Mastermind 2020 - Heat 6

Good morning, dearly beloved. Yes, fine, thanks for asking. How about you? Well, Mastermind returned last night after a week off, to cap a pretty good week.

First up was experienced Mastermind hand, Marga Scott-Johnson. Marga was answering on William Armstrong. William Armstrong, frankly, should be a lot better known than he is, but Marga, at least, knew pretty much everything there was to know about him. Indeed, she only missed the last question. Bearing that in mind, her 10 points seemed a little stingy, bt nonetheless meant she was going to have a say in the final outcome of the contest.

Helen Lippell has been this way before as well. In 2016 she featured in a high scoring first round heat, and answering on REM. This time she was answering on a subject after my own heart, the London Underground. In odd moments I occasionally ask myself which subjects I would take if there was ever another champions series and I was invited to take part, and this is right up there towards the top of the list. As such I was pleased although not surprised to get 9. Helen, though, took 12 correct answers from 12 questions, a really fantastic display.

If Jake Ockenden, our third contender, was at all daunted by the impressive rounds he’d seen the first two contenders post, then he certainly didn’t show it. Jake was answering on the famous 1969 Woodstock Festival, and answering very well too. For the third round in a row, a double figure score was posted. As he too scored 10. If you’d switched off after these three rounds, you’d have been forgiven for drawing the conclusion that this specialist subject business was a doddle.

Sadly, Ashraf Laidi’s round proved that this was not the case. Ashraf was answering on the Life and Films of Al Pacino, and the plain truth of the matter was that he scored 3 points. Only Ashraf himself could really explain what exactly went wrong in the round, but I can vouch for the fact that the chair can do strange things to you. Ashraf didn’t get his first question, and it looked as if this bowled him completely for 6.

One of the worst things about going last in the first round and posting a low score is that you have precious little time to recover your composure before you’re back in the chair to face the GK. Whatever had affected Ashraf in the Specialist round seemed to be still casting its spell in the GK, and he eventually finished with 9 points.

In contrast to Ashraf, Marga had not shown the slightest hint of nerves thus far, and she maintained this throughout her GK round. This ensured that she had the presence of mind to take every question on its own merits, and keep answering what she knew. This is essential if you want to get a double figure score in GK, and Marga managed 10 and no passes to set the target.

Jake couldn’t match it. Not that he didn’t try, no. He struggled manfully with the round, but never managed to establish the kind of momentum that would give him a chance, and by the last minute he was clearly behind the clock. In the end he added 7 to his score.

All of which left Helen. Starting two points to the good, a score of 9 would be sufficient to secure an outright win. Let’s be honest, as well, if you have serious aspirations to win a Mastermind heat, it’s the kind of GK score you need to be fairly confident of achieving in 2 and a half minutes. After the first 30 seconds I thought that this one would go right to the wire, as Helen appeared to be rather struggling. Indeed it did go right down to the wire as Helen scored her 20^th point overall with the very last question. However, she accrued a couple of passes along the way, and that was the margin by which Marga won.

Well played Marga, and the best of luck to you. As a match, well, it would be a lie to say that I was blown away, but at least it was a close contest.

The Details

Marga Scott-Johnson	The Industrialist William Armstrong	10	0	10	0	20	0
Helen Lippell	The History of the London Underground	12	0	8	2	20	2
Jake Ockenden	The Woodstock Festival of 1969	10	2	7	0	17	2
Ashraf Laidi	The Life and Films of Al Pacino	3	0	6	0	9	0