Mastermind 2026 Semi Final 2

The Tale of the Tape

3	Diane Howe	12	0	14	1	26	1
=15	Matthew Patenall	11	0	8	0	19	0
=15	Max Bougeard	9	0	10	0	19	0
17	David Slater	6	1	9	1	15	2

 

Well, prior to the start of the second semi final you’d have been forgiven for making Diane Howe the red-hot favourite based on the first round performances of all involved. Diane was 3^rd on my unofficial table and had posted an excellent 14 on GK – sorry, but that marks you out as a potential series winner. While our other three contenders were all from the bottom half of the bottom half of the table. But semis don’t always work out according to the predictions of the form book. Do they?

Diane was first up. She was answering on American singer Jeff Buckley. I expected no points on this round, but the question about who wrote ‘Hallelujah’ was such a gimme it brought me an unexpected point. Diane did well. 9 is not a score to be sniffed at. It was not, however as good a score nor quite as good a performance as she gave us in the heats and 3 passes looked just a little on the profligate side to me.

Max Bougeard offered us the managerial career of the much-travelled Rafa Benitez, a man who it seems had more clubs than Rory McIlroy (and almost as many as Frank Worthington). Again, there was a tiny bit more for me in this round than I expected, and 3 points brought my score to 4. Max had scored a double figure GK round in the heats, so he would be in with a chance of a famous victory if the questions fell for him.

Matthew Patenall looked to need a cricket score in his specialist based on his GK performance in the heat. He was answering on Andy Warhol and for the most part answering very well, too. I took two of these, though it would have been more if I could have remembered Sedgewick. That’s life. Matthew scored 10 and having incurred no passes this took him into the lead on countback.

Theere’s been a bit of comment (some of it from me, admittedly) about David Slater making it to the semis with a total of 15 in his heat. Well, all you can do is beat the other contenders you’re up against and David certainly did this in his heat. If he could now win the semi then all discussion of his first round performance would be academic. I loved his specialist subject – the classic Routemaster bus. Hey, I grew up in West London in the 70s, and the AEC bus works was just down the road between Hanwell and Southall. However, it is the kind of ‘out there’ subject that is going to find you out if you have not comprehensively and meticulously prepared. There were just too many holes and gaps in David’s knowledge I’m afraid and he scored 5. I ended with an aggregate of 8.

So it was all down to GK, and you have to say that even though she lay in third it looked very much advantage Diane. David though was the first to return to the chair and considering the disappointment he must have felt over his specialist he did a very good job, scoring 10 to equal his first round heat total of 15. This time though it surely wasn’t going to be enough to bring a win.

Diane did not manage to repeat her GK performance of the heat. But that didn’t mean that she didn’t put in a good GK round. Anything in double figures is good, we know that. She started brilliantly, but just showed signs of fatigue in the second minute where she started dropping a few gettable points. She kept her cool though and in the end she had scored 11 to set the target at 20. If anyone was going to beat her they were going to have to equal or exceed their heat scores.

Max Bougeard couldn’t. He gave it his best shot, but it was clear that he was behind on the clock by the halfway mark and in the end he could only add 7 to his total for 17.

As for Matthew Patenard, well you could tell he wanted to succeed very, very badly indeed. Every time he supplied a wrong answer you could see him react almost as if a tiny electric shock was passing through his body. Sadly the questions just did not fall for him. Not enough of them anyway.  He scored 6 for a total of 16.

Well done Diane! You are now, and will always be a Mastermind Grand Finalist. As I said earlier, you can only beat the opposition in front of you, and that you certainly did.

The Details

Diane Howe	Jeff Buckley	9	3	11	2	20	5
Max Bougeard	The managerial career of Raphael Benitez	10	0	7	2	17	2
Mattew Patenall	Andy Warhol	10	0	6	0	16	0
David Slater	The Classic Routemaster bus	5	2	10	1	15	3