Spoilers for Monday 2 January 2023 - CoC XVI, Prelim 1

[Philip A]

Countdown is back for its 41st full year… but the next 15 shows will be different. No challenger vs champion; all the contestants are previous finalists vying for the 16th Champion of Champions, the first in 4 years. 3 weeks of fun and high standard, and we understand Colin Murray is here to stay for the foreseeable.

It’s the first CoC since the 13th tournament in 2009 to have finalists from the most recent series, and the first to have 7 series winners. Today, Series 84 runner-up Florence Cappleman-Lynes takes on Series 82 semi-finalist Leo Smith.

[samir pilica]

R5 ESTUFAS

[samir pilica]

R11 MAHEWUS

[Toby McDonald]

Congrats Florence, and commiserations Leo. Great start to the championship.

[Gavin Chipper]

Good first game. The scoreline doesn't reflect how close it was for a while.

I was a little bit surprised that both players missed the 6-small 329 after so casually getting the 321 because there were a few gettable methods for it, but I suppose 6 small ability is probably one of the first things that goes when the pressure's on. The 587 solve was a demonstration that you should know which multiples of 25 you can get with just the 4 larges and Florence was obviously on that. Conundrum was obviously ridiculous but this debate has been had multiple times.

[Johnny Canuck]

CECIL starting off this year's Countdown with a 3-2-1!

[Adam Dexter]

Nervy start with me going 8 up! Also got the 329 so reckon I wouldn't have been too far away at the end.

Happy to get the con after seeing it as Enticable for ages. Also managed to vaguely define it as well (I thought it was a voice between tenor and bass but was definitely in the right ballpark). Reckon I must have seen it in the wild somewhere.

[Philip A]

An enjoyable opening match. Commiserations to Leo and well done to Florence on winning with another century.

I think the name of the tournament adds pressure which can cause dips and blips in performance, even after so much practice. From my experience, pressure got bigger and bigger as the tournament went on. I scored 13 maxes in this game from the armchair, missing ESTUFAS and MAHEWUS.

I would expect terms from academic subjects such as music, medicine, mathematics etc. as well as lesser-known nouns, verbs and adjectives (such as BONHOMOUS from the last CoC final). Damian Eadie is very good at choosing a variety of challenging words for conundrums in finals and CoCs, so the conundrum package here will be interesting (and I thought the last CoC had the best and toughest conundrum set ever). I got CANTABILE in 3 seconds; I mispronounced it like Colin did, but assumed they would’ve taken it.

[Gavin Chipper]

Colin calling Florence the better half compared to Sam was a bit

[Ryan Lam]

Happy 2023 to all of you and hope you're doing well! Championship of Champions is back for another edition after four years, and this time around, we've got loads to cover and look forward to after having an incredible last eight Series between Series 79 which began way back in July 2018 to Series 86 which just ended in, of course, December 2022. This is also the first CoC that I've watched every single episode prior to it happening, so I guess that's a personal achievement!

Firstly, get well soon Susie, her voice is definitely way off and this is why we will not have Origins of Words for this whole week (hopefully it's only this week!). Also, guess who's on Normal Countdown now having last appeared six years ago on Catsdown and being the former executive producer of that show, Richard Osman of course! We've also got the first two contestants, Florence Cappleman-Lynes, Seires 84 Runner-Up from June 2021 and Leo Smith, Series 82 Semi-Finalist from December 2020! How much does Leo "hate" the Cappleman-Lynes family having now met both husband and wife? Let's see! All the best to Florence who's expecting another child soon, damn, their family is expanding quickly haha!

Letters: Florence gets a good start with ONSTEEAD in R2, but Leo fights back just like how he did against her husband two years ago with TOREADOR in R5! Great job to both who got BEGONIAS in R7, but Florence with her calm composure like what we observed around a year ago, spots AEOLIAN (which Susie just manages to voice out the meaning, poor her though...) in R8 and WHENUA in R12! Amazing, and for the record, I only managed to spot TOREADOR. That just goes to show the calibre of these contestants!

Numbers:

CECIL starting off this year's Countdown with a 3-2-1!

Thanks Johnny for spotting this, what a nice way to start off 2023 with 6 Small. Given this is their speciality for both contestants based on my memory, this is easy for them! R6 follows, and let's just say we skip this one. R9 then ensues with Florence going ahead after being closer to the target. Finally, even though the game was over by R14, Leo ends off with 4 Large. Rachel, being savage, says "Go Big and Go Home"! Alas, that's what happened, he did end up in that situation with Florence having a simple yet perfect solution!

Conundrum: Blanked out on this one, and after the answer came out, gah, I knew the word and its meaning beforehand! Tough one for both Florence and Leo, and you can expect such conundrums for the next 14 episodes! Hopefully I get at least one right though...

I pretty much expected Leo to be defeated by the other Cappleman-Lynes here and to lose to two members of the same family is awful if you ask me. But hey, you've managed to get this far and you still haven't lost touch with the game two years after we last saw you, that is brilliant. Hopefully, after hearing Florence's declarations, you'll be inspired to join the Countdown community and get in touch with us some day!

One half of the Cappleman-Lynes is into the Quarter-Finals, so let's see if Sam can do the same next Wednesday and if a Husband vs Wife showdown will occur (or not)! Tomorrow, it's going to be very exciting, because, as Colin mentioned, it's the rematch of the Series 80 Grand Final back in June 2019! Will Elliott emerge triumphant this time round after 3.5 years or will Dinos prove to be his stumbling block once again? Last CoC, Bradley Horrocks defeated Tom Chafer-Cook in a rematch of the Series 77 Grand Final with the Runner-Up winning. Will it happen again? Only one way to find out!

(P.S. My progress table has TBCs in it because I choose not to have the order spoiled!)

Progress:
Preliminary 1 (02 January 2023): Florence Cappleman-Lynes (Series 84 Runner-Up) vs Leo Smith (Series 82 Semi-Finalist) (100 - 69)
Preliminary 2 (03 January 2023): Dinos Sfyris (Series 80 Grand Champion) vs Elliott Mellor (Series 80 Runner-Up)
Preliminary 3 (04 January 2023): (TBC)
Preliminary 4 (05 January 2023): (TBC)
Preliminary 5 (06 January 2023): (TBC)
Preliminary 6 (09 January 2023): (TBC)
Preliminary 7 (10 January 2023): Steve Hyde (Series 85 Semi-Finalist) vs Dan Byrom (Series 85 Grand Champion)
Preliminary 8 (11 January 2023): Matt O'Connor (Series 85 Runner-Up) vs Sam Cappleman-Lynes (Series 82 Runner-Up)
Quarter-Finals 1 (12 January 2023): Florence Cappleman-Lynes (Preliminary 1 Winner) vs (Preliminary 8 Winner)
Quarter-Finals 2 (13 January 2023): (Preliminary 2 Winner) vs (Preliminary 7 Winner)
Quarter-Finals 3 (16 January 2023): (Preliminary 3 Winner) vs (Preliminary 6 Winner)
Quarter-Finals 4 (17 January 2023): (Preliminary 4 Winner) vs (Preliminary 5 Winner)
Semi-Finals 1 (18 January 2023): (Quarter-Finals 1 Winner) vs (Quarter-Finals 4 Winner)
Semi-Finals 2 (19 January 2023): (Quarter-Finals 2 Winner) vs (Quarter-Finals 3 Winner)
Championship Final (20 January 2023): (Semi-Finals 1 Winner) vs (Semi-Finals 2 Winner)

[JackHurst]

Absolutely love a tough conundrum, that was a great one. I reckon about 5 or 6 of the players in that c of c would have solved it which feels like an appropriate level of difficulty.

FWIW I have a personal list of around 1000 conundrums which are not on Apterous but are the most common words in the Lexicon by usage (according to google n grams), and CANTABILE is on that list. So if Damian has sought to try and find conundrums that are not on Apterous but are not super obscure made up words scribbled into a Gaelic book once by a monk, then hes doing a good job so far.

[Philip A]

Absolutely love a tough conundrum, that was a great one. I reckon about 5 or 6 of the players in that c of c would have solved it which feels like an appropriate level of difficulty.

FWIW I have a personal list of around 1000 conundrums which are not on Apterous but are the most common words in the Lexicon by usage (according to google n grams), and CANTABILE is on that list. So if Damian has sought to try and find conundrums that are not on Apterous but are not super obscure made up words scribbled into a Gaelic book once by a monk, then hes doing a good job so far.

He went for a lot of non-Ascension conundrums in the Series 78 finals and the last CoC; those conundrums have since been added on Ascension, except LACTULOSE which is an anagram of ALLOCUTES.

[Sam Cappleman-Lynes]

Absolutely love a tough conundrum, that was a great one. I reckon about 5 or 6 of the players in that c of c would have solved it which feels like an appropriate level of difficulty.

I thought it was a really good conundrum too, and I think my recollection is that you're spot on about how many would have solved it (it's hard for me to be sure because I watched this game from the studio floor rather than from the hospitality room with everyone else).

[Fiona T]

Absolutely love a tough conundrum, that was a great one. I reckon about 5 or 6 of the players in that c of c would have solved it which feels like an appropriate level of difficulty.

I thought it was a really good conundrum too, and I think my recollection is that you're spot on about how many would have solved it (it's hard for me to be sure because I watched this game from the studio floor rather than from the hospitality room with everyone else).

It was just me and Maus in the hospitality room at this point - and no, we didn't get it!