Ep 329: Brett Edwards, Alicia Neilsen (December 1, 2011)

Rounds: Here.

Disclaimer: I attended the filming of this show some months back; obviously this may lead to me recollecting some solutions that eluded me at the time, and my scoreline is not necessarily a fair one.


Richard reveals that Brett is a Sherlock Holmes fan, and asks him what it is that he likes about Holmes.  Brett says that it is his logical approach and reverse-engineering of things -- the deductive reasoning, as Richard puts it.

Tonight's challenger is Alicia Neilsen, an accountant who has an office on the 34th floor of the Rialto building in Melbourne.  She has a window, too, with a view of the Yarra river and the MCG.  Richard suggests that the view might be a little distracting, and she admits that sometimes it's good to just stare outside and let the mind process things.


Alicia seemed nice, but was giving out an unsettled vibe throughout the day.  This shows up occasionally during the episode; I wish that I had been more reassuring at the time.


It's another very close game, but I'm afraid not in a good way.  There's five invalid declarations made, and the words are mostly fives and sixes.  Only one numbers round is scored, with a total nine away from the target.  This is all rounded out by an unsolved conundrum, allowing Brett to limp to safety with a 24 to 18 victory -- both the lowest winning total and the lowest combined total of the series so far.  Alicia very nearly defeated him; all she needed to do was to hold her head in the numbers rounds, but it was very much a case of the nerves getting to her.

Watching this game from the audience was more disheartening than losing the previous game.  My score was slightly better this time as I could risk the nine, but both times I kept Alicia to seven points and Brett scoreless, with a total over 60.  It was an extremely disappointing followup to what I shall immodestly call the game of the series so far.

As usual, details after the jump.