WSC stats
Played my matchplay series with Ed yesterday...thanks for tuning in, everyone who did! I hope it was a fun setup. Sorry for hiding my tiles on the edges of my rack.
Before the Berkeley, here's a trivia question - I went through and looked at the top 10 from the last six worlds (WSC 2001 to 2011), figuring that worlds tends to feature more variance than nationals, especially since it used to only be 24 rounds. But I ended up just looking at the top 5 because I figured the results were plenty interesting.
Over the past 6 WSCs, 7 people have managed to place in the top 5 more than once. One of them has placed in 4 of the last 6, and the other has placed in the last three in a row. Who am I talking about? Hint is in white just after this question if you need it: Hint: they played each other for the championship one yea
[Name both...]
Pakorn has placed in the top 5 4 times, including his victory in 2009, while Nigel has placed in the top 5 every year since 2007.
Five more people have placed twice. Can you name them?
[Name all 5]
They are: Joel Wapnick (2001 runner-up & 4th in 2007), Jim Kramer (3rd in 2001, 5th in 2003), Andrew Fisher (5th in 2001, 2nd this past year), Ganesh Asirvatham (4th in 2005, 2nd in 2007) and Dave Wiegand (3rd in 2009, 4th in 2011).
So, if you've been following the whole series, you now know that only three people have notched up two top 5 NSC finishes AND two top 5 WSC finishes in the past decade (a few others are very close). They are...
[3 names]
Dave Wiegand, Nigel Richards and Jim Kramer. Although note that Nigel has achieved this feat if you start counting at 2009 alone!
If you expand the restriction to the top 10, you add 7 more people: Adam Logan, Komol, Naween Fernando, Brett Smitheram, Tim Adamson, David Boys and Craig Beevers. That's a pretty elite crew of 14 altogether.
So, here's an easy one followed by a stumper...first of all, who was the youngest person to finish in the top 5 in that timespan?
[Name the one]
Panupol Sujjayakorn beat Pakorn in 2003 when he was only 19 years old!!
Now for the really obscure result...who was the second youngest?
[Who?]
The answer is Andrew Perry in 2001, who as far as I can tell was 21 years old at the time. Who?! So far as I can gather he was another in the long line of British stars who came from a background in Countdown.
What's the highest showing a woman put up since 2001, and who was it?
[who?]
Helen Gipson finished in 10th at the 2009 WSC.
By the way, if you're into crazy results, check out the 2007 WSC standings, wherein the top 10 were from 9 different countries and 4 were from Africa, and the 11th and 12 place finishers were 17 and 15 years old respectively!