Ep 343: Sam Gaffney, Lewis Robinson (December 21, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Sam relates how after his audition for Letters and Numbers (which obviously went pretty well), as he got back to his car he was... attacked by ducks.  That's certainly not an expected occurrence!  There were four or five of them, and he had to fend them off with his umbrella; it was a very nice umbrella that his wife had given him and it got broken in the chaos, although he attributes that more to the wind than to the ducks.

Tonight's challenger is the versatile Lewis Robinson, described as a musician, pizza maker, professional stilt walker, and soon-to-be primary school teacher.  Richard asks how he came to be so many things, and Lewis quips that he is just a bit indecisive.  Richard wonders if Lewis has done them all at once, and not surprisingly the answer is negative.  Lewis likes to think of himself as a "jack of all trades, master of some".


Sam doesn't seem in as powerful form today, or perhaps the letters just weren't there for it.  But a risky eight on the first round comes home for him, and sets up a pattern of mostly outdoing Lewis, particularly in the numbers.  It's a sad showing from the numbers this game, with two very easy targets.  Sam rounds it out with a lightning fast conundrum solve, and a 62 to 21 win.

For my part, this match was much closer than the previous one, eventually coming down to the conundrum and mere milliseconds in it.  But I have to give the benefit to Sam and go down narrowly.  There were certainly chances for me -- if that risky play by him in the first round had not come off, for instance -- but round four was the place where I should have won this.  Two losses to Sam, and I'll be trying to keep it from being three tomorrow.

As usual, details after the jump.