Romy Holland
Guess 3,123
Off by 188
Error 5.7%
🥈 2nd
Liam Cochrane
3,500 — off by 189 (5.7%)
🥉 3rd
Sean Spriggers
3,550 — off by 239 (7.2%)
4th
Ronny
3,071 — off by 240 (7.2%)
5th
Michael Lipman
3,000 — off by 311 (9.4%)
01
The Numbers
Average · incl. zeros
3,171.9
All 60 numeric guesses, protest zeros included — off by 139.1 (4.2%)
Average · excl. zeros
3,281.2
58 sincere guesses — off by just 29.8 (0.9%). The crowd is wise.
Median
2,361.5
2,410 excluding zeros. Half the field guessed under ~2.4k
Total entries
62
60 numeric (56 human, 4 AI) · 1 meta-guess · 1 written complaint
Range
305–17.5k
A 57× spread between smallest and largest sincere guess
Std. deviation
±3,203
Excluding zeros — the long right tail did this
Under vs. over
43 / 17
72% of guessers lowballed the jar
Most popular guess
1,200
Guessed 3× (plus two 1,001s, two 5,000s, two 6,000s)
02
The Shape of the Crowd
Distribution of guesses
Bins of 500 · the red line marks the true count, 3,311 · hover any bar for the names in it
Every guess on the line
Logarithmic scale · hover any dot for the guesser · gold = champion · red = AI entrants · green triangles = crowd average (incl. zeros above the line, excl. zeros below)
Leaderboard — distance from 3,311
Top 15 closest human guesses · shorter is better · AI entrants compete in their own division below
The guess that nearly broke the contest
One entrant, Rasool, declined to pick a number and instead submitted: “The average of every other guess.” A galaxy-brain wisdom-of-crowds play. So… did it work?
Reading 1 · average of all other guesses
3,171.86
Off by 139.14 (4.2%) — closer than the champion's 188. The crowd, averaged, beats every individual human.
Reading 2 · excluding the protest zeros
3,281.23
Off by only 29.77 (0.9%) — a landslide. The two “0” protest votes were dragging the average down.
Under either reading, the meta-guess would take the crown. The judges have nonetheless ruled it an exhibition entry — you can't win the lottery by buying “whichever ticket wins.” The crown stays with Romy.
03
The Machine Division
Four silicon entrants guessed alongside the humans. They compete for exhibition glory only — jars are a people's sport. (Awkward footnote: the division champion would have won the whole thing.)
🤖 Division Champion
Fable 5.0 (prompted by Gar)
3,450 — off by 139 (4.2%)
2nd
Claude Fable 5 (c/o William Ehlhardt)
2,950 — off by 361 (10.9%)
3rd
GPT 5.5 (prompted by Gar)
2,783 — off by 528 (15.9%)
4th
Fable 5 high
1,950 — off by 1,361 (41.1%)
04
The Dissent
Not noodles.
Dento — guessed 0
These are not noodles! Noodles are stretched or extruded into long strips or strings.
Putrefaction — guessed 0
Complaint in lieu of answer: not all macaroni products are noodles!
[no name] — guessed nothing at all
05
Full Standings — Human Division
| Rank | Guesser | Guess | Off by | Notes |
|---|