Spoilers for Friday 18th June 2021 (Series 83, Second Quarter Final)

[Rhys Benjamin]

JAMES BURLEY
Highest score: 127 vs Edward Carter, game 2
Lowest score: 84 vs Paul Gaskell, game 1
Score: 819
Average: 102.38
Max faced: 1,143
% score: 71.7%
Raw score: 860
Raw average: 107.50
Raw % score: 75.2%
Conundrums: 7/8

TOM VINCENT
Highest score: 115 vs Connor Niblett, game 3
Lowest score: 57 vs Luke Boynton, game 7
Score: 609
Average: 87.00
Max faced: 998
% score: 61.0%
Raw score: 688
Raw average: 98.29
Raw % score: 68.9%
Conundrums: 3/8

[Tom S]

Was quite happy with Eidetic in R4 only to be beaten by James and Tom's ELICITED. As I speak both Tom V and Tom S are trying to claw back a comeback against James after being more than 20 behind:)

[Philip A]

Commiserations to Tom. The letters were the undoing in the end. Well done to James.

[Tom S]

Agreed with what Philip said but glad that Tom got another shot after what would typically have been a bit of a premature exit in his prelims for someone of his calibre. James was good today- with the exception of 2 or 3 rounds, I think he'd have given Luke a pretty close game with that performance.

[Ryan Lam]

What a nice poem by Rufus to all father's out there in time for Father's Day this coming Sunday, and I hope this time next week on Nick's last ever episode he'll end off with a bang! Let's see if I'm right then!

Letters: James opens up the gap wide from the beginning with REUSABLE in R1 and ANEROID in R2, and after both players got ELICITED in R4, the reversal came with Tom spotting MUTINEER in R7. Unfortunately, that was short-lived with the former spotting FOOTLES in R10 and pulling away comfortably by the time the final letters round came.

Numbers: James chooses not to risk anything and unfortunately both his selections ended up generating easy targets for a Final, ah well, that's CECIL for you sometimes. Tom on the other hand, instead of everyone expecting him to go for his "6 Small", he does the exact opposite and goes with "4 Large"! It pays off well in R6 as James misses the target but with the match over by R14, why not have a bit of fun still with a more difficult one to solve.

Conundrum: Just like namesake for today's scrabble, it certainly FOOLed me into thinking the answer ended in "-DLY" when it was not and I wouldn't have gotten the answer anyway. James buzzes in comfortably to get his score to exactly to a century, a nice way to end off the match.

Given how Tom fared in his Preliminaries until Luke stopped him in his tracks, I thought this was going to be a close game with a margin of 20 points but it was not to be with the margin being wider at 34 points.

Agreed with what Philip said but glad that Tom got another shot after what would typically have been a bit of a premature exit in his prelims for someone of his calibre. James was good today- with the exception of 2 or 3 rounds, I think he'd have given Luke a pretty close game with that performance.

Indeed, I have to agree with this, Tom gave his best and at one point he narrowed the margin to the point people would have thought this might be a repeat of Toby McDonald vs Philip Aston where an upset occurred coincidentally, in the Second Quarter-Finals in 2018, but it was sadly not to be. However, it was nice to see such an amazing performance and I guess that's what everyone wants from the finalists of any Series here on the show.

One last week with Nick Hewer in the chair and the next two matches might be a bit controversial because the seeding was incorrect and it was unfortunately overlooked, but what's done is done I guess. Will it be "Probably here thanks to a last-second tiebreaker conundrum solve" Adam Latchford or "Another finalist who was beaten by you guessed it, another finalist" Declan McGurk who will come out the victor and face James on Thursday? Five more episodes to go, you won't want to miss the final episodes before Nick's retirement!

Progress:
QF1 (17 June): Luke Boynton (#1) vs Dave Lomax (#8) (99 - 47)
QF2 (18 June): James Burley (#2) vs Tom Vincent (#7) (100 - 66)
QF3 (21 June): Adam Latchford (#3)* vs Declan McGurk (#6)
QF4 (22 June): Louis Ross (#4)* vs Coral Heath (#5)
SF1 (23 June): Luke Boynton (QF1 Winner) vs (QF4 Winner)
SF2 (24 June): James Burley (QF2 Winner) vs (QF3 Winner)
GF (25 June): (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)

[Gavin Chipper]

I like how Susie always says "As in aneroid barometer" whenever ANEROID comes up. It doesn't help! No-one knows what an aneroid barometer is!