Saturday 31 December 2011

Weekly summary: Episodes 346 to 350

Things are certainly easier now that Sam has retired, but he's keeping me on my toes with his comments -- thanks, Sam!  Welcome to Karen, and any other new readers who have found their way here.  I'm back in winning form this week, with my last two games being particularly good and culminating in my high score of the series so far; going much higher will probably require getting two full monties.


MonTueWedThuFri
Me5558687485
Champion4320124323
Challenger1041142016
David + Lily7077777688


Sam is a worthy retiring champion on a total that seems extremely unlikely to be beaten any time soon.  Meanwhile, Sebastian has definitely pushed Peter Crop out of contention for the finals, and needs just 8 points to overtake Alex van der Kooij.  A win would move him into fifth place, shunting me down a spot; that bodes ill for my finals chances, seeing as we're only just over halfway through the series.

Sam Gaffney518162676455380
Toby Baldwin594854434844296
Shaun Ellis435638594044280
Daniel Chua445956533652300
Geoff Bailey55646563

247
Nick Terry71465535

217
Alex van der Kooij42513525

153
Sebastian Ham394958


146


It's been a sparse week for the full monties, but one turned up at the end.  Lily struggled with the numbers on Monday but things proceeded  much more smoothly thereafter.


MonTueWedThuFri
Full Monties



11
Missed Full Monties


1
1
Tough Numbers2



2
Impossible Numbers




0


Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:


TotalGamesAverage
Sam Gaffney380663.33
Geoff Bailey247461.75
Jimmy Driscoll61161.00
Leanne Cox57157.00
Ryan Sutton57157.00
Nick Terry217454.25
Tim Clay51151.00
Peter Crop152350.67
Daniel Chua300650.00
Lainie Mercieca99249.50
Toby Baldwin296649.33
Sebastian Ham146*3*48.67
Natasha Podesser47147.00
Shaun Ellis280646.67
Brett Edwards139346.33
Michael Nichols90245.00
Karla Treves90245.00
Sandy Clarke45145.00
James Godfrey45145.00
Megan Marks133344.33
Nick Compton44144.00
Nathan Dixon41141.00
David Bradley77238.50
Alex van der Kooij153438.25
Adrian Lonigro38138.00
Colin Jones111337.00
Ann Vasconcelos73236.50
Ilona Coote36136.00
Kane Gross34134.00
Duncan Butler33133.00
Mitchell Fly33133.00
Hannah Marshall33133.00
Hiep Do98332.67
Susan Cumming32132.00
Sushma Garudadwajan62231.00

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.

Friday 30 December 2011

Ep 349: Sebastian Ham, Susan Cumming (December 29, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Richard reveals that Sebastian does kung fu and tai chi, and asks what form of kung fu he practices.  Sebastian responds that it is a style called Hung Leng, developed by a British sifu; it's a traditional Chinese form of wushu that uses all the animal styles, a bit of tai chi and bagua and lots of others.

Challenging Sebastian is Susan Cumming, a scientist and education manager at the Monash Institute of Medical Research.  She looks after PhD students there -- currently 101 of them; Richard makes a 101 Dalmatians reference, and we find out that Susan likes bichon frises.  The students are mainly studying molecular biology, but there's also a lot of bioinformatics and some psychology.  Within the molecular biology area they range from cancer research to baby research, to reproduction and development, and to immunology.


Susan does well in the letters, outdoing Sebastian twice (once when he overreaches for a seven that it not listed in the Macquarie).  Unfortunately for her, Sebastian does well on the numbers today while Susan is unable to make much headway at all.  That's more than enough to give Sebastian the win, 49 to 32.

I had a good game today; I missed a seven (possibly extendable to an eight, but more on that in round four) that I've seen in the past, but aside from that did as well as I plausibly could.  Coupled with a fast conundrum solution, I have a comfortable victory myself and feel back in better territory.

As usual, details after the jump.

Thursday 29 December 2011

Ep 348: Ann Vasconcelos, Sebastian Ham (December 28, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Ann returns for her second night, and we find out that she has been to Malta a couple of times, and loves it.  She makes mention of the history, the churches, the old buildings... she adds that the people are so friendly and the food is lovely.  She'd love to live there, in fact.

Challenging Ann tonight is Sebastian Ham, who is a draftsman for an interior design company and an avid skateboarder and snowboarder.  He's been doing the latter for around 25 years, and the main attraction is the speed.  Richard asks if Sebastian has had any crashes; Sebastian responds that there has been nothing major on the skateboard, but plenty on the snowboard as that involves going a lot higher and a lot further, with many more obstacles.


It's a pretty even performance from the two contestants on the letters rounds, but Sebastian had by far the better of the numbers.  Ann might have tied the scores on the last numbers round but something goes awry somewhere, and Sebastian takes an unbeatable lead into the conundrum.  With neither contestant making headway on it, Sebastian wins 39 to 25.

Once again I was in decent form with the letters -- just missing a very findable eight, and being slow on the conundrum again -- but let down by the numbers, where I missed two very findable solutions.  Nonetheless, it was enough to cruise to a win by a margin of more than 50 points.

As usual, details after the jump.

Wednesday 28 December 2011

Ep 347: James Bell, Ann Vasconcelos (December 27, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


There are two new contestants tonight, after Sam's successful (and possibly high-scoring) retirement.  Sitting in the champion's chair is James Bell, a computer forensic scientist and keen tramper.  Richard asks for clarification about whether being a tramper is different from being a bushwalker.  James explains that there is a difference, as bushwalking is done in Australia and tramping is done in New Zealand.  Since he does most of his bushwalking in New Zealand, he has to do tramping.

James has done a couple of "reasonable size" walks -- nothing over a week.  (His definition of 'reasonable' clearly differs from mine in this regard.)  He says that the Abel Tasman track is up to five days, and he has done the Milford walk as well.

Taking the challenger's chair tonight is Ann Vasconcelos, a strawberry packer.  Richard remarks -- and I admit I'd never considered this before -- that it is clearly a skilled job to get them looking so nice in the punnets.  How long does it take to learn those skills?  Ann has been doing it for about eleven years, at any rate.  She says that it is just like doing a jigsaw puzzle: You have to get the right shapes and sizes and weights, and it takes her about thirty seconds to do a punnet.


It is fairly close early on, but Ann does win four of the five letters rounds and the numbers rounds don't give James enough of a chance to catch up.  He was perhaps a bit unlucky in that regard, both in having less control over the numbers and that Ann's last word could well have been invalid (and wasn't nearly as solid as she appeared to think it was).  That would have kept him within range going into the conundrum; Ann solved it first in any case, winning 48 to 26.

I was much more relaxed over this game, and it started off pretty well.  Overall, in fact, there were just two single-letter drops as compared with David and Lily; the scoreline shows a larger difference because Ann did manage to do better on one of those rounds and the conundrum.  Aside from once more being too slow to solve the conundrum, this was a good round, and I'm back in winning territory again.

As usual, details after the jump.

Tuesday 27 December 2011

Ep 346: Sam Gaffney, Cameron Profitt (December 26, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


On Sam's final night, it's remarked that it was his birthday during the break.  Supposedly he promised to bring the hosts birthday cake but didn't, but they'll forgive him.  (No such promise made it to air, I should add.)

(I'm assuming that Sam's birthday was on December 24th, rather than at the time of filming.  There's a lot of maintenance of the pretence of live filming in this episode, as David and Richard back-and-forth about what they got for Christmas.  It does seem a bit forced, to be honest.)

Tonight's challenger is Cameron Profitt, a GP working in "a small Victorian township".  (Their surgery appears to have nine GPs for a little under 2500 people (as of the 2006 census, the population of Bannockburn was 2468); I don't know if that's an unusual ratio or not.)  Richard asks what the attraction is of being a GP in a small country town; Cameron responds that he's been there for 20 years, and the main appeal is that you get to know people very well over that time, and their family and background.  So when they present with a problem, you can take that knowledge into consideration when determining treatment.


Cameron just isn't able to get started in this game, with no answer for the first two numbers rounds and consistently outdone in the early letters rounds.  Sam is uncatchable going into the second break, and ends up winning 55 to 15 to cap off an excellent performance in all six games.  Easily the best contestant we've seen this series, and I look forward to his reappearance in the finals.

I was horribly patchy in this one, falling apart completely in the middle rounds.  Fortunately (from my perspective) Sam had some difficulties also, and I was able to take a narrow lead into the conundrum.  It proved elusive for Sam but not for me and so I levelled the game score in our informal competition at three games apiece... but six points ahead on aggregate.  It goes to show how closely matched we are!

As usual, details after the jump.

Saturday 24 December 2011

Weekly summary: Episodes 341 to 345

Sam has certainly hammered my statistics this week, but it's been good competition and I'm enjoying it greatly.


MonTueWedThuFri
Me6341517054
Champion1781574564
Challenger3825164520
David + Lily7494767872


Sam has moved to fourth in the rankings, pushing Brett out of contention.  But even if Sam loses his next game he will be in at least third position, and if he wins (as I expect him to) he will be first by a considerable margin.

Toby Baldwin594854434844296
Shaun Ellis435638594044280
Daniel Chua445956533652300
Sam Gaffney5181626764
325
Geoff Bailey55646563

247
Nick Terry71465535

217
Alex van der Kooij42513525

153
Peter Crop616031


152


There was another double conundrum on Thursday, but it's still not worth tabulating.  It's been a banner week for the impossible numbers, with a very surprising three of them.


MonTueWedThuFri
Full Monties
2


2
Missed Full Monties11
Tough Numbers




0
Impossible Numbers11

13


Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:


TotalGamesAverage
Sam Gaffney325*5*65.00
Geoff Bailey247461.75
Jimmy Driscoll61161.00
Leanne Cox57157.00
Ryan Sutton57157.00
Nick Terry217454.25
Tim Clay51151.00
Peter Crop152350.67
Daniel Chua300650.00
Lainie Mercieca99249.50
Toby Baldwin296649.33
Natasha Podesser47147.00
Shaun Ellis280646.67
Brett Edwards139346.33
Michael Nichols90245.00
Karla Treves90245.00
Sandy Clarke45145.00
James Godfrey45145.00
Megan Marks133344.33
Nick Compton44144.00
David Bradley77238.50
Alex van der Kooij153438.25
Adrian Lonigro38138.00
Colin Jones111337.00
Ilona Coote36136.00
Kane Gross34134.00
Duncan Butler33133.00
Mitchell Fly33133.00
Hannah Marshall33133.00
Hiep Do98332.67
Sushma Garudadwajan62231.00

Ep 345: Sam Gaffney, Andy Welland (December 23, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Richard asks Sam what sort of techniques he brings to the show -- is this a game five tradition?  Sam notes that there are some tricks you can learn for his favourite number mix of four large and two small; I emphatically agree, and may write a post about it some day.  With the main letter mixes there's not too much to be done, but with the conundrums it can sometimes be helpful to pick a letter and start with that.  Given that when he does solve a conundrum he does so very quickly, it looks like that technique is working well for him.

Tonight's challenger is Andy Welland, a doctor of biochemistry who spent a year in Thailand teaching English.  As Richard notes, Andy has quite a strong Scottish accent; Andy remarks that this did make the teaching somewhat of a learning experience for him.  He first noticed how strong his accent was when he said something and it was repeated back to him in fifty Thai-Glaswegian accents.


Sam's in very good form today.  There's a reach for a nine that isn't there, but aside from that he's just one letter short of optimal and with another very quick conundrum solution to boot.  Andy is consistently behind in the lettes rounds and is unable to make any headway during the numbers, as Sam takes the game 64 to 20.

It continues to be very close between Sam and I; equal performances all the way, but he outdid me comprehensively on the conundrum and I've got my third loss.  This puts my record against Sam as two from five, with just six points difference on aggregate.  Hopefully I'll catch him tomorrow... if not, there's always the finals for revenge, as he must make them now.

As usual, details after the jump.

Friday 23 December 2011

Ep 344: Sam Gaffney, Leanne Cox (December 22, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Richard reveals that Sam plays indoor cricket, and asks why the indoor version specifically.  Sam lists a few of the advantages: It doesn't take very long; it never gets rained out; and you don't get sunburned playing it (which he asides is good for him, and as a similarly-complexioned person I can certainly relate to that).  He plays it a couple of times a week; Richard asks if it has a different feel to the outdoor game.  Sam notes a major difference that everyone gets to bat for four overs and bowl for two overs, so you don't get a duck and have to sit there watching everyone else for six hours.  It's much more participatory, as Richard puts it.

Challenging Sam tonight is Leanne Cox, a secondary maths and physics teacher.  (That's what Richard says, anyway... should that have been "secondary school"?  She teaches at Frankston High School, at any rate.)  Leanne has the rather unusual habit of counting letters in words, especially in long words; she admits that this makes reading books a particularly slow process.  She's quite quick at it by now, and Richard opines somewhat optimistically that it may help her in the game.  It's hard to see a direct connection, but such a habit will have made her pay more attention to words than most people, and that could plausibly make her more adept at manipulating them.


It's a close game tonight; Leanne gets the jump in the first round with a well-spotted eight, but Sam equalises in the next round.  Assisted by easy numbers rounds, thereafter it is level-pegging all the way to the conundrum; neither solves it, and a second conundrum is required.  Sam finds this one quickly, and is probably relieved to take the 67 to 57 victory.  Leanne certainly had chances -- most notably in round 4 -- and may perhaps consider herself a little unlucky; a score of 57 would be enough to win most games.

I was in better form tonight, just missing that initial eight but otherwise doing as well as possible.  That gave me a satisfactory winning margin, and puts my record against Sam at two games apiece.

As usual, details after the jump.

Wednesday 21 December 2011

Ep 343: Sam Gaffney, Lewis Robinson (December 21, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Sam relates how after his audition for Letters and Numbers (which obviously went pretty well), as he got back to his car he was... attacked by ducks.  That's certainly not an expected occurrence!  There were four or five of them, and he had to fend them off with his umbrella; it was a very nice umbrella that his wife had given him and it got broken in the chaos, although he attributes that more to the wind than to the ducks.

Tonight's challenger is the versatile Lewis Robinson, described as a musician, pizza maker, professional stilt walker, and soon-to-be primary school teacher.  Richard asks how he came to be so many things, and Lewis quips that he is just a bit indecisive.  Richard wonders if Lewis has done them all at once, and not surprisingly the answer is negative.  Lewis likes to think of himself as a "jack of all trades, master of some".


Sam doesn't seem in as powerful form today, or perhaps the letters just weren't there for it.  But a risky eight on the first round comes home for him, and sets up a pattern of mostly outdoing Lewis, particularly in the numbers.  It's a sad showing from the numbers this game, with two very easy targets.  Sam rounds it out with a lightning fast conundrum solve, and a 62 to 21 win.

For my part, this match was much closer than the previous one, eventually coming down to the conundrum and mere milliseconds in it.  But I have to give the benefit to Sam and go down narrowly.  There were certainly chances for me -- if that risky play by him in the first round had not come off, for instance -- but round four was the place where I should have won this.  Two losses to Sam, and I'll be trying to keep it from being three tomorrow.

As usual, details after the jump.

Tuesday 20 December 2011

Ep 342: Sam Gaffney, Tina Stevens (December 20, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Chatting to Sam, Richard reveals that Sam is also a musical person -- there's been a good many of those on the show this series, it seems.  Sam isn't in a band, but he does play the guitar and recently acquired a bass.  He even played the guitar at his own wedding; he mentions Layla and Bohemian Rhapsody, although apparently he didn't play all of the latter.

Tonight's challenger is Tina Stevens, an RSPCA volunteer.  She works in the cattery, cleaning the pens out and keeping the food and water fresh; she also does some administrative work.  She is motivated by a love for animals, especially cats.


Sam is in very good form tonight, and Tina can't keep up as he excels in the letters.  Two invalid words don't help her cause, but with Sam finding a nine in another round and Tina also missing two numbers rounds, the final result is a crushing 81 to 25 victory to Sam.

I... was also crushed.  A careless spelling error in the second letters round led to an eleven point turnaround, but it was the unanswered full monty that made this unrecoverable.  With Sam continuing to show good form in the numbers, there was no chance to catch up and I have my first loss for the series (when playing from home).  Based on this form, Sam is a clear current favourite to reach the finals, and indeed to win them.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 341: Megan Marks, Sam Gaffney (December 19, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Talking to Megan tonight reveals that she is still very excited about Friday's win.  This feels like a waste of getting-to-know-the-contestant time.  (Not her fault; she responded to what Richard led with.)

Challenging Megan is Sam Gaffney, an analyst who consults to the retail electricity industry.  He remarks that the wholesale electricity market is quite exciting, as the wholesale price (that the retailers are paying to the electricity generators) might average around $35 per megawatt hour (MWh), but can in a short term jump up to $12,500 per MWh!  So there's a lot of risk in such a situation, if retailers don't have enough supply contracts, and many of them have gone broke as a result.


Too many six-letter words from Megan tonight, and Sam is good enough to beat them twice.  The numbers hold no solace for her -- I'm pretty sure that Sam is better from what little we saw -- and Sam wins convincingly, 51 to 23.  With Megan below the 30 points that she needed to knock Brett out of the rankings, she won't be back for the finals.

It was a decent game for me; Lily outdid me in a numbers round and David in the final letters round, but other than that I was mostly on track.  With the final numbers round defeating everyone completely, the seventies are out of reach but solving the conundrum pushes me above the sixty mark, to round off a relatively easy win in one of my better games.

As usual, details after the jump.

Saturday 17 December 2011

Weekly summary: Episodes 336 to 340

Somewhat disappointing results this week for me, as shown by the gap to David and Lily; only Monday was a really good game.  On the other hand, I did find my second full monty on Thursday, so there's that.  I definitely feel that I'm losing my edge; I failed to get to the target in five of the fifteen numbers rounds, including an embarassing nine off and an invalid total.  The letters were a bit better, with six of the twenty-five rounds being ones I should have done better on.  Hopefully next week shall be more satisfactory!


MonTueWedThuFri
Me7451577167
Champion424025046
Challenger1729161256
David + Lily7875788478


No movement in the ranking list yet, although Megan will almost certainly push Brett out in her next game -- just 30 points or a win will do it.

Toby Baldwin594854434844296
Shaun Ellis435638594044280
Daniel Chua445956533652300
Geoff Bailey55646563

247
Nick Terry71465535

217
Alex van der Kooij42513525

153
Peter Crop616031


152
Brett Edwards662449


139


There was a double conundrum on Friday, but this is rare enough that I won't add it to the table.  The other statistics:


MonTueWedThuFri
Full Monties


1
1
Missed Full Monties11
Tough Numbers
1


1
Impossible Numbers




0


Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:


TotalGamesAverage
Geoff Bailey247461.75
Jimmy Driscoll61161.00
Ryan Sutton57157.00
Megan Marks110*2*55.00
Nick Terry217454.25
Tim Clay51151.00
Peter Crop152350.67
Daniel Chua300650.00
Lainie Mercieca99249.50
Toby Baldwin296649.33
Natasha Podesser47147.00
Shaun Ellis280646.67
Brett Edwards139346.33
Michael Nichols90245.00
Karla Treves90245.00
Sandy Clarke45145.00
James Godfrey45145.00
Nick Compton44144.00
David Bradley77238.50
Alex van der Kooij153438.25
Adrian Lonigro38138.00
Colin Jones111337.00
Ilona Coote36136.00
Kane Gross34134.00
Duncan Butler33133.00
Mitchell Fly33133.00
Hannah Marshall33133.00
Hiep Do98332.67
Sushma Garudadwajan62231.00

Ep 340: Megan Marks, Jimmy Driscoll (December 16, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


On Megan's second night we find out that she loves to study; apparently the tally reaches 19 years!  She has four degrees: Two arts, one science, and one computer science; it is not stated what level those were taken to.

Megan's challenger tonight is recruiting coordinator Jimmy Driscoll, who finds footballers for the North Melbourne Football Club.  This involves finding new prospects, interviewing them, getting them into the club and working out their contracts.

(The above is essentially all the content of both chats.  It feels like those have been getting very short recently; are the contestants not having much to say about the topics, or being cut short for time reasons?)


It's an extremely close match, with equal lengths being declared in every letters round and the numbers being far too easy.  But a stumble from Megan on the final numbers round sees Jimmy taking a ten point lead into the conundrum; Megan manages to solve it first, and we have the first double conundrum of the series.  This results in a new high total game for the series.  (As a participant in the previous record holder, I'm mildly put out about that second conundrum which allowed them to overtake this record.)  Megan wins, 71 to 61.

I started badly, missing some easy longer words in the first round and being undone by the Macquarie not listing my word in the second round.  That put me in poor position, and the next many rounds offered little scope for advancement over the contestants.  I finally nudged into a one-point lead going into the conundrum, but I never like it coming down to that.  As it turns out I solved both of them in a second (they were each pretty apposite to the show), and scraped home with the win.

As usual, details after the jump.

Friday 16 December 2011

Ep 339: Hiep Do, Megan Marks (December 15, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Tonight we learn that Hiep attended the United Nations Youth Australia State Conference in March.  There was a model UN debate there, and they acted like the General Assembly, debating through an issue.  It's possible this may even have been for the Thant-Evatt Trophy; if so, it wasn't made clear.

Challenging Hiep tonight is Megan Marks, an arts program organiser for the Sunshine Coast Council.  There's a big emphasis on green projects up there, apparently, and they do a lot of work with ephemeral/transient projects, things with no permanent effect on the environment.  She says there are a lot of artists and creativity there, and it's a matter of skilling them up and getting that creativity out there.


There's very little to choose between the contestants on the letters, although they could certainly have done somewhat better on most rounds.  Megan has somewhat the better of the numbers, with an error from Hiep in the last numbers round giving her an unbeatable lead going into the conundrum.  With just a little more care Hiep could have sent this into conundrum overtime, and I imagine he will be ruing the lost opportunity.  Megan wins by 39 to 23.

I had two rounds where I saw better answers in the last second or two of regulation time, which didn't leave enough time to write them down -- somewhat frustrating!  Aside from that, there were some issues with my numbers round performance again, which is a worrying trend.  I was mostly good in the letters, though, including seeing a tricky nine within time.  One more comfortable victory under the belt...

As usual, details after the jump.

Thursday 15 December 2011

Ep 338: Hiep Do, Camilla Horn (December 14, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


The pre-game chat seems a bit light today.  Hiep is asked about what sports he plays, and mentions that he used to play soccer but has been injured for the last three years (ouch), so he's taken up badminton.  Then Richard and David talk about the origins of the word for a bit, as it was the subject of one of David's talks a while back.

Tonight's challenger is Camilla Horn, a personal assistant and karaoke enthusiast.  There's some general poking of fun at karaoke, and Camilla plays up to that.  Apparently she only wheels it out at the staff Christmas party, but then there's no stopping her.


It's a pretty shaky start from both contestants, with several invalid selections or just not having an answer at all.  At the second break it looks very plausible that we could be in for a new record lowest winning and/or combined score.  Fortunately the final numbers game is very easy and saves them from this fate, otherwise it would have been a new record for both, with the conundrum proving elusive.  Hiep hangs on to win, 32 to 23.

I missed some words that I should have seen (and that I did see not long after time was up), but I still feel much better about today than recent games, courtesy of solving all the numbers tonight.  They were easy, admittedly, but it's still nice to be back on track in that regard.  Now if I can just get it together on the letters again...

As usual, details after the jump.

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Ep 337: Lainie Mercieca, Hiep Do (December 13, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Lainie returns, this time described as a quiz show "participant" rather than a devotee.  There is a passing mention of her having been on 1 vs. 100 as well as the others listed yesterday, then Richard asks her whether she prepares well in advance for the shows.  She definitely does, and lists her preparation for this show as having a copy of the book that she's been practicing with as well as watching the show every night.  That's... really the bare minimum one could do, so I hope that she did a bit more than that and just didn't mention it.  And while I'm on this tangent, the first five books (covering episodes 1 to 250) are now available at the SBS shop.

(As a brief digression here, Lainie did not respond that well to the conversational hooks she was given.  Future contestants: A question is not something to give a yes or no answer to, but something giving you an opportunity to expand a little on the subject matter.)

Tonight's challenger is Hiep Do, at sixteen year of age the youngest a participant is currently allowed to be.  He's completing year 11 at what is described as Victoria's first specialist sports school.  Richard asks what they do at the school, and Hiep responds that they have a wide range of sports with both before- and after-school training.  He lists soccer, tennis, and "footy" in particular, but says that it is pretty much any sport.  (Not surprisingly, the school website has a more comprehensive list.)  Richard switches tacks, asking where Hiep hopes to go after he finishes school.  Hiep aims to one day do some journalism, to travel the world and see the world, or maybe do some sport science.


There's a bit of back-and-forth in the letters rounds that Hiep has slightly the better of, coupled with a better numbers result that sees Hiep safely clear going into the conundrum.  Just as well, as he buzzes in with an incorrect answer and Lainie solves it within the remaining time; in the end there's just three points in it, with Hiep winning 43 to 40.

For my part... oh, my, this was a poor game.  Ryan, if you're still reading this, I expect to hear from you about how you crushed me tonight.  A missed eight in the letters, two rather poor numbers rounds (including a nine-away shocker under pressure that bizarrely ended up counting), and an incorrect conundrum attempt.  I thought for a while that this would be my first loss of the series, but that second numbers round defeated the contestants completely and I scraped home with the win.  The score was higher, but my disappointment in the numbers performance makes this feel like a worse performance than that of episode 314.

As usual, details after the jump.

Monday 12 December 2011

Ep 336: Lainie Mercieca, Duncan Butler (December 12, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


With Toby winning his last game and retiring undefeated, we have two new contestants tonight.  First up is Lainie Mercieca, described as a "quiz show devotee".  She's been on many shows, apparently, including Wheel of Fortune, The Weakest Link, Sale of the Century, and Temptation.  She enjoys the challenge of them and also the whole lights/camera/action vibe; she finds it all a lot of fun.

Next up is Duncan Butler, an excavator operator.  He's asked what his most fun job was, and relates how when he was much younger he worked in a department store, assembling and testing toys and bicycles for Christmas sales.  He and the other employees turned the loading dock into their private playpen.


Duncan falls behind early, and although he finishes well the only time he outpoints Lainie is in the conundrum.  It lets him finish on a good note, but Lainie has the victory with 59 points to Duncan's 33.

For my part I similarly outpaced Lainie, winning by a similar margin.  There was a blemish with the first numbers round, but aside from that it was fairly comfortable territory.

As usual, details after the jump.

Saturday 10 December 2011

Weekly summary: Episodes 331 to 335

Some decent performances for me in this lot, but you can certainly see how missed rounds (those where I scored no points due to a contestant outdoing me) make the total dip noticeably.  This week saw me finally see a full monty in regulation time, and hopefully there shall be more of them to come.  It seems to average out to around two a week, so there's plenty of potential.


MonTueWedThuFri
Me8372516372
Champion2133313614
Challenger623102914
David + Lily8874757687


Toby's victory in that final game moves him from third to first in the rankings list, and pushes Colin Jones out of finals contention:

Toby Baldwin594854434844296
Shaun Ellis435638594044280
Daniel Chua445956533652300
Geoff Bailey55646563

247
Nick Terry71465535

217
Alex van der Kooij42513525

153
Peter Crop616031


152
Brett Edwards662449


139


Other statistics:


MonTueWedThuFri
Full Monties1


12
Missed Full Monties11
Tough Numbers
1


1
Impossible Numbers




0


Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:


TotalGamesAverage
Geoff Bailey247461.75
Ryan Sutton57157.00
Nick Terry217454.25
Tim Clay51151.00
Peter Crop152350.67
Daniel Chua300650.00
Toby Baldwin296649.33
Natasha Podesser47147.00
Shaun Ellis280646.67
Brett Edwards139346.33
Michael Nichols90245.00
Karla Treves90245.00
Sandy Clarke45145.00
James Godfrey45145.00
Nick Compton44144.00
David Bradley77238.50
Alex van der Kooij153438.25
Adrian Lonigro38138.00
Colin Jones111337.00
Ilona Coote36136.00
Kane Gross34134.00
Mitchell Fly33133.00
Hannah Marshall33133.00
Sushma Garudadwajan62231.00

Friday 9 December 2011

Ep 335: Toby Baldwin, Richard Stevens (December 9, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Richard asks Toby for his review of memorable moments of the episodes so far.  Toby notes that there have been several themes -- some of them his own generation -- and remarks with mild amusement that he has been trying to make David's life difficult when trying to match words to themes.  From my perspective, only episode 333 really delivered in terms of a running theme for the show, but it did so very well.

Tonight's challenger is... another Richard.  I'm going to avoid having to clarify which Richard I mean by not referring to Richard Morecroft again for the rest of this post.

Anyway, Richard Stevens is up; he is the managing director of a medical device distribution company who plays keyboards for a rock band.  There's been quite a few musicians recently!  His band is called Bang Shang a Lang and they play 70's and 80's covers at corporate events, and at pubs and clubs around Sydney.


It's yet another close game tonight, in part because the numbers once again pose stumbling blocks for the contestants -- a whopping five out of six declarations are invalid.  They mostly match on the letters rounds, having the same word three of the five times, and the scores are tied going into the conundrum.  Toby finds the solution seven seconds in to win the game 44 to 34, and becomes the second retiring champion of the series.

I almost had a very good game tonight; just some confusion over the final numbers stopped that.  Once again I missed a full monty, but I'm not that upset about it this time -- it would have been good to find it, but icing on the cake.

As usual, details after the jump.

Ep 334: Toby Baldwin, Yasmin Khan (December 8, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Richard notes that we've had themes for the last two nights -- music two nights ago, and food last night.  He asks Toby if there will be another theme tonight, and if he would care to nominate one.  Toby refers to the quote about music being the food of love, so suggests that maybe love would be a suitable theme to follow those two.  I'll say right now that David tries his best to make it work (with some success, admittedly) but it's mostly a stretch and I won't highlight it further.

Challenging Toby tonight is Yasmin Khan, a consultant and festival organiser.  In fact, she's president of the organising committee of Eidfest, which is a festival for the Brisbane Muslim community to celebrate the end of Ramadan.  She remarks that what they want to do in the festival is to highlight the diversity of the Muslim community; in particular, she says that "people always think that to be Muslim you have to be Arab, and to be Arab you have to Muslim, and we just want to dispel some of those myths".


It feels like the game should have been a bit closer than it was; both contestants find six- or seven-letter words consistently (which is the first time since Toby's first episode that six has been the minimum), but Toby has the better of it.  Neither contestant is particularly convincing on the numbers tonight, but again Toby does slightly better and has a safe lead going into the conundrum.  With neither solving it, he ends up winning with 48 points to 29.

I feel off my game tonight, with far too many sixes and missing the target on one of the numbers rounds.  But I only drop one letters round as opposed to yesterday's pair, and solving the conundrum puts me past the 60 mark again.  Definitely some improvement needed; hopefully I'll be able to find it tomorrow.

As usual, details after the jump.

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Ep 333: Toby Baldwin, George Solomos (December 7, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Richard mentions that Toby has an electronic interest, and asks him how he applies those electronic skills.  Toby responds that he (not surprisingly) does so mostly in musical ways, and in particular is a fan of the "black arts" of valve amplifiers.  He justifies that description by saying that it involves high voltages, high danger, and hasn't really been understood since the sixties.  He thinks it is worth it, though, as they produce better sound, are more stable, and have greater longevity.

Going up against Toby is George Solomos, a transactional banker and business owner.  Apparently George (together with his business partner) has developed a new social network.  Although that's not necessarily concept-new, as he says that they have "basically re-created Facebook", making it a bit more user-friendly and with more of a business networking aspect.  Richard observes that existing social networks are huge businesses, and asks if George thinks that they can match that success.  As you would imagine, George is hoping that they will.


It's an odd game tonight: George is off the pace on the letters, consistently behind.  Toby is even further off on the numbers, invalid twice and eight away on the third.  With the letters rounds being of limited gain -- nothing more than sevens to be found tonight, which doesn't happen very often -- Toby is ahead but vulnerable going into the conundrum.  He does well to find it, though, and takes a slightly shaky win, 43 to 24.

I was a bit off the pace here also, being beaten in two of the letters rounds and ending up with my lowest score since the 38 back in episode 314.  I just barely scraped past 50, breaking the long run of 60+ scores.

As usual, details after the jump.

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Ep 332: Toby Baldwin, Eleanor Lamb (December 6, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Yesterday we learned more about Toby's music interests, and today Richard asks him about what his pathology work involves.  Toby processes and tests specimens, both from within the hospital and from outside it.  A good deal of it is clinical trial work, so it is important to be extra careful with names and dates to ensure that the integrity of the trial is maintained.  Richard has this view of Toby peering down microscopes, but Toby says that it is more a matter of operating "big machines", spinning samples down, and maintaining the very expensive equipment.

Tonight's challenger is Eleanor Lamb, a university student and musician.  She plays trombone in a ska band, The Kujo Kings, and every week or two they'll have a gig somewhere in Melbourne (usually a pub or a bar, as is to be expected).  The band has two EPs out, with Eleanor playing on one of them.


There's some awkward rounds early on (uncooperative letters, and a difficult numbers target), but then things settle down.  Toby has the better of it, and a solution to the final numbers round sees him safely ahead for the conundrum.  He solves the conundrum, too, winning the game 54 points to 28.

I really struggled in those first three rounds, missing a word I should have found and changing tacks at the wrong point in the numbers round (leading to two away, which I think is the worst for a while).  But I had not fallen behind and the rest went as well as it could, complete with an early conundrum solution and a comfortable win in the end.

As usual, details after the jump.

Monday 5 December 2011

Ep 331: Toby Baldwin, Tom Museth (December 5, 2011)

Rounds: Here.


Toby returns as the carry-over champion, and we learn that he's still very much involved with music.  He considers it more of a passion now than a career, but he is actively involved with bands, doing live sound and studio recordings.  He also plays instruments, usually in other people's bands; mostly heavier rock and punk rock, but he's "been known to dip [his] feet into the waters of country and pop music occasionally."  Richard jokes that the punks might think those were pretty muddy waters, and I can't tell whether he intended that pun or if it was just coincidence.  Toby grants that it is somewhat damaging to his street cred.

Tonight's challenger is Tom Museth, a technical editor, web developer, and former journalist.  Richard asks more about the journalism; Tom started off with feature writing in magazines -- he mentions finance and horticultural ones specifically, but adds that it was "all kinds, really" -- and after a while migrated to newspapers, mostly doing investigative journalism.  Then he moved into the production side of things, becoming a subeditor, so he's really covered quite the range of possibilities in journalism.


The contestants start off equal, but Tom mostly ends up a letter behind in the letters rounds, and somewhat worse off in the numbers rounds.  Neither contestant got to the target in any of those, so there was certainly room for improvement.  Toby is safely ahead going into the conundrum that neither of them solve, and takes the victory 48 to 13.

I was so glad to have unseen episodes to watch again after two weeks of familiar ones.  This was tempered somewhat by the SBS video player being extremely uncooperative tonight.  In fact, it took me somewhere around four hours of attempts before I was able to view the entire episode; at the worst parts, I would get maybe 30 seconds of new footage, then it would stall, and eventually say that "The selected item is not currently available".  It is mind-boggling just how poor this is; properly buffering data is not hard!

Aside from that, this was a decent game for me.  I finally found a nine within time (actually before it, since I was anticipating the final letter), and mostly optimal results for the rest.  A missed numbers target and one shorter word than I would have liked are the only blemishes here.  (And I'm putting the latter down to the frustrations of thee hours fighting with the website.)  A comfortable victory, and my highest score of the series to date. 

As usual, details after the jump.

Sunday 4 December 2011

About this blog

This has been going for long enough for the original post to be a bit hard to find, so I thought I'd aggregate links to various useful posts here.  It's sparse at the moment, but will presumably grow in time.  The quick summary is that this is a record of how Letters and Numbers would go if each episode were a three-cornered match with me as the third contestant.  The longer version can be found in the introductory post.

I was a contestant on the show, starting at episode 325; I have written a little about the process of becoming a contestant, and of being a contestant.

I started this blog at the beginning of series 4, although I have been watching since midway through series 2.  I hope that SBS will eventually show the old episodes again so that I can add the first three series in, but I doubt that they will.

Being a contestant

Earlier I spoke, although perhaps not too informatively, about the process of becoming a contestant.  Now that my episodes have aired, I will say a little more about being a contestant.  Firstly, though, I want to note one other person who I did not mention in that post's messages of appreciation: the well-known comedian Russell Gilbert, who turns out to be Rochelle's partner.  He replaced Brose as the audience entertainer on the second day of filming; I did not mention this at the time to avoid giving away the result of an unaired (or at least, unblogged) episode.

The prep-work on contestants is fairly light: Clothes, microphone, and make-up.  You are supposed to bring enough changes of clothes for six episodes; they test these for appropriateness on TV, so if there's anything you feel dubious about then bringing further spares can't hurt.  As it turns out, I had one shirt rejected due to being too shiny, but had catered for this with potential replacements.  I was allowed some leeway over which shirt was worn when; their main concerns are to provide visual contrast between the contestants, and between successive appearances of the same contestant.

The microphone process was easy, although the belt clip was broken on the one that I wore so it went into the back pocket instead.  I'm sure they would have worked something out if I were pocketless, but fortunately this was not required.

The make-up application was unfamiliar to me, and I confess I was not particularly fond of it.  Once it was on it went mostly unnoticed, although it did slightly discourage any lip-licking.  Since I was eliminated before lunch I was able to get it removed and did not have to worry about eating with the make-up on.  (Which would have been fine in any case, I'm sure.)


The day starts early; contestants are supposed to be there before eight and the schedule allows for continuing on to 6:30 in the evening.  There's five episodes to be filmed each day with an hour and a half allowed for each.  If things go smoothly then that should be plenty of time, but they don't always go smoothly...

As it turns out, both days I attended apparently set successive records for early finishing; my perspective may not be the most typical!  I'd like to think that I had something to do with it, but that would be a hard claim to sustain.  At least I didn't obviously make things go badly!

There's an early walk through the contestant process, complete with mock playing of a game; some of the crew were standing in for the hosts, in amusing fashion (particularly the one who was occupying David's position and described whatever answers were given as "the best that I could find, too").  Some guidelines for behaviour were laid down, and how to avoid some of the problems that have arisen in the past.  By now they've got a good feel for what can go wrong, and how to avoid it, I think.

Prior to an episode starting there'll be a brief chance to chat with David and Lily and Richard; Richard in particular will check on what he'll talk with you about in the introduction, which gives you a little time to prepare what you are going to say.  Having watched the episodes now, I see that I tended to respond to his remark with an infodump of everything there was to say, so there was no back-and-forth; I'm not sure if this was desirable or not.  It feels better than requiring too much information to be drawn out of you; some sense of engagement or passion is definitely wanted.

When not working on a round, you need to be looking somewhere.  My approach was to look at whoever was speaking (usually Richard), but I wish I'd looked at the audience a bit more -- I was rarely facing in the direction of the camera.  This seemed more noticeable as the challenger; I think the camera that faces David gives a better angle on the champion when they are talking to Richard.


For playing the game itself... the most important two things are this: It has to be on the paper to count, and use the monitor!  Each position has a small monitor built into it that displays the board, and this will resolve any ambiguities and remind you of the task.  In my first appearance, I misheard a letter, which led me to declare an invalid answer.  If I had just taken a moment to check the monitor as the letter was revealed, I would have avoided that (and ended up with a winning word).

The monitor situation reveals the difference between solution styles.  Some contestants like to solve by simply staring at the problem until they have a suitable answer, then writing it down.  They should never have this problem of the misheard letter, although they may fall victim to some other common errors: The doubled letter, or (rarely) word mutation between the time they think of it and the time they write it down.  I think Brett's PERISH (should have been PARISH) in round 2 of episode 329 was one of these.

In fact, this is how I like to proceed with the numbers rounds; I juggle them around in my head, and write down what I can find.  On the letters rounds, however, I like to write them all down on paper, grouped into consonants and vowels.  This is the method that just happens to suit me; it means time spent writing down letters (which is time not spent thinking about them), which is one reason it is not for everyone.  I know of others who like to write it down in a three-by-three grid, no doubt habituated to this through solving the 'Target' puzzle in the newspaper.

For the conundrum, I'd like to write down the letters but it's not safe to spend the time doing so instead of thinking about the word.  Sometimes you'll see contestants on a tough conundrum doing so halfway through the time; I think this is about right, but it's always tricky to know when you should do that since it still costs some seconds.

The other part is extremely important: Only what is written down counts.  Admittedly, this will only be caught if the other contestant happens to do things the same way (numbers) or declares the same word (letters), but this happens quite a lot.  I'm pretty sure that this happened to Shaun Ellis in round 3 of episode 301, in fact, and they re-shot it to let him catch the issue himself.  (I should add that I don't believe this was foul play; it was a simple slip of the mind that caused him to think one thing, write another, and not check what was actually written.  All this assuming that I am actually correct about what happened, which I may not be.)

Anyway... this is the huge difference between playing the game at home, and playing it for real.  At home you can spot a word or how to make a target at the 29th second and count it.  But on the show it will take longer than the remaining time to write it down, so it's too late by then.  You have to have your fallback plan in mind (particularly for the numbers) and either write it down, or be prepared to write it down if nothing better comes up.  Otherwise you'll lose a lot of points that you should get.

This really needs to be practiced.  If you plan to go on the show, practice playing the game and getting answers written down within time.  Practice it a lot.  Your first time on the show is not the first time to be doing this!

One other (and much-appreciated) difference when going on the show is that the countdown timer is much, much quieter.  It's still there, so that you can judge when you need to have finished by, but it doesn't blot out thought like the broadcast version does.


Above all else, going on the show should be fun.  Whatever happens, you'll walk away with a dictionary; enjoy playing the game, be gracious in victory or defeat, and take in every moment of the experience.  It's a wonderful atmosphere; do your part to help it stay that way.

Friday 2 December 2011

Weekly summary: Episodes 326 to 330

As expected, good results for me with memory clearly a factor.  Nothing much can be read into my performance, but it will be included anyway.


MonTueWedThuFri
Me6868677475
Champion565837023
Challenger431847723
David + Lily8776778776


Current rankings:

Shaun Ellis435638594044280
Daniel Chua445956533652300
Geoff Bailey55646563

247
Nick Terry71465535

217
Alex van der Kooij42513525

153
Peter Crop616031


152
Brett Edwards662449


139
Colin Jones365619


111


Other statistics:


MonTueWedThuFri
Full Monties1

1
2
Missed Full Monties0
Tough Numbers
1


1
Impossible Numbers




0


Contestants averaging over 30 points a game:


TotalGamesAverage
Geoff Bailey247461.75
Toby Baldwin59*1*59.00
Ryan Sutton57157.00
Nick Terry217454.25
Tim Clay51151.00
Peter Crop152350.67
Daniel Chua300650.00
Natasha Podesser47147.00
Shaun Ellis280646.67
Brett Edwards139346.33
Michael Nichols90245.00
Karla Treves90245.00
Sandy Clarke45145.00
James Godfrey45145.00
Nick Compton44144.00
David Bradley77238.50
Alex van der Kooij153438.25
Adrian Lonigro38138.00
Colin Jones111337.00
Ilona Coote36136.00
Kane Gross34134.00
Mitchell Fly33133.00
Hannah Marshall33133.00
Sushma Garudadwajan62231.00

Ep 330: Brett Edwards, Toby Baldwin (December 2, 2011)

Rounds: Here.

Disclaimer: I attended the filming of this show some months back; obviously this may lead to me recollecting some solutions that eluded me at the time, and my scoreline is not necessarily a fair one.


Richard asks Brett what being a navy auditor involved; Brett explains that it was about ensuring compliance with defense regulations.  No-one wants to see the dreaded auditor!  He didn't go to sea, but did have occasion to visit ships when they were in port.

Challenging Brett is Toby Baldwin, a pathology aide and former audio engineer.  Richard notes that this is an unusual transition, and asks what prompted it.  Toby responds that it was a combination of things, but mostly being very tired from working long days and being away on the road, and he wanted a bit of stability in his life.  His former job involved doing live engineering for bands, recording bands, and fixing a lot of equipment.  Richard remarks that pathology is probably a lot quieter, and Toby agrees.  He says that fixing humans tends to be a lot easier and a lot more pleasant.  I'm not sure that surgeons would agree...


As I've mentioned earlier, I met Toby during the audition, and we caught up a little during the day.  In fact, we caught a taxi to the studio together in the morning as there was some large confusion about taxi bookings which gave some extra enjoyable time to chat with him.  He just barely outpointed me in the previous game (at the time), so I was particularly keen to win this one.


It's another close game, and Brett seems back in form again, which is a relief.  Brett just barely has the better of the vowel-heavy letters rounds, while Toby fractionally outdoes him in the numbers, and the scores are level going into the conundrum.  Once again both contestants see the answer quickly and buzz in at approximately the same time, but Toby got there first and wins with a score of 59 to 49.

For my part, I did much better than both; there were plenty of longer words to be found (much like my game against Brett).  In fact, in the audience this was a game where I held my own against David and Lily in the main eight rounds; I don't recall what happened with the conundrum.  This time I get it instantly, due to its appearance on Countdown, rather than a memory of this episode.  Either way, a comfortable win to me, although I probably did a point better in the audience due to round 2.

As usual, details after the jump.

Thursday 1 December 2011

Ep 329: Brett Edwards, Alicia Neilsen (December 1, 2011)

Rounds: Here.

Disclaimer: I attended the filming of this show some months back; obviously this may lead to me recollecting some solutions that eluded me at the time, and my scoreline is not necessarily a fair one.


Richard reveals that Brett is a Sherlock Holmes fan, and asks him what it is that he likes about Holmes.  Brett says that it is his logical approach and reverse-engineering of things -- the deductive reasoning, as Richard puts it.

Tonight's challenger is Alicia Neilsen, an accountant who has an office on the 34th floor of the Rialto building in Melbourne.  She has a window, too, with a view of the Yarra river and the MCG.  Richard suggests that the view might be a little distracting, and she admits that sometimes it's good to just stare outside and let the mind process things.


Alicia seemed nice, but was giving out an unsettled vibe throughout the day.  This shows up occasionally during the episode; I wish that I had been more reassuring at the time.


It's another very close game, but I'm afraid not in a good way.  There's five invalid declarations made, and the words are mostly fives and sixes.  Only one numbers round is scored, with a total nine away from the target.  This is all rounded out by an unsolved conundrum, allowing Brett to limp to safety with a 24 to 18 victory -- both the lowest winning total and the lowest combined total of the series so far.  Alicia very nearly defeated him; all she needed to do was to hold her head in the numbers rounds, but it was very much a case of the nerves getting to her.

Watching this game from the audience was more disheartening than losing the previous game.  My score was slightly better this time as I could risk the nine, but both times I kept Alicia to seven points and Brett scoreless, with a total over 60.  It was an extremely disappointing followup to what I shall immodestly call the game of the series so far.

As usual, details after the jump.