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.

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.

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.

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

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

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


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

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

As usual, details after the jump.

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

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

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

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


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

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

As usual, details after the jump.

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

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

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

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


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

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

As usual, details after the break.

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

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

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


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

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

As usual, details after the break.

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

As usual, details after the jump.

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

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

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


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

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

As usual, details after the jump.