Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

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MJMcCready
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by MJMcCready » Fri May 29, 2020 5:57 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Thu May 28, 2020 5:48 pm
Paul Habershon wrote:
Thu May 28, 2020 5:39 pm

Yes, I did think that asking for the first official World Chess Champion on 15 to 1 was tough for that type of show but perfect for, say, the £1000 question on your chess themed 'Millionaire'.
If you threw in plausible but wrong answers like Staunton, Zukertort and Lasker, isn't that a question for higher up the ladder?

It's now long enough ago and knowledge of recent history seemingly that patchy that a question asking who Fischer beat in the 1972 World Championship final might be plausible. Wrong answers perhaps being Petrosian, Karpov and Korchnoi. Throw in Kasparov to make it easier (?).
Based in what I was taught at school all the options should begin with the name Boris. I was told he beat Boris Becker in the final.

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MJMcCready
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by MJMcCready » Fri May 29, 2020 7:52 am

What about this for a one million pound question.

In the Karpov -Kasparov 84 match, in game 11 Karpov played 85 Ng1. What was Kasparov's reply?
A Kd5
B Ke5
C Kd7
D Ke7

Not easy to know off the top of your head, suspect Kasparov wouldn't even know the answer.

NickFaulks
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by NickFaulks » Fri May 29, 2020 9:02 am

MJMcCready wrote:
Fri May 29, 2020 7:52 am
What about this for a one million pound question.

In the Karpov -Kasparov 84 match, in game 11 Karpov played 85 Ng1. What was Kasparov's reply?
A Kd5
B Ke5
C Kd7
D Ke7

Not easy to know off the top of your head, suspect Kasparov wouldn't even know the answer.
Particularly as it was game 15.
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MJMcCready
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by MJMcCready » Fri May 29, 2020 9:40 am

lol that's what I originally thought, double-checked and put it down as game 11. Silly me.

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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Fri May 29, 2020 1:13 pm

That's more a ten million pound question than a million pound one.

IMO "what was Karpov's move 47 in the ninth game" would be about right - its quite a famous move in chess terms, but would anyone guess it?
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by NickFaulks » Fri May 29, 2020 8:57 pm

MJMcCready wrote:
Fri May 29, 2020 9:40 am
lol that's what I originally thought, double-checked and put it down as game 11. Silly me.
It was the 11th draw.
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John Clarke
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by John Clarke » Sun May 31, 2020 11:07 am

Paul Habershon wrote:
Thu May 28, 2020 5:39 pm
More interestingly, how often has something chessy been a specialist subject on 'Mastermind'?
Can't answer for the UK, but the history of the game (or a subset thereof) has turned up on New Zealand's version of the show at least six times. Four of those I was responsible for (you were allowed to appear more than once, subject to a one-year stand-down). I was fortunate enough to bag the title in my second series. The other contenders were less successful.
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John Clarke
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by John Clarke » Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:16 am

Now I’ve ploughed through the Ann Meo transcript (can’t get the audio to play, for some reason) I have to say I found it kind of irritating in the end. She seems terribly unsure much of the time about names, dates, shows …. Some of it might be “diplomatic forgetfulness” of course, but with that apparent degree of vagueness it’s hardly surprising if there were some errors of fact and a few questions got repeated.

One thing she is spot-on about, though: setting quiz questions is a complex art, and anybody underestimating the level of skill and effort involved is in for an unpleasant surprise. I’ve done it a time or two, and have never been tempted to try again. Selwyn Toogood, NZ’s nearest equivalent to Hughie Green (but a far nicer character altogether), devoted a whole chapter of his autobiography to the subject. Reading it’s enough to put you off the idea entirely.

Part of the trouble, as a reasonably successful contestant myself, is adjusting your mental level to that of the people who’ll be answering. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was Fred Housego’s difficulty. It’s all but impossible for me, that I do know. I auditioned once for an NZ show broadly similar in format to Sale Of The Century. We had fifty questions fired at us fairly fast. You had to do reasonably well to have a chance of getting on the show, but I knew better than to make too high a score. (I’d heard about one eminent UK quizzer who tried out for Sale, got 48/50, and not surprisingly never heard back.) So I deliberately got several wrong. But there were so many where I remember thinking “how can anyone not know that?” and put down the right answer in case I overdid it and ended up bombing out. But my judgement was well out. I still finished a country mile ahead of everyone else.

Then there’s the sheer slog of researching and checking facts. Not just any old facts, but ones that are likely to pique the interest of the viewer or reader. My wife put out a couple of books of NZ trivia in the late 70s (a task I gave occasional help with, so I speak from experience here too). On the strength of this, she was invited to tender for the job of providing 300 (or was it 500? – I forget) questions for the NZ edition of Trivial Pursuit. Knowing full well what it would involve, she submitted a realistic price, but was undercut substantially by a well-known media personality of the day who thought it would be a nifty thing to add to his CV, and not too much bother. Ha! I gathered he was heard some time later lamenting that it was the hardest few thou he’d ever earned.

Even when you got all your facts, you still have to present them in an engaging way. And that’s before you’ve checked the wording to ensure there can be only one correct answer. And, in the case of multi-choice questions, figured out a plausible set of wrong answers. It’s a hell of a task, all right.

Although I’ll always challenge a question-setter who’s made an obvious error, I always do so with respect, and with acknowledgement of the immense effort I know they’ve put in.
"The chess-board is the world ..... the player on the other side is hidden from us ..... he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance."
(He doesn't let you resign and start again, either.)

James Plaskett
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by James Plaskett » Sat Jun 06, 2020 1:47 pm

Saw a Mastermind guy once handling subjects on ´Chess´.
One sonofagun question he got was

"In which position did Bobby Fischer finish at the Buenos Aires event of 1960?"
Re chess and Millionaire?. ¨Nigel Short¨was once an answer to an early Question on the UK version.

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MJMcCready
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by MJMcCready » Sat Jun 06, 2020 2:31 pm

Paul Habershon wrote:
Thu May 28, 2020 5:39 pm
MJMcCready wrote:
Thu May 28, 2020 3:50 pm
Given that so many are interested in this thread, why don't we create our own 'Who wants to be a millionaire?'. But have it chess themed? Just imagine how that would set the imagination of the general British public on fire. It's bound to have at least 50 million viewers each episode...probably a lot more than that maybe 100 million even though there aren't anywhere near that many Brits.
Yes, I did think that asking for the first official World Chess Champion on 15 to 1 was tough for that type of show but perfect for, say, the £1000 question on your chess themed 'Millionaire'. I wonder what the pre-£1000, rather fatuous chess questions would be? 'Is chess played on A a sword B a hoard C a board D a cord?'
More interestingly, how often has something chessy been a specialist subject on 'Mastermind'?
On Mastermind I only saw it once and it was Official World Chess Championship Matches I believe as most questions were location related and referred to the matches themselves rather than individuals. I remember I got one wrong and the correct answer was Beunos Aires. I think that was in the late 90s but can't be sure, I remember the contestant didn't do so well.

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MJMcCready
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by MJMcCready » Sat Jun 06, 2020 2:50 pm

James Plaskett wrote:
Sat Jun 06, 2020 1:47 pm
Saw a Mastermind guy once handling subjects on ´Chess´.
One sonofagun question he got was

"In which position did Bobby Fischer finish at the Buenos Aires event of 1960?"
Re chess and Millionaire?. ¨Nigel Short¨was once an answer to an early Question on the UK version.
He finished the tournament in the position of sitting down most probably.

Sonofagun questions I've only had one, which is the only world champion to have a gun named after him. I got it wrong because I didn't think of the attribution, and having seen Karpov do the same thing so many times thought it might be named after him instead of Alekhine.

A tough, say 125,000 pound question could be, which reigning chess champion suffered more losses than any other (simul related of course) in the best of the home counties, that being Bedfordshire -sometimes being thrashed and struggled like hell to squeeze a win against blind players at least once but was never asked anything about the war although someone did mention it once but I think they got away with it.

I am almost certain that is Lasker.

A: Steiniz
B: Lasker
C: Capablanca
D: Alekhine

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MJMcCready
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by MJMcCready » Sun Jul 05, 2020 3:24 pm

100 pound question

In chess which colour moves first?

A Grey
B Black
C Brown
D White

500 pound question

Which letter of the alphabet does the manoeuvre of the knight resemble?

A B
B Q
C X
D L

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Jul 05, 2020 3:39 pm

MJMcCready wrote:
Sun Jul 05, 2020 3:24 pm
100 pound question
For "fastest finger", list these chess pieces in ascending/descending order of relative value, rook, pawn, queen, bishop.

Or you could do, starting from the White's left hand corner, arrange these pieces in order, bishop, knight, queen, rook.

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MJMcCready
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by MJMcCready » Mon Jul 06, 2020 10:15 am

Fastest finger: put these world champions in chronological order. Spassky, Smyslov, Petrosian, Tal

500 pound question

In which decade did Broadbent become the British Champion?

A 1920's
B 1930's
C 1940's
D 1950's

Leonard Barden
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Re: Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

Post by Leonard Barden » Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:42 am

MJMcCready wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 10:15 am

500 pound question

In which decade did Broadbent become the British Champion?

A 1920's
B 1930's
C 1940's
D 1950's
Answer: sack the question compiler, since there are two correct responses. I write as one who happened to be defeated by Broadbent in the course of his second championship.....

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