Ep 437: Simon Walton, Mark Niciejewski (May 1, 2012)

Rounds: Here.


On Simon's fifth night Richard asks about his preference for the balanced mix in the numbers.  Simon explains that there are two reasons for this: The first is that he has practised the 75-times tables and really wants to use that practice; the second is that he has noticed that his opponents mostly prefer only one or two large numbers, so he is trying to throw them off a bit.  Sound strategy!

Before the first numbers round Richard points out that Simon could guarantee having the 75 by choosing the heavyweight mix, but Simon is not swayed by that.  Rightly so, since one still needs the right small numbers to multiply by and there's better odds of that with three instead of two of them.  (Also, the balanced mix can always make a 75 from 50 + 25 or 100 - 25, if need be.)

Tonight's challenger is Mark Niciejewski, a serving member of the Australian Army.  At his house Letters and Numbers is a family affair -- his (nearly) two-year-old daughter dances to the theme song when it comes on, and as soon as she hears Richard's voice she sits down and watches the entire episode.  When Lily puts up the consonants Mark's daughter says what they are along with Lily -- I'd hope she does so with the vowels, also, but he only mentions the consonants.  This is one of the reasons I really like this show; it has great potential to get the quite young interested in words and arithmetic.


Simon returned to form with the letters, finding a good eight and several sevens.  Mark was not able to keep up on that front, and Simon acquired a sizeable lead.  However, two surprising misses in the numbers rounds from him let Mark catch up enough to have a chance going into the conundrum.  In the end it proved to be too difficult for them both and Simon won his fifth game, 45 to 37.

I rushed through my play of this game as I had a dinner engagement to get to.  That may be why I did not quite feel on top of things again, but I managed to do pretty well regardless; I'm vexed at missing the best answer in round five, but aside from that only the conundrum was a stumbling block.  My mini-streak of solved conundrums comes to an end at six, but it's been a good run.  I was not able to get clear of Simon for a while, but those numbers slips let me forge ahead and I ended up winning by a comfortable margin.