Mastermind 2019 Grand Final Preview

Right, let’s have a look at the finalists shall we? For each finalist the top row shows their heat performance, and the bottom one in bold is their semi performance.

Mark Grant	Keith Douglas	14	0	15	0	29	0
	1951 Festival of Britain	13	0	13	0	26	0
Dave Cowan	Glamorgan CCC	12	0	15	0	27	0
	The Life of Aneurin Bevan	10	0	11	2	21	2
Judith Lewis	The Life of C.S.Lewis	14	0	15	2	29	2
	The Lord Peter Wimsey Novels of Dorothy L. Sayers	12	0	9	2	21	2
Hamish Cameron	John Knox	13	0	14	3	27	3
	The Life and Times of Thomas Paine	8	1	13	1	21	2
Ian Orriss	Karl Gustav Mannerheim	13	0	15	1	28	1
	Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II	10	0	11	0	21	0
Helen O’Connell	The History of Prague	12	2	18	2	30	2
	The Plant Hunters	11	0	14	0	25	0

Now, the tempting thing is to look at the semi final scores, take them as our most reliable guide, and then say that it shows that the final may well be a two horse race between Mark and Helen. Tempting, yes, but not necessarily the most sensible thing to do. In Magnus Magnusson’s superb “I’ve Started So I’ll Finish” he revealed that the method they used was to make the questions harder in the semis, and then slightly easier again in the final. I have no idea whatsoever if this is still the case. If it is, though, then some of the contenders who only scored 21 in the semis start to come back into play.

Let’s cast our eye down the list, then.

Mark Grant will be many people’s favourite for the winner’s bowl this year, and with good reason. Mark is one third of the mighty Crossworders from Only Connect. He has also won Brain of Britain and been a Counterpoint finalist. He had the highest SS semi final score of any of the finalists, and if he’s in the lead when the half time oranges are passed around he’s going to be extremely difficult to beat on GK. Not only that, he’s been in the grand final twice before. In 2005 he was beaten by Pat Gibson, and in 2010 by Jesse Honey and Kathryn Johnson. The other contenders in this year’s final are good, very good in some cases, but I don’t think they’re quite of that standard. I don’t want to jinx Mark’s chances by saying that he’s going to win, so I’m not going to make a prediction here.

Dave Cowan’s GK looked very good in his heat where he put on 15. His 11 in the semi wasn’t quite so good, but still good enough to win. Successive scores of 12 and 10 on specialist do suggest that he could well find himself a few points behind the leader at the half way stage in the final, and in this company it’s not a gap which he looks likely to breach. Sorry Dave, but I have you as one of the less likely finalists to win.

Judith Lewis is one of those finalists I mentioned earlier who performed really well in the GK round in the heat, and less well in the GK round in the semi. She will need to improve on her GK. It may well be though, that she’ll be up with the leaders at half time, having performed very well on her specialist rounds in both heat and semi. I have her as one of the less likely finalists, but hey, what do I know?

Hamish Cameron has also been a finalist, and participated in Clive’s 2014 final. I have no doubts over Hamish’s GK. He’s always pretty strong, and on his day he can rip a GK round to shreds. However he was playing with fire on his specialist round in the semi. A huge and uncharacteristic pause nearly saw him come a cropper, a situation he only rescued with his GK. Hamish is overdue a bit of rub of the green, and following the wins of recidivists Brian Chesney and Isabelle Heward in recent years, it would be highly appropriate if either Hamish or Mark did the same this year. Hamish has a shot, make no doubt about that.

Ian Orriss is another recidivist, and another who looked very good in the heat, but less impressive wining his semi final. Let’s make no bones about it, the only people who can win are the 6 contenders who contest the final. Ian is in the final, and you’ve always got a chance if you’re still in the race. Put my arm behind my back and I’d say I don’t really see Ian winning this year, but hey, I’ve been wrong many, many times in the past.

Finally, Helen O’Connell. Now, if you’d given me a list of names of all of the contenders in this year’s series of Mastermind, I’d probably have picked out Mark and Hamish as potential finalists. Helen, for me, has been the real surprise package of this series. In all honesty she looked brilliant in her heat, and she looked brilliant in her semi final. Now, okay, the final is a whole different challenge, but going on all the evidence we have Helen can prepare a specialist subject, and can answer a GK round well enough to really give her a crack at the title.

So, best of retrospective luck to all the finalists. However well you did I hope that you all enjoyed the experience, especially those making their first appearance. A final thought too, if I may, for Brian Davis and Sue Tully from the first semi, whose scores were the joint second highest of all of the semis along with Helen O’Connell’s. That’s the nature of knockout competition, I’m afraid, but sometimes it’s very cruel.