Ep 38: David Jones, Brendan Murphy (August 29, 2012; originally aired September 22, 2010)

Rounds: Here.


Disclaimer: While I have not seen this episode before, I did play through the blue book (episodes 1 to 50) around ten months ago when I was scheduled to be a contestant on the show.  Additionally, I did a quick flick through it a few months back to collect words for my posts about word validity.


This is the sixth and final night for David Jones, at least until the finals series.  Richard asks whether David is more comfortable with the letters rounds or the numbers rounds; the answer to that is pretty obvious from anyone who has been following the play.  But David still manages to add a twist to it, saying that nine conundrums would suit him best.  Heh!  That's fairly true, as he has solved four of the five so far (Kiao Inthavong beat him to the other one).

David does then grant that the letters have been much better for him than the numbers, and Richard reminds us that David found a nine-letter word yesterday.  David goes too far when he states that it proved the difference in that game; the winning margin was greater than that, so he would have had to actually give up points to Beckett to have lost.  Since that would have required either an invalid word or at most a five, it was highly unlikely.

Tonight's challenger is Brendan Murphy, an I.T. manager at a secondary college.  Brendan has travelled extensively within Australia; one of his favourite spots is the Gold Coast, which he says is a great place to take the family and have a really relaxing holiday.


As mentioned before, I'll be referring to David Astle throughout as DA to avoid confusion about which David is which.


David got off to an early lead, then several shared rounds followed (including a numbers round that neither was able to make any progress on).  Then David extended his lead in the next three rounds, and was safe going into the final numbers round.  Both shared points in that, but the conundrum was too difficult for either of them -- David buzzed in halfway through with an incorrect answer -- and David became the show's fourth retiring champion with a 53 to 22 win.

I had a reasonable game -- the only maximum I missed in the main rounds was rather obscure and I was not prepared to risk it -- but the conundrum was also too difficult for me.  I finished comfortably ahead, but was disappointed to break what has been a pretty good streak on the conundrums -- 17 in a row solved within regulation time, even if contestants have beaten me to them sometimes.