Ep 443: Rob Fischer, Joseph Liebhaber (May 9, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


When Rob proposed, he did so at the cinema.  He had a slide made up popping the question, and organised with the cinema to have it shown prior to the movie.  Rob went down on one knee when the slide came up, and happily she said yes.  (The movie was The World's Fastest Indian, incidentally.)

Tonight's challenger is taxi driver Joseph Liebhaber.  Joseph is keen on space, although he would not want to travel there -- he thinks that doing so is more the province of robots.  But he is enthusiastic about astronomy; he says that it is a field that is changing, and he finds it interesting keeping up with all the new discoveries.  When he was a small boy he learned what was known about Mars and Venus; he says that "really nobody knew anything".  Since that time, though, we have learned so much and keep on doing so; he finds it absolutely fascinating.


I'm afraid this game simply wasn't close; three of Joseph's letters rounds were invalid, and the numbers rounds were too easy to challenge either contestant.  Rob found longer words in the other two letters rounds -- including a full monty -- and with neither solving the conundrum the final score was 75 to 30 in Rob's favour.

I was cruising along comfortably thanks to two good letters rounds at the start, but thereafter was not able to extend my lead over Rob.  I missed the full monty -- I found a contentious eight instead -- and suddenly Rob was two points in the lead.  That persisted until the conundrum, and he buzzed in first; fortunately for me his guess was invalid, and I managed to get the solution just in the nick of time to scrape home the victor.  It really does demonstrate the power of the full monty to upset everything!

Ep 442: Rob Fischer, Paul Bishard (May 8, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


It's the almost-obligatory fourth-night question about strategy for Rob.  It really does make me wonder whether people provide the requested six interesting points of information about themselves; we seem to run out of talking points fairly quickly.  On the other hand, maybe I'm just bitter because I did not last long enough to get to my Dalek impression.  Anyway, back to Rob; apparently he looks for affixes on the letter rounds, and tweakage on the numbers.  That's not really a surprise.

Challenging Rob tonight is wine manager Paul Bishard.  Paul is principally responsible for arranging all the wines in a particular store, as well as driving the core wine sales through the outlet.  He has been working with wine for seventeen years; he remarks that it has been quite fun and -- without a pun intended -- fruitful.


It proved to be a very close game tonight, and I'd have to say that Rob did not show those flashes of excellence that we have seen on previous nights.  Paul got off to an early lead with a great word, and extended it in the first numbers round as Rob's weakness there was exposed.  Rob hung in there, though, relentlessly clawing back the lost ground in the letters rounds where Paul was often just a letter short of where he needed to be.  The final two numbers rounds proved to be far too easy and that was Paul's advantage gone -- I can certainly sympathise there.  Rob took a slender one-point lead into the conundrum, but solved it first in any case to get the win, 56 to 45.

I was in much better form tonight, with only one round thwarting my optimal game aspirations.  A couple of risky plays came off -- including the full monty -- and I wrapped it up with a quick solution to the conundrum and an emphatic win.

Ep 441: Rob Fischer, Lara Irvine (May 7, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


It's a brand new week; Rob has two wins under his belt and is hoping to extend that run.  Richard mentions that Rob loves adrenaline, and has done a few things in search of it.  Rob agrees, adding that he has done a bungee jump, some whitewater rafting, and a canyon swing in New Zealand.  He might have aimed to list more, but Richard asks what a canyon swing is.  Rob explains that it is a bit like a bungee jump, except that you jump off the platform and swing right across the canyon.  (This most probably was the Queenstown canyon swing; there is some video on that page demonstrating what it is like.)

Tonight's challenger is Lara Irvine, an office administrator and writer.  She likes to write fiction but she finds that reviews and non-fiction pay a bit more.  Richard segues awkwardly to her interest in knitting.  Lara agrees that she does like to knit and she finds it quite relaxing.  About once a month she goes to a group called "Stitch 'n' Bitch" where a few of them get together and drink coffee and sometimes they knit.


There were some good words from both players tonight, but Lara was a bit unlucky that her best word corresponded with Rob's even better one.  The early numbers rounds provided no swing, and Rob was seven points ahead going into the last numbers round.  Unfortunately for Lara, she was not able to get anywhere with it and Rob's seven points saw him safe going into the conundrum.  It proved to be too difficult for them both, and Rob won 45 to 31.

I started out poorly and then oscillated a bit between decent and not-quite-there results.  I blew the first numbers round through trying to be far too clever, and also failed to solve the last one.  There's a small consolation in that it eluded Lily also, but only managing three maximums out of eight in the main rounds is still disappointing.  I did solve the conundrum quickly, though, to finish on a good note.

Ep 440: Rob Fischer, Nic Brown (May 4, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


Rob returns after last night's excellent game, but can he match that performance without the sibling rivalry factor?  Rob enters a lot of competitions -- "when he sees them come up" -- and he has won a few here and there.  He has won a trip and a camera, and some "more random" things like an esky.

Tonight's challenger is Nic Brown, who has recently graduated as a radiographer.  He is also involved in a band called Skunk Stomp ("just imagine kicking Pepé le Pew", he clarifies).  They play blues, rock, and funk; they call it "blockfunk".

(The web page linked above seems a bit out of date, as often happens.  They have a Myspace (remember that?) page with samples of their music here, but for some reason my browser and Myspace don't get along so I have not been able to listen to them.)


Rob found some decent words without hitting the high notes, but Nic could not quite match that and Rob soon had a 26 point lead.  The second numbers round reduced that to 16, and the one after could have reduced it further still.  Nic made an error, however, and Rob was safe going into the conundrum.  He buzzed in at the 25 second mark with an incorrect answer that should have given it away, but Nic was not able to capitalise on that.  All in all, a wobbly game sees Rob home by 44 to 21.

I was well off my previous good form tonight, only managing one maximal result on the letters (on the plus side, it was a word that eluded David) and doing rather poorly on one numbers round.  I was very slow to get the conundrum, but managed to do so just before Rob's incorrect attempt.  It was enough for a comfortable win, but stands in stark contrast with my recent form.  I hope to improve again next week.

Ep 439: Rob Fischer, Andrew Fischer (May 3, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


After Simon's successful retirement yesterday, we have two new contestants.  The show producers were clearly hoping that this would happen, as the two contestants are brothers.  We don't really get to find out anything about them aside from the fact that Rob is a marketing specialist, as what chat there is is devoted to talking up the sibling rivalry.  I'm actually a bit vexed by that -- one of them is going home, so it would be nice to actually learn something about them first.


I'm afraid there was nothing close about this game; Rob comprehensively outplayed Andrew, and in fact Andrew only managed to score points once during the game; that was in a numbers round that was pretty easy.  Part of this was probably first-game nerves, but Rob did play quite well, including finding an exceptional full monty.  His numberwork was slightly off -- much to my relief! -- and the conundrum was too hard for everyone, but Rob stormed home to win by 61 points to 10.

I got away with a slightly risky word in the first round, was completely off the pace in the second, and thereafter was mostly playing catchup.  I was just a touch too slow in round four, took a conservative view in round five, and it was only the numbers that really let me pull away enough to be safe.  The conundrum was too hard for me, also, and I feel lucky to have escaped with a win.  A big contrast to previous games!  The effect of a full monty is large, as expected.