creighton carvello

cool · Post by **cool** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 12:36 am

In the Times obituary section today report on the death of a 'memory man'.Incredible feats but if this guy had turned his hand to SWP'S he could have cleaned up.Why dont people like this do machines?Similarly Kevin Ashman even had a machine (itbox) in his local but never played it,although I doubt he is 'gifted' in the same way but an incredible hard worker.

Houston · Post by **Houston** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 12:48 am

I've often wondered why people with brilliant memories don't do this either.

There's a manager in a Kent Corals bookies that used to be a pro quizzer years ago, but he doesn't like to speak about it anymore which I found strange. Seemed to be more as if he was embarrased about the whole thing.

cp999 · Post by **cp999** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 10:42 am

re Kevin Ashman: his sort of quizzing and our sort of quizzing are related, but different, skills. There are plenty standard quiz machine "facts" that fall outside what I would imagine to be his remit of data (things like Elvis's army number, the number Roger Bannister wore when running the 4-min mile, etc, etc). I would imagine that the knowledge base with which a good pro starts when first playing new machine X is probably better than the base he would start from, purely because it's more appropriate to the task in hand.

cool · Post by **cool** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 11:57 am

I bumped into a ex semi-pro called Chris in Aldershot this week who made a reasonable stash of money in the late 80's-he would make a regular rail trip to Gatwick to do the machines.There were more gamers than players there at one point I imagine.There seems to be a lot of people who failed to make the jump into pro-gaming then even though it is probably easier to make a living from them now.You dont tend to get machines cleaned out today.However,it can be a lot more tedious with winning a couple of pounds here and there adding up.

cool · Post by **cool** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 11:58 am

re Kevin Ashman I would love to know why he didnt get into machines-if anybody meets him please ask!

cp999 · Post by **cp999** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 12:24 pm

I don't know how reliable this info is, because the source is a bit of a notorious bullshitter. A friend of mine who used to live in London and had civil service friends said that Kevin Ashman knew a pro player but that in general he looked down on them (I wasn't told why).

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 11:16 am

That's a good spot re Creighton Carvello Cool - I remember him being mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records when I was young. Rather sad that he's died quite young - and the story about his lying prone for four days after a stroke was very sad too.

As someone who plays a fair amount of both "our sort of quizzing" (i.e. quiz machines) and Kevin Ashman's "sort of quizzing" (I compete in the same quiz league as him and at a lot of the same non-televised weekend tournaments that he competes in), I do agree that it is an oddity that most of the leading lights of quizzing (including Kevin) generally do not seem to play SWPs at all.

To discuss Kevin specifically, I think cp999's story is likely to have been mangled somewhere along the route - everyone who meets Kevin remarks on how nice he is and I find it difficult to imagine him looking down on anyone, let alone someone who had achieved excellence in a field (SWPing) so close to Kevin's own. I'm not sure why Kevin doesn't play SWPs but it may be related to the reason why he never invested in any cash in an effort to get on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (before he became an Egghead that is; I suspect he'd be banned from WWTBAM now). Kevin's never really played the quiz game for cash, I don't think, and I can't remember his having been on a big cash prize show - rather, he's focused on the prestige but not prizes titles (Mastermind; Brain of Britain; Fifteen to One). He strikes me as quite a cautious and careful man and (I speculate) may not feel comfortable spending reasonable sums of cash for an inherently risky pay-off.

Or it may be this - that, whilst the skills needed for top-level SWPing and top-level GK quizzing are actually pretty similar, I'm not sure that anyone has the capacity to pursue both to the highest level at the same time. That is to say, if Kevin wished to pursue SWPs to a standard of excellence, I suggest he would have to accept that his top-level GK quizzing might decline. It's the difference between trying to capture the whole (undefined) field of knowledge to an appropriate level of depth (which is needed at top-level GK quizzing) as against trying to capture a specific and defined field of knowledge (i.e. SWP databanks) running from the very easy to the arcanely difficult - and I'd have thought there's a trade-off between the two. I suspect that if Kevin took up SWPing as a sideline he would pretty soon reach, say, my standard (i.e. that of a reasonably good non-professional), but I suspect he might struggle ever to reach, say, Suri's standards, unless he (Kevin) was prepared to begin to sacrifice his wider GK skills. And similarly I'd imagine that if (say) Suri pitched up at a weekend GK tournament, he'd finish well, but I'd be very doubtful he'd win it (and again, I'm sure Suri could work at it and do so in time if he was prepared to let his SWP skills decline). Perhaps Kevin et al realise this and have made a decision of the field they want to achieve true excellence in, and have accordingly sacrificed possible rewards in other fields to do so.

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 11:47 am

A couple of other factors are speed and subject matter. I have attended a few of the more formal weekend events and I find that I am usually finished with about 20 minutes to go. This isn't because I know all the answers (far from it!) but rather that after years of playing quiz machines I tend to either know things straight away or not at all.

As for subject matter, quiz machine questions tend to be far more up-to-date and 'trivial' than questions at more formal events - you aren't ever likely to be asked about soap operas, Britney Spears and so on at those. The type of knowledge needed is quite different.

cp999 · Post by **cp999** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 12:17 pm

I could believe that my story is mangled - it's third-hand info, and it's from a long time ago (thinking about it further, someone deliberately IOUing a Wizemove was part of the story).

I don't think it is that surprising if he doesn't play quiz machines - an hour or so's play on machines (of any generation) would surely establish that there are a fair amount of questions which do not come under conventional "general knowledge". And I'm far from convinced that it would be a good idea for someone who is very serious about quizzing to start trying to fill their brain with spoiler questions.

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 2:40 pm

cp999 wrote: I don't think it is that surprising if he doesn't play quiz machines - an hour or so's play on machines (of any generation) would surely establish that there are a fair amount of questions which do not come under conventional "general knowledge". And I'm far from convinced that it would be a good idea for someone who is very serious about quizzing to start trying to fill their brain with spoiler questions.

Yes, CP - my point exactly. There's a lot in the SWP realm that isn't GK, and equally a lot of GK which happens not to have been asked by SWPs but can and does come up frequently in GK quizzes. As you say, to reach top status at one of them probably means spending too long on the other is a bad idea.

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 5:39 pm

i can quite understand the point that achieving brilliance in SWP or GK is of only finite usefulness in the other discipline, but surely there is more common ground than this board seems prepared to acknowledge? notwithstanding gamebreakers and 'being right vs not getting it wrong', the basic skills are the same. maybe motivation and bookishness need to be factored in.
usain bolt does 100m because he feels he should do it really but he considers himself a 200m runner who dabbles. he is still the world champion at his sideline. likewise, an exceptional GK player would be able to adapt to SWP pretty easily, if he or she had the inclination. similarly top SWP players would expect to do pretty well solo in a respected quiz

(taking Ashman as an example as a top GK exponent: )
maybe KA doesn't identify himself with SWP and that's that. he's good at what he does and his motivation is in improving his own discipline. if so, i'd suggest this is a noble attitude. maybe he gets more joy from learning something new than proving that he already knows something.
maybe he doesn't like pubs or cherishes whatever time he spends in the boozer as time away from the day job. KA is clearly aware that people can make money from SWP but it seems that he is not motivated by money, this would be borne out by Grecian's comments about his TV/radio appearances being on prestigious shows rather than vulgar ones offering megabucks.

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 6:24 pm

Istenem - I quite agree there is a lot of common ground - see my "actually pretty similar" remark above. Any of the top ten GK players in the country could, I believe, start playing SWPs today, and be proficient enough to consistently turn a profit within a few months - and perhaps sooner. Likewise I suspect the best SWPists (taking Suri as an example, as he's the one I've seen in action) could, I am sure, start competing in GK events and pretty quickly be among the better players in, say the London/Merseyside Quiz Leagues, or in the Quizzing.co.uk Grand Prix circuit. The point I was making was really about being among the very best in either discipline - and to do that I do believe one would have to specialise.

There's probably something in your comments re Ashman's drive to improve: he obviously is fascinated by most of what life has to offer and I'm sure that for him learning is a ceaseless and enjoyable thing. I'm sure he loves to compete, but he certainly loves to learn new stuff as well.

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 6:29 pm

There's obviously quite a well-developed circuit for memory skills: see e.g. http://web.aanet.com.au/memorysports/home.php . I think there's probably a lot of crossover between that sort of thing and top-level SWP ability (perhaps more so than between top-level GK ability and top-level SWP ability). Are any of the big memory skills guys SWPists on the side I wonder? Anyone in this forum dabble in memory skills stuff? My total failure to use any kind of organised mnemonic devices is probably (certainly) the weakest part of my game...

cp999 · Post by **cp999** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 7:12 pm

I think it's obvious that Kevin Ashman would be good at SWPs in exactly the same way any good SWP player is good at pub quizzes, but I'm not sure that's even close to the full picture.

If my info is correct, and he had contact with a serious player, then he is likely to have an understanding of what a pro lifestyle entails, and frankly I don't think it would appeal to many people. In his position, I would choose to be really good at one field and not waste time dabbling in the other. I could completely understand it if his view was that he already has a good job/income stream, doesn't need to make money on the side, and would rather pursue quizzing excellence for its own sake. What is ultimately a greater achievement - highest ever Mastermind score or having won £1m over many years on SWPs?

re memory skills: I think card counting is probably a better (albeit mind-numbingly boring) outlet.

QuizMaster · Post by **QuizMaster** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 7:23 pm

As an inverse argument to this thread, one of the best SWP players I ever knew (in the sense that he could empty certain machines within 30 minutes of being served a drink, such was his instant recall on spoilers) did not know the following:

1/ Who is the lead singer of Queen (we're going back a bit)

2/ With which soap would you associate the character Bet Lynch.

I was dumbfounded - he geniunely did not know.

I also know somebody who is heavily into science (fact and trivia) and linguistics (he is a big help on new question banks), but he doesn't know which football team play at Old Trafford.

QM