Series 83 Champion Adam Latchford brings us the lowdown on our latest event

28 degree sunshine, Champions League final and the last weekend of May. There is surely no better time to have a FOCAL event! Well, clearly 27 people thought so as we all embarked down on a trip to Tunbridge Wells for the second event to be hosted here by Gabriel Thallon.

After the initial hiccough of every single train getting delayed by people, we were off and raring to go. A few really interesting match ups were drawn, with Ethan Mahal edging out Tim Hebbes and the up and coming prodigy Samuel Stock playing Countdown royalty in Heather Styles. There were no crucials in the entire round 1, which is a major rarity.  Round 2 brought about some tie break conundrums between the aforementioned Samuel Stock and Coral Heath before UNAUDITED was correctly answered by Sam. Joseph Bartram also edged out Paul Talmey by a single point in a cracking game.

We then all broke for lunch, a few of us went to the pub (legends), whilst a few people took advantage of the many fans in the event room. The mood was upbeat, knowing the event was running to time now and people were revitalised for round 3.

Nobody was more revitalised than Jessica Pratesi, scoring a comfortable win over previous Tunbridge Wells winner MSR. Zohaib edged out TCAP in a game on a crucial of PITHIVIER – a spot that took Zohaib under 0.001 seconds.

Round 4 was uneventful but finished with 8 players on 3 wins, and just Zohaib on 4. The likely finalists at this point appeared to be Zohaib and one of TCAP, Brockwell, Ethan Mahal and somehow me. Obviously that led to some great match ups for round 5 as the table took space. TCAP played Phil Stanton, knowing if he won in a clean game (ie not dropping many points) he should be in. Brockwell had to beat Zohaib and hoped TCAP could drop a round or 2, meanwhile Ethan and myself played each other knowing we couldn’t afford to drop any rounds and the winner would have a strong chance.

So naturally, me and Ethan decided to play a bonkers game of tennis where we barely shared a round to rule ourselves both out of contention. Ethan finished off with the win despite missing GOOSANDER, the conundrum, trying harmable and declaring a 4. You can imagine how I played (although I was robbed by bavette not being a word). This means eyes turned to Matthew Brockwell vs Zohaib, Brockwell needing the win. Which he did – scoring 104 points. Would it be enough to reach the final?

No. TCAP ran out a clean game and comfortably won 124-68 against Phil meaning a final between the 2 strongest players on the day was imminent. Zohaib roared into a 15 point lead, spotting BRANDADE and ILLUMED. Then both players spotted TORULOSIS, and then ESTERASE and TESSERAE respectively. Zohaib then attempted a trick on a numbers to get 883, but landed on 893 to get TCAP into contention. It gets us to a crucial. MRSIPHONE is the scramble. Zohaib buzzes in immediately and solves, taking the final 118-107. A cracking end to a cracking game of Countdown.

The typical post CO:Event happenings were next, with many people going to the pub to watch the first half of the Arsenal PSG final whilst discussing what sort of sentient toilet they would want. We frequented Mr Singh’s restaurant after this, where we had a lovely meal which everyone definitely paid for correctly and it definitely didn’t mean I had to overpay again. Nope. (Lads and lasses, do maths please). All in all though, a delightful day and evening with a great host in Gabriel. We were unfortunately stopped travelling back after we were hit by Gabriel’s penalty (the Arsenal one) on the M1. On to the next one, Liverpool on June 20^th. Get yourselves ready for it and get signing up, it’s gonna be boss.