tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401280171563686515.post4058584274116354466..comments2024-03-12T12:54:32.926-07:00Comments on Life After Mastermind: Mastermind 2019 - Semi Final 1Londiniushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07871325359167581176noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401280171563686515.post-79779956256223652802019-04-29T11:18:20.802-07:002019-04-29T11:18:20.802-07:00In the spirit of being a huge fan of your blog, an...In the spirit of being a huge fan of your blog, and the show, I offer the following:<br /><br />For the longest time I've been irritated by the variability of the length of questions and also a little concerned that it could make a difference in a close match.<br /><br />In this contest, both Brian and Mark each got a total of 3 questions wrong. Yet Mark finished with 26, and Brian 25. The difference was that Mark was asked 13 in the first round, but Brian only was asked 12, despite both answering all of their questions correctly.<br /><br />Now, sometimes hesitation could make the difference, but not in this case. Brian answered both his specialist and GK questions very promptly, and so I thought the length of the questions might be the determining factor.<br /><br />Rather than make any claim without data, I just spent an hour with the text taken from the subtitles and the answer, which surprised me, is this:<br /><br />Mark's specialist questions were 276 words long in total, and Brian's were 275. At first glance I was impressed with how close those numbers were, then I realized that Mark got 13 questions and Brian got 12 (for completeness, the total including GK questions were 617 for Mark vs 622 for Brian). <br /><br />I don't think there's any way Brian could ever have been asked, let alone answered 13 in his specialist. Therefore it does seem in this case that the longer questions of Brian's hurt him and maybe cost him at least a tie break.<br /><br />Also, as you note, Sue did hesitate much more on her rounds, but it's still mighty impressive that she only got 2 questions wrong in total. That must be one of the best losing performances ever. Martinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14830160543665934846noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5401280171563686515.post-34046984781338471672019-04-28T04:02:42.429-07:002019-04-28T04:02:42.429-07:00Surprised to see Roy Smith in the semi-finals, giv...Surprised to see Roy Smith in the semi-finals, given that (assuming the figures on this site are correct) there were 3 runners-up who scored more than 26 in R1 (Jo Skinner, Tim Fowler, and Brian Davis), and 3 others who scored 26 points with fewer than 3 passes (Alan Keys, Amit De, and Keshava Guha). This suggests that either somebody withdrew, or that the number of passes is not the tie-breaker used to decide who gets through to the semis.<br /><br />This will be the third time Mark Grant has appeared in the final, following 2005 (where he finished 2nd) and 2009-10 (where he finished 3rd).Paul Gilberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08942358761328378374noreply@blogger.com