Sunday 2 September 2012

Mastermind 2012/2013 - Week 4


Mastermind 2012/2013 - Week 4

Due to a hectic weekend I have only just managed to settle down to watch Friday's Mastermind episode this morning so, better late than never, here is a run down of what proved to be a top quality contest.

This weeks Mastermind Contestants - 

John Wheeler
Laurie Handcock
Kathryn Palmer
Alan Haddick


John Wheeler kicked things of with The Shipping Forecast a subject I knew very little about. John looked calm throughout and maybe missed one question that he would kick himself for failing (the duration meant by imminent). Otherwise a solid round and John had set a target and gave himself every chance of making it through.

Laurie Handcock took on the History of the Alpine Club which again was a subject I was unfamiliar with and did not get chance to take the Wiki Challenge on the subject. Laurie again was very relaxed and calm, rattled off a good roll of correct answers. 11 was a solid score!

Kathryn Palmer was next taking on the subject of Duran Duran which I quite fancied a go at. I got all the gimmies and a couple extras but this seemed to be a very straight forward round. Kathryn Palmer lapped up the questions and managed to score an impressive 16 which but her in the lead with a good cushion with one contender to go. 

Alan Haddick did not get off to the best start taking on the Shakespeare Comedies. Much much longer questions for Alan here compared to the round before (does anyone have the stats on questions asked?). Couple that with a few incorrect answers and it was a hard ask to score close to the 16 set by Kathryn Palmer. A good recovery at the end to score 10 kept him in with a shout.


So at the end of the Mastermind SS round we had the following as the state of play - 

Kathryn Palmer - 16
John Wheeler - 13
Laurie Handcock - 11
Alan Haddick - 10


Into the GK then and Alan Haddick was first out. He would need to have a storming round to set a target to put pressure on the others but Mastermind can be a funny old show at times. Alan fell into an early pass/wrong answer cycle but pulled things back together to score 11 for the round and a respectable 21 overall however not enough to progress.

Laurie Handcock next carrying 11 over from the SS. He made a decent start and kept a solid pace of scoring going throughout the round. A little blip where he appeared to be laughing as he knew it was a question he should have got did not dissuade him from getting a very solid 13 for the round and 24 overall. A decent target to aim at.

John Wheeler needed at least 11 to take the lead and realistically needed to set a target close to 30 to add pressure to Kathryn Palmer. He made a superb start with confident, fast answers as well as allowing himself a couple of moments to think on certain questions which is always a good tactic to avoid racking up passes. He achieved a total score of 29 points, the second highest of the series so far and a tough target set for the final contestant.

Kathryn Palmer was last up needing 14 to win outright. A solid start was made to a very good set of questions. As an aside, this was one of the highest play along at home scores I have ever got on Mastermind so not too sure what that says about the difficulty of the questions but, without disrespect to Kathryn, this seemed a much more straight forward set. Either way Kathryn, under the pressure of the chair did fantastically well to score 31 and move forward into the final. Only the second 30+ score of the series.
And that meant the final score on this edition of Mastermind was - 

Kathryn Palmer - 31
John Wheeler - 29
Laurie Handcock - 24
Alan Haddick - 21


Commiserations thus far to John Wheeler who has the joint 3rd best score of the series so far but will have to wait to see if he is one of the best runner ups. I have a feeling 29 will be good enough this year!



Overall Mastermind standings -


Qualified
Gregory Spiller - 32
Kathryn Palmer - 31
Sian West - 26
Aidan Mccquade - 24

Runners up
Chris Cann - 29
John Wheeler - 29
Nathan Joss - 26
Rosalind Winter - 24
Andrew Granath - 24
Laurie Handcock - 24
Roland Mcfall - 23
---------------------------------------------------
Graeme Marley - 22
Alan Haddick - 21
Sarah Le Fevre - 19
Matthew Clarke - 18
Nathan Scott - 18



Now we have a 2-week wait for the next episode.....

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