English Chess Forum

David Robertson wrote:

Ian Thompson wrote:...not at all surprised that only 1% knew of FIDE

Really? That means c. 600,000 British people did know! Halve it to eliminate children, the insane, and obsessive football supporters. That makes 300,000 Brits who have heard of FIDE. Frankly, this is alarming!

They only put the questions to 100 people, and we don't know how representative of the population at large they are. If (quite a big 'if') the 100 were reasonably representative, I'd say that the numbers for the two most popular answers are quite encouraging, since they suggest that about half the population at least know the basics.

As an example of what an educated person might know, my fiancée (who knows how to play, but no more) knew about FIDE, but then you'd expect something to have rubbed off after four years with me. She didn't get Deep Blue and struggled to recall Bobby Fischer. The other two were easy for her. Maybe the 100 people are at the intelligent end of the spectrum - I don't know.

Ian Kingston wrote: They only put the questions to 100 people

The person devising the questions knows enough about chess to set plausibly sensible questions. If subject matter is vetted, questions on chess get through the net. Are there an equivalent number of questions about Backgammon, Bridge, Go, Mah Jong, Scrabble, Cribbage or Poker for example?

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Ian Kingston wrote: They only put the questions to 100 people

The person devising the questions knows enough about chess to set plausibly sensible questions. If subject matter is vetted, questions on chess get through the net. Are there an equivalent number of questions about Backgammon, Bridge, Go, Mah Jong, Scrabble, Cribbage or Poker for example?

I don't recall there ever having been a question about any of those. More avid viewers might remember something.

I think there was a question about the value of Scrabble letters once. I'm just impressed they can find so many different questions about chemical elements!

Roger de Coverly wrote:
The person devising the questions knows enough about chess to set plausibly sensible questions. If subject matter is vetted, questions on chess get through the net. Are there an equivalent number of questions about Backgammon, Bridge, Go, Mah Jong, Scrabble, Cribbage or Poker for example?

Scrabble - Name any scrabble letter worth 4 points or more

Poker - Name any poker hand (excl. high card)

A bridge convention was once used as an incorrect answer on one of the old-style first rounds, but I don't recall a specific bridge question being asked.

Another old-style first round asked contestants to pick the most obscure real card game from a list, where there was at least one wrong answer per selection.

Pointless does cover a wide range of topics so it would not surprise me if more board game oriented topics crop up in the future.

Andrew Bak wrote:Scrabble - Name any scrabble letter worth 4 points or more

H and W are worth 4 points I think. Higher values are easier such as Z, X and Q.

Andrew Bak wrote:Poker - Name any poker hand (excl. high card)

I know them all but if I were to guess I would say the least 'quoted' by those asked would be the Straight Flush which is the second highest value hand, behind the Royal Flush (A,K,Q,J,10 same suit) but ahead of Four-of-a-Kind.

Incidentally I'm playing tonight. If anyone is in the Ruislip area (NW London) and interested in some fun games (£10.50 to enter with a losers game) let me know. Play is with poker chips not cash. It's always the last friday of the month and the emphasis is on fun not serious playing. Prizes are low are fairly spread out as a result. No profit is made and the £10 goes to the prize fund. The 50p goes to the club for the venue.

As another incentive there is a bar that serves cask and bottled ales for less than £2.50!! as well as the usual other drinks.

The values of the letters in Scrabble:

10 - Q, Z
8 - J, X
5 - K
4 - F, H, V, W, Y
3 - B, C, M, P
2 - D, G
1 - A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T, U
0 - Blank

These mostly fit with the order of their frequency in English, although there are a few exceptions: H is actually the 8th most common letter (behind E, T, A, O, I, N and S), but its frequency in passages of text is dragged up by its presence in words like "the", rather than the actual number of words it's used in.

If I were rebalancing Scrabble, I'd probably bump V up to 5 or even 6; it really is that bad (the only letter not to be part of a two-letter word).

U could possibly be made worth 2 as well; without having done any statistical analysis, I can say from my own experience of playing Scrabble that it's much less useful/more awkward than any of the other 1 point letters.

I auditioned for the current series of Pointless - didn't get on!