Mastermind 2024 - Semi-Final 6

The Tale of the Tape

Ruth Hart	12	0	14	0	26	0
Caryn Ellis	10	0	11	4	21	4	-
Tom Moody	13	0	7	2	20	2	-
Tom Flowerdew	9	0	9	1	18	1	-

 Yes thanks, I had a lovely time in West Wales. As it happens I did watch Monday’s last semi-final, but it’s only since returning home I’ve had he chance to write it up.

So let’s start with Tom Flowerdew. Tom was the lowest scorer on my unofficial table of heat winners. Is that significant? Well, not necessarily, no. It’s a clean slate in the semis. The real question is – can you improve on your performance from the heats? The second real question is – can you improve enough to earn yourself a place in the final? Tom was answering on bears. Now, had I made a prediction about this match I’m not sure I would have made this my banker subject. However, I should have done since I managed five of these. Tom certainly achieved the objective of improving on his heat performance, scoring a double figure round with 10.

Second contender Ruth Hart had the best performance of all four heat winners in her first round match. She came in 3^rd on my unofficial table with an excellent 26 and if you didn’t know any better you’d have been forgive for thinking that, with all three fellow contenders in the bottom half of the table, that this match was hers to lose. It doesn’t necessarily work like that in a semi-final, though. Answering on the Novels of Dame Muriel Spark, a subject on which I was amazed to score 1.

Our third contender and second Tom of the evening, Tom Moody, weighed in at number 20 on my unofficial table. However, he had scored an excellent 13 on specialist back then, and if he could repeat this it would give him a useful advantage over our first two contenders. On Monday night Tom was answering on the ICC Cricket World Cup. I was a little uncertain about this – I felt I might do okay on world cups up until the 90s. In fact this is exactly how it worked out, and I added four to my aggregate to take me to double figures. Tom, like Ruth and Tom F before him scored 10, but he incurred a single pass.

Our final contender Caryn Ellis came in at number 17 on my heat winners’ list. She’d scored a good 10 on specialist in the heats, but the rounds we’d seen so far round had already show that this was the least that was going to be needed in this semi. On Monday night Caryn answered on William Harvey and the Discovery of the Circulation of Blood. I haven’t checked, but this could well be the longest specialist subject title of the series so far. I took a couple to take me 12, a pretty decent aggregate, but Caryn scored 9 and 1 pass.

You know, I do like a match when all four contenders have prepared their subjects so well that they are all still in with a very realistic chance of winning at the turn around. All four contenders were separated by one point and one pass. That’s close. Usually at least one contender is out of it by half time.

Back to the chair for Caryn, then. She’d scored double figures in the heats with 11, and being realistic she would need all of that to have a good chance of keeping the lead until hometime.  She got it, too. That was certainly going to put the other three into the corridor of doubt, although in such a tight match the three passes she had accrued during her round were looking dangerous to her prospects.

Well, Tom Flowerdew, the next to go, also passed three times. In the heats he had scored 8 on GK, and he actually improved on this. Sadly for him though, the 9 that he scored left him a point behind on 19. Look, winning your heat, then improving on your performance in the semi final, that’s got to be a cause of some satisfaction.

Ruth Hart had scored an excellent 14 on GK in her heat. She didn’t need to improve on this, or even equal it to take the lead. 10 and no more than 3 passes would see her take the lead with one contender to go. Well, she scored the 10 points she needed while she passed . . . twice. Some way down on her best, but good enough to take the lead. Could Tom Moody take it from her?

Well, he could, but it would need him to make a significant improvement on his GK round in the heats, where he scored 7. He certainly tried. You could see his frustration every time he gave an incorrect answer. He kept his momentum going with a few quick passes, but the line was approaching more quickly than his total was growing and in the end he fell just short with 19.

Well played everyone. Nobody need feel the least disappointment, although it’s only natural to want to win and to be disappointed if you don’t. Well done especially to Ruth, and good luck in the Grand Final – which is on Monday! Yay.

Tom Flowerdew	Bears	10	0	9	3	19	3
Ruth Hart	The novels of Dame Muriel Spark	10	0	10	2	20	2
Tom Moody	The ICC Cricket World Cup	10	1	9	4	19	5
Caryn Ellis	William Harvey and the Discovery of the Circulation of Blood	9	1	11	3	20	4