Mastermind First Round Heat 12

Good afternoon. Yes, it’s another Tuesday review for Mastermind this week. Apologies.

In my preview I noted that of all last night’s specialists, Peter the Great was looking like my best. Well, I was sort of right about that. I don’t know if the 2 points I gained particularly merit the use of the word best, but I didn’t score higher in any of the others. Seb Dwyer, who was answering in the chair put on a fine performance, getting into double figures with 10. Anything double figures nowadays puts you in with a shout in the GK round.

Caryn Ellis followed with questions on Exmoor National Park. As I hoped might happen I fluked a guess for a single point to add to the aggregate. Cary, like Seb before her, did an awful lot better. She too scored 10 points, a notable achievement considering just how wide ranging this sort of specialist round will often turn out to be.

Jonathan Paxton offered us the films of Quentin Tarantino. Considering that I’ve never watched any of the films, I thought that guessing two answers correctly as I did wasn’t bad going at all. Jonathan of course did better. He achieved respectability with a total of 7, but I’d guess that he maybe underestimate just how widely the net was going to trawl for questions in the round.

Last but not least Anne McElhinney. Now, I don’t dislike any contenders on Mastermind. However there are a couple of types I really, really like. First are the superstars, those who have prepared their subjects obsessively and then knock the GK out of the park. However I am also fond of those who just appear to be absolutely delighted to be on the show, and seem to thoroughly enjoy their turns in the chair. Anne was one of the latter – although her GK round is certainly worthy of mention shortly. She scored 5 on the Cicero trilogy, which didn’t seem to worry her in the least, even though it left her a whopping five points behind the leaders.

I have to be honest, though. Anne put it right with a storming GK roundin which she didn’t go particularly fast, but she did go accurately, seemingly conjuring answers out of thin air when she wasn’t sure. An excellent 13 took her running total to 18, and while I wasn’t sure she could win with that total, I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be last.

Anne’s round had opened the door to the corridor of doubt for the other three contenders. Jonathan, although he managed a perfectly respectable 9, could not find his way out of the other end of the corridor. It must play on your mind when you’re looking at needing 11 and no passes just to draw.

This meant that Anne could finish no lower than  3^rd. Surely Seb Dwyer would get the 9 he needed to surpass her total? Well, for much of the round it looked as if yes, he would. Only, he passed a couple of times, which meant that he could not force a tie break. If he scored 9 he would go into the lead. However, he only managed 8, and this was not enough considering the passes. Anne was still leader on the road, with only one more contender to come.

It must be said that after the first four or five questions it looked pretty clear cut that Caryn Ellis was going to overtake Anne, and indeed she did with several questions still to spare. In the end she added another three points to take her GK total to a good 11 and her overall score to 21. I applaud Caryn for saying that she was prompted to apply when she was recently diagnosed with autism. Our understanding of neurodivergence is far from complete, so it’s quite possible that this has helped Caryn in MM as she suggested. Whatever the case, very well done to you, and best of luck in the semis.

The Details

Seb Dwyer	Peter the Great of Russia	10	2	8	4	18	6
Caryn Ellis	Exmoor National Park	10	0	11	4	21	4
Jonathan Paxton	Films of Quentin Tarantino	7	0	9	0	16	0
Anne McElhinney	Robert Harris’ Cicero Trilogy	5	0	13	0	18	0