Here it is, folks, the tale of the tape of the first round heat winners of the current series.
|
Ian Grieve |
11 |
0 |
17 |
0 |
28 |
0 |
|
Dom Tait |
11 |
0 |
16 |
0 |
27 |
0 |
|
Nancy Braithwaite |
11 |
0 |
14 |
0 |
25 |
0 |
|
John Robinson |
12 |
0 |
12 |
0 |
24 |
0 |
|
Olivia Woolley |
11 |
0 |
13 |
1 |
24 |
1 |
|
John Harden |
13 |
0 |
11 |
2 |
24 |
2 |
|
Robin Dunford |
11 |
0 |
12 |
3 |
23 |
3 |
|
Jane Nothen |
10 |
0 |
12 |
3 |
23 |
3 |
|
Cathryn Gahan |
12 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
22 |
0 |
|
Ivan Milatovic |
12 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
22 |
0 |
|
Gary Austin |
12 |
0 |
10 |
3 |
22 |
3 |
|
Phil Nowek |
7 |
0 |
14 |
0 |
21 |
0 |
|
Mike Noyes |
8 |
1 |
13 |
0 |
21 |
1 |
|
Dan Shoesmith |
7 |
2 |
13 |
1 |
21 |
3 |
|
James Waller |
7 |
0 |
13 |
0 |
20 |
0 |
|
Neil Pritchard |
9 |
1 |
10 |
1 |
20 |
2 |
|
Lewis Jones |
5 |
0 |
14 |
0 |
19 |
0 |
|
Aine McMenamin |
10 |
0 |
9 |
0 |
19 |
0 |
|
Roopam Carroll |
9 |
0 |
10 |
1 |
19 |
1 |
|
Rashmi Bhardwarj |
8 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
18 |
0 |
|
Arnar Umranikar |
6 |
0 |
12 |
0 |
18 |
0 |
|
Krish Hook |
9 |
0 |
9 |
0 |
18 |
0 |
|
James Barrow |
9 |
0 |
9 |
0 |
18 |
0 |
|
Rakesh Sharma |
10 |
0 |
7 |
0 |
17 |
0 |
Now, as tempting as it is to take the six contenders from the
top of the table and say – here we are, there’s our six finalists, it’s highly
unlikely to work out quite that way. What prompts me to say this? Well . . . I
don’t KNOW for certain how the production team decide which contender goes into
which semi final. I do know from discussions with some insiders that certainly in
the past they paid more attention to combinations of subjects rather than combinations
of contenders. In practice this means that in most series you can get some ‘top
heavy’ semis, and some ‘bottom heavy semis’. So there’s no guarantee that our 6
top contenders will each be in a different semi. If two or more are in the same
semi-final, well, only one of them will get to the final.
Then let’s consider the unreliability of first round form
as a guide. Some people overperform in their heat then underperform in their
semi. Some people win their heat without hitting top form then hit a real
purple patch for their semi-final. Some contenders seem to have only the one
good specialist round in them. Some flatter to deceive in GK.
So, having put down those caveats, I will say that both Ian
Grieve and Dom Tait looked fantastic in winning their heats. I do think it will
be very unfair on them and on the audience if they are paired in the same semi
final.
It’s funny old
round, the semi final round. In the first round heat you know that even if you
win, you’re a long way from the glass bowl. In my semi, it was as I was walking
to the chair, last to go in the GK round, that it suddenly hit me. -You’re just
one round away from the Grand Final, and you’ll never have a better chance of
getting there.- (I needed 11 points and no passes) In all honesty I don’t know
if his helped me or not. But it is a fact that this realisation, that you are
so close, can suddenly strike you and you need to be ready in case that
happens.
So who wins the semis? I don’t know. But what I do know is that
if you prepare your second specialist subject thoroughly, you keep a cool head,
you concentrate and answer as many GK questions as you can correctly and make
the best guess that you can for the things you don’t know, then you’ll give
yourself the best chance.
I’m looking forward to the next few weeks.
2 comments:
Without giving away any spoilers, four of the top eight scorers are in the first semi final on Monday!
Hi John, thank you so much or taking the time and trouble to leave a comment. Well, this just confirms what I said about the way that we usually get top heavy semi finals and bottom heavy semi finals. From what you’ve said, Monday’s will be a very top heavy semi.
In my experience the production teams seem to be driven by putting what they feel to be the best combination of subjects together for each show. And you can understand this. Their first concern is to make the shows as entertaining as they can for the viewers. Where it is galling is for the contender who produces a performance which would have won three or four of the other semis, but only comes second in their own. To give an example, the late Mastermind great, Hamish Cameron, was in the semis in my 2007 series. His score would have won four of the semis, but was only good enough for second in his own.
I don’t know if you recall Sport Mastermind from quite some time back. This used a system whereby it was only the top scoring contenders who made the final. Cards on the table, I would not like to see this applied to the main show. Knock out tournament play is at its heart and while it can throw up some anomalous results I still think it’s best for the show. You have to feel sympathy for someone who finds that they have achieved one of the top 10 highest scores in the heats, yet is not a semi finalist because they only came second in their own heat. I think that the debate over repechage semi-final slots is not over and will continue for some time to come.
I don’t think that Mastermind has ever used seeding for semi-finals. The closest they’ve come is in the original series I believe that they used to put the highest scoring runners up from the heats into the same semi-final. In practice this would often result in the winner being a strong finalist and on more than one occasion the winner of this semi went on to become champion.
As I said, first round form is not always a guide to semi-final form, so seeding would not necessarily prevent us losing some of the best players.
I will feel sorry for those semi finalists who miss out on the final because they were in a high scoring semi, while their scores would have won other semis. But you know, that’s how the series works. Them’s the breaks.
I had disappointment in 2006 when I was one of 3 joint highest first round runners up. There were no repechage slots then. I came to the semis as a potential stand in and was not used. However, it convinced me that I at least belonged in this company and with a little rub of the green, it could happen. So I applied again in 2007, when I did get that little rub of the green. I could also point to Isabelle Heward – several times a losing semi-finalist, whose perseverance brought her the title in 2017.
There is a school of thought - perhaps a little harsh - that says if you want to win the show then you have to be prepared to take on all comers. A school of thought that says it is immaterial whether you meet the best players in the first round, semi or final.
Well, whatever the case, if at first you don’t succeed. . .
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