE.

My selection: FIFTEEN


Round 3: Target 726 from 3 4 10 9 4 3

I noticed that the target was 729 - 3, which stood out because 729 is the cube of 9, or the sixth power of 3.  There's a lot of powers of 3 around, but it seemed hard to get that to work.  I wrote down a 3-away 729 = 9*((4 + 4)*10 + 3/3) while exploring that idea, then realised that a small modification of it got me to a solution: 726 = 9*(4 + 4)*10 + 3 + 3.

After time I noticed the factor of 6, and the cofactor of 121 is the square of 11.  That gives a few possible factorisations, with 22*33 being tempting.  I wasn't able to get that to work, but later checking turned up a way to make this work: 726 = (4*9 - 3)*(3*4 + 10).  That was a disappointing miss, as I'd seen how to make that 33 but could not unravel the 22 from the rest.

There's one other solution: 726 = (9*4*(4 + 3) - 10)*3.

My selection: 726 = 9*(4 + 4)*10 + 3 + 3


Round 4: S T D I E O M C A

I had DITS (I was thinking that DIT would be a term from telegraphy, but the meaning listed is a nautical colloquialism for "a yarn or story"), DIETS, MOIST, DOMESTIC, ATOMISED, an uncertain COMEDIAS (as I've mentioned before, COMEDIA is listed as a variant spelling of KOMEDYA: "a once-popular Philippine dramatic form dealing with the conflict between Christians and Moors in early medieval Europe"; the area of uncertainty is whether that is pluralisable or not), and rightly rejected MISCOATED.

It looks like eight is the best to be done, with those being the only ones (aside from the dubious DEMOTICS, as I mentioned recently in NG 111).

My selection: DOMESTIC


Round 5: R L B E O M L G E

Just as well that last vowel was not an A, as I would probably have tried GAMBOLLER and been disappointed. I had ROLE, OMBER (American spelling of OMBRE, a card game), EMBER, GOLEM, REBEL, and GREBE (a type of waterbird).

Five turns out to be the best possible on this nasty mix; there's a fair few others, of which I'll just mention BELLE and MERGE.

My selection: EMBER


Round 6: Target 762 from 100 1 9 2 9 3

I started by trying to work down from 800, but things looked a lot simpler when I tried working up from 700 instead, as the offset of 62 is 7*9 - 1.  The resulting solution is 762 = (9 - 2)*(100 + 9) - 1.

Later checking shows that there are a reasonable number of solutions; my favourite is 762 = (3*100 + 9*9)*2.

My selection: 762 = (9 - 2)*(100 + 9) - 1


Round 7: U A E L S R B A M

I has SALE, EARLS, RAMBLES, and RUMBLES.  I was also distracted by MEASURABLE, but that required an extra E (or as Sam would say, it scores twenty).  I was not able to find better after time once the unlikely SUBALARM was confirmed as invalid.

It is possible to do one better, though, with AMUSABLE.  There's a lot of sevens here and I don't feel like checking them all, so here's the common ones: MARBLES, LUMBERS / SLUMBER, and MAULERS.

My selection: RAMBLES
Best: AMUSABLE


Round 8: Target 905 from 50 9 6 4 5 3

The standard method is clearly the way to go; putting the 5 aside means trying to make 18 from the rest of the small numbers, and that is easy.  I went with 905 = 3*6*50 + 5.

My selection: 905 = 3*6*50 + 5


Round 9: LOSER'S PEW

Or LOSER SPEW, if you prefer.  In any case, I was slow to extract the -LESS ending from this, but once I had done so POWERLESS was clear.

My selection: POWERLESS (10.2s)