Ep 323: Daniel Chua, Mitchell Fly (November 23, 2011)

Rounds: Here.

Disclaimer: I attended the filming of this show some months back; obviously this may lead to me recollecting some solutions that eluded me at the time, and my scoreline is not necessarily a fair one.


I suspect Daniel was running short of things to talk about, as Richard asks him if he has picked up any techniques from his previous four appearances.  Daniel responds that he hasn't in the letters rounds, but for the numbers rounds he's come to like the "classroom" mix because the five small numbers provide some intricacies, while the large number helps get to larger targets.

Mitchell Fly is today's challenger, a year 12 student who is also studying mathematics part time at university.  He is asked how he balances that workload, and says that it was difficult at first because he was trying to keep up with all the work from school and university; then he learned just to do the assignments for university and that was much easier.  I admit to being a bit bemused by this statement, as I'm not sure whether he is saying that he has avoided some schoolwork, or some non-assignment university work.  It seems to be working out for him, anyway.


Mitchell was pleasantly engaging during the group conversations in the green room.  My memory of conversational specifics is long gone, alas.


It's a fairly close game, although low-scoring.  The lead switches back and forth, with Mitchell's superior performance in the numbers giving him an edge; Daniel proves slightly more adept at the letters, however, and manages to solve the conundrum for a narrow 36 to 33 victory.

I definitely had some strong memories of this episode, but nothing that is likely to have affected the scoreline (except possibly avoiding an eight not listed).  It was another case of solving a conundrum more quickly than I did at the time, but my recollection again is of solving it ahead of Daniel during the filming.  With perfect numbers rounds, and letters rounds going as well as they could, this was a very easy victory.

As usual, details after the jump.