Spoilers for Tuesday 24th June 2025 - S91 QF4

[Philip A]

It’s an all female clash. Avid reader and puzzler, Amy Berry, squares up against Christine Smith, the only returnee to qualify for these finals. I look forward to this one.

[Philip A]

Good game. Was a delight to have Christine back, and congratulations to her on becoming the oldest ever octochamp.

Amy on brilliant form in the letters games. Rhys will be aiming to up his game and unsettle her on the numbers rounds, especially in non-1 large games, to advance to the Grand Final.

[Fiona T]

Good game. Was a delight to have Christine back, and congratulations to her on becoming the oldest ever octochamp.

Amy on brilliant form in the letters games. Rhys will be aiming to up his game and unsettle her on the numbers rounds, especially in non-1 large games, to advance to the Grand Final.

Bear in mind her heat games will not have aired before the finals filmed, so Rhys won't know her strengths and weaknesses - could be an interesting game!

[Gavin Chipper]

Amy was a machine until that last numbers and had she got it, it would certainly have been performance of the round. Possibly was anyway (but loses points for saying "just"). She beat me.

ASPHODEL was the word DC couldn't bring themselves to spell.

[Tom S]

Yeah Amy statistically performed the best out of the 4 semi-finalists so far, with 9 maxes and 80.8% of the max. Tim James also equals her max-wise, but has the lowest percentage of the max based on his QF with 64.1%. Tim James has the 2nd highest percentage of the max, but has the lowest max count out of the QF performances, which I think proves that it is anyone's game still....

[Gavin Chipper]

Yeah Amy statistically performed the best out of the 4 semi-finalists so far, with 9 maxes and 80.8% of the max. Tim James also equals her max-wise, but has the lowest percentage of the max based on his QF with 64.1%. Tim James has the 2nd highest percentage of the max, but has the lowest max count out of the QF performances, which I think proves that it is anyone's game still....

Interesting that Tim James (from the 3rd QF) got that many maxes, as it seemed a weaker game. I thought 2nd and 4th QFs were the best performances.

[Ryan Lam]

I'm so glad all of us didn't have to wait 5.5 Years for two female contestants to appear in the same Finals match, and instead, just half a year later, we have the next one, with them vying for the last place in the Semi-Finals. Thanks Colin for also noting how Christine is the oldest Octochamp in the history of the show at 80 years old (79 during her Preliminaries), and how nice of her to give an actual apple to Colin before the show started, but no strawberries from Amy, aw But it's ok, let's see which of the two "grand old dames" as I'd like to put it advances today!

First Third: As you might recall from earlier in the month, Amy's very into reading books, so it's no surprise at all she gets off to a spectcaular start with ARMPITS and FINAGLES in R1 and R2 and leave Christine with no score on the board as of yet! But seriously, can we have Amy stop saying "Just only a (how many numbered letter word)?" First Numbers round, alright, Amy wants to play safe with her usual 1 Large, and so it is, an easy, gentle start with no further comment.

Second Third: Christine picks up some points in R4 and R5 luckily, and Christine's specialty is also 1 Large, so no surprises yet as she too goes for this in R6. What a rubbish target CECIL generated, that's not nice . After the Anecdote, we pick up the trail from where we left off, but argh, Christine goes for the invalid uptrail! It didn't help as Amy risked QUARTO in R8 which was in and had to apologise to Christine for adding that extra "O" in her QUART R9 comes with a manageable target with many ways to get there, but the key thing is everything falls in nicely, so 30 points grabbed for both so far in this aspect.

Last Third: After the second break, this is where Amy really shined, "hammering" Christine round after round with DUCTILE, AGOUTIS and RENOWNED in R10, R11 and R12 respectively until the gap was so wide at 50 points (the last time the margin was this wide in a QF4 match was when Graham Moonie-Dalton faced Adam Dexter two years ago around this time). Amy had already won at that point, but Christine can take some consolation in that she tied in R13 with Amy and just before bowing out, decides to take the bold move of going 4 Large. Just like yesterday's R14, the factors fall in nicely, Amy misses it and Christine spots it to close the gap! I guess we all have days where our brain is fuzzy, it happens. No crucial conundrum, the difficulty is definitely a lot harder than yesterday's one for sure, and it's not a weekend where one would dream to be in an ORBIT around a RAVE party (I initially thought this conundrum was recycled from a previous Finals, but it wasn't the case and I probably misremembered). Christine buzzes in with abortiver but it's not a word, and so, time's up, Amy doesn't have it either. Maybe I should take one of what the answer was this Summer and enjoy the outdoors.

Given how the QF4 performances have been for some Series in recent years, I think that we can throw the notion of this match always producing the tightest margin per tradition out the window. I predicted that this match was never going to be close, with Amy comfortably winning with a 30 point margin because of her strength at the Letters round. In the end, that's what made her get over the finish line, and with the margin even wider at 40 points! Poor Christine, you can only feel for her given this was a one-sided battle especially in the last third, but she definitely was the best in terms of Numbers so far for this entire Finals, scoring a perfect 40 points across the board, so that's one achievement she can go home with too! Hopefully, your appearance will inspire other, older contestants to come on and have a go, and that age is just a number for you for sure! Enjoy your plaque as well as the rest of your days in retirement ahead!

Amy's off for a very short break to face against Rhys, whom everyone in the Daily Chat is predicting he will use his 6 Small tactics to finish her off (*gulp*). Can she survive what is to come, resist him using her skills in the Letters Round and hope this will compensate her weakness in the Numbers? Can she also perform the uphill task of becoming another female Finalist like Fiona Wood last year? We'll watch and see...

Progress:
QF1 (19 June 2025): Rhys Jones (#1) vs Michael Kane (#8) (97 - 64)
QF2 (20 June 2025): Tim Bridgstock (#2) vs Tom Page (#7) (99 - 90)
QF3 (23 June 2025): Tim James (#3) vs Matt Fife (#6) (75 - 70)
QF4 (24 June 2025): Amy Berry (#4) vs Christine Smith (#5) (101 - 61)
SF1 (25 June 2025): Rhys Jones (QF1 Winner) vs Amy Berry (QF4 Winner)
SF2 (26 June 2025): Tim Bridgstock (QF2 Winner) vs Tim James (QF3 Winner)
GF (27 June 2025): (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)

[Howie Myers]

An excellent game.
r2 alt: SINGABLE or SIGNABLE

[Steve Hyde]

Devastated that the single-syllable adjective rule doesn't allow WANKEST