Ep 47: Esther Perrins, Sam Chow (September 11, 2012; originally aired October 5, 2010)

Rounds: Here.


Disclaimer: While I have not seen this episode before, I did play through the blue book (episodes 1 to 50) around ten months ago when I was scheduled to be a contestant on the show.  Additionally, I did a quick flick through it a few months back to collect words for my posts about word validity.


This is Esther Perrins' third night, and Richard asks about the origins of her word technique.  Esther says that it goes back to the earliest days of her growing up -- she cannot recall a time when they were not playing word games.  She mentions Scrabble and Lexicon in particular; I'd not heard of Lexicon before, but it seems that Richard is familiar with it.

Tonight's challenger is Sam Chow, a student doing a double degree in commerce and science.  Sam is president (or was, rather, in 2010) of the Melbourne University Mathematics and Statistics Society, who produce one of my favourite events of the year: The MUMS Puzzle Hunt.  Sam enjoys playing chess and doing distance running, and also tutors university and secondary students in specialist mathematics.  He was a member of Australia's team to the International Mathematical Olympiad in 2005, getting a bronze medal.  (That year was unusual in that every member of the Australian team gained a bronze medal.)


Both contestants played well tonight, and neither was able to get any advantage over the other.  The numbers rounds were sadly unchallenging, probably the easiest set of three in any game so far.  That presumably was bad luck for Sam who may otherwise have been expected to gain some ground on those.  Both contestants scored equally in the main rounds, but it was Esther who solved the conundrum first to finish with the win, 75 to 65.

I was in the same boat as both contestants, matching them throughout.  David managed to find two better options but they were hard to see and I'm not overly upset about missing them.  That led to a three-way tie going into the conundrum, and fortunately I managed to solve it first.