New game 32 is up, a little ahead of schedule. In counterpoint to that, I'm behind on the website update, so it's currently in "whenever it happens" territory.
Monday, 31 December 2012
Friday, 28 December 2012
Thursday, 27 December 2012
Wednesday, 26 December 2012
Monday, 24 December 2012
NG 28
New game 28 is up.
I did not get to making the changes I wanted to make this week, but I should be able to do so soon. Starting with next week I'll aim to have things up on a regular schedule, with the new games available from a standard location (much like the old "past episodes" page). My tentative thought was to make the standard time 6PM, but I'm open to other suggestions if anyone has opinions on the matter.
I did not get to making the changes I wanted to make this week, but I should be able to do so soon. Starting with next week I'll aim to have things up on a regular schedule, with the new games available from a standard location (much like the old "past episodes" page). My tentative thought was to make the standard time 6PM, but I'm open to other suggestions if anyone has opinions on the matter.
Friday, 21 December 2012
Thursday, 20 December 2012
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
NG 24
New game 24 is up. Enjoy! Also the longer results for new game 23.
Whew, a tough set today, particularly the numbers.
Whew, a tough set today, particularly the numbers.
Monday, 17 December 2012
NG 23
New game 23 is up. Enjoy! Also the longer results for new game 22.
A poor effort from me today, I feel. Ah, well.
A poor effort from me today, I feel. Ah, well.
Saturday, 15 December 2012
Thursday, 13 December 2012
Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Tuesday, 11 December 2012
Shifting to a new format (plus link to NG 18)
I've decided that the previous way I've been doing this has been a bit awkward; in fact, that was pretty clear from the start -- the blog is not well suited to the kind of display of the games that I used, and the comments section is a rather poor place to do the longer breakdowns that I provide. So this game marks the first shift to a revised way of doing things. I hope you'll like it; I certainly regard it as an improvement, even if I do not directly benefit.
The new game may be accessed here. I've added in attempts to duplicate the various timing facets of the show's display (but not the thirty second countdown as yet; maybe as an extension). In particular, those of you who, like me, are used to writing down the letters should find this new system works somewhat better for that style. Those who just stare at the monitor may find the letter rounds unbearably slow; apologies. (I have thoughts as to what to do about that.)
It should all be pretty clear after you experience it. *chuckles* Suggestions for improvements or general feedback about the new system is encouraged in comments.
In conjunction with this, I shall move back to putting the long breakdowns into blog posts; things flow much better that way, I feel. And I'll see what I can do about getting a better schedule to the game display compared to my current somewhat erratic one.
Game details after the cut.
The new game may be accessed here. I've added in attempts to duplicate the various timing facets of the show's display (but not the thirty second countdown as yet; maybe as an extension). In particular, those of you who, like me, are used to writing down the letters should find this new system works somewhat better for that style. Those who just stare at the monitor may find the letter rounds unbearably slow; apologies. (I have thoughts as to what to do about that.)
It should all be pretty clear after you experience it. *chuckles* Suggestions for improvements or general feedback about the new system is encouraged in comments.
In conjunction with this, I shall move back to putting the long breakdowns into blog posts; things flow much better that way, I feel. And I'll see what I can do about getting a better schedule to the game display compared to my current somewhat erratic one.
Game details after the cut.
Friday, 7 December 2012
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Wednesday, 5 December 2012
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
NG 13
New game after the cut; I got caught up in other things, so the revised format will have to wait for a few days.
Friday, 30 November 2012
Thursday, 29 November 2012
Wednesday, 28 November 2012
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
Monday, 26 November 2012
NG 8 (new game 8)
As JT pointed out in a comment, there are no more episodes screening for the time being. That's rather a blow. Here's a consolation new game, anyway; I am working on a better format for these, but probably won't get a chance to sort it out until the weekend.
Also, I've been trying to avoid my personal quirks of selection but that is somewhat of a losing battle. So I'm soliciting game formats from you; leave an eight round breakdown in the comments (or more than one!) and I'll start using those instead, occasionally interspersed with my own. Suggested format for letters rounds: CCCVVVCVC or similar.
Also, I've been trying to avoid my personal quirks of selection but that is somewhat of a losing battle. So I'm soliciting game formats from you; leave an eight round breakdown in the comments (or more than one!) and I'll start using those instead, occasionally interspersed with my own. Suggested format for letters rounds: CCCVVVCVC or similar.
Sunday, 25 November 2012
Weekly summary: Episodes 96 to 100
Again, there's nothing new to report this week (unless I did statistics for the non-show games, but I'm not doing so). This post is really just to update the contestant averages; the summary details for this week's games can be found here.
Contestants sorted by average score; note that Naween Fernando finished just ahead of Andrew Fisher on total points, due in large part to his dominating display against Veronica Corrigan in the second quarterfinal.
Contestants sorted by average score; note that Naween Fernando finished just ahead of Andrew Fisher on total points, due in large part to his dominating display against Veronica Corrigan in the second quarterfinal.
| Total | Games | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Naween Fernando | 600 | 9 | 66.67 |
| Andrew Fisher | 595 | 9 | 66.11 |
| Sam Chow | 65 | 1 | 65.00 |
| David Jones | 448 | 8 | 56.00 |
| James Weatherhead | 164 | 3 | 54.67 |
| Esther Perrins | 268 | 5 | 53.60 |
| Angus Kidman | 103 | 2 | 51.50 |
| Liam Bastick | 358 | 7 | 51.14 |
| Jasper Johnson | 51 | 1 | 51.00 |
| Dom Saric | 407 | 8 | 50.88 |
| Christopher Weldon | 200 | 4 | 50.00 |
| Leif Cooper | 193 | 4 | 48.25 |
| Dennis Callegari | 96 | 2 | 48.00 |
| Rob York | 94 | 2 | 47.00 |
| Jayanthi Viswanathan | 140 | 3 | 46.67 |
| Nick Carr | 137 | 3 | 45.67 |
| James Parton | 182 | 4 | 45.50 |
| Pravin Dullur | 45 | 1 | 45.00 |
| Chris Scholten-Smith | 265 | 6 | 44.17 |
| Geoff Heard | 88 | 2 | 44.00 |
| Sudesh Piyatissa | 128 | 3 | 42.67 |
| Kathryn Jones | 85 | 2 | 42.50 |
| Yolanda Sztarr | 127 | 3 | 42.33 |
| Aaron Tyrell | 165 | 4 | 41.25 |
| Veronica Corrigan | 246 | 6 | 41.00 |
| Peter Stegelman | 82 | 2 | 41.00 |
| Tanya Ithier | 41 | 1 | 41.00 |
| Kashi Ross | 283 | 7 | 40.43 |
| Ian Campbell-Fraser | 161 | 4 | 40.25 |
| Amanda Mendizza | 40 | 1 | 40.00 |
| Keith De La Rue | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Kiao Inthavong | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Jonathan Scarlett | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Michael Phillips | 38 | 1 | 38.00 |
| Chaitanya Rao | 38 | 1 | 38.00 |
| Ian See | 113 | 3 | 37.67 |
| Jason Stockdale | 37 | 1 | 37.00 |
| Phil Moore | 110 | 3 | 36.67 |
| Rob Mould | 70 | 2 | 35.00 |
| Rolli Pick | 70 | 2 | 35.00 |
| Lara Cassar | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Andrew Patterson | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Chris Ryan | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Paolo Navidad | 34 | 1 | 34.00 |
| Beckett Rozentals | 34 | 1 | 34.00 |
| Robert Jackson | 67 | 2 | 33.50 |
| Peter Smith | 67 | 2 | 33.50 |
| Elaine Miles | 33 | 1 | 33.00 |
| Jenny Blair | 33 | 1 | 33.00 |
| Alexis Harley | 32 | 1 | 32.00 |
| James Pho | 32 | 1 | 32.00 |
| Erez Gordon | 31 | 1 | 31.00 |
| Yvonne Wake | 31 | 1 | 31.00 |
| Ben Strate | 30 | 1 | 30.00 |
| Jonathan Campbell | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Alan Stewart | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Adib Surani | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Stephen Farrelly | 86 | 3 | 28.67 |
| Michael Clark | 28 | 1 | 28.00 |
| Tristan Leech | 28 | 1 | 28.00 |
| Helen Robinson | 27 | 1 | 27.00 |
| Dave Wilson | 27 | 1 | 27.00 |
| Christine Hodges | 26 | 1 | 26.00 |
| Brett Chaiyawat* | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Michael Gin | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Desire L'Etang | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Les Ramsay | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Rachael Bausor | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Rod Goulding | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Brian Lynch | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Stavroula Nicholls | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Paul Power | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Robin Wedd | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Jane Cleary | 23 | 1 | 23.00 |
| Mark Mota | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Brendan Murphy | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Michael O'Neill | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Jim Bailey | 21 | 1 | 21.00 |
| Daniel Pratt | 21 | 1 | 21.00 |
| Mita Navidad | 20 | 1 | 20.00 |
| Matt Woodley | 20 | 1 | 20.00 |
| Brett Newton | 19 | 1 | 19.00 |
| Nick Taubert | 19 | 1 | 19.00 |
| Arthur Barrs | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Carol Campbell | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Mark Duggan | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Damian Foong | 16 | 1 | 16.00 |
| Dawn Tuftan | 15 | 1 | 15.00 |
| Jason Taylor | 14 | 1 | 14.00 |
| Bassem Abousaid | 12 | 1 | 12.00 |
| Billy Lowe | 12 | 1 | 12.00 |
| Frances Weinberg | 10 | 1 | 10.00 |
| Robert Lukunic | 8 | 1 | 8.00 |
| Rebecca Daley | 7 | 1 | 7.00 |
| Dean Schwab | 7 | 1 | 7.00 |
| Paul Hughes | 6 | 1 | 6.00 |
| Andrew Bullen | 5 | 1 | 5.00 |
Saturday, 24 November 2012
Ep 100 [GF] again, plus a new game
Here's the coverage of episode 100 for anyone playing along.
There's another new game after the cut. That will be the last one for a while, as we should be back to unseen episodes again on Monday.
There's another new game after the cut. That will be the last one for a while, as we should be back to unseen episodes again on Monday.
Friday, 23 November 2012
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Weekly summary: Episodes 91 to 95
I was not sure how to report this summary, since I've already played the last two episodes. I'm opting to skip the details for those played games, except insofar as it affects contestant aggregates for the average scores. The summary details for those games can be found here.
I had two good games on Monday and Wednesday, but missed the conundrum each time. On Tuesday I solved the conundrum but missed many maxima; still, some decent results throughout.
There were no full monties or troublesome numbers in the three games. On Monday I could have had a maximal game if I'd just solved the conundrum in time, but the series finished with some of the more difficult conundrums of the year.
Contestants sorted by average score; after the first two quarterfinals Naween drew ahead of Andrew, who had several invalid words in his game.
I had two good games on Monday and Wednesday, but missed the conundrum each time. On Tuesday I solved the conundrum but missed many maxima; still, some decent results throughout.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Me | 67 | 63 | 66 |
| Champion | 27 | 14 | 13 |
| Challenger | 10 | 26 | 6 |
| David + Lily | 77 | 77 | 77 |
| Me (solo) | 67 | 69 | 66 |
There were no full monties or troublesome numbers in the three games. On Monday I could have had a maximal game if I'd just solved the conundrum in time, but the series finished with some of the more difficult conundrums of the year.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maximums: L | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| N | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| C | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Contestants sorted by average score; after the first two quarterfinals Naween drew ahead of Andrew, who had several invalid words in his game.
| Total | Games | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Naween Fernando* | 486 | 7 | 69.43 |
| Andrew Fisher* | 470 | 7 | 67.14 |
| Sam Chow | 65 | 1 | 65.00 |
| David Jones* | 346 | 6 | 57.67 |
| James Weatherhead | 164 | 3 | 54.67 |
| Liam Bastick* | 324 | 6 | 54.00 |
| Esther Perrins | 268 | 5 | 53.60 |
| Angus Kidman | 103 | 2 | 51.50 |
| Dom Saric* | 308 | 6 | 51.33 |
| Jasper Johnson | 51 | 1 | 51.00 |
| Christopher Weldon | 200 | 4 | 50.00 |
| Leif Cooper | 193 | 4 | 48.25 |
| Dennis Callegari | 96 | 2 | 48.00 |
| Rob York | 94 | 2 | 47.00 |
| Jayanthi Viswanathan | 140 | 3 | 46.67 |
| Nick Carr | 137 | 3 | 45.67 |
| James Parton | 182 | 4 | 45.50 |
| Pravin Dullur | 45 | 1 | 45.00 |
| Chris Scholten-Smith | 265 | 6 | 44.17 |
| Geoff Heard | 88 | 2 | 44.00 |
| Sudesh Piyatissa | 128 | 3 | 42.67 |
| Kathryn Jones | 85 | 2 | 42.50 |
| Yolanda Sztarr | 127 | 3 | 42.33 |
| Aaron Tyrell | 165 | 4 | 41.25 |
| Veronica Corrigan | 246 | 6 | 41.00 |
| Kashi Ross* | 246 | 6 | 41.00 |
| Peter Stegelman | 82 | 2 | 41.00 |
| Tanya Ithier | 41 | 1 | 41.00 |
| Ian Campbell-Fraser | 161 | 4 | 40.25 |
| Amanda Mendizza | 40 | 1 | 40.00 |
| Keith De La Rue | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Kiao Inthavong | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Jonathan Scarlett | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Brett Chaiyawat* | 154 | 4 | 38.50 |
| Michael Phillips | 38 | 1 | 38.00 |
| Chaitanya Rao | 38 | 1 | 38.00 |
| Ian See | 113 | 3 | 37.67 |
| Jason Stockdale | 37 | 1 | 37.00 |
| Phil Moore | 110 | 3 | 36.67 |
| Rob Mould | 70 | 2 | 35.00 |
| Rolli Pick | 70 | 2 | 35.00 |
| Lara Cassar | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Andrew Patterson | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Chris Ryan | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Paolo Navidad | 34 | 1 | 34.00 |
| Beckett Rozentals | 34 | 1 | 34.00 |
| Robert Jackson | 67 | 2 | 33.50 |
| Peter Smith | 67 | 2 | 33.50 |
| Elaine Miles | 33 | 1 | 33.00 |
| Jenny Blair | 33 | 1 | 33.00 |
| Alexis Harley | 32 | 1 | 32.00 |
| James Pho | 32 | 1 | 32.00 |
| Erez Gordon | 31 | 1 | 31.00 |
| Yvonne Wake | 31 | 1 | 31.00 |
| Ben Strate | 30 | 1 | 30.00 |
| Jonathan Campbell | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Alan Stewart | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Adib Surani | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Stephen Farrelly | 86 | 3 | 28.67 |
| Michael Clark | 28 | 1 | 28.00 |
| Tristan Leech | 28 | 1 | 28.00 |
| Helen Robinson | 27 | 1 | 27.00 |
| Dave Wilson | 27 | 1 | 27.00 |
| Christine Hodges | 26 | 1 | 26.00 |
| Michael Gin | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Desire L'Etang | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Les Ramsay | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Rachael Bausor | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Rod Goulding | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Brian Lynch | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Stavroula Nicholls | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Paul Power | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Robin Wedd | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Jane Cleary | 23 | 1 | 23.00 |
| Mark Mota | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Brendan Murphy | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Michael O'Neill | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Jim Bailey | 21 | 1 | 21.00 |
| Daniel Pratt | 21 | 1 | 21.00 |
| Mita Navidad | 20 | 1 | 20.00 |
| Matt Woodley | 20 | 1 | 20.00 |
| Brett Newton | 19 | 1 | 19.00 |
| Nick Taubert | 19 | 1 | 19.00 |
| Arthur Barrs | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Carol Campbell | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Mark Duggan | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Damian Foong | 16 | 1 | 16.00 |
| Dawn Tuftan | 15 | 1 | 15.00 |
| Jason Taylor | 14 | 1 | 14.00 |
| Bassem Abousaid | 12 | 1 | 12.00 |
| Billy Lowe | 12 | 1 | 12.00 |
| Frances Weinberg | 10 | 1 | 10.00 |
| Robert Lukunic | 8 | 1 | 8.00 |
| Rebecca Daley | 7 | 1 | 7.00 |
| Dean Schwab | 7 | 1 | 7.00 |
| Paul Hughes | 6 | 1 | 6.00 |
| Andrew Bullen | 5 | 1 | 5.00 |
Monday, 19 November 2012
Ep 96 [QF3] again, plus a new game
Here's the coverage of episode 96 for anyone playing along.
There's another new game after the cut; this time with a new conundrum generator, but thanks to teething troubles with the generation process I will have to assess myself harshly against the resulting conundrum.
There's another new game after the cut; this time with a new conundrum generator, but thanks to teething troubles with the generation process I will have to assess myself harshly against the resulting conundrum.
Friday, 16 November 2012
Ep 95 [QF2] again, plus a new game
Here's the coverage of episode 95 for anyone playing along.
There's another new game after the cut, although the distribution seems a bit wonky; sorry about that, but blame the random number generator. Once again I've taken an old Countdown conundrum for the time being.
I've decided against doing a separate post for the best results of yesterday's new game; I have added a comment for those instead.
There's another new game after the cut, although the distribution seems a bit wonky; sorry about that, but blame the random number generator. Once again I've taken an old Countdown conundrum for the time being.
I've decided against doing a separate post for the best results of yesterday's new game; I have added a comment for those instead.
Thursday, 15 November 2012
Ep 94 [QF1] again, plus a new game
Here's the coverage of episode 94 for anyone playing along.
Also, to help keep those who have already seen that episode at least partially interested, there's another game after the cut. This is the bare-bones version (I hope to get a spiffier one up later), and timing is going to be hard to tell; in particular, for non-conundrum rounds one should allocate more than thirty seconds to reflect the thinking time gained as the letters or numbers go up. Just take your best shot at it, and enjoy, and post results in the comments.
The letter rounds use a distribution similar to but probably not exactly matching one used for much of series three. I performed the selection by choosing the habits of some contestants ahead of time, only varying them if things got unusually nasty. Similarly to an extent with the number rounds. For the conundrum I ended up just using an old Countdown one since it would take me a bit too long to sort out the code for producing candidate conundrums.
Also, to help keep those who have already seen that episode at least partially interested, there's another game after the cut. This is the bare-bones version (I hope to get a spiffier one up later), and timing is going to be hard to tell; in particular, for non-conundrum rounds one should allocate more than thirty seconds to reflect the thinking time gained as the letters or numbers go up. Just take your best shot at it, and enjoy, and post results in the comments.
The letter rounds use a distribution similar to but probably not exactly matching one used for much of series three. I performed the selection by choosing the habits of some contestants ahead of time, only varying them if things got unusually nasty. Similarly to an extent with the number rounds. For the conundrum I ended up just using an old Countdown one since it would take me a bit too long to sort out the code for producing candidate conundrums.
Ep 93: Brett Chaiyawat, Adam Dawson (November 14, 2012; originally aired December 8, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
A quick notice about upcoming posts: Obviously I'll not be reblogging the finals episodes, but I shall aim to put something up of interest. Watch this space, as it were.
This is Brett Chaiyawat's fourth game, and the last before the finals series. If he wins tonight he carries over to the next series with four wins, which would put him in decent position to get to the finals. That said, his scores have been a bit low for a finalist and that may prove to be an issue. Anyway, Richard asks him about his techniques for the show; Brett says that in the letters rounds he tries to get a good balance between the vowels and the consonants so that hopefully he can find a longer word. In the numbers rounds he is a convert to the balanced mix, which has worked out reasonably well for him so far the times that he has used it.
Tonight's challenger is Adam Dawson, an engineer who specialises in steelwork; in particular, he deals with water tanks, the largest of which can hold up to six million litres. Richard asks how Adam came to be in that line of business; Adam begins surprisingly by saying that it started when he had a whim to take up tenpin bowling. On the very first night he walked in and two gentlemen were coming in with all their gear so he held the door open for them. It turns out that they were his opponents and their team name was The Engineers. Then a few months later Adam found himself out of a job and so asked them if they had any work for him, and that's how it started.
The contestants started out pretty equally, but Adam risked a fraction too much in the second letters round to allow Brett to get the lead. Brett managed to extend that lead slightly in the second numbers round -- both had ended up with an invalid answer in the first one -- and Adam's chance of a comeback disappeared when he had another invalid answer on the last letters round. Neither could solve the conundrum, and Brett took the win, 42 to 23.
I had a good game, although I was a handful of seconds too slow to spot the best answer in one letters round. The rest of the main rounds were maximal, requiring finding some good words (or so I choose to believe). Unfortunately I could not solve the conundrum within time either, taking just less than a minute all up to see the answer. Still, it was a decent effort and another score in the sixties.
A quick notice about upcoming posts: Obviously I'll not be reblogging the finals episodes, but I shall aim to put something up of interest. Watch this space, as it were.
This is Brett Chaiyawat's fourth game, and the last before the finals series. If he wins tonight he carries over to the next series with four wins, which would put him in decent position to get to the finals. That said, his scores have been a bit low for a finalist and that may prove to be an issue. Anyway, Richard asks him about his techniques for the show; Brett says that in the letters rounds he tries to get a good balance between the vowels and the consonants so that hopefully he can find a longer word. In the numbers rounds he is a convert to the balanced mix, which has worked out reasonably well for him so far the times that he has used it.
Tonight's challenger is Adam Dawson, an engineer who specialises in steelwork; in particular, he deals with water tanks, the largest of which can hold up to six million litres. Richard asks how Adam came to be in that line of business; Adam begins surprisingly by saying that it started when he had a whim to take up tenpin bowling. On the very first night he walked in and two gentlemen were coming in with all their gear so he held the door open for them. It turns out that they were his opponents and their team name was The Engineers. Then a few months later Adam found himself out of a job and so asked them if they had any work for him, and that's how it started.
The contestants started out pretty equally, but Adam risked a fraction too much in the second letters round to allow Brett to get the lead. Brett managed to extend that lead slightly in the second numbers round -- both had ended up with an invalid answer in the first one -- and Adam's chance of a comeback disappeared when he had another invalid answer on the last letters round. Neither could solve the conundrum, and Brett took the win, 42 to 23.
I had a good game, although I was a handful of seconds too slow to spot the best answer in one letters round. The rest of the main rounds were maximal, requiring finding some good words (or so I choose to believe). Unfortunately I could not solve the conundrum within time either, taking just less than a minute all up to see the answer. Still, it was a decent effort and another score in the sixties.
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
Ep 92: Brett Chaiyawat, Belinda Smith (November 13, 2012; originally aired December 7, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
Richard returns to the topic of Brett's movie catalogue, and asks what his favourite movie is. Brett responds that it is The Lord of the Rings, and since that is three movies specifically the last one of the trilogy. He then enthuses a bit about the upcoming filming of The Hobbit (which I think at that stage was only going to be one movie), and adds that he would like to go to New Zealand to see that.
Tonight's challenger is Belinda Smith, a physiology student and research assistant whose current project is investigating Alzheimer's disease. Belinda states that because of ageing populations it is imperative that something be done about Alzheimer's disease, particularly in Australia. The project she is working on involves studying both the cognitive and pathological effects of Alzheimer's disease, and has many clinical implications; she thinks it is very exciting and important work.
Belinda got an early lead with a good find in the first round, and then extended it in the fourth to have a decent advantage. Brett gained back some of that ground in the next letters round; then an invalid word from him conceded some of those points back once more but he gained in both the remaining numbers rounds to be ahead by two points going into the conundrum. Neither was able to solve it, so Brett scraped home with the win, 28 to 26.
I was all over the place today, finding better words a bit too late and overlooking a couple of basic observations in the numbers rounds that would have simplified my life greatly. I did manage to get the conundrum quickly today, but was disappointed at missing so many findable maxima.
Richard returns to the topic of Brett's movie catalogue, and asks what his favourite movie is. Brett responds that it is The Lord of the Rings, and since that is three movies specifically the last one of the trilogy. He then enthuses a bit about the upcoming filming of The Hobbit (which I think at that stage was only going to be one movie), and adds that he would like to go to New Zealand to see that.
Tonight's challenger is Belinda Smith, a physiology student and research assistant whose current project is investigating Alzheimer's disease. Belinda states that because of ageing populations it is imperative that something be done about Alzheimer's disease, particularly in Australia. The project she is working on involves studying both the cognitive and pathological effects of Alzheimer's disease, and has many clinical implications; she thinks it is very exciting and important work.
Belinda got an early lead with a good find in the first round, and then extended it in the fourth to have a decent advantage. Brett gained back some of that ground in the next letters round; then an invalid word from him conceded some of those points back once more but he gained in both the remaining numbers rounds to be ahead by two points going into the conundrum. Neither was able to solve it, so Brett scraped home with the win, 28 to 26.
I was all over the place today, finding better words a bit too late and overlooking a couple of basic observations in the numbers rounds that would have simplified my life greatly. I did manage to get the conundrum quickly today, but was disappointed at missing so many findable maxima.
Ep 91: Brett Chaiyawat, Rikki Irwin (November 12, 2012; originally aired December 6, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
Brett Chaiyawat gets his turn in the champion's seat, and might become the first contestant to cross the series boundary if he can last the distance. At one point in his life Brett noticed that he was watching movies quite regularly, so he decided to try and figure out how many movies he had actually seen. He puts the total at eleven hundred movies, and he keeps a record of them that he updates when he sees a new one.
Tonight's challenger is Rikki Irwin, an American student who is studying mechanical engineering. Rikki is particularly interested in robots and the logic of programming, and she'd like to combine those two areas by working in the field of smart prosthetics -- things like bionic arms and cochlear implants; she thinks it is a really cool field to work in.
Brett got the early lead with a couple of decent words that Rikki did not quite match. The rest of the main rounds featured matched declarations, except that two of Rikki's answers were invalid; that allowed Brett to extend his lead considerably. Neither ended up solving the tough conundrum, and Brett won comfortably by 59 to 29.
I played well, getting a maximum game in the main rounds. That was good, but the conundrum proved extremely difficult for me and so the maximum game slipped through my fingers again. Still, it was a welcome bit of form after some of last week's results.
Brett Chaiyawat gets his turn in the champion's seat, and might become the first contestant to cross the series boundary if he can last the distance. At one point in his life Brett noticed that he was watching movies quite regularly, so he decided to try and figure out how many movies he had actually seen. He puts the total at eleven hundred movies, and he keeps a record of them that he updates when he sees a new one.
Tonight's challenger is Rikki Irwin, an American student who is studying mechanical engineering. Rikki is particularly interested in robots and the logic of programming, and she'd like to combine those two areas by working in the field of smart prosthetics -- things like bionic arms and cochlear implants; she thinks it is a really cool field to work in.
Brett got the early lead with a couple of decent words that Rikki did not quite match. The rest of the main rounds featured matched declarations, except that two of Rikki's answers were invalid; that allowed Brett to extend his lead considerably. Neither ended up solving the tough conundrum, and Brett won comfortably by 59 to 29.
I played well, getting a maximum game in the main rounds. That was good, but the conundrum proved extremely difficult for me and so the maximum game slipped through my fingers again. Still, it was a welcome bit of form after some of last week's results.
Monday, 12 November 2012
Weekly summary: Episodes 86 to 90
Another week of mixed performance from me, with two of my worst results (by maximum count) so far; on the other hand, I finished with two decent games. There were some high scores from contestants at the start of the week, due to Leif Cooper's good wordfinding ability.
Leif Cooper narrowly went down to Phil Moore in Leif's fourth game, and Phil did not make it to a fourth game. That cements the finals rankings as follows, although looking ahead a little we know that Chris Scholten-Smith was not able to make it; that brought Esther Perrins into the finals after all.
David managed to find this week's full monty; there were a few tough numbers games throughout, which certainly caused me some issues as well as Lily.
Monday and Wednesday were rather dire as far as the maximum counts go; I don't think I've done worse. But Thursday and Friday produced some nice results.
Contestants sorted by average score:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | 59 | 72 | 61 | 66 | 69 |
| Champion | 43 | 54 | 37 | 38 | 21 |
| Challenger | 19 | 17 | 29 | 13 | 25 |
| David + Lily | 70 | 77 | 74 | 87 | 77 |
| Me (solo) | 66 | 72 | 67 | 66 | 75 |
Leif Cooper narrowly went down to Phil Moore in Leif's fourth game, and Phil did not make it to a fourth game. That cements the finals rankings as follows, although looking ahead a little we know that Chris Scholten-Smith was not able to make it; that brought Esther Perrins into the finals after all.
| Andrew Fisher | 95 | 63 | 64 | 67 | 67 | 59 | 415 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Naween Fernando | 73 | 60 | 64 | 94 | 64 | 56 | 411 |
| David Jones | 63 | 63 | 50 | 61 | 55 | 53 | 346 |
| Liam Bastick | 48 | 60 | 48 | 46 | 50 | 72 | 324 |
| Dom Saric | 53 | 52 | 50 | 45 | 51 | 57 | 308 |
| Chris Scholten-Smith | 45 | 47 | 48 | 47 | 38 | 40 | 265 |
| Kashi Ross | 48 | 46 | 34 | 41 | 45 | 32 | 246 |
| Veronica Corrigan | 41 | 60 | 54 | 35 | 43 | 233 |
David managed to find this week's full monty; there were a few tough numbers games throughout, which certainly caused me some issues as well as Lily.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full Monties | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Missed Full Monties | 0 | |||||
| Tough Numbers | 2 | 1 | 3 | |||
| Impossible Numbers | 0 |
Monday and Wednesday were rather dire as far as the maximum counts go; I don't think I've done worse. But Thursday and Friday produced some nice results.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximums: L | 1 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| N | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| C | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Contestants sorted by average score:
| Total | Games | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andrew Fisher | 415 | 6 | 69.17 |
| Naween Fernando | 411 | 6 | 68.50 |
| Sam Chow | 65 | 1 | 65.00 |
| David Jones | 346 | 6 | 57.67 |
| Esther Perrins | 219 | 4 | 54.75 |
| James Weatherhead | 164 | 3 | 54.67 |
| Liam Bastick | 324 | 6 | 54.00 |
| Angus Kidman | 103 | 2 | 51.50 |
| Dom Saric | 308 | 6 | 51.33 |
| Jasper Johnson | 51 | 1 | 51.00 |
| Christopher Weldon | 200 | 4 | 50.00 |
| Leif Cooper | 193 | 4 | 48.25 |
| Dennis Callegari | 96 | 2 | 48.00 |
| Rob York | 94 | 2 | 47.00 |
| Jayanthi Viswanathan | 140 | 3 | 46.67 |
| Veronica Corrigan | 233 | 5 | 46.60 |
| Nick Carr | 137 | 3 | 45.67 |
| James Parton | 182 | 4 | 45.50 |
| Pravin Dullur | 45 | 1 | 45.00 |
| Chris Scholten-Smith | 265 | 6 | 44.17 |
| Geoff Heard | 88 | 2 | 44.00 |
| Sudesh Piyatissa | 128 | 3 | 42.67 |
| Kathryn Jones | 85 | 2 | 42.50 |
| Yolanda Sztarr | 127 | 3 | 42.33 |
| Aaron Tyrell | 165 | 4 | 41.25 |
| Kashi Ross | 246 | 6 | 41.00 |
| Peter Stegelman | 82 | 2 | 41.00 |
| Tanya Ithier | 41 | 1 | 41.00 |
| Ian Campbell-Fraser | 161 | 4 | 40.25 |
| Amanda Mendizza | 40 | 1 | 40.00 |
| Keith De La Rue | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Kiao Inthavong | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Jonathan Scarlett | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Michael Phillips | 38 | 1 | 38.00 |
| Chaitanya Rao | 38 | 1 | 38.00 |
| Ian See | 113 | 3 | 37.67 |
| Jason Stockdale | 37 | 1 | 37.00 |
| Phil Moore | 110 | 3 | 36.67 |
| Rob Mould | 70 | 2 | 35.00 |
| Rolli Pick | 70 | 2 | 35.00 |
| Lara Cassar | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Andrew Patterson | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Chris Ryan | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Paolo Navidad | 34 | 1 | 34.00 |
| Beckett Rozentals | 34 | 1 | 34.00 |
| Robert Jackson | 67 | 2 | 33.50 |
| Peter Smith | 67 | 2 | 33.50 |
| Elaine Miles | 33 | 1 | 33.00 |
| Jenny Blair | 33 | 1 | 33.00 |
| Alexis Harley | 32 | 1 | 32.00 |
| James Pho | 32 | 1 | 32.00 |
| Erez Gordon | 31 | 1 | 31.00 |
| Yvonne Wake | 31 | 1 | 31.00 |
| Ben Strate | 30 | 1 | 30.00 |
| Jonathan Campbell | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Alan Stewart | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Adib Surani | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Stephen Farrelly | 86 | 3 | 28.67 |
| Michael Clark | 28 | 1 | 28.00 |
| Tristan Leech | 28 | 1 | 28.00 |
| Helen Robinson | 27 | 1 | 27.00 |
| Dave Wilson | 27 | 1 | 27.00 |
| Christine Hodges | 26 | 1 | 26.00 |
| Brett Chaiyawat* | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Michael Gin | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Desire L'Etang | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Les Ramsay | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Rachael Bausor | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Rod Goulding | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Brian Lynch | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Stavroula Nicholls | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Paul Power | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Robin Wedd | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Jane Cleary | 23 | 1 | 23.00 |
| Mark Mota | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Brendan Murphy | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Michael O'Neill | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Jim Bailey | 21 | 1 | 21.00 |
| Daniel Pratt | 21 | 1 | 21.00 |
| Mita Navidad | 20 | 1 | 20.00 |
| Matt Woodley | 20 | 1 | 20.00 |
| Brett Newton | 19 | 1 | 19.00 |
| Nick Taubert | 19 | 1 | 19.00 |
| Arthur Barrs | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Carol Campbell | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Mark Duggan | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Damian Foong | 16 | 1 | 16.00 |
| Dawn Tuftan | 15 | 1 | 15.00 |
| Jason Taylor | 14 | 1 | 14.00 |
| Bassem Abousaid | 12 | 1 | 12.00 |
| Billy Lowe | 12 | 1 | 12.00 |
| Frances Weinberg | 10 | 1 | 10.00 |
| Robert Lukunic | 8 | 1 | 8.00 |
| Rebecca Daley | 7 | 1 | 7.00 |
| Dean Schwab | 7 | 1 | 7.00 |
| Paul Hughes | 6 | 1 | 6.00 |
| Andrew Bullen | 5 | 1 | 5.00 |
Ep 88: Leif Cooper, Phil Moore (originally aired December 1, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
I've changed my mind despite previous comments, so here's the details for episode 88 earlier than forecast. For anyone who has not yet seen it due to it being skipped for the US election coverage, here are the links again: Part 1; part 2; part 3. Thanks again to commentor Victor for finding this. Also, in case it was missed, here is the episode 90 post.
Leif returns for the important fourth-night showdown, although this season has had many six-game contestants and even four wins may not be enough. Richard wheels out the technique question, noting that Leif always starts with a consonant in the letters rounds. Leif agrees, and expands on this although it honestly does not make a lot of sense to me: He likes the vowels split up rather than clumped, and there are more consonants than vowels, so he chooses the consonant first. That is kind of backwards, really; if he started off with a vowel then he could spread the vowels out further. But perhaps he also dislikes clumps of consonants.
Tonight's challenger is Phil Moore, an I.T. manager who has lived on three different continents. His father was an aircraft engineer so the family travelled a lot when Phil was young (presumably the job involved his father working in rather different locations). He was born in France, then moved to the United Kingdom, then Africa (first South Africa, then Zimbabwe), then back to the United Kingdom, and finally settled in Australia at last. It's left him with an interest in travel, but it's not so easy now as he has two young children.
Phil took the lead in the first round with a word which turns up a lot in this game but can be hard to spot. Leif struck back in the second round, finding the unique best answer. Three shared rounds followed (neither contestant having any luck with the numbers round), then Leif extended his lead in the next numbers round. Phil was able to get back some of that ground in the final letters round, and then both solved the last rather easy numbers round. Leif was ahead but not safe going into the conundrum, and his usual technique of writing down the letters worked against him, as Phil solved it while Leif was still doing so. Phil won the game, 45 to 37.
I had a rather mixed game, starting off with a good find but then missing many better options. In fact, I did not get another maximum until the last numbers round; the other two numbers rounds included rather bad mental slips from me and I ended up two away in each case. The better words were rather findable in most cases, too, so overall this was not a good result. I did manage to beat Phil to the conundrum solution, but only just. It was a somewhat disappointing game, to be honest, but I had managed to do enough for the win.
I've changed my mind despite previous comments, so here's the details for episode 88 earlier than forecast. For anyone who has not yet seen it due to it being skipped for the US election coverage, here are the links again: Part 1; part 2; part 3. Thanks again to commentor Victor for finding this. Also, in case it was missed, here is the episode 90 post.
Leif returns for the important fourth-night showdown, although this season has had many six-game contestants and even four wins may not be enough. Richard wheels out the technique question, noting that Leif always starts with a consonant in the letters rounds. Leif agrees, and expands on this although it honestly does not make a lot of sense to me: He likes the vowels split up rather than clumped, and there are more consonants than vowels, so he chooses the consonant first. That is kind of backwards, really; if he started off with a vowel then he could spread the vowels out further. But perhaps he also dislikes clumps of consonants.
Tonight's challenger is Phil Moore, an I.T. manager who has lived on three different continents. His father was an aircraft engineer so the family travelled a lot when Phil was young (presumably the job involved his father working in rather different locations). He was born in France, then moved to the United Kingdom, then Africa (first South Africa, then Zimbabwe), then back to the United Kingdom, and finally settled in Australia at last. It's left him with an interest in travel, but it's not so easy now as he has two young children.
Phil took the lead in the first round with a word which turns up a lot in this game but can be hard to spot. Leif struck back in the second round, finding the unique best answer. Three shared rounds followed (neither contestant having any luck with the numbers round), then Leif extended his lead in the next numbers round. Phil was able to get back some of that ground in the final letters round, and then both solved the last rather easy numbers round. Leif was ahead but not safe going into the conundrum, and his usual technique of writing down the letters worked against him, as Phil solved it while Leif was still doing so. Phil won the game, 45 to 37.
I had a rather mixed game, starting off with a good find but then missing many better options. In fact, I did not get another maximum until the last numbers round; the other two numbers rounds included rather bad mental slips from me and I ended up two away in each case. The better words were rather findable in most cases, too, so overall this was not a good result. I did manage to beat Phil to the conundrum solution, but only just. It was a somewhat disappointing game, to be honest, but I had managed to do enough for the win.
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Ep 90: Phil Moore, Brett Chaiyawat (November 9, 2012; originally aired December 3, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
Phil Moore is back for his third night, and with the finals series so close he is the last contender for a finals berth. Richard asks which facet of the game Phil favours, and Phil responds that before he started he thought that he handled them equally well, but now he thinks that his letters are actually better. He adds that his children (Ellen and John, who are still in primary school) like to do the numbers.
Tonight's challenger is Brett Chaiyawat, an auditor who enjoys playing games based on thinking and strategy. That covers a wide range of territory, but the one he specifically mentions is a card game based on Star Wars. Brett expounds that the strategic part comes where you have, say, a thousand cards to choose from and you have to choose sixty of them to make up the deck which you will play with. He adds that he has done pretty well in that game, being number one in Australia and then representing Australia in the world championships. That was in 1997, I believe, but I can't find much useful information about it online.
It ended up being a rather low scoring game, with each contestant having an invalid word, an invalid numbers solution, and nothing to declare in a numbers round. No round had both contestants scoring, and although there were some pretty reasonable words found the scores were still in the low twenties going into the conundrum. Neither managed to solve it, and it was Brett who emerged with the win, 25 to 21.
I had one of my best games for a while, with only one round not maximal. I saw the best answer after time but might not have risked it in practice. I took around six seconds to solve the conundrum, and I'm OK with that. A good game on which to finish the week.
Phil Moore is back for his third night, and with the finals series so close he is the last contender for a finals berth. Richard asks which facet of the game Phil favours, and Phil responds that before he started he thought that he handled them equally well, but now he thinks that his letters are actually better. He adds that his children (Ellen and John, who are still in primary school) like to do the numbers.
Tonight's challenger is Brett Chaiyawat, an auditor who enjoys playing games based on thinking and strategy. That covers a wide range of territory, but the one he specifically mentions is a card game based on Star Wars. Brett expounds that the strategic part comes where you have, say, a thousand cards to choose from and you have to choose sixty of them to make up the deck which you will play with. He adds that he has done pretty well in that game, being number one in Australia and then representing Australia in the world championships. That was in 1997, I believe, but I can't find much useful information about it online.
It ended up being a rather low scoring game, with each contestant having an invalid word, an invalid numbers solution, and nothing to declare in a numbers round. No round had both contestants scoring, and although there were some pretty reasonable words found the scores were still in the low twenties going into the conundrum. Neither managed to solve it, and it was Brett who emerged with the win, 25 to 21.
I had one of my best games for a while, with only one round not maximal. I saw the best answer after time but might not have risked it in practice. I took around six seconds to solve the conundrum, and I'm OK with that. A good game on which to finish the week.
Ep 89: Phil Moore, Mita Navidad (November 8, 2012; originally aired December 2, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
Due to the US election coverage, episode 88 was not aired in the usual order and so there is a gap in my record. A particularly annoying gap, too, as Richard comments later in the show that it was a game with a nail-biting finale. Leif Cooper must have lost it, as there are two new faces tonight.
Update: Commenter Victor points out that this is one of the few episodes available on YouTube, so I will be able to cover this after all. The links are: Part 1, part 2, part 3. Thanks, Victor!
The returning champion is Phil Moore, an I.T. manager and business technology student. Richard observes that I.T. is often sedentary work, but that Phil is actually pretty fit. Phil explains this as being due to him riding around 45 to 50 kilometres per day when he is cycling.
Tonight's challenger is Mita Navidad, a science and maths graduate who went to Germany to complete an internship with the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company. Mita was working for the structures and engineering department, and she says that the best thing about it was that every day she got to see fighter planes fly past her window on their test flights. It was, of course, very noisy when that happened and not much work got done. She found it exciting to be working at the cutting edge of science.
The contestants started out fairly evenly, finding the same word in the first round. In the second round Mita made the first-time player error of using a letter twice, but she got those points back in the following numbers round. The second third of the game was all Phil, though, as he found the two best words and solved the numbers game to have a lead of over twenty points. The final third saw them matched again, giving the game to Phil. Neither could solve the conundrum, and the final scoreline was 44 to 20 in his favour.
I blanked a bit on the first round, missing some longer options that I knew must be there. I probably was never going to match David's result in the thirty seconds, though. For the rest of it I played optimally all the way up to the conundrum, but that took me over two minutes to solve. A rather tough conundrum tonight, I'd say. That kept my score out of the seventies, but a mid-sixties score was still pretty welcome.
Due to the US election coverage, episode 88 was not aired in the usual order and so there is a gap in my record. A particularly annoying gap, too, as Richard comments later in the show that it was a game with a nail-biting finale. Leif Cooper must have lost it, as there are two new faces tonight.
Update: Commenter Victor points out that this is one of the few episodes available on YouTube, so I will be able to cover this after all. The links are: Part 1, part 2, part 3. Thanks, Victor!
The returning champion is Phil Moore, an I.T. manager and business technology student. Richard observes that I.T. is often sedentary work, but that Phil is actually pretty fit. Phil explains this as being due to him riding around 45 to 50 kilometres per day when he is cycling.
Tonight's challenger is Mita Navidad, a science and maths graduate who went to Germany to complete an internship with the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company. Mita was working for the structures and engineering department, and she says that the best thing about it was that every day she got to see fighter planes fly past her window on their test flights. It was, of course, very noisy when that happened and not much work got done. She found it exciting to be working at the cutting edge of science.
The contestants started out fairly evenly, finding the same word in the first round. In the second round Mita made the first-time player error of using a letter twice, but she got those points back in the following numbers round. The second third of the game was all Phil, though, as he found the two best words and solved the numbers game to have a lead of over twenty points. The final third saw them matched again, giving the game to Phil. Neither could solve the conundrum, and the final scoreline was 44 to 20 in his favour.
I blanked a bit on the first round, missing some longer options that I knew must be there. I probably was never going to match David's result in the thirty seconds, though. For the rest of it I played optimally all the way up to the conundrum, but that took me over two minutes to solve. A rather tough conundrum tonight, I'd say. That kept my score out of the seventies, but a mid-sixties score was still pretty welcome.
Saturday, 10 November 2012
Apologies for delays
Apologies for being a couple of days behind again; I'll catch up on the weekend. I blame the recent release of The Fool and His Money, a puzzle game (with strong emphasis on words) that I've been looking forward to for many years now. Readers who enjoy puzzles of various kinds might well enjoy playing his earlier games that are now available for free at the author's download page. The two which I remember with particular fondness are The Fool's Errand and 3 in Three. (A word of warning: These are games from the late eighties, so graphically they are not always as nice as one might hope for these days. But fortunately that does not affect the quality of the puzzles.
In blog-related news, Jason Stockdale -- who played very well but unluckily in episode five -- has popped in with a comment on that episode. Also, as some of you have noted, episode 88 was not shown due to the coverage of the US election, so there is likely to be a hole in the blog for some time, alas.
In blog-related news, Jason Stockdale -- who played very well but unluckily in episode five -- has popped in with a comment on that episode. Also, as some of you have noted, episode 88 was not shown due to the coverage of the US election, so there is likely to be a hole in the blog for some time, alas.
Thursday, 8 November 2012
Ep 87: Leif Cooper, Rod Goulding (November 6, 2012; originally aired November 30, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
Leif Cooper is back for his third night, and has displayed some consistently excellent letters form throughout. Can he keep it up? The answer shortly, but first we find out that he plays hockey for the Mentone Hockey Club, and has done so for eighteen years. Richard asks if Leif is seriously competitive, but Leif demurs a little; he says that he is competitive, but does not play in a very competitive grade.
Tonight's challenger is Rob Goulding, described as an electrical engineer who owns a satellite installation business. That is what is said, anyway, but I'm choosing to assume that he installs satellite dishes / antennae and associated infrastructure rather than satellites themselves. If I'm wrong about that then I am seriously impressed by his line of work. But we don't get to find out about that, as Richard informs us that Rod loves sport. Rod played basketball and rugby union at school, and also did some cross-country running. He enjoys watching any kind of sport, and in particular is a Hawks supporter in the AFL and favours the Newcastle Knights in the NRL.
Both contestants started out well with a couple of good words; really good finds in round two, in fact. Leif hit form with the numbers tonight, and continued to show excellent form in the letters. In contrast, Rod failed to live up to the promise of those first two rounds and consistently slipped behind in the remaining letters rounds. Leif was assured of the win going into the conundrum, but neither ended up solving it; Leif still finished with a commanding 61 to 24 victory.
I started off with a good game, hitting maxes for the first two-thirds of the match. Perhaps the frustration of not being able to pull clear of Leif got to me, as my last two main rounds were not as good as they could have been. There were better options to be had that I found after time, although I'd still not have found David's word in the last letters round so the maximal game was never an option. I needed the conundrum in order to be safe, and was happy to solve it relatively quickly to nudge into the seventies again.
Leif Cooper is back for his third night, and has displayed some consistently excellent letters form throughout. Can he keep it up? The answer shortly, but first we find out that he plays hockey for the Mentone Hockey Club, and has done so for eighteen years. Richard asks if Leif is seriously competitive, but Leif demurs a little; he says that he is competitive, but does not play in a very competitive grade.
Tonight's challenger is Rob Goulding, described as an electrical engineer who owns a satellite installation business. That is what is said, anyway, but I'm choosing to assume that he installs satellite dishes / antennae and associated infrastructure rather than satellites themselves. If I'm wrong about that then I am seriously impressed by his line of work. But we don't get to find out about that, as Richard informs us that Rod loves sport. Rod played basketball and rugby union at school, and also did some cross-country running. He enjoys watching any kind of sport, and in particular is a Hawks supporter in the AFL and favours the Newcastle Knights in the NRL.
Both contestants started out well with a couple of good words; really good finds in round two, in fact. Leif hit form with the numbers tonight, and continued to show excellent form in the letters. In contrast, Rod failed to live up to the promise of those first two rounds and consistently slipped behind in the remaining letters rounds. Leif was assured of the win going into the conundrum, but neither ended up solving it; Leif still finished with a commanding 61 to 24 victory.
I started off with a good game, hitting maxes for the first two-thirds of the match. Perhaps the frustration of not being able to pull clear of Leif got to me, as my last two main rounds were not as good as they could have been. There were better options to be had that I found after time, although I'd still not have found David's word in the last letters round so the maximal game was never an option. I needed the conundrum in order to be safe, and was happy to solve it relatively quickly to nudge into the seventies again.
Tuesday, 6 November 2012
Ep 86: Leif Cooper, Brett Newton (November 5, 2012; originally aired November 29, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
Leif Cooper gets his turn in the champion's seat after a very impressive turn on the letters in the previous episode. Richard asks what got Leif into his line of work; Leif explains that he had always been good at maths and science at school, and found chemistry particularly interesting. Naturally enough, when he did his bachelor of science he focused on chemistry, and it all followed from that; he got a job at a lab and now here he is, somewhat further down the path.
Tonight's challenger is Brett Newton, who has been a secondary school mathematics teacher for seven years. Brett recently spent a year teaching in the United Kingdom; he enjoyed that greatly, getting to do a lot of travel including a few castle trips. The personal highlight was a trip to LEGOLAND for his son's birthday, and the highlight of the whole trip was Christmas at Disneyland in France.
The letter mixes were rather miserly today, but Leif still did pretty well on them, including an excellent word in round four. A trivial numbers round to start was followed by two very tough ones; Leif made errors on both of those but it was not enough to let Brett catch up. Leif was comfortably ahead going into the conundrum, and solved it late in the piece to push his score over the half century and finish with a 53 to 19 win.
I was back to rather erratic form, alas. The tough mixes were hard to get much traction on, and I missed finding two better options within time. I also struggled with the numbers, although fortunately for my ego so did Lily; they were genuinely difficult. I did manage to solve the conundrum relatively quickly, avoiding setting a new worst record on the maximum count. I wobbled home victorious, but certainly Leif has been the best competitor on the letters for some weeks and these games are getting a bit chancy.
Leif Cooper gets his turn in the champion's seat after a very impressive turn on the letters in the previous episode. Richard asks what got Leif into his line of work; Leif explains that he had always been good at maths and science at school, and found chemistry particularly interesting. Naturally enough, when he did his bachelor of science he focused on chemistry, and it all followed from that; he got a job at a lab and now here he is, somewhat further down the path.
Tonight's challenger is Brett Newton, who has been a secondary school mathematics teacher for seven years. Brett recently spent a year teaching in the United Kingdom; he enjoyed that greatly, getting to do a lot of travel including a few castle trips. The personal highlight was a trip to LEGOLAND for his son's birthday, and the highlight of the whole trip was Christmas at Disneyland in France.
The letter mixes were rather miserly today, but Leif still did pretty well on them, including an excellent word in round four. A trivial numbers round to start was followed by two very tough ones; Leif made errors on both of those but it was not enough to let Brett catch up. Leif was comfortably ahead going into the conundrum, and solved it late in the piece to push his score over the half century and finish with a 53 to 19 win.
I was back to rather erratic form, alas. The tough mixes were hard to get much traction on, and I missed finding two better options within time. I also struggled with the numbers, although fortunately for my ego so did Lily; they were genuinely difficult. I did manage to solve the conundrum relatively quickly, avoiding setting a new worst record on the maximum count. I wobbled home victorious, but certainly Leif has been the best competitor on the letters for some weeks and these games are getting a bit chancy.
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Weekly summary: Episodes 81 to 85
I was a bit erratic this week, but mostly in good shape. In two games I was on track to match the combined David and Lily total but could not solve the conundrum within time; the second of those (Friday) would have been a maximal game if not for that.
Christopher Weldon went down to Nick Carr in a tiebreaker conundrum, ending his run just short of making it into the finals rankings. No other shakeups to it right now, and with not much time left until the finals start the top six are sure to make it and it would be rather unlikely for Kashi Ross (currently seventh) to miss out.
There was a full monty this week that I did not find, although it was perhaps a little dodgy. Lily solved all the numbers rounds.
My maximum count was in much better shape this week, but a couple of invalid words on Wednesday put a dent in that. I had trouble with one numbers round on Monday but otherwise the numbers results were all satisfactory. There were some tough conundrums this week, annoyingly on the two days that I had done best in the main rounds.
Contestants sorted by average score:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | 66 | 64 | 54 | 74 | 66 |
| Champion | 7 | 10 | 37 | 16 | 10 |
| Challenger | 12 | 27 | 13 | 32 | 29 |
| David + Lily | 77 | 74 | 86 | 77 | 76 |
| Me (solo) | 73 | 64 | 60 | 74 | 66 |
Christopher Weldon went down to Nick Carr in a tiebreaker conundrum, ending his run just short of making it into the finals rankings. No other shakeups to it right now, and with not much time left until the finals start the top six are sure to make it and it would be rather unlikely for Kashi Ross (currently seventh) to miss out.
| Andrew Fisher | 95 | 63 | 64 | 67 | 67 | 59 | 415 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Naween Fernando | 73 | 60 | 64 | 94 | 64 | 56 | 411 |
| David Jones | 63 | 63 | 50 | 61 | 55 | 53 | 346 |
| Liam Bastick | 48 | 60 | 48 | 46 | 50 | 72 | 324 |
| Dom Saric | 53 | 52 | 50 | 45 | 51 | 57 | 308 |
| Chris Scholten-Smith | 45 | 47 | 48 | 47 | 38 | 40 | 265 |
| Kashi Ross | 48 | 46 | 34 | 41 | 45 | 32 | 246 |
| Veronica Corrigan | 41 | 60 | 54 | 35 | 43 | 233 |
There was a full monty this week that I did not find, although it was perhaps a little dodgy. Lily solved all the numbers rounds.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full Monties | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Missed Full Monties | 0 | |||||
| Tough Numbers | 0 | |||||
| Impossible Numbers | 0 |
My maximum count was in much better shape this week, but a couple of invalid words on Wednesday put a dent in that. I had trouble with one numbers round on Monday but otherwise the numbers results were all satisfactory. There were some tough conundrums this week, annoyingly on the two days that I had done best in the main rounds.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximums: L | 3 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| N | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| C | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Invalid: L | - | - | 2 | - | - |
Contestants sorted by average score:
| Total | Games | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andrew Fisher | 415 | 6 | 69.17 |
| Naween Fernando | 411 | 6 | 68.50 |
| Sam Chow | 65 | 1 | 65.00 |
| David Jones | 346 | 6 | 57.67 |
| Esther Perrins | 219 | 4 | 54.75 |
| James Weatherhead | 164 | 3 | 54.67 |
| Liam Bastick | 324 | 6 | 54.00 |
| Angus Kidman | 103 | 2 | 51.50 |
| Dom Saric | 308 | 6 | 51.33 |
| Jasper Johnson | 51 | 1 | 51.00 |
| Christopher Weldon | 200 | 4 | 50.00 |
| Dennis Callegari | 96 | 2 | 48.00 |
| Rob York | 94 | 2 | 47.00 |
| Jayanthi Viswanathan | 140 | 3 | 46.67 |
| Veronica Corrigan | 233 | 5 | 46.60 |
| Nick Carr | 137 | 3 | 45.67 |
| James Parton | 182 | 4 | 45.50 |
| Pravin Dullur | 45 | 1 | 45.00 |
| Chris Scholten-Smith | 265 | 6 | 44.17 |
| Geoff Heard | 88 | 2 | 44.00 |
| Sudesh Piyatissa | 128 | 3 | 42.67 |
| Kathryn Jones | 85 | 2 | 42.50 |
| Yolanda Sztarr | 127 | 3 | 42.33 |
| Leif Cooper* | 42 | 1 | 42.00 |
| Aaron Tyrell | 165 | 4 | 41.25 |
| Kashi Ross | 246 | 6 | 41.00 |
| Peter Stegelman | 82 | 2 | 41.00 |
| Tanya Ithier | 41 | 1 | 41.00 |
| Ian Campbell-Fraser | 161 | 4 | 40.25 |
| Amanda Mendizza | 40 | 1 | 40.00 |
| Keith De La Rue | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Kiao Inthavong | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Jonathan Scarlett | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Michael Phillips | 38 | 1 | 38.00 |
| Chaitanya Rao | 38 | 1 | 38.00 |
| Ian See | 113 | 3 | 37.67 |
| Jason Stockdale | 37 | 1 | 37.00 |
| Rob Mould | 70 | 2 | 35.00 |
| Rolli Pick | 70 | 2 | 35.00 |
| Lara Cassar | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Andrew Patterson | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Chris Ryan | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Paolo Navidad | 34 | 1 | 34.00 |
| Beckett Rozentals | 34 | 1 | 34.00 |
| Robert Jackson | 67 | 2 | 33.50 |
| Peter Smith | 67 | 2 | 33.50 |
| Elaine Miles | 33 | 1 | 33.00 |
| Jenny Blair | 33 | 1 | 33.00 |
| Alexis Harley | 32 | 1 | 32.00 |
| James Pho | 32 | 1 | 32.00 |
| Erez Gordon | 31 | 1 | 31.00 |
| Yvonne Wake | 31 | 1 | 31.00 |
| Ben Strate | 30 | 1 | 30.00 |
| Jonathan Campbell | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Alan Stewart | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Adib Surani | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Stephen Farrelly | 86 | 3 | 28.67 |
| Michael Clark | 28 | 1 | 28.00 |
| Tristan Leech | 28 | 1 | 28.00 |
| Helen Robinson | 27 | 1 | 27.00 |
| Dave Wilson | 27 | 1 | 27.00 |
| Christine Hodges | 26 | 1 | 26.00 |
| Michael Gin | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Desire L'Etang | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Les Ramsay | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Rachael Bausor | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Brian Lynch | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Stavroula Nicholls | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Paul Power | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Robin Wedd | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Jane Cleary | 23 | 1 | 23.00 |
| Mark Mota | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Brendan Murphy | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Michael O'Neill | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Jim Bailey | 21 | 1 | 21.00 |
| Daniel Pratt | 21 | 1 | 21.00 |
| Matt Woodley | 20 | 1 | 20.00 |
| Nick Taubert | 19 | 1 | 19.00 |
| Arthur Barrs | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Carol Campbell | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Mark Duggan | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Damian Foong | 16 | 1 | 16.00 |
| Dawn Tuftan | 15 | 1 | 15.00 |
| Jason Taylor | 14 | 1 | 14.00 |
| Bassem Abousaid | 12 | 1 | 12.00 |
| Billy Lowe | 12 | 1 | 12.00 |
| Frances Weinberg | 10 | 1 | 10.00 |
| Robert Lukunic | 8 | 1 | 8.00 |
| Rebecca Daley | 7 | 1 | 7.00 |
| Dean Schwab | 7 | 1 | 7.00 |
| Paul Hughes | 6 | 1 | 6.00 |
| Andrew Bullen | 5 | 1 | 5.00 |
Friday, 2 November 2012
Ep 85: Robert Jackson, Leif Cooper (November 2, 2012; originally aired November 26, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
Robert Jackson gets his turn in the champion's seat tonight, and Richard asks further about his music. Robert says that at the moment he is playing guitar for a band called The Legless Lizards. They tend to play music with an environmental bent -- he calls it a sort of Indian-influenced jazz -- and they try to highlight the plight of the legless lizard, which is a threatened species around Melbourne.
Tonight's challenger is Leif Cooper, a senior chemist who has completed a bachelor of science and a masters in forensic science; in the next few years he hopes to complete a PhD in environmental forensics. Richard asks what kind of work a senior chemist does, and Leif explains that a lot of his focus is on environmental forensics. In particular, oil spills are a problem both in Australia and around the world, and how the oil interacts with the environment makes up a lot of his work.
Leif signalled his abilities early with a couple of excellent eight-letter words, and ending up scoring unanswered points in every letters round. As you might imagine, that was too much of an obstacle for Robert to overcome; Robert did win some points back in the numbers (although not all of them), but it was not enough. The conundrum proved difficult; Robert's guess was invalid, but Leif was not able to solve it either. Still, Leif took the win, 42 to 17.
I had an excellent game, except for the conundrum. I'm a bit disappointed over that; I saw the right beginning but then went away from it, and the conundrum went unsolved. I'd have had a maximum game if not for that, alas. Still, I had some decent answers in the main rounds, and overall it was a game to be happy about.
Robert Jackson gets his turn in the champion's seat tonight, and Richard asks further about his music. Robert says that at the moment he is playing guitar for a band called The Legless Lizards. They tend to play music with an environmental bent -- he calls it a sort of Indian-influenced jazz -- and they try to highlight the plight of the legless lizard, which is a threatened species around Melbourne.
Tonight's challenger is Leif Cooper, a senior chemist who has completed a bachelor of science and a masters in forensic science; in the next few years he hopes to complete a PhD in environmental forensics. Richard asks what kind of work a senior chemist does, and Leif explains that a lot of his focus is on environmental forensics. In particular, oil spills are a problem both in Australia and around the world, and how the oil interacts with the environment makes up a lot of his work.
Leif signalled his abilities early with a couple of excellent eight-letter words, and ending up scoring unanswered points in every letters round. As you might imagine, that was too much of an obstacle for Robert to overcome; Robert did win some points back in the numbers (although not all of them), but it was not enough. The conundrum proved difficult; Robert's guess was invalid, but Leif was not able to solve it either. Still, Leif took the win, 42 to 17.
I had an excellent game, except for the conundrum. I'm a bit disappointed over that; I saw the right beginning but then went away from it, and the conundrum went unsolved. I'd have had a maximum game if not for that, alas. Still, I had some decent answers in the main rounds, and overall it was a game to be happy about.
Ep 84: Nick Carr, Robert Jackson (November 1, 2012; originally aired November 25, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
This is Nick Carr's third night, and Richard mentions that Nick is used to being in a TV studio. Nick agrees, stating that he was lucky enough to "dabble in a bit of television" a few years back. He goes on to explain that he was doing medical stories on the ABC with George Negus; they used to give good health information about stories on subjects like asthma and diabetes. Nick would talk to people "out in the fields" and sometimes he would also be the expert on the couch there in the studio with George.
Tonight's challenger is Robert Jackson, a musician and composer who plays guitar and saxophone; he is also a painter and an actor. Richard asks about these many facets, and Robert responds that you get a lot of time to practise different things over the years. He says that he is mostly a musician, and has come to acting "through the back door" -- doing theatre shows and getting a small part here and there, and then one thing led to another.
It might not have seemed it towards the end, but this was a fairly close game. It turns out that the damage was done in the first round, where Nick stretched too far and ended up with an invalid word. The numbers went a bit each way but slightly in Robert's favour; Robert also managed to pick up quite a few useful points in the letters, albeit with a slightly risky play in one round. Nick ended up solving the conundrum quickly again, but Robert had the win, 50 to 39.
I could have had an optimal game here if I had been a bit faster. As it was, I overlooked two better options until after time. They were findable; I think this was just the effects of some recent sleep deprivation kicking in. The numbers were a pretty bland bunch today so it was all about the letters, and I was pleased to find some good answers. Coupled with a fast conundrum solution this pushed my score up into the seventies again at last.
This is Nick Carr's third night, and Richard mentions that Nick is used to being in a TV studio. Nick agrees, stating that he was lucky enough to "dabble in a bit of television" a few years back. He goes on to explain that he was doing medical stories on the ABC with George Negus; they used to give good health information about stories on subjects like asthma and diabetes. Nick would talk to people "out in the fields" and sometimes he would also be the expert on the couch there in the studio with George.
Tonight's challenger is Robert Jackson, a musician and composer who plays guitar and saxophone; he is also a painter and an actor. Richard asks about these many facets, and Robert responds that you get a lot of time to practise different things over the years. He says that he is mostly a musician, and has come to acting "through the back door" -- doing theatre shows and getting a small part here and there, and then one thing led to another.
It might not have seemed it towards the end, but this was a fairly close game. It turns out that the damage was done in the first round, where Nick stretched too far and ended up with an invalid word. The numbers went a bit each way but slightly in Robert's favour; Robert also managed to pick up quite a few useful points in the letters, albeit with a slightly risky play in one round. Nick ended up solving the conundrum quickly again, but Robert had the win, 50 to 39.
I could have had an optimal game here if I had been a bit faster. As it was, I overlooked two better options until after time. They were findable; I think this was just the effects of some recent sleep deprivation kicking in. The numbers were a pretty bland bunch today so it was all about the letters, and I was pleased to find some good answers. Coupled with a fast conundrum solution this pushed my score up into the seventies again at last.
Thursday, 1 November 2012
Ep 83: Nick Carr, Christine Hodges (October 31, 2012; originally aired November 24, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
Nick Carr takes his place in the champion's seat tonight, having done well to beat Christopher Weldon yesterday with a couple of good conundrum solutions. Richard reveals that Christopher is a fanatical player of real tennis, which Nick clarifies is what used to be called "royal tennis" -- the original game of tennis. (As opposed to "lawn tennis", which is what most people would think of when tennis is mentioned.) He calls it "the Henry VIII game" and adds that it was -- and still is -- played in Hampton Court. Nick plays it several times a week; whenever he can, really.
Tonight's challenger is Christine Hodges, who is enjoying her retirement after twenty-seven years of teaching French and Japanese. Richard asks if she is fluent in both, and Christine responds that she is not as fluent as she was (due to the retirement) but travel is a great way to keep the fluency up.
Nick took an early lead in the first round, and then extended it in the third round when Christine bobbled with an invalid answer. She had another invalid option in the fourth round but Nick's word was better in any case; that put him more than twenty points ahead. Nick pushed the lead out past thirty with the second numbers round, and with no full monty available in the last letters round that ensured his victory. Christine rallied a bit in the last two main rounds to cut back the deficit, but the damage was done. Nick buzzed in late on the conundrum with an invalid answer, but Christine was not able to solve it in the remaining time and the final scoreline was 44 to 26 in Nick's favour.
I had a somewhat poor game tonight, starting off with a pair of invalid words. The second I thought was unlikely, but the first took me completely by surprise. I was able to claw back some ground in two of the numbers rounds, but for the first time in over seven weeks I was not safe going into the conundrum (the last such occasion was over seven weeks ago in episode 47, the high-class confrontation between Esther Perrins and Sam Chow). Fortunately I had my quickest conundrum solution ever, at least by the clock; the first segment had only barely begun to light. I was rather relieved to get home safely after that start!
Nick Carr takes his place in the champion's seat tonight, having done well to beat Christopher Weldon yesterday with a couple of good conundrum solutions. Richard reveals that Christopher is a fanatical player of real tennis, which Nick clarifies is what used to be called "royal tennis" -- the original game of tennis. (As opposed to "lawn tennis", which is what most people would think of when tennis is mentioned.) He calls it "the Henry VIII game" and adds that it was -- and still is -- played in Hampton Court. Nick plays it several times a week; whenever he can, really.
Tonight's challenger is Christine Hodges, who is enjoying her retirement after twenty-seven years of teaching French and Japanese. Richard asks if she is fluent in both, and Christine responds that she is not as fluent as she was (due to the retirement) but travel is a great way to keep the fluency up.
Nick took an early lead in the first round, and then extended it in the third round when Christine bobbled with an invalid answer. She had another invalid option in the fourth round but Nick's word was better in any case; that put him more than twenty points ahead. Nick pushed the lead out past thirty with the second numbers round, and with no full monty available in the last letters round that ensured his victory. Christine rallied a bit in the last two main rounds to cut back the deficit, but the damage was done. Nick buzzed in late on the conundrum with an invalid answer, but Christine was not able to solve it in the remaining time and the final scoreline was 44 to 26 in Nick's favour.
I had a somewhat poor game tonight, starting off with a pair of invalid words. The second I thought was unlikely, but the first took me completely by surprise. I was able to claw back some ground in two of the numbers rounds, but for the first time in over seven weeks I was not safe going into the conundrum (the last such occasion was over seven weeks ago in episode 47, the high-class confrontation between Esther Perrins and Sam Chow). Fortunately I had my quickest conundrum solution ever, at least by the clock; the first segment had only barely begun to light. I was rather relieved to get home safely after that start!
Tuesday, 30 October 2012
Ep 82: Christopher Weldon, Nick Carr (October 30, 2012; originally aired November 23, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
This is Christopher Weldon's fourth night, and a win here will put him in good position to move into the finals rankings. Richard talks about Christopher's so-far impressive conundrum speed and jokingly suggests that Christopher's typing speed may be a contributing factor. Christopher plays up to it well, saying that maybe his typing speed is increased exponentially by having only one button to focus on.
Tonight's challenger is Nick Carr, a GP who does regular radio and TV segments. Nick says that David's crosswords are both the highlight and the lowlight of his weekends. He adds that he used to enjoy his weekends, sitting back and reading the papers. Now he sits there scratching his head over David's crosswords all weekend; he doesn't get to read anything any more. But of course, when he does manage to get one out it is all the sweeter for the difficulty.
It was a close game tonight, one that kept us guessing up until the end. Christopher started off promisingly with points in the first round, then several shared rounds followed. (Nick overlooked a simple modification of his first numbers game that would have given him points there, mind you.) Then Nick found an excellent word to claim the lead, only for Christopher to take it right back again in the next numbers round. Nick was unlucky that his attempt for the last letters round was not valid, and the result of all this was that Christopher was ahead by precisely ten points going into the conundrum. It looked like time would expire without it being solved, but with less than two seconds left Nick found the answer and took the game to a tiebreaker conundrum. He ended up solving that, too, somewhat more quickly, and took a deserved 54 to 44 victory.
I played reasonably well, just dropping the one letters maximum in the main rounds. Some of my numbers solutions were a bit overcomplicated, but they got the job done and that is what counts. David had found that maximum that I missed, but then I found a longer word in the tough final letters round, and the chance to tie was still available. Unfortunately, that first conundrum was too hard for me; I solved the second one rather quickly but the damage was done and the tie slipped away. Still, some nice words on offer tonight and a good game despite the conundrum woes.
This is Christopher Weldon's fourth night, and a win here will put him in good position to move into the finals rankings. Richard talks about Christopher's so-far impressive conundrum speed and jokingly suggests that Christopher's typing speed may be a contributing factor. Christopher plays up to it well, saying that maybe his typing speed is increased exponentially by having only one button to focus on.
Tonight's challenger is Nick Carr, a GP who does regular radio and TV segments. Nick says that David's crosswords are both the highlight and the lowlight of his weekends. He adds that he used to enjoy his weekends, sitting back and reading the papers. Now he sits there scratching his head over David's crosswords all weekend; he doesn't get to read anything any more. But of course, when he does manage to get one out it is all the sweeter for the difficulty.
It was a close game tonight, one that kept us guessing up until the end. Christopher started off promisingly with points in the first round, then several shared rounds followed. (Nick overlooked a simple modification of his first numbers game that would have given him points there, mind you.) Then Nick found an excellent word to claim the lead, only for Christopher to take it right back again in the next numbers round. Nick was unlucky that his attempt for the last letters round was not valid, and the result of all this was that Christopher was ahead by precisely ten points going into the conundrum. It looked like time would expire without it being solved, but with less than two seconds left Nick found the answer and took the game to a tiebreaker conundrum. He ended up solving that, too, somewhat more quickly, and took a deserved 54 to 44 victory.
I played reasonably well, just dropping the one letters maximum in the main rounds. Some of my numbers solutions were a bit overcomplicated, but they got the job done and that is what counts. David had found that maximum that I missed, but then I found a longer word in the tough final letters round, and the chance to tie was still available. Unfortunately, that first conundrum was too hard for me; I solved the second one rather quickly but the damage was done and the tie slipped away. Still, some nice words on offer tonight and a good game despite the conundrum woes.
Monday, 29 October 2012
Ep 81: Christopher Weldon, Paul Power (October 29, 2012; originally aired November 22, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
Christopher Weldon is back after the weekend for his third game. Christopher's day job (as opposed to his scriptwriting) is to write on-hold messages for businesses. Richard makes the observation that when you hear such a message on the phone you don't generally stop and realise that someone had to have written it, and Christopher agrees; he then adds that much of the time the writer was him. We also find out that Christopher has an impressive typing speed of around 117 words per minute.
Tonight's challenger is Paul Power, a retired organisational psychologist. Paul explains that organisational psychology is the study of people at work: Everything from career choice, why people choose certain vocations, through to effective leadership. Richard asks how psychology is part of this; Paul responds that psychology is the study of people and behaviour, so this is about people behaving at work... hopefully, people behaving well at work.
Christopher found a good word in the first round to establish an early lead; Paul looked to get it back in the second round, but it turned out that he had used one of the letters twice. A few shared rounds followed, but then an error from Paul in the second numbers round allowed Christopher to push his lead out to twenty points. Paul finally won a round in the next letters round, but then lost more points in the last numbers round to ensure Christopher's win. Paul buzzed in quickly on the conundrum, but it was invalid, and Christopher solved it shortly thereafter, finishing with a sizeable 56 to 24 victory.
I had a good game with two bad moments: I got so flustered on the first numbers round that I lost track of my backup plan and finished further away than both contestants, and then I missed a findable better word in the last letters round. The rest went fairly well -- I was particularly happy with my solution to the last numbers round -- and I solved the conundrum quickly for a change, finishing comfortably ahead.
Christopher Weldon is back after the weekend for his third game. Christopher's day job (as opposed to his scriptwriting) is to write on-hold messages for businesses. Richard makes the observation that when you hear such a message on the phone you don't generally stop and realise that someone had to have written it, and Christopher agrees; he then adds that much of the time the writer was him. We also find out that Christopher has an impressive typing speed of around 117 words per minute.
Tonight's challenger is Paul Power, a retired organisational psychologist. Paul explains that organisational psychology is the study of people at work: Everything from career choice, why people choose certain vocations, through to effective leadership. Richard asks how psychology is part of this; Paul responds that psychology is the study of people and behaviour, so this is about people behaving at work... hopefully, people behaving well at work.
Christopher found a good word in the first round to establish an early lead; Paul looked to get it back in the second round, but it turned out that he had used one of the letters twice. A few shared rounds followed, but then an error from Paul in the second numbers round allowed Christopher to push his lead out to twenty points. Paul finally won a round in the next letters round, but then lost more points in the last numbers round to ensure Christopher's win. Paul buzzed in quickly on the conundrum, but it was invalid, and Christopher solved it shortly thereafter, finishing with a sizeable 56 to 24 victory.
I had a good game with two bad moments: I got so flustered on the first numbers round that I lost track of my backup plan and finished further away than both contestants, and then I missed a findable better word in the last letters round. The rest went fairly well -- I was particularly happy with my solution to the last numbers round -- and I solved the conundrum quickly for a change, finishing comfortably ahead.
Sunday, 28 October 2012
Weekly summary: Episodes 76 to 80
This was a somewhat less good week than last week, starting off with invalid answers and generally missing better options that I would like to have found. Still, it's not all as doom-and-gloom as I make out, so apologies for that.
Dom Saric successfully retired, finishing up in fifth position as expected. No contestants lasted very long thereafter, but Christopher Weldon looks to have some potential.
For the second week in a row there were no potential full monties, so hopefully that will change next week. There was a genuinely impossible target on Wednesday, which arguably should also count as "tough" since Lily was not able to find the best option either.
My maximum count was rather down this week, with the invalid answers contributing to that. This is the first week (that I am aware of) where I was not able to get three numbers maxima in any game. I've definitely struggled, and it has been a sharp comedown from the previous week.
Contestants sorted by average score:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | 54 | 56 | 70 | 61 | 62 |
| Champion | 27 | 24 | 7 | 30 | 37 |
| Challenger | 7 | 0 | 0 | 40 | 33 |
| David + Lily | 77 | 75 | 74 | 77 | 74 |
| Me (solo) | 54 | 66 | 70 | 71 | 72 |
Dom Saric successfully retired, finishing up in fifth position as expected. No contestants lasted very long thereafter, but Christopher Weldon looks to have some potential.
| Andrew Fisher | 95 | 63 | 64 | 67 | 67 | 59 | 415 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Naween Fernando | 73 | 60 | 64 | 94 | 64 | 56 | 411 |
| David Jones | 63 | 63 | 50 | 61 | 55 | 53 | 346 |
| Liam Bastick | 48 | 60 | 48 | 46 | 50 | 72 | 324 |
| Dom Saric | 53 | 52 | 50 | 45 | 51 | 57 | 308 |
| Chris Scholten-Smith | 45 | 47 | 48 | 47 | 38 | 40 | 265 |
| Kashi Ross | 48 | 46 | 34 | 41 | 45 | 32 | 246 |
| Veronica Corrigan | 41 | 60 | 54 | 35 | 43 | 233 |
For the second week in a row there were no potential full monties, so hopefully that will change next week. There was a genuinely impossible target on Wednesday, which arguably should also count as "tough" since Lily was not able to find the best option either.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full Monties | 0 | |||||
| Missed Full Monties | 0 | |||||
| Tough Numbers | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Impossible Numbers | 1 | 1 |
My maximum count was rather down this week, with the invalid answers contributing to that. This is the first week (that I am aware of) where I was not able to get three numbers maxima in any game. I've definitely struggled, and it has been a sharp comedown from the previous week.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximums: L | 1 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| N | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| C | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Invalid: L | 1 | - | - | - | - |
| N | - | 1 | - | - | - |
Contestants sorted by average score:
| Total | Games | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andrew Fisher | 415 | 6 | 69.17 |
| Naween Fernando | 411 | 6 | 68.50 |
| Sam Chow | 65 | 1 | 65.00 |
| David Jones | 346 | 6 | 57.67 |
| Esther Perrins | 219 | 4 | 54.75 |
| James Weatherhead | 164 | 3 | 54.67 |
| Liam Bastick | 324 | 6 | 54.00 |
| Angus Kidman | 103 | 2 | 51.50 |
| Dom Saric | 308 | 6 | 51.33 |
| Jasper Johnson | 51 | 1 | 51.00 |
| Christopher Weldon* | 100 | 2 | 50.00 |
| Dennis Callegari | 96 | 2 | 48.00 |
| Rob York | 94 | 2 | 47.00 |
| Jayanthi Viswanathan | 140 | 3 | 46.67 |
| Veronica Corrigan | 233 | 5 | 46.60 |
| James Parton | 182 | 4 | 45.50 |
| Pravin Dullur | 45 | 1 | 45.00 |
| Chris Scholten-Smith | 265 | 6 | 44.17 |
| Geoff Heard | 88 | 2 | 44.00 |
| Sudesh Piyatissa | 128 | 3 | 42.67 |
| Kathryn Jones | 85 | 2 | 42.50 |
| Yolanda Sztarr | 127 | 3 | 42.33 |
| Aaron Tyrell | 165 | 4 | 41.25 |
| Kashi Ross | 246 | 6 | 41.00 |
| Peter Stegelman | 82 | 2 | 41.00 |
| Tanya Ithier | 41 | 1 | 41.00 |
| Ian Campbell-Fraser | 161 | 4 | 40.25 |
| Amanda Mendizza | 40 | 1 | 40.00 |
| Keith De La Rue | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Kiao Inthavong | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Jonathan Scarlett | 39 | 1 | 39.00 |
| Michael Phillips | 38 | 1 | 38.00 |
| Chaitanya Rao | 38 | 1 | 38.00 |
| Ian See | 113 | 3 | 37.67 |
| Jason Stockdale | 37 | 1 | 37.00 |
| Rob Mould | 70 | 2 | 35.00 |
| Rolli Pick | 70 | 2 | 35.00 |
| Lara Cassar | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Andrew Patterson | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Chris Ryan | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Paolo Navidad | 34 | 1 | 34.00 |
| Beckett Rozentals | 34 | 1 | 34.00 |
| Peter Smith | 67 | 2 | 33.50 |
| Elaine Miles | 33 | 1 | 33.00 |
| Jenny Blair | 33 | 1 | 33.00 |
| Alexis Harley | 32 | 1 | 32.00 |
| James Pho | 32 | 1 | 32.00 |
| Erez Gordon | 31 | 1 | 31.00 |
| Yvonne Wake | 31 | 1 | 31.00 |
| Ben Strate | 30 | 1 | 30.00 |
| Jonathan Campbell | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Alan Stewart | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Adib Surani | 29 | 1 | 29.00 |
| Stephen Farrelly | 86 | 3 | 28.67 |
| Michael Clark | 28 | 1 | 28.00 |
| Tristan Leech | 28 | 1 | 28.00 |
| Helen Robinson | 27 | 1 | 27.00 |
| Dave Wilson | 27 | 1 | 27.00 |
| Michael Gin | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Desire L'Etang | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Les Ramsay | 25 | 1 | 25.00 |
| Rachael Bausor | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Brian Lynch | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Stavroula Nicholls | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Robin Wedd | 24 | 1 | 24.00 |
| Jane Cleary | 23 | 1 | 23.00 |
| Mark Mota | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Brendan Murphy | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Michael O'Neill | 22 | 1 | 22.00 |
| Jim Bailey | 21 | 1 | 21.00 |
| Daniel Pratt | 21 | 1 | 21.00 |
| Matt Woodley | 20 | 1 | 20.00 |
| Nick Taubert | 19 | 1 | 19.00 |
| Arthur Barrs | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Carol Campbell | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Mark Duggan | 17 | 1 | 17.00 |
| Damian Foong | 16 | 1 | 16.00 |
| Dawn Tuftan | 15 | 1 | 15.00 |
| Jason Taylor | 14 | 1 | 14.00 |
| Bassem Abousaid | 12 | 1 | 12.00 |
| Billy Lowe | 12 | 1 | 12.00 |
| Frances Weinberg | 10 | 1 | 10.00 |
| Robert Lukunic | 8 | 1 | 8.00 |
| Rebecca Daley | 7 | 1 | 7.00 |
| Dean Schwab | 7 | 1 | 7.00 |
| Paul Hughes | 6 | 1 | 6.00 |
| Andrew Bullen | 5 | 1 | 5.00 |
Ep 80: Christopher Weldon, Jasper Johnson (October 26, 2012; originally aired November 19, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
Christopher Weldon gets his turn in the champion's seat after his good come-from-behind victory over Peter Smith last night. Richard mentions that Christopher is an acting graduate as well as a writer, and that he has melded those two facets together as he has written at least one script. Christopher says that he would like to do more scriptwriting; he has written one play already. He admits that it might sound impressive but the play only went for ten minutes, so he can call himself a playwright with very little effort. He'd like to write more things, and jokingly adds that he particularly wants to write anything that he can put himself in and be funny and then have people love him...
Tonight's challenger is Jasper Johnson, a year twelve student and the show's youngest competitor so far. Jasper's grandmother is from Germany; she lives in Australia, but Jasper has always wanted to visit Germany. Early last year (2009) he got the opportunity to do so as an exchange student; his school has a sister school in Hamburg, which is in the north of Germany. He was there for three months, made many new friends and generally had an exciting experience.
Jasper got the early lead in the first round, and a couple of shared rounds followed. There was an exchange of points in the middle letters rounds, and then more matched results all the way up to conundrum. For the second time Christopher was seven points behind going into the conundrum, and once again he solved it quickly to take the win, 54 to 51.
I had a reasonable game, missing several tough maxima in the middle section but otherwise doing well enough. Christopher was too fast for me on the conundrum again, but this time there was only a second in it. Fortunately I'd managed to do enough in the rest of the rounds to finish comfortably ahead.
Christopher Weldon gets his turn in the champion's seat after his good come-from-behind victory over Peter Smith last night. Richard mentions that Christopher is an acting graduate as well as a writer, and that he has melded those two facets together as he has written at least one script. Christopher says that he would like to do more scriptwriting; he has written one play already. He admits that it might sound impressive but the play only went for ten minutes, so he can call himself a playwright with very little effort. He'd like to write more things, and jokingly adds that he particularly wants to write anything that he can put himself in and be funny and then have people love him...
Tonight's challenger is Jasper Johnson, a year twelve student and the show's youngest competitor so far. Jasper's grandmother is from Germany; she lives in Australia, but Jasper has always wanted to visit Germany. Early last year (2009) he got the opportunity to do so as an exchange student; his school has a sister school in Hamburg, which is in the north of Germany. He was there for three months, made many new friends and generally had an exciting experience.
Jasper got the early lead in the first round, and a couple of shared rounds followed. There was an exchange of points in the middle letters rounds, and then more matched results all the way up to conundrum. For the second time Christopher was seven points behind going into the conundrum, and once again he solved it quickly to take the win, 54 to 51.
I had a reasonable game, missing several tough maxima in the middle section but otherwise doing well enough. Christopher was too fast for me on the conundrum again, but this time there was only a second in it. Fortunately I'd managed to do enough in the rest of the rounds to finish comfortably ahead.
Ep 79: Peter Smith, Christopher Weldon (October 25, 2012; originally aired November 18, 2010)
Rounds: Here.
Peter Smith returns to the champion's chair but this time as a bona fide champion. Richard notes that forty-seven years ago Peter was "right at the cutting edge of computing", and asks for more information. Peter explains that he was working on a computer called CSIRAC, which was built by the CSIR (the name at the time for what is now called the CSIRO) not long after the Second World War. (He adds "at Melbourne university", but it is not clear if he means it was built there or he was working there; certainly the latter is true but the former is not: CSIRAC was originally built in Sydney and later transferred to Melbourne.)
Richard asks for more details about it, and Peter says that the machine would have comfortably filled the studio. (That surprises me, based on some of the photos, but perhaps the more interactive photo selection available at the museum's pages will give a better idea; presumably there was more to it than the obvious selection of cabinets, and the depth is a bit unclear.) He says that it was immensely powerful for its day, but by comparison with today's computers: "Think of the cheapest, smallest mobile phone you can get and that would beat it hands down". He finishes by mentioning that the computer is now in the Melbourne Museum, and he is glad that he is not in there with it.
Tonight's challenger is Christopher Weldon, a writer who has moved house fifty-seven times. That is really quite a lot of moves, and naturally Richard asks about the reasons behind that. Christopher responds that there has never been one real reason for it; sometimes it was an important move due to a parent having a new job, and sometimes it was because the shower head was a bit dodgy and they wanted a new one. While he was living with his parents most of that travel was in Queensland and a bit in the Northern Territory; since he has been living by himself it has been generally Canberra and now Melbourne.
It was a nice close game tonight; Christopher got the early advantage in the second letters round, only for Peter to draw level again with a much better result in the first numbers round. Peter then took the lead with an excellent find in round four, and carried that lead all the way to the conundrum. Christopher needed to solve it first to win, and did so when he found an extremely fast solution to what seemed like a difficult conundrum. Christopher got the win, 46 to 43.
I started off with a relatively poor miss -- a word I've found many times before but not this time. I had good results for the most part thereafter, but failed to solve a tricky numbers game that was nonetheless approachable. Christopher was too fast for me on the conundrum, but I got there in due course and my main rounds had kept me in front.
Peter Smith returns to the champion's chair but this time as a bona fide champion. Richard notes that forty-seven years ago Peter was "right at the cutting edge of computing", and asks for more information. Peter explains that he was working on a computer called CSIRAC, which was built by the CSIR (the name at the time for what is now called the CSIRO) not long after the Second World War. (He adds "at Melbourne university", but it is not clear if he means it was built there or he was working there; certainly the latter is true but the former is not: CSIRAC was originally built in Sydney and later transferred to Melbourne.)
Richard asks for more details about it, and Peter says that the machine would have comfortably filled the studio. (That surprises me, based on some of the photos, but perhaps the more interactive photo selection available at the museum's pages will give a better idea; presumably there was more to it than the obvious selection of cabinets, and the depth is a bit unclear.) He says that it was immensely powerful for its day, but by comparison with today's computers: "Think of the cheapest, smallest mobile phone you can get and that would beat it hands down". He finishes by mentioning that the computer is now in the Melbourne Museum, and he is glad that he is not in there with it.
Tonight's challenger is Christopher Weldon, a writer who has moved house fifty-seven times. That is really quite a lot of moves, and naturally Richard asks about the reasons behind that. Christopher responds that there has never been one real reason for it; sometimes it was an important move due to a parent having a new job, and sometimes it was because the shower head was a bit dodgy and they wanted a new one. While he was living with his parents most of that travel was in Queensland and a bit in the Northern Territory; since he has been living by himself it has been generally Canberra and now Melbourne.
It was a nice close game tonight; Christopher got the early advantage in the second letters round, only for Peter to draw level again with a much better result in the first numbers round. Peter then took the lead with an excellent find in round four, and carried that lead all the way to the conundrum. Christopher needed to solve it first to win, and did so when he found an extremely fast solution to what seemed like a difficult conundrum. Christopher got the win, 46 to 43.
I started off with a relatively poor miss -- a word I've found many times before but not this time. I had good results for the most part thereafter, but failed to solve a tricky numbers game that was nonetheless approachable. Christopher was too fast for me on the conundrum, but I got there in due course and my main rounds had kept me in front.
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