Ep 59: Yolanda Sztarr, Mark Mota (September 27, 2012; originally aired October 21, 2010)

Rounds: Here.


Yolanda Sztarr gets her first turn in the champion's seat, and presumably hopes to break the run of short-lasting champions.  Yolanda first learnt to ride a bike during her university years, which is unusually late, but she has since embraced riding with a lot of enthusiasm.  She thinks it has been wonderful in a lot of ways, and in particular she met her boyfriend eight years ago on a bicycle ride.  She uses her bike for transport, on holidays, cycle touring... she even rode it to the studio today.

Tonight's challenger is Mark Mota, an accountant who made a new year's resolution some years back to run a marathon.  And last year (2009, that would be) he did manage to do so.  Mark was living in London at the time, so he took part in the London Marathon.  Not the best time, he says, but he did finish it, and that's all he was trying to do.


Yolanda got an early lead in the first round, and then a couple of shared rounds followed.  She forged ahead with three excellent words (even if not the best possible) in the remaining rounds, and the numbers went a bit each way.  Yolanda was safe going into the conundrum (indeed, safe going into the final numbers round) and it proved to be a tough one.  Neither was able to solve it, but Yolanda broke the recent losing streak of champions with her second win, 49 to 22.

I found some a couple of good words today, but missed another tough one that feels like it was findable.  The numbers posed no problem but the conundrum was too hard for me; still, I'd done more than enough and overall it was a decent game.