The 1% Club contestant eliminated by tricky number puzzle after just 30 seconds

A deceptively simple number puzzle left a contestant out of the running on The 1% Club. With only 30 seconds to spot the connection, could you have found the answer?

The ITV quiz show puts contestants and viewers at home through a series of puzzles designed to test logic, pattern recognition and common sense rather than general knowledge. ITV describes the format as a test where 100 contestants work their way from a question that most people can answer towards the final challenge that only 1% of the public can solve.

That format came into play during a repeated episode from series two, when one of the remaining contestants was eliminated on the 15% question.

The puzzle looked like this:

If 2 and 3 go together, and 6 and 7 go together, which two out of 1, 4, 5, 8 and 9 are a pair?

It sounds straightforward at first, but the clock was already ticking.

Could you solve it in 30 seconds?

Contestants had just 30 seconds to work out the hidden connection. Viewers playing along at home had the same amount of time to see whether they could beat the players on screen.

When the time ran out, host Lee Mack revealed that one of the remaining contestants had been knocked out.

The answer was 4 and 5.

The trick was to say the numbers aloud and look at the first letter of each number’s name.

2 = two and 3 = three, so they form a pair because both begin with T.

Likewise, 6 = six and 7 = seven both begin with S.

That leaves 1, 4, 5, 8 and 9. Among those, 4 = four and 5 = five are the only two that begin with the same letter, F.

So the correct pairing was 4 and 5.

It is exactly the kind of sideways-thinking puzzle that The 1% Club is built around.

How The 1% Club works

Each episode begins with 100 contestants, with the questions becoming progressively more difficult as the game moves towards the 1% question. Unlike traditional quizzes, players do not need to revise facts or rely on general knowledge. The format is built around logic and common sense.

Every contestant starts with £1,000. If they answer a question incorrectly, they are eliminated and their £1,000 goes into the prize pot.

As more contestants are eliminated, the potential prize grows.

The show gradually works down from questions that around 90% of people can answer to the notoriously difficult 1% challenge. The percentages are based on answers gathered from members of the public before the questions are used on the programme.

That means a question labelled 15% is intended to be one that only a relatively small proportion of people would solve correctly.

For the contestant eliminated in this episode, the number puzzle proved to be the stumbling block.

Six players had already fallen on the previous question

The 15% puzzle was not the only challenge to cause problems during the episode.

The previous question, marked at 20%, eliminated six contestants.

Players were asked:

Which four-letter word is missing from this list?

The list began with spot and also contained pots and tops.

The missing word was Post.

The question relied on spotting that the letters could be rearranged to create different four-letter words.

By the time the number-pairing question arrived, the field had already been reduced considerably.

Brett reaches the final 1% question

The episode eventually came down to a single contestant, Brett, who made it all the way to the 1% question.

By that stage, Brett already had £1,000 secured. He also had the option of taking a further £10,000 rather than attempting the final question.

But there was a much larger prize at stake.

The jackpot had reached £96,000, and Brett chose to take on the final challenge in the hope of winning the entire amount.

Unfortunately, he answered incorrectly and missed the chance to take home the full jackpot.

The episode therefore ended without Brett claiming the £96,000 prize.

The answer to the number puzzle

For anyone still trying to work out the earlier 15% question, the key is simply to forget the numerical values and think about the names of the numbers.

• 2: Two
• 3: Three
• 6: Six
• 7: Seven
• 4: Four
• 5: Five

The first two pairs share their opening letters: T and S.

Among the remaining numbers, Four and Five are the pair that share the same first letter.

So the answer is:

4 and 5

The puzzle is a good example of how The 1% Club can turn an apparently ordinary question into a test of how quickly contestants can spot a different way of looking at familiar information.

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