WITWIS 2013 - Round 8
Final Round. This will likely be the only clue.
Stabguy has driven about 335 km to his next destination.
+300 points for making a guess.
-1 point (negative!) for each km of driving distance between your answer and the correct answer.
+150 points for the correct answer.
+100 points for the first correct answer.
-1 point (negative!) for each km of driving distance between your answer and the correct answer.
Nice one!
put in a guess... probably wrong...
if it's 145 km or closer to being right, I win though...
let's hope I chose the right direction...
note: if stabguy went to that area of the world, and didn't go to [redacted], i will be disappointed in him. i guessed [redacted] about 3 times.
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
I like my guess. Cheese and Gerund, I hear Stabguy is interested in exploring Taiwan at the end of this trip...
I'm tempted to purposely get the answer wrong just so I would have a negative point total. 
This round closes in 20 hours, and then Stabguy will be on his way home.
The final round was a roller coaster ride, and it's been killing me to wait for the round to end so that I could share what unfolded. Before I start, let's recap the points of the leaders going into this round:
Cheese - 2100
Gerund - 1704
Methodical - 1500
Cheese has a substantial lead, and the points system for Round 8 favors him strongly. I had predicted that the most realistic way for him to lose (however improbable) was if Gerund correctly answered first (for a final score of 2254), and if Cheese was more than 146 km off target (for a final score no more than 2253).
The first guess in Round 8 came from Gerund, correctly answering with (verbatim):
Desperate guess: Heidelberg, Germany
My jaw hit the floor. He was in the suddenly in the lead with 2254 points, a stone toss away from pulling off an incredible upset. Cheese responded 21 minutes later with "Stuttgart, Germany," which is 120 km from Heidelberg. Cheese came away with 2280 points, narrowly beating out Gerund by a 1% margin of merely 26 points... But it's not over.
Cheese later changes his answer to "Bolzano, Italy", which is 545 km away from Heidelberg! His score plummets to 1855, and Gerund manages the upset! But it's STILL not over!
Gerund changes his answer to "Augsburg", Germany, which is 275 km from Heidelberg. His score drops to 1729, and Cheese wins again! Here are the final standings:
Cheese - 1855
Gerund - 1729
Methodical - 1366 (Innsbruck)
Congrats to Cheese for winning consecutive WITWIS games. I'd like to offer a big thanks to Gerund who did a fantastic job of reading my mind on several of these problems, and also to Methodical for keeping Cheese and Gerund on their toes.
In case anyone is wondering... Heidelberg is 337 km from Lucerne (actually a little less - for whatever reason, Google starts the trip at the lake border in Lucerne and ends with a U turn in Heidelberg). Most importantly, Heidelberg is only 86 km from Frankfurt International Airport, which is the airport Stabguy landed in for Round 1, and where he rented the car that he drove for the rest of the trip. (Yes, he needs to take it back - at least to the same country.)
Another hint is that the trip from Interlaken to Heidelberg pretty much takes you past Lucerne, so the order of Interlaken and Lucerne can be exchanged in the itinerary with no significant ramifications, which is why Stabguy "backtracked" to Lucerne for Round 7.
Ahh, I went with Innsbruck because it has an international airport and the two routes Google provides average out to 335km exactly.
Oh well. Thanks for the fun and entertainment. Hope you had fun, Stabguy! And Ian, great job with the puzzles, way to keep them super open-ended so we had lots of choices to make.
NOOOOOOOOOOO! So close...
I was just randomly dragging the destination marker around Google maps, dropping it on (major) cities and checking the travel distance. I was like: Heidelberg, 337 km, this is a possible winner. But for some reason I wasn't too sure about it. That's EXACLTY why I send in Heidelberg as 1st guess, because I was desperate and figured I had to take some risk in order to have a shot at winning this.
But, as I said, I wasn't sure, and I later changed it to Augsburg because I believe it has a big airport, and stabguy needed to get home somehow. I can understand why you couldn't wait for this round to be over, so you could tell us.
I had a blast playing the game. I really enjoyed it. Therefore I want to thank you, Ian, for making the challenges. And of course, a big German/Austrian/back-to-German/Liechtenstein/Swiss/back-to-German-again gratuliere to Cheese. Well done, absolutely deserved the win.
This was fantastic... I first thought Heidelberg on the way to Frankfurt, but decided he didn't HAVE to fly out of the same airport. Because of my earlier assumptions of him taking a train, I had assumed he had changed cars already once. Like TMA, I noticed Innsbruck had two routes averaging 335 km and had an international airport. I was sure he was going to Innsbruck at this time, but went with Bolzano because it was EXACTLY 335 km on google maps (and within 146 km of Innsbruck... where I thought he had a good shot at being).
As I won last year, I would like to defer my "prize" (if there is one) to gerund for being a fantastic competitor!
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
You guys are world class in sportsmanship. It was fun hosting WITWIS, and I'm so glad to hear that you guys enjoyed playing.
This is what I felt after round 8.
As I won last year, I would like to defer my "prize" (if there is one) to gerund for being a fantastic competitor!
Or you could give that to the one who got last place. 
But then again, seeing that I actually participated and got points, I did better than the 978 members who have zero points. 
Stabguy... answer me this.
How can you, a waterfall guy, go to Germany/Switzerland... and NOT go to the largest waterfall in continental Europe?
Rhine Falls at Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Switzerland.
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
How can you, a waterfall guy, go to Germany/Switzerland... and NOT go to the largest waterfall in continental Europe?
You mean this waterfall?
You're kind of getting ahead of my story, but we broke up the long drives by stopping at sights along the way. Rhine Falls was on the way from Lucerne to Heidelberg.
Glad to hear it!
I guessed Neuhusen 3 times, I think.... only to change it later.
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
Spoiler-evading Gerund is back (no, people don't actually call me that) to show what will decorate the christmas tree next month.
Thanks again everyone! You can return to playing your awesome new video game now, while I sit here quietly sobbing until at least November 22nd. Carry on and I'll see you later.