Ep 123: Oli Bryant, Vanessa Rule (June 10, 2016; originally aired January 19, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Oli Bryant is back for the crucial fourth night: A good win here should ensure his place in the finals, but a loss will almost certainly prevent him from making them.  But first, there's some chat to get to, and for a nice change the fourth game chat is not about technique.  Instead, Richard informs us that Oli is a highly competitive lawn bowls player, and asks how that came about.  Oli explains that it started a couple of years ago -- "the day after a night before", he puts it -- when he had been at a wedding and a few friends got together the next day for breakfast.  They decided that it would be a good idea to get some fresh air and play some lawn bowls.  And that seems to be it; we don't find out anything to suggest this was more than a once-off.  Oh, well.

Tonight's challenger is Vanessa Rule, a secondary maths teacher with a degree in astrophysics.  Richard enquires what prompted the interest in astrophysics, and Vanessa responds that she loves maths and being able to apply her maths skills to something so fascinating just seemed like a great idea.


Oli took the early lead with a good find in round one.  A tough mix in round two saw both contestants choose invalid words, then Oli navigated the numbers better in round three to be fifteen points ahead at the first break.  Oli extended that lead in the next two letters rounds, before Vanessa finally got on the board in the second numbers round.  The gap was far too great by that point, and an invalid answer from Oli in the last numbers round was too late to matter.  Oli did well to solve the conundrum again, sealing a 55 to 15 victory.

I had an almost-maximal game tonight, just dropping the one.  David found a better option there, so I missed out on the tie, but it's been a good week for me so far.