Alastair MacNaughton, a teacher from Edinburgh, and a member of that city´s chess club, won 125K. He bottled it on a 250,000 Question about the meaning of ´Stalin´in Russian, although he admitted to being some 80% sure that it is ´Man of Steel´. (It IS.)
Nerve counts for a heck of a lot in quizzing, as experienced quizzer and chess player, Felix Kwiatowski, assured me before I accessed the hot seat and as I told Tarrant before Question 1.
And my ´guess´on my 250K question was an ´educated´one: I had used all three lifelines to point me at it.
Indeed, I regret spunking the third one.
(Might even call it an ´OVER-educated guess´! )
A guy won the top prize in Germany who had drawn with Anand in a simul.
Kasparov won the top prize on the Georgian version of the show when he, partnered by his wife, played for money for an operation needed for a sick child.
Only other GM to make "Millionaire´s Row" was Maurice Ashley in NY City.
Short told me that his wife got to the last 100 in Athens.
The Greek rules are somewhat different and she had to answer (visiting a local studio, I believe) a question re Greek Prime Ministers. She did so inaccurately and did not qualify.
Another erstwhile Guildford One teammate, GM Antoinetta Stefanova, told me that her sister TWICE qualified for the Bulgarian version, and she accompanied her on the first time. Second time she won a small amount.
Sowray told me that a reasonable club chess player he knew called Watson made it on to the show but did not access the hot seat.
A guy called Keith Pottage, apparently not unknown in Yorks chess circles, won 125K on a show where I appeared with him in early 2005.
Inspired by me (I know, for he recruited me as Phone A Friend) Chris Jeans, a guy from Herts with a grade circa 160, got on the show. But lost out on Fastest Finger First, despite putting in an excellent time, to someone who managed a few tenths of a second quicker.
I once saw a lady whom I knew from the National Secular Society - but not through chess - Barbara Smoker, in the line up, but she too did not get into the chair.
re your mate Bob Ginger, Roger; you might wish to mention the name of Paddy Spooner... and carefully note his reaction.
A whole chapter of our book (Chapter 10.) is on Spooner... and his gang.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Show-Cough ... s=Bad+Show
Oh and since, Señor de Coverley, you want to raise the topic of coincidence, as you have done on another thread about my book, do consider this one re chess players appearing on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
The details of what I now here recount may be accessed quite early on in this Diary Entry -
http://james-plasketts-coincidence-diar ... -some.html
- re how I and a 61 year old retired computer programmer from Kansas were the ONLY two online chess teachers of Kelly Cottrell of Detroit and we BOTH appeared on the show on the adjacent days of Nov 11th and Nov 12th 1999. He in NY City. I in London.
Neither does it stop there.
Av Rosen´s daughter then got on the show and won $1,000.Then they split $500,000 on an online quiz.
And then Kelly Cottrell married another GM: Ben Finegold.