Ep 106: Kathryn James, Rhys McCaig (May 18, 2016; originally aired December 27, 2010)

Rounds: Here.

Kathryn James gets her turn in the champion's seat tonight, and we find out that she plays indoor soccer.  She has done so for a couple of years, and is "more of a defender", having scored a total of one goal last year.

Tonight's challenger is Rhys McCaig, and IT consultant with an interest in politics, to the extent that he attended the inauguration of Barack Obama.  Rhys happened to be nearby at the time for a wedding, and knowing that the inauguration was coming up he scrambled to find a ticket online; he paid an exorbitant amount of money for it, but says it was possibly one of the most exciting moments of his life.


It was a low-scoring affair tonight, with no number targets being reached and only one word as long as seven letters found.  Rhys was in trouble from the start, finding only very short words (at one point declaring a three); Kathryn also had a bit of trouble finding long options, so her advantage was smaller than might have been expected.  Rhys managed to score points in the first numbers round to reduce the gap, but Kathryn stretched her lead over the next two letters rounds.  Rhys finally scored points in the last letters round, putting him barely within conundrum range, but then Kathryn sealed the win in the final numbers round.  She followed that up by solving the conundrum, for a 41 to 13 victory.

I was doing quite well until the last two rounds, and on track for a maximal game.  But I got lost in the final numbers round and so missed my chance to equal David and Lily.  Kathryn beat me to the conundrum, but I had a comfortable lead over both contestants in any case.