6 ms·

I spent way too much effort to win a game show on Dutch national TV

202 points by Vinnl 7y ago

Vinnl 7y ago
A shorter version with pictures is available in this Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/VincentTunru/status/1205527364739981312 https://twitter.com/VincentTunru/status/1205527364739981312 Feel free to ask me anything! Edit: Ah, and for Dutch people, the first actual episode can be viewed here: https://www.sbs6.nl/programmas/lingo/videos/Vk9EpXSlwas/lingo/ https://www.sbs6.nl/programmas/lingo/videos/Vk9EpXSlwas/ling...
- rgoldste 7y ago
  Very cool. Some questions - How many games (?) in a row did you win and how much money was this? How many episodes did you appear on? How does this compare to other top players? Thanks.
  - Vinnl 7y ago
    > - How many games (?) in a row did you win We won four in a row, then lost the fifth one in the final round due to two mistakes on our side and a bit of bad luck. > and how much money was this? When you reach the finals, you take part in what amounts to a lottery for which the number of tickets you get is determined by how well you play. If you win, you get €2500, if you lose, you get the amount of money you earned in the first round, which is comparatively negligible. We consistently got a reasonably high score in the finals, and with that won the lottery once, which I'd guess is about or slightly lower than the expected success rate. Do note that the amount was per-team and before taxes, so in the end it amounted to a little bit more than €1000 per person. A nice little bonus, but probably lower than my usual rate given the amount of work put in, so it really was mostly about the fun we had doing it. (And an additional unexpected bonus is that it gave my brother quite some exposure as a comedian.) > How many episodes did you appear on? Five: the four we won, and the one we lost. > How does this compare to other top players? There haven't been that many episodes yet, and to be fair, I don't really watch the show usually, but it's certainly better than average (since most people just lose the first game they're in), and probably slightly better than the mean winner - though of course, we're doing it with no natural talent and being loyal viewers of the show. There are certainly quite a few who do better than we did though.
    - rgoldste 7y ago
      Very cool. Thanks for the details. Final question - how many rounds in a game?
      - Vinnl 7y ago
        There isn't actually a set number of rounds, I think it mostly depends on how long the rounds take. (I think there's about 15 minutes playing time for the first round.) I haven't rewatched an episode to keep track, but my guess would be it's about four five-letter words and four six-letter words. After that, there's always one seven-letter word (in which both teams take turns making guesses).
- mettamage 7y ago
  It always trips me up how ij is one letter in Dutch since I learned Dutch spelling with ij and not the y version. The y version was the normal Greek one. For non-Dutchies: y = y and y = ij, they both have different sounds.
  - tijl 7y ago
    A few months ago, someone tried to register her newborn in Brussels (which is officially a bilingual city: Dutch and French) with a name starting with IJ, and had a very hard time convincing the French speaking civil servants that both characters had to be capitalized: https://www.bruzz.be/samenleving/geboorteaangifte-brussel-stad-een-uur-wachten-op-iemand-die-nederlands-kon-2019-09-15 https://www.bruzz.be/samenleving/geboorteaangifte-brussel-st...
  - dasanman 7y ago
    Its not in the alphabet tho
  - bouke 7y ago
    Even though ij often fills a single square in puzzle, it is not a character in the Dutch alphabet. It is sometimes incorrectly assumed to be in place of y (y is only used for foreign words). It is a combination of i and j, but has special uppercasing rules in that they are uppercased together; e.g. IJzer (iron). There's even a Unicode codepoint assigned as well: ĳ (U+0133 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE IJ), although its use is discouraged. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_(digraph) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_(digraph) and https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_(digraaf) https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_(digraaf).
    - Vinnl 7y ago
      > There's even a Unicode codepoint assigned as well: ĳ (U+0133 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE IJ) And that codepoint was actually massively helpful to represent the ij-as-single-letter in the practice application: https://lingo.vincenttunru.com https://lingo.vincenttunru.com
    - mcv 7y ago
yellow_lead 7y ago
Looks like a lot of fun. Was the word that went viral the one with the "IJ" letter? Forgive my ignorance of Dutch.
- Vinnl 7y ago
  It was! And the one that went viral includes an "ij" indeed, though it's a regular vowel sound in Dutch, similar to "oa" in English, so it occurs in many words.
- Noumenon72 7y ago
  Why would a word go viral?
  - Vinnl 7y ago
    One of the three best six-letter words starting with a "k" was what amounts to the Dutch version of "bitch". You usually say what word you are going to play before spelling it out, but to avoid having to say this word out loud -and as a joke, of course- my brother said "my ex-partner" before spelling that word.
    - twic 7y ago
      That was an eye-opener. I don't think you'd use a word like that on a UK gameshow. I'm not sure how the producers would react if you did. Mind you, Countdown, in which a series of random letters are placed onto a board, has had its moments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTrSUiHm4YY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTrSUiHm4YY
      - Vinnl 7y ago
        I don't think most Dutch people wouldn't either (I was reluctant to do it), but I guess in practice, it's really not that big of a deal. There weren't any explicit rules about it, and it's a valid word that's listed in the dictionary. And in the end, I'm sure it's one of the most-viewed episodes they've had so far. Here's the most legendary word ever spelled at this game, which can be understood even by people who speak English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7qxpAUKy4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7qxpAUKy4c Given the examples you showed at Countdown, I'd expect it to be perfectly possible on a UK game show as well?
ptspts 7y ago
How does the one-week winning streak compare to the longest one ever achieved?
- Vinnl 7y ago
  The show recently changed its format so that people who win are allowed to come back the next day, so the longest one ever just happened to have been set the week before - they took part in eleven episodes. We certainly weren't the best ones ever, partly due to our own ability to find the correct words even when many letters are given, and partly due to luck playing a significant role in the actual game. (I didn't go into the luck-based elements in the post, because our strategy couldn't influence that.)
Matticus_Rex 7y ago
Love it! I'm learning Dutch in preparation for a move to the Netherlands next year, and I'm tempted to make this a goal just to feed my competitive nature. And also, you've just given a lot of people blueprints for doing well, so you might actually make the game harder for teams on average. Go you!
- pottertheotter 7y ago
  I'm curious, where are you moving from? And what's taking you there?
  - Matticus_Rex 7y ago
    The US. My wife and I work remotely (for the same company), and we have to travel to Amsterdam a couple of times a year (at minimum) for work. She fell in love with it, and I'm interested in the adventure (and it's a great city). It would also be useful for work for us to be there, though not necessary by any means.
arduinomancer 7y ago
Really cool. How much did you guys win?
- Vinnl 7y ago
  Thanks. I detailed our wins here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21801310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21801310 tl;dr We mostly did this for fun.
rvanmil 7y ago
Hilarious, love seeing this on HN =) Thanks for the write up!
NiekvdMaas 7y ago
I saw Andries a couple of weeks ago at a comedy night in Utrecht. His demonstration of memorization of "best" words was impressive!
ricc 7y ago
Did you come across the word “Tnetennba”?
- Vinnl 7y ago
  The words were limited to five- or six-letter words, and I only took words that occurred more than 500 times in the data set - otherwise I probably would have!
contactlight11 7y ago
Here is my version of this game I made in early high school a couple years back. So, please forgive the crudeness... https://jondolan.io/fives/ https://jondolan.io/fives/ I did not know of this game at the time, but I did hear from people that it was basically Mastermind with words (although I have not played that). The inspiration was a teacher of mine who used to work as a nuclear technician and when he had the graveyard shift, he would play the game with the other technician on duty over the phone.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  It's originally called Jotto, and Mastermind is a generalization/de-specification of it that came later. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jotto https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jotto
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Cpoll 7y ago
"My first guess is 'actor'" Should that be 'actors'?
- Vinnl 7y ago
  Ah, you are right, I'll fix it right away. Thanks for reporting it!
ggggtez 7y ago
I was most disappointed that Google couldn't translate the words from Dutch. Random other site got it right away.

202 points by Vinnl 7y ago

A shorter version with pictures is available in this Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/VincentTunru/status/1205527364739981312 https://twitter.com/VincentTunru/status/1205527364739981312 Feel free to ask me anything! Edit: Ah, and for Dutch people, the first actual episode can be viewed here: https://www.sbs6.nl/programmas/lingo/videos/Vk9EpXSlwas/lingo/ https://www.sbs6.nl/programmas/lingo/videos/Vk9EpXSlwas/ling...

rgoldste 7y ago
Very cool. Some questions - How many games (?) in a row did you win and how much money was this? How many episodes did you appear on? How does this compare to other top players? Thanks.
- Vinnl 7y ago
  > - How many games (?) in a row did you win We won four in a row, then lost the fifth one in the final round due to two mistakes on our side and a bit of bad luck. > and how much money was this? When you reach the finals, you take part in what amounts to a lottery for which the number of tickets you get is determined by how well you play. If you win, you get €2500, if you lose, you get the amount of money you earned in the first round, which is comparatively negligible. We consistently got a reasonably high score in the finals, and with that won the lottery once, which I'd guess is about or slightly lower than the expected success rate. Do note that the amount was per-team and before taxes, so in the end it amounted to a little bit more than €1000 per person. A nice little bonus, but probably lower than my usual rate given the amount of work put in, so it really was mostly about the fun we had doing it. (And an additional unexpected bonus is that it gave my brother quite some exposure as a comedian.) > How many episodes did you appear on? Five: the four we won, and the one we lost. > How does this compare to other top players? There haven't been that many episodes yet, and to be fair, I don't really watch the show usually, but it's certainly better than average (since most people just lose the first game they're in), and probably slightly better than the mean winner - though of course, we're doing it with no natural talent and being loyal viewers of the show. There are certainly quite a few who do better than we did though.
  - rgoldste 7y ago
    Very cool. Thanks for the details. Final question - how many rounds in a game?
    - Vinnl 7y ago
      There isn't actually a set number of rounds, I think it mostly depends on how long the rounds take. (I think there's about 15 minutes playing time for the first round.) I haven't rewatched an episode to keep track, but my guess would be it's about four five-letter words and four six-letter words. After that, there's always one seven-letter word (in which both teams take turns making guesses).
mettamage 7y ago
It always trips me up how ij is one letter in Dutch since I learned Dutch spelling with ij and not the y version. The y version was the normal Greek one. For non-Dutchies: y = y and y = ij, they both have different sounds.
- tijl 7y ago
  A few months ago, someone tried to register her newborn in Brussels (which is officially a bilingual city: Dutch and French) with a name starting with IJ, and had a very hard time convincing the French speaking civil servants that both characters had to be capitalized: https://www.bruzz.be/samenleving/geboorteaangifte-brussel-stad-een-uur-wachten-op-iemand-die-nederlands-kon-2019-09-15 https://www.bruzz.be/samenleving/geboorteaangifte-brussel-st...
- dasanman 7y ago
  Its not in the alphabet tho
- bouke 7y ago
  Even though ij often fills a single square in puzzle, it is not a character in the Dutch alphabet. It is sometimes incorrectly assumed to be in place of y (y is only used for foreign words). It is a combination of i and j, but has special uppercasing rules in that they are uppercased together; e.g. IJzer (iron). There's even a Unicode codepoint assigned as well: ĳ (U+0133 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE IJ), although its use is discouraged. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_(digraph) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_(digraph) and https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_(digraaf) https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_(digraaf).
  - Vinnl 7y ago
    > There's even a Unicode codepoint assigned as well: ĳ (U+0133 LATIN SMALL LIGATURE IJ) And that codepoint was actually massively helpful to represent the ij-as-single-letter in the practice application: https://lingo.vincenttunru.com https://lingo.vincenttunru.com
  - mcv 7y ago

yellow_lead 7y ago

Looks like a lot of fun. Was the word that went viral the one with the "IJ" letter? Forgive my ignorance of Dutch.

Vinnl 7y ago
It was! And the one that went viral includes an "ij" indeed, though it's a regular vowel sound in Dutch, similar to "oa" in English, so it occurs in many words.
Noumenon72 7y ago
Why would a word go viral?
- Vinnl 7y ago
  One of the three best six-letter words starting with a "k" was what amounts to the Dutch version of "bitch". You usually say what word you are going to play before spelling it out, but to avoid having to say this word out loud -and as a joke, of course- my brother said "my ex-partner" before spelling that word.
  - twic 7y ago
    That was an eye-opener. I don't think you'd use a word like that on a UK gameshow. I'm not sure how the producers would react if you did. Mind you, Countdown, in which a series of random letters are placed onto a board, has had its moments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTrSUiHm4YY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTrSUiHm4YY
    - Vinnl 7y ago
      I don't think most Dutch people wouldn't either (I was reluctant to do it), but I guess in practice, it's really not that big of a deal. There weren't any explicit rules about it, and it's a valid word that's listed in the dictionary. And in the end, I'm sure it's one of the most-viewed episodes they've had so far. Here's the most legendary word ever spelled at this game, which can be understood even by people who speak English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7qxpAUKy4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7qxpAUKy4c Given the examples you showed at Countdown, I'd expect it to be perfectly possible on a UK game show as well?

ptspts 7y ago

How does the one-week winning streak compare to the longest one ever achieved?

Vinnl 7y ago
The show recently changed its format so that people who win are allowed to come back the next day, so the longest one ever just happened to have been set the week before - they took part in eleven episodes. We certainly weren't the best ones ever, partly due to our own ability to find the correct words even when many letters are given, and partly due to luck playing a significant role in the actual game. (I didn't go into the luck-based elements in the post, because our strategy couldn't influence that.)

Matticus_Rex 7y ago

Love it! I'm learning Dutch in preparation for a move to the Netherlands next year, and I'm tempted to make this a goal just to feed my competitive nature. And also, you've just given a lot of people blueprints for doing well, so you might actually make the game harder for teams on average. Go you!

pottertheotter 7y ago
I'm curious, where are you moving from? And what's taking you there?
- Matticus_Rex 7y ago
  The US. My wife and I work remotely (for the same company), and we have to travel to Amsterdam a couple of times a year (at minimum) for work. She fell in love with it, and I'm interested in the adventure (and it's a great city). It would also be useful for work for us to be there, though not necessary by any means.

arduinomancer 7y ago

Really cool. How much did you guys win?

Vinnl 7y ago
Thanks. I detailed our wins here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21801310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21801310 tl;dr We mostly did this for fun.

rvanmil 7y ago

Hilarious, love seeing this on HN =) Thanks for the write up!

NiekvdMaas 7y ago

I saw Andries a couple of weeks ago at a comedy night in Utrecht. His demonstration of memorization of "best" words was impressive!

ricc 7y ago

Did you come across the word “Tnetennba”?

Vinnl 7y ago
The words were limited to five- or six-letter words, and I only took words that occurred more than 500 times in the data set - otherwise I probably would have!

contactlight11 7y ago

Here is my version of this game I made in early high school a couple years back. So, please forgive the crudeness... https://jondolan.io/fives/ https://jondolan.io/fives/ I did not know of this game at the time, but I did hear from people that it was basically Mastermind with words (although I have not played that). The inspiration was a teacher of mine who used to work as a nuclear technician and when he had the graveyard shift, he would play the game with the other technician on duty over the phone.

lonelappde 7y ago
It's originally called Jotto, and Mastermind is a generalization/de-specification of it that came later. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jotto https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jotto

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Cpoll 7y ago

"My first guess is 'actor'" Should that be 'actors'?

Vinnl 7y ago
Ah, you are right, I'll fix it right away. Thanks for reporting it!

ggggtez 7y ago

I was most disappointed that Google couldn't translate the words from Dutch. Random other site got it right away.