Ep 433: Ian Phillips, Simon Walton (April 25, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


One of Ian's non-travel activities is setting orienteering courses.  As he explains, orienteering is a sport of running and navigating in the bush.  Ian used to participate competitively, but as his age increased his speed decreased... so now he sets the courses for others to follow instead.  His challenge is to set interesting courses for both elite and novice participants; this includes varying the length of the course, the terrain, and the route involved.  Competitors might take a long easy route or a short difficult route; they have to weigh their choices and wear the consequences.

Tonight's challenger is Simon Walton, a secondary school teacher.  It seems that Simon has become quite interested in statistics and would like to learn more about it.  He was not that interested fifteen years ago when he walked out of a statistics lecture (at the University of Adelaide) because he found it so boring.  I've certainly had my share of lectures like that, but a good book goes a long way.  However, since then Simon has become a teacher of mathematics and learned to appreciate how useful statistics is.  For that matter, I wish that I had taken some statistics courses when I was a university student.

A little later in the show it is pointed out that Ian is a qualified statistician.  He encourages Simon in his interest, and says that statistics is a great way to go.


There were some good words being found tonight, and Simon picked up three eights.  Two of those were better than Ian's efforts, and when Ian overlooked his 75-times tables in the second numbers round Simon was 26 points ahead and safe going into the final numbers round.  Ian solved the conundrum quickly again to make the scores look better, but this was Simon's night and he won handily by 65 to 49.

I found everything possible tonight, including the full monty and the conundrum in a second.  But on one of those rounds I took the conservative choice and lost my optimal game.  It's a bit disappointing to miss out due to making the wrong decision, but better than not seeing the option at all.  In any case, my score of 88 is the highest I've recorded on this blog.

Ep 432: Ian Phillips, Brent Dalton (April 24, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


Richard asks for information about more of Ian's travels; Ian responds that he cannot forget climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.  They started the ascent at 1:30 in the morning and zigzagged up a scree slope to get to the top of it before sunrise.  That must have been quite something!  Ian says that it took a lot out of him, but he managed to get back down again.

Much later in the show he mentions that his next travel plan is to go to Western Australia and walk the Bibbulmun Track.

Tonight's challenger is Brent Dalton, a mechanical engineer.  Brent has an ambition to build his own car; he says that it takes time, money, and inclination, and he has always had two out of three but now it is getting to the point where he can put it all together.


Brent is able to keep up with Ian for a while, but Ian manages to outscore him in two letters rounds and a numbers round.  That gives Ian a win before the final numbers game, and with nothing to lose Brent opts for a challenging rat pack.  It turns out to be too difficult for either, but Ian solves the conundrum very quickly to seal a 59 to 26 win.

I was doing well until that rat pack, which proved difficult for me.  I managed to solve the conundrum faster than Ian to end up with a good score, and fortunately post-game solving showed that the rat pack wasn't the only optimal game spoiler.  A good week so far!

Ep 431: Mark Potter, Ian Phillips (April 23, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


This is Mark's crucial fourth night, and Richard wheels out the question about strategy.  Mark says that in the numbers he does not think you need more than one large number if you are reasonably good at your times table, so he tends to go with the classroom mix.  That is kind of true, as the statistics show that the single large number mix is very solvable in general, but it misses the point a little.  More large numbers do not make it easier (or in the case of two large numbers, not significantly easier); in fact, they tend to make it harder.  The different mixes expose different facets of numberwork, and it's about choosing a mix that works for you and hopefully not for your opponent.

Tonight's challenger is Ian Phillips, a government management consultant.  He has done a lot of travel "with a focus on wildlife", according to Richard.  Richard asks about Ian's most exciting wildlife moment; Ian responds that about twenty years ago he spent three months in East Africa.  He got close to leopards, elephants, hippopotamuses... but probably the best of all was sitting within arm's length of a mountain gorilla in the wild.


In a sense, it was closer than the final scoreline might suggest.  Mark started off with an invalid word to give Ian an early lead, but took the lead right back in the next letters round.  Ian forged ahead again in the first numbers round, but it was the full monty in round five that effectively ensured him the win.  Mark managed to pull back ten points in the final numbers round, but it was too late by that point.  The conundrum proved beyond both contestants, and Ian became the new champion with a 57 to 40 victory.

I had spent the afternoon trying to solve puzzles as part of the MUMS puzzle hunt, and possibly my brain was a bit tired.  Whatever the reason, I started off with a poor effort (made poorer by a conservative play) in the first round, and that turned out to be the spoiler for another optimal game.  I was a bit behind the pace on several rounds but managed to come good just in time (the closest being the full monty that I only just got down), and solved the conundrum relatively quickly.  So it ended up being a very good game after all, and I don't know whether that was in spite of or because of the other puzzle solving.