In good time for #mathematicsweek, Channel 4 have chosen to start re-showing my Champion of Champions (filmed in 2015, broadcast 2016) on telly this week. A real way to boost the nation’s morale.
So on Friday at 2.10pm you can see me looking horribly uncomfortable and desperate to escape the set as I play a maths graduate who is an expert at 4 large and tried to psyche me out in the Green Room about it!! It is my least favourite episode (although not the one episode I can never rewatch).
If I win, you would do well to save the same time on Monday 13th and Thursday 16th July as well…
Please chat, ask questions and express your excitement/need to buy some tissues for your living room below. I may drop dirt on my competitor(s) in due course.
Occasionally, not usually at the top levels though? To my knowledge. One guy’s opponent called him a cunt just before going on set for their SF and it really threw him (opponent and his gf had been incredibly rude to him already by mocking the fact he doesn’t drink etc). he lost unexpectedly.
Aware of some pigs using sexism to psyche out their opponents too luckily I never really had that as an experience - the only dude who thought I was beneath him got absolutely smashed by 90 points and had a little strop on set, his wife approached me afterwards and said I’d crushed his confidence :DDD
Didn’t get to declare any extremely funny words but nearly ended up with FLANGE in my first game until I spotted HALOGEN. My opponent (lovely lovely man) got FLANGE and took all the internet plaudits for it
Spanked is the only even mildly funny one I actually declared tho.
I was alright before I started playing online - would get 6s and 7s while my halls flatmates were getting 4s and 5s, solving conundrums etc. Thought I was the absolute tits, then discovered Apterous and found that actually I was quite shit compared to the standard on there. Was going to give up but I’d already paid the year subscription so started playing this variant called Unlimited where you can use the letters as many times as you want (i.e. LENS = SENSELESSNESSES for 15) and got really into that, then decided I wanted to be the best woman player ever on the show and got taken under the wing of a good player who had crumbled in his series finals and he started sending me words every day and playing me constantly until I started winning games against him.
If I hadn’t found Apterous I possibly could have won a game or two, mayyybe could have scraped the octorun but unlikely. So I’d say a lot of it comes from playing online (until recently there hadn’t been a series winner who hadn’t used Apterous for like 10 years)
Being good at the maths especially is quite easy to do if you just practise quite a bit.
We did actually teach my gameplay nemesis a fake word (OUTGALE [v]: for a wind to blow more strongly than another) 6 months before the tournament, knowing he probably wouldn’t check it. He declared OUTGALES in an event final and looked really puzzled when it was disallowed. Me and a friend had to go to the back of the room and hide behind people to have a crylaughing fit.
Karma got us back though, cos spoiler alert: he wins this whole thing.
luckily I never really had that as an experience - the only dude who thought I was beneath him got absolutely smashed by 90 points and had a little strop on set, his wife approached me afterwards and said I’d crushed his confidence :DDD
1 hour warning!! 