The Tale of the Tape
|
1 |
David Ford |
11 |
0 |
16 |
0 |
27 |
0 |
|
5 |
Paul Richardson |
12 |
0 |
13 |
3 |
25 |
3 |
|
7 |
Paul Smith |
10 |
2 |
13 |
0 |
23 |
0 |
|
=8 |
Milena Melcharek |
12 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
22 |
0 |
Well, looking at the positions on our unofficial table based on first round performances I suppose you could say that this was a more top heavy semi than we’ve seen in this series so far. All 4 contenders featured in the top 10 of the table. Three of them each had GK scores in the teens. Time would tell whether this would translate into a high scoring contest.
Paul Smith offered us the subject on which I failed to
score and that was Yellowstone National Park. I should probably have had the
black bear, but hey, you can’t know everything. Or when it comes to Yellowstone
Park, anything. Paul Smith did much better than that. He seemed to be
struggling a little in the middle of the round but pulled it all back to finish
with a competitive 8, giving him a chance if he could reproduce his GK form
from the heats.
Milena Melcharek was answering on JRR Tolkein’s Silmarillion.
My identification of this as one of two ‘banker’ subjects was correct as I took
the first three questions on the bounce. Mind you , I didn’t manage another one
for the whole of the rest of the round. As for Milena, well, she added a
further 8 correct answers once she too had taken the first three answers. This
was exactly what she needed to do, if you took the first round GK performances
as a guideline. It looked as if she would need a half time lead of a couple of
points and at the moment that is what she had.
David Ford headed our unofficial table. He had a great
performance in the heats where he produced the best GK score of the series so
far. Well, talking about his GK now is putting the cart before the horse. He
had the round on Grace O’Malley to negotiate first. He did well too for the
most part, however a couple of wobbles restricted him to 9 and that meant
Milena still had daylight out in the lead between herself and him.
Could Paul Richardson do anything about it? Well, I have to
be honest, his round on the England Men’s Football team at the FIFA World Cup
was my joint banker and again I got three, Cards on the table, this was a
tricky round. I know enough about the subject to recognise that this was asking
for real, in-depth knowledge of the whole subject and I felt Paul was just a
little found out by it. 7 is a perfectly respectable score at this stage but a
4 point deficit is too much to make up, barring exceptional circumstances.
He gave it a go, mind you. He never quite got up the head
of steam that you need to get into double figures on GK but he came close and
posted 9 for 16. Which was only 1 point less than last week’s winning total.
Unlikely to be enough but honour satisfied, I think.
Paul Smith had achieved 13 on GK in the first round heats.
If he could repeat this, then that would probably do very nicely. Well, he did
manage double figures, but I did think that while good, this would maybe leave
him a point or two off the lead when all the dust of the contest had settled.
So to David Ford. Let’s remind ourselves that he scored a
monster 16 on GK in the heats. If he could repeat that then the game would
probably be as good as over. Well, he didn’t do that. What he also didn’t do
was let his concentration slip when the wrong answers were coming out and he
managed to keep adding to his score. As a result he accumulated his own 10,
which gave him a total of 19.
Putting this into perspective it meant that Milena did not
need to equal the 10 she had scored on GK in the heats. 9 would be enough to
win outright, and 8 and no passes would see her through on countback. Ah, but
the fate of the contest can often be decided on the smallest margins. For one
question Milena gave the answer ammonium when the answer on the card was
ammonia. Clive had no choice but to rule it a wrong answer. She scored 7 for
18, and as David pointed out in his winner’s filmed insert at the end, had she
said ammonia then she would have won.
I enjoyed the contest, even though once again we didn’t
really see the kind of fireworks we might have hoped for. David, I wish you the
best of luck in the final. Not long to go now.
The Details
|
Paul Smith |
Yellowstone National
Park |
8 |
0 |
10 |
2 |
18 |
2 |
|
Milena Melcharek |
The Silmarillon |
11 |
0 |
7 |
0 |
18 |
0 |
|
David Ford |
Grace O’Malley |
1 |
0 |
10 |
1 |
19 |
1 |
|
Paul Richardson |
The England Men’s
Football Team at the Fifa World CUp |
7 |
0 |
9 |
1 |
16 |
1 |
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