Spoilers for Wednesday 22nd December 2021 (Series 84, SF2)

[Philip A]

Who will make it to tomorrow’s Grand Final? It’s Stu V Flo.

[Philip A]

One of the best semi-final matches ever.

Stu: best mascot on Countdown by a million miles. Great words, solid numbers, wicked gags, wonderful personality. I think you should bring Octo to every quiz show and every Scrabble/Countdown meetup from now on.

Florence: so level-headed and resilient. 100% in conundrums still.

We’ve seen some wonderful characters this series, and that’s what all game shows need.

An epic Grand Final beckons.

[Adam Latchford]

Banging semi final. The manner of stu's picking helped massively in round 13. If there ever is a COC or 40thbc or whatever, hope both these guys feature

Round 9 numbers decision to go 1L when 14 behind vindicated by the late letters spot, good tactics and definitely well thought through.

!

[Ryan Lam]

The second last episode of the Series with just ten days left to a brand new year! This is the Semi-Final that I mentioned could go anyone's way yesterday. Aw, how cute, Stu has an octopus as a mascot. Incidentally, it's named "Octo" with a reference to the Octochamp status! I liked how Philip in the Daily Chat used this as an analogy to having mascots on Catsdown, but this is more family friendly of course without the swearing bits!

Letters: Florence takes the lead after she had GEODATA while Stu had outaged ruled invalid in R2 and later with UNIFORM against his FUMIER in R5. In the middle, what a nice R4 to remind us that Christmas is a season for unhealthy eating . Great spot all round with both of them hitting the max until R12, and commendable spots such as Stu's ADAMITE in R7, both having OLOGIST in R8 and ROMANITE in R11. Then, came the all-decisive R13 when Stu clawed back some points with his declaration of VAPOURS to still be in the running for the Grand Final!

Numbers: Both stick to their usual for the first two Numbers Round and it's really disappointing that CECIL throws up manageable targets. Stu surprisingly does not gamble in R9 despite the fact that he's 14 behind, so the only way he could have a shot at winning is if he beats Florence in at least one round after the second commercial break (which he did in R13 as mentioned above). Florence gambles with 6 Small in R14 to avoid the Crucial but CECIL yet again frustratingly generates a small, easy target. Despite all this, both players, like what happened on Monday, get all 40 points, so well done!

Conundrum: Crucial conundrum time, and I completely blanked out on this one. However, Florence sure and still is composed and doesn't let the pressure or possibility of Stu snatching the ticket to the Grand Final get to her. She buzzes in with the correct answer and goes through to the Grand Final!!

This was always going to be a close game in my mind. However, after reviewing both players' performance in the preliminaries, I predicted that Florence would prevail with a 20 point lead even if a Crucial Conundrum happened. That turned out to be almost true with the margin at 17 points! It was really a fantastic and exhilarating game to watch all round! Stu, you came back so much stronger after 14 years and nevermind that you didn't become a sports journalist as you mentioned back in 2007, you're now a teacher in 2021 and I'm sure you can go back North to Scotland with your students cheering that their teacher is famous on-screen. Continue to have that passion in teaching as an educator and to teach future generations to come! I hope you didn't crush your "747" Paper Aeroplane and preserved it somewhere! I'm sure that will be a priceless moment for years to come!

Just like Series 83 half a year ago, the #1 Seed is up against the #3 Seed, man you know it's exciting when this happens in consecutive series! Florence is also the first woman since Ann Dibben in Series 74 to make it to the Grand Final! It's been way too long (Well, not a SEPTENNIA wait but a 5.5 year wait!) and surely we want more women to make it this far into the competition! Will Ahmed be like a train with full steam pushing ahead and with no obstacles on the track in sight, or will Florence, with her calm composure, do what her husband couldn't last year and win the Series, causing yet another upset? Remember, anything can happen, we all know too well what happened back in June when Adam Latchford defeated Luke Boynton. This is another match you surely must watch it live for the best experience! Let's end off the year in style!

Progress:
QF1 (15 December): Ahmed Mohamed (#1) vs Janet Noe (#8) (143 - 59)
QF2 (16 December): Stu Harkness (#2) vs Roddie Bell (#7) (112 - 82)
QF3 (17 December): Florence Cappleman-Lynes (#3) vs Jasamrit Rahala (#6) (121 - 62)
QF4 (20 December): Jeremy Slaney (#4) vs Matt Gould (#5) (126 - 94)
SF1 (21 December): Ahmed Mohamed (QF1 Winner) vs Jeremy Slaney (QF4 Winner) (118 - 65)
SF2 (22 December): Stu Harkness (QF2 Winner) vs Florence Cappleman-Lynes (QF3 Winner) (97 - 114)
GF (23 December): Ahmed Mohamed (SF1 Winner) vs Florence Cappleman-Lynes (SF2 Winner)

[Sam Cappleman-Lynes]

Obviously I'm not fully impartial, but solving SEPTENNIA as a crucial is one of the greatest conundrum solves IMO

[Gavin Chipper]

Obviously I'm not fully impartial, but solving SEPTENNIA as a crucial is one of the greatest conundrum solves IMO

Especially after choking on the vapours of round 13.

[Fiona T]

Obviously I'm not fully impartial, but solving SEPTENNIA as a crucial is one of the greatest conundrum solves IMO

She done good!

Congrats Florence - cool as can be under pressure, nicely done!

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

Stu surprisingly does not gamble in R9 despite the fact that he's 14 behind

Of course he doesn't. He's not insane. Gambling on numbers is only ever sensible if you have an edge over your opponent's numbers game. Stu knew well what he was doing. His 'gambles' took place in letters rounds.

Florence was dead right to back herself on a 6s in Rd14.
They were both aware of who was the more likely to solve an especially tough nums under pressure.

[Adam Latchford]

Obviously I'm not fully impartial, but solving SEPTENNIA as a crucial is one of the greatest conundrum solves IMO

You're not wrong. Fantastic stuff

[Gavin Chipper]

Stu surprisingly does not gamble in R9 despite the fact that he's 14 behind

Of course he doesn't. He's not insane. Gambling on numbers is only ever sensible if you have an edge over your opponent's numbers game. Stu knew well what he was doing. His 'gambles' took place in letters rounds.

I don't think that's always the case though. If there was a bigger points gap between them or if he had the round 14 pick and was 14 behind he should gamble anyway. A better numbers player can still miss something you see and going for 1 large reduces the possibility of that.

I think you can argue it either way at the point in the game when it actually happened.

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

No. It's silly logic that the only rounds you can or should 'gamble' on are numbers rounds.
His 3-vowel gamble in Rd13 did more for him than an ill-advised 6s or 4L could have done in Rd9.

[Gavin Chipper]

Picking a different number of vowels makes a much smaller difference than a different numbers pick. And picking three vowels is certainly not what I'd call a gamble. Not that I'm saying Stu did the wrong thing in that particular situation. There were still quite a few rounds left when he went for 1 large and he decided it wasn't the time to panic yet.

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

If you know that you Opp is a numbers wizard, the only reason why a nums gamble would be acceptable is perhaps as an attempt to get inside their head... But even then, it is a high risk, low probability strategy.

[Jojo Apollo]

I had to wait for the catch-up service to see this episode today, worth the wait. Well done both, great contest.