Ep 389: Katie Richer, Roman Turkiewicz (February 23, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


Katie likes to grow heirloom varieties of vegetables, or at least is trying to -- she's only just put together her garden.  She says that there is a rather interesting variety of broccoli called Romanesco broccoli that she likes to think of as fractal broccoli.  And... wow, I can certainly see why -- that is just amazing!  She also mentions a variety of tomato called the reisetomate, which is a "big knobbly tomato that looks absolutely nothing like a tomato"; she has the impression that it may taste better than standard supermarket tomatoes.

Tonight's challenger is Roman Turkiewicz, an administrator and actor.  Richard asks about Roman's favourite roles, and Roman singles out playing Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice.  That was with a young company that liked to reinterpret Shakespeare's plays for modern audiences.  It was a modern-language interpretation of the original text, in this instance.


Roman does pretty well on the letters, while Katie has some good words but really needed some less-good-but-longer ones.  Honours are mostly even on the numbers, but one invalid solution from her sees Roman's lead grow, and he is safe at the end of round 7.  Roman solves the conundrum quickly to seal the win in emphatic style, 68 to 31.

This was definitely one of my better games, ending up only two points off optimal.  Coupled with solving the conundrum very fast tonight that yields an even more emphatic win for me.  It's a good feeling after a couple of weeks of games where I have generally felt that I could have easily done better.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 388: Christopher Piggott-McKellar, Katie Richer (February 22, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


Richard notes the colourful outfits that Christopher has been wearing so far, and asks him whether he takes his stylish look seriously.  Christopher demurs with good humour, saying that it shouldn't be taken seriously but he certainly enjoys wearing it.

Tonight's challenger is Katie Richer, a writer and proofreader.  In particular, she proofreads mathematics textbooks, and has done so for a couple of years now.  In addition to the proofreading, she does worked solutions and checks other people's worked solutions (although I'd class the latter as part of mathematical proofreading, myself).


It's almost a reversal of recent games, with Katie having consistent letters results of six (capped off by a lovely final seven-letter word) while Christopher varies from five to an unluckily invalid eight.  The numbers aren't able to provide much traction to either contestant -- they were a pretty tricky set -- and with Christopher's final answer being invalid Katie is safe going into the conundrum.  Christopher solves it quickly to move the scoreline into "might-have-been" territory, but Katie has the win, 39 to 30.

I felt in worse form than I probably was, but did miss a seven that I should have seen and the final numbers solution.  The latter was a particularly careless oversight.  Still, it was enough for a solid win in the circumstances.

As usual, details after the jump.