Friday 1 September 2017

Mastermind 2018 - Round One - Heat Five


Right then, what was at stake in this week’s contest? For the contenders, a place in the semi finals, and the chance to be known forever after as a Mastermind semi-finalist. For me, well last week I set a record specialist aggregate total for this series of 24, and a preliminary glance at the subjects suggested that I would struggle to get past that.

First into the chair was Stephen Howard, answering on the FIFA World Cup. This was the only one of tonight’s specialist rounds in which I rather fancied my chances. I’ve read and devoured Brian Glanville’s excellent History of the World Cup, and after getting the first five on the bounce right I settled down a bit and ended with a total of 10. This was actually more than Stephen, who scored 8. Alright, it’s not a fair comparison since he was having to do it in the chair, under the hot studio lights, with all the pressure that sitting in the chair entails. Having said that though, I did think that he missed at least a couple of open goals, and judging by his answers these were not areas he’d covered in his preparation. I’m sorry to be harsh, but if you leave anything to chance with your preparation for the show, you will get found out. 

What we found out about Nicky Zhang was that she’d prepared for her specialist round extremely well, achieving a fine score of 13 and 1 pass. I do like to see a contender who has obviously prepared thoroughly, and who answers crisply and sharply, just allowing the points to rack up. As for me, well 4 points on this round kept alive my slender chances of beating 24, but it meant that I was going to need better scores on the remaining two rounds, which looked unlikely given that neither was a subject on which I knew a huge amount.

Despite the fact that Rupert Everett has been in quite a few films that I’ve actually seen, I did only manage to add another 2 points to my aggregate. Judith Sansom, who was answering on his films, did 5 times better than that, and let’s be honest, if you get into double figures on a specialist round you’ve acquitted yourself pretty well. Even so, a gap of 3 points to make up on general knowledge is in no way a small hurdle to overcome.

This left Adam Gilchrist – the broadcaster, not the cricketer. His subject, the Battle of Agincourt, was probably the most traditional Mastermind subject of the 4. For me it provided a mixed bag – 4 points took my aggregate to 20, which is some way short of the target but nothing to be ashamed of. Adam’s round spoke again of thorough preparation, and while not maybe quite as impressive as Nicky’s, he managed an iimpressive 12 to put himself right on her shoulder at the turnaround. 

This is just my personal opinion, and you must, as always, feel free to disagree, but I tend to think that as long as you can get to a combined score of 20 you’ve got nothing to beat yourself up over. Well, there’s no need to feel shame whatever your score, it is only a game after all. Nonetheless, win, lose or draw, if you can come away from the show with a score in the 20s you’ve done a job of work.  Stephen Howard fell a little short of this goal. Granted he scored a respectable 10 on his GK, but he’d left himself too much to do with his specialist round. 

Judith Sansom did a little better, and scored 11 to set the bar at 21. This was one of those rounds where the contender never builds up a full head of speed, but never grinds to a halt either, and carries on picking off points here and there throughout the whole round. This was a contrast to the round which followed from Adam Gilchrist. Adam, I felt, had a very slow start to his round, and was missing out on even the low hanging fruit. With a minute and a half gone I felt that he wouldn’t even go into the lead. Then something clicked, and even speculative long punt answers started finding the back of the net. A late flourish of correct answers to the last half dozen or so questions put him across the line with a little bit of daylight. He too scored 11, which put him onto 23.

I don’t think there’s any way you could criticise the tactics Nicky Zhang used in her GK round. She answered quickly throughout the round, and didn’t dither about whether to guess or pass. However, the fact is that her knowledge on this particular occasion just wasn’t enough. There were too many guesses, too many incorrect answers, and especially in the last minute or so the clock was not her friend. It ran her to ground a couple of points short of the total, and she finished with 21. 

Well played Adam, I wish you good luck in the semi-finals. 

The Details

Stephen Howard
The FIFA World Cup
8
0
10
1
18
1
Nicky Zhang
Alexander the Great
13
1
8
2
21
2
Judith Sansom
The films of Rupert Everett
10
0
11
0
21
0
Adam Gilchrist
The Battle of Agincourt
12
0
11
2
23
2

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