NG 335

New game 335 is now available.


Round 1: K S A E T T I T G

I had SAKE, STEAK, wondered about TISKET and TASKET (neither valid), an uncertain STATITE (not valid), wondered if KATTIES might be OK (it is not; I was thinking that I had seen KATTY as a variant spelling of CATTY at some point but presumably I was misremembering), and a rather dubious TATTIES (not valid, although this one gets the nod in Scrabble; Chambers defines TATTY as "an Indian mat of bamboo, cus-cus grass roots, etc, esp one kept wet in a doorway or window to cool the air").

As I realised when time ran out and I had to settle on a selection, that left me with only a five that I was confident enough in to try.  I'd kind of skipped over searching for valid sixes, and that was a mistake in this instance as I soon found ATTEST once I narrowed my focus.

Six is the best to be done; the others are AGEIST and GASKET.

My selection: STEAK
Best: ATTEST


Round 2: D D U N T E I E N

I had TUNED, UNITED, and INTENDED.

The other eighs are INDENTED, UNEDITED, UNDENIED, and UNTENDED.  The sevens are DENTINE ("Anatomy the hard calcareous tissue beneath the enamel of the crown of the tooth and beneath the cementum of the root of the tooth [...]") and DETINUE ("an old common-law form of action to recover possession or the value of articles of personal property wrongfully detained").

Update: Mike Backhouse pointed out another seven of DETUNED (DETUNE: "to adjust a high-performance engine, as in a racing car, so that its performance is reduced but its suitability for general use is increased").  Nice one, Mike!

My selection: INTENDED


Round 3: Target 824 from 100 25 8 7 3 4

An easy tweak to solve this: 824 = 8*(100 + 3).

My selection: 824 = 8*(100 + 3)


Round 4: L S A C P E T A A

I had LACS (LAC being a resin), CLAPS, PLACES, wondered about CAPLETS (not valid), PALACES, PLACATES, and ALPACAS.

The other eights are CATALPAS (CATALPA being a type of tree) and CATALASE ("an enzyme which catalyses the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen").  The other sevens are PLACATE, CATALPA, PALATES, PATACAS (PATACA: "the unit of currency used in Macao"), PLACETS (PLACET: "(an expression or vote of assent or sanction)"), and LACTASE ("an enzyme capable of hydrolysing lactose into glucose and galactose") / ACETALS ("a class of compounds of aldehydes or ketones with alcohols").

My selection: PLACATES


Round 5: R L F H A B A E S

I had BARF, FABLE, FABLES, EARBASH (which I recall David finding in episode 408), FLASHER, and pondered but ultimately rejected SHARABLE (not valid, although Scrabble allows it).

The other sevens are HERBALS (HERBAL: "a treatise on herbs or plants"), FABLERS, and BHARALS (BHARAL: "a wild mountain sheep [...] of the rugged mountainous regions of the Himalayas, with hooves ending in a point as an adaptation for climbing rocks, and thick horns swept backwards").  It is possible that ARABLES may be valid also; ARABLE is listed as a noun meaning "arable land", but my feeling is that is a mass noun sense of "land".

My selection: FLASHER


Round 6: Target 315 from 50 25 1 6 6 7

I recognised the target as 35*9, which is thus also 45*7.  That led directly to a solution of 315 = (50 - 6 + 1)*7.  I then reorganised it to 5*63 and the alternative solution 315 = (50 + 7 + 6)*(6 - 1).

My selection: 315 = (50 - 6 + 1)*7


Round 7: I R F H N G I O I

I had RING, FIRING, HIRING, and ORIGIN.

Those turn out to be the only sixes, and nothing longer is available.

My selection: ORIGIN


Round 8: Target 412 from 25 50 7 2 5 3

I struggled a little with this, and wrote down a fallback one off 413 = 3*2*(50 + 25 - 5) - 7.  Although I have just now seen that I wrote down 75 instead of 25, so that would have been invalid.  Fortunately I was able to find a valid solution within time, working my way up from 7*50 -- the offset is 62, which is 25 + 37, and the latter is 7*5 + 2.  Putting the steps together yielded 412 = 7*(50 + 5) + 25 + 2.

After time I experimented with modifying the target by 25 or 50 in the hopes of getting something more easily reachable.  412 + 50 is 462, which was immediately attractive -- it is 42*11, or 7*66.  That gave me an alternative solution of 412 = (25 + 5 + 3)*2*7 - 50.

My selection: 412 = 7*(50 + 5) + 25 + 2


Round 9: DETAIL MAN

I chose this conundrum as well -- just another random nine-letter word that occurred to me at some point.

My selection: [N/A -- conundrum chosen explicitly]
Best: LAMINATED