Ep 184: Tony Loui, Alison Crowe (September 22, 2016; originally aired April 14, 2011)

Rounds: Here.

Disclaimer: I watched this episode when it first aired, and although I did not recall any of it I cannot rule out memory being a factor.


Tony Loui gets his turn in the champion's seat tonight, and we find out that he took a year off from being a doctor and instead worked as a flight attendant (travelling overseas); he adds that he loves travelling.  Richard asks how Tony found the experience, and Tony agrees with Richard's remark that it was a huge change.  Coping with the effects of flying can be difficult, and it was hard work, but he found it to be thoroughly enjoyable.

Tonight's challenger is Alison Crowe, a physical education student and competitive rower.  In fact, Alison has twice represented Australia in rowing -- she has been in two under-23 teams.  That involved racing overseas, in Germany and the Czech Republic (some details can be found here).  She lists that as probably one of the greatest things she has done so far.


It was a dominant performance from Tony tonight: He started off by finding a full monty, and followed up with an eight-letter word to sprint out to a huge early lead.  He continued to score well with the letters, and the numbers offered little scope for Alison to regain the lost ground.  Tony was a certain victor going into the second break.  He rounded off an excellent game by solving the conundrum quickly, posting a final winning score of 83 to 33.

I was having an even better game than Tony, as it turns out, but then the SBS website became uncooperative, refusing to advance past the end of round five.  I had to give up on it and come back a day or so later; that interruption, I believe, was responsible for my poor performance in round six as I came back to it cold (as it were).  A shame, as I felt in really good form at the time.