Ep 289: Anthony Kendall, Michael Stone (March 26, 2015; originally aired October 6, 2011)

Rounds: Here.

Disclaimer: I watched this episode when it first aired, and although I did not recall any of it I cannot rule out memory being a factor.


This is Anthony's fifth night, and Richard wheels out a variant of the technique question, asking why Anthony makes the choices that he does.  Anthony says that with the letters he just likes to keep the consonants and the vowels together.  As for the numbers, he goes for the classroom mix because he finds it easier to have it dictated which large number will be used.  That's a point that often eludes contestants: The easiest mix, in terms of most games being solvable, is the two-large one.  But the single large number option is only barely behind it (each mix has approximately 98% of games solvable), and can be easier to work with since there is no need to choose which large number to work with.  I'd certainly recommend it as the option for any contestants who were not too comfortable with the numbers (if the show were still going, anyway).

Tonight's challenger is Michael Stone, a software programmer.  Richard says that Michael has the "extraordinary" talent of being able to recite the decimal version of one-seventh to as many decimal places as one wishes.  I thought he was going to say "of pi", and the switch to one-seventh took me by surprise.  It's also a joke, as the decimal expansion repeats after only six digits (0.142857142857...) so there's very little memorisation required.  Well, that's a tiny bit amusing, but is that really the most interesting thing he could come up with?  A shame, if so.


Anthony got a small lead in the first round when Michael tried an invalid answer; that proved to be a costly mistake.  The next few rounds were shared, then the tables were reversed in round five as Anthony had the invalid answer; that tied up the scores.  Another shared round followed, and we went into the second break with the scores level.  Michael stumbled in the last letters round with another invalid answer, and Anthony capitalised on Michael's error by doing very well in the last numbers round to take the points and guarantee his victory.  Michael got the consolation prize of solving the conundrum, but Anthony scraped home with the win, 50 to 49.


As usual, details after the jump.