The 1% Club eliminates 20 contestants with tricky hand puzzle

Twenty contestants were eliminated by a single question on The 1% Club after they struggled to count the number of left hands hidden in a seemingly straightforward image.

The ITV quiz show, hosted by Lee Mack, is known for testing logic, reasoning and common sense rather than traditional general knowledge. Contestants have just 30 seconds to work through each challenge as the field of 100 players is gradually reduced.

But this particular puzzle proved much harder than it first appeared.

Could you count the left hands?

As the game moved towards its later stages, Lee presented the remaining contestants with a photograph showing pairs of hands arranged together in a circle.

He then asked:

“How many left hands are there in this photo?”

The players had 30 seconds to study the image and settle on their answer.

As they concentrated on the arrangement of hands, Lee joked: “Tell you what, throw one single Malteser in there, and you’d cause a riot.”

When the clock ran out, the result was revealed — and a huge 20 players had answered incorrectly.

They were eliminated from the game.

The correct answer was eight.

Lee also revealed that there was an additional hand in the image that had even caused him difficulty during rehearsals, highlighting just how easy it was to lose track while counting the hands.

The show’s deceptively difficult questions

The hand puzzle was just one of several challenges on The 1% Club that have left contestants struggling.

In another episode, 15 contestants were eliminated by a 70% question based on the famous sentence:

“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

Lee explained that the sentence uses every letter of the alphabet before asking which letter appears most often.

Contestants had to choose between A, E, I or O, with only 30 seconds to work out the answer.

Another episode saw 25 players eliminated by what appeared to be an “easy” picture question. Contestants were shown side-by-side images of a clock and a pair of flies, with the result surprising even Lee, who admitted: “I was not expecting that.”

More puzzles that have tested contestants

Over the course of the show, The 1% Club has challenged players with a wide variety of visual, numerical and word-based puzzles.

Among the difficult questions featured on the programme were:

• Comparing three butterfly images to determine which butterfly was exactly the same on both sides.
• Identifying groups of six symbols that remained in the same order when read from either direction.
• Working out how many different combinations could be made by displaying four digits on one hand.
• Decoding a secret message from Peter’s old diary to identify a hidden bold word.
• Counting the number of eyes visible in an image made up of letters, symbols and emojis.
• Solving a 1% puzzle involving a grid of numbers from 1 to 49, with contestants having to follow word-based instructions to identify the correct square.
• Rearranging the letters of ABDER into alphabetical order to identify a common food.

Each challenge requires contestants to look beyond the obvious and carefully follow the exact wording of the question.

The pressure of 30 seconds

That time limit can make even a relatively simple puzzle much more difficult.

On the hand question, contestants were not only required to count accurately but also distinguish between the different hands in a crowded image before the clock expired.

For the 20 players who gave the wrong answer, that brief window was enough to end their run.

With the correct answer standing at eight, the question became another example of how quickly The 1% Club can turn an apparently simple visual puzzle into a major elimination round.

The 1% Club airs on ITV1 and is available to stream on ITVX.