Mastermind 2025 First Round Heat 13

Well, we’re trundling along nicely with the first round now, and frankly this latest heat did a lot more than just trundle. We saw both extremes, the agony and the ecstasy if you like. I’ll explain.

In last night’s show I felt that there were more than 1 government health warning subjects, and the first of these, offered by Sam Penberthy was the Two Ronnies. I say this subject should come with a warning because the show went on for a long time and each individual show was composed of many constituents you could be asked about. I liked the show, and I scored five. Now the fact of the matter is that Sam scored 3. Only she could explain why she didn’t score more. I think the effect of the chair might have had something to do with it. I hope that the trolls will leave her alone.

Ian Grieve took us to the other end of the spectrum with his round on Richard Feynman. I always think that biographical subjects are a good choice, because they’re finite and the boundaries are pretty clear. For all that, though, you still have to really know your stuff. So let’s be fair here – Ian really knew his stuff. He had a perfect round in which he answered all of his questions correctly. Now, I didn’t feel that he was going at all slowly, yet he ended on 11, where we’ve recently seen a perfect round of 13. Oh well.

Our second government health warning subject was the MLB side the Toronto Blue Jays, offered to us by Dimitri Sameresinghe. I don’t know how many games a season an MLB side plays, but I often think that subjects on a particular sports team present an overwhelming amount of potential questions, which is why we so often see them limited to a specific time period. Bearing this in mind I thought that Dmitiri did really well to amass 8 points in his round. But sadly, really well was not going to be well enough in this heat.

Bringing the specialist round to its conclusion was Richard Kimber who was answering on badgers. All of them. I don’t know enough about badgers to decide whether this subject should also come with a government health warning, but it made no difference to Richard since he went through the questions like a dose of salts, picking up 12 points in our second perfect round of the show. Like it or not, good people, from this point onwards we had a two-horse race on our hands.

Sam Penberthy kicked off the GK round. Unless you’re ever in the unenviable position yourself you can’t know how a disappointing specialist round plays on your mind when you return to the chair for GK. I’d say that it was playing on Sam’s mind. She ended with a total of 9. All I will say is before anyone says anything unkind, please remember the words of Magnus Magnusson that it’s only a bloody game.

If Dimitri felt that it was a two horse race, neither of which was him, he certainly didn’t show it in his GK round. After a slightly hesitant start he put on a very good 12 points. In this show his 20 probably was not going to be enough but at least it gave the two leaders something to think about. Job done, Dimitri.

Ian Grieve. I have to thank you for putting on your GK round and showing that it is still possible for a contender to score that highly. Ian hardly dropped anything and smashed his way to a score of 17 for GK and a total of 28. I have no hesitation in saying that was the best round of the series so far. Unless Richard could have something to say about it.

Well, Richard certainly gave it a lash and for the first minute or so there wasn’t a huge amount in it. But sadly a couple of wrong answers came. Maybe I was reading something into it which was only in my own head, but after those couple of dropped points it looked as if Richard knew that the game was up, and the momentum was just gone. Which is not to say that Richard did at all badly. His 10 points put him amongst the august ranks of those contenders who have managed a double figure GK round this series, and he finished second with 22 points.

Let’s get down to brass tacks. It is not fair to make a contender a favourite to win the series just based on a first round performance. So I won’t. I will say that Ian revealed that he is a regular in the Macclesfield Quiz League, and was helped in his preparation by champion Alice Walker. Good pedigree. Ian, many congratulations on a fantastic performance and I shall be watching your progress through the competition with great interest.

 

Sam Penberthy	The Two Ronnies	3	0	6	0	9	0
Ian Grieve	Richard Feynman	11	0	17	0	28	0
Dimitri Sameresinghe	The Toronto Blue Jays	8	0	12	0	20	0
Richard Kimber	Badgers	12	0	10	2	22	2