Ep 201: Andre Sardone, Jenny Lee (October 17, 2016; originally aired May 9, 2011)

Rounds: Here.

Disclaimer: I watched this episode when it first aired, and although I did not recall any of it I cannot rule out memory being a factor.


Andre Sardone returns for the new series, getting his turn in the champion's seat after the break for the finals.  The pre-game talk is pretty much a non-event -- he is asked if he got up to anything creative, and responds that he did.  But without giving any useful information, the conversation dies there.  Contestants, this is not how to help out the show.

The first challenger for the new series is Jenny Lee, an engineering and science student.  Jenny can solve a Rubik's cube, and her fastest time is forty-two seconds.  (That's close to the winning time of the first speedcubing championship in 1981, which was thirty-eight seconds, but times have dropped greatly since then and the current record is an impressive 4.74 seconds, set by Mats Valk in 2016.)  Richard asks Jenny about the number of possible combinations of a cube, which (unsurprisingly) she does not know offhand but guesses at 10³².  That's not really a fair question, but for the record the actual figure is about 4.3*10¹⁹.


It ended up being a very close game.  Jenny took the early lead when Andre's first word attempt was invalid, but Andre overtook her after the first numbers round.  Jenny found her way back to the lead again in round five, only for Andre to once again get back in front due to the numbers.  Andre extended his lead in the final numbers round, but the game was still up for grabs going into the conundrum.  He ended up solving it first, for a 47 to 29 victory.

I had a disappointing night on the numbers, ending up one off the target each time.  But my wordwork was acceptable, and I cruised home comfortably against the contestants.