Mastermind 2026 Heat 6

Nice Bank Holiday peeps? Me? Lovely thank you. My new laptop arrived from Amazon and what had become a chore on my poor knackered old warhorse I’ve been using for the past few years becomes the pleasure it always used to be. Speaking of pleasures, let’s talk about tonight’s Mastermind.

Part of the pleasure was that I managed to answer questions on each of the specialists tonight. My second highest score came on Susannah Croft’s round on the life of Oscar Wilde. I scored three – not bad but nowhere near as good as Susannah Croft’s 9. Again, I couldn’t help feeling that this was a round that might have earned double figures only a couple of seasons ago. Looking on the positive, if you’re close to double figures on specialist in the current era, you’re still gonna be in contention by half time.

Courtney Campbell was answering on what I predicted might be my banker, and indeed I kept pace with her at the start as we both reeled off the first three answers in fairly quick succession. I got one more after that. Courtney correctly answered another 5 for 8. Not the lead, but a pretty decent showing that meant at the moment she was only one point behind.

Pub landlord Jonathan Wilkins was answering on The Dambusters raid of 1943. I’m not an expert but I’ve watched the film on several occasions and seen several TV documentaries. So I thought that my two points was certainly no less than I deserved. As you’d expect, Jonathan looked a great deal better and was probably unlucky to not quite join Susannah in the lead by the end of the round. Like Courtney he scored 8 to be handily placed on Susannah’s shoulder.

Which left Max Bougeard to bring the round to a conclusion with his round on Real Madrid 2000 – present. In my preview yesterday I identified this as my least favoured round and I only managed the one sitter on Zinedine Zidane. Nonetheless it made sure that I reached double figures with an aggregate of 10 for the specialist rounds.As for the contest, Max joint top scored with 9 and everything was nicely poised as only one point separated all four contenders.

First to step up and set the target was Courtney. I was afraid for her after the first 40 seconds or so, but she steadied her nerves, rallied, and pulled herself up to a decent score of 8 for the round and 16 overall. Unlikely to win, yes, but enough to make it tricky for those who came after.

For the first minute or so Jonathan looked like a shoo in to take the lead, but then he suddenly became becalmed in mid-round. I did wonder whether it was going to come down to passes, but he just managed to get himself over the line, despite falling into something of a pass spiral. He scored 9 to take himself to 17 but it was at quite a cost in passes.

The contenders had been close in the specialist round and so they were proving to be in the GK as well. Susannah had just a point in hand over the previous two and this meant that she ended ahead of Courtney, whose GK score she equalled. She was level with Max on 17, but she too had incurred quite a number of passes – too many in fact.

So Max sat back in the chair, knowing that he needed 8 and no more than 4 passes to take the win. Within half a minute I felt that he was probably the best GK quizzer of the four, although like Jonathan he was afflicted by a mid-round wobble. Unlike Jonathan he did not fall into a pass spiral, and kept his head to pick off what he knew and build the score. By the warble ending the round he had managed our only double figure round of the night.

Well, there we are. It wasn’t the most exciting match we’ve ever seen and it wasn’t the highest scoring we’ve ever seen. But you know, there’s something to be said for honest endeavour, and the little bit of grit that each of tonight’s contenders showed at times during their rounds. Congratulations Max – a good performance. I wish you the best of luck in your semi final.

The Details

Susannah Croft	The Life of Oscar Wilde	9	1	8	5	17	6
Courtney Campbell	Barack Obama	8	1	8	0	16	1
Jonathan Wilkins	The Dambusters Raid	8	0	9	5	17	5
Max Bougeard	Real Madrid 2000 - Present	9	0	10	0	19	0