Mastermind 2012/2012 - Heat 11

Mastermind 2012/2012 Heat 11

With it finally being confirmed this week that 3rd and 4th place players will be considered in the runners up slot it was onto heat 11 of this years contest. And a familiar face!

Contestants -

Kathy Richards
Brian O' Donnell
Nick Mazonowicz
Mark Roberts

Kathy Richards kicked us off with The Waltons, a TV show I am not too clued up on but there were a few gimmies in there I managed to get. 12 was a solid round and leaves her in contention

Brian O' Donnell was the familiar face I mentioned. He was part of our runner-up team at the Scottish Team championship, ran after the World Quiz Championships in Edinburgh earlier in the year, and is a very good quizzer. He took on Nigel Gresley as a subject. Brian auditioned for Mastermind on the off chance on the day of the WQC as the team were there looking for contestants. This round however did not go as well as he would have hoped, and even though I would have every faith he would put in a storming GK round, he left himself a lot to do scoring only 6.

Nick Mazonowicz took on a specialist subject I had no real ideas on, Len Deighton's Samson books. Nick looked sharp and confident and whacked in a score of 9. As I said last week I think taking on fictional novels as a subject is a very tricky thing.

Mark Roberts took on Lord Palmerston and a double figure score here would give him every chance of progression. A confident start continued throughout as Mark managed 9 which left him with every chance.

Again it looked like it was going to be close.


So the standings after the SS round


Kathy Richards - 12
Nick Mazonowicz  - 9
Mark Roberts - 9
Brian O' Donnell - 6

Brian was first back to the chair and I know from the WQC team event that he has a strong general knowledge. The round went in phases with strong series of answers followed by some slip ups and this really affected the rhythm. 13 scored in the round taking him to 19 and sadly probably not enough.

Nick Mazonowicz  needed at least 10 to put him in contention. Given it was 26 points to get in as a runner up it was all about the win today and an early pass stream slowed his scoring down despite a strong start. Nick had a clear strategy of passing on questions he didn't know rather than spending time thinking about them and this looked like it was going to cost him towards the end as he seemed to get stuck on 17 for a long time. Perhaps a few more seconds thinking time could have helped and ending on 19 meant he tied with Brian but again, you would imagine a 20 + score would come from somewhere.

Mark Roberts started confidently and looked very relaxed, taking his time to ensure points were on the board. Mark picked up on most of the gimmies and also worked his way through some of the tougher questions to soon be within touching distance of the lead.  It could not be closer as an answer after he buzzer landed him 20 points. Not enough to be a highest scoring runner up so....

Kathy Richards needed at least to take the win this week. Early struggles on the gimmie questions suggested it may be closer than I imagined and Kathy did not seem to be settling in to the round at all but she gave herself time to muster up enough answers to keep the scoring going. Even though this was far from the best GK round we have seen due to the nature of the heat this week it always was looking as if she would be the winner but a huge collapse towards the end of the round meant Mark Roberts with 20 had took the win. So Kathy misses her golden opportunity....

The final Mastermind standings this week -



Mark Roberts - 20
Kathy Richards - 19
Nick Mazonowicz  - 19
Brian O'Donnell - 19


Congratulations to Mark Roberts who makes it through to the next round! It was a pretty low scoring heat this week and indeed out of 44 contestants 33 have scored higher than the 20 that won this heat but you can only beat what is in front of and best luck to Mark in the Semi final!

And that leaves the overall standings of Mastermind this year at...

Qualified

Gregory Spiller - 32
Kathryn Palmer - 31
Christine Plume - 29
Jonathan Gordon - 29
Michael Wright - 29
Sian West - 26
Shahab Mossavat - 26
Matthew Bradshaw -26
Aidan Mccquade - 24
John Chadwick - 23
Mark Roberts - 20

Highest Scoring Runners Up

Chris Cann – 29

John Wheeler – 29
Helen Marshall - 28

Paul Whittaker - 27
Chris Quinn - 27

Nathan Joss – 26

Other

Alan Sharp - 26

Bart Smith - 25

Andrew Hunt - 25
Nina Fetherston - 25
Philip Walters - 25

Andrew Granath - 24

Alan Wharmby - 24

Rosalind Winter - 24

Laurie Handcock – 24

 Kevin Baker - 24 
Roland Mcfall – 23

Hazel Humprheys - 22
Chris Kirk - 22
Les Wallace - 22

Graeme Marley -22

 Ian Copping - 22

Alan Haddick - 21 
Kathy Richards - 19
Brian O Donnell - 19
Nick Mazonowicz - 19
Sarah Le Fevre - 19

Jackie Phillips - 19

Mathhew Clarke - 18
Nathan Scott – 18
Xavier Woodward - 18
Nick Gunatilleke - 17
Barbara Bell - 15