Ep 315: Michael Nichols, Peter Crop (November 11, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


On Michael's second night we learn that he developed some of his number skills on car journeys while looking at the number plates on other cars, and finding the prime factors of the numbers on them.  David's equivalent is finding anagrams in street signs, and I can relate to both activities.

Tonight's challenger is another I.T. student, Peter Crop.  He is described as a "trivia aficianado", and likes to think that he does well.  His best categories are geography, history, sport, and music, particularly 70's music trivia.  Asked for an example of the latter, he comes up with the following: Which musician was born Chaim Weitz, and with which band is he associated?"  This stumps Richard and David, and they are interested to learn that the answer is Gene Simmons from KISS.


The game is a relatively high-scoring one for both contestants, starting out even in the first three rounds.  Then Michael falls behind in the remaining letters rounds, and with the numbers rounds not posing enough challenge he cannot come back; he finds the conundrum and gets to the half-century, but Peter is the victor with a scoreline of 61 points to 50.

I missed the longest word in one round, but otherwise did as well as feasible.  With Peter also doing well, though, that miss meant that a conundrum solve would give him a win.  With the evidence suggesting that he was good at word-finding, I nervously buzzed in early before double-checking what I thought I'd seen, and was relieved that I was correct.  So another win to round out the week, and a reassuring result after yesterday's effort.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 314: Timothy Clarke, Michael Nichols (November 10, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


In today's episode we find out that Timothy's school held a Letters & Numbers competition between the maths teachers and the English teachers.  They ran it much like the show, and the maths teachers won -- although Timothy adds that it was a narrow victory.  He may be saying that to appease David, who declares himself not happy about the result, but Lily looks pleased.

Timothy's challenger is Michael Nichols, an I.T. trainer whose goal is to ride a scooter into every European country.  A motorised scooter, that is -- it's not some Crockett Cooke-like endeavour.  This desire has its origins in that many years back he did some motorbiking around Europe and he likes the idea of doing it again in more comfort.  So far the closest he's come (on scooter, that is) is going to Tasmania, which at least involved crossing some water (as he puts it).


It's a bit of a scrappy game, this one.  Timothy continues to be very weak on the numbers, and isn't nearly as good on the letters as he was yesterday.  On the other hand Michael doesn't do much better with the letters; his superior numbers performance sees him safely home, though, 40 points to 25.

I had my worst game so far, I believe.  I dropped points on two letters rounds, and failed to reach the target on two of the numbers rounds, including missing an obvious one-point improvement that would have kept a safe lead intact.  All this culminated in a conundrum that I failed to solve, and fortunately neither did Michael or I would have had to score a tie.  All in all, very poor on my part, and I'm extremely fortunate to have scraped through with the win.

As usual, details after the jump.