Spoilers for Thursday 15 December 2022 - Series 86 QF1

[Philip A]

After 6 months, 8 presenters and 134 contestants, the series now enters the knockout finals. 6 octochamps and 2 seven-time winners vie for the series title. Today, No. 1 seed Tom Stevenson – 1,000 points, 1 perfect game with record score and yet to lose a round up to this point – faces No. 8-ranked Lewis Castling-Morey.

[Ronan M Higginson]

Here are the (hopefully correct) stats:


Firstly, No.1 Seed Tom Stevenson - 8 Wins, 1,000 Points (Avg. of 125 per game)
Highest Score (Of all time as well): 154 vs. Lauren Bowley (4th Game)
Lowest Score: 117 vs. Andy Keeble and Steve Robinson (4th and 5th Games)
9's Achieved: 5/10 (50%)
Total Points/Max/%: 1,000/1,090 (92%)
Letters Points/Max/%: 618/696 (89%)
Numbers Points/Max/%: 302/314 (96%)
Conundrum Points/Max/%: 80/80 (100%)


And secondly, No.8 Seed Lewis Castling-Morey - 7 Wins, 626 Points (Avg. of 78.25 per game)
Highest Score: 94 vs. Richard Tull (7th Game)
Lowest Score: 60 vs. Fi Hamilton (8th Game)
9's Achieved: 0/8 (0%)
Total Points/Max/%: 626/1,069 (59%)
Letters Points/Max/%: 401/672 (60%)
Numbers Points/Max/%: 205/317 (65%)
Conundrum Points/Max/%: 20/80 (25%)


Looking forward to seeing how this one goes...

[Gavin Chipper]

JAEGERS was the word Susie said but didn't spell in round 2 btw.

[Philip A]

Anagram of ENDNOTE is TENONED.

R6 was deceptive: 9-(50/10) was key.

[Ronan M Higginson]

Well done Tom, great performance, looking forward to seeing how you get on next Wednesday.

Unlucky Lewis, you played well and should be proud.

[Philip A]

Commiserations Lewis, but a great run and well done on winning the glass trophy to add to the teapot. A moral octochamp too.

Well done Tom: 135 rounds unbeaten now, really something.

[Tom S]

Cheers folks! Lewis was a good sport and was happy with how he played. Onto Wednesday now, will play the winner of what will be quite an exciting game

[Ronan M Higginson]

Cheers folks! Lewis was a good sport and was happy with how he played. Onto Wednesday now, will play the winner of what will be quite an exciting game

[Tracey Anne Mills]

Well done Tom what a great game that was !

[Tom S]

Well done Tom what a great game that was !

Thanks!

[Gavin Chipper]

Well done Tom: 135 rounds scored in a row now, really something.

[Andres Sanchez]

Me and buddies played along with the game, here's my play:

PETUNIAS
JAEGERS
9*25
SAILORS/OVARIAL
TENONED/ENDNOTE
(9+9-10)*50-100
PACIFY
HIMBOS/HOMIES/MASHIE
(75-10)*(6/2)-(9-8)
LIGATURE (was thinking RUTILLAGE as a 9 but wasn't confident)
REQUITE
ADMIRERS
SEMTEX
(100-10)*(75/25)-1
- (someone else in our group got it in like 19.15 secs)

Close game against Tom, haven't scored it yet but I'm guessing it was a double century game I feel. Regardless, absolutely great game Tom! Lewis definitely played real well against you despite it looking like the dictionary wasn't on his side that time.


EDIT: Just checked, 114 - 98 with Tom winning woulda been the scoreline. Tight game.

[Toby McDonald]

Well done Tom, great start to the finals! And commiserations Lewis.

ROSSALIA in R4
OBEAHISM in R8

[Ryan Lam]

Oh yes, it's that time of year again when Christmas is around the corner, but hmm, where's the decorations? Did Countdown spend their budget on the 40th Anniversary things last month? Not sure, but anyways, here's Colin Murray's first set of Finals and you can tell how much passion he has for the game (barring the slip-up which he mentions eight Finals matches and saying it's a quiz show which many people in the Daily Chat swiftly disagreed). We've got "Harry Potter lookalike and guy who made National Headlines unexpectedly" Tom Stevenson vs "Meek yet humble in his job interview plus having his own name featured as a Cryptic Crossword clue in his Preliminaries" Lewis Castling-Morey. We've got a nice cake featured after the first Teatime Teaser baked by Tom's sister so kudos to her and it was great to see Tom himself in the Daily Chat too witnessing us playing along at home or at work!

Letters: Tom opens up the game before the first break with an excellent spot of PRESAGE in R2, and poor Lewis could not just keep up as his nerves probably took the better of him as he gave invalid words one after another and I'm sure at one point some of us thought he was never going to score in the Letters rounds today. After Susie's Origins of Words, finally, a breakthrough as he manages to tie with Tom in R12 and R13, scoring a max in the latter, so not all was lost! (On a sidenote, Tom stated in the Daily Chat he had MARRIEDS in R12 but did not risk it)

Numbers: Well, what a start to the Finals with that "rubbish" round in R3 as Rachel mentioned, and R6 isn't that hard for a match like this despite Lewis' usual pick of 3 Large. R9 is one of those rare small targets with 1 Large and you don't even need the large number, but still manageable. Then, came R14 where you needed to think a bit (finally!), and unfortunately Lewis could not grab the last ten points in this section as Tom showed an easy way out to a perfect solution (which admittedly, several of us in the Daily Chat missed as well).

Conundrum: I was expecting a difficult conundrum for the first game, but guess what? I laughed out loud when I figured out the answer a few seconds after Tom buzzed in . What an answer that was, describing one of Tom's personalities which we all heard of before! Oh my gosh, what are the odds?!

Unfortunately, I was expecting a thrashing here with a winning margin of 70 points to Tom and boy did it turn out to be nearly true with the final difference at 67 points. You can't help but feel sorry for Lewis who has had to face an uphill battle from the very beginning, but I'm glad Tom mentioned Lewis was happy at how he played and that's what matters the most. All the best for your next job interview and hopefully, you mention Countdown as one of your interesting bits first!

Up next, it's "A returning contestant who's had considerable amount of Countdown and other accolades in the gap in his appearances" Edward Byrne versus "Tried to be on 15-to-1 like his father and guy with an interesting hairstyle" Steven Ehterington. The latter's sixth game (the final preliminary of Series 85) was not broadcasted, so I hope something about that will come to light tomorrow. We shall see...

Progress:
QF1 (15 December): Tom Stevenson (#1) vs Lewis Castling-Morey (#8) (121- 44)
QF2 (16 December): Edward Byrne (#2) vs Steven Etherington (#7)
QF3 (19 December): Quinn Bartlett (#3) vs Daren Barnes (#6)
QF4 (20 December): Alan Young (#4) vs Joe Dobinson (#5)
SF1 (21 December): Tom Stevenson (QF1 Winner) vs (QF4 Winner)
SF2 (22 December): (QF2 Winner) vs (QF3 Winner)
GF (23 December): (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

Conundrum: I was expecting a difficult conundrum for the first game, but guess what? I laughed out loud when I figured out the answer a few seconds after Tom buzzed in . What an answer that was, describing one of Tom's personalities which we all heard of before! Oh my gosh, what are the odds?!

Given that Colin had used that very word to describe Tom at the beginning of the programme I thought it was a terrible choice ofconundrum!

[Howie Myers]

r6 alt: 10*75-9*50-300
r9 alt: (75+9+8)*2+10-194