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
|
No comments:
Post a Comment