Two The 1% Club Players Lose £95,000 After Fiendish Triangle Puzzle

A puzzle that looked like nothing more than a picture of triangles ended up costing two The 1% Club contestants a potential £95,000.

Christopher and Scott had survived round after round of ITV’s quiz show by relying on logic, observation, common sense and the occasional lucky guess. But when host Lee Mack presented them with a geometric puzzle, the pressure of the ticking clock proved too much.

The challenge seemed straightforward: simply count the triangles.

In reality, it required contestants to look beyond the shapes that were immediately visible and recognise larger triangles created by combining several smaller sections.

How many triangles can you find?

Lee asked the players:

“How many triangles are in this picture?”

On screen was a large triangle divided into multiple smaller shapes. Some triangles could be spotted almost instantly, while others were formed by several sections of the overall design.

That made keeping an accurate tally far harder than it first appeared.

As the countdown continued, both Christopher and Scott tried to work through the diagram. Lee repeated the question while Christopher appeared to be deep in thought, looking down as he attempted to reach a final figure.

When the time ran out, Christopher went with eight triangles.

Scott had counted substantially more, submitting 19.

But neither contestant had found the correct total.

The correct answer was 18

Lee eventually revealed that the answer was 18 triangles.

The trick was not simply to count the smaller, clearly defined shapes. The diagram also contained larger triangles that emerged when multiple sections were considered together.

Those additional shapes were easy to overlook, but they were essential to reaching the correct total of 18.

Christopher immediately recognised where he had gone wrong.

“I clearly didn’t count all the triangles,” he admitted with a laugh.

Scott, meanwhile, had come remarkably close. His answer of 19 was only one away from the actual figure, but there was a reason he had ended up with an extra triangle.

Scott lost track while counting

Lee asked Scott whether he had guessed his answer or had genuinely been counting the shapes, particularly since he had landed so close to the correct number.

Scott explained that he had initially been working through the diagram methodically. But as he continued, he began losing track of which triangles he had already counted.

“I started counting, and then I just kept counting the same triangles over and over and over again,” he admitted.

With the clock running down, the pressure eventually took over.

“And then I just panicked and put 19.”

Being just one triangle away was not enough. The answer still had to be exactly right.

A £95,000 opportunity disappears

For both contestants, the deceptively simple triangle diagram became the decisive moment in their run.

The potential £95,000 prize slipped away because neither managed to identify the correct total before submitting an answer.

The puzzle demonstrated exactly why The 1% Club can be so challenging. There was no specialist knowledge required — only careful observation and the ability to keep track of every possible combination within a seemingly simple image.

The crucial mistake was overlooking the larger triangles created from the smaller shapes, while Scott’s near-perfect count was undone by repeatedly including some of the same triangles.

The final answer was 18.

The question now is: could you have counted every triangle correctly before the clock ran out?