Mastermind 2024 Heat winners stats

Shall we have a look at the semi finalists for Mastermind 2024, then? Why on Earth not?

Name	Specialist  Score	Specialist  Passes	GK Score	GK Passes	Total Score	Total Passes	Tie break
Stephen Dodding	12	0	17	0	29	0	-
Peter Wilson	12	0	15	1	27	1	-
Ruth Hart	12	0	14	0	26	0
Juie Ashcroft	12	1	14	0	26	1	-
Jane Hill	11	0	14	0	25	0	-
Rob Jones	12	0	12	0	24	0	-
Sharon Chambers	8	0	16	0	24	0	-
George Twigg	13	0	10	0	23	0	-
Sadie de Souza	13	0	10	0	23	0	3
Sarah Thornton	12	0	11	1	23	1	-
Rashid Mumtaz	11	0	11	0	22	0	-
Paul Judge	10	1	12	0	22	1	-
Tom Adlam	11	0	11	4	22	6	-
Lisa Cowan	10	0	11	0	21	0	-
Helen Lippell	12	0	9	0	21	0	4
Oli Hanson	9	0	12	0	21	0	4
Caryn Ellis	10	0	11	4	21	4	-
Ben Jones	8	0	12	0	20	0	-
Richard Brooks	7	0	13	0	20	0	3
Tom Moody	13	0	7	2	20	2	-
Scott Torrance	6	0	13	0	19	0	-
Sharon Reading	7	0	12	0	19	0	-
Elliot Hooson	9	0	10	1	19	1	-
Tom Flowerdew	9	0	9	1	18	1	-

Okay, so let’s get the usual observation out of the way. Thomas Nelson in heat 3 and Dan Hudson scored 26 in their first round heats. They had the misfortune to feature in the heats won respectively by the second highest scorer of the first rund, and the highest scorer of the first round. It’s hard. Yeah, I know that this is the reality of knockout play, the luck of the draw, but it’s not a lot of consolation.

Have a good look at the table, but please accept that this is only going to give indicators about who might do well in the semis. If you scored fourteen or higher on GK it’s reasonable to expect that you’ll be capable of getting another good score on it in the semis. But was that GK round the best you were going to do in the heat? In which case, if you get a set that doesn’t suit you as well, and someone else gets a much better set for themselves than they had in the heat, that could be your seeming advantage gone. Likewise, we always see some people do quite a bit worse on their specialist subject than they did in the heat, and some people do quite a bit better.

Let’s not ignore the fact that the production team does not seem to practise seeding, paying much more attention to the combinations of subjects in each show tha the combinations of contenders, so it’s not uncommon to see 1 or 2 top heavy semis containing more than one of the highest performers from the first round.

The only prediction I feel comfortable making is that it’s unlikely that the top 6 contenders on this table will be the 6 finalists. Who these will be, well, you pays your money and takes your pick.