Ep 350: Sebastian Ham, Nathan Dixon (December 30, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Tonight we find out that Sebastian is one of the vocalists in a rap group called Warcry; Richard asks if it involves a lot of planned lyric writing, or whether it is spontaneous.  Sebastian responds that it is the former, and involves "quite a lot of words... big, long pages of words."

Tonight's challenger is Nathan Dixon, a fibre-optic cable joiner.  Apparently his sister Natalie was on the show a while back; Nathan remarks that Letters and Numbers is important to them, as is family, but beating his little sister is more important to him.


There's not a lot to choose between the two contestants in this game.  There's only one letters round of difference (where Sebastian finds a good seven), and Nathan slips further behind in the second numbers game only to regain the ground on the third.  It's anyone's game going into the conundrum, and when Nathan buzzes in at the six second mark it looks like he will win.  But he says he made a mistake, and can only sit there ruing that early press as time ticks away.  I don't know if he found it in the remaining time -- I think he might have, but the body language isn't clear -- but Sebastian seals the result by finding the answer, literally in the last second.  Sebastian gets his third win, 58 to 41.

I had a mostly good game, but it was just a few seconds short of being exceptional, or indeed (as far as I can tell) optimal.  One off the pace in each of three letters rounds, in each case seeing the best answer a few seconds either side of time running out.  It was more than enough for a comprehensive win.

As usual, details after the break.