Second Serve

It's the quarter-finals, which means I can crack out the only piece of reusable content I have for this blog - the double elimination double qualification (DEDQ) graphic (see below). I know it probably seems like most of the intros are thrown together from easily assembled parts, but this is the only one which genuinely is.

Most knockout tournaments are simple 'lose and go home' affairs, but in 2010 University Challenge decided that this was too simple and did not befit a program of such intellectual stature. Instead, we have the DEDQ system, whereby you must win twice to progress, and lose twice to go home.

Its quite elegant, and means that we get to watch the best 8 teams a few more times than we would under a regular knockout format.

The first two teams we'll be seeing for the first of at least two more times (I don't know why I revel in writing grammatically sound but deliberately un-parseable sentences, but you're not going to stop me any time soon) were Manchester and Birkbeck, who had both come through tiebreakers in earlier rounds.

If you want to watch the episode before reading the rest of the review, you can do so here.

Manchester's Grady takes the first points of the night with Phillip Glass, winning them bonuses on potatoes in art, a brilliant category. Chadha hit back for Birkbeck with normal, and the game was tied at fifteens (I wonder if there's ever been a match which stayed exclusively in tennis scores - after bonuses - up until deuce, I wonder if this one will!).

Another for Grady, followed by a perfect set of bonuses puts Manchester 40-15 up (oh my gosh is it happening?!). Huntley, with Gillian Waring, followed by the first bonus on infrared spectroscopy makes it 40-30. This is the second time I've watched the episode, so you'd think I may remember what happened, but I am begging Chadha to give the wrong answers to the next two questions. He passes the first and then carboxyl over hydroxyl.

No one gets the picture starter (I guess this could be the equivalent of a let?), but Kullman ruins the dream with Paraguay on the replacement starter making it 50-30, an impossible tennis score. I feel like packing things in now - is it really worth doing the rest of the episode?

In order to make it through, I'm going to pretend that all of the points after deuce in a game of tennis are secretly also numbered, meaning that 50-30 is actually a potential score. If both sides reach the 100s then it will be as though there have been very many deuces. Your serve, Manchester.

Rushed by Rajan, Senehedheera passes on a picture bonus which asked for a country. Immediately before he did this a teammate had suggested Sweden, which was the correct answer. A double fault if I ever did see one. But he made up for it on the very next starter with the Ballmer series. Ace.

Hearing 'Chinese city' and 'beer', McMillan correctly leaps to Tsingtao next time out, but Rajan makes him spell it to confirm that he is indeed thinking of the Romanised version of Qingdao. Excellent display of calm under pressure from McMillan there, as he was subjected to the surprise spelling bee.

Kraftwerk send ten points down the Autobahn to Manchester on the music starter, putting them 80-50 clear (I think this would probably be double advantage, after a third deuce, but I'm still finessing the system). McMillan grabbed the next, and a pair of bonuses on the girl from Ipanema made it 80-70 (reducing the arrears to a single advantage. If you don't know the tennis scoring system then I'm sorry, because this will probably be incomprehensible to some people who do).

McMillan kept Birkbeck in reach after De Los Reyes-White had extended Manchester's lead once more, but they couldn't hang on, and the Northern quartet piled on a few more winners to remove all semblance of a tennis score from proceedings (even within the made-up confines of this blog).

Game, set and match.

Manchester 160-95 Birkbeck

When I went on the website to write this post, I saw I'd written one a year ago titled Serves Up. I can't remember what that one was about, but I really hope it wasn't tennis, or I'll have used the same conceit twice. I really hope it wasn't based on the exact same 15-15 premise, because that would be incredibly embarrassing, and would mean I'd have to rewrite this whole thing.

So if you're reading this, it must have been sufficiently different that I judged the proximity of the two posts to be acceptable*

Anyway, this was a compelling, if low-scoring affair. Manchester take pole position in the race to the semis, but I wouldn't count Birkbeck out of a chance too, especially if McMillan has his buzzing gloves on.

See you next week for Sheffield vs Imperial - subscribe here so you don't miss that post (which I think I can promise won't be about tennis)

*I've just checked, and it was exactly the same conceit. But it was also exactly one year ago, in my post from last year with the same graphic in it. Which is so amusing to me that I'm just going to roll with it. Maybe I'll do this every year.

Oops.