Mastermind - First Round - Episode 7

Mastermind - First Round - Episode 7

After a break for the festive period Mastermind was back with a double episode. Its been too long!

Tonight's Contenders were - 

Hughie Jones

Sarah Waller

Guy Tozer

Jeremy Platt

Hughie Jones was first answering on The Cambridge Apostles, something I am not very familiar with. Jones had a little mid-round stutter when a wrong answer seemed to throw him off, something which you see happen quite often. Jones also took a whole to answer a couple of questions which did not help but he still managed to score 10 with some impressive answers. a good enough score to give him a chance in the next round but may his speed of answering would be the thing to let him down.

Sarah Waller tackled an other tricky subject Antonia Forest who yet again I know very little about. Waller looked rather nervous  but made a confident start to the round answering accurately and quickly, almost in a fashion as if the questions were too easy for her. A couple of late passes and incorrect answers slowed the pass down a little but Waller still ended up with a solid 14 which she appeared  very pleased with.

Guy Tozer next and the French Revolution which I actually covered at University and have seemingly forgot! Tozer hadn't though and gave a confident showing of 13, this was shaping up to be a very close contest indeed.

Lastly it was the turn of Jeremy Platt answering on Mahler. I do like Mahlers music but know very little about him but thought this was a nice little subject Platt could do well in, every point was going to be vital by the looks of the other contenders.  It was a nice set of questions which Tozer lapped up on the most part aprt from a struggle towards the end and his 11 but him right in the mix but with work to do in the GK round.

Standings after Specialist Round - 

Sarah Waller - 14

Guy Tozer - 13

Jeremy Platt - 11

Hughie Jones - 10

By this stage as we entered the General Knowledge round it was anyone's for the taking apart from maybe Hughie Jones but stranger things have happened on Mastermind.

Hughie Jones thus took to the seat first and I had a feeling his speed of recall would let him down. However, with quite an "easy" set of questions by Mastermind standards he failed to make an impression getting some basic questions wrong, maybe it was nerves or maybe the questions just did not suit. Scoring only 5 points his score of 15 would confine him to last place. 

Jeremy Platt needed a good score to put pressure on the leaders and his set was much harder than the previous. Nice question on "Mackems", my neck of the woods, thrown in there and after a string of bad answers Platt seemed to look annoyed with himself and managed to make it to 19 scoring 8 for the round. Again the pressures of the chair all evident.

Now it seemed a two horse race with Guy Tozer who got off to a bad start getting the first three questions wrong. He began to make up for it with quick answers seeming to be taking the tactic of not passing and just guessing at what he did not know. A very valid tactic and it seemed to work well as he scored the highest GK score of the night so far with 11 to take his total to 24 giving Sarah Waller 10 to go to count back.

So Sarah Waller strode up next looking even more nervous than the first round, perhaps knowing she had a heck of a chance to make it to the semi finals. The confident answering from the first round continued and with some nice gettable questions thrown into the mixture she quickly raced into a winnable position. Wrong answers and passes around the 21 mark slowed down the scoring but Waller recovered scoring the highest in the Gk round of the night of 12 giving her a solid win. 

A good confident performance from Sarah Waller who will prove a threat in the Mastermind Semi Finals!

Final Standings - 

Sarah Waller - 26
Guy Tozer - 24
Jeremy Platt - 19
Hughie Jones - 15

A enjoyable episode of Mastermind and even better knowing there was more to come straight afterwards......