Would you like to become a millionaire?

A section to discuss matters not related to Chess in particular.
User avatar
MJMcCready
Posts: 3178
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:30 pm

Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by MJMcCready » Sun Oct 26, 2014 8:43 am

Hailing from Bedfordshire, I remembered that our top GM James Plaskett once tried his hand on Chris Tarrant's 'Who wants to be a millionaire once. I dug out the relevant clips on youtube (see below) but wondered if he was the only chess player to appear on the show?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRjAa83f-tk (please go to 5.50 to Jim in action)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyTuys_p9Eg

Roger de Coverly
Posts: 21301
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:51 pm

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Oct 26, 2014 8:56 am

MJMcCready wrote:but wondered if he was the only chess player to appear on the show?
By no means. Former local player Bob Ginger reached the quarter final.

http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/new/player ... 11270D#top

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQv1PJgQdYU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXh6R5AiLVU

User avatar
MJMcCready
Posts: 3178
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:30 pm

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by MJMcCready » Sun Oct 26, 2014 9:01 am

Your friend did pretty well there.

Gordon Cadden
Posts: 490
Joined: Mon Jan 10, 2011 4:57 pm

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by Gordon Cadden » Sun Oct 26, 2014 11:21 am

After winning £250,000 James Plaskett looked completely blank, and so did Stuart Conquest. He did not know that Crispin was the Patron Saint of Shoemakers; it was a very lucky guess.

User avatar
MJMcCready
Posts: 3178
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:30 pm

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by MJMcCready » Mon Oct 27, 2014 7:32 pm

Or that shoemakers even had a patron saint it would seem. I wonder if chess set makers have a patron saint?

User avatar
Michael Farthing
Posts: 2069
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2014 1:28 pm
Location: Morecambe, Europe

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by Michael Farthing » Mon Oct 27, 2014 9:18 pm

St Aunton

NickFaulks
Posts: 8453
Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:28 pm

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by NickFaulks » Mon Oct 27, 2014 9:38 pm

Michael Farthing wrote:St Aunton
!!
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a QR code stamped on a human face — forever.

User avatar
MJMcCready
Posts: 3178
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:30 pm

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by MJMcCready » Tue Oct 28, 2014 4:08 am

lol yes that would work.

James Plaskett
Posts: 251
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:36 pm

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by James Plaskett » Wed Sep 28, 2016 2:51 pm

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.
Last edited by James Plaskett on Thu May 07, 2020 9:15 am, edited 10 times in total.

User avatar
Michael Farthing
Posts: 2069
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2014 1:28 pm
Location: Morecambe, Europe

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by Michael Farthing » Wed Sep 28, 2016 3:36 pm

23 months.
Suspicions confirmed.

James Plaskett
Posts: 251
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:36 pm

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by James Plaskett » Wed Sep 28, 2016 4:05 pm

Suspicious about what, might we learn?

Graham Borrowdale
Posts: 292
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:54 pm

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by Graham Borrowdale » Wed Sep 28, 2016 9:02 pm

MJMcCready wrote:Hailing from Bedfordshire, I remembered that our top GM James Plaskett...
Just how many GMs has Bedfordshire got?

James Plaskett
Posts: 251
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:36 pm

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by James Plaskett » Wed Sep 28, 2016 9:34 pm

Andrew Ledger (whose uncle taught me Geography) has two GM norms.
But family life and a good job in the Civil Service in Sheffield mean, sadly, that it is unlikely he´ll make the necessary third.
Last edited by James Plaskett on Thu Sep 29, 2016 11:24 am, edited 4 times in total.

Graham Borrowdale
Posts: 292
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:54 pm

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by Graham Borrowdale » Wed Sep 28, 2016 10:22 pm

Thanks, James - sorry for being rhetorical. As a Beds player I know that we usually struggle to field a single player above 200 grade, never mind GMs

User avatar
MJMcCready
Posts: 3178
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:30 pm

Re: Would you like to become a millionaire?

Post by MJMcCready » Thu Sep 29, 2016 1:04 am

Graham Borrowdale wrote:
MJMcCready wrote:Hailing from Bedfordshire, I remembered that our top GM James Plaskett...
Just how many GMs has Bedfordshire got?
Yes just one homegrown GM. We did have GM Mariotti play in the Beds. League in the 70s for a short while but he was from Italy of course. Paul Habershon played him a few times. His brother Paolo lived in Luton and worked as an engineer at SKF.

I spoke to Andy about attaining his third GM norm, he said that he wasn't too bothered about chasing it down.

Post Reply