Ep 119: Jack Dell, Peter Stephenson (June 6, 2016; originally aired January 13, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Jack Dell is back for his fifth night, but we may have run out of talking points for him, as the chat is just about his performance in the games so far.  That always feels like a missed opportunity.

Tonight's challenger is Peter Stephenson, an accountant at the Auditor-General's office with a background in science and physics.  (I'm amused by the implication that physics is not science.)  Peter has also run a great many marathons -- twenty six of them since he was a teenager.  That's certainly a lot!  Richard asks how Peter manages to maintain a sufficient level of fitness to keep doing that.  Peter does not quite answer that, but indicates that his motivation is terror of getting too big, as he drinks lots of beer.


Jack started off with a nice find in round one for the early lead, then extended it in round two when Peter saw a phantom letter.  Peter quickly recovered, though, with a good numbers solution allowing him to reduce the deficit to three points.  Jack tried for too much in round five, ending up with an invalid word to give Peter the lead.  Two shared rounds followed, and then the final numbers round gave Peter a winning lead going into the conundrum.  Neither could solve it, and Peter won 49 to 36.

I did well tonight, except for missing the conundrum.  It was solvable, but I just did not see it within time.  I was happy to find a full monty in the main rounds, and between that and the letter rounds I was able to open up a decent lead over the contestants for a solid win even without the conundrum.

Ep 118: Jack Dell, Jonathan Goodman (June 3, 2016; originally aired January 12, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


It's the crucial fourth night for Jack Dell, and we find out that his name is not actually Jack, but rather Alan.  He has three brothers (older ones, by inference), and when they were all home the eldest brother would be given a job by one of the parents.  He'd look at the next brother and say, "Good on you, Jack", thereby delegating the job.  That brother would also be "Good on you, Jack" to the next one, and you can see how this goes.  When it reached Alan he had no-one to pass it on to, and so became the designated Jack.  It seems the name ended up sticking.

Tonight's challenger is Jonathan Goodman, an American bioiphysics student studying in Australia.  Jonathan has had a few misfortunes when travelling, and in the past year has managed to miss three flights and left his luggage on the carousel twice.  He only provides details about one of those incidents: The second time he missed a flight, he got to the gate and was all ready to go... and then he fell asleep.


It was a close game tonight, with the contestants always being near to each other.  Jack took the early lead with a good find in round one, then a couple of shared rounds followed.  Jack overreached in round four, which allowed Jonathan to narrow the gap to a single point, and then Jonathan found another good word in round five to take the lead.  He lost it just as quickly with a numerical error, recovering when the final numbers round went more in his favour.  Jonathan had a small lead going into the conundrum, but Jack continued his good form on those to snatch victory, 50 to 44.

I was mostly on target tonight, but I also took the risky and incorrect option in round four.  Aside from that I only dropped one other maximum, and a fast solution to the conundrum gave me another solid win.

Ep 117: Jack Dell, Janine Huan (June 2, 2016; originally aired January 11, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


It's Jack Dell's third night tonight, and Richard informs us that Jack used to be involved in amateur dramatics.  Jack says that they did melodramas "and things like that" and he was sort of the comic hero.  But now the only local theatre companies are singers, and no-one wants to hear him sing.

Challenging Jack tonight is Janine Huan, an integration aid in a primary school.  Janine is also fond of cryptic crosswords, and in particular the ones that David makes.  As she says, she likes David's ones in particular because most of the others have lots of anagrams in them, whereas David will challenge the solver with such things as Greek mythology, chemistry, and French.  She does sometimes solve them, too.

(I'll add that I've noticed this pattern, too: Less experienced cryptic composers will generally head straight for an anagram as their first thought about how to clue a word.  It makes them much more solvable when half the clues are anagrams.  David, on the other hand, is much more parsimonious with them, generally only having a handful in each crossword.)


This game was quite the swinging one!  Jack started out with an unanswered full monty, and that's often a death blow.  Janine got a small amount back in the next round, but Jack took the points in the next two rounds to be twenty four points ahead at the halfway mark.  Somehow, Janine rallied, and was the sole scorer in the remaining four main rounds; that not only enabled her to catch up, but also put her ahead by seven points going into the conundrum.  We don't see turnarounds of that magnitude very often!  But Jack just barely managed to hang on, solving the conundrum first to steal the victory, 40 to 37.

I found that first full monty thanks to Jack's body language, and thereafter was able to keep clear of both contestants.  I slipped up in the first numbers round and missed a solution, but pegged that back when Lily likewise stumbled in the second.  But my dreams of another tie with David and Lily were gone when I missed the game's second full monty.  Oh, well, there's always next game...

Ep 116: Jack Dell, Seb Dworkin (June 1, 2016; originally aired January 10, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Jack Dell gets his turn in the champion's chair tonight, and Richard returns to the topic of Jack's many jobs.  (We get a little more information about his teaching: It is secondary-level mathematics.)  Jack gets to slip in a small joke about being called a Jack of all trades, and that's about it for the chat.

Tonight's challenger is Seb Dworkin, a research scientist with a PhD in neurobiology.  But he has another occupation, as he has started up a company to host trivia nights.  Richard asks how that came about; Seb expands that he has always enjoyed trivia, obscure bits and pieces of knowledge, and standing up in front of an audience making a fool of himself.  So he hopes that if anyone wants trivia hosted, he'll be the man to go to.  (If anyone in Melbourne is interested in that, his company is Trivia Buffs.)


The game started off much like the previous episode, with Jack taking points in the first two letters rounds.  Seb struggled with the numbers, which put Jack's lead dangerously high going into the first break.  Then an invalid answer from Seb pushed that lead even higher.  He briefly stopped the rot by tying round five, but more number difficulties gave Jack a winning lead going into the second break.  Jack continued to score points in every round, just beating Seb to the conundrum to close out a 73 to 17 game.

I was in good shape tonight, although I don't think many of the maxima were that hard to find.  I did drop one because I decided not to risk the best option, but aside from that it was all smooth sailing.

Ep 115: Jayden Spudvilas-Powell, Jack Dell (May 31, 2016; originally aired January 7, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


There are two new contestants tonight, after Matthew Thomason successfully retired in the previous episode.  Occupying the champion's seat is Jayden Spudvilas-Powell, who is currently doing a bachelor of arts and plans to teach English in Japan.  Richard asks why Jayden is specifically interested in Japan; Jayden responds that he visited Japan earlier this year and was fascinated by the culture.  He adds that he found Japanese people to be very helpful, and relates how he and a friend got lost on their first night in Japan; at one point they had three Japanese people looking at a map, trying to work out how to get them back to their hotel.

Taking up the challenger's position is Jack Dell, who is currently juggling three part-time jobs: school groundsman, computer technician, and teacher.  But Richard is more interested in another tale: Jack is a member of a book club that ended up on TV.  Richard asks how that came about, and Jack provides some details.  He belongs to an all-male book club (it is not made clear if this is policy or circumstance), which is very unusual; at the time, about ten years ago, there were only two such in Victoria.  They formed because they wanted to prove to their wives that they could be in a book club, because their wives had one.  He jokes that the difference is that the host of the woman's book club has a bottle of wine, whereas they have one each.


Jack started off with a good word in round one to take the points, and the same again in round two.  This pretty much set the pattern for the rest of the game, with Jack winning every letters round while the numbers were shared.  Jayden did end up solving the conundrum at the last possible moment, but Jack was the victor, 59 to 34.

I made a careless mental error in round three that cost me points, and then did not risk a full monty in round four.  After that I was never going to catch up with David and Lily, and Jack was playing well enough that I was not able to get clear of him.  Fortunately for me, he stumbled on the last numbers round and I was safe at last going into the conundrum.  I hope I can do better next game.

Ep 194 [QF1]: Tony Loui, Jack Dell (May 21, 2012; originally aired April 28, 2011)

Disclaimer: I watched this episode when it first aired.  I recall nothing about it, as should be obvious from my results, but I cannot rule out some lingering memory assisting me in some fashion.


So, onto the season two finals.  Taking the champion's position is medical officer Tony Loui, the number one seed.  Richard notes that Tony was undefeated, and had the highest accumulated score of anyone in series two.  That's... pretty much expected from the first seed, so nothing new about this.

Tony's opponent is eighth seed Jack Dell, described by Richard as a jack of all trades; he is a school groundsman, computer technician, and teacher.  Jack solved three of the five conundrums that he faced during the main part of the series.


Jack got off to a flying start with a full monty in the second round.  That was the only round he managed to outdo Tony in, though, and Tony pegged the loss back over the next two rounds.  The remaining letters rounds provided no swing but Tony took a 17 point lead into the conundrum thanks to the remaining numbers rounds, where Jack just did not seem comfortable.  Neither was able to solve the conundrum, and Tony got through to the next round with a 53 to 36 victory.

I was all over the place tonight, with two very poor rounds where I only managed a four-letter word.  I missed the full monty, and in fact the eight-letter word I had for that round was invalid.  The second numbers round offered me a chance to almost catch up but instead I drifted even further behind.  A good word in the last letters round put me precisely ten points behind Tony, and I managed to solve the conundrum (although slower than I would have liked) to salvage a draw from this performance.