The penultimate episode before Nick Hewer retires, in less than 24 hours from now it'll all be over. Nine years has gone by in a flash and the time has nearly come for him to leave, but before that, of course there's still the second Semi-Finals today before the all important occasion tomorrow! Also, not sure if anyone noticed, but someone in the control room clearly switched the camera view at the end too early, whoops...
Letters: Unlucky start when both got peonic (In fact, several people in the Daily Chat made the same error too), but at least they scored points in R2 especially with James' RADIOUS. Woah, Adam has MATIPO in R4 to widen his lead. Later on, I feel James, he looked so frustrated when he could have had PLAGUER in R8 but chose not to risk it
A dodgy nine (underbets) subsequently gets both players again after the second break but James has MACULA in R12. Sadly, it was not enough to catch up after the nice spot of COALISED in the next round.
Numbers: James decides not to risk in R3 and with Adam getting a perfect solution the gap opens wide!
Adam gambles and oh my, double "1"s in R6 with "4 Large", that's not something anyone wants, but clever him, got as close as he could. Seeing what happened by this point, James admits he has no choice but to gamble with "6 Small" in R9 but it doesn't pay off with a manageable round. Finally, Adam made the move that would seal his opponent's fate, not to risk in R14 and with that, the game is over with an easy round for the Finals.
Conundrum: James might have lost but he still tries one last attempt to get the Conundrum and sadly doesn't get it
Adam tries at the very end with a funny incorrect answer until the same cameraman that laughed one week ago in the exact same round did it again
. Oh the facepalms when the answer came out, even this escaped me which left me having the same reaction too. Who knew one could have SAT near the TABLESIDE and have an EDIBLE meal (and I just so happen to have one in my garden, so all the more, yikes!)
As someone in the Daily Chat had anticipated, the numbers round would decide the game and boy was that person right with Adam edging out as the winner. This match was too close to call for me but ultimately I predicted that Adam would win by around 20 points and I was quite right with the margin at 17 points! Poor James, even if he had risked PLAGUER and MACULAE, it wouldn't have saved him from the jaws of defeat (the score would have been 67 - 82), but he played well. As he said, nerves and differences got the better of him for the fumble at the start which made him unable to catch up. Nevertheless, I'm sure you had a wonderful time and good sportsmanship you had there when you were commending Adam at the end. All the best in your teaching through this pandemic and press on! I'm sure your students have been quite supportive of you!
So there you have it, for the first time since the Series 76 Grand Final four years ago, we have the #1 Seed facing the #3 Seed and for the first time since the Series 78 Grand Final back in 2018, the #2 Seed failing to make it to the Grand Final. It will certainly be an uphill battle for Adam in terms of his statistics thus far but how will he fare against Luke who could potentially be way up there on the Xicount List with Luke Johnson-Davies last year? The final episode with Nick Hewer, the lights are about to go out, be there at 2:10pm BST wherever you are! I'm sure this is going to be a memorable episode...
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) (
99 - 40)
QF4 (22 June):
Louis Ross (#4)* vs Coral Heath (#5) (
88 - 83)
SF1 (23 June):
Luke Boynton (QF1 Winner) vs Louis Ross (QF4 Winner)* (
98 - 76)
SF2 (24 June): James Burley (QF2 Winner) vs
Adam Latchford (QF3 Winner)* (65 -
82)
GF (25 June): Luke Boynton (SF1 Winner) vs Adam Latchford (SF2 Winner)*