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GU and I were discussing the possibility of a third 'twist' round in this year's championship, and the option of including Zone 3 was mooted.

Looking through some previous R15 posts, I see that there was also a mention during last year's championship of having a 'twist' round where the stations must be visited in the order generated.

Thoughts?

That would take a long time! Looking at yesterdays stations, to visit them in order would probably have taken 7-8 hours or more.

Another possible twist is to generate a list of 20 stations, and you can choose which 15 to visit.

greatkingrat wrote:Another possible twist is to generate a list of 20 stations, and you can choose which 15 to visit.

I like that idea!

al wrote:

greatkingrat wrote:Another possible twist is to generate a list of 20 stations, and you can choose which 15 to visit.

I like that idea!

I'm liking that too!

Although maybe my judgement is clouded, having tried it out with Matt's R15 generator and being able to get a route involving simply:

Mile End - Bow Road
Bow Road - Wimbledon
Wimbledon - South Wimbledon
South Wimbledon - Elephant & Castle
Elephant & Castle - Willesden Junction

I personally like the inclusion of Zone 3, kept to 15 stations...

I think it would be good to include a third twist in the championship,a nd the obvious round for it would be round 5 (have a twist every other round). I think it would be good to include zone 3 stations, however I'm a little concerned that this would make the challenge overlong - the idea of the R15 is that it can be completed within a couple of hours, and I don't know if adding zone 3 (particularly if we get stations at the opposite ends of zone 3) would end up with times of 6 hours or more.

I think it would be good at some stage to do a round including both LO and the DLR (basically all of the TfL modes of train transport within zones 1 and 2). I don't know if we want to do LO and DLR again in the same season though. Perhaps reserve this for next year's championship (although that means we would have one more twist to think up than if we did the LO and DLR separately if we presume we want 3 twists in 6 rounds).

I suppose we could consider the Tramlink (the other TfL mode) but that is not in zones 1 and 2. We could though do a round including tube stations in zones 1 and 2 and all stations in the Tramlink. There are a number of connections to Central London from the Tramlink by NR (including LO at West Croydon) as well as the District Line at Wimbledon. I suppose we could start at, say, East Croydon to guarantee Tramlink inclusion, although we might find that people all end up taking the same train together towards Central London.

I think it might be best to get a few ideas and then vote on them.

[quote="JoeGJ1984"]I think it would be good at some stage to do a round including both LO and the DLR (basically all of the TfL modes of train transport within zones 1 and 2). quote]

Yes Joe This was another idea I was mulling over and quite like the sound of

Some good ideas here, keep them coming, we have plenty of time before we need to put this to the vote.
There are lots of twists you could do. Maybe something like a lucky dip round could be fun where everyone starts from the same point but have envelopes with different sets of stations. Also instead of visiting all the stations in order maybe just make it that you have to visit the last station on the list last (i.e. you cannot pass through it before making it your last station to visit).

Soup Dragon wrote:Some good ideas here, keep them coming, we have plenty of time before we need to put this to the vote.
There are lots of twists you could do. Maybe something like a lucky dip round could be fun where everyone starts from the same point but have envelopes with different sets of stations. Also instead of visiting all the stations in order maybe just make it that you have to visit the last station on the list last (i.e. you cannot pass through it before making it your last station to visit).

With the lucky dip idea how would you make it fair for all teams?

It's possible that one team could get a route akin to Round 3, whilst another gets a nice sub-two-hour route.

uefacup81 wrote:

Soup Dragon wrote:Some good ideas here, keep them coming, we have plenty of time before we need to put this to the vote.
There are lots of twists you could do. Maybe something like a lucky dip round could be fun where everyone starts from the same point but have envelopes with different sets of stations. Also instead of visiting all the stations in order maybe just make it that you have to visit the last station on the list last (i.e. you cannot pass through it before making it your last station to visit).

With the lucky dip idea how would you make it fair for all teams?

It's possible that one team could get a route akin to Round 3, whilst another gets a nice sub-two-hour route.

That's the twist, the fact that it's a lucky dip could result in exactly that scenario.

Soup Dragon wrote:

uefacup81 wrote:

Soup Dragon wrote:Some good ideas here, keep them coming, we have plenty of time before we need to put this to the vote.
There are lots of twists you could do. Maybe something like a lucky dip round could be fun where everyone starts from the same point but have envelopes with different sets of stations. Also instead of visiting all the stations in order maybe just make it that you have to visit the last station on the list last (i.e. you cannot pass through it before making it your last station to visit).

With the lucky dip idea how would you make it fair for all teams?

It's possible that one team could get a route akin to Round 3, whilst another gets a nice sub-two-hour route.

That's the twist, the fact that it's a lucky dip could result in exactly that scenario.

Interesting idea. Maybe it could be made into somewhat of a catch-up round?

Take the different sets and have someone independent sort them according to 'difficulty'. Then you could distribute the sets depending upon championship position; First position gets the hardest, second the second hardest and so on...

I believe that the 15 out of 20 challenge would probably have the same degree of difficulty, however the difficulty moves (back) from the independent scrutiniser to the challenger themselves. Do we really want a tube challenge to transfer from a definitive test of speed, skill, and mental aptitude to a subjective assessment of difficulty?

Personally I do not.

I'd also add that dropping 5 stations may be too many, but don't want to definitively state this until a 15 from 20 is at least trailed.

Mitchell&BrownLook wrote:I believe that the 15 out of 20 challenge would probably have the same degree of difficulty, however the difficulty moves (back) from the independent scrutiniser to the challenger themselves. Do we really want a tube challenge to transfer from a definitive test of speed, skill, and mental aptitude to a subjective assessment of difficulty?

Personally I do not.

I'd also add that dropping 5 stations may be too many, but don't want to definitively state this until a 15 from 20 is at least trailed.

Well here's a list of 20 generated from scrxisi's site. What do you make of it?

Aldgate East
Vauxhall
Swiss Cottage
Queen's Park
Gloucester Road
Edgware Road [Cir/Dis/H&C]
Canary Wharf (Jubilee)
Manor House
Liverpool Street
Shepherd's Bush Market
North Acton
Bermondsey
Lancaster Gate
Bond Street
Warwick Avenue
West Hampstead (Jubilee)
Willesden Green
East Acton
Clapham North
Angel

===

Another thought is to perhaps keep 15 stations but to impose a time limit - for example, two hours - the challenge would then be to visit as many of the 15 within the time allocated.

We do have a time limit challenge already, (whose name I can't remember) and that's the most stations from the entirety of the Tube, and not just the most stations from a list of 20.

Now you've produced this list James, I like the 15 from 20 concept even more! In this example (assuming an Aldgate East start) North Acton and East Acton looks somewhat unappealing, as does Manor House. But beside this, you've the problem of cutting either the Jubilee line (Swiss Cottage, West Hampstead & Willesden Green) or the Bakerloo line's extremities or Clapham North. Even the Acton's could be kept - they aren't exactly very far from Shepherd's Bush Market!

I vote for this, and as soon as possible!

Soup Dragon wrote:Some good ideas here, keep them coming, we have plenty of time before we need to put this to the vote.
There are lots of twists you could do. Maybe something like a lucky dip round could be fun where everyone starts from the same point but have envelopes with different sets of stations.

I believe I suggested this a while ago... and was shot down in flames for doing so! (the unfairness aspect being the main thing...)

Another possible idea (though not sure how it could be 'administered') is to do it in order, but you don't know what the stations are until you get there (ie, using uefa's generated 20, you start at Aldgate East, travel to Vauxhall, but it's not until you get to Vauxhall that you know that you then need to head to Swiss Cottage. (And what an annoying start that would be...))