Margaret likes ten-pin bowling; she would not say (as Richard suggests) that she is pretty good, but she does have flashes of brilliance. Occasional strikes, and once she managed to get four of them in a row.
Tonight's challenger is Louise Broadbent, a personal care assistant. In her case, this involves working with people who have had spinal injuries and enabling them to stay in their own home after the accident. So she aids them in physical tasks that are now difficult or impossible, and helps around the home also.
It's a very close game tonight, with the only difference being two letters rounds (one going each way). Their three numbers answers are identical, in fact, and so it comes down to the conundrum with Margaret a single point ahead. It is a tough one, but Louise finds the answer and takes the win, 61 to 52.
I could not hit the high notes tonight, only getting the best letters round once; additionally, I ended up deeply confused on one of the numbers rounds and ended up further away than the contestants. The net result was that I could have been caught by Margaret on the conundrum. I was relieved to get to the solution first and scrape home the win, although since Louise was the one to solve it I would have won in any case.
Saturday, 31 March 2012
Friday, 30 March 2012
Ep 413: Margaret Zimmer, Vishal Gandhi (March 28, 2012)
Margaret likes train travel, but somewhat longer than normal commuting journeys. She recently took the Ghan from Adelaide to Darwin with a friend. They had a fantastic time; it took two and a half days to make the trip, and since they were in economy class the cabin was just big enough for them to put the bunks down in order to sleep at night. Margaret calls it an "interesting time", adding that it was really great and they met lots of interesting people.
Tonight's challenger is civil engineer Vishal Gandhi. Apparently he has quite a good memory; at work there are monthly meetings, and he is able to recall the contents of them from a couple of years back. That could be very helpful on occasion, for sure.
Margaret got off to an early lead, and kept extending it in the ensuing rounds. Vishal scored only twice overall, once with a just-barely-in-range answer in the last numbers round, and even though the conundrum proved to be too difficult for them both Margaret cruised to a 37 to 10 victory.
I had another pretty good game, including finding a full monty at last. The rounds I missed were difficult finds, and although I also missed the conundrum that full monty kept me happy. Another comfortable win, and a pretty decent week so far.
Tonight's challenger is civil engineer Vishal Gandhi. Apparently he has quite a good memory; at work there are monthly meetings, and he is able to recall the contents of them from a couple of years back. That could be very helpful on occasion, for sure.
Margaret got off to an early lead, and kept extending it in the ensuing rounds. Vishal scored only twice overall, once with a just-barely-in-range answer in the last numbers round, and even though the conundrum proved to be too difficult for them both Margaret cruised to a 37 to 10 victory.
I had another pretty good game, including finding a full monty at last. The rounds I missed were difficult finds, and although I also missed the conundrum that full monty kept me happy. Another comfortable win, and a pretty decent week so far.
Thursday, 29 March 2012
Ep 412: Donald Piggott-McKellar, Margaret Zimmer (March 27, 2012)
It took a day and a half, but they finally allowed access to this episode from the website. Hopefully there will not be a repetition of these difficulties for a while.
Since Ann successfully retired last game, we have two new contestants tonight. Taking the champion's seat is Donald Piggott-McKellar, a civil engineer. That's a pretty familiar surname, and indeed it turns out that Donald is the brother of Christopher Piggott-McKellar, who was on the show late last series and only just missed out on making the finals. Viewers with decent memories may recall that Christopher expressed a loathing of skinny black ties; it should come as little surprise that Donald has chosen to wear one on the show. (Donald admits that he does not like them much either, but circumstances warranted wearing one.)
Taking the challenger's seat is primary school teacher Margaret Zimmer. She has been teaching really young children for the past nine years; Richard asks what it is she likes about that. Margaret responds that she likes how they come in knowing nothing, and then when she looks at what they know at the end of the year she can say that she taught them all of that. That she has made a significant impact and set them up for the rest of their education.
It's fairly close tonight; Margaret gets an early lead in the second letters round, but invalid words in the next two let Donald overtake her. He then has an invalid word of his own in the last letters round to drop behind again, but takes the lead once more in the numbers round. It all comes down to the conundrum, and Margaret solves it first to take the win, 38 to 34.
I had a good game this time; maybe the delay helped somehow. Only two rounds offered improvements, and I'd not heard of the word for one of those. The other round I was floundering and perhaps fortunate, as there is a tempting but invalid longer word which I did not even see. I had a rare quick solve of the conundrum for a nice change, and finished just two points behind David and Lily.
Since Ann successfully retired last game, we have two new contestants tonight. Taking the champion's seat is Donald Piggott-McKellar, a civil engineer. That's a pretty familiar surname, and indeed it turns out that Donald is the brother of Christopher Piggott-McKellar, who was on the show late last series and only just missed out on making the finals. Viewers with decent memories may recall that Christopher expressed a loathing of skinny black ties; it should come as little surprise that Donald has chosen to wear one on the show. (Donald admits that he does not like them much either, but circumstances warranted wearing one.)
Taking the challenger's seat is primary school teacher Margaret Zimmer. She has been teaching really young children for the past nine years; Richard asks what it is she likes about that. Margaret responds that she likes how they come in knowing nothing, and then when she looks at what they know at the end of the year she can say that she taught them all of that. That she has made a significant impact and set them up for the rest of their education.
It's fairly close tonight; Margaret gets an early lead in the second letters round, but invalid words in the next two let Donald overtake her. He then has an invalid word of his own in the last letters round to drop behind again, but takes the lead once more in the numbers round. It all comes down to the conundrum, and Margaret solves it first to take the win, 38 to 34.
I had a good game this time; maybe the delay helped somehow. Only two rounds offered improvements, and I'd not heard of the word for one of those. The other round I was floundering and perhaps fortunate, as there is a tempting but invalid longer word which I did not even see. I had a rare quick solve of the conundrum for a nice change, and finished just two points behind David and Lily.
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Delays
Looks like there's something not-qite-right with the SBS setup at the moment; as of a bit after 9:30PM Sydney time (so after the show would have finished airing in Western Australia, not that that is usually an issue) the website video is simply stating that the content is unavailable.
I'll be out tomorrow night, so even if the SBS issues are fixed by then there will be a probable two day delay in the updates.
I'll be out tomorrow night, so even if the SBS issues are fixed by then there will be a probable two day delay in the updates.
Monday, 26 March 2012
Ep 411: Ann Russell, John Morris (March 26, 2012)
Richard asks Ann for particular memories of her performance so far. Ann has enjoyed it, of course, and mentions that she has discovered something about herself: Her ability to recover from blunders so that she can treat each game separately and not dwell on what she has done in the past. She did not know that about herself, so it has been a good learning experience.
Tonight's challenger is John Morris, an economist and geologist. John has been on several trips -- partly tied in with his geological interests -- that have tended to have a theme about them; generally, dinosaurs and volcanos. He mentions one trip to Boulia, near the Queensland/Northern Territory border; he says that area used to be an ocean and had pliosaurs swimming around there. So the trips were about finding fossils or evidence of volcanic activity along the way; Richard compares it to a game of I Spy.
For the first four letters rounds Ann managed to outdo John by a letter each round. He turned the tables in the final letters round but he had already conceded far too much ground to hope to catch up. Ann solved two of the numbers rounds also (with the third proving too difficult for both contestants), which put it beyond any doubt. The conundrum went unsolved and Ann gained her sixth victory with a 47 to 16 scoreline, becoming the series' second retiring champion. She'll be back for the finals, presumably, unless we keep getting retiring champions at this rate!
I was slow on the conundrum, but I got there. I did as well as possible on the numbers, and almost so on the letters. I actually had every best answer written down (one of them outdoing David) but talked myself out of two of them, including the full monty. Ouch. A comfortable win and a good game, but it hurts to have the perfect game within grasp and throw it away like that.
Tonight's challenger is John Morris, an economist and geologist. John has been on several trips -- partly tied in with his geological interests -- that have tended to have a theme about them; generally, dinosaurs and volcanos. He mentions one trip to Boulia, near the Queensland/Northern Territory border; he says that area used to be an ocean and had pliosaurs swimming around there. So the trips were about finding fossils or evidence of volcanic activity along the way; Richard compares it to a game of I Spy.
For the first four letters rounds Ann managed to outdo John by a letter each round. He turned the tables in the final letters round but he had already conceded far too much ground to hope to catch up. Ann solved two of the numbers rounds also (with the third proving too difficult for both contestants), which put it beyond any doubt. The conundrum went unsolved and Ann gained her sixth victory with a 47 to 16 scoreline, becoming the series' second retiring champion. She'll be back for the finals, presumably, unless we keep getting retiring champions at this rate!
I was slow on the conundrum, but I got there. I did as well as possible on the numbers, and almost so on the letters. I actually had every best answer written down (one of them outdoing David) but talked myself out of two of them, including the full monty. Ouch. A comfortable win and a good game, but it hurts to have the perfect game within grasp and throw it away like that.
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Weekly summary: Episodes 406 to 410
I've had a tough time with the conundrums this week, but mostly managed to keep up with David and Lily aside from that. The exception being Thursday's effort where I missed two easy extensions, including the only full monty for some time.
Ann looks extremely likely to make the finals at this point; will we get a full roster of retiring champions in the finals this series?
It has been another tough week for the full monties, with only one chance available again; this time it was findable enough that everyone did... except for me. Hopefully next week will provide more opportunities than we've had so far!
My numbers performance improved this week; however, my letters and conundrum performance was down a touch. A possibly interesting point is how the similar statistics for Monday and Thursday translate into greatly different solo point differences as compared to David and Lily (even after taking the conundrum into consideration).
Contestants sorted by average score:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | 62 | 65 | 63 | 51 | 65 |
| Champion | 20 | 38 | 27 | 43 | 31 |
| Challenger | 16 | 23 | 14 | 28 | 17 |
| David + Lily | 69 | 78 | 75 | 89 | 77 |
| Me (solo) | 68 | 72 | 63 | 66 | 65 |
Ann looks extremely likely to make the finals at this point; will we get a full roster of retiring champions in the finals this series?
| Norm Do | 67 | 62 | 58 | 61 | 59 | 62 | 369 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ann Russell | 40 | 48 | 46 | 62 | 49 | 245 |
It has been another tough week for the full monties, with only one chance available again; this time it was findable enough that everyone did... except for me. Hopefully next week will provide more opportunities than we've had so far!
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full Monties | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Missed Full Monties | 0 | |||||
| Tough Numbers | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Impossible Numbers | 1 | 1 | 2 |
My numbers performance improved this week; however, my letters and conundrum performance was down a touch. A possibly interesting point is how the similar statistics for Monday and Thursday translate into greatly different solo point differences as compared to David and Lily (even after taking the conundrum into consideration).
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximums: L | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| N | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| C | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Contestants sorted by average score:
| Total | Games | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norm Do | 369 | 6 | 61.50 |
| Ann Russell* | 245 | 5 | 49.00 |
| Diana Greenslade | 43 | 1 | 43.00 |
| Gavin Griffith | 40 | 1 | 40.00 |
| James Cooper | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Philip Scambler | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Peter Ghalayini | 30 | 1 | 30.00 |
| Marc Lissner | 26 | 1 | 26.00 |
| Cassie Palmer | 20 | 1 | 20.00 |
| Casey Duggan | 13 | 1 | 13.00 |
| Patrick Johns | 10 | 1 | 10.00 |
| Hans Pieterse | 6 | 1 | 6.00 |
Ep 410: Ann Russell, Philip Scambler (March 23, 2012)
Ann has been learning Spanish in preparation for doing some travel in South America. No mention of what she hopes to visit there, though.
Tonight's challenger is Philip Scambler, a retired school principal. Now that he is retired, at sheep-shearing time he helps out at the shearing sheds of a friend who owns a large property. He does not shear the sheep, but does do a variety of other tasks, "particularly the ones which are not too strenuous".
The contestants are reasonably close on the letters, but Ann twice managed to do better. That gave her a crucial fourteen point lead, and the numbers rounds provided no difference. Neither managed to get close in the last one which was a little odd, and it could have put Philip back into contention if he'd just done so. (There's a suggestion that he saw something a little too late.) Ann buzzed in with an incorrect conundrum answer, and then rather strangely Philip apparently wrote his answer down instead of buzzing in; if he had been in contention, that would have been a bizarre way to avoid winning. Ann gets her fifth win, 49 to 35.
I was in reasonable form, but just a few seconds slow on the first letters round. I also cunningly avoided finding the better answer in another round (but nothing nearly as bad as the ETHANOL / METHANOL slip from yesterday), and blanked on the conundrum. But my numbers work continues to be good this series, and I had a comfortable win.
Tonight's challenger is Philip Scambler, a retired school principal. Now that he is retired, at sheep-shearing time he helps out at the shearing sheds of a friend who owns a large property. He does not shear the sheep, but does do a variety of other tasks, "particularly the ones which are not too strenuous".
The contestants are reasonably close on the letters, but Ann twice managed to do better. That gave her a crucial fourteen point lead, and the numbers rounds provided no difference. Neither managed to get close in the last one which was a little odd, and it could have put Philip back into contention if he'd just done so. (There's a suggestion that he saw something a little too late.) Ann buzzed in with an incorrect conundrum answer, and then rather strangely Philip apparently wrote his answer down instead of buzzing in; if he had been in contention, that would have been a bizarre way to avoid winning. Ann gets her fifth win, 49 to 35.
I was in reasonable form, but just a few seconds slow on the first letters round. I also cunningly avoided finding the better answer in another round (but nothing nearly as bad as the ETHANOL / METHANOL slip from yesterday), and blanked on the conundrum. But my numbers work continues to be good this series, and I had a comfortable win.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
Ep 409: Ann Russell, James Cooper (March 22, 2012)
On Ann's fourth night the conversation turns to strategies. She talks about searching for affixes in the letters rounds, and for 100's or 10's in the numbers rounds and hoping that they will lead to a solution.
Tonight's challenger is James Cooper, a management consultant. James plays Ultimate Frisbee; he gives a brief overview of the general idea, and says that he enjoys playing it very much.
James is unlucky to have an invalid word in the first round -- one of the vagaries of the Macquarie that surprises David -- but thereafter he is generally beaten by Ann's choices. Ann hits her stride with the letters in the latter part of the game, and although James won the first numbers game he was not able to keep that up and Ann was safe going into the conundrum. It turned out to be a difficult one that no-one solved, and Ann won 62 to 35.
I had... well, it arguably wasn't actually that bad a game. But it should have been so much better; two very careless misses -- one of them very costly indeed -- in the letters, plus another where I looked several times at the right idea and missed it. Fortunately my numbers form kept me in things so that I was ahead at the conundrum but not safe. It was a very nervous time as I failed to solve it, but with Ann not finding the answer I escaped with an extremely lucky win.
Tonight's challenger is James Cooper, a management consultant. James plays Ultimate Frisbee; he gives a brief overview of the general idea, and says that he enjoys playing it very much.
James is unlucky to have an invalid word in the first round -- one of the vagaries of the Macquarie that surprises David -- but thereafter he is generally beaten by Ann's choices. Ann hits her stride with the letters in the latter part of the game, and although James won the first numbers game he was not able to keep that up and Ann was safe going into the conundrum. It turned out to be a difficult one that no-one solved, and Ann won 62 to 35.
I had... well, it arguably wasn't actually that bad a game. But it should have been so much better; two very careless misses -- one of them very costly indeed -- in the letters, plus another where I looked several times at the right idea and missed it. Fortunately my numbers form kept me in things so that I was ahead at the conundrum but not safe. It was a very nervous time as I failed to solve it, but with Ann not finding the answer I escaped with an extremely lucky win.
Ep 408: Ann Russell, Cassie Palmer (March 21, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
Richard makes reference to a "cave incident" that Ann has had. She explains that she once went on a self-guided cave trip; she was with a group of scouts (who had all the torches). When they got near the end of the cave -- this was about a kilometre underground -- suddenly the cave narrowed off. Ann did not like the looks of that, so she decided to wait around while everyone else moved off to look at the rest of the cave. Which they did, leaving her in complete darkness for the ten minutes or so until they returned. As she said, "Those ten minutes... one K under the ground in complete darkness were very scary." She does not "do" caves any more.
Tonight's challenger is Cassie Palmer, a district nurse. Her daughter, Millie, is almost three years old; just before Millie turned two she suddenly could read the alphabet. Cassie and her husband were surprised as to how this could be, since they had not sat down and taught it to her. Then one night when they were eating dinner and watching Letters and Numbers -- as they do every weeknight -- Lily was putting up the letters and Millie was calling out the letters as Lily put them up. So that was how it happened.
Cassie started off with two good words to have a 14 point lead after the second round; then the situation reversed in the next two letter rounds. Cassie struggled with the numbers throughout, and when she somehow wrote down an invalid answer on the last round she dropped out of contention. Ann solved the conundrum first in any case, ending up with a 46 to 20 win in a game that was quite similar to yesterday's game in some ways.
I saw a word a little too late for it to count, and could not get the conundrum, but aside from that it was a good game for me; I was particularly pleased about the last numbers round. A comfortable win in the end.
Richard makes reference to a "cave incident" that Ann has had. She explains that she once went on a self-guided cave trip; she was with a group of scouts (who had all the torches). When they got near the end of the cave -- this was about a kilometre underground -- suddenly the cave narrowed off. Ann did not like the looks of that, so she decided to wait around while everyone else moved off to look at the rest of the cave. Which they did, leaving her in complete darkness for the ten minutes or so until they returned. As she said, "Those ten minutes... one K under the ground in complete darkness were very scary." She does not "do" caves any more.
Tonight's challenger is Cassie Palmer, a district nurse. Her daughter, Millie, is almost three years old; just before Millie turned two she suddenly could read the alphabet. Cassie and her husband were surprised as to how this could be, since they had not sat down and taught it to her. Then one night when they were eating dinner and watching Letters and Numbers -- as they do every weeknight -- Lily was putting up the letters and Millie was calling out the letters as Lily put them up. So that was how it happened.
Cassie started off with two good words to have a 14 point lead after the second round; then the situation reversed in the next two letter rounds. Cassie struggled with the numbers throughout, and when she somehow wrote down an invalid answer on the last round she dropped out of contention. Ann solved the conundrum first in any case, ending up with a 46 to 20 win in a game that was quite similar to yesterday's game in some ways.
I saw a word a little too late for it to count, and could not get the conundrum, but aside from that it was a good game for me; I was particularly pleased about the last numbers round. A comfortable win in the end.
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Ep 407: Ann Russell, Peter Ghalayini (March 20, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
I'm going to digress for a moment here to note that 407 (the current episode number) is one of my favourite numbers. It is one of four three-digit numbers that are equal to the sum of the cubes of their digits. (i.e., 407 = 43 + 03 + 73.) The others aren't too difficult to find if anyone reading feels like trying to do so.
And now back to the show. Ann mentions that when people come to Australia without English as their first language they are entitled to classes, but not everyone can get to those classes (perhaps because they have young children to look after, or they are infirm). So she is part of a group of volunteers that go to the homes of such people a couple of hours a week "to get their English started". They learn English, and the volunteers get to learn about other cultures, so it's win-win.
Tonight's challenger is Peter Ghalayini, a pastor who used to be an accountant; more precisely a credit manager. During the time he was an accountant he was also a very active member of his church, and that led him to look at further work in the church. He notes -- in contrast to when he was a credit manager -- that people are happy to see him come around now.
There's some more information about Peter here.
Peter gets off to a good start with a great word, and extends his lead when Ann declares an invalid word in the second round. The next couple of rounds produce no change, but then Ann manages to edge into the lead in the last two letter rounds -- she had a good word in a tough mix, and then a very easy word in the last that Peter did not match; a little studying of RETSINA would have paid handsome dividends for him. Ann draws further ahead in the last numbers round but the conundrum is still decisive. Peter buzzes in first, but his answer is incorrect. Ann eventually buzzes in with the correct answer to round off the win, 48 to 30.
I started off with well, then floundered in the second round. My eventual answer turned out to be pretty reasonable, and the next two rounds also went all right. I missed a word I should have seen in the fifth, but it was all mostly OK until the final numbers round, where I missed the obvious completely and declared a rather poor answer. I took a while to see the right path on the conundrum, eventually getting there at the halfway point. Overall it was a decent game marred by that last numbers round.
I'm going to digress for a moment here to note that 407 (the current episode number) is one of my favourite numbers. It is one of four three-digit numbers that are equal to the sum of the cubes of their digits. (i.e., 407 = 43 + 03 + 73.) The others aren't too difficult to find if anyone reading feels like trying to do so.
And now back to the show. Ann mentions that when people come to Australia without English as their first language they are entitled to classes, but not everyone can get to those classes (perhaps because they have young children to look after, or they are infirm). So she is part of a group of volunteers that go to the homes of such people a couple of hours a week "to get their English started". They learn English, and the volunteers get to learn about other cultures, so it's win-win.
Tonight's challenger is Peter Ghalayini, a pastor who used to be an accountant; more precisely a credit manager. During the time he was an accountant he was also a very active member of his church, and that led him to look at further work in the church. He notes -- in contrast to when he was a credit manager -- that people are happy to see him come around now.
There's some more information about Peter here.
Peter gets off to a good start with a great word, and extends his lead when Ann declares an invalid word in the second round. The next couple of rounds produce no change, but then Ann manages to edge into the lead in the last two letter rounds -- she had a good word in a tough mix, and then a very easy word in the last that Peter did not match; a little studying of RETSINA would have paid handsome dividends for him. Ann draws further ahead in the last numbers round but the conundrum is still decisive. Peter buzzes in first, but his answer is incorrect. Ann eventually buzzes in with the correct answer to round off the win, 48 to 30.
I started off with well, then floundered in the second round. My eventual answer turned out to be pretty reasonable, and the next two rounds also went all right. I missed a word I should have seen in the fifth, but it was all mostly OK until the final numbers round, where I missed the obvious completely and declared a rather poor answer. I took a while to see the right path on the conundrum, eventually getting there at the halfway point. Overall it was a decent game marred by that last numbers round.
Ep 406: Ann Russell, Marc Lissner
Rounds: Here.
Two new contestants tonight, after Norm's successful retirement on Friday. Taking the champion's seat is Ann Russell, a retired school-teacher. In the following she implicitly refers to another person by saying "we" several times; I would assume this is her partner. Anyway, before they retired they bought a country house down at Maslin's Beach, which she notes is right near the Mclaren Vale wine area.
(I'll digress here to note that Maslin Beach is the name of both the suburb and its associated beach, with Maslin's Beach being a common name for the beach specifically. The southern half of this beach was Australia's first official nude beach, and used to host the Maslin's Beach Nude Olympics every year, although I gather from limited research that it has not been held for a few years.)
When Ann and her partner retired they could not decide which house they preferred, and so they ended up living in both houses. They have a long weekend down the coast, and a short week in the city where they "see [their] family and go to the dentist and things like that".
In the challenger's seat is data analyst Marc Lissner. He proposed to his fiancée at Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, and if you've not seen pictures of it before do yourself a favour and do an image search -- there are some breathtaking pictures of it out there. Marc points out that it inspired the Disney castle. Richard asks why he chose that location, and Marc responds that it was a magical castle and he'd learned about it at school, so when they were in Germany he decided that that was where he wanted to propose. (Oh, and the answer was yes.)
Ann starts off with an invalid word (a bit oddly, too, but we'll get to that in due course), giving Marc some early points. The next two rounds are even, with her numbers choice proving too difficult for everyone. Ann scores well in the next two rounds, including an excellent word in round 5, and with Marc doing rather poorly in the next numbers round she has a large lead. Marc manages to get most of the ground back in the final numbers round, and it comes down to the conundrum. Ann solves it first and takes the win, 40 to 26.
I had a poor start to this game, and was never really comfortable. I ended up missing two other longer words that I'd have like to have seen, but I found the best results in the numbers rounds and solved the conundrum reasonably early to finish with a very comfortable win. In fact, due to Lily's difficulties with the numbers I was only a point off the combined David and Lily total, so it arguably wasn't as bad as it felt at the time.
Two new contestants tonight, after Norm's successful retirement on Friday. Taking the champion's seat is Ann Russell, a retired school-teacher. In the following she implicitly refers to another person by saying "we" several times; I would assume this is her partner. Anyway, before they retired they bought a country house down at Maslin's Beach, which she notes is right near the Mclaren Vale wine area.
(I'll digress here to note that Maslin Beach is the name of both the suburb and its associated beach, with Maslin's Beach being a common name for the beach specifically. The southern half of this beach was Australia's first official nude beach, and used to host the Maslin's Beach Nude Olympics every year, although I gather from limited research that it has not been held for a few years.)
When Ann and her partner retired they could not decide which house they preferred, and so they ended up living in both houses. They have a long weekend down the coast, and a short week in the city where they "see [their] family and go to the dentist and things like that".
In the challenger's seat is data analyst Marc Lissner. He proposed to his fiancée at Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, and if you've not seen pictures of it before do yourself a favour and do an image search -- there are some breathtaking pictures of it out there. Marc points out that it inspired the Disney castle. Richard asks why he chose that location, and Marc responds that it was a magical castle and he'd learned about it at school, so when they were in Germany he decided that that was where he wanted to propose. (Oh, and the answer was yes.)
Ann starts off with an invalid word (a bit oddly, too, but we'll get to that in due course), giving Marc some early points. The next two rounds are even, with her numbers choice proving too difficult for everyone. Ann scores well in the next two rounds, including an excellent word in round 5, and with Marc doing rather poorly in the next numbers round she has a large lead. Marc manages to get most of the ground back in the final numbers round, and it comes down to the conundrum. Ann solves it first and takes the win, 40 to 26.
I had a poor start to this game, and was never really comfortable. I ended up missing two other longer words that I'd have like to have seen, but I found the best results in the numbers rounds and solved the conundrum reasonably early to finish with a very comfortable win. In fact, due to Lily's difficulties with the numbers I was only a point off the combined David and Lily total, so it arguably wasn't as bad as it felt at the time.
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Weekly summary: Episodes 401 to 405
The week has been mostly good, with my solo totals on Monday and Thursday being nicely close to David and Lily. Tuesday and Wednesday were marred by invalid words which increased the separation; Wednesday was a particularly unfortunate day in that regard.
Like Shaun Ellis last series, Norm carries over from the previous series and goes all the way to successful retirement. An auspicious start to the series?
It has been a really tough week for the full monties, with only one chance available (INHAULERS), and that was obscure enough to elude David's eye. Hopefully next week will bring richer rewards! Lily had a perfect week, solving everything except the single impossible round (on which she got as close as possible).
Here's a new set of statistics: The number of "maximums" (best possible results) I scored in each category. The conundrum statistic does not fit that well into this scheme since time is also a factor; I am including it simply to record whether I solved the conundrum within the time limit (whether or not a contestant solves it sooner). I'm also listing invalid attempts. Note the stark contrast between my letters performance on Wednesday and on the other days!
Last time I only listed contestants with averages over 30, in part due to laziness. I'm honestly undecided about whether a cut-off like that is appropriate, so this time I'm going to list them all.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | 66 | 53 | 58 | 64 | 63 |
| Champion | 28 | 33 | 51 | 33 | 55 |
| Challenger | 0 | 6 | 40 | 17 | 6 |
| David + Lily | 77 | 73 | 80 | 76 | 78 |
| Me (solo) | 73 | 63 | 58 | 74 | 63 |
Like Shaun Ellis last series, Norm carries over from the previous series and goes all the way to successful retirement. An auspicious start to the series?
| Norm Do | 67 | 62 | 58 | 61 | 59 | 62 | 369 |
|---|
It has been a really tough week for the full monties, with only one chance available (INHAULERS), and that was obscure enough to elude David's eye. Hopefully next week will bring richer rewards! Lily had a perfect week, solving everything except the single impossible round (on which she got as close as possible).
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full Monties | 0 | |||||
| Missed Full Monties | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Tough Numbers | 0 | |||||
| Impossible Numbers | 1 | 1 |
Here's a new set of statistics: The number of "maximums" (best possible results) I scored in each category. The conundrum statistic does not fit that well into this scheme since time is also a factor; I am including it simply to record whether I solved the conundrum within the time limit (whether or not a contestant solves it sooner). I'm also listing invalid attempts. Note the stark contrast between my letters performance on Wednesday and on the other days!
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximums: L | 3 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| N | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| C | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Invalid: L | - | 1 | 2 | - | - |
Last time I only listed contestants with averages over 30, in part due to laziness. I'm honestly undecided about whether a cut-off like that is appropriate, so this time I'm going to list them all.
| Total | Games | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norm Do | 369 | 6 | 61.50 |
| Diana Greenslade | 43 | 1 | 43.00 |
| Gavin Griffith | 40 | 1 | 40.00 |
| Casey Duggan | 13 | 1 | 13.00 |
| Patrick Johns | 10 | 1 | 10.00 |
| Hans Pieterse | 6 | 1 | 6.00 |
Ep 405: Norm Do, Hans Pieterse (March 16, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
The chat with Norm is pretty contentless tonight, as it was last night. I don't really feel that we've had much chance to learn about him at all.
Tonight's challenger is Hans Pieterse, a sales manager. He works in the bearing industry, and points out (with some prompting from Richard) that an awful lot of things today depend on them. As he puts it, "everything that moves or rolls uses a bearing", so (amongst other things) there would be no power or transport without bearings.
Norm is in very good form tonight -- it's easily the best he has played -- and left very little chance to overtake him. Hans found some good words, but they were just short of being long enough, and Norm kept scoring the points. Norm did well on the numbers also, and very much against form it took the conundrum to stop him. He steamrolled his way to a 62 to 6 victory, and becomes a retiring champion with a total of 369 points. Last series that would have put him in second place, and I'm predicting that he will be either first or second this series.
I actually had a good game also, but I just could not get away from Norm. There were chances, but they certainly weren't easy ones. I had an eight point lead going into the conundrum, which was very nervous territory; it proved too difficult for me also, and I was fortunate that Norm was likewise stumped as he has been excellent throughout on the conundrums. So a tense win by default, that could easily have gone another way.
The chat with Norm is pretty contentless tonight, as it was last night. I don't really feel that we've had much chance to learn about him at all.
Tonight's challenger is Hans Pieterse, a sales manager. He works in the bearing industry, and points out (with some prompting from Richard) that an awful lot of things today depend on them. As he puts it, "everything that moves or rolls uses a bearing", so (amongst other things) there would be no power or transport without bearings.
Norm is in very good form tonight -- it's easily the best he has played -- and left very little chance to overtake him. Hans found some good words, but they were just short of being long enough, and Norm kept scoring the points. Norm did well on the numbers also, and very much against form it took the conundrum to stop him. He steamrolled his way to a 62 to 6 victory, and becomes a retiring champion with a total of 369 points. Last series that would have put him in second place, and I'm predicting that he will be either first or second this series.
I actually had a good game also, but I just could not get away from Norm. There were chances, but they certainly weren't easy ones. I had an eight point lead going into the conundrum, which was very nervous territory; it proved too difficult for me also, and I was fortunate that Norm was likewise stumped as he has been excellent throughout on the conundrums. So a tense win by default, that could easily have gone another way.
Thursday, 15 March 2012
Ep 404: Norm Do, Diana Greenslade (March 15, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
It was really hard to resist the temptation to simply title this post "Ep 404: Not found". I hope you appreciate my forebearance. *chuckles*
Richard mentions that Norm has been pretty consistent about solving the conundrums and also finding seven letter words. Norm responds that it doesn't usually happen like that at home, although seven letter words are what he aims for.
Tonight's challenger is oceanographer Diana Greenslade. Diana works on the Australian Tsunami Warning System, an initiative started after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004; the System went operational in 2008. She has been leading the scientific development of it -- running the computer models that provide the underlying basis for the forecasters, who can then choose whether to issue a warning or not.
Diana gets an early lead, but Norm claims most of it back in the next round with a very nice word. The sevens are hard to come by tonight, but he finds another to take the lead. The contestants are matched throughout in the numbers and so it comes down to the conundrum, with Norm leading. It's a disconcerting mix but Norm sees his way through it once more to solve it and take his fifth win, 59 to 43.
I had a decent game, solving all the numbers and getting mostly maximal results in the letters; the two cases where I could have done better involved words I did not know in the first, and a word I wasn't certain of in the second. So the only negative mark here is how I froze up on the conundrum, eventually finding the solution three seconds after Norm. Still and all, a comfortable win, and a nice result after yesterday's game.
It was really hard to resist the temptation to simply title this post "Ep 404: Not found". I hope you appreciate my forebearance. *chuckles*
Richard mentions that Norm has been pretty consistent about solving the conundrums and also finding seven letter words. Norm responds that it doesn't usually happen like that at home, although seven letter words are what he aims for.
Tonight's challenger is oceanographer Diana Greenslade. Diana works on the Australian Tsunami Warning System, an initiative started after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004; the System went operational in 2008. She has been leading the scientific development of it -- running the computer models that provide the underlying basis for the forecasters, who can then choose whether to issue a warning or not.
Diana gets an early lead, but Norm claims most of it back in the next round with a very nice word. The sevens are hard to come by tonight, but he finds another to take the lead. The contestants are matched throughout in the numbers and so it comes down to the conundrum, with Norm leading. It's a disconcerting mix but Norm sees his way through it once more to solve it and take his fifth win, 59 to 43.
I had a decent game, solving all the numbers and getting mostly maximal results in the letters; the two cases where I could have done better involved words I did not know in the first, and a word I wasn't certain of in the second. So the only negative mark here is how I froze up on the conundrum, eventually finding the solution three seconds after Norm. Still and all, a comfortable win, and a nice result after yesterday's game.
Ep 403: Norm Do, Gavin Griffith (March 14, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
Richard talks with Norm a little about how Norm helps train students for the mathematical olympiads. As Norm says, it basically involves feeding them maths problems and letting them go at it. I'll note from personal experience that there is a lot more done in the way of teaching and discussion about the problems, but fundamentally that is the approach: Get students working on challenging problems, see what they make of them, and then suggest ways in which they might find more helpful approaches to them.
Tonight's challenger is Gavin Griffith, a primary school teacher. Seven years ago Gavin "stumbled upon" a sports camp in America, and since then has spent pretty much every American summer there (from about May through to September), dealing with around 260 kids playing a variety of sports. As Richard points out, this means that Gavin more-or-less gets a perpetual summer, or at the very least avoids winter. The camp involves a lot of team sports; Gavin says that he isn't that good at the sports but makes sure that they play safely and have a good time.
Norm gets an early lead due to a longer word and an error from Gavin in the numbers. Gavin misses a couple of chances to create longer words by prefixing in the next two letters rounds, thereby giving up seven points instead of gaining them. Norm makes a mistake in the second numbers round to give some of the large lead back, but manages to ride his remaining eleven point lead into the conundrum for safety. Once again Norm solves it, a bit short of halfway, to end up winning 61 to 40.
I had a very disappointing night tonight. Two words turned out to be invalid (I didn't get any longest word within time) and I was uncomfortably far away on one numbers round. It was a night for seeing better answers within five seconds of time running out, which is always a bit frustrating. I was actually behind going into the conundrum, but honestly fortunate to still have a chance by that point since it needed Norm's error to bring me back into contention. I solved the conundrum quickly to escape with a very lucky win, perhaps making up for some poor luck in the game.
Richard talks with Norm a little about how Norm helps train students for the mathematical olympiads. As Norm says, it basically involves feeding them maths problems and letting them go at it. I'll note from personal experience that there is a lot more done in the way of teaching and discussion about the problems, but fundamentally that is the approach: Get students working on challenging problems, see what they make of them, and then suggest ways in which they might find more helpful approaches to them.
Tonight's challenger is Gavin Griffith, a primary school teacher. Seven years ago Gavin "stumbled upon" a sports camp in America, and since then has spent pretty much every American summer there (from about May through to September), dealing with around 260 kids playing a variety of sports. As Richard points out, this means that Gavin more-or-less gets a perpetual summer, or at the very least avoids winter. The camp involves a lot of team sports; Gavin says that he isn't that good at the sports but makes sure that they play safely and have a good time.
Norm gets an early lead due to a longer word and an error from Gavin in the numbers. Gavin misses a couple of chances to create longer words by prefixing in the next two letters rounds, thereby giving up seven points instead of gaining them. Norm makes a mistake in the second numbers round to give some of the large lead back, but manages to ride his remaining eleven point lead into the conundrum for safety. Once again Norm solves it, a bit short of halfway, to end up winning 61 to 40.
I had a very disappointing night tonight. Two words turned out to be invalid (I didn't get any longest word within time) and I was uncomfortably far away on one numbers round. It was a night for seeing better answers within five seconds of time running out, which is always a bit frustrating. I was actually behind going into the conundrum, but honestly fortunate to still have a chance by that point since it needed Norm's error to bring me back into contention. I solved the conundrum quickly to escape with a very lucky win, perhaps making up for some poor luck in the game.
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Ep 402: Norm Do, Casey Duggan (March 13, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
Norm is asked to explain the difference between pure mathematics and applied mathematics. He says that pure mathematics is more abstract and is motivated by ideas, whereas applied mathematics is mathematics in the field and is motivated by real-world problems. He adds that -- despite the rivalry between the two areas -- the actual division is somewhat nebulous.
Tonight's challenger is product manager Casey Duggan. Last year she went on a bear-viewing holiday with her husband. This was in an Alaskan national park, and every day they would go and watch bears catching fish and doing other bear-like things. These were big brown bears, catching salmon in the streams, etc. At times they were only a couple of metres away, which sounds pretty worrying to me. Their guide had a can of "bear spray" (a variety of pepper spray) as their only defense, which... well, just as well it was not needed, anyway.
Both contestants start with an invalid word (the same one, in fact), and match results a couple of later times, but mostly Norm draws steadily ahead, gaining with a couple of letters rounds and all of the numbers rounds. He caps it off by solving the conundrum again for a 58 to 13 victory.
A somewhat mixed effort from me tonight; I did find some good words, but overreached in one round and ended up with an invalid one. Then I got lost on what should have been a very easy numbers round, and was beaten to the conundrum. I'd still done enough to win, but I'm disappointed about the numbers round -- I conceded far too many 10-pointers in similar fashion last series.
Norm is asked to explain the difference between pure mathematics and applied mathematics. He says that pure mathematics is more abstract and is motivated by ideas, whereas applied mathematics is mathematics in the field and is motivated by real-world problems. He adds that -- despite the rivalry between the two areas -- the actual division is somewhat nebulous.
Tonight's challenger is product manager Casey Duggan. Last year she went on a bear-viewing holiday with her husband. This was in an Alaskan national park, and every day they would go and watch bears catching fish and doing other bear-like things. These were big brown bears, catching salmon in the streams, etc. At times they were only a couple of metres away, which sounds pretty worrying to me. Their guide had a can of "bear spray" (a variety of pepper spray) as their only defense, which... well, just as well it was not needed, anyway.
Both contestants start with an invalid word (the same one, in fact), and match results a couple of later times, but mostly Norm draws steadily ahead, gaining with a couple of letters rounds and all of the numbers rounds. He caps it off by solving the conundrum again for a 58 to 13 victory.
A somewhat mixed effort from me tonight; I did find some good words, but overreached in one round and ended up with an invalid one. Then I got lost on what should have been a very easy numbers round, and was beaten to the conundrum. I'd still done enough to win, but I'm disappointed about the numbers round -- I conceded far too many 10-pointers in similar fashion last series.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Ep 401: Norm Do, Patrick Johns (March 12, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
We kick off series five with champion Norm carrying over 67 points from his first win, eight episodes ago. Norm has two chihuahuas that like to watch the show; asked if they favour the letters or the numbers, Norm responds that he has not seen them get the numbers ever, but one of them may once have got WOOF in the letters.
A later chat reveals that they are named Choba and Taco, causing Lily great surprise -- she has a dog called Taco also. Richard asks Lily whether her dog can play Letters and Numbers; Lily responds that he is a little bit "ruff" at it.
Tonight's challenger is Patrick Johns, a software engineer. One of the software projects that he worked on a few years back was driverless trains -- it was for a mining company in Western Australia, and involved replacing the driver of iron ore trains with a computer that would drive the train instead. This apparently has large benefits for both efficiency and safety.
I'll note that he did not give any identifying information beyond that, but my (possibly incorrect) belief is that the mining company in question was Rio Tinto and that Patrick undertook this work as part of Ansaldo STS.
Patrick consistently found five-letter words, which was good in a couple of places but mostly outdone by Norm's selections. That would have put him well behind regardless, but Norm also managed to get closer on every numbers round. Norm capped off this all-round performance by solving the conundrum at the halfway mark to finish with a comprehensive 62 to 10 victory.
I started off in good form, finding two longer words than David in the first round. That's rare enough to be decidedly worth celebrating! I continued in mostly good ways, but dropped three points in the first numbers round and missed a gettable and thematic eight in the last letters round. But all in all it was a fairly decent game and a mid-sixties score to start with despite not scoring in one round. An auspicious start to the series; I hope I can continue in this fashion.
We kick off series five with champion Norm carrying over 67 points from his first win, eight episodes ago. Norm has two chihuahuas that like to watch the show; asked if they favour the letters or the numbers, Norm responds that he has not seen them get the numbers ever, but one of them may once have got WOOF in the letters.
A later chat reveals that they are named Choba and Taco, causing Lily great surprise -- she has a dog called Taco also. Richard asks Lily whether her dog can play Letters and Numbers; Lily responds that he is a little bit "ruff" at it.
Tonight's challenger is Patrick Johns, a software engineer. One of the software projects that he worked on a few years back was driverless trains -- it was for a mining company in Western Australia, and involved replacing the driver of iron ore trains with a computer that would drive the train instead. This apparently has large benefits for both efficiency and safety.
I'll note that he did not give any identifying information beyond that, but my (possibly incorrect) belief is that the mining company in question was Rio Tinto and that Patrick undertook this work as part of Ansaldo STS.
Patrick consistently found five-letter words, which was good in a couple of places but mostly outdone by Norm's selections. That would have put him well behind regardless, but Norm also managed to get closer on every numbers round. Norm capped off this all-round performance by solving the conundrum at the halfway mark to finish with a comprehensive 62 to 10 victory.
I started off in good form, finding two longer words than David in the first round. That's rare enough to be decidedly worth celebrating! I continued in mostly good ways, but dropped three points in the first numbers round and missed a gettable and thematic eight in the last letters round. But all in all it was a fairly decent game and a mid-sixties score to start with despite not scoring in one round. An auspicious start to the series; I hope I can continue in this fashion.
Monday, 12 March 2012
My tussles with Sam
Regular readers of this blog -- I've been led to believe that such exist -- will have noticed that Sam Gaffney has been kind enough to post comments with his performance on the games, and various other snippets. It has been natural enough to compare results between us.
Sam was the only contestant to defeat me during the main part of the series (while I was playing from home, that is; obviously I lost against Brett while playing in the studio). Of the nine televised games that Sam has played, in the head-to-head comparison I have won five and Sam has won four. Close, and the aggregate scores are also pretty close (throughout this post, two values separated by a slash will comprise head-to-head score on the left and the corresponding solo score on the right):
Obviously a mere nine games with that degree of closeness can hardly be conclusive. Sam and I have been using the other games to stage a series of virtual matches between us, and it certainly serves as evidence for the suggestion that any single game is somewhat of a lottery. Below are some statistics arising from these games (episodes 348 to 390, since he was present at the filming of episodes outside that range).
(As a minor point of scoring: Sometimes we have been unable to tell who solved a conundrum first, usually with single-second solves. As a matter of expediency I have scored these as five points for each of us. Also, only the first conundrum is used for scoring even if a second was available; my recollection is that this costs Sam a little, but our games were not tied at that point so it is appropriate.)
Firstly, the games won:
That's a pretty compelling advantage to Sam, but let's look at the aggregates and averages. Averages are per-game for the "All" column, and per-round for the others.
My average solo game was a bit under a point less than Sam's, but that expanded to approximately a point and a half of difference in the head-to-head comparison. The individual round scores conform pretty much with expectations also: A slight average advantage to me on the letters, and more noticeable advantages to Sam on the other rounds, particularly the conundrum where Sam's greater solving speed is a factor.
There's something not apparent from the above, but which shows up clearly in the results organised by time: The three weeks leading up to the finals showed a marked shift in advantage to Sam. This time also corresponds to environmental changes for each of us: Sam had been away on holidays and was actually playing two episodes a night in order to catch up; and I was undergoing a period of disrupted sleep patterns. It is not at all clear if those factors effected results, or to what extent, but I certainly felt off my game for much of that period. There's a third factor as well, which I'll get to later.
So here are the same statistics again, but split into those two ranges: First the 28 episodes from 348 to 375, and then the 15 episodes from 376 to 390.
Games won (episodes 348 to 375 first, then episodes 376 to 390):
The shift occasioned by those three weeks is clear. (I want to stress that I did not cherry-pick those three weeks as the best splitting point, although they are close -- one game afterward would have made the difference more extreme -- but they do correspond to those external shifts as stated.) Here's the breakdown for the first period:
As can be seen, up until that point I was close to even (and actually slightly ahead on head-to-head aggregate, although just behind on solo aggregate). And here is the breakdown for those three weeks:
If we just look at my solo performance, then the situation seems rosy; I've gained not quite two points a game, and my numbers performance is significantly better, my letters and conundrum marginally so.
But looking at Sam's statistics shows that things have gone much better for him. Sam gained a bit over four points on solo game score, which translated into almost eight points in the head-to-head situation. His solo letters are almost a point better which stretched to a point and a half in the head-to-head comparison, and almost all of his gain can be attributed to that. Is this the benefits of the vacation, or perhaps of playing multiple games a day?
I think that some light can be shed on it by going back to a suggestion that Victor made in the comments to an earlier post about the finalists. The idea is to look at the number of "maximums" for each player -- times where they got the best possible result in a round. For the finalists there just was not enough data to be useful, but in this case we are starting to get there. A conundrum maximum is just a solution, and statistics for it can be found in the tables above. For the other rounds:
Note the very large drop in my average letters maximums -- over 20%. While Sam's maximum percentage also dropped a little, it was by nowhere near as much. This suggests that -- with all due respect to Sam's play -- the results are more reflective of a drop in my performance than a gain in his.
The as-yet-unmentioned but significant factor here is that those three weeks also happened to be extremely rich in full monties. There were 14 potential ones in that time, or almost one a game (although they were clustered rather more strongly). I had a particularly rough time with these; I found two of them, found a third but was unsure and did not risk it, found four (!) others either just as time was running out or just afterwards, and had another which would have been ruled invalid (DUALITIES). In that time I found just two full monties to Sam's five, a reversal of the earlier section which went five-two the other way.
Is this indicative that I struggle with full monties? Possibly yes -- certainly I'm not happy about my percentage of finding them within time. But it might be more accurate to say that the large numbers of them increased the effects of my poor performance during that period.
Is this all me making excuses? Perhaps! Make of it what you will. When all's said and done, Sam has gone away from these games 9 games ahead, a strong indicator of his level of performance. But I hope to do somewhat better next series; I hope you'll join in.
Sam was the only contestant to defeat me during the main part of the series (while I was playing from home, that is; obviously I lost against Brett while playing in the studio). Of the nine televised games that Sam has played, in the head-to-head comparison I have won five and Sam has won four. Close, and the aggregate scores are also pretty close (throughout this post, two values separated by a slash will comprise head-to-head score on the left and the corresponding solo score on the right):
| Points | Average | |
|---|---|---|
| Me | 516 / 601 | 57.33 / 66.78 |
| Sam | 505 / 586 | 56.11 / 65.00 |
Obviously a mere nine games with that degree of closeness can hardly be conclusive. Sam and I have been using the other games to stage a series of virtual matches between us, and it certainly serves as evidence for the suggestion that any single game is somewhat of a lottery. Below are some statistics arising from these games (episodes 348 to 390, since he was present at the filming of episodes outside that range).
(As a minor point of scoring: Sometimes we have been unable to tell who solved a conundrum first, usually with single-second solves. As a matter of expediency I have scored these as five points for each of us. Also, only the first conundrum is used for scoring even if a second was available; my recollection is that this costs Sam a little, but our games were not tied at that point so it is appropriate.)
Firstly, the games won:
| Me | 16 |
|---|---|
| Sam | 25 |
| Tied | 2 |
That's a pretty compelling advantage to Sam, but let's look at the aggregates and averages. Averages are per-game for the "All" column, and per-round for the others.
| All | L | N | C | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | 2574 / 3032 | 1361 / 1547 | 1058 / 1175 | 155 / 310 |
| 59.86 / 70.51 | 6.33 / 7.20 | 8.20 / 9.11 | 3.60 / 7.21 | |
| Sam | 2639 / 3070 | 1286 / 1525 | 1148 / 1205 | 205 / 340 |
| 61.37 / 71.40 | 5.98 / 7.09 | 8.90 / 9.34 | 4.77 / 7.91 |
My average solo game was a bit under a point less than Sam's, but that expanded to approximately a point and a half of difference in the head-to-head comparison. The individual round scores conform pretty much with expectations also: A slight average advantage to me on the letters, and more noticeable advantages to Sam on the other rounds, particularly the conundrum where Sam's greater solving speed is a factor.
There's something not apparent from the above, but which shows up clearly in the results organised by time: The three weeks leading up to the finals showed a marked shift in advantage to Sam. This time also corresponds to environmental changes for each of us: Sam had been away on holidays and was actually playing two episodes a night in order to catch up; and I was undergoing a period of disrupted sleep patterns. It is not at all clear if those factors effected results, or to what extent, but I certainly felt off my game for much of that period. There's a third factor as well, which I'll get to later.
So here are the same statistics again, but split into those two ranges: First the 28 episodes from 348 to 375, and then the 15 episodes from 376 to 390.
Games won (episodes 348 to 375 first, then episodes 376 to 390):
| Me | 12 | 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Sam | 14 | 11 |
| Tied | 2 | 0 |
The shift occasioned by those three weeks is clear. (I want to stress that I did not cherry-pick those three weeks as the best splitting point, although they are close -- one game afterward would have made the difference more extreme -- but they do correspond to those external shifts as stated.) Here's the breakdown for the first period:
| All | L | N | C | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | 1655 / 1958 | 884 / 1003 | 666 / 755 | 105 / 200 |
| 59.11 / 69.93 | 6.31 / 7.16 | 7.93 / 8.99 | 3.75 / 7.14 | |
| Sam | 1643 / 1959 | 765 / 951 | 743 / 788 | 135 / 220 |
| 58.68 / 69.96 | 5.46 / 6.79 | 8.85 / 9.38 | 4.82 / 7.86 |
As can be seen, up until that point I was close to even (and actually slightly ahead on head-to-head aggregate, although just behind on solo aggregate). And here is the breakdown for those three weeks:
| All | L | N | C | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | 919 / 1074 | 477 / 544 | 392 / 420 | 50 / 110 |
| 61.27 / 71.60 | 6.36 / 7.25 | 8.71 / 9.33 | 3.33 / 7.33 | |
| Sam | 996 / 1111 | 521 / 574 | 405 / 417 | 70 / 120 |
| 66.40 / 74.07 | 6.95 / 7.65 | 9.00 / 9.27 | 4.67 / 8.00 |
If we just look at my solo performance, then the situation seems rosy; I've gained not quite two points a game, and my numbers performance is significantly better, my letters and conundrum marginally so.
But looking at Sam's statistics shows that things have gone much better for him. Sam gained a bit over four points on solo game score, which translated into almost eight points in the head-to-head situation. His solo letters are almost a point better which stretched to a point and a half in the head-to-head comparison, and almost all of his gain can be attributed to that. Is this the benefits of the vacation, or perhaps of playing multiple games a day?
I think that some light can be shed on it by going back to a suggestion that Victor made in the comments to an earlier post about the finalists. The idea is to look at the number of "maximums" for each player -- times where they got the best possible result in a round. For the finalists there just was not enough data to be useful, but in this case we are starting to get there. A conundrum maximum is just a solution, and statistics for it can be found in the tables above. For the other rounds:
| Letters | Numbers | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me: 348–375 | 72 | 2.57 | 64 | 2.29 |
| 376–390 | 30 | 2.00 | 35 | 2.33 |
| Sam: 348–375 | 65 | 2.32 | 70 | 2.50 |
| 376–390 | 33 | 2.20 | 37 | 2.47 |
Note the very large drop in my average letters maximums -- over 20%. While Sam's maximum percentage also dropped a little, it was by nowhere near as much. This suggests that -- with all due respect to Sam's play -- the results are more reflective of a drop in my performance than a gain in his.
The as-yet-unmentioned but significant factor here is that those three weeks also happened to be extremely rich in full monties. There were 14 potential ones in that time, or almost one a game (although they were clustered rather more strongly). I had a particularly rough time with these; I found two of them, found a third but was unsure and did not risk it, found four (!) others either just as time was running out or just afterwards, and had another which would have been ruled invalid (DUALITIES). In that time I found just two full monties to Sam's five, a reversal of the earlier section which went five-two the other way.
Is this indicative that I struggle with full monties? Possibly yes -- certainly I'm not happy about my percentage of finding them within time. But it might be more accurate to say that the large numbers of them increased the effects of my poor performance during that period.
Is this all me making excuses? Perhaps! Make of it what you will. When all's said and done, Sam has gone away from these games 9 games ahead, a strong indicator of his level of performance. But I hope to do somewhat better next series; I hope you'll join in.
Sunday, 11 March 2012
Series summary: Series 4 (Episodes 301 to 400)
And so the fourth series comes to a close, with a great finals series. In particular, all four quarterfinals were decided by the conundrum, so everyone involved really gave it their all. Great stuff! The grand final ended up being very close indeed, with Sam finally beaten on the conundrum but never on the numbers. A fine record, and congratulations to Sam and Alan for being great competitors throughout!
Series 4 champion: Sam Gaffney (577 points at an average of 64.11)
Series 4 runner-up: Alan Nash (508 points at an average of 56.44)
Now here's some aggregate statistics from the series. It seems to have been a slightly above average year in terms of full monties found by David, since the previous three series brought the total just over a hundred. There were more to be found, although some of the ones I have listed as missed might be dodgy so apologies to David if they are. (I'm thinking particularly of BLOATINGS with that caveat, but there may be others I have forgotten.)
That suggests that about one in ten letters rounds has the potential for a full monty, or one every two games. That's a bit more frequent than I would have thought; on the other hand, only three contestants managed to find one in play this series.
Only eight of the numbers rounds turned out to be impossible, which is also a little surprising given how many of the more difficult mixes were chosen this season. It's well within expected bounds, however. Lily found the best answer a bit over 92% of the time, which is a very enviable record.
Here's a scoring breakdown for the combined David/Lily team and myself (both solo and when competing, which I've slightly erroneously labelled HTH for head-to-head). As I have throughout the series, I am assuming that David always solves the conundrum and always matches a contestant's results in cases where he does not give a separate answer. Similarly, Lily is assumed to at least match contestants, and to have found at least a seven point answer in cases where she does not get to the target. (Assuming that this is possible; I have not re-checked this, although my recollection is that it always was, with the worst case being the 780 from episode 341.)
There's a couple of points of interest from their scores, I feel. Firstly, just look at those performances: Lily averages 9.69 points from each numbers game, and David a staggering 8.19 points per letters game -- the full monty bonus really shows up clearly. Fantastic solving from the pair of them!
Secondly, the game's weighting towards the letters is clearly shown up in the above. The letters outscore the numbers by a bit over four to three, or five to three if we group the conundrum with the letters as we probably should. At that ratio, we should throw in two more numbers rounds to make those two facets score equally. I admit that I'm a bit surprised by this, as I thought the ratio was somewhat closer. (I had thought five letters rounds to four numbers rounds, which would actually be pretty accurate if we ignored the conundrum.) That said, it's far from obviously desirable that the two facets score equally; messing around with the ratios is not something to be done lightly.
My letters make up approximately the same percentage of my score as for David (a touch over 50%). My conundrum percentage is much worse, of course (since I've assumed perfection from him), so my numbers make up the gap.
Some other statistics about my performance this series:
(The total of my game results is larger than 100 because in the first quarterfinal I lost to Sam and tied with Sebastian, while in the second semifinal I lost to both Alan and Toby.)
Back when I started this blog I was working on the claim that I would win 95% of games. I was on track until the finals series, where three losses pushed me down to 93%. Still, that was satisfactorily close, and I shall aim to improve it next series.
Series 4 champion: Sam Gaffney (577 points at an average of 64.11)
Series 4 runner-up: Alan Nash (508 points at an average of 56.44)
Now here's some aggregate statistics from the series. It seems to have been a slightly above average year in terms of full monties found by David, since the previous three series brought the total just over a hundred. There were more to be found, although some of the ones I have listed as missed might be dodgy so apologies to David if they are. (I'm thinking particularly of BLOATINGS with that caveat, but there may be others I have forgotten.)
| Full Monties | 38 |
|---|---|
| Missed Full Monties | 16 |
| Tough Numbers | 23 |
| Impossible Numbers | 8 |
That suggests that about one in ten letters rounds has the potential for a full monty, or one every two games. That's a bit more frequent than I would have thought; on the other hand, only three contestants managed to find one in play this series.
Only eight of the numbers rounds turned out to be impossible, which is also a little surprising given how many of the more difficult mixes were chosen this season. It's well within expected bounds, however. Lily found the best answer a bit over 92% of the time, which is a very enviable record.
Here's a scoring breakdown for the combined David/Lily team and myself (both solo and when competing, which I've slightly erroneously labelled HTH for head-to-head). As I have throughout the series, I am assuming that David always solves the conundrum and always matches a contestant's results in cases where he does not give a separate answer. Similarly, Lily is assumed to at least match contestants, and to have found at least a seven point answer in cases where she does not get to the target. (Assuming that this is possible; I have not re-checked this, although my recollection is that it always was, with the worst case being the 780 from episode 341.)
| All | L | N | C | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| David + Lily | 8002 | 4095 | 2907 | 1000 |
| Me (solo) | 6888 | 3483 | 2705 | 700 |
| Me (HTH) | 6432 | 3231 | 2651 | 550 |
There's a couple of points of interest from their scores, I feel. Firstly, just look at those performances: Lily averages 9.69 points from each numbers game, and David a staggering 8.19 points per letters game -- the full monty bonus really shows up clearly. Fantastic solving from the pair of them!
Secondly, the game's weighting towards the letters is clearly shown up in the above. The letters outscore the numbers by a bit over four to three, or five to three if we group the conundrum with the letters as we probably should. At that ratio, we should throw in two more numbers rounds to make those two facets score equally. I admit that I'm a bit surprised by this, as I thought the ratio was somewhat closer. (I had thought five letters rounds to four numbers rounds, which would actually be pretty accurate if we ignored the conundrum.) That said, it's far from obviously desirable that the two facets score equally; messing around with the ratios is not something to be done lightly.
My letters make up approximately the same percentage of my score as for David (a touch over 50%). My conundrum percentage is much worse, of course (since I've assumed perfection from him), so my numbers make up the gap.
Some other statistics about my performance this series:
| Wins | 93 |
|---|---|
| Losses | 7 |
| Ties | 2 |
| Full Monties | 12 |
| Invalid Letters | 19 |
| Invalid Numbers | 1 |
| Invalid Conundrums | 6 |
(The total of my game results is larger than 100 because in the first quarterfinal I lost to Sam and tied with Sebastian, while in the second semifinal I lost to both Alan and Toby.)
Back when I started this blog I was working on the claim that I would win 95% of games. I was on track until the finals series, where three losses pushed me down to 93%. Still, that was satisfactorily close, and I shall aim to improve it next series.
Friday, 9 March 2012
Weekly summary: Episodes 396 to 400
It's been a week of excellent games to round out the final series, and greatly enjoyable viewing. I started out with three great games, then faltered badly in the last one to lose to both contestants and record my lowest total of the series. But I recovered on the Friday for the grand final, steered home by the conundrum for a very pleasant change.
I saw a full monty on Wednesday, which was the second high point of the week (first being beating both Sam and Alan to the conundrum on Friday). Thursday saw the first impossible numbers round for a while, and Friday was a big day, with a full monty, another obscure missed one, and a tough numbers round that really challenged the contestants.
Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | 74 | 61 | 67 | 37 | 55 |
| Champion | 20 | 14 | 52 | 40 | 48 |
| Challenger | 16 | 27 | 35 | 40 | 41 |
| David + Lily | 77 | 76 | 87 | 69 | 86 |
I saw a full monty on Wednesday, which was the second high point of the week (first being beating both Sam and Alan to the conundrum on Friday). Thursday saw the first impossible numbers round for a while, and Friday was a big day, with a full monty, another obscure missed one, and a tough numbers round that really challenged the contestants.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full Monties | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
| Missed Full Monties | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Tough Numbers | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Impossible Numbers | 1 | 1 |
Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:
| Total | Games | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norm Do* | 67 | 1 | 67.00 |
| Sam Gaffney | 577 | 9 | 64.11 |
| Geoff Bailey | 247 | 4 | 61.75 |
| Jimmy Driscoll | 61 | 1 | 61.00 |
| Leanne Cox | 57 | 1 | 57.00 |
| Ryan Sutton | 57 | 1 | 57.00 |
| Alan Nash | 508 | 9 | 56.44 |
| Nick Terry | 217 | 4 | 54.25 |
| Geraldine Yam | 52 | 1 | 52.00 |
| Kerin White | 362 | 7 | 51.71 |
| Tim Clay | 51 | 1 | 51.00 |
| Peter Crop | 152 | 3 | 50.67 |
| Lainie Mercieca | 99 | 2 | 49.50 |
| Michael Vnuk | 49 | 1 | 49.00 |
| Susan Pickett | 97 | 2 | 48.50 |
| Colin Shnier | 144 | 3 | 48.00 |
| Matt Williams | 48 | 1 | 48.00 |
| Daniel Chua | 380 | 8 | 47.50 |
| Toby Baldwin | 379 | 8 | 47.38 |
| Sebastian Ham | 284 | 6 | 47.33 |
| Alice Wheeler | 189 | 4 | 47.25 |
| Rhonda Jefferson | 141 | 3 | 47.00 |
| Natasha Podesser | 47 | 1 | 47.00 |
| Brett Edwards | 139 | 3 | 46.33 |
| Cem Gurkan | 92 | 2 | 46.00 |
| Brian McEvoy | 46 | 1 | 46.00 |
| Shaun Ellis | 319 | 7 | 45.57 |
| Michael Nichols | 90 | 2 | 45.00 |
| Karla Treves | 90 | 2 | 45.00 |
| Sandy Clarke | 45 | 1 | 45.00 |
| James Godfrey | 45 | 1 | 45.00 |
| Roman Turkiewicz | 267 | 6 | 44.50 |
| 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 |
| Craig Woodward | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Kane Gross | 34 | 1 | 34.00 |
| Paul Merry | 67 | 2 | 33.50 |
| Linda Bennett | 33 | 1 | 33.00 |
| 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 400: [GF] Sam Gaffney, Alan Nash (March 9, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
It's been a week of close finals that could have easily gone either way, and tonight is another. Alan finds a good word in the first round to take an early lead, but Sam takes it right back in the next round with another good word (that admittedly he was not completely sure about). The next three rounds are matched, and that brings in Alan's number choices. He goes for a single large number and turns up a surprisingly difficult result, with the contestants ending up five and four away. Sam has the better of it to take the lead at last, and then Alan risks an invalid word in the next round to drop behind by more than a conundrum. Alan stakes all on the choice of six small, but both contestants are equal to it and the game is decided before the conundrum. For once Sam is beaten to it as Alan solves it just over five seconds in, and Sam has a narrow 55 to 51 win.
I had a bit of a wobbly time myself, but all of us were level at the end of the fifth round. I saw a better option on the next numbers round to get a lead, only to concede back that lead and more in the last numbers round where I got completely lost. But I saw the conundrum solution faster than Alan to snatch victory at the last, and finish the series on a high note. It's been a rollercoaster!
As usual, details after the jump.
It's been a week of close finals that could have easily gone either way, and tonight is another. Alan finds a good word in the first round to take an early lead, but Sam takes it right back in the next round with another good word (that admittedly he was not completely sure about). The next three rounds are matched, and that brings in Alan's number choices. He goes for a single large number and turns up a surprisingly difficult result, with the contestants ending up five and four away. Sam has the better of it to take the lead at last, and then Alan risks an invalid word in the next round to drop behind by more than a conundrum. Alan stakes all on the choice of six small, but both contestants are equal to it and the game is decided before the conundrum. For once Sam is beaten to it as Alan solves it just over five seconds in, and Sam has a narrow 55 to 51 win.
I had a bit of a wobbly time myself, but all of us were level at the end of the fifth round. I saw a better option on the next numbers round to get a lead, only to concede back that lead and more in the last numbers round where I got completely lost. But I saw the conundrum solution faster than Alan to snatch victory at the last, and finish the series on a high note. It's been a rollercoaster!
As usual, details after the jump.
Ep 399: [SF1] Alan Nash, Toby Baldwin (March 8, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
A little banter worth noting in the pre-game chat tonight. Richard mentions the many conundrum showdowns in the series so far, and Alan claims that it is part of the contestants' efforts to boost ratings for the show. Alan adds that they'll do their best to get another one tonight. Spoiler alert for all of two paragraphs: They do.
Toby mentions that he can almost form a sentence from all the conundrums that he has solved: FRIVOLOUS AGITATION; CORPORATE PORCUPINE OVERJOYED.
The lead switches back and forth several times, with neither contestant able to get a decisive break. Alan starts off with an invalid word to give Toby the early lead, but Toby follows up with an invalid answer on the numbers to hand the lead back to Alan. A good word sees Toby take the lead again, only to give it back to Alan with another invalid numbers round. Then another good word gives him the lead again, and he finally gets a valid answer in the numbers to take a ten point lead into the conundrum. Alan solves the conundrum quickly to tie the scores and force a second one, and then solves that second one even faster to take the win, 50 to 40. Those two crucial conundrums make up for the lack of one last night.
Meanwhile, I was having an erratic and not very satisfactory effort. I started with a careless invalid word without a decent fallback, and arguably that cost me this game. My numbers could have been better but those were harder finds, and my invalid guess at the first conundrum sealed the loss. A disappointing result after three good games, and incidentally my worst result of the series. My two worst scores have come against Alan in the finals series; a worrying sign.
As usual, details after the jump.
A little banter worth noting in the pre-game chat tonight. Richard mentions the many conundrum showdowns in the series so far, and Alan claims that it is part of the contestants' efforts to boost ratings for the show. Alan adds that they'll do their best to get another one tonight. Spoiler alert for all of two paragraphs: They do.
Toby mentions that he can almost form a sentence from all the conundrums that he has solved: FRIVOLOUS AGITATION; CORPORATE PORCUPINE OVERJOYED.
The lead switches back and forth several times, with neither contestant able to get a decisive break. Alan starts off with an invalid word to give Toby the early lead, but Toby follows up with an invalid answer on the numbers to hand the lead back to Alan. A good word sees Toby take the lead again, only to give it back to Alan with another invalid numbers round. Then another good word gives him the lead again, and he finally gets a valid answer in the numbers to take a ten point lead into the conundrum. Alan solves the conundrum quickly to tie the scores and force a second one, and then solves that second one even faster to take the win, 50 to 40. Those two crucial conundrums make up for the lack of one last night.
Meanwhile, I was having an erratic and not very satisfactory effort. I started with a careless invalid word without a decent fallback, and arguably that cost me this game. My numbers could have been better but those were harder finds, and my invalid guess at the first conundrum sealed the loss. A disappointing result after three good games, and incidentally my worst result of the series. My two worst scores have come against Alan in the finals series; a worrying sign.
As usual, details after the jump.
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Ep 398: [SF1] Sam Gaffney, Daniel Chua (March 7, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
Whew, it's another great game. It's decided just a touch earlier, but it could easily have gone all the way down to the wire. Sam gets what proves to be a decisive 14 point lead from the first two letters rounds, and thereafter the contestants match each other all the way to the conundrum. Along the way Sam amazes everyone as he finally gets to demonstrate some of the intricacies that the four large mix can provide, and Daniel shows some great strategic thinking in the other two numbers rounds. The last one very nearly paid off, but not quite, and Sam was safe going into the conundrum. Once again he blitzed it, for a solid 72 to 48 win that was much closer than the scoreline would suggest.
I was fortunate to find the full monty in this game, and that was the eventual difference. I traded some letters results along the way and at the final numbers game was safe as long as Sam did not solve it (unless I did as well, of course). It proved too difficult for everyone except the ever-dazzling Lily, and that was game to me. For the third time this series I was only barely beaten to the conundrum, having paused the video before the buzzer went off but after Sam's name lit up. A close one!
As usual, details after the jump.
Whew, it's another great game. It's decided just a touch earlier, but it could easily have gone all the way down to the wire. Sam gets what proves to be a decisive 14 point lead from the first two letters rounds, and thereafter the contestants match each other all the way to the conundrum. Along the way Sam amazes everyone as he finally gets to demonstrate some of the intricacies that the four large mix can provide, and Daniel shows some great strategic thinking in the other two numbers rounds. The last one very nearly paid off, but not quite, and Sam was safe going into the conundrum. Once again he blitzed it, for a solid 72 to 48 win that was much closer than the scoreline would suggest.
I was fortunate to find the full monty in this game, and that was the eventual difference. I traded some letters results along the way and at the final numbers game was safe as long as Sam did not solve it (unless I did as well, of course). It proved too difficult for everyone except the ever-dazzling Lily, and that was game to me. For the third time this series I was only barely beaten to the conundrum, having paused the video before the buzzer went off but after Sam's name lit up. A close one!
As usual, details after the jump.
Ep 397: [QF4] Toby Baldwin, Shaun Ellis (March 6, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
Again, not much to the chat although we do get to see Shaun's improved poker face. It's a little scary, to be honest.
Once more there's some good back-and-forth, but two of Shaun's words are invalid which gives Toby crucial points. Toby needs it, too, because he concedes a lot of ground on the numbers, and was behind by more than the conundrum going into the final numbers round. Shaun erred, I feel, by choosing a difficult numbers option, and Toby was just able to outdo Shaun in it. That brought the match down to the conundrum yet again, with Shaun leading but not safe. Toby held his nerve to spot the answer with five seconds left on the clock, and scrapes through into the finals, 43 to 39.
Another slightly mixed performance from me today, including an invalid declaration in the first round that was quite bizarre in retrospect. I'd correctly judged that it wasn't going to cost me points, at least. I did miss a longer word in another round, but aside from that it was smooth sailing. Just like last night, I solved the conundrum eight seconds in for what ended up being a fairly easy win.
As usual, details after the jump.
Again, not much to the chat although we do get to see Shaun's improved poker face. It's a little scary, to be honest.
Once more there's some good back-and-forth, but two of Shaun's words are invalid which gives Toby crucial points. Toby needs it, too, because he concedes a lot of ground on the numbers, and was behind by more than the conundrum going into the final numbers round. Shaun erred, I feel, by choosing a difficult numbers option, and Toby was just able to outdo Shaun in it. That brought the match down to the conundrum yet again, with Shaun leading but not safe. Toby held his nerve to spot the answer with five seconds left on the clock, and scrapes through into the finals, 43 to 39.
Another slightly mixed performance from me today, including an invalid declaration in the first round that was quite bizarre in retrospect. I'd correctly judged that it wasn't going to cost me points, at least. I did miss a longer word in another round, but aside from that it was smooth sailing. Just like last night, I solved the conundrum eight seconds in for what ended up being a fairly easy win.
As usual, details after the jump.
Monday, 5 March 2012
Ep 396: [QF3] Kerin White, Daniel Chua (March 5, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
Still nothing much to the pre-game chat. I can't decide if the contestants have exhausted their interesting facts about themselves, or if the producers think that it's better to just get straight into the show.
This final is certainly a contrast to the previous two, and ends up being a somewhat low-scoring but close-fought affair. Aside from one good eight-letter word the longest is six, and an early invalid choice by Daniel has him trailing. Kerin simply can't get into the numbers, though, and that gives Daniel just enough leeway to take the lead, helped along by an invalid word from Kerin. Once again it is anyone's match on the conundrum, but tonight it eludes them both; Daniel gets through, 32 to 26.
I was feeling much better about things today. Although I missed a word that I should have seen and was slow at the conundrum yet again, the rest I'm fairly happy with. I'd say this was the result of being better rested, but my sleeping problems of the last few weeks have persisted. Oh, well.
As usual, details after the jump.
Still nothing much to the pre-game chat. I can't decide if the contestants have exhausted their interesting facts about themselves, or if the producers think that it's better to just get straight into the show.
This final is certainly a contrast to the previous two, and ends up being a somewhat low-scoring but close-fought affair. Aside from one good eight-letter word the longest is six, and an early invalid choice by Daniel has him trailing. Kerin simply can't get into the numbers, though, and that gives Daniel just enough leeway to take the lead, helped along by an invalid word from Kerin. Once again it is anyone's match on the conundrum, but tonight it eludes them both; Daniel gets through, 32 to 26.
I was feeling much better about things today. Although I missed a word that I should have seen and was slow at the conundrum yet again, the rest I'm fairly happy with. I'd say this was the result of being better rested, but my sleeping problems of the last few weeks have persisted. Oh, well.
As usual, details after the jump.
Friday, 2 March 2012
Weekly summary: Episodes 391 to 395
So much for my hope of taking momentum into the first week of finals! I've not felt comfortable all week, and some very basic misses throughout, but I seem to have saved the worst for the finals. Or perhaps it is simply that I haven't been able to get away with the lapses, as I have done in previous instances. That's probably a fairer assessment, but I do feel it's been a very substandard performance from me this week.
A lot of tough numbers this week, two of them coming from the otherwise fairly inocuous single large mix. David started on track for a grand slam of full monties, but the mixes didn't cooperate; he still found three, making it an above-average week.
Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Me | 57 | 68 | 62 | 53 | 38 |
| Champion | 40 | 32 | 5 | 70 | 56 |
| Challenger | 24 | 20 | 46 | 53 | 37 |
| David + Lily | 85 | 86 | 72 | 82 | 75 |
A lot of tough numbers this week, two of them coming from the otherwise fairly inocuous single large mix. David started on track for a grand slam of full monties, but the mixes didn't cooperate; he still found three, making it an above-average week.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full Monties | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||
| Missed Full Monties | 0 | |||||
| Tough Numbers | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | |
| Impossible Numbers | 0 |
Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:
| Total | Games | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norm Do* | 67 | 1 | 67.00 |
| Sam Gaffney* | 450 | 7 | 64.29 |
| Geoff Bailey | 247 | 4 | 61.75 |
| Jimmy Driscoll | 61 | 1 | 61.00 |
| Alan Nash* | 407 | 7 | 58.14 |
| 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 |
| Michael Vnuk | 49 | 1 | 49.00 |
| Susan Pickett | 97 | 2 | 48.50 |
| Colin Shnier | 144 | 3 | 48.00 |
| Matt Williams | 48 | 1 | 48.00 |
| Sebastian Ham | 284 | 6 | 47.33 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Roman Turkiewicz | 267 | 6 | 44.50 |
| 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 |
| Craig Woodward | 35 | 1 | 35.00 |
| Kane Gross | 34 | 1 | 34.00 |
| Paul Merry | 67 | 2 | 33.50 |
| Linda Bennett | 33 | 1 | 33.00 |
| 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 395: [QF 2] Alan Nash, Roman Turkiewicz (March 2, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
Not much more to today's contestant chat, either, although we learn that Alan would like to go to space.
Roman gets a jump in the first letters round, but thereafter the contestants are matched on the words. Indeed, there's only one non-optimal round on those today, which is great stuff. This game hinges on the numbers, with Alan getting most of that lost ground back with the four large mix, and then some more as Roman's preferred balanced mix turns out not to Roman's advantage. The final numbers round could have narrowed the gap, but some confusion on Roman's part results in an invalid answer. It's still possible for either to win at the conundrum, but Alan sees it at the 24 second mark and advances to the semifinals with a 56 to 37 win.
I... had what felt like the worst game for a long time. Not so much on the score (although I think it matches the least I've scored this series) but because of opportunities missed that I would have normally expected to take. I've been talking about the contestants having final nerves, but I think there's far more evidence for me having those right now. I just edged out Roman by a point, but that was only due to an invalid answer that may even not have been so (see round 8), and was comfortably beaten by Alan. Bother.
As usual, details after the jump.
Not much more to today's contestant chat, either, although we learn that Alan would like to go to space.
Roman gets a jump in the first letters round, but thereafter the contestants are matched on the words. Indeed, there's only one non-optimal round on those today, which is great stuff. This game hinges on the numbers, with Alan getting most of that lost ground back with the four large mix, and then some more as Roman's preferred balanced mix turns out not to Roman's advantage. The final numbers round could have narrowed the gap, but some confusion on Roman's part results in an invalid answer. It's still possible for either to win at the conundrum, but Alan sees it at the 24 second mark and advances to the semifinals with a 56 to 37 win.
I... had what felt like the worst game for a long time. Not so much on the score (although I think it matches the least I've scored this series) but because of opportunities missed that I would have normally expected to take. I've been talking about the contestants having final nerves, but I think there's far more evidence for me having those right now. I just edged out Roman by a point, but that was only due to an invalid answer that may even not have been so (see round 8), and was comfortably beaten by Alan. Bother.
As usual, details after the jump.
Thursday, 1 March 2012
Ep 394: [QF1] Sam Gaffney, Sebastian Ham (March 1, 2012)
Rounds: Here.
The finals are underway at last! But there's something a little odd: Sam is playing Sebastian, rather than Roman. I've checked the scores several times, and there's no doubt that Sebastian should have been in seventh position. That's rather unfortunate for him, and fortunate for Roman who presumably needed a break after his recent games.
The early chat just rehashes some of the things we've learned about the contestants during their earlier episodes.
It's a very close match tonight, with the contestants matched on the letters rounds. Sam gets a lead due to a good result on his favourite four large mix, but the rest offers little scope for advancement. It comes down to the conundrum, and Sam blitzes it for an emphatic win, 70 to 53.
I essentially matched Sebastian throughout, although there were two bad misses that on another day I may well have got. I wasn't remotely close to solving the conundrum within the allotted time, and finished tied with Sebastian. Sam hands me another loss, as somewhat expected. Great game from both contestants!
As usual, details after the jump.
The finals are underway at last! But there's something a little odd: Sam is playing Sebastian, rather than Roman. I've checked the scores several times, and there's no doubt that Sebastian should have been in seventh position. That's rather unfortunate for him, and fortunate for Roman who presumably needed a break after his recent games.
The early chat just rehashes some of the things we've learned about the contestants during their earlier episodes.
It's a very close match tonight, with the contestants matched on the letters rounds. Sam gets a lead due to a good result on his favourite four large mix, but the rest offers little scope for advancement. It comes down to the conundrum, and Sam blitzes it for an emphatic win, 70 to 53.
I essentially matched Sebastian throughout, although there were two bad misses that on another day I may well have got. I wasn't remotely close to solving the conundrum within the allotted time, and finished tied with Sebastian. Sam hands me another loss, as somewhat expected. Great game from both contestants!
As usual, details after the jump.
Finals preview (series 4): Letters, Numbers, Conundrums
Some of the finalists will be better at the letters, and some at the numbers. My feeling is that someone who is reliably better at the letters will beat someone who is reliably better at numbers, but it is a bit more finely balanced than I first thought. In any case, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how the contestants have performed in the various categories, and what their strengths or weaknesses seem to be.
First up, here are the average points scored by contestants in each of the appropriate rounds (not games), assuming no competition. (i.e., solo scores.) Naturally we would expect the letters to have a smoother distribution than the numbers, which would be much smoother than the conundrum. (The conundrum results are particularly unreliable since the other contestant sometimes solved it first.)
This does show some interesting results, in particular the large gap in numbers performance between the top five and the lower three.
How might this translate into results? Consider a game between Sam and Alan. Alan's average letters result is 0.2 better than Sam's, or an average of 1 better over the course of a game. That could mean finding an eight to Sam's seven, and an eight point gain overall. Similarly, the average numbers advantage is 1 to Sam, or 3 over the course of a game; that could translate to 10 vs. 7, or ten points to Sam. And the conundrum results are even, but only one contestant can score.
So the above results could be taken to suggest that a Sam vs. Alan match would have Sam leading by 2 points going into the conundrum, and a tossup as to who actually wins. (And yes, I know this is so far from being statistically valid that it is silly; I'm just playing around, really.)
Of course, as I mentioned in the previous post, solo scores do not take into account how difficult the rounds were (whether in terms of best possible result, or how feasible it was to find it). They also don't reflect well the nature of the scoring, where a single point difference in the letters could mean as much as an eighteen point difference in the scores.
The following doesn't adequately reflect that well on it either, but it's the datapoint that I have. Here are the average points won or lost by each contestant against me. This time it is average per game, rather than per round.
This reflects some larger differences. If we apply the results of this to that matchup between Sam and Alan, then we see about 3 points of difference in the letters, but a massive 16 points in the numbers -- that's a 19 point lead to Sam going into the conundrum, and a safe win even if Alan solves it.
Can we conclude much of anything from this? Not really, particularly as all of us are moving targets, ability-wise, and the game is too short to properly shake out variance. Fortunately tonight we will get some real data.
First up, here are the average points scored by contestants in each of the appropriate rounds (not games), assuming no competition. (i.e., solo scores.) Naturally we would expect the letters to have a smoother distribution than the numbers, which would be much smoother than the conundrum. (The conundrum results are particularly unreliable since the other contestant sometimes solved it first.)
| Letters | Numbers | Conundrum | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alan | 6.93 | Sam | 8.33 | Toby | 6.67 | ||
| Sam | 6.73 | Kerin | 8.17 | Roman | 6.00 | ||
| Kerin | 6.60 | Daniel | 7.39 | Sam | 5.00 | ||
| Toby | 6.43 | Alan | 7.33 | Alan | 5.00 | ||
| Roman | 6.08 | Sebastian | 7.20 | Kerin | 5.00 | ||
| Shaun | 6.05 | Roman | 5.60 | Sebastian | 4.00 | ||
| Daniel | 5.70 | Toby | 5.11 | Daniel | 3.33 | ||
| Sebastian | 5.48 | Shaun | 5.00 | Shaun | 2.50 | ||
This does show some interesting results, in particular the large gap in numbers performance between the top five and the lower three.
How might this translate into results? Consider a game between Sam and Alan. Alan's average letters result is 0.2 better than Sam's, or an average of 1 better over the course of a game. That could mean finding an eight to Sam's seven, and an eight point gain overall. Similarly, the average numbers advantage is 1 to Sam, or 3 over the course of a game; that could translate to 10 vs. 7, or ten points to Sam. And the conundrum results are even, but only one contestant can score.
So the above results could be taken to suggest that a Sam vs. Alan match would have Sam leading by 2 points going into the conundrum, and a tossup as to who actually wins. (And yes, I know this is so far from being statistically valid that it is silly; I'm just playing around, really.)
Of course, as I mentioned in the previous post, solo scores do not take into account how difficult the rounds were (whether in terms of best possible result, or how feasible it was to find it). They also don't reflect well the nature of the scoring, where a single point difference in the letters could mean as much as an eighteen point difference in the scores.
The following doesn't adequately reflect that well on it either, but it's the datapoint that I have. Here are the average points won or lost by each contestant against me. This time it is average per game, rather than per round.
| Letters | Numbers | Conundrum | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam | -1.83 | Sam | +0.83 | Alan | +1.67 | ||
| Alan | -4.67 | Kerin | -11.17 | Sam | 0.00 | ||
| Shaun | -10.25 | Daniel | -13.33 | Kerin | -1.67 | ||
| Kerin | -14.17 | Sebastian | -14.20 | Shaun | -2.50 | ||
| Toby | -15.33 | Roman | -14.83 | Roman | -4.00 | ||
| Roman | -18.80 | Alan | -15.17 | Sebastian | -6.00 | ||
| Daniel | -23.00 | Shaun | -15.50 | Toby | -6.67 | ||
| Sebastian | -25.20 | Toby | -21.00 | Daniel | -8.33 | ||
This reflects some larger differences. If we apply the results of this to that matchup between Sam and Alan, then we see about 3 points of difference in the letters, but a massive 16 points in the numbers -- that's a 19 point lead to Sam going into the conundrum, and a safe win even if Alan solves it.
Can we conclude much of anything from this? Not really, particularly as all of us are moving targets, ability-wise, and the game is too short to properly shake out variance. Fortunately tonight we will get some real data.
Finals preview (series 4): Rating the finalists
Now that the eight finalists are known -- although it came down to the very last game! -- I thought that I would review their performance and make some predictions about likely results in the finals. Very little should be read into this, since the game has high variability and the contestants are likely to have changed in ability in the meanwhile; I know that when I was told I might make it to the finals I put in some more practice, for instance. That was around the time that I started this blog, I think, and my consistency has certainly changed since then.
Note: Shaun Ellis's first two games were played last series, and I do not have a record of them. I could probably work something out, but it seemed simpler just to omit them from consideration. Also, Sam Gaffney's fourth game needed a second conundrum round during actual play. However, I am treating that game as stopping after the first conundrum in order to make the comparisons match up more sensibly.
To start with, here are the solo totals for each contestant, ordered by their average score per game. The solo total is what they would have scored for all their rounds if there were no opponent.
This shows a quite clear stratification, with the top three very close to each other, then the next four clustered further down, and then another gap to Shaun. I also find it interesting how consistent Daniel was, with only an eight point gap between his lowest and highest scores.
Of course, these figures don't tell us that much; the rounds in one game may have been much easier than the rounds in another. Below is the same table with my solo scores added for comparison; this time the table is sorted by the contestant's total score as a percentage of my total score. i.e., how close they were to my performance on the same games.
(It might be more objective to compare against the combined performance of David and Lily, but that makes judging the conundrums tricky; more importantly, they are too good. Suppose the contestant matches David with a seven-letter word. If the only one was GUANACO, then that's a fantastic result; if there were a couple including MAGPIES then it's a good result; and if there were many including TEARING then it is an average result. Loosely speaking, David is equally likely to find any of those, while I will be more towards the good end of the spectrum. Or so I would like to believe.)
On this basis there is further separation. If we make the unrealistic assumption that my performance is a suitable baseline of comparison, then the top three are the same but Sam has a much clearer lead over Kerin and Alan than the solo scores alone would suggest; Shaun's standing has improved greatly -- my average score was the lowest in his games -- but is still well behind the top three; and Roman has moved up a little also.
(As a curiosity, I note that my solo scores during Daniel's run were almost smoother than his -- his opponent in the last game solved the conundrum too quickly, otherwise there might have been just a three point gap between lowest and highest -- as I erroneously thought was the case at first, due to not checking that game well enough.)
Of course, solo scores do not reflect the scoring of the game, and in particular the cost of finding a weak answer when a better one was relatively easy to find. Finding RATING instead of TEARING might only show up as a single point loss, instead of the seven point loss that it should be in practice. So in an attempt to take this into consideration, here are the head-to-head results (as recorded in this blog) between each finalist and myself. (Note: There are some slight differences between numbers here and those posted, due to ignoring the other contestant in those games.)
This table is sorted by the contestant's total score as a percentage of my total score; I also show the average per-game difference between their scores and mine. Positive values would reflect that the difference favours them; negative values indicate a corresponding advantage to me.
On this metric the differences are massive. (Of course, it is of very dubious validity, but we'll see where it takes us anyway.) It's no surprise that Sam stays way on top, but the gap between him and Alan has stretched out greatly, as has that between Alan and Kerin. Shaun ends up pretty well separated from the remaining four, who are all very close to each other.
Based on this data, the first three quarter-finals should go with the higher-ranked seeds, but the fourth one has Shaun facing Toby. Toby is the higher seed (his total of 296 beating Shaun's total of 280), but Shaun's head-to-head percentage against me was much larger. Will this reflect what actually occurs? I guess we'll have to see!
Update: Commenter Victor suggested that the contestants be rated by their percentage of "maximums" -- times that they achieved the best possible results from the round. I have some doubts about this as a useful measure, as does commenter Mark, but here's a table anyway:
Note: Shaun Ellis's first two games were played last series, and I do not have a record of them. I could probably work something out, but it seemed simpler just to omit them from consideration. Also, Sam Gaffney's fourth game needed a second conundrum round during actual play. However, I am treating that game as stopping after the first conundrum in order to make the comparisons match up more sensibly.
To start with, here are the solo totals for each contestant, ordered by their average score per game. The solo total is what they would have scored for all their rounds if there were no opponent.
| Total | Average | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam Gaffney | 51 | 81 | 67 | 64 | 64 | 55 | 382 | 63.67 |
| Kerin White | 68 | 63 | 59 | 63 | 71 | 51 | 375 | 62.50 |
| Alan Nash | 60 | 73 | 59 | 54 | 55 | 69 | 370 | 61.67 |
| Toby Baldwin | 65 | 48 | 60 | 48 | 54 | 50 | 325 | 54.17 |
| Daniel Chua | 51 | 59 | 56 | 53 | 53 | 52 | 324 | 54.00 |
| Roman Turkiewicz | 68 | 55 | 57 | 52 | 34 | 266 | 53.20 | |
| Sebastian Ham | 49 | 55 | 65 | 40 | 56 | 265 | 53.00 | |
| Shaun Ellis | 43 | 59 | 45 | 44 | 191 | 47.75 | ||
This shows a quite clear stratification, with the top three very close to each other, then the next four clustered further down, and then another gap to Shaun. I also find it interesting how consistent Daniel was, with only an eight point gap between his lowest and highest scores.
Of course, these figures don't tell us that much; the rounds in one game may have been much easier than the rounds in another. Below is the same table with my solo scores added for comparison; this time the table is sorted by the contestant's total score as a percentage of my total score. i.e., how close they were to my performance on the same games.
(It might be more objective to compare against the combined performance of David and Lily, but that makes judging the conundrums tricky; more importantly, they are too good. Suppose the contestant matches David with a seven-letter word. If the only one was GUANACO, then that's a fantastic result; if there were a couple including MAGPIES then it's a good result; and if there were many including TEARING then it is an average result. Loosely speaking, David is equally likely to find any of those, while I will be more towards the good end of the spectrum. Or so I would like to believe.)
| Total | Average | % | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam Gaffney | 51 | 81 | 67 | 64 | 64 | 55 | 382 | 63.67 | 97.45% |
| Me | 63 | 57 | 68 | 77 | 64 | 61 | 390 | 65.00 | |
| Kerin White | 68 | 63 | 59 | 63 | 71 | 51 | 375 | 62.50 | 91.91% |
| Me | 75 | 59 | 65 | 65 | 77 | 67 | 408 | 68.00 | |
| Alan Nash | 60 | 73 | 59 | 54 | 55 | 69 | 370 | 61.67 | 89.16% |
| Me | 87 | 60 | 61 | 77 | 64 | 66 | 415 | 69.17 | |
| Shaun Ellis | 43 | 59 | 45 | 44 | 191 | 47.75 | 77.96% | ||
| Me | 53 | 66 | 58 | 68 | 245 | 61.25 | |||
| Roman Turkiewicz | 68 | 55 | 57 | 52 | 34 | 266 | 53.20 | 77.78% | |
| Me | 76 | 73 | 57 | 68 | 68 | 342 | 68.40 | ||
| Toby Baldwin | 65 | 48 | 60 | 48 | 54 | 50 | 325 | 54.17 | 74.88% |
| Me | 75 | 83 | 72 | 63 | 69 | 72 | 434 | 72.33 | |
| Daniel Chua | 51 | 59 | 56 | 53 | 53 | 52 | 324 | 54.00 | 72.81% |
| Me | 77 | 76 | 74 | 76 | 76 | 66 | 445 | 74.17 | |
| Sebastian Ham | 49 | 55 | 65 | 40 | 56 | 265 | 53.00 | 71.24% | |
| Me | 68 | 74 | 85 | 69 | 76 | 372 | 74.40 | ||
On this basis there is further separation. If we make the unrealistic assumption that my performance is a suitable baseline of comparison, then the top three are the same but Sam has a much clearer lead over Kerin and Alan than the solo scores alone would suggest; Shaun's standing has improved greatly -- my average score was the lowest in his games -- but is still well behind the top three; and Roman has moved up a little also.
(As a curiosity, I note that my solo scores during Daniel's run were almost smoother than his -- his opponent in the last game solved the conundrum too quickly, otherwise there might have been just a three point gap between lowest and highest -- as I erroneously thought was the case at first, due to not checking that game well enough.)
Of course, solo scores do not reflect the scoring of the game, and in particular the cost of finding a weak answer when a better one was relatively easy to find. Finding RATING instead of TEARING might only show up as a single point loss, instead of the seven point loss that it should be in practice. So in an attempt to take this into consideration, here are the head-to-head results (as recorded in this blog) between each finalist and myself. (Note: There are some slight differences between numbers here and those posted, due to ignoring the other contestant in those games.)
This table is sorted by the contestant's total score as a percentage of my total score; I also show the average per-game difference between their scores and mine. Positive values would reflect that the difference favours them; negative values indicate a corresponding advantage to me.
| Total | Avg Δ | % | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam Gaffney | 38 | 81 | 57 | 52 | 64 | 43 | 335 | -1.00 | 98.24% |
| Me | 63 | 41 | 51 | 77 | 54 | 55 | 341 | ||
| Alan Nash | 46 | 59 | 45 | 34 | 43 | 57 | 284 | -18.17 | 72.26% |
| Me | 87 | 60 | 55 | 67 | 64 | 60 | 393 | ||
| Kerin White | 38 | 37 | 35 | 49 | 35 | 39 | 233 | -27.00 | 58.99% |
| Me | 75 | 59 | 52 | 65 | 77 | 67 | 395 | ||
| Shaun Ellis | 33 | 35 | 33 | 13 | 114 | -28.25 | 50.22% | ||
| Me | 48 | 59 | 52 | 68 | 227 | ||||
| Roman Turkiewicz | 30 | 21 | 40 | 32 | 11 | 134 | -41.60 | 39.18% | |
| Me | 76 | 73 | 57 | 68 | 68 | 342 | |||
| Sebastian Ham | 14 | 43 | 23 | 27 | 38 | 145 | -45.40 | 38.98% | |
| Me | 68 | 74 | 85 | 69 | 76 | 372 | |||
| Toby Baldwin | 23 | 21 | 33 | 31 | 36 | 14 | 158 | -43.00 | 37.98% |
| Me | 75 | 83 | 72 | 51 | 63 | 72 | 416 | ||
| Daniel Chua | 10 | 28 | 45 | 42 | 7 | 32 | 164 | -44.67 | 37.96% |
| Me | 77 | 69 | 68 | 76 | 76 | 66 | 432 | ||
On this metric the differences are massive. (Of course, it is of very dubious validity, but we'll see where it takes us anyway.) It's no surprise that Sam stays way on top, but the gap between him and Alan has stretched out greatly, as has that between Alan and Kerin. Shaun ends up pretty well separated from the remaining four, who are all very close to each other.
Based on this data, the first three quarter-finals should go with the higher-ranked seeds, but the fourth one has Shaun facing Toby. Toby is the higher seed (his total of 296 beating Shaun's total of 280), but Shaun's head-to-head percentage against me was much larger. Will this reflect what actually occurs? I guess we'll have to see!
Update: Commenter Victor suggested that the contestants be rated by their percentage of "maximums" -- times that they achieved the best possible results from the round. I have some doubts about this as a useful measure, as does commenter Mark, but here's a table anyway:
| Letters | Numbers | Conundrum | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam | 10 | 12 | 3 | 4.17 |
| Kerin | 11 | 9 | 3 | 3.83 |
| Alan | 8 | 8 | 3 | 3.17 |
| Daniel | 7 | 10 | 2 | 3.17 |
| Toby | 9 | 4 | 4 | 2.83 |
| Sebastian | 4 | 7 | 2 | 2.60 |
| Shaun | 6 | 1 | 1 | 2.00 |
| Roman | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1.60 |
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