It's actually quite obvious how it is done, you just have to have access to a massive knowledge source.

Yup.....and use an elimination technique, but it is clever, I grant you 

To be fair... I gave a lot of don't know answers 

See, I knew a lot about my subject and answered truthfully, where I didn't know, I researched (sp) 

Say whaaat! Silly sausage   

I had Ali Baba and he got it!

He's bugger in't he! 

I was amazed he got Nell Gwyn, but was probably even more surprised he was completely flummoxed by Ken Dodd...

C'mon peeps...try and foil him   Try your bestest.....as old as you can think of  

Holy carp it got Nelly the housekeeper from Wuthering Heights  Freeeeeeaky 

Rog....calm it   It's not targeting you specifcally    Together we can beat this thing 

Its freakin me out maaaaaan  

      Calllllllm 

Round 3 - It didn't get The teenage mutant  turtle.

Round 4 - It didn't get Adolfo Celi

Score so far....Fluffy 4 - 0 Akinator.

Assuming we're talking about it getting its first guess wrong, and not counting my repeat of Dick Van Dyke (who I expected it to fail on), I've beaten it 4 times too:

Jocelyn Bell Burnell,

Paddy Considine,

Ken Dodd, and

David Attenborough

Failing on Attenborough surprised me, but it seemed to get badly confused between him and John Craven, and when I checked the Game Record it seems it doesn't think Attenborough is concerned about the environment!

The Game Records can often be very interesting, as I'm fascinated in how it works and why it seems to go off on weird tangents at times. It does appear to have some mistakes in its database, so when you give a correct answer it thinks you're wrong and that throws it off. For example, it seems to think that the astronaut Alan Shepard did not serve in WW2 (he did: on a destroyer in the Pacific). I had a similar experience with Lou Costello: I was sure Akinator was on to me when it asked if my character is from New Jersey (he was born there), but it then went off on a weird tangent and only just managed to get back on track and get it right after 25 questions. when I checked the record, it turned out it didn't know whether or not Costello was from there...

Odd: when I tried that, it got it pretty quickly. Mind you, asking "Is your character green?" immediately followed by "Is your character a ninja?", pretty much sealed the deal... 

Thanks Eugene I find it oddly comforting to know how it works  

I was about to get primitive and throw rocks at it !!! 

 You're gonna break it Fluffy !  Does it have smoke coming out of it yet?

Major fail by Akinator on "Richard Attenborough"!

Nearly eighty questions asked before admitting defeat, with wrong guesses on:

Omar Sharif,

John Mills,

Richard Harris, and

Trevor Howard.

Take 2:

Just tried him again and it got it on first guess after 25 questions. The difference this time is that I pretended he was still alive. Its database can't have been updated properly yet: for the question "Is your character dead?" it expected the answer "No", but for the question "Is your character still alive?" it also expected "No".

(And of course the fact that it asked both those questions on a first guess implies something wrong with its algorithm anyway...)

The giveaway must have been the final question "Does your character have a famous brother?", which it never asked me first time round...

Not quite, but it's little face does go red and all screwed up!

After about 80+ questions It came up with Rudolpho Valentino, for the Adolfo Celi one.

tried it again Pengy and he got him this time after saying it was Terry Wogan  it took 50 odd questions though 

   w.t.h.?

And I had googled Adolfo as well, so I was giving pretty accurate responses.

Another defeat for Akinator (>70 questions) with "Sir Garfield (Gary) Sobers".

Some of the questions were truly bizarre towards the end, but to its credit all of its wrong guesses were sensible ones (Clive Lloyd, Brian Lara, etc).

Its beaten me about 9 times, but got it with Bette Davis, it came up with Charlize Theron 
This can become very addictive 

Mr Yogi has beaten it with Dancy Nichols and Linda Bellingham. 

 Thats a bit of a stretch!

Hi Skylark, hope you're well 

Dammit!!! it got Roger the Alien in 16 questions 

The final Q was "Does your character have a drinking problem?" That nailed it 

Oh dear! Its not very PC is it? Some questions are a bit  
I thought i would do sisters, aka the Williams, it got it right. Well one out of two..... But how it got Kay Burley in very little info was .
I am well thanks , not been around for a bit, back now xx

S'okay Roger isn't very PC either  

Kay Burley !!   It'll need a cleanout after mentioning that awful woman.

Oh i know, dreadful woman. I had Sky News on so had her in my head. How she has worked so long with Sky is beyond me............

Round 5 - It didn't get Daniel Defoe - It guessed Samuel Pepys!

Fluffy 5 - 0 Akinator.

  She is first Mistress dont you know ????

Don't I beeping know it!