Best player I've ever seen

Discuss Quiz Machines here..
User avatar
grecian
Senior Member
Posts: 1631
Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 11:03 am
Location: Near London

Post by grecian »

Re QM's comments: all quite true. My comments about giving up machining were not really serious although I do feel rather shell-shocked, by the violence of the light after the blinkers have been lifted, to use your analogy. As you say London is a big place: I've never seen anyone before whom I thought "that person is miles better than me" but of course I might just not have noticed them. I'm very much a (3) man on your Taylor scale - I'd like to be a (2) man but, like Cool's example, I'm lucky enough to have a reasonably-paid job, a mortgage and a wife and no doubt in future a family, all of which militates against the 12 hour a day playing I think I'd need over several years to begin getting anywhere up to Suri's level.
cool
Senior Member
Posts: 1409
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2006 11:04 pm

Post by cool »

paranoid existence- slightly. Say you knew a way of winning on a machine nobody else knew, you wouldnt want to share it.That has happened to me in the past , so I was always looking over my shoulder.
However nowadays I just dont like people bothering me when Im playing- anybody, even my girlfriend. I become a different person when I play. Its like a comedian who is rarely like their public persona.
Wolfy isnt Hyena although they know each other. Hyena is not in the same league as Wolf although he is more travelled. Suri knows Wolfie well and presumably Hyena too.
User avatar
grecian
Senior Member
Posts: 1631
Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 11:03 am
Location: Near London

Post by grecian »

Are Wolf and London's number one player one and the same then?
cool
Senior Member
Posts: 1409
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2006 11:04 pm

Post by cool »

No Mr Wolf has scaled down his operations over the last couple of years.
I can say he is the best Ive ever seen as Ive never watched anybody else in action! The London players have to be very sharp as there is so much competition. Under intense pressure you crack or have to up your game. London itself is not a barren wasteland laid bare by the pro's as I used to know people who caught the train up from Bournemouth and still made plenty of dosh.
User avatar
Istenem
Senior Member
Posts: 5918
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 2:42 pm
Location: the nation's capital
Contact:

Post by Istenem »

i only ever play in London, i do okay. as has been said, it is a big place.

it seems fair to say that my quizzing skills are well below those of Grecian, let alone Suri, Wolf etc. so it is a wonder that i can still pay for my beers.

in the past i have encountered two different players for whom JP on a (Q&A) game of their choosing was routine. this was impressive but neither of them had an aura of genius. on the other hand i have met two other people who tootled along collecting the odd few quid who had a very impressive intellect.

maybe it is in the interests of top pros to shield their erudition.
nobody ever wins on those things.
cool
Senior Member
Posts: 1409
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2006 11:04 pm

Post by cool »

Its horses for courses. If I played an egghead at a quiz machine of my choosing I would wipe the floor with them, however if I played them at a pub quiz they would wipe the floor with me. A top quiz machine player needs to know what isnt the right answer , a top quizzer needs to know what IS the right answer. A machine player needs only to learn a programme they dont need to have a wide general knowledge. I only learn what I need to know to make me money.
User avatar
Nil Satis
Senior Member
Posts: 1497
Joined: Fri Jan 27, 2006 6:55 pm
Location: South East

Post by Nil Satis »

unknownpseudonym wrote:in the past i have encountered two different players for whom JP on a (Q&A) game of their choosing was routine. this was impressive but neither of them had an aura of genius.
I have only ever attained that level once (ignoring a few early basic games like Blockbuster and QuizMaster) and that was on the Pepsi Chart Quiz, which is now sadly all but extinct. I didn't knowingly encounter any fellow Fruitchatter during the time when that was around but to any hovering punters it certainly might have looked like witchcraft, whereas instead it was basically a process of starting with a good base of music knowledge anyway, so that I wasn't losing a lot in the early days of the game, and then building on that by remembering the ones I got wrong and occasionally looking up a few things in order to memorise them.

The difference between this and being a true pro is somehow finding the time and ability to repeat this 'rote learning' for one new game after another. What I find hard to believe is that anyone can realistically do this for a game with a separate spoiler set, which is basically 90% of current games. The Pepsi game didn't have one of these, other than subjects you were weak on which you could choose to avoid (in my case Rap and Dance), so that wasn't really an issue.

Either the select few have a simply enormous intellect and can remember the spoilers they get wrong as well as the 'normal' questions or they concentrate their time on games which aren't so infected by them, which is what I do in the limited time I have available for playing games.
cool
Senior Member
Posts: 1409
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2006 11:04 pm

Post by cool »

True! and remember having no commitment to work I can spend hrs every day learning my favourite games. A week without playing and the answers start to seep away. With regards to a savant (mentioned) earlier how long does the information learned stay in their brain? Nobody has brought up speed of recall , probably as its not so important nowadays. I knew a guy who certainly didnt know every question on esc , yet on the second section he was amazing.
Hangmanfan
Member
Posts: 76
Joined: Thu Aug 17, 2006 12:52 pm
Location: Cumbria

Post by Hangmanfan »

I believe if a savant wants to, he/she can remember everything ever learned (or at least in a particular field).
There are examples of savants who can tell you what the weather was like on any given day since their first memory. There is also at least one savant who remembers every car registration plate he sees; he could see a car today for example, and know that he once saw it in 1999.
They could apply their skills to winning on SWPs if they really wanted to, but with the prevalence of mental/physical retardation in savants I'd never expect one to be an avid SWP player :(
Image
User avatar
Scott
Senior Member
Posts: 7086
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2006 6:06 pm
Location: Out and about

Post by Scott »

reminds me of that guy who if you told him your date of birth he would tell you the day you were born on in an instant. rain man was based on him i think.
Cobwebs 👆
User avatar
Istenem
Senior Member
Posts: 5918
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 2:42 pm
Location: the nation's capital
Contact:

Post by Istenem »

kim peek i think.
nobody ever wins on those things.
User avatar
Scott
Senior Member
Posts: 7086
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2006 6:06 pm
Location: Out and about

Post by Scott »

thats the fellow :wink:
Cobwebs 👆
keegan
Junior Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2007 9:08 pm
Location: North London

Post by keegan »

Grecian, a trip down memory lane for me!!

I have been looking at this site for a couple of days (the quiz machine threads) just out of interest cause yes, thats how I made my living in the early nineties. Used to empty skillcashes, timemachines(same question set), inquizitor, concentration, turnover..... etc. but gave up when I continually found myself finding empty machines or bumping into other pros doing the same thing!!

Havin met loads on the road (Phil - St Albans, Neil - St Albans, Dave - Brum, Paddy Spooner - B'Mouth to mention a few) and found all to be very bright there was one Guy who really stood out - his name was Suri and he operated out of London - we used to trade machines that we couldnt do/barred from etc..

He had sligthly darkened skin, knew all the answers(Nearly) and was a very pleasant and personable to talk too - he said he had a job at the time and was not pro but he didn't need one I tell you!!

If it is the same guy and he can still do the business on todays machines he must be without doubt one of the best quizzers around!! He must of made a LOT of money.

Keegan.
Mattb
Senior Member
Posts: 5809
Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 2:43 pm
Location: Cambridge

Post by Mattb »

Welcome to fruitchat keegan 8)

Time machine.....what an oldie! There's still an original one based here in a British Legion mens club! :shock: Bet you could make a few quid there!
"Sixty percent of the time, it works, every time!"
keegan
Junior Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2007 9:08 pm
Location: North London

Post by keegan »

Yes MattB,

I do feel old now (at 3 8) if only I had a real time machine to get me back there!! Do the lights still work on it? They were always duff!!

The mahcines were easy then - 10 MB hard drive, 286 processor(Probably), 10,000 questions roughly in the vaults and they played a reduced set of usually obscure questions once they were hammered - although you had to get 50 odd correct on the trott they were still do-oable if not stressfull and you could gaurantee £50 in one hour unless the tubes were empty!!

Is it still the same today? - With the advances in technology I feel not. However, I do go to lots of pubs still - usually to repay my profits of yesteryears in the form of bar bills, play the boxes occasionally and will post anything of worthiness that I come across - perhaps I could call Suri when I get stuck but I lost his number years ago!!

Keegan
Locked