Spoilers for Monday 24th June 2024 (Series 89, 3rd Quarter-final)

[Philip A]

The last Countdown week of this series beings with No. 3 seed Toby Byfield against No. 6 Michael Calder. Byfield has been practising hard on Apterous, but Calder avaraged over 100 in his last 4 prelims. Who will dig deeper today?

[Philip A]

Another dramatic finish. Commiserations to Toby and congratulations to Michael. We’re in for an exciting final week.

[Tom S]

Gutted for Toby- really nice guy who acquitted himself well throughout his run. But fair play to Michael, great conundrum solve and definitely demonstrated his talent in this game...

[Toby McDonald]

MALIPEDE in R7

Very unlucky there Toby, but well done Michael.

[Ryan Lam]

Well, it seems my ISP has decided to rate limit my traffic speed and the buffering speed of the live stream on Channel 4 is awful now. Hence, I may have to end up watching the remaining Finals episodes late each time and my review will come late as a result. However, I hope to send it out before the following episode airs so that I will not have the temptation of spoilers.

We're back here for the final week of Series 89, and it's interesting to note that the late Lionel Blair was supposed to have been the final guest of Series 76 as per the anecdote (btw, it took Colin 30 appearances to appear finally in a Series Final) and more importantly, as what Rachel mentioned at the beginning, it's tactics that matters when it comes to the Finals, so let's see if either Toby or Michael uses them today! I didn't anticipate Toby's friends already had given him the 4 Large nickname, so Colin came up with his nickname on the spot, Toby "Two Small" Byfield, how original... Oh, and of course, Marcus Brigstocke is back with us in Dictionary Corner for some more laughs hopefully!

Letters: Good first round of the week with ANODISER by Toby in R1, but it was mostly ties all the way afterwards until Origins of Words, with the exception of BUREAUS by Michael in R5 to catch up and of course R11 with the different word declarations. Alas, the latter came up with reckonage in R12 which was not in, unlucky Nonetheless, it was a great competition in terms of this aspect here!

Numbers: You don't have to guess what's coming in R3 and R9 do you? Excellent start by Toby as he spots 110 × 3 (I was struggling to see this method) to pull ahead in the former, but not for long! Michael comes back with 6 Small in R6 but it's way too easy Here comes R9 afterwards with what was a seemingly easy round yet again, oh man! Toby has been outdone by Michael to close the score difference to just a single point! Argh!! This is really tense now, and R14 with 6 Small, two "1"s spell double trouble as usual. Toby blanks out and here's Michael's chance to narrow the gap even more! However, the moment I started hearing Michael's solution, I knew he had misdeclared because I ended up with 525 using the same exact method as him, bad luck especially when he had so much confidence and Rachel just cruelly shattered it.

Conundrum: Another crucial conundrum in 72 hours, damn, and no, the answer definitely will not end in -ING here while you're thinking about the answer SAT hopefully, not IN a CLOGged toilet. I got this one fairly quickly and I was waiting to see who would buzz first. Michael does, and he's done it!!! The first #6 Seed since Alan Duval in Series 79 back in 2018 to advance into the Semi-Finals!!!

Damn, that was a game to remember, but I'm sorry Colin, this is not one of the best games ever, there's definitely so many episodes that are way more memorable than this, but still, this is one that I'll think about for some time to come. On the basis Michael dramatically improved after his filming break, I was thinking Toby would win by a margin of anywhere between 10-20 points without a crucial conundrum, but it was not to be with Michael winning with a margin of two points! You can't help but feel sorry for Toby, it was literally R9 that cost him the game and had he scored points there, he would have won instead (even if Michael did manage to score points in R14). However, I'm sure he played as best as he could and I hope that painful loss will not haunt him for long. If you're reading this, I hope you're having fun amidst your busy schedule out there with the General Election and of course with so much going on with ten days to go, let's hope your odds are accurate and we'll find out on the night of 04 July itself. Good luck to you and of course, the UK as we prepare to vote!

It's the battle of the nations come Thursday in the second Semi-Finals with Ireland vs Scotland, but we've still got the last spot to fill the day before and with one more Quarter-Final match. Will it be "Another Countdowner in which the show runs in the family and one of the youngest Scrabble League players that made her debut" Jessica Pratesi or "The other Mark, 12-time winner of The Times Crossword Championships and one half of Cracking the Cryptic" Mark Goodliffe that does so? Both have so many accolades to their names and lost out to Octochamps in their first stints on crucial conundrums. This is definitely going to be another exciting match not to miss!

Progress:
QF1 (20 June 2024): Arthur Page (#1) vs Isabelle Heward (#8) (123 - 51)
QF2 (21 June 2024): Mark Finnerty (#2) vs Jack Harvey (#7) (104 - 100)
QF3 (24 June 2024): Toby Byfield (#3) vs Michael Calder (#6) (82 - 84)
QF4 (25 June 2024): Jessica Pratesi (#4) vs Mark Goodliffe (#5)
SF1 (26 June 2024): Arthur Page (QF1 Winner) vs (QF4 Winner)
SF2 (27 June 2024): Mark Finnerty (QF2 Winner) vs Michael Calder (QF3 Winner)
GF (28 June 2024): (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)