Finals preview (series 4): Rankings

It came down to the very last game of the series, but the finalists are sorted out.  Roman just edged ahead of Christopher and even more barely remained behind Sebastian by a single point.  The rankings:

Sam Gaffney	51	81	62	67	64	55	380
Alan Nash	60	73	52	54	43	69	351
Kerin White	55	56	46	63	65	51	336
Toby Baldwin	59	48	54	43	48	44	296
Shaun Ellis	43	56	38	59	40	44	280
Daniel Chua	44	59	56	53	36	52	300
Sebastian Ham	39	49	58	40	45		231
Roman Turkiewicz	68	44	57	45	16		230

With the exception of Roman, all of the other finalists would have had a fair amount of time to practice and get better.  (I certainly did so when it looked like I would make it; I've lost some of that edge since then as has shown up in the numbers, but I've gained somewhat on the letters through constructing this blog.)  I will be interested to see how they have progressed; I'm afraid that Roman will be at a big disadvantage due to that lack of practice, and I'd be highly surprised to see him advance to the semifinals.

Ep 393: Roman Turkiewicz, Norm Do (February 29, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


Roman is learning to play the tabla (Indian drums).  He says it is quite difficult, and there's actually a language associated with the drumming -- the beats have their own letters and phrases associated to them.  (These are mentioned in the link above.)

Tonight's challenger is mathematician Norm Do.  Richard asks what Norm is researching, and Norm doesn't really give an answer; he just says "pure mathematics".  That's like an author being asked what they write and responding with "books".  A more detailed answer (courtesy of his webpage) is that he studies geometry and topology, and in particular moduli spaces of curves.  Not that this is necessarily more informative to the layperson, but I think he could have made a brief description of topology and that would have worked much better.


There's some tough mixes tonight, particularly in the letters.  Norm starts out with a good word to get ahead, and extends his lead in each of the numbers rounds.  Roman just isn't able to outdo him at all, and is beaten to the conundrum for a change.  That gives Norm a comprehensive victory, 67 to 16.

I felt pretty poorly about my performance, starting out by falling behind in the first round.  I managed to claw my way back to a lead but was never comfortable, and missed a couple of chances to seal it before the conundrum.  In the end I got to it first, but it was a wobbly win.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 392: Roman Turkiewicz, Linda Bennett (February 28, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


This is Roman's fourth night, and Richard asks him if he has any techniques for the game.  Roman says that for the letters rounds he likes to start with a consonant and then try and space it out with vowels and consonants in equal measure.  He finds that makes the words fall into place better for him.

Tonight's challenger is Linda Bennett, a senior business analyst at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.  Linda has learned to count cards when playing blackjack to the extent that she is quite restricted in what the Melbourne casinos allow her to do.  (Minimum bet, only one box at a time.)


Roman finds some good words tonight, getting off to a flying start.  Aided by an invalid word from Linda, his advantage grows to 22 points at the halfway mark.  Linda manages to get some back in the next numbers round but thereafter they match, with neither solving the final numbers round or the conundrum; Roman wins again, 45 to 33.

I had a costly miss in the third letters round, and dropped the conundrum also -- it was a tough one tonight!  Everything else went well, including solving a numbers round that eluded Lily, and I had a comfortable win.  Just one match left before the finals start...

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 391: Roman Turkiewicz, Craig Woodward (February 27, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


Richard mentions that Roman has a couple of big ambitions.  The first is that Roman would like to be a chess champion one day.  He's starting from basic levels, apparently, so I'd imagine it would take some time to get there.  Roman's other ambition is to write a symphony.

Tonight's challenger is Craig Woodward, a mathematics and chemistry teacher.  Before he was a teacher he was a religious minister.  Richard describes this as quite a transition, but Craig notes that most of his focus as a minister was on youth and young adults, so he doesn't feel it was that big of a jump to high school teaching.  The same sort of clientele, just teaching them different things.

Over the course of 2009, Craig was interviewed a few times for ABC radio about his teaching.  You can listen to those conversations here.


There's some tricky letter mixes tonight; Roman manages slightly the better of them to gain twelve points there.  Craig has a chance to get some of them back in the numbers rounds, but overlooks an easily-correctable mistake and cannot do so.  Roman is safe going into the conundrum and solves it quickly to increase the margin, winning 57 to 35.

I felt out of form tonight, and made some poor decisions in both letters and numbers rounds.  I was way off the pace on the conundrum, needing almost two minutes before I finally saw the answer.  But I'd done enough to take the win, to my relief.

As usual, details after the jump.

Weekly summary: Episodes 386 to 390

My scores varied quite a bit this week, but I finished with two good games that were very close to the David/Lily combined effort.  Hopefully I can take that momentum into the next week and the finals series.  I solved all the conundrums in regulation time, although twice I was beaten to the solution by a contestant.

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Me	65	84	59	76	73
Champion	36	40	17	17	21
Challenger	31	31	13	30	15
David + Lily	78	97	78	78	76

Christopher managed to navigate his way through the fourth-game hurdle, knocking me out of contention at last.  He takes over the eighth spot; there is a very small chance that Roman will displace him on the last game before the finals start.  If not, he'll face Sam Gaffney first up.

Sam Gaffney	51	81	62	67	64	55	380
Alan Nash	60	73	52	54	43	69	351
Kerin White	55	56	46	63	65	51	336
Toby Baldwin	59	48	54	43	48	44	296
Shaun Ellis	43	56	38	59	40	44	280
Daniel Chua	44	59	56	53	36	52	300
Sebastian Ham	39	49	58	40	45		231
Christopher Piggott-McKellar	45	36	54	53	30		218

Two more full monties this week, but two others that could have been had.  On the numbers front, the balanced mix demonstrates its difficulty by serving up two games that eluded Lily within time.

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Full Monties		2				2
Missed Full Monties	1		1			2
Tough Numbers		1			1	2
Impossible Numbers						0

Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:

	Total	Games	Average
Sam Gaffney	380	6	63.33
Geoff Bailey	247	4	61.75
Jimmy Driscoll	61	1	61.00
Alan Nash	351	6	58.50
Leanne Cox	57	1	57.00
Ryan Sutton	57	1	57.00
Kerin White	336	6	56.00
Roman Turkiewicz*	112*	2*	56.00
Nick Terry	217	4	54.25
Geraldine Yam	52	1	52.00
Tim Clay	51	1	51.00
Peter Crop	152	3	50.67
Daniel Chua	300	6	50.00
Lainie Mercieca	99	2	49.50
Toby Baldwin	296	6	49.33
Michael Vnuk	49	1	49.00
Susan Pickett	97	2	48.50
Colin Shnier	144	3	48.00
Matt Williams	48	1	48.00
Alice Wheeler	189	4	47.25
Rhonda Jefferson	141	3	47.00
Natasha Podesser	47	1	47.00
Shaun Ellis	280	6	46.67
Brett Edwards	139	3	46.33
Sebastian Ham	231	5	46.20
Cem Gurkan	92	2	46.00
Brian McEvoy	46	1	46.00
Michael Nichols	90	2	45.00
Karla Treves	90	2	45.00
Sandy Clarke	45	1	45.00
James Godfrey	45	1	45.00
Trevor Armstrong	178	4	44.50
Megan Marks	133	3	44.33
Maurie Williams	176	4	44.00
Nick Compton	44	1	44.00
Christopher Piggott-McKellar	218	5	43.60
Mark Arnold	87	2	43.50
John Day	42	1	42.00
Kathy Male	42	1	42.00
John O'Connor	125	3	41.67
Nathan Dixon	41	1	41.00
Nick Mann	41	1	41.00
Pam Fichtner	39	1	39.00
David Bradley	77	2	38.50
Alex van der Kooij	153	4	38.25
Adrian Lonigro	38	1	38.00
Richelle Patrick	38	1	38.00
Colin Jones	111	3	37.00
Cherie Brody	37	1	37.00
Andrew Krein	37	1	37.00
Colin Mallard	37	1	37.00
Chris Miller	37	1	37.00
Ann Vasconcelos	73	2	36.50
Ilona Coote	36	1	36.00
Angie Pearce	71	2	35.50
Katie Richer	70	2	35.00
Tiahn Hannaford	35	1	35.00
Kane Gross	34	1	34.00
Paul Merry	67	2	33.50
Duncan Butler	33	1	33.00
Mitchell Fly	33	1	33.00
Cameron Tyson	33	1	33.00
Hannah Marshall	33	1	33.00
Hiep Do	98	3	32.67
Susan Cumming	32	1	32.00
Sushma Garudadwajan	62	2	31.00
David Armstrong	31	1	31.00
John Crone	31	1	31.00

Ep 390: Roman Turkiewicz, Natalie Simmons (February 24, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


Richard asks Roman if he gets stage fright before his acting performances.  Roman admits that he does a little, but he uses it to his advantage by channelling the energy into his character, enabling him to get off to a good start.

Tonight's challenger is Natalie Simmons, a horticulture student and keen gardener.  She has loved gardens for her whole life, and has visited some great ones throughout the world.  Natalie recently visited England and saw some National Trust gardens that she says were really beautiful; she also saw some lovely gardens in California last year, and New York.  But a few of the gardens that she loves the most are in Melbourne, such as the Heide garden at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, or Rippon Lea.


There's some good back-and-forth from the contestants, together with a mutual invalid word that I have some sympathy for.  Natalie has just the better of it, and takes a slender one point lead to the critical calculation.  Unfortunately for her she is not able to take advantage of the opportunity presented, and Roman reclaims the lead.  He seals the win with another very fast solution to the conundrum, winning 44 to 28.

I did reasonably well, although I ran out of time while trying to write down one eight and overlooked another that I should have seen.  A tricky numbers round eluded everyone but I think it was findable; I'd half-tried the approach that Lily later came up with and just not paid enough attention.  Bother.  Against that, my conundrum speed was excellent tonight (and it needed to be in order to beat Roman to it), and I finished just three points behind the David and Lily combination.

As usual, details after the break.

Ep 389: Katie Richer, Roman Turkiewicz (February 23, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


Katie likes to grow heirloom varieties of vegetables, or at least is trying to -- she's only just put together her garden.  She says that there is a rather interesting variety of broccoli called Romanesco broccoli that she likes to think of as fractal broccoli.  And... wow, I can certainly see why -- that is just amazing!  She also mentions a variety of tomato called the reisetomate, which is a "big knobbly tomato that looks absolutely nothing like a tomato"; she has the impression that it may taste better than standard supermarket tomatoes.

Tonight's challenger is Roman Turkiewicz, an administrator and actor.  Richard asks about Roman's favourite roles, and Roman singles out playing Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice.  That was with a young company that liked to reinterpret Shakespeare's plays for modern audiences.  It was a modern-language interpretation of the original text, in this instance.


Roman does pretty well on the letters, while Katie has some good words but really needed some less-good-but-longer ones.  Honours are mostly even on the numbers, but one invalid solution from her sees Roman's lead grow, and he is safe at the end of round 7.  Roman solves the conundrum quickly to seal the win in emphatic style, 68 to 31.

This was definitely one of my better games, ending up only two points off optimal.  Coupled with solving the conundrum very fast tonight that yields an even more emphatic win for me.  It's a good feeling after a couple of weeks of games where I have generally felt that I could have easily done better.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 388: Christopher Piggott-McKellar, Katie Richer (February 22, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


Richard notes the colourful outfits that Christopher has been wearing so far, and asks him whether he takes his stylish look seriously.  Christopher demurs with good humour, saying that it shouldn't be taken seriously but he certainly enjoys wearing it.

Tonight's challenger is Katie Richer, a writer and proofreader.  In particular, she proofreads mathematics textbooks, and has done so for a couple of years now.  In addition to the proofreading, she does worked solutions and checks other people's worked solutions (although I'd class the latter as part of mathematical proofreading, myself).


It's almost a reversal of recent games, with Katie having consistent letters results of six (capped off by a lovely final seven-letter word) while Christopher varies from five to an unluckily invalid eight.  The numbers aren't able to provide much traction to either contestant -- they were a pretty tricky set -- and with Christopher's final answer being invalid Katie is safe going into the conundrum.  Christopher solves it quickly to move the scoreline into "might-have-been" territory, but Katie has the win, 39 to 30.

I felt in worse form than I probably was, but did miss a seven that I should have seen and the final numbers solution.  The latter was a particularly careless oversight.  Still, it was enough for a solid win in the circumstances.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 387: Christopher Piggott-McKellar, John Crone (February 21, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


The pre-show banter involves talking about superpowers, which is why Richard asks Christopher what superpower he would choose.  Christopher responds that if he had his way he would erase people's memories after seeing skinny black ties.  He honestly thinks they do ongoing psychological damage and are ruining a generation of Australians.  It's certainly a more interesting answer than I would have been able to give; I've not mentioned this before, but Christopher has shown a certain urbane wittiness on the show that comes across well.

Tonight's challenger is John Crone, a glazier and ballet enthusiast.  He really enjoys the ballet -- the fluid movements are a pleasure to watch.  He likes classical music as well, so it's "a bit of a double treat".  He adds that late last year he was lucky enough to see the Russian Imperial Ballet.

John's mention of Russian ballet prompts Richard to reveal that some thirty years or more ago he danced on stage with the Bolshoi Ballet.  The camera catches Lily's look of amazed disbelief.  Richard explains that it was in the early days of him thinking he might do some acting, and he ended up as an extra with them.  He had to wear a huge polystyrene dog's head and skip across the stage holding it.  Richard admits that it was not done with the grace usually associated with the ballet.


It is an interesting tussle, with only the final two main rounds allocating shared points.  John makes an elementary mistake in the first round to miscount his answer, and is soon 23 points behind.  A full monty gets him back within range, but a mistake in the next numbers round proves decisive.  Christopher ends up winning by 22 points, 53 to 31.

I basically did as well as feasible, except that I wimped out of declaring a full monty that I was quite unsure about.  It did turn out to be valid, alas.  I was also slow on the conundrum but got there in the end.  Still, a very comfortable win, and if I'd gone for the full monty it would have been my personal best solo score.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 386: Christopher Piggott-McKellar, Michael Vnuk (February 20, 2012)

Lily damaged her right shoulder since the last game, so will be using her left hand for the rest of the week.  People who kept an eye on the Letters and Numbers updates (facebook, twitter, etc.) last year may recall how there was an unexpected announcement of audience seating for finals on a Saturday.  The reason, as I understand it, is that the filming of the episodes for this week and next week were pushed back a day so as to allow Lily some extra recovery time.  I really hope that it was enough for her.

Christopher (as implied last game) is a keen AFL player.  He notes that there is a distinction between skilful and keen, and he is definitely keen.  He would love to be an AFL commentator; in response to Richard's query, Christopher concedes that he has not practiced it, except maybe sometimes in the shower.  "In lieu of singing, because [he is] a bit tone deaf."

Tonight's challenger  is Michael Vnuk, a freelance editor.  He met his wife through playing Scrabble, and they still play against each other at home.  That's pretty much all we find out about him, so I'm going to add things that weren't mentioned on the show.  This year he'll be representing South Australia in the State Team Challenge Scrabble event; he is currently ranked 65th nationally, although he has been as high as 31st place.  The following further information is taken from the Society of Editors (South Australia) Past meetings page:

Michael Vnuk, AE, started his working life as a geologist, but has always been fascinated with words. Although he'd dabbled in Scrabble over the years, it wasn't until the 1990s that he got serious and began playing in Scrabble tournaments. This led to his running a Scrabble club, organising and directing tournaments, serving on committees, and editing Across the Board, the quarterly Australian Scrabble newsletter. Michael enjoyed the voluntary editing and went on to complete a TAFE editing diploma. He's been a freelance editor since 2007, working mainly on science-related materials.

Michael gets off to a good lead in the first round, as the retsina mix offers up easy fodder for a tournament Scrabble player.  He has another good find in the fourth round to extend the lead to fifteen points, and he manages to maintain that through the last letters game.  But then Christopher comes storming home with a good solve of the final numbers game to close the gap to five, and a fast solve of the conundrum to take a five point win, 54 to 49.  Now that was a great finish!

I was on target with the numbers today, and in decent shape with the letters.  I was a little too slow with one better word, and completely missed another.  Aside from that it was decent stuff, with just a split second of slowness on the conundrum to regret.  But I'd done enought for a comfortable win regardless.

As usual, details after the jump.

Weekly summary: Episodes 381 to 385

I had another decent week with the numbers, but my letters performance was not nearly as good as it has been at times in the past.  The result was scores consistently in the 60's.

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Me	67	64	60	63	66
Champion	34	43	57	27	17
Challenger	24	30	15	16	0
David + Lily	79	78	79	87	98

Alan retired as expected, taking a deserved second place.  That puts me in a risky eighth spot in the rankings, with eight games left in the main series.  If Christopher wins his next two games that will be it for me.

Sam Gaffney	51	81	62	67	64	55	380
Alan Nash	60	73	52	54	43	69	351
Kerin White	55	56	46	63	65	51	336
Toby Baldwin	59	48	54	43	48	44	296
Shaun Ellis	43	56	38	59	40	44	280
Daniel Chua	44	59	56	53	36	52	300
Sebastian Ham	39	49	58	40	45		231
Geoff Bailey	55	64	65	63			247

It was another good week for full monties, with three coming from the last two days.

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Full Monties				1	2	3
Missed Full Monties			1			1
Tough Numbers						0
Impossible Numbers						0

Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:

	Total	Games	Average
Sam Gaffney	380	6	63.33
Geoff Bailey	247	4	61.75
Jimmy Driscoll	61	1	61.00
Alan Nash	351	6	58.50
Leanne Cox	57	1	57.00
Ryan Sutton	57	1	57.00
Kerin White	336	6	56.00
Nick Terry	217	4	54.25
Geraldine Yam	52	1	52.00
Tim Clay	51	1	51.00
Peter Crop	152	3	50.67
Daniel Chua	300	6	50.00
Lainie Mercieca	99	2	49.50
Toby Baldwin	296	6	49.33
Susan Pickett	97	2	48.50
Colin Shnier	144	3	48.00
Matt Williams	48	1	48.00
Alice Wheeler	189	4	47.25
Rhonda Jefferson	141	3	47.00
Natasha Podesser	47	1	47.00
Shaun Ellis	280	6	46.67
Brett Edwards	139	3	46.33
Sebastian Ham	231	5	46.20
Cem Gurkan	92	2	46.00
Brian McEvoy	46	1	46.00
Michael Nichols	90	2	45.00
Karla Treves	90	2	45.00
Sandy Clarke	45	1	45.00
James Godfrey	45	1	45.00
Trevor Armstrong	178	4	44.50
Megan Marks	133	3	44.33
Maurie Williams	176	4	44.00
Nick Compton	44	1	44.00
Mark Arnold	87	2	43.50
John Day	42	1	42.00
Kathy Male	42	1	42.00
John O'Connor	125	3	41.67
Nathan Dixon	41	1	41.00
Nick Mann	41	1	41.00
Christopher Piggott-McKellar*	81*	2*	40.50
Pam Fichtner	39	1	39.00
David Bradley	77	2	38.50
Alex van der Kooij	153	4	38.25
Adrian Lonigro	38	1	38.00
Richelle Patrick	38	1	38.00
Colin Jones	111	3	37.00
Cherie Brody	37	1	37.00
Andrew Krein	37	1	37.00
Colin Mallard	37	1	37.00
Chris Miller	37	1	37.00
Ann Vasconcelos	73	2	36.50
Ilona Coote	36	1	36.00
Angie Pearce	71	2	35.50
Tiahn Hannaford	35	1	35.00
Kane Gross	34	1	34.00
Paul Merry	67	2	33.50
Duncan Butler	33	1	33.00
Mitchell Fly	33	1	33.00
Cameron Tyson	33	1	33.00
Hannah Marshall	33	1	33.00
Hiep Do	98	3	32.67
Susan Cumming	32	1	32.00
Sushma Garudadwajan	62	2	31.00
David Armstrong	31	1	31.00

Ep 385: Christopher Piggott-McKellar, Donna McDaid (February 17, 2012)

Christopher's hobby is cross-stitch; he finds it a great way to unwind.  During the AFL season there's nothing he likes more than watching or playing a game of AFL and then going home to unwind with a bit of embroidery.  It's what he likes to call "going from the pitch to the stitch".  He has been doing it for probably around ten years now (it was noted yesterday that he is 23); his mother first got him into it when he was "a young whippersnapper".

Tonight's challenger is Donna McDaid, an accounts assistant and keen traveller.  She has been in Australia for a year and a half now, but before that she travelled a lot.  When she first left England she went to South America: Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina.  At Machu Picchu she learned to never climb another mountain.  Heh.


I'm afraid that Donna isn't able to show her best form tonight; she only manages four valid answers during the game.  Christopher had two more valid answers which is a considerable advantage, but it was the final numbers round that was most significant.  He was eight points ahead going into that, so if things went well for Donna she could have taken a lead into the conundrum.  The result went the other way, however, with Christopher finding a good solution to take an unbeatable lead and eventually the game, 36 to 18.

I wasn't really in bad form today, but I wasn't hitting the high notes.  I stumbled in the last numbers round where a solution was tough but findable, but finished in positive fashion by solving the conundrum.  That lifted my score into the 60's yet again, for a fairly consistent week.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 384: Christopher Piggott-McKellar, Tiahn Hannaford (February 16, 2012)

Two new contestants tonight after Alan's successful retirement yesterday.  In the champion's seat is Christopher Piggott-McKellar, a policy advisor for the Queensland government.  He did a little freelance radio journalism after he finished university and before he started working for the government.  That let him travel a lot and visit some pretty amazing places in northern Australia, and Arnhem Land in particular.  He feels very privileged to have done so, and thinks that everyone should explore our continent -- it's a marvellous place.

In the challenger's seat is high school student Tiahn Hannaford.  Tiahn wants to study psychology after she finishes school; she is really interested in looking at how the human brain works, and how people relate to one another.  She's interested in more than "just counselling people"; she wants to look at the quirky things that they do and find out why.  This makes me think of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.


The contestants mostly find sixes in the letters, with some lower and a single seven.  The numbers go a bit each way, but Tiahn missed a findable target in the first numbers round and that ten point difference carried over all the way to the conundrum.  She still had a chance if she could have solved it, but it was a tough one tonight; Chrisopher took the win, 45 to 35.

Nine-letters words were my weakness in this game, which is not unusual.  I missed the available full monty, and was not able to solve the conundrum until well after time was up.  Still, it was a pretty comfortable win in the end, continuing this week's run of scores in the sixties.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 383: Alan Nash, Richard Gadsby (February 15, 2012)

Richard asks Alan if there have been any highlights or particular moments that he remembers from his games.  Alan responds that he has learned two things: Firstly, that the heavyweight number mix is not always your friend (something I have been noticing for him, and will comment more on later); and secondly, that every time you think you see a seven you can rely on David to find an eight.

Tonight's challenger is subeditor Richard Gadsby.  At one point in his journalism career he was reporting on a local football team; on his last day in charge of that the club management sent him a surprise farewell gift on the pitch.  He went down to receive it and when the announcer broadcast who he was a section of the crowd started booing.  He hypothesises that they were fans of some of the players that he had "given a bit of a drubbing to".


Alan obviously hopes to win this game to be a retiring champion; as I mentioned in yesterday's post, he will move into second place if he can win with a score of 55 or more.  He finds some good form with the letters again, only bettered twice by David and solving the conundrum very quickly.  Yet again the numbers prove difficult for him and he only gets to the target once.  Richard does not manage to do as well as Alan in either realm, however, and on the final numbers round Alan passes the desired 55 points.  The conundrum seals it, and Alan retires with a comprehensive 69 to 15 victory.

I made two errors in the letters rounds, missing words I should have seen.  The first was a poor result that conceded points, while the second was missing a longer word to gain points with a risky fallback that fortunately came good.  I wasn't able to solve the conundrum within time, either, but fortunately I had solid results on the numbers tonight and just edged out Alan for a narrow win.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 382: Alan Nash, Sam Cejvan (February 14, 2012)

We hear more about Alan's travels today; he has been to Iceland, and he describes it as a very interesting place, an adventure in itself.  Parts of it are so green that they could be confused for Ireland (although with fewer sheep, he notes) while other parts of it are so bleak and blasted that they might make you think you were on Mars.

Tonight's challenger is Sam Cejvan, a graphic designer.  Sam also designs and makes his own furniture, using 3D software to create virtual models of what he wants; he then gets local companies to make up the components from those models and puts it together.  It sounds to me like he could have a lot of fun with a 3D printer.

[Many thanks to Karen Anderson for identifying the correct spelling of Sam's surname.  Much appreciated!]


This is a very close game, and I feel that Alan was lucky again tonight.  Sam tried for invalid words in the first two rounds, but still managed to draw ahead at the second break courtesy of some good numbers work.  (I commented yesterday about how I felt there was an opportunity there against Alan.)  Unfortunately for Sam, he conceded the ground back and then some in the next two rounds, and Alan was safe going into the conundrum.  Neither managed to solve it, and Alan gained his fifth win, 43 points to 30.

I felt extremely out of form today, consistently a letter behind David except for one round where I tried an invalid word.  If I'd stayed with the safer option on that round I would have matched Alan on each letter round.  I was luckily able to overtake him due to the numbers rounds, and was just barely safe at the conundrum.  I managed to solve it to improve the scoreline, but I definitely feel that I had a lucky escape tonight.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 381: Alan Nash, Kim Fielke (February 13, 2012)

Some years ago, Alan had afternoon tea with the Queen.  Alan explains the circumstances: He was living in London at the time, and apparently an Australian living in London can apply to meet their head of state at one of a number of royal events.  It is essentially a lottery; his wife entered them into it and they were selected, so they -- and about two thousand other people, he notes -- went to Buckingham Palace and had afternoon tea with the Queen and Prince Philip.  And yes, there were cucumber sandwiches.

Tonight's challenger is Kim Fielke, an anaesthetist.  He currently works in Hamilton, but Richard notes that in the past Kim has worked in some pretty remote parts of the country.  Richard asks what Kim likes about such locales.  Kim responds that in the smaller places (which by inference remote locations are likely to be) he has a bit more independence and tends to develop closer ties with (and a better feel for) the community.  Richard asks if he would like to "go bush" again, and Kim agrees that he would, once the kids have finished school.

A couple of rounds in David takes a moment to ask Alan if he happens to own a property that he leases out.  Alan responds that he does, a little cautiously as he doesn't see why this is being asked right now; nor did anyone else, I'd wager -- I certainly didn't.  David states that this is now a very exciting moment for the show: Given the answer to the question and that Kim is an anaesthetist, the contestants are a letter and a number (one who lets, one who numbs).  Heh!


The game is perhaps closer than the final scoreline might suggest.  Both contestants started with invalid eight-letter words, and then found a good eight-letter word in the next round.  The ensuing three rounds prove the difference, however, as Alan just pipped Kim each time to gain a twenty point lead.  There wasn't much scope to get it back after that; Kim could conceivably have solved the final number round to have a chance going into the conundrum, but he was not able to and in any case Alan solved the conundrum quickly to seal a clear win, 54 to 24.

I was in good touch this game, keeping track with David and Lily on all but one round, where David found a word not in my vocabulary.  Alan beat me to the conundrum by about half a second, but I'd still accumulated enough of a lead for a comfortable victory.

As usual, details after the break.

Weekly summary: Episodes 376 to 380

I had a pretty good week with the numbers for a change, although this is perhaps due to the highest target being 740.  The letters performance was pretty good on the whole, with a particularly good game on Wednesday.  Wednesday's game was my high score of the series, and a personal favourite as might be expected.  It was followed by two very narrow wins over Alan, who has shown himself to be a very strong competitor.

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Me	64	72	87	60	55
Champion	38	32	10	59	45
Challenger	41	37	46	24	35
David + Lily	87	77	99	86	77

Rhonda couldn't win her fourth game, and Alan has yet to play his, so there is no change to the rankings at the moment.  I strongly expect that to change with the next game, but we'll have to wait and see.  My hold on the seventh spot looks very shaky.

Sam Gaffney	51	81	62	67	64	55	380
Kerin White	55	56	46	63	65	51	336
Toby Baldwin	59	48	54	43	48	44	296
Shaun Ellis	43	56	38	59	40	44	280
Daniel Chua	44	59	56	53	36	52	300
Sebastian Ham	39	49	58	40	45		231
Geoff Bailey	55	64	65	63			247
Nick Terry	71	46	55	35			217

There were four full monties found this week, and only the second time this series that a contestant has found one.  There were a further two (or three, depending on ruling) that were not seen, so it was potentially a very productive week!

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Full Monties	1		2	1		4
Missed Full Monties			1	1		2
Tough Numbers				1		1
Impossible Numbers						0

Good averages from the contestants again this week, with only Peter not getting over 30.  Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:

	Total	Games	Average
Sam Gaffney	380	6	63.33
Geoff Bailey	247	4	61.75
Alan Nash*	185*	3*	61.67
Jimmy Driscoll	61	1	61.00
Leanne Cox	57	1	57.00
Ryan Sutton	57	1	57.00
Kerin White	336	6	56.00
Nick Terry	217	4	54.25
Geraldine Yam	52	1	52.00
Tim Clay	51	1	51.00
Peter Crop	152	3	50.67
Daniel Chua	300	6	50.00
Lainie Mercieca	99	2	49.50
Toby Baldwin	296	6	49.33
Susan Pickett	97	2	48.50
Colin Shnier	144	3	48.00
Matt Williams	48	1	48.00
Alice Wheeler	189	4	47.25
Rhonda Jefferson	141	3	47.00
Natasha Podesser	47	1	47.00
Shaun Ellis	280	6	46.67
Brett Edwards	139	3	46.33
Sebastian Ham	231	5	46.20
Cem Gurkan	92	2	46.00
Brian McEvoy	46	1	46.00
Michael Nichols	90	2	45.00
Karla Treves	90	2	45.00
Sandy Clarke	45	1	45.00
James Godfrey	45	1	45.00
Trevor Armstrong	178	4	44.50
Megan Marks	133	3	44.33
Maurie Williams	176	4	44.00
Nick Compton	44	1	44.00
Mark Arnold	87	2	43.50
John Day	42	1	42.00
Kathy Male	42	1	42.00
John O'Connor	125	3	41.67
Nathan Dixon	41	1	41.00
Nick Mann	41	1	41.00
Pam Fichtner	39	1	39.00
David Bradley	77	2	38.50
Alex van der Kooij	153	4	38.25
Adrian Lonigro	38	1	38.00
Richelle Patrick	38	1	38.00
Colin Jones	111	3	37.00
Cherie Brody	37	1	37.00
Andrew Krein	37	1	37.00
Colin Mallard	37	1	37.00
Chris Miller	37	1	37.00
Ann Vasconcelos	73	2	36.50
Ilona Coote	36	1	36.00
Angie Pearce	71	2	35.50
Kane Gross	34	1	34.00
Paul Merry	67	2	33.50
Duncan Butler	33	1	33.00
Mitchell Fly	33	1	33.00
Cameron Tyson	33	1	33.00
Hannah Marshall	33	1	33.00
Hiep Do	98	3	32.67
Susan Cumming	32	1	32.00
Sushma Garudadwajan	62	2	31.00
David Armstrong	31	1	31.00

Ep 380: Alan Nash, Kathy Male (February 10, 2012)

Richard asks about more of Alan's travels -- in this case his visit to the City of the Dead.  Alan explains that this is a small area in Cairo where there was a graveyard; due to a housing shortage a lot of the poorer people moved in and started squatting in the tombs there, and now it is basically a city that has sprung up on a graveyard.  Richard asks if the remains were visible as Alan walked through it, but Alan responds that you can't see them, and you usually don't see other tourists because you're not supposed to walk through there -- you just view it from an overpass.  The way it is told leaves me uncertain as to whether Alan stayed on the overpass or did go walking through it.

Tonight's challenger is Kathy Male, a foreign exchange trader.  She's also a very keen bridge player; Richard asks her if she is a "really hot bridge player".  She demures, but says that she wants to become one and that she is really lucky that she has a Queensland champion who is mentoring her to help her get up the next level.  I'll note that her current ranking is a one-star National Master, and if her 2011 performance is representative then she'll get to two-star National Master mid 2013.


It's a really close game tonight, with both the letters and the numbers being much harder than the recent games.  Alan gets a lead in the first numbers game, then gives back most of it in the next.  The final letters game finally produces a difference and Alan is ten points ahead going into the final numbers round.  Both contestants were only able to get one away, and to me this was the decisive point of the match -- if Alan had reached the target he would be uncatchable, while if Kathy had done it instead then the scores would be tied at the conundrum.  As it was, Kathy needed to win the conundrum to force a second one, but neither contestant was able to solve it.  Alan may feel a little lucky to have taken the win, 52 points to 42.

I felt off-kilter today, with the letters being much less cooperative than in recent games.  I wasn't able to best either contestant in the letters rounds, and Alan found a great word in one of them to outdo me.  Fortunately for me both contestants had troubles with the numbers and I took an awkward ten point lead into the conundrum.  The solution eluded me completely, and fortunately it likewise eluded the contestants or this might have been another tie.  I limped home with a very lucky win.

As usual, details after the break.

Ep 379: Alan Nash, Peter Shantier (February 9,2012)

Alan relates the tale of how he went backpacking through Europe just after he finished university, and in particular through Switzerland.  He had never seen snow before, so he took a cable car up a mountain; there were several stations along the way, and he was so impressed with the snow that he decided to walk through the snow from the top to the second top of the stations.  This was very enjoyable, until he realised that the cable cars coming up had stopped... and so had the ones going down.  This meant that he had to walk all the way down the mountain, and he discovered that the sun sets very fast there.  In short, he had to walk all the way down a mountain in the dark, and through snow.  That sounds potentially quite dangerous; fortunately he survived unscathed!

Tonight's challenger is Peter Shantier, a fragrance compounder.  His job involves working from a recipe to put together the ingredients to make a fragrance that might smell like peach or apple or strawberry or raspberry... but does not include any of them.  He has a selection of around six hundred ingredients to use; the measurements are done by weights rather than volume, apparently.  (The liquids have different specific gravities, and hence different weights per unit of volume.)  On reflection, I imagine the reason is that working by weight is much more precise than working by volume.  Peter notes that most fragrances probably include around twenty to thirty of these ingredients.

There's some discussion later on in the round where it is pointed out that Peter is doing this for industrial use rather than the perfume business: Shampoos, soap powders, dishwashing liquids, that kind of thing.

I strongly doubt that I have Peter's surname correct, but I have not been able to unearth a more likely spelling for it.  If anyone out there knows, I'd welcome a correction or even simply a plausible suggestion.


Alan is in good form today also; Peter is only able to keep up with him on three rounds.  There was scope to improve on Alan's performance, but they weren't necessarily the easiest of finds.  Alan rounds it off by solving a difficult conundrum to reach the 70's, winning 73 to 24.

I had a frustrating game tonight, due to issues with full monties and the Macquarie's foibles.  Arguably 43 points of relative difference hinged on those, which is a huge amount.  In the end, and reassuringly given some of my difficulties of previous weeks, success in the numbers saw me home by a single point against him.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 378: Rhonda Jefferson, Alan Nash (February 8, 2012)

Following on from yesterday's talk with Rhonda about her musical theatre activities, Richard asks about Rhonda's singing.  She says that she has always enjoyed singing and that she does it because she loves it.  However, she never learned singing and she does regret that now; she would like to have all the control that you are supposed to have (and which she does not).

Tonight's challenger is Alan Nash, a barrister who once appeared in a Melbourne Theatre Company production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.  It is a musical with the unusual feature that four audience members participate for some of the show as contestants in the spelling bee (and this is what happened to him).  They don't have to sing, but apparently there is some dancing involved.


And wow, is it a cracking performance tonight from Alan.  Rhonda finds some good words but is consistently outdone by Alan; even a good late result on the numbers and a quick conundrum solution can't save her.  Alan found the early full monty in this game -- the first contestant to find one for a long time -- and if he can keep this form up then he will be a serious championship contender.  He falters in the final three rounds but the game was already won at that point.  The final score is 60 to 41.

I was having a great game myself.  I managed to outdo David on one round (courtesy of a word from yesterday, amusingly enough), which is always nice.  I spotted that first full monty, and was just five seconds too slow on the second.  That would have been enough for my personal record score, and the opportunity was there for a round of 100.  I ended up falling short of that, but the rapid conundrum solution put me into the rarefied territories of the 80's for only the third time this series (and the highest so far).

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 377: Rhonda Jefferson, Andrew Krein (February 7, 2012)

Rhonda is involved in her local theatre group (the Highlands Theatre Group); she makes particular mention of playing Mrs. Squeezum in a production of Lock Up Your Daughters five years ago.  She says that it was a lot of fun and she sang some really funny songs, then adds that it was set in the 1900's and would have been very risque in those days but not so much now.  She enthuses that it had some wonderful songs, and names The Gentle Art of Seduction and When Does the Ravishing Begin? specifically.

(The play is actually set in 1735, but it was first performed in 1959; I'm guessing that this is what Rhonda meant by the 1900's, unless her theatre group put on an adapted version of it.)

Tonight's challenger is payroll manager Andrew Krein.  He describes it as a job where you're either everyone's best friend or their worst enemy, depending on whether you've got it right or wrong.  Richard suggests, and Andrew agrees, that this might mean that Andrew is better with the numbers than the letters.

I'll make an aside here that Andrew got married a month or so after this episode was filmed.  If you happen to read this, Andrew: Congratulations!


It ends up being a close game, aided by several invalid answers.  The contestants did find some good words along the way, and the net result was a slender two point advantage to Rhonda from them.  The numbers went each way -- Andrew did drop crucial points in the first numbers game when he only managed to get five away from the target -- so Rhonda carried that lead into the conundrum.  She buzzed in just after the five second mark with an invalid answer, giving Andrew a chance, but he was not able to solve it within the remaining time.  Rhonda scraped home, 39 to 37.

I felt off-balance early today, with the first round feeling like it should have produced a longer word (although it turns out I had matched David) and only just getting my second-round answer down in time.  I settled down a bit, and it was actually a decent performance except for the second numbers round where I delayed looking at the right idea for too long.  This time I was faster to the conundrum than Rhonda's buzz-in (although only just), and ended up with another comfortable win.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 376: Cem Gurkan, Rhonda Jefferson (February 6, 2012)

Cem is interested in photography, and particularly likes black and white photography.  He enjoys taking photographs, developing, and printing, although in these days of digital photography there's less call for the latter two and he hasn't done them recently.  His preferred subject matter is buildings, and he enjoys being able to give photos as presents to his friends.

Tonight's challenger is Rhonda Jefferson, a retired physiotherapist who was become a farmer.  Richard points out that Rhonda has gone from living in a beachside suburb to a farm -- he calls it a "tree change" -- and that is a significant shift in environment.  Richard calls her a very practical farm worker; Rhonda has learned to drench cattle, and inject them, and "do all sorts of things".  She adds that she's very much enjoying living in a lovely little village (Exeter, in the southern highlands region of New South Wales).


Cem was a bit unlucky in this game; a fairly reasonable word was deemed invalid (more fuel for my claims about the risk of comparatives) which meant 6 points to Rhonda instead of 7 to him -- a 13 point turnaround.  Also, he made a careless slip in a numbers round (of a type that is easy enough to make -- he knew he was one off the target, but wrote down the wrong one); that cost him 7 points as well.  Those two rounds were the only main rounds on which Rhonda outscored him, and he managed to outscore her in a later one to give him a chance going into the conundrum.  Rhonda did solve it very quickly, however, for a slightly fortunate 61 to 45 victory.

I was in passable form today; the first two rounds could have been better, but there wasn't much likelihood of improvement elsewhere.  I got beaten to the conundrum, but only just, so it was definitely a quicker solve than usual for me, and a relatively comfortable win.  The numbers were very friendly today, which certainly helped.

As usual, details after the jump.

Weekly summary: Episodes 371 to 375

This week started slow for me, but improved in the last couple of games.  I found a full monty this week which is rare enough to celebrate, and almost found two.  I've shown a tendency to not quite get to numbers targets that are a little high, and that's a bit disappointing.  Against that, my letters performance has been keeping me well in contention throughout.  Overall a mixed but decent week, and one that sees my first tie with a contestant.

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Me	61	49	69	75	65
Champion	51	24	0	27	27
Challenger	25	49	7	20	47
David + Lily	87	78	78	89	73

Alice came close to getting into the rankings, but couldn't get that fourth win.  Once again, there's no change to the finals rankings and I'm clinging to seventh spot.

Sam Gaffney	51	81	62	67	64	55	380
Kerin White	55	56	46	63	65	51	336
Toby Baldwin	59	48	54	43	48	44	296
Shaun Ellis	43	56	38	59	40	44	280
Daniel Chua	44	59	56	53	36	52	300
Sebastian Ham	39	49	58	40	45		231
Geoff Bailey	55	64	65	63			247
Nick Terry	71	46	55	35			217

Three potential full monties this week, with David doing well to find two of them.  The conundrums proved very difficult for contestants, with only one of them being solved.

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
Full Monties	1			1		2
Missed Full Monties				1		1
Tough Numbers					1	1
Impossible Numbers						0

Good averages from the contestants again this week, with only Paul not getting over 30 (and he had exactly 30). Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:

	Total	Games	Average
Sam Gaffney	380	6	63.33
Geoff Bailey	247	4	61.75
Jimmy Driscoll	61	1	61.00
Leanne Cox	57	1	57.00
Ryan Sutton	57	1	57.00
Kerin White	336	6	56.00
Nick Terry	217	4	54.25
Geraldine Yam	52	1	52.00
Tim Clay	51	1	51.00
Peter Crop	152	3	50.67
Daniel Chua	300	6	50.00
Lainie Mercieca	99	2	49.50
Toby Baldwin	296	6	49.33
Susan Pickett	97	2	48.50
Colin Shnier	144	3	48.00
Matt Williams	48	1	48.00
Alice Wheeler	189	4	47.25
Cem Gurkan	47*	1*	47.00
Natasha Podesser	47	1	47.00
Shaun Ellis	280	6	46.67
Brett Edwards	139	3	46.33
Sebastian Ham	231	5	46.20
Brian McEvoy	46	1	46.00
Michael Nichols	90	2	45.00
Karla Treves	90	2	45.00
Sandy Clarke	45	1	45.00
James Godfrey	45	1	45.00
Trevor Armstrong	178	4	44.50
Megan Marks	133	3	44.33
Maurie Williams	176	4	44.00
Nick Compton	44	1	44.00
Mark Arnold	87	2	43.50
John Day	42	1	42.00
John O'Connor	125	3	41.67
Nathan Dixon	41	1	41.00
Nick Mann	41	1	41.00
Pam Fichtner	39	1	39.00
David Bradley	77	2	38.50
Alex van der Kooij	153	4	38.25
Adrian Lonigro	38	1	38.00
Richelle Patrick	38	1	38.00
Colin Jones	111	3	37.00
Cherie Brody	37	1	37.00
Colin Mallard	37	1	37.00
Chris Miller	37	1	37.00
Ann Vasconcelos	73	2	36.50
Ilona Coote	36	1	36.00
Angie Pearce	71	2	35.50
Kane Gross	34	1	34.00
Paul Merry	67	2	33.50
Duncan Butler	33	1	33.00
Mitchell Fly	33	1	33.00
Cameron Tyson	33	1	33.00
Hannah Marshall	33	1	33.00
Hiep Do	98	3	32.67
Susan Cumming	32	1	32.00
Sushma Garudadwajan	62	2	31.00
David Armstrong	31	1	31.00

Ep 375: Alice Wheeler, Cem Gurkan (February 3, 2012)

Alice likes to rock-climb "anywhere there's cliffs".  She likes the climbing up, but she likes abseiling down even more -- she absolutely loves that feeling of falling down.

Tonight's challenger is bank manager Cem Gurkan.  Before becoming a bank manager he has had several somewhat different jobs: He used to own a cafe; he was the manager of a toy store; and his first job was as an analyst in a small start-up high-tech company.


Alice hits the fourth game wall here; three of her first four letters rounds are invalid, and the valid one is beaten by Cem's selection.  She is 27 points behind after the first five rounds, and although Cem follows up with some invalid options of his own to allow her closer, the final numbers round is too easy and Cem has an unbeatable lead going into the conundrum.  Once again it remains unsolved -- it has been a tough week for the conundrums! -- and Cem takes the game 47 points to 33.

This was another case of me finding answers around the point that time ran out, but today I mostly had enough time to get them written down.  I actually had a pretty good game except for one round where the only seven I managed to find turned out to be invalid.  I still could have lost the game at the conundrum stage, but fortunately I solved it to seal the win.

As usual, details after the break.

Ep 374: Alice Wheeler, Pam Fichtner (February 2, 2012)

As mentioned yesterday, Alice came to Australia at 18 to study.  Her parents followed about a year later and now have a farm where they breed alpacas.  This is partly responsible for Alice's interest in textiles; she says that she has always loved sewing, but once they started getting wool from the alpacas she learned everything she could about it.  (Presumably "it" means the wool in this context.)

Tonight's challenger is Pam Fichtner, who works for the bureau of statistics.  She is also an occasional extra in TV shows.  Richard asks what it is like, and she responds that you need a lot of patience.  She adds that she has been a patient quite often on All Saints, so she got to have a bit of a sleep now and then.  She had to wake up at the right times, however.


It's sixes and sevens from the contestants tonight, with a bit each way.  The first two numbers rounds provide no separation, and scores are level at the second break.  What seemed like a risky play in the final letters round comes off for Alice, and when Pam cannot get near the target in the final numbers round Alice has the win.  The conundrum eludes them both -- it's only been solved once this week -- and that makes the final scoreline 53 to 39 in Alice's favour.

I had a decent game tonight, finding both full monties within time... but one of them only at the last moment without enough time to finish writing it down.  Still, I was mostly in pretty decent touch with the letters.  Once again the numbers could have used a little improvement, but it wasn't a case of overlooking something obvious this time (or so I claim).  The conundrum likewise eluded me tonight, but the full monty success kept me happy and comfortably ahead.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 373: Alice Wheeler, Paul de Boer (February 1, 2012)

Tonight we learn that Alice came to Australia (from England) at the age of eighteen, having decided to go to university here (more specifically in Fremantle, so presumably it was the University of Notre Dame).  That's quite a big decision, really, given that she has stayed since.

Challenging Alice tonight is Paul de Boer, an account manager.  The theme of discussing countries of origin continues; Paul was born in the Netherlands and came over to Australia when he was eight.  Somewhat stereotypically (he says "ironically"), he grew up on a tulip farm.


There wasn't that much to choose between the contestants on the letters today -- they were equal except for one instance where Alice declared an invalid word.  They were a little off the pace there, with mostly sixes where sevens or eights were available, but not overly so.  Neither solved the conundrum, and the real difference came from the numbers where Paul failed to score -- each time being just a little bit further away than Alice (or in one case, having an invalid answer).  Alice never got closer than three, but that was enough.  If Paul's invalid answer had been correct then the scores would have ended up tied, but as it was Alice won the game, 42 to 30.

I had a mixed and ultimately unsatisfactory game.  I ended up with seven points from all but one of the main rounds, which was passable in some of the letters rounds but not so good in the numbers.  Against that I did solve the conundrum in what felt like decent time for a change.  The net result was that I almost kept the contestants scoreless, but failed to find some better-scoring options that I should have seen.

As usual, details after the break.

Ep 372: Colin Shnier, Alice Wheeler (January 31, 2012)

Colin doesn't necessarily believe it, but the family myth (as he puts it) is that when he was four his parents used to have him perform mathematical calculations at dinner parties.  Whether or not that is true, he does know that he has always enjoyed playing with numbers in his head.

Tonight's challenger is Alice Wheeler, another primary school teacher.  There's mention (contrasted with the mathematics games days that Colin has organised) of how she loves to get her students doing things with textiles, fabrics, and sewing.  She comments that generally the students don't get a chance to do much with that, so they find it very exciting.


Colin has a lot of trouble in the letters rounds tonight -- his first two words are invalid, for instance -- and Alice finds good words throughout to have Colin well behind.  The numbers don't give Colin enough room to gain back lost ground, and Alice has the victory well in hand before the conundrum.  She solves it quickly, winning by 61 points to 37.  (And semi-fulfilling my prediction about Colin losing to a conundrum, except that she outscored him sufficiently in the main rounds.)

I had a terrible game today; my mind just kind of shut down.  I missed several chances, and conceded crucial points that I would not have on a better day.  I went into the conundrum only ten points ahead, and was my usual slow self in solving it.  Since Alice solved it more quickly, the result is the first draw of the blog (although I have little doubt that a second conundrum would have seen me lose).

As usual, details after the jump.