NG 136

New game 136 is now available.


Round 1: D C D R E O N I S

I had CRED, CODED, CORDED, and CONSIDER.  Now there's a word I wish I'd found the first time...

There's a fair few sevens here, but the other eight is INDORSED (INDORSE being a variant form of ENDORSE).

My selection: CONSIDER


Round 2: L N A F O O R P E

Gah, I fell apart on this one.  I had FLAN, LOAN, tried to remember if LOOFA was a valid variant spelling of LOOFAH (later checking shows it is not), then found the anagram ALOOF to render the question irrelevant, PROOF, and... stalled.  I eventually found potential sixes of LOOPER (valid) / POOLER (not valid), but even those finds were almost certainly after time.  That saved me having to decide which, if either, of them I thought was valid, but limited me to five.  A bit later I saw the safe LOANER for six -- that's particularly disappointing to miss given that I had LOAN early on.

There is a seven here, and one that has turned up a few times on the show: PROFANE.  There was nearly even an eight, but the Macquarie does not list FLAPERON.

The other sixes are PAROLE, REPLAN / PLANER, and FLORAE (one plural form of FLORA).

My selection: ALOOF
Best: PROFANE


Round 3: Target 662 from 100 6 10 5 8 6

Pretty easy to get close, and the final adjustment was not too challenging either: 662 = 6*(100 + 10) + 8 - 6.

My selection: 662 = 6*(100 + 10) + 8 - 6


Round 4: S T E U D H I C A

I had SUET, DUETS, SUITED, DITCHES, and DUCHIES.  After time I added SCATHED as another seven and checked up on HEADCUTS (I was thinking a possible fencing term, not a variant of HAIRCUT; regardless, it's not valid).

Despite the decent letters seven seems to be the best on offer; the other is AITCHES.

My selection: DITCHES


Round 5: R T R C E E O A K

I had CERT, CARROT, REACTOR / CREATOR, wondered about ROCKETER (not valid, it turns out; I knew from past checking that ROCKETEER was not valid, but was not sure about this), TRACKER, CROAKER, and wondered about RECOATER.  But I've checked RECOAT enough times before to know this was not valid, and I did not think ROCKETER likely, so seven was where I stayed.

After time I noted ERECTOR as another seven, and that a third E instead of the O would have allowed RACKETEER.  I also noted the presence of OAK TREE and CORK TREE, but those are, of course, two words each.

Seven seems to be the limit; the others are TERRACE / CATERER / RETRACE, RETAKER, and OCREATE ("having an ocrea or ocreae; sheathed"; an OCREA is "a sheathing part, as a pair of stipules united about a stem").

My selection: REACTOR


Round 6: Target 569 from 8 1 5 7 4 3

This was the round that got away (as it were).  8*7 is 56, so multiplying that by 10 gets close and some tweaking got me to one away with 568 = (3 - 1)*(5*7*8 + 4).  Then I considere the approach of 7*81 and had one off in the other direction with 570 = 7*(5 + 4)*(8 + 1) + 3.  Other approaches I considered likewise were not able to do better.

Shortly after time expired I considered the target as 576 - 7 and the lights went on.  576 is the square of 24 and the solution practically writes itself at that point: 569 = 3*8*4*(5 + 1) - 7.  Oh, well.  This turns out to be the only solution, too -- just a matter of seeing the right approach in time.

My selection: 568 = (3 - 1)*(5*7*8 + 4)  [1 off]
Best; 569 = 3*8*4*(5 + 1) - 7


Round 7: M H G I I S B A T

I had SIGH, SMITH, SIGHT, BIGHTS, and was steeling myself to end up declaring SHITBAG (valid) when I found GAMBITS as a more wholesome seven.

The other seven is IMAGIST, a noun derived from IMAGISM: "a method or movement in poetic composition, originating about 1912, which aimed particularly at 'images' or clear pictures of what the poet has in mind, and used rhythm or cadence rather than the conventional metrical forms".

But better still is lurking in this mix: BIGAMIST scores eight.

My selection: GAMBITS
Best: BIGAMIST


Round 8: Target 824 from 50 2 7 1 3 9

I first focused on the target being one away from 825, and wrote down a fallback one-away 825 = (7 + 3 + 1)*50/2.  Then I switched tacks to consider the factorisation 8*103 and life was easy once this was noticed: 824 = (7 + 1)*(2*50 + 3).

My selection: 824 = (7 + 1)*(2*50 + 3)


Round 9: ADMIT ZERO

I was tempted to go with DIE MOZART instead, incidentally.  Anyway, the Z is a pretty clear indicator of a -IZE fragment, and I noticed ATOMIZED on my way to finding AMORTIZED.  Note that AMORTISED could not have been used instead since it has an anagram of MEDIATORS.

My selection: AMORTIZED (7.4s)