NG 228

New game 228 is now available.


Round 1: R S G S O E I D F

I had GROSS, OGRESS, DOSSIER, and FIREDOGS (FIREDOG being another name for ANDIRON: "one of a pair of metallic stands used to support wood in an open fire").

FIREDOGS appears to be the only eight; the other sevens are FIREDOG, FRIDGES, DIGRESS, and GROSSED.

My selection: FIREDOGS


Round 2: O I I A R T P Z E

I had RATIO, PIRATE, and OPIATE.  I also lamented that one of those I's was not a D for TRAPEZOID, but did not really follow that chain of thought.  Had I done so I might have contemplated TRAPEZII as a possible plural of TRAPEZIUS (a muscle in the shoulder).  So it's fortunate for me that I was not good enough to spot it, as the Macquarie does not list the muscle at all.

Six appears to be the best on offer; the others are PITIER, PROTEA, and EPIZOA (plural of EPIZOON: "an external parasite").

My selection: PIRATE


Round 3: Target 728 from 100 25 75 50 7 10

I was decidedly off my game in this round, forgetting some important lessons with the four large numbers.  I got overly hung up on the factorisation 7*104 and was not able to make it work.  In the end I had to scramble to two off with 730 = 7*100 + 25 + 50/10.

After time I recalled that 725 could be made by the large numbers alone, and then a solution was clear: 728 = (75 - 50)*25 + 100 + 10 - 7.

There are four other solutions.  The more findable was to consider the target as 700 + 28; the 28 can be made as 7*4 = 7*100/25, which just leaves needing to get to 700 from 75, 50, 10... and put that way it is not much of a stretch to find 728 = 75*10 - 50 + 7*100/25.

The more Sam-like option was to use one of the classic techniques with the four large numbers -- use the 25 for two divisions in search of required offsets.  In this case, after starting from 7*100 we have 25, 50, 75, and 10 left to play with; with this technique that turns into 2, 3, and 10 and we want to get to 28.  That is easy: 28 = 3*10 - 2.  Putting it all together yields the solution 728 = 7*100 + (75*10 - 50)/25.

Another option did manage to make that 104 after all, although it was tough to spot (for me): 728 = (100 + (25*10 + 50)/75)*7.  And the final answer was definitely the least findable of them all: 728 = ((100 - 50/25)*75)/10 - 7.

My selection: 730 = 7*100 + 25 + 50/10  [2 off]
Best: 728 = (75 - 50)*25 + 100 + 10 - 7


Round 4: O O O E H S K T O

I had SHOE, SHOOK, and THOSE, plus several other unwritten fives.  I could not find longer, though, and those many O's sapped my motivation.

There was one longer word in the mix, however: SOOTHE.

My selection: SHOOK
Best: SOOTHE


Round 5: N M A E O N R L R

I had NAME, MOANER, MERLON, NORMAL, and ALMONER.

The other seven is MONERAN ("Biology in the five kingdom classification system, a member of the genus Monera, typically reproducing by asexual budding or fission and gaining nutrition by absorption, photosynthesis or chemosynthesis").

My selection: ALMONER


Round 6: Target 537 from 50 25 10 3 7 4

I started with the 75-times table and 537 = 7*(50 + 25) + 3*4, then found the easier 537 = 10*(50 + 3) + 7 and 537 = 10*(50 + 4) - 3.

My selection: 537 = 10*(50 + 3) + 7


Round 7: B M G E A I R C N

I had GAME, IMAGE, MIRAGE, GRIMACE, CREAMING, wondered about CAMBERING (it turns out to be valid), and was happy to find its anagram EMBRACING to avoid that uncertainty.

Those are (not surprisingly) the only nines.  The other eights are AMERCING (AMERCE: "to punish by inflicting a discretionary penalty of any kind") / GERMANIC (as a lowercase word: "Chemistry of or containing germanium, especially in the tetravalent state").

There's a decent selection of sevens also: BRACING, BEAMING, CARBINE, CARMINE, BEARING, REAMING / MANGIER, ANERGIC (adjective derived from ANERGY: "deficiency of energy"), and GAMBIER ("an astringent extract similar to catechu, obtained from the leaves and young shoots of Uncaria gambir, a tropical Asiatic shrub, and used in dyeing, tanning, etc.").

My selection: EMBRACING


Round 8: Target 408 from 50 25 8 5 2 3

Successive adjustment is easy here, although I went for the tweak: 408 = 8*(50 + 3 - 2).

My selection: 408 = 8*(50 + 3 - 2)


Round 9: PIXEL TOED

The EX- and -ED fragments are pretty plain, and EXPLOITED is there to be found between them.

My selection: EXPLOITED (1.4s)