Mastermind - Round One - Heat 9

Here’s a question, dearly beloved, and not one to which I know the answer either. When was the last time that two Mastermind finalists had to play each other in the first round? For all I know it may not have happened before, but it certainly happened tonight. All of which just goes to demonstrate what I’ve always said – they don’t follow a seeding procedure in Mastermind, it all comes down to which subjects make a good mix for a particular show. Which is probably the best way of doing it, although that’s scant consolation if it’s you who ends up in a top heavy heat like this one.

First of our two previous finalists was my mate Les Morrell. I’ve told before how we met when Les’ successful first round heat in the 2007 Series of Blessed Memory was recorded immediately after mine. Les got as far as the semis in that, his first tilt at the title, and in 2010 he went all the way to the final. For some of us, Mastermind is an itch which you can only ignore for so long before you have to scratch it and have another go, and so tonight Les offered us The Lusitania – that’s the Cunard Ocean Liner, not the Roman province. As you’d expect from such an experienced Mastermind hand, Les’ answering technique was pretty much textbook, snapping out the answers as soon as John finished asking the question. Not knowing a huge amount about the Lusitania I can’t comment whether the ones Les missed were stinkers – knowing Les I’m certain he would have prepared thoroughly, so I tend to think that it might well have been the case. Les scored 9 – perfectly respectable, but not the kind of platform you need to make a realistic bid for a win.

Especially not when you’re playing against another former finalist. Tonight’s second contender, David Love, was third in Gary’s 2012 series. He’s been back since, but that season was his most successful campaign to date. Tonight he offered us The Life and Paintings of Pieter Brueghel the Elder – or as John called him one of the questions – Pieter Broogle (rhymes with Dougal). Like Les, David knows how vital it is to prepare thoroughly, and he duly delivered an excellent round of 13 and no passes. Suddenly Les’ task looked all the more difficult. 

Did either of our last two contenders know about the previous exploits of the first two? If they did, it didn’t seem to phase them. Mastermind virgin Cliff Houghton offered us Everton FC. Now, here’s something I like to see. If you’re going to take a sports club, or a sporting event, I do like to see you go the whole hog, and take the whole subject, rather than only answering on a specific period of its history. And let’s be fair to Cliff, he was more than up to the task. After the horrible experience of just not finding the name of Kevin Ratcliffe for the first question, which of course he knew, he hardly faltered for the rest of the round, and turned in a creditable score of 12 and no passes. 

So to our final round. Teresa De Billot answered questions on British Oscar winning Actors and Actresses. A few years ago a contender answered on British Olympic medallists 1960 – 2008, a round which many people, this columnist included, felt was the easiest specialist round  we could remember. Well, this round was, I felt, on a similar level. This is no reflection on Teresa. She produced an absolutely perfect round of 14 correct answers from 14 questions, and that’s always worthy of applause. But for me, a lot of these things were things you’d just know through general knowledge quizzing. Too many of them were either – So and so won the Oscar for which film – or – Who won the Oscar for his/her role in the film such and such. This is Mastermind, and while I don’t say that stinkers need to be put in each round, it’s not unreasonable to expect that there will be at least a few questions which the well prepared contender will find testing. This is all purely my own opinion, and as always, feel free to disagree.

Les must have known that it was a long shot, but strange things can happen in a GK round sometimes, and so he started the round very well, ripping off five answers in quick succession. The problem is, though, when you’re behind you just need everything to fall for you, and after he named Janice Long rather than Anne Nightingale as the first female Radio 1 DJ a couple of guesses failed to come off. Then he built momentum again, but failed to hear a question properly and had to ask for a repeat. For the last half minute he was rattling off the answers again, but was chafing at the bit for John to finish the Shankly question so he could get in with the answer. By the end of the round Les had added 12, to set the target at 21. Mastermind can be a cruel mistress sometimes.

Cliff Houghton was one of those contenders whose tone of voice sometimes suggests that he can’t believe he just gave a correct answer. And believe me, he gave plenty during a fine GK round. Alright, he had a few wrong, but still added 14 to his total. In terms of the first round heats, his total of 26 is often good enough to win. I’ve said before that I sometimes get the feeling when I’m watching the GK rounds that a contender whom I don’t know must be a quizzer. I had this feeling with Cliff’s round, judging by the range of knowledge that he showed. 

For the outright lead, then, David would require a score of 14, and believe me, that is enough of a target to place you within the corridor of doubt. However good you are, you can always end up having one of those freak rounds where all the tiny gaps in your knowledge are exposed, or the answers just resolutely refuse to leap past the tip of your tongue. David must have known that this was not going to be one of those type of rounds when he answered “Soup Dragons” correctly despite obviously never having heard of the band. In the end, not the least bit phased by John's rather out of place impression of Queen Victoria, he scored 15, and that’s a seriously good GK round, and his total of 28 made me certain that we’d be seeing him in the semis, one way or another.

Whether this would be as a winner or a repechage runner up was dependant on Teresa. The writing was pretty much on the wall for her round when she committed the Mastermind cardinal sin for her second question of pausing, then passing. The rest of the first minute seemed a bit of a struggle for her. Yet let’s give credit where it’s due, in the middle minute  she really did start to show her quiz credentials, putting together a string of consecutive correct answers. It was a valiant effort, but in the end there were just a few too many gaps in her knowledge to quite get her there in the time allotted. She finished with a fine score of 26. 

This was a great show, and a pleasure to watch. Keep it up guys, and David, best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Les Morrell	The Lusitania	9	2	12	1	21	3
David Love	The Life and Paintings of Pieter Brueghel the Elder	13	0	15	2	28	2
Cliff Houghton	Everton FC	12	0	14	0	26	0
Teresa De Billot	British Oscar winning Actors and Actresses	14	0	12	3	26	3