Ep 32: Stavroula Nicholls, Geoff Heard (August 21, 2012; originally aired September 14, 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.


Naween successfully retired last game, so we have two new contestants tonight.  Taking the champion's position is Stavroula Nicholls, an accounts administrator who regularly runs half-marathons.  She has done four of them so far at a rate of one or two a year, and is "heading towards" her fifth.  Richard asks how long a half-marathon is, and Stavroula notes that it is 21.1 kilometres.  (This information was also vouched in episode 22, although I did not mention it there.)

In the challenger's position is Geoff Heard, a university student completing a double degree in science and commerce.  Geoff's hobbies include coin-collecting and rogaining.  Geoff explains that rogaining is very similar to orienteering: Participants head out into the bush (or other terrain) for periods of 6, 8, 12, even up to 24 hours, finding their way around using bearings, maps, and compasses, and try to collect as many checkpoints as possible in the designated time.  It can be very competitive and quite physically taxing as people push themselves to move as fast as possible over what is sometimes extremely difficult terrain.


Stavroula started off with an invalid word, allowing Geoff to score the first points.  In the next round both contestants found the best answer, and then both had invalid answers in the numbers round.  Another shared round followed, but then Geoff drew steadily away.  He had the game wrapped up going into the conundrum; it proved to be too difficult for them both and Geoff ended up with a 53 to 24 victory.

I had a careless oversight in one round that ended up costing me a maximal game.  Against that, I was quite pleased with my find in another round, and made a good decision to avoid an error in another.  I was a bit slower on the conundrum than I would have liked but got there, and finished with a comfortable win.