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Letters game

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Revision as of 11:17, 9 January 2008 by Mglovesfun (talk | contribs) (New page: A '''letters game''' is one of the 11 rounds during a 15 round game in which the contestant chooses 9 letters by selecting either a vowel or a consonant until there is a total of 9 let...)
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A letters game is one of the 11 rounds during a 15 round game in which the contestant chooses 9 letters by selecting either a vowel or a consonant until there is a total of 9 letters. The player in the champions chair chooses 6 letters games and the challenger chooses 5, but gets an extra choice of numbers. The player can choose the letters in any order, but the selection must include at least 4 consonants and 3 vowels, hence there are only three valid choice in modern Countdown: 3 vowels, 6 consonants; 4 vowels, 5 consonants and 5 vowels, 4 consonants.

When the show was first broadcast, and for a number of years, contestants could choose as many vowels and consonants as they liked, which often led to poor selections where only 4's and 5's were available. Since then the rules have been changed. In the original 9-round format, there were 6 letters games.

A player scores points on a letters game by writing down a valid word within the 30 seconds. This word must be in the current New Oxford English Dictionary, but not a proper noun, nor an abbreviation. Players can use each lettter only once, but can use a letter more than once if it appears more than once in the selection. For example from EEEECDLST the player could play SELECTED, which uses more three E's, but there are four E's in the selection. Words score 1 point per word, but 18 points for a nine-letter word.