NG 264

New game 264 is now available.  Plus the delayed writeups have been done for NG 256, NG 257, NG 258, NG 259, and NG 260.


Round 1: D I N M A Y D O E

I had MIND, DYNAMO (I got there from MONDAY, which is the only day of the week with a valid anagram), DEMAND, and DIAMOND.

The other seven is ADENOID.

My selection: DIAMOND


Round 2: I C O O C I S G S

Gah, horrible mix.  Fortunately all the word searching I do for this blog paid off with CISCO (a type of fish) and then CISCOS.

CISCOS is the only six.  The other five is COCOS (plural of COCO, the palm tree that produces the coconut).

My selection: CISCOS


Round 3: Target 694 from 50 8 6 5 4 7

The standard method suggests making this as 14*50 - 6, and a little thought turned up the solution 694 = (8/4)*7*50 - 6.

My selection: 694 = (8/4)*7*50 - 6


Round 4: S E R S W O P S U

I had SEWS, SOWERS, PROWESS, and POSEURS.  After time I noted SPOUSES as another seven.

Those appear to be all the sevens listed.

My selection: PROWESS


Round 5: N A T O S A N L F

I had ANTS, SONATA, SONANT, ASLANT, and TALONS.  I lamented that one of those A's was not an E, as FONTANELS would then have been available.  I briefly wondered about ATONALS, but correctly assumed that ATONAL would not have a noun form.

The tempting eight of NONFATAL is not valid, as the Macquarie insists on the hyphenated form.  There is an eight, though: SONANTAL, the adjective derived from SONANT.  Aside from that, six is the best on offer.

My selection: SONATA
Best: SONANTAL


Round 6: Target 479 from 25 50 100 75 3 7

My first thought was to make this as 475 + 4, with the 4 coming from 7 - 3.  But 475 cannot be made from the large numbers, and I turned instead to 500 - 21.  Since 500 can be made from the large numbers it worked out satisfactorily even without tweaking: 479 = ((75 + 50)/25)*100 - 7*3.  (I overlooked tweaking at the time, but seen now is the option 479 = 7*(75 - 3) - 25.)  Then I went back to the original idea but made the 4 a different way to get the solution 479 = 7*75 - 50 + 100/25.

My selection: 479 = ((75 + 50)/25)*100 - 7*3


Round 7: E N E H R C B T E

I had HERE, CHEER, wondered about BENCHER (not valid), ETCHER, ETHENE, and CENTRE / RECENT.  BENCHER seemed to remote an option, so six was where I stayed.

There is one seven to be had: BEECHEN, the adjective derived from BEECH.

My selection: CENTRE
Best: BEECHEN


Round 8: Target 470 from 50 100 75 8 10 5

The standard method applies again, as 475 - 5 is hard to go past.  I went with a simple 470 = 8*50 + 75 - 5.

My selection: 470 = 8*50 + 75 - 5


Round 9: COLD KRAUT

Putting the -CK- fragment together helped a little here, and when I looked at TRACK I was able to easily step to TRUCK and so find the answer of TRUCKLOAD.

My selection: TRUCKLOAD (7.9s)