Spoilers for Monday 26th June 2023 - (Series 87, QF 4)

[Ronan M Higginson]

That's some revenge. Unlucky Graham. See you tomorrow Adam!

[Philip A]

Very well done, Adam. The training paid dividends and no doubt you’ll carry on that competitive mindset in the semi-final game. Commiserations, Graham.

One observation; in the last numbers game, Rachel drew the upside-down card before drawing 5 more, which means surely the last card to be put up was an upside-down 9? Although, it’s difficult with the typeface to tell whether it actually is upside-down face up. But preferably all the cards should have the Countdown card facing the right-way up just in case it makes three 6s or three 9s.

[Toby McDonald]

TRIPODAL in R4

[Ryan Lam]

One last week of the Series, and in case you didn't catch the continuity announcement featuring Ken Bruce at the beginning of the show, the first half of the recording was actually recycled, I thought you'd like to know. Moving on, today we have the first rematch of the Series, with both contestants having lost to the eventual Series Champion in their very first appearances on the show. Speaking of which, Colin says this rematch features "The Proclaimers", argh, now look at what he's done, I can't get this out of my head now! Adam is probably "seething" at Graham who ended his run prematurely and now has to face him yet again three weeks later, so let's see if he can defeat him this time round!

Letters: A good opening by Adam with DOWAGERS in R1 to take the lead, and interesting, we had SIXTEEN in the last Quarter-Final on Friday and both playres spot FIFTEEN in R2, coincidence? I don't know. After the first Teatime Teaser, Adam picked up the pace with DELETION in R5, and unlucky for Graham to not declare EARRINGS in time in R7 But, it was during the last third of the show where the former really shined, with his great spots of ECOTONES in R12 to beat Graham's COSSET and of course, that fatal final blow in R13 with TRIANGLES! I was surprised not because this happened so late in the game, but rather the speed at which it happened!

Numbers: Graham gambles with 3 Large in R3 in an attempt to claw back the lead, but CECIL threw up a ridiculously easy target that we could all relax for 29 seconds. Adam next does the same to widen the gap in R6 and my face fell flat again with another easy one. Graham goes for 1 Large next in R9 but it doesn't help him as Adam spots a solution with 99 × 9, fantastic! Finally, to spice things up, Adam goes for 6 Small in R14, and hey, at least Rachel got to do some work today after both of them got one away!

Conundrum: The answer requires one to SEE IT all I guess, and I hear Adam's buzzer but he incorrectly goes for weasliest I thought that I must have seen the answer as a falseagram to that wrong answer but I guess it was my imagination. Time's up and no one gets it, LEASTWISE this was a difficult word to spot.

Damn, Graham was dealt with some serious blows there, and it just goes to show that even if this was a rematch, the outcomes are almost never always going to be the same. Based on both players' performance in the Preliminaries, I predicted Adam to win by a margin of 30 points, but the difference was much greater at 57 points! Graham, I'm sure you didn't take this defeat to heart; you had already beaten Adam once thanks to the crucial conundrum, so it was always going to be difficult to maintain the same outcome. The fact that you made it here to a Series Final 12 years later must have been an achievement for you, bearing in mind you didn't expect to win seven matches and taking one of the two remaining spots in the Finals with less than a month in the qualifying window! I wish you well in your job and great sportmanship at the end with you shaking hands with Adam!

The first Semi-Final is nearly here and speaking about rematches, a Zoomdown rematch is about to take place with Ronan facing Dexter and what's more, both of them were in the Daily Chat and they didn't reveal much about tomorrow's show. Is this a sign of what's to come or what I think might happen? We'll find out soon enough!

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) (109 - 81)
QF3 (23 June 2023): Peter Burke (#3) vs Greg Pearce (#6) (107 - 64)
QF4 (26 June 2023): Graham Moonie-Dalton (#4) vs Adam Dexter (#5) (60 - 117)
SF1 (27 June 2023): Ronan Higginson (QF1 Winner) vs Adam Dexter (QF4 Winner)
SF2 (28 June 2023): Cillian McMulkin (QF2 Winner) vs Peter Burke (QF3 Winner)
GF (29 June 2023): (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)

[Andres Sanchez]

I'll take that as a birthday present, very well done Adam!!!

Played along on this one:
BODEGAS
FIFTEEN
(100-25)*4
PAROTID
DELETION
((100/(75-25))+50)*3
EARRINGS
modman
75*(10+3-1)-8
TERATOMA
PODS
SCENTS
TRIANGLES
9*2*3*8+3
LEASTWISE

Woulda lost 93 - 104 with Adam and won 117 - 71 against Graham, hope the semi's a cracker!