Ep 43: James Weatherhead, Pravin Dullur (September 5, 2012; originally aired September 29, 2010)

Rounds: Here.


Disclaimer: While I have not seen this episode before, I did play through the blue book (episodes 1 to 50) around ten months ago when I was scheduled to be a contestant on the show.  Additionally, I did a quick flick through it a few months back to collect words for my posts about word validity.


James Weatherhead gets his turn in the champion's seat tonight, and presumably hopes it will be the first of many such appearances.  James loves history, and in particular earlier 20th century American history.  He makes particular mention of Al Capone and Prohibition, and says that he feels it is a sometimes-neglected period of history, coming as it did between two world wars.

Tonight's challenger is Pravin Dullur, a father of two and psychiatrist specialising in child and adolescent health.  Pravin comes from the south of India, and came an impressive third in the Indian version of Mastermind (it's not mentioned which year; my understanding is that each series had 64 contestants from all around India, but of course there were likely a great many more who did not make it past selection and onto the show).


James gained an early lead in the second round, and extended it in a later letters round.  He missed a chance to go further ahead in the second numbers round, and Pravin did quite well in the last letters round to close the gap to a tantalising nine points.  That was the margin going into the conundrum with both keen to solve it to take the win.  In the end it was too difficult for them both, and James got his second win, 54 to 45.

I started off in unsatisfactory fashion, missing a word that I've found before.  A couple of parsimonious letter rounds later in the game proved troublesome, and I missed a numbers solution I would have found on a better day.  All in all, I definitely felt below par, but decent speed on the conundrum kept me well clear of the contestants.