Ep 301: Shaun Ellis, Ilona Coote (October 24, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Series 4 starts off with Shaun Ellis in the champion's seat.  Shaun is an online data producer, who wants to live and work in New York; he's also an avid online poker player and would like to make a career out of it one day.  He returns after having won two games at the end of series three; the first was a 43 to 27 victory over accountant Deborah Kemper, and the second was a very close 56 to 53 win against neuroscience student Patrick Clark, courtesy of the conundrum.

In this episode it is revealed that Shaun has an unusual tattoo on his left inner forearm.  In a nice bold font a centimetre or two high it reads: ouch¹ (aʊtʃ).  When asked why he got such an unusual tattoo, he remarks that he thought it would be funny, and with delightful good humour adds "... because there's nothing like funny tattoos."  Richard checks about Shaun's plans for an accompanying tattoo on the other forearm; Shaun responds that the most common remarks about his existing tattoo were "You'll regret that" and "That's a big mistake", so he's thinking of getting either "regret" or "big mistake" tattooed there.

In the challenger seat for this game is meteorologist Ilona Coote.  She's still in training so she doesn't actually get to make the predictions yet, but may well be doing so in a year or so.


It's a decidedly shaky start to this project; after beginning well I stumbled badly and limped home to an unconvincing win.  Perhaps ironically, if I had started less well I might have ended up with a higher score.  That said, Shaun scraped by even more barely, with a 38 to 36 victory for his third successive win.

Breakdown after the jump.