Spoilers for Wednesday 21st June 2023 - Series 87 1st Quarter-final

[Philip A]

Ronan VS Andrew

The finals begin here - one day earlier than originally scheduled due to a cancelled recording, meaning (not for the first time) the Grand Final will not be on a Friday. 110 contestants took part; only 2 became Octochamps, the fewest for 13 years. But these 8 worthy finalists will do battle in a bid to become Series Champion by Episode 8050.

1 Ronan Higginson 8 1,041
2 Cillian McMulkin 8 944
3 Peter Burke 7 705
4 Graham Moonie-Dalton 7 680
5 Adam Dexter 6 698
6 Greg Pearce 6 680
7 Dave Cappleman 6 621
8 Andrew Barrett 6 573

[Philip A]

An enjoyable match. Well played as ever, Ronan. I missed REGIMENS, but spotted SUBVOCAL. Andrew scored more points than what most No. 8 seeds have achieved; well bowed-out especially on the conundrum. Cillian against Daddy Cap tomorrow.

[Tracey Anne Mills]

Recap for this will up later on

[Ronan M Higginson]

Didn't know subvocal/municipal well enough to remember them, and also overcomplicated my numbers a bit, but very happy with how that went and a great performance from Andrew too, who was such a lovely man to play against. Back next Tuesday playing the winner of the Graham vs Adam rematch. If the latter gets his revenge then it's a Zoomdown Semi Final rematch.

Hope everyone enjoyed watching.

[John Garcia]

Didn't know subvocal/municipal well enough to remember them

Thanks for letting me win a round!
Enjoyed watching, looking forward to the rest.

[Ryan Lam]

Summer's officially here, and let's hope the weather isn't too hot compared to the record breaking temperatures we got last year. Speaking of which, this is the first time in ages that the Series Finals doesn't end on a Friday due to unforeseen circumstances and while it's not the first time, I can't remember when was the last time it happened. To start off, we've got "The Hurricane, Teenage Prodigy and the second best Preliminary Player in history" Ronan Higginson (Sorry, Colin's nickname for Ronan is just so catchy at this point I can't think of anything else...) vs "Musician and Unlucky enough to have his last episode suffer from Technical Faults" Andrew Barrett. Let's hope for the best as we kick of a season of fun once more, and a few observant people in the Daily Chat were smart enough to notice the Finalist plaque is no longer visibly displayed on the table!

Letters: A great opening with OPACITES from Ronan in R1, but Andrew doesn't let him get too far ahead after the first break with both of them spotting maxes in R4 and R5. Ironically, how unkind R7 was to the latter as there was only one "N" inside Ronan also has hopes of another max game dashed with SUBVOCAL in R10, but to be fair, MOGOTE is an excellent spot and MOOTHER would have been so obscure in R12. Then, came the end, with IGNORABLE in R13 to open up a huge gap and crash the century barrier again!

Numbers: An easy R3 to ease ourselves into the Finals with both contestants hitting the target, but R6 wasn't so straightforward that even I missed it However, Ronan sees an easy way to extend his lead. R9 comes and as what Ronan mentioned, his method was around the houses and people on the Daily Chat noticed it too, but the important thing is he gets the ten points. Finally, R14 with a lucky "777", but alas, Andrew won't be flying today as he misses it

Conundrum: Let's see how difficult the first conundrum is going to be. When I saw it, the answer instantly clicked, because I had seen this scrabble multiple times on Apterous!

Didn't know subvocal/municipal well enough to remember them.

But wait, Ronan doesn't get it instantly like he has been for almost all of his conundrums thus far, it stumped him! A few seconds later, I hear Andrew's buzzer and get in there, he solves it, well done to him!

When I said the competition was going to be fierce in the Predictions thread, I was certainly predicting something like this to happen. I predicted Ronan to win by a margin of 60 points and the eventual outcome was even closer at 52 points! What a fantastic ending despite the fact that we probably all knew Andrew had no chance of winning, for he had nothing to lose as our Series 83 Grand Champion Adam Latchford pointed out in the Daily Chat Andrew, you have certainly made your late father proud and I'm sure he was still alive, he would have been overjoyed at seeing you get this far in the competition and playing so well here May you continue to give joy to people around you through music and I'm sure you will continue to support Countdown after all this time!

Next up, it's "Irishman who holds the Joint Highest Score and Sitting Right Smack in between Two Finalists" Cillian McMulkin versus "Countdown's in the Family with his Son being a Grand Champion" Dave Cappleman. Will the former have Tom Stevenson's luck or will the latter get enough support from Tom Cappleman to the point he wins? Let's find out soon!

Progress:
QF1 (21 June 2023): Ronan Higginson (#1) vs Andrew Barrett (#8) (122 - 70)
QF2 (22 June 2023): Cillian McMulkin (#2) vs Dave Cappleman (#7)
QF3 (23 June 2023): Peter Burke (#3) vs Greg Pearce (#6)
QF4 (26 June 2023): Graham Moonie-Dalton (#4) vs Adam Dexter (#5)
SF1 (27 June 2023): Ronan Higginson (QF1 Winner) vs (QF4 Winner)
SF2 (28 June 2023): (QF2 Winner) vs (QF3 Winner)
GF (29 June 2023): (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)

[Ronan M Higginson]

Excellent write-up as ever Ryan, much appreciated.