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World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

theguardian.com

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Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#21

Post by silisili »

bee_rider wrote: post #12

It seems like a bad move to have a participant responsible for drilling the holes and attaching the strings. Also I don’t understand the one paragraph aside about the American who is never mentioned before or after(?)

The guy the article is about won the men's. At the end, the men's champ plays the women's champ for overall champion.

This American mentioned was the women's champ, who apparently went on to beat him. Which either means he wasn't cheating, or was and then played fairly on the last match?

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#22

Post by boomboomsubban »

bee_rider wrote: post #12

It seems like a bad move to have a participant responsible for drilling the holes and attaching the strings. Also I don’t understand the one paragraph aside about the American who is never mentioned before or after(?)

>It seems like a bad move to have a participant responsible for drilling the holes and attaching the strings.

It is probably the kind of event where the only people who would be willing to do the timely prep work are the contestants.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#24

Post by butterfly42069 »

CJefferson wrote: post #20
bee_rider wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the game is to test who has the stronger conker by hitting them into each-other?

Yes, that's it. The reason I think this game is so popular is horse chestnut trees are very popular in the UK. For about a month each year, where I grew up the ground would be littered with conkers, both on my route to school and on school grounds. It's natural when walking around to try to find particularly large / impressive looking ones.

[flagged]

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#26

Post by thatguymike »

I'm surprised they pick their conkers out of a bag. The whole fun when I was a kid was competing for who could find the toughest conker. Common cheating methods included putting it through the tumble dryer to dry it out (Mum didn't love that) or soaking in vinegar. If you're pulling conkers out of a bag I think each match is basically a coin flip, unless there's much more technique I'm missing?

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#27

Post by aniforprez »

School-Cotton wrote: post #18
bee_rider wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 23-year-old said: “My conker disintegrated in one hit, and that just doesn’t happen … I’m suspicious of foul play and have expressed my surprise to organisers.” It seems the suspicious was pretty quick.

It’s just crazy that someone would cheat at something so low-stakes with such a high probability of being caught, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

People cheat on online cooperative computer games like Helldivers with almost no rewards for being performatively better other than a few imaginary in-game points. People can be weird about the smallest things

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#28

Post by penjelly »

silisili wrote: post #21
bee_rider wrote: post #12

It seems like a bad move to have a participant responsible for drilling the holes and attaching the strings. Also I don’t understand the one paragraph aside about the American who is never mentioned before or after(?)

The guy the article is about won the men's. At the end, the men's champ plays the women's champ for overall champion. This American mentioned was the women's champ, who apparently went on to beat him. Which either means he wasn't cheating, or was and then played fairly on the last match?

I assume he wouldn't cheat everytime and instead would only do it to reduce the overall wear on the chestnut over many matches?
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