Ep 368: Angie Pearce, John O'Connor (January 25, 2012)

The talk with Angie is about how exciting the previous game was; we learn nothing new about her, alas.

Tonight's challenger is primary school teacher John O'Connor, but it's a previous job of his that Richard wants to talk about.  John used to be the chief purser on a cruise ship whose typical occupancy was nearly four thousand guests and over a thousand crew.  It's not necessarily the "fantasy world" that Richard suggests, but John concedes that it was like living in a village of its own.  Apparently John was often mistaken for the captain as his uniform had quite a few bars on the sleeves.


There's some excellent letter play today, including an absolutely beautiful find from Angie.  The net result is even on those, but John does slightly better in the numbers to take a slender lead into the conundrum.  He solves the conundrum very quickly, and takes the win 41 to 28.

I had a good round today but with a careless blunder that rather took the shine off it.  For the second time (when playing at home) I was just pipped to the conundrum, hearing the buzzer start to sound as I paused.  Good work from John to get that, but I still had enough leeway for a comfortable win.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 367: Paul Merry, Angie Pearce (January 24, 2012)

There's a little talk with Paul about the psychology of poker playing, but there's nothing of substance said.

Tonight's challenger is Angie Pearce, a retired teacher and quiz show aficionado.  She has been on The Einstein Factor, Sale of the Century (twice, which may simply mean that she won once and returned the next day), Pass the Buck, The Weakest Link, Mastermind, Jeopardy, and a couple of others that slip her mind at the moment.  Richard asks if she needed different talents or approaches to them, but as she points out they were mostly all games of general knowledge; the only other ability required was to buzz in first.

(As an aside, her appearance on The Einstein Factor was in episode ten of series two, originally aired on April 17, 2005; her special topic was "CS Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia".  I was given the show's quiz book for Christmas, so I looked up the associated questions and was able to get 11 of the 15 correct, which I'm pleased with given how long it is since I last read them.  Of course, I wasn't under the time pressure that she would have been (which was often exacerbated by Peter Berner stumbling over reading the questions), although I did aim to answer them quickly.)


Angie gets a good lead on Paul in the first two rounds -- in much the same way that Paul did to Maurie in yesterday's game -- but Paul reclaims it in the next two rounds due to good numbers work and an invalid word from Angie.  The remaining letters rounds are equal and they trade results in the numbers, so the scores are all tied up going into the conundrum.  It proves to be too difficult for them both so a second is required, and Angie solves that to take the victory, 43 to 33.

I had good letters performance today, but let myself down badly in the numbers.  I solved the second conundrum but not the first, for what ended up being a very easy win.

As usual, details after the jump.