Spoilers for Wednesday 8 October

[Mark Kudlowski]

Word Game: TORSADE HR

Beat the panel (best: TORSADE) with HOARDERS.

[Joseph Bolas]

This is what I came up with for each round, and if I have worked out the scoring correctly (not sure though because I did make a mistake, but then corrected it), I beat Kai, just by 3 points (76 v 79)

Round 01: EMPTIES (can't believe I didn't see EMPTINESS )
Round 02: FOOT
Round 03: MISTRAL
Round 04: DETAIL
Round 05: 639: (5 x 100) + (75 + 50 + (7 x 2))
Round 06: SEASON
Round 07: CIRCLE
Round 08: ROASTED
Round 09: PRINT
Round 10: 819: ((50 + (6 x 5) + 1) x 10) + 9
Round 11: SHORTEN
Round 12: ENDGAMES
Round 13: POUNDER
Round 14: 896: (8 x 100) + (75 + 25 - 4)
Round 15: Kai beat me on the conundrum.

[Jon O'Neill]

Here's my effort from today:

Round 01: CUNT
Round 02: FUCK
Round 03: BALLS
Round 04: WANKERS
Round 05: 69
Round 06: SHITFACE
Round 07: TWATHEAD
Round 08: KNOBKNOB
Round 09: SEX
Round 10: 6969
Round 11: PRICKTWIT
Round 12: JISM
Round 13: BEEF CURTAINS (two words in the dictionary, unfortunately)
Round 14: 690
Round 15: I killed Kai when he beat me on the conundrum.

But overall, I won.

[Dinos Sfyris]

I was pleased to spot ENDGAMES after Nicky put it past me on Apterous, although til DC said it my aunt thought I was making it up! Also ROADSTER as a TORSADE beater.

[Julian Fell]

An enjoyable game, this, with a lot of challenging rounds on both letters and numbers. I got the double-darren ( ) DC-beater ( ) in round 2 - ZOFTIG - though only just, on about 29.999 seconds. Got ROADSTER as well; only max I missed was the DC-beater ACYLATED in round 4. The last numbers was impossible, by the way - Joseph, you meant to write 896 on your review didn't you?

Today was perhaps not one of Kai's better performances, yet it was his most comfortable win so far, the first time he's been out of danger going into the third numbers round IIRC - so it's a funny old game. He's maybe getting a bit tired but I hope he keeps winning; I reckon one more win to be a dead cert for the quarter-finals; even if he stays on five wins he'll probably make it. Would he then be the second-youngest quarter-finalist ever, after Allan Saldanha? (this is linked to Tom H's question elsewhere, I know...)

[Joseph Bolas]

The last numbers was impossible, by the way - Joseph, you meant to write 896 on your review didn't you?

Yeah I did mean 896 , sorry.

I normally don't play against the contestants at home, but when people said that they couldn't beat Kai, I wanted to find out just how tough of an opponent he was, and hes quite good.

[Andrew F. Scott]

weds oct 8,round 14:presumably (8+4)x(75-(25/100))=897 is not allowed? Does anyone else think this rule (i.e. every part of a solution must be a whole number) is too (re)strict(ing)? I realise this type of "fractional" solution comes up very rarely--can anyone remember any similar numbers rounds from the past?