Ep 33: Geoff Heard, David Jones (August 22, 2012; originally aired September 15, 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.


Geoff is back for his second night, and his first time in the champion's seat.  Richard mentions that Geoff enjoys playing golf and asks more about that.  Geoff says that golf has been a hobby of his for a number of years now; it started when he was around seven or eight and his father would pay him a dollar a round to caddy for him.  Eventually he decided that it was better to carry the bag around for himself instead of for his father.

Tonight's challenger is David Jones, a public servant who is originally from Britain and was awarded Australian citizenship in 2009 (just a year ago, at the time this was originally aired).  Richard asks about how the citizenship ceremony went, and David responds that there was a formal and an informal component to it.  The formal occasion involved being given a certificate, a gum leaf, and a soft toy koala (among other things); Richard interjects to express his belief that at one point people were given a tree, not just a leaf, and David jests that clearly times are hard.  The informal part of the evening involved an apparently time-honoured tradition of pouring beer over his head.


A David contestant always makes things a little complicated to describe.  I'll be changing my usual policy of using surname initials and instead refer to David Astle as DA throughout (his standard identifier for crossword purposes).  It would probably have made my life easier if I had adopted this policy a while ago, but nevermind.


David found an excellent word to start, and continued in that vein to soon be 21 points ahead.  Geoff was not able to keep up with him on the letters, and the numbers were mostly unchallenging.  Geoff managed to gain back some ground in one of them, but it was not enough and David was safe going into the conundrum.  He solved it quickly to round out the win, 63 to 35.

I almost played a maximal game, but one round had a hard-to-find better option; it also eluded DA, which should give a measure of that difficulty.  The net result was that I was also safe going into the conundrum, and I needed that as a mental freeze left me a second or so off David's solving pace.  I just barely scraped home, and David is certainly a contestant to watch.

Ep 32: Stavroula Nicholls, Geoff Heard (August 21, 2012; originally aired September 14, 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.


Naween successfully retired last game, so we have two new contestants tonight.  Taking the champion's position is Stavroula Nicholls, an accounts administrator who regularly runs half-marathons.  She has done four of them so far at a rate of one or two a year, and is "heading towards" her fifth.  Richard asks how long a half-marathon is, and Stavroula notes that it is 21.1 kilometres.  (This information was also vouched in episode 22, although I did not mention it there.)

In the challenger's position is Geoff Heard, a university student completing a double degree in science and commerce.  Geoff's hobbies include coin-collecting and rogaining.  Geoff explains that rogaining is very similar to orienteering: Participants head out into the bush (or other terrain) for periods of 6, 8, 12, even up to 24 hours, finding their way around using bearings, maps, and compasses, and try to collect as many checkpoints as possible in the designated time.  It can be very competitive and quite physically taxing as people push themselves to move as fast as possible over what is sometimes extremely difficult terrain.


Stavroula started off with an invalid word, allowing Geoff to score the first points.  In the next round both contestants found the best answer, and then both had invalid answers in the numbers round.  Another shared round followed, but then Geoff drew steadily away.  He had the game wrapped up going into the conundrum; it proved to be too difficult for them both and Geoff ended up with a 53 to 24 victory.

I had a careless oversight in one round that ended up costing me a maximal game.  Against that, I was quite pleased with my find in another round, and made a good decision to avoid an error in another.  I was a bit slower on the conundrum than I would have liked but got there, and finished with a comfortable win.