Ep 328: Geoff Bailey, Brett Edwards (November 30, 2011)

Rounds: Here.

Disclaimer: I was a contestant on this episode.  Obviously there are some parts I will remember strongly and my scoreline cannot remotely be considered a fair representation.  I'll frequently refer to my past self in the third person, to avoid having to clarify all the time whether I mean my current or past performance.


We're running out of things to talk about, so Richard remarks to me that "you and your partner were actually youth champions in a very different area many years ago."  As I heard him make that comment it struck me that it was misinterpretable (I worried that I might have left it similarly unclear when I submitted my checklist of points to talk about, but on checking I see that I did say "bridge partner" in my email), and I perhaps put a little too much emphasis into pointing out that it was my bridge partner.  Together, we won the NSW State Youth Pairs bridge competition (which honestly involved a lot of luck, but I didn't manage to point that out very clearly); we then accepted the invitation to the Nationals and the more sensible order of things asserted itself as we got crushed, eventually finishing in 25th place (out of 26 pairs).

Tonight's challenger is Brett Edwards, a retired navy auditor, and his last appearance on TV was back in the eighties, on The Krypton Factor.  Richard describes it as an ABC quiz show, but I think it was the New Zealand version (which the ABC did air, admittedly).  It involved five different activities -- a mixture of mental and physical exertion -- and Brett got through to the semifinals, coming second to the eventual winner.


Brett was a bit of a dark horse leading up to this game; he tried to downplay his ability, but at the same point it was clear that he was doing well in the letters.  His numerical abilities were unclear, although I thought I should have the edge if things got difficult.


It's an extremely close game; neither contestant can get clear of the other although David found longer words in four of the five rounds.  The numbers prove unchallenging and it takes until round 7 before a split emerges, as Brett sees an eight that turns out to be riskier than he thought, and Geoff's seven gives him the lead going into the conundrum.  But the conundrum is too easy, and Brett wins the buzzer race to squeak home by 66 to 63 -- the highest combined total of the series so far.

Geoff leaves after four shows with an average of over 60 points a game, but will it be enough to reach the finals?  We'll find out in 65 more games...

This time around I do vastly better, of course -- every letters round is etched into my memory.  As usual, I'd not remembered the numbers rounds; they were too easy in any case, negating my perceived better ability there.  Brett used the challenger's advantage to good effect.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 327: Geoff Bailey, Eddy Hill (November 29, 2011)

Rounds: Here.

Disclaimer: I was a contestant on this episode.  Obviously there are some parts I will remember strongly and my scoreline cannot remotely be considered a fair representation.  I'll frequently refer to my past self in the third person, to avoid having to clarify all the time whether I mean my current or past performance.


The early show talk is about my job this time.  I work as a computer programmer (or software engineer, depending on how fancy you want to sound) for the Computational Algebra Group in the mathematics department at Sydney University.  We develop a computer algebra system (called Magma) that is a research tool allowing computations to be done with mathematical objects that are somewhat more esoteric and interesting than just numbers.

The challenger for today is Eddy Hill, another university student and trivia enthusiast.  Every Wednesday he goes down to the local pub with the rest of his trivia team, who are called... well, it sounds to me like he says "Dringus and Drangus Comedy Team", but I'm not convinced I've heard it correctly.  He says it is from the TV show Tim and Eric, which he is also an enthusiast of.  (Googling suggests that "Dringus and Drungle" might be more correct... it's all pretty inconclusive, though.)  He attributes the enthusiasm for trivia to just being bored on Wednesday nights.


Eddy was a standby contestant, unexpectedly called up to action when the scheduled contestant failed to show up and was uncontactable.  As such, he may well have been missing out on some of the preparation that a scheduled contestant would have had.


Eddy starts off well behind -- his six-letter words are no match for the sevens and eights that Geoff finds -- and it's not until round 6 that he manages to get on the board.  Geoff has a good game on the letters but unusually struggles twice with the numbers, on one of which Eddy outdoes him.  Despite this, Geoff remains comfortably ahead and an extremely fast conundrum solution seals a comprehensive victory, 65 to 18. 

There's definitely some memory help this second time around -- most notably in the second numbers round -- and it's those numbers which make the difference as the letters performance is identical.  I hadn't recalled that this episode had two difficult numbers rounds in it.  I'm not sure if I should claim the conundrum or not, but it's still a win in any case.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 326: Geoff Bailey, Tim Clay (November 28, 2011)

Rounds: Here.

Disclaimer: I was a contestant on this episode.  Obviously there are some parts I will remember strongly and my scoreline cannot remotely be considered a fair representation.  I'll frequently refer to my past self in the third person, to avoid having to clarify all the time whether I mean my current or past performance.


On my second night it is revealed that I represented Australia in the 1988 IMO, in the bicentennial year when Canberra hosted it.  I got involved in that through high school maths classes and an enrichment program that seeks out mathematically-talented students and helps them develop their potential.  At the IMO I ended up with a bronze medal, corresponding to a position of equal 82nd out of 252 students.

Tonight's challenger is Tim Clay, a doctor of oncology at St Vincent's Hospital.  He finds it a very rewarding specialty where you get to help a lot of people; he notes that patients who are meeting with an oncology doctor are often very fearful and need a lot of help and reassurance.  Richard exposits for our benefit that oncology is cancer-related; Tim confirms this, and adds that he has recently been working in chemotherapy.


Tim was, I think, the most outgoing of the contestants on this day of filming.  He certainly brought some entertainment to the process of describing his answers, and I perhaps lifted a little in response.


The contestants start equally (both missing a quite findable nine), and then Geoff pulls away in the next three rounds.  Tim isn't able to make any inroads after that, and despite a decent conundrum solution ends up the loser as Geoff takes it 64 to 51.

This time around I remember the nine, and I'll take it anyway... just as well, as I had a mental lapse in a later letters round and couldn't find anything useful.  So I'd probably have done worse than I did back then, of all things.  Either I'm losing my edge, or I'm having trouble maintaining focus on episodes I've seen before.  Possibly a bit of both... I was particularly finely honed around the start of this blog, and I'm a bit less focussed now.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 325: Karla Treves, Geoff Bailey (November 25, 2011)

Rounds: Here.

Disclaimer: I was a contestant on this episode.  Obviously there are some parts I will remember strongly and my scoreline cannot remotely be considered a fair representation.  I'll frequently refer to my past self in the third person, to avoid having to clarify all the time whether I mean my current or past performance.


Richard returns to the topic of zookeeping when he talks to Karla.  She reveals that she loved visiting the zoo as a child and still does so today.  She loves seeing the conservation and preservation efforts.

Challenging Karla tonight is, well, me.  I'm described as a software engineer who loves participating in and creating puzzle hunts.  I'm asked to explain them a bit better, and give a somewhat garbled explanation -- loosely speaking, events with puzzles designed to be solved by teams, usually over the course of a week.  It's common these days for part of the puzzle to be working out what the puzzle is, to have to find and make sense of the hidden structure within the puzzle.

The puzzle hunt I have helped create is the CiSRA Puzzle Hunt, and I've enjoyed teaming up with the CiSRAns to take on the MUMS Puzzle Hunt and the SUMS Puzzle Hunt.


It's a bit of a nervous start for Geoff, as he misses an easy numbers get and mishears a letter to end up with an invalid word.  Aside from that, his letters performance was generally better and he managed to solidify a lead by choosing less comfortable numbers selections (the advantage of the challenger), which is just as well as Karla solves the conundrum in double-quick time.  Geoff wobbles home victorious, 55 to 37.

Things go much better the second time around, as you would expect.  I still won't claim the conundrum because I recalled it so vividly, and Karla was so very fast.  It's only by my previous mistakes that I beat myself, which is appropriate enough, although it was possible to do better.

The video player was quite uncooperative at first, but then settled down.  Might have been congestion as many people tried to watch at once?  I can hardly claim that my fan base is large enough for that.  *grins*

... actually, I've had a few problems with it, including it tending to reset after a pause, which is very annoying.  *sighs*

As usual, details after the jump.