Spoilers for Wednesday 18 January 2023 - CoC XVI, SF 1

[Ronan M Higginson]

The first Semi Final today, Florence Cappleman-Lynes vs James Haughton for the first spot in Friday's final.

[Gavin Chipper]

We're getting to the sharp end of the tournament now. Florence Cappleman-Lynes (12) v James Haughton (3), and in the other semi-final we have Dan Byrom (5) v Ahmed Mohamed (4). So seeds 3, 4 and 5 remain along with number 12. Although in Eoin's system it's 1, 7, 8 and 11.

[samir pilica]

R13 REBETIC

[Philip A]

What a fight to the finish. I was going to try SOCIO- something on the conundrum and backed out of it! Well done both. I wonder if James will choose something other than 1 large in the final.

[Adam S Latchford]

What a fight to the finish. I was going to try SOCIO- something on the conundrum and backed out of it! Well done both. I wonder if James will choose something other than 1 large in the final.

We just all got caught up in the awkward numbers side of the draw where it makes our choices a bit more difficult. Ahmed would be an easier person to choose James's numbers selection than dan would be for the potential finals

[Rhys Benjamin]

Unlucky Florence. I’d have tried COCOLIEST but that’s the first drumcundra I’ve have buzzed on.

[Toby McDonald]

Another close game, very well played by both. Congrats James, and commiserations Florence. TARIQAT was a lovely spot from both.

R9 TAFP: (5+4)*9*6+3 = 489

[Ryan Lam]

It's been half a month since this Championship started, time flies, but soon it will come to an end, and maybe today is the beginning of the end as we see who goes through to the Championship Final after 40 minutes. On one hand, the sole contestant remaining when Nick Hewer was still the host up against the sole female here and who defeated her husband last week. I'm sure the 12 defeated players are cheering both of them on behind-the-scenes as we begin the first Semi-Final!

Letters: Florence takes an early hit with INCLINES by James, but recovers in R2 by having OSMATE matching the latter's AFTOSA. James then gets ahead even further with OSTALGIA in R4, but Florence doesn't lose the pace with both of them getting points afterwards in this section. Give yourself a pat on the back if you spotted WHITHER in R7 as no contestant in the Championship backstage did either. Perhaps the more commendable spots in my opinion were AUTOPEN (maybe because it's one of my favourite words ) and of course, TARIQAT in R13. It's not often the "Q" appears in a word of max length, so great spotting!

Numbers: With Florence behind, it's not surprising she goes for 6 Small in R3, but it doesn't throw James off as both hit spot on (And I missed miserably, how did I not see the latter's method?). James on the other hand, wants to take things easy like yesterday, 1 Large, too easy am I right? Florence then tries again in R9 to narrow the gap but it was just too easy. Finally, came R14 with James deciding to play safe. OH NO!! He goes wrong with his method and Florence catches up to him, meaning the game goes into crucial territory! Damn, a straight path to victory cut short so cruelly, oh my god, you know what's coming up next after that...

Conundrum: James enters crucial territory for the third time in this Championship, and barely 24 hours after the last. The dreaded round that has seen some players out, and I'm sure both players hoped to not be on that list. Here comes the conundrum with him fumbling costelotic, but it's not right, giving Florence another 21 seconds the opportunity to steal and win!! Time sure goes by slowly when you're in that position, and I could see James having a dreaded look on camera, probably hoping Florence doesn't know the answer. At the last second, Florence buzzes in but it's incorrect too, meaning James can breathe a huge sigh of relief as he clinches the first spot of the Championship Final!!! What an ending, and let's hope James was well enough after this game to be not sent to the hospital in an ambulance...

Florence, you have been a brilliant player not just in your original Series, but here as well. You have shown that women can be high-flyers on the show and being the first female Grand Finalist since Ann Dibben says a lot. I hope you will not be the last woman in a long time to make it this far in a normal Series, less this Championship, and may your achievements (and your composure not to say the least!) live on. As Colin mentions too, may the Cappleman-Lynes name live on in Countdown, if this show is on decades down the road still, we hope to see at least one of your children as a contestant! Congratulations on the birth of your third child and most important of all, I'm sure you could have never asked for a better husband, Sam who has been with you for eight years now and supported you throughout this journey. All the best in life to the both of you and may your family be showered with many blessings in years to come!

The second-last episode of the Championship, and the second-last battle between Grand Champions, because no matter what, the Championship Final will feature two of them. Who of the champions when Anne Robinson was the host (Gosh, it felt so long ago now!) will take the second spot? Will it be Ahmed or Dan? The former has never faced a crucial conundrum, can Dan force him into that situation? It's almost time to find out soon!

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) (88 - 110)
Preliminary 3 (04 January 2023): Ahmed Mohamed (Series 84 Grand Champion) vs Edward Byrne (Series 86 Runner-Up) (121 - 76)
Preliminary 4 (05 January 2023): Stu Harkness (Series 84 Semi-Finalist) vs James Haughton (Series 81 Grand Champion) (97 - 111)
Preliminary 5 (06 January 2023): Tom Stevenson (Series 86 Grand Champion) vs Adam Latchford (Series 83 Grand Champion) (95 - 97)
Preliminary 6 (09 January 2023): Martin May (Series 79 Runner-Up) vs Luke-Johnson Davies (Series 82 Grand Champion) (90 - 117)
Preliminary 7 (10 January 2023): Steve Hyde (Series 85 Semi-Finalist) vs Dan Byrom (Series 85 Grand Champion) (70 - 108)
Preliminary 8 (11 January 2023): Matt O'Connor (Series 85 Runner-Up) vs Sam Cappleman-Lynes (Series 82 Runner-Up) (78 - 101)
Quarter-Finals 1 (12 January 2023): Florence Cappleman-Lynes (Preliminary 1 Winner) vs Sam Cappleman-Lynes (Preliminary 8 Winner) (95 - 93)
Quarter-Finals 2 (13 January 2023): Elliott Mellor (Preliminary 2 Winner) vs Dan Byrom (Preliminary 7 Winner) (102 - 106)
Quarter-Finals 3 (16 January 2023): Ahmed Mohamed (Preliminary 3 Winner) vs Luke Johnson-Davies (Preliminary 6 Winner) (132 - 100)
Quarter-Finals 4 (17 January 2023): James Haughton (Preliminary 4 Winner) vs Adam Latchford (Preliminary 5 Winner) (109 - 102)
Semi-Finals 1 (18 January 2023): Florence Cappleman-Lynes (Quarter-Finals 1 Winner) vs James Haughton (Quarter-Finals 4 Winner) (91 - 100)
Semi-Finals 2 (19 January 2023): Dan Byrom (Quarter-Finals 2 Winner) vs Ahmed Mohamed (Quarter-Finals 3 Winner)
Championship Final (20 January 2023): James Haughton (Semi-Finals 1 Winner) vs (Semi-Finals 2 Winner)

[David Williams]

Feeling quite pleased with myself for WHITHER and SOCIOLECT. Not that I'd ever heard of the word. Most of the current run seem to involve finding a suffix/prefix and seeing if the remaining letters can be made into a plausible prefix/suffix. I'd be interested to know how they actually found them all.

[Gavin Chipper]

Just catching up as I'm a bit behind. Another great game, and down to the wire. People haven't really been talking up James Haughton too much but he would be the number 3 seed and I'm not at all surprised by his progress, especially in this half of the draw.

Give yourself a pat on the back if you spotted WHITHER in R7 as no contestant in the Championship backstage did either.

I'm surprised by this. I saw it basically straight away. I saw WITHER and noticed there was another H was was like "Thank you very much". I suppose two Hs is quite rare, and most good players are just high probability word bots rather than anagrammers.

I got hammered over the rest of the game of course.

[JackHurst]

People haven't really been talking up James Haughton too much but he would be the number 3 seed...

Agree completely with people underplaying James.

I disagree with your obsession to try and put seedings on to things all the time just by adding points scored together . The situations of games vary so much, and all that matters in the end is winning your episode. I hold the viewpoint that there's just not enough data to try and rank players from TV alone unless they've played each other. Imagine if the Premier league was the 20 "Top" English teams, but they never actually played each other in a season, and instead played all teams from League 2, and scored their point sin the premier league according to those games. That's basically what you are doing.

[Gavin Chipper]

People haven't really been talking up James Haughton too much but he would be the number 3 seed...

Agree completely with people underplaying James.

I disagree with your obsession to try and put seedings on to things all the time just by adding points scored together . The situations of games vary so much, and all that matters in the end is winning your episode. I hold the viewpoint that there's just not enough data to try and rank players from TV alone unless they've played each other. Imagine if the Premier league was the 20 "Top" English teams, but they never actually played each other in a season, and instead played all teams from League 2, and scored their point sin the premier league according to those games. That's basically what you are doing.

Blame Eoin.

I'm just pushing these seedings to overwrite in people's brains what Eoin came up with.

[Countdown Team]

Feeling quite pleased with myself for WHITHER and SOCIOLECT. Not that I'd ever heard of the word. Most of the current run seem to involve finding a suffix/prefix and seeing if the remaining letters can be made into a plausible prefix/suffix. I'd be interested to know how they actually found them all.

Made notes of some of them when poring over 9-letter words lists, purely on the grounds of them being multi-faceted in terms of endings and beginnings. Some were seen when reading recipes (tomatillo), sheet music (cantabile andantino), lo-cost ice was written in chalk on a board outside the entrance to a Shell garage near my home during the heatwave last year, (i got the 9 and made a mental note of it), nicotiana i'd always presumed was the word given to the collection of cigarette memorabilia etc, it was in a quiz, turned out the answer was cartophily or something like that, but i noted it down as a good word for shuffling with, and lastly chatoyant was used during a jewellery hour on QVC a while back. The rest i can't remember.

[Andres Sanchez]

Feeling quite pleased with myself for WHITHER and SOCIOLECT. Not that I'd ever heard of the word. Most of the current run seem to involve finding a suffix/prefix and seeing if the remaining letters can be made into a plausible prefix/suffix. I'd be interested to know how they actually found them all.

Made notes of some of them when poring over 9-letter words lists, purely on the grounds of them being multi-faceted in terms of endings and beginnings. Some were seen when reading recipes (tomatillo), sheet music (cantabile andantino), lo-cost ice was written in chalk on a board outside the entrance to a Shell garage near my home during the heatwave last year, (i got the 9 and made a mental note of it), nicotiana i'd always presumed was the word given to the collection of cigarette memorabilia etc, it was in a quiz, turned out the answer was cartophily or something like that, but i noted it down as a good word for shuffling with, and lastly chatoyant was used during a jewellery hour on QVC a while back. The rest i can't remember.

I see the habit of spotting nines and making cons out of them really works.

[Countdown Team]

I see the habit of spotting nines and making cons out of them really works.

It's an affliction, not a habit.

[David Williams]

Made notes of some of them when poring over 9-letter words lists, purely on the grounds of them being multi-faceted in terms of endings and beginnings. Some were seen when reading recipes (tomatillo), sheet music (cantabile andantino), lo-cost ice was written in chalk on a board outside the entrance to a Shell garage near my home during the heatwave last year, (i got the 9 and made a mental note of it), nicotiana i'd always presumed was the word given to the collection of cigarette memorabilia etc, it was in a quiz, turned out the answer was cartophily or something like that, but i noted it down as a good word for shuffling with, and lastly chatoyant was used during a jewellery hour on QVC a while back. The rest i can't remember.

A fascinating glimpse into a personal life! Still just about keeping one step ahead of the contestants. Thanks for the insight.

[Andres Sanchez]

I see the habit of spotting nines and making cons out of them really works.

It's an affliction, not a habit.

I feel you, I have the same fate.