Ep 53: Liam Bastick, Tristan Leech (September 19, 2012; originally aired October 13, 2010)

Rounds: Here.


This is Liam Bastick's sixth night, and his last appearance until the finals series.  Obviously he is hoping to become a retiring champion, and a win here will move him from fifth to fourth in the rankings.  Richard asks him the frequent question about his strategies, and Liam says something a little interesting: One of the things he has learned while playing instead of watching is that he loses thinking time while picking the letters, so he does better by choosing fewer vowels.  Interesting!  That also explains his rapid-fire consonant choices, to an extent.  No point giving the opponent too much of an advantage over you in that regard.

Tonight's challenger is Tristan Leech, a trainee surgeon at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.  Tristan also DJ's, with the nickname of "Hot Pants".  That obviously leads to further questions; Tristan explains that it began a long time ago when he played the evil Doctor Clown Pants in a staged wrestling event.  Then when he was doing student radio around the turn of the millennium he took it to Hot Pants.  Richard remarks that this was not quite what he expected from a surgeon; Tristan responds that one is expected to exercise a certain amount of decorum at work so it is good to have some outlets to express other sides of his personality.


The game started quietly enough with a pair of shared letters rounds, then Liam pulled ahead in the first numbers round.  He extended that lead in the next letters round, and then again in the second numbers round when Tristan used a number that was not present.  A further gain in the final letters round guaranteed Liam the win, which he rounded off in fine style by solving the conundrum to finish with his best total so far and a 72 to 28 victory.

I dropped two maxima that I should have found (they were easily seen after time once the pressure was off); the rest all went as well as possible, including finding a longer word than David in one round.  A fast conundrum finished things off on a positive note, and I had a decent win.