Mastermind 2018: The Grand Final

Well, I’ve had a lovely day, dearly beloved. Last week I was teed off that we didn’t have Mastermind to watch, but anticipation only serves to heighten pleasure, I suppose. First day of the Easter Holidays, and I spent the morning out with daughters two and three, and my granddaughter. Lovely, and made all the better through having this grand final to look forward to.

And so to Mastermind. If you read my preview you’ll hopefully recall that I tipped Brian Chesney and Alfred Williams as the ones to watch, with Michael Taylor, going for a rare UC Mastermind double, looking like a good dark horse. Michael was first up. Now, if, like me, you are an avid follower of the annual filmed insert trip lottery, you’ll have noticed that Michael stayed in the UK, with a trip to the Royal and Ancient in St. Andrews. Theoretically they could have taken him to the Augusta National in the USA, but fair enough. Hey, my family originally came from Dundee, not so very far from St. Andrews, so you’ll hear no complaints from me about it. To be fair, he did get to handle the Claret Jug too. Answering on Major Championship golf from 1997 to now, Michael came close to perfection, dropping just the one answer on his way to 14. Game on.

Second up, Brian Chesney. Answering on the Revolt in the Netherlands 1568-1609, a visit to Amsterdam gave Brian a shout at the Most Picturesque Filmed Insert, although not the one needing the most air miles. Brian made no secret of the fact that he was runner up on passes in 2014 to our own Clive Dunning, and had every intention of going one better this time out. You know, I’ll be honest, I wish they wouldn’t ask contenders how well they think they’re going to do, or how much they want to win. I always thought it was tempting fate. When they asked me in my own filmed insert 10 years ago what I thought my chances were I made a point of saying 1 in 6 – it all depended on the questions – which is as true now as it was then. Not that the questions on Brian’s specialist gave him many problems. He scored 13, just missing out on a couple, but with 2 and a half minutes of general knowledge to come, he’ll have been quite content to be so close to the lead, I’m sure.

Kyle Nagendra got a serious shot at the most air miles for his filmed insert as he was flown out to Pittsburgh PA, where much of the location shooting for The Silence of the Lambs was carried out. Looking at the formbook based on first round and semi final performances I had the feeling that Kyle was something of an outsider for this final. Nobody seemed to have told him that, though, as he calmly and competently set about assembling a highly competitive 13 on the Hannibal Lecter novels. Did I see this as a platform for a potential win? Well, it would require a remarkable round on GK.

Ben Holmes was offering us possibly the most unusual of the specialist subjects in the shape of US Constitutional Amendments. In terms of the filmed insert lottery, that’s a rather good choice, pretty much guaranteeing a trip to the US as it does. Washington DC gave him very respectable air miles, and DC is somewhat more picturesque than Pittsburgh. Again, getting the contenders to nail their colours to the mast about their chances seems to have been high on the agenda, as Ben declared his intention to win. Well, fair point. You have to think you’re going to win, so that you prepare as if you think you’re going to win, to give you the best chance of actually doing it. This is just my opinion, and by all means feel free to disagree, but I do think that a rather left field subject does have a high risk-reward ratio. You do risk the fact that they will drag up some esoteric fact you just never encountered, and sadly this happened a couple of times to Ben. Don’t get me wrong, his 11 was a good round. But you don’t want to be 3 points behind the leader going into GK in a Mastermind final.

Hands down winner of the most air miles for the filmed insert lottery was Ken Morland, whose visit to Kolkata trumped Kyle’s visit to Pittsburgh by several hundred miles. I did speculate that Ken seemed very shocked when he won his semi final, and he was quick to bear this out. Ken it seemed followed my ‘1 in 6 chance’ line when asked about his chances. Answering on Indian Premier League Cricket, he too played as if he believed he could win, whacking in a highly competitive 13 of his own. It’s a credit to all of the finalists that their scores were so similar, proving how seriously each contender was taking it, and how carefully they had prepared.

Which brings us to Alfred Williams, our final contender. Alfred didn’t seem to even quite get into Scotland, travelling to Hadrian’s Wall, being as that was his subject. To be fair, he looked absolutely delighted to be there, and I must admit, it’s a matter of some shame to myself that I’ve never visited the wall myself. Yet. Now both of Alfred’s previous specialist rounds had been stand out rounds, so I expected some fireworks. Well, we didn’t quite get a perfect round, no , but even a couple of wrong uns didn’t stop Alfred taking the joint lead with 14.

With the current format, come the Grand Final you get 2 minutes on specialist, and two and a half minutes on GK. Last year the final was settled by a great GK performance, and for any contender to head the field, the same was going to need to happen this year as well.

First back was Ben Holmes. Now, Ben’s GK aggregate from the series so far was as good as Brian’s, and only Alfred had a higher aggregate. I don’t know if he was affected by lying in 6^th place at the halfway stage – despite, as I said, having had a good round – but he did look concerned throughout the round, and it was a battling rather than free flowing performance he managed. 11 is a perfectly respectable score, but sadly, 22 is not a winning score in a Mastermind Grand Final.

So to Brian Chesney. Last time he came this way, Brian lost the final on passes. Then he was a very close runner up in Brain of Britain. Would third time be the charm? Well, 2 and a half minutes after the start of his GK round it certainly looked that way. He had been asked 20 questions, and answered 19 of them correctly. Yes, of course I was standing up, applauding the telly. Funnily enough, the only one he got wrong – Hemingway’s ‘Death in the Afternoon’ wasn’t necessarily the hardest question in the round, but I dare say that he won’t be too bothered about that! It was a terrific round, and more importantly, it looked like a winning round. Would it be, though?

Well, Kyle Nagendra couldn’t beat it. You may recall that I’ve praised Kyle’s calm and thoughtful technique in his previous appearances, and he applied the same approach this time. For once, it didn’t quite work out, as the questions just didn’t seem to fall Kyle’s way this time. It happens. Nobody knows them all, and if you get one of ‘those’ rounds you’ve just got to do the best you can with it, and add it to your collection of threads from life’s rich tapestry. Kyle scored 8 to take him to 21. Doesn’t matter. He is, and will always be, a Mastermind finalist.

Three contenders down, and three to go, and it was Ken Morland’s go to have a tilt at the towering edifice of Brian Chesney’s total. Ken seemed to have decided on the tactic of passing quickly on what he didn’t know – and that’s a valid tactic. He eventually accrued 11 correct answers and 3 passes. This gave him a perfectly good 24, and meant that the worst that could happen would be that he’d end up 4^th.

I did wonder what might have been going through Michael Taylor and the other contenders’ minds as Brian piled on his massive score. I was lucky in as much as I never had to follow a round quite like that. To be fair to Michael, though, he really gave it a lash. If you watch Michael’s round, maybe you’ll make the observation that I made, that the only thing Michael needs in order to be right up there challenging for the title, is maybe a decade on the quiz circuit. What I mean by that is that he obviously has a fantastic knowledge, but missed out on a number of those things you’d just know after 10 years or so at the quizface. If he wants to, he’ll be back. As it was, 13 for a total of 27 guaranteed him a place on the podium. It wasn’t going to be the top step, though.

Finally, then, Alfred Williams. Alfred had impressed me with both of his GK outings in the series so far. However, only having a one point advantage over Brian at half time meant that he was going to have to match Brian’s performance in order to win. Now, while it’s perfectly possible that you could have two GK rounds like that in the same show, it’s very unlikely. I’m sure it’s no consolation to Alfred, but I found his round a bit harder than I found Brian’s – but that’s all in the eye of the beholder and the ear of the behearer. They’re all easy if you know the answers. Alfred did not have many wrong, but he could hardly afford any, and with a minute to go he looked slightly off the pace. In the end he finished with 29 – a very fine score in its own right.

Commiserations to Alfred, Michael and the others, but many, many congratulations to Brian. Well done, Sir! Enjoy your status as a Mastermind Champion.

Thanks BBC, for another highly enjoyable series. I look forward to Mastermind 2019 beginning in the summer.

The Details

Michael Taylor	Major Championship Golf 1997 - Date	14	0	13	1	27	1
Brian Chesney	The Revolt in the Netherlands 1568 - 1609	13	0	19	0	32	0
Kyle Nagendra	The Hannibal Lecter Novels	13	2	8	3	21	5
Ben Holmes	US Constitutional Amendments	11	0	11	2	22	2
Ken Morland	Indian Premier League Cricket	13	0	11	5	24	5
Alfred Williams	Hadrian’s Wall	14	0	15	2	29	2

Mastermind 2018: Grand Final Preview

Shall we have a look at the statistics, dearly beloved? Why not?

Kyle Nagendra	The X-Men Films	9	2	11	2	20	4
	The Films of James Cameron	14	0	12	4	26	4
Aggregate		23	2	23	6	46	8
Brian Chesney	The Giordano Bruno Novels of SJ Parris	11	0	12	1	23	1
	Harold Wilson	15	0	15	1	30	1
Aggregate		26	0	27	2	53	2
Ken Morland	The Works of HP Lovecraft	9	1	11	0	20	1
	Red Dwarf	14	0	14	3	28	3
Aggregate		23	1	25	3	48	4
Michael Taylor	The films of Paul Thomas Anderson	11	0	12	0	23	0
	U2	14	1	14	4	28	5
Aggregate		25	1	26	4	51	5
Alfred Williams	The Life and Music of Eric Satie	10	0	15	1	25	1
	The Life and Times of Alfred the Great	15	0	16	3	31	3
Aggregate		25	0	31	4	56	4
Ben Holmes	The Graphic Novels of Daniel Clowes	10	2	13	0	23	0
	Dr. Who 2005 - date	15	0	14	1	29	1
Aggregate		25	2	27	1	52	1

Now, let’s state for the record that statistics only tell you so much. Any of the 6 people who reach a Mastermind Grand Final CAN win it. All the statistics tell us is who is most likely to do it based on performance in the series so far. So what do these statistics tell us?

Both Kyle Nagendra and Ken Morland look less likely to win than the other finalists, according to the statistics. Kyle had a fine GK round in the semis, but he was a couple of points behind the leaders as the half time oranges were brought out. He certainly can’t afford that in the final, and even then his GK score last night, good as it was, was still the joint lowest of our 6 finalists. Can he win? Of course he can, but the formbook points to a lower finish than that.

Ken Morland looked shocked when it was announced that he had won his semi and was through to the final. His semi final performance was similar to Kyle’s and again, he’ll need to do a little better on his specialist if he’s not going to be behind going into the GK. His semi final GK again was joint lowest in the semis. Can Ken win? Sure he can, but again, my gut feeling is that he’ll be amongst the chasing pack.

Next contender of this all male group whose chances we should look at is Michael Taylor. If you look at the aggregate scores of Michael, Ben and Brian, there is virtually nothing to choose between them. Looking at Michael’s scores, what they reveal is that this is a contender who performs at a consistently high level. The evidence suggests that he’ll prepare well for his specialist, which means it will all come down to GK. His chances must be taken seriously. I think the most likely outcome for him is a podium spot, but he can win it, make no doubt.

I’d say the same for Ben Holmes too. His GK aggregate is slightly higher than Michael’s, but there’s really nothing in it. Again, I want to stress this, Ben’s stats suggest that he is perfectly capable of becoming a Mastermind champion, and a worthy one he would be. The fact that I’m not tipping him to win has a great deal more to do with the quality of our last two contenders than any deficiency in Ben.

Twist my arm behind my back and force me down off the fence, and I’d tell you that I think two of the contenders are more likely winners than the other 4. The first of this dynamic duo is Brian Chesney. Brian is a former runner up – last time out in 2014 he lost out on passes to our own Clive Dunning. Now there is a precedent to this. In 2003, the first series of the Humphrys Ers, the great Geoff Thomas was runner up to Andy Page. 3 years later he came back and carried all before him in the series that saw my own Mastermind debut. Consider also the fact that Brian is a Brain of Britain runner up, and you can see how foolish it would be to dismiss Brian’s chances. I have never seen him put in an under par performance in his 5 Mastermind appearances so far. I can’t see that he won’t be in the reckoning. However, to win he’ll have to beat a very serious contender indeed.

Alfred Williams looks like a winner to me. There – sorry Alfred, I’ve maybe jinxed your chances there. But every single round he’s put in so far has been quality. In particular that 15 on GK in the semis was truly outstanding – and that after a 16 on GK in the heats. There’s an air of assurance about Alfred when he’s in the chair – he looks as if he never expects to get one wrong, and he doesn’t let it bother him in the slightest on the few occasions when he does. So yes, I think the most likely winners are Brian and Alfred, and of the two, I just think that Alfred has looked more likely during this series.

But hey, what do I know? There may only be 5 GK questions in the whole show that you don’t know, but if they all come out in the middle of your own round, what can you do? Anyone is capable of having a bad night – although the better quizzer that you are the fewer and further between these should be. I wish all 6 contenders the very best of retrospective luck, and hope that you all enjoyed the experience.

The final itself will be shown on Good Friday, so no Mastermind next week. Shame.

Mastermind 2018 - Semi Final 6

The last semi final, then. Here’s the tale of the tape –

Sarah Jane Bodell	The History of Kentucky	13	0	12	0	25	0
Don Crerar	The American Civil War	12	1	15	1	27	2
Kyle Nagendra	The Films of James Cameron	14	0	12	4	26	4
Shahab Mossavat	The Life and Career of Muhammad Ali	14	0	12	0	26	0
Ailsa Watson	Coronation Street since 2000	10	1	18	1	28	2

Now, I have a distinct memory of standing up and applauding after watching LAM reader Ailsa’s GK round in the heats – and if I didn’t, I should have. The fact that Ailsa is a Fifteen to One series winner suggested that this was by no means a flash in the pan. Don Crerar’s 15 on GK meant that he certainly couldn’t be discounted. Shahab has been this way before, reaching the semis a few years ago.

First out of the starting blocks, though, was Sarah Jane Bodell. Sarah was actually third in her heat, but still with a score good enough to get her into the semis. She certainly meant business in her specialist round on the TV show Peep Show. This round treated me to a genuinely new experience. I don’t recall the last time I was outscored on any Mastermind round by a member of my family, but my daughter Zara loves Peep Show, and she absolutely wiped the floor with me, scoring 8. A good score. Not as good as Sarah Jane’s though. Her 11 was a quality round, which laid down the gauntlet to the others.

Now, what is the best that you can do in a specialist round? Answer every question correctly, of course. That’s exactly what Don Crerar did in his round on Albert Speer. In an edition notable for the ridiculous length of some of the questions, I think Don particularly suffered, but nonetheless this was a superb performance. He was going to be in the shakeup at the end of the show.

Kyle Nagendra put in one of those perfectly good performances in his heat which gets a contender safely into the semis, but doesn’t arouse undue comment. IN his heat, Kyle’s was a nerveless and sensible performance, when he didn’t go at 100 miles an hour, but didn’t miss much at all, and this is pretty much what happened in his GK round on the X Men films. He dropped one or two, and ended with 9. In the semi finals 2 points is a significant gap, but it’s not unbridgeable.

Last time Shahab Mossavat reached the semi finals he answered on King Edward III. This time he opted for that king’s great grandad, Henry III. Back in 2013 he scored 9 which left him 3 points off the lead. A similar thing happened tonight, as his score of 8 also left him 3 points off the lead. Perfectly respectable performance, but there’s a lot of difference between being 2 and 3 points behind in a semi, and I had a feeling that Shahab might well be out of the running by half time.

So to Ailsa. In the first round heats she scored 10 on her specialist round on Corrie. Tonight, answering on the Jack Parlabane novels of Christopher Brookmyre – not a series I’ve ever read – she also scored 10. Coming off a 90 second round, this was a considerable improvement on the heat. One point behind Sarah Jane and Don, she looked to be comfortably placed as we went into the GK rounds.

So to said GK. Last time he reached this stage, Shahab Mossavat had a bit of a ‘mare in the GK rounds. Ach, sadly lightning seemed determined to strike in the same place. I can’t fault his determination to answer every question and avoid any passes, but sadly there were just too many wrong’uns in there, and he scored 6 to end with 14. Shahab, you’re a double semi finalist, and I know a lot of people who’d love to be able to make that boast.

Now, what do we say about GK round in the semis? Anything in double figures, and you’ve done well. I thought that Kyle Nagendra’s round was quality. Again, he wasn’t rushing, but he was getting the vast majority of his questions right, and most of these weren’t exactly gimmes either. With a total of 20, and three contenders to come I did still feel that he was likely to be the bridesmaid rather than the bride, but nonetheless he had done enough to put the other three into the corridor of doubt, and we know the effect that this can have sometimes.

Ailsa modestly commented in this very blog that she was lucky in the set of GK questions she received in the first round heat. Well, if that’s the case, then she must forgive me for saying that she was unlucky with the set of questions she received in this semi final. It looked desperately close for most of the round, and she was on 19 in total as the blue line of death snaked around the score. She needed to answer the last question correctly, but sadly she didn’t. Hard lines, Ailsa.

Now, I did just have a feeling that Sarah Jane wasn’t going to take the lead. That’s not said in a disrespectful way – well it’s not meant to be. What happens sometimes in the semis, is that the GK is just ramped up a little in terms of difficulty, and this can sort out the merely good from the great. Actually, despite a slow start, Sarah Jane did pick up speed, and in the end she too was just one point away from taking the lead. What I liked about the round is that Sarah Jane never stopped looking like she was enjoying herself, and that’s good. It’s easy to forget it when you’re in the thick of it, but this is supposed to be fun.

Don Crerar, I thought, was going to do it, especially after he knocked off the first 3 points he needed pretty quickly. Yet, somehow, the round became becalmed. I don’t know if he was nervous, but Don started dropping two out of every three questions, which left him limping rather than sprinting towards the finishing line. There was an interesting piece of camerawork as the round came to an end, since we could clearly see a smiling Kyle, who must have been counting Don’s answers. Again, it was desperately close, but not close enough.

Many congratulations, Kyle. Best of luck in the grand final.

The Details

Sarah Jane Bodell	Peep Show	11	0	8	0	19	0
Don Crerar	Albert Speer	11	0	8	2	19	2
Kyle Nagendra	The X-Men Films	9	2	11	2	20	4
Shahab Mossavat	Henry III	8	0	6	0	14	0
Ailsa Watson	The Jack Parlabane novels of Christopher Brookmyre	10	1	9	2	19	3