Ep 48: Esther Perrins, Liam Bastick (September 12, 2012; originally aired October 6, 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 crucial fourth night for Esther Perrins; if she wins she'll most likely make the finals, otherwise she will more likely miss out.  Richard comments about yesterday's nailbiting game, but basically does not give Esther chance for more than a few sounds of agreement before moving on.

Tonight's challenger is Liam Bastick, a financial modeller from the UK with a PhD in mathematics and qualifications in accounting.  Liam will soon be running a series of lectures around Australia (that was as part of the CPA Congress in 2010).  It is mentioned that Al Gore will also be a guest speaker at the same Congress; unfortunately for Liam, the two of them are speaking at the same time (but in different locations), so Liam suspects that his audience may be rather sparse.  I believe that Steve Wozniak was also a guest speaker at that Congress, incidentally.


The game goes much along the lines one would expect, with Esther having a strong advantage in the letters but Liam able to make up ground in the numbers.  A lot could easily have gone either way, but perhaps the decisive moment was a careless error from Esther in the first numbers round that allowed Liam to tie up the scores.  Esther was able to draw ahead thereafter but never quite get safe, and once more the game was alive going into the conundrum.  Liam managed to get there first, and snuck through for a 48 to 46 victory.

I had a good game, which made a nice change after the dissatisfaction of some recent efforts.  I got to the conundrum in quick time (although still a bit slower than others would have solved it), and only missed one maximum throughout.  I'm not sure I'd have chanced it even if I'd seen it, but I should have been able to do better.  Still, overall I was pleased with how it went.

Ep 47: Esther Perrins, Sam Chow (September 11, 2012; originally aired October 5, 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 Esther Perrins' third night, and Richard asks about the origins of her word technique.  Esther says that it goes back to the earliest days of her growing up -- she cannot recall a time when they were not playing word games.  She mentions Scrabble and Lexicon in particular; I'd not heard of Lexicon before, but it seems that Richard is familiar with it.

Tonight's challenger is Sam Chow, a student doing a double degree in commerce and science.  Sam is president (or was, rather, in 2010) of the Melbourne University Mathematics and Statistics Society, who produce one of my favourite events of the year: The MUMS Puzzle Hunt.  Sam enjoys playing chess and doing distance running, and also tutors university and secondary students in specialist mathematics.  He was a member of Australia's team to the International Mathematical Olympiad in 2005, getting a bronze medal.  (That year was unusual in that every member of the Australian team gained a bronze medal.)


Both contestants played well tonight, and neither was able to get any advantage over the other.  The numbers rounds were sadly unchallenging, probably the easiest set of three in any game so far.  That presumably was bad luck for Sam who may otherwise have been expected to gain some ground on those.  Both contestants scored equally in the main rounds, but it was Esther who solved the conundrum first to finish with the win, 75 to 65.

I was in the same boat as both contestants, matching them throughout.  David managed to find two better options but they were hard to see and I'm not overly upset about missing them.  That led to a three-way tie going into the conundrum, and fortunately I managed to solve it first.

Ep 46: Esther Perrins, Matt Woodley (September 10, 2012; originally aired October 4, 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.


Esther Perrins is back, hopefully refreshed after the night's sleep.  Richard mentions that Esther is a keen campanologist -- in particular, the kind of bell-ringing that involves pulling on ropes -- and asks for more information about her interest in that.  Esther explains that she has been into it for around thirty-five years; she had friends that did it and they convinced her to give it a go.  She finds it a good balance between physical and mental activity, and that's why she likes it.

Taking up the challenge tonight is Matt Woodley, who has degrees in both education and aquaculture.  Matt's first career was farming: Cultivating lobsters, oysters, and mussels.  He had always had an interest in environmental science and towards the end of high school (in 1988) he read that we had already passed the sustainable level of what we could take from the seas and it was still going up.  That was what set him on his current path; as he notes, it was a fairly new area of study back then and he had to take some of his courses off-campus.


Esther was in cracking form with the letters tonight, kicking off with a couple of good sevens.  Matt got a little ground back in the first numbers round, but Esther continued to extend her lead in the letters and also the following numbers round.  Matt needed an unanswered full monty in the last letters round to even have a chance, but although Esther came up with an invalid word it was not enough for him and the victory was hers.  The conundrum solution eluded them both, and the final scoreline was 43 to 20 to Esther.

I had a rather unsatisfactory game, consistently missing longer words that I feel I should have found; I also missed a numbers target that just needed the application of a common technique.  The result was a rather unwanted matching of my performance on episode 39 -- not a single maximum in the letters at all.  The saving grace was avoiding invalid answers despite several temptations, and managing to solve the conundrum.  Somehow that ended up being enough for me to wobble home ahead, but I was definitely playing well below my best today and that was a lucky result.

Ep 45: Angus Kidman, Esther Perrins (September 7, 2012; originally aired October 1, 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.


Angus Kidman gets his turn in the champion's chair tonight.  He gets paid to test drive the latest in technical toys; Richard asks whether Angus is more interested in the things that can be done, or the miniaturisation.  Angus responds that the miniaturisation is the important thing for him; devices can do all sorts of interesting things, but it's getting them into a small form factor so that they can always be at hand to use that has him excited.

Tonight's challenger is Esther Perrins, a former British Scrabble champion.  This continues the show's early run of strong tournament Scrabble players; in fact, Esther appears in the 1986 edition of the Guinness Book of Records for having won the British Scrabble championship with the highest three-game total there had ever been (1782 points, an extremely impressive average of 594 points per game).


Esther struck form early with a good eight-letter word, but then Angus demonstrated that the competition was very much alive by outdoing her in the second round.  The numbers round went to Angus, then Esther took the next letters round and the scores were tied at the halfway mark.  Four shared rounds followed, and for the first time two contestants were on equal scores going into the conundrum.  Esther was the one who solved it first, getting the win by 55 points to 45.

I had mostly good results throughout, but faltered in the middle third.  I was a bit too slow to see the best option in one letters round, and spent too long writing down a backup plan in a numbers round instead of checking for an actual solution.  I was beaten to the conundrum by a reasonable margin, but had fortunately done enough before that to take the win.

Ep 94 [QF1]: Andrew Fisher, Esther Perrins (May 10, 2012; originally aired December 9, 2010)

Rounds: Here.


The repeat screenings kick off with the very first finals episode, episode 94 of series one.  That pitches some very impressive Scrabble players against each other, so it is sure to be a tough match.  My impression is that the first series of Letters and Numbers was particularly heavy on the tournament Scrabble players; presumably the show solicited interested players from the various Scrabble clubs.

Prior to this point, I have seen one episode of the first series -- Andrew Fisher's impressive debut game, which I believe is still the record for highest contestant score in a single game -- and the rest starting midway through series two.  This means that essentially all of the series one finalists are unknown quantities to me, although I know the reputations of Andrew and Naween.  From this incomplete sample set I will say that Andrew is the one player that I do not have any confidence about beating in a reasonable percentage of games; his word knowledge is just too good.  (I expect Naween to be of a similar standard, mind you, but I have not seen him in action.)

I'm pinning my hopes on two things: Tricky numbers rounds that I nevertheless navigate safely (and the contestants do not), and that the Scrabble vocabulary turns into a detriment as a good many of those obscure words turn out not to be listed in the Macquarie.  If I can hang in there on enough letter rounds and everything else goes OK I might just be safe at the conundrum (which I expect to be solved by a contestant within a second or two).


A brief digression: At the start of the show it brings up an information box stating that this episode was originally telecast on November 11, 2010.  I believe that this is incorrect; the show first aired on August 2, 2010, and the grand final of series one aired on December 17, 2010.  That is exactly 100 weekdays, so episode 94 should have screened on December 9, 2010.  The only way the claimed date of November could be correct is if they screened multiple episodes a day early on, then had a big gap for no discernible reason during the finals series.  Not at all likely!

(There was a mid-series gap in series three due to the 2011 Tour de France coverage, but no such gaps in series one, two, or four.  The Tour de France may well explain the timing of the insertion of this series as the intent is presumably to go straight from the end of the Masters series to the start of the Tour de France.  The timing is still a bit odd unless the Masters series is nine games -- a best-of-three final? -- as there is a two day gap to cover... but presumably it will make more sense closer to time.)


OK, so onto the contestants.  Richard re-introduces auditor Andrew Fisher, the number one seed, and notes that he was the second retiring champion of the show -- Richard says "carry-over champion", but he cannot mean that since Andrew did not show up until episode 15 -- and holds the record for the highest episode score of the series so far, at 95 points.

Additionally, Richard notes that Andrew was the first contestant to find a nine-letter word; Andrew is quick to point out that his opponent (Rob York) also found that same word.  However, Andrew did find the second full monty later in that episode, whereas his opponent did not.

Facing Andrew as the number eight seed is keen campanologist Esther Perrins.  Richard's recitation of her achievements is that she found twelve seven-letter words during her time on the show, and in fact four of them in the same episode.  I... want that to be more impressive than it comes across, as I can match those statistics from my time on the show (with another four eight-letter words for good measure).  There's some evidence that the letter mix -- or the mixing policy -- has been adjusted since then, though, so it is quite possible that contestants these days do actually have an easier time of it.

Richard notes that Esther's games were nail-biters, generally coming right down to the wire.  Maybe tonight will be another case of that?  Certainly that is what the show would like.


And indeed, it did end up coming down to the conundrum, with Andrew trailing.  That was because of exactly what I hoped for -- his extensive Scrabble vocabulary worked against him, with three of his finds (excellent words all) turning out not to be listed in the Macquarie.  Surprisingly, it was the numbers rounds that let him get back into contention and he managed to close the margin to 4 points on the last one.  The conundrum was tough but Andrew lived up to expectations by solving it in under two seconds, and took a topsy-turvy 55 to 49 win.

Andrew's invalid words worked greatly to my favour also, and I was unexpectedly twenty points up at the first break.  I thought that might be enough to ride home if I could pick up another numbers round and match a letters round, as long as there was no full monty about.  And then, wham, a full monty that I just barely missed and things got very awkward indeed.  I managed to get back more ground in the numbers rounds -- although a simple adjustment would have given me two more points, which could have been very important -- and Andrew's third invalid word pushed me safely clear of him.  Not so over Esther, as I was only nine points ahead of her.  But Andrew solved the conundrum first, and that gave me the wobbly win in the three-cornered game.