Category Archives: Brain Training

STOP PRESS – a recent radio interview and a bouncy, controversial read…

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Hello!

Just a quick interruption to my ongoing interview with quiz champion Yogesh Raut, to let you know about a little radio appearance I did last week.

On Thursday afternoon, I was invited onto the ABC Victorian statewide Drive program with Prue Bentley, to talk about winning game shows.

It was a great little (8-minute) chat, in which I outlined some of my favourite game show-winning training tips I’ve accumulated over the years. So if you’re interested in my top tips of all time, you can listen to our interview RIGHT HERE. (https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/vic-statewide-drive/drive/102975214) It starts around the 17:40 mark.

In other news, I stumbled across this AV Club article about the Jeopardy! strategy known as ‘the Forrest Bounce’…

(https://www.avclub.com/jeopardy-technique-james-holzhauer-forrest-bounce-1850935799)

It’s a great read if you’re interested in Jeopardy!, in the various tactics and strategies that can be used on it, and in the way that particular game continues to change and evolve. And while this article is an interesting read, it’s also proven a little controversial, with one of the key figures in it – James Holzhauer – taking to Twitter (X) to say this…

Intriguing… Long live the idea of spirited game show debate!

And that’s it for today. I’ll see you back here next Tuesday, where we’ll pick up our interview with Yogesh, right where we left off last week.

Until then, then!

HTWGS movie review – ‘Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much’.

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So, first things first… did you watch it?

If you haven’t seen this documentary yet, you still have time! There WILL be spoilers in this review, so before you scroll down to read it, here’s your last chance to see what I’ll be talking about…

You can watch the full (72-minute) movie online, either HERE, 

HERE, 

HERE,

or HERE.Okay. So don’t say I haven’t warned you.

Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much tells the story of maths teacher Theodore “Ted” Slausen; a lifelong The Price Is Right fan, who has attended a whopping 37 recordings of the show! Ted’s not just a superfan, though; he’s also an incredibly keen analyst of the show, watching it religiously, and creating and maintaining vast databases of all the prizes and their respective dollar values. And he’s been doing this for decades. 

The idea first occurred to Ted when he watched 4 episodes from 1973 and noticed they contained four fridges which were all the same price. This planted a seed in his analytical mind: it told him there were patterns on the show that could be predicted…

So Ted started logging all the prizes on the show – and their values – building what would become an ENORMOUS database. He made his own rudimentary TPIR computer game, which included all the games – and prizes – from the show, and he spent a lot of time playing his own home version of the game with friends.

When he turned 18, he went to recordings of the show six times but never got picked to “Come on down”. Ted ended up going to 23 tapings of the show without ever being called down… but then, on his 24th visit, he made it onto the stage as a contestant, played the games, and won a few prizes. And, it would appear that was where Ted’s TPIR journey would end…

There are more twists and turns ahead, though. This film is a portrait of Ted’s lifelong obsession with the show, and he’s not done yet…

As you know, I’ve always advocated getting to know a show intimately, if you’re planning to go on it. David Poltorak holds the same view, as does Martin Flood. If you’re an aspiring contestant who’s taking the show seriously, you’ve got to know all its ins and outs. As Christopher Walken says in the movie Mousehunt, if you want to catch a mouse… “You have to think…”

“…. LIKE A MOUSE!”

But I digress. About two-thirds of the way through Perfect Bid, after Ted’s one and only appearance as a contestant on the show, his TPIR journey seems to have ended…

But, as we know, the show’s format encourages the audience to yell out what they think the prizes are worth…. an element that seems tailor-made for Ted. The rest of the film outlines his subsequent visits to recordings, and the numerous occasions when contestants took Ted’s (yelled) advice and won big prizes! There is scandal, there are conspiracy theories, and we hear from the show’s current host Drew Carey, who feared that all of this could spell the end of The Price Is Right altogether! That’s why, when he’s congratulating Terry Kniess (whose perfect showcase bid resulted from following Ted’s advice), Drew is so unenthusiastic.

This is a well-made documentary, with lots of archival TV footage, and they clearly did it all on a shoestring budget. But on a technical note… I don’t know if it was my headphones or the settings on my computer when I watched this, but the background musical score sounded very intrusive to me. The producers have used upbeat, 1920s-style big band music (often featuring vocals) throughout a lot of the film, and to my ear, it really got in the way. Again, I don’t know if it was the sound mix or a problem at my end, but I found it incredibly distracting every time the background music annoyingly became foreground music. And on the subject of music… There’s a section of the film where (the show’s host) Bob Barker retires, as does its producer Roger Dobkowitz, and it’s incredibly schmaltzy, with a syrupy, overblown, sentimental song (again with intrusive vocals) called Christmas Time is Here. Um, why? As far as I can tell, Bob didn’t leave at Christmas, and neither did Roger.

In the final analysis, I found it all a bit sad. Ted never benefitted from the wins of anyone he helped… so what does he have to show for his decades of The Price Is Right obsession? Well, from that one time he got on the show, he came away with $1100 prize money, a recliner chair (worth $599), a coffee maker ($160), a photo laminator ($50), a dumbbell set ($35), 2 sets of jogging clothes ($18), and a peck on the cheek from – and an autographed picture of – the spokesmodel named Holly.

Perfect Bid is an interesting – and pretty quick – watch for game show aficionados and fans (like us), but I can’t help feeling that Ted’s story is ultimately unsatisfying; his journey as a contestant ended a long time ago, his winnings were unremarkable, and none of the people he’s helped since then have shared any of their winnings with him.

The documentary is certainly a mighty testament to the power of doing your game show homework, but I can’t help asking… what did Ted do all that homework FOR? For the love of the game, I suppose. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t necessarily make for a riveting tale.

As such, I’m giving Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much…

2 game show buzzers out of 4.

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Have YOU watched Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much? (You can do that HERE, HERE, HERE, or HERE.) If you have, what did YOU think of it? Please let me know in the comments below!

What I’ve planned for next week, and how you can get involved.

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Hello!

I hope you enjoyed my epic interview with David Poltorak. I know I did!

As promised, this week I’m doing Something Completely Different (and next week too). Recently, someone who follows me on Twitter made me aware of a 2017 documentary about Theodore “Ted” Slauson; a man who’s been in the audience at tapings of The Price Is Right a whopping 37 times, and who has a unique story to tell. As you know, I’ve spoken many times here on the blog about doing your homework; about diligently studying the show you’re about to appear on. Well, Ted took this idea to INCREDIBLE extremes, as you can see right HERE in the trailer for the film, which is called Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much….

I’ve just watched the film in its entirety, and next week I’ll be bringing you my exclusive HTWGS review of it.

In the meantime, if the trailer above has whet your appetite, you can watch the full (72-minute) movie online, either HERE, 

HERE,

HERE,

or HERE.

If you can find a spare hour and 12 minutes between now and next Tuesday, I’d strongly recommend watching Perfect Bid. And if you DO get a chance to watch it, you’ll be able to compare notes with my review when I post it here next Tuesday. I’ll be interested to see how your reaction compares to mine!

Until then, then!

 

My EXCLUSIVE interview with big-winning, record-setting game show LEGEND David Poltorak – Part 11

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The Australian team at the ’87 ‘Worlds’: (L-R) Cary Young, David Poltorak, (co-host) Alyce Platt, Geoff Saunders, (host) Tony Barber, David Bock, Virginia Noel

One very fond memory I have of Sale of the Century throughout its long run is its various tournaments, where previous big winners were invited back to compete against each other…

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SH: You were in a few of those Sale of the Century ‘Champions of Champions’ tournaments. How many did you do?

DP: Look, it’s a blur. I did one in early ‘87, so that was just a couple of months after I’d been on the first time. In retrospect, that was far too soon. I just wasn’t mentally prepared, although I almost won; it came down to a tie-breaker between (fellow Sale of the Century champion) Cary Young and myself. And he got it. From what I can remember, the person in the ‘Who am I?’ tiebreaker question was born in 1868… which is often all that Cary needs, if there were not many famous people born that year. I think the next clue might have been “born on the Darling Downs” or something like that. Or maybe “born Arthur Hoey Davis”? Does that name ring a bell?

SH: No, it doesn’t. The only person I can think of is AB Facey, who wrote A Fortunate Life…

DP: Well, it’s in that ballpark. It’s Steele Rudd. But that was a wake-up call to me; to compete at this level, you really must know every famous person’s year of birth. Because Cary did! Or he knew enough of them to knock everyone else out of the way on his way through to a win. And although not all Fame Games were people, or started with the year of their birth…. most of them did. So he had an innate advantage. I remember from that point, I started compiling index cards of famous people.

SH: Yep.

DP: Starting with composers and painters, and presidents and kings and queens and Prime Ministers and movie stars and things like that. And this is before I had a computer! I just remember having a big pile of these cards. And then when I did get a computer (about a year later), I started typing in all this information about famous people. I’ve still got the file and I still update it if someone famous dies.

SH: If you’re doing this now, is it as ammunition for future quizzing, or is it just something that interests you?

DP: It’s a bit of both. I think it’s part of always being curious and wanting to know stuff. And it was also a realisation that if they ask me on to subsequent championships… “Well, this seems to be the level I’m at now; I’ve really got to know a lot more than I do.” And the thing is, you just never know what’s ahead of you, whether there will be other opportunities. I just wanted to be prepared. And I’ve got a lot of free time because I’m not working much these days, and it’s something that’s never been a chore for me.

SH: You said you went on your first ‘Champion of champions’ games too soon; not long after your big win. I did exactly the same thing. And I think I was overconfident; I thought “I’m on top of the world, and how hard can it be?” But my opponents were really, really, really good – much better than me. Which is entirely predictable, in hindsight.

DP: And who were some of your opponents?

SH: I had Rob O’Neill, who was a Temptation Grand Champion. And I was also up against Rob ‘The Coach’ Fulton who was the first Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? millionaire.

DP: Okay. He was there as a Millionaire winner?

SH: That’s right. But I only made it through one heat. And then I got knocked out in the second heat. I think I was a bit too big for my boots there; flushed with my recent success, I think. After that, I didn’t go back again. But this takes me back to something you said earlier; you were saying that after your big win, you didn’t necessarily want to be just “The Quiz Guy”…

DP: Yeah. Because one of the things that kept coming up with people I encountered was that they viewed me as The Quiz Guy, which was an understandable perception. But I was only too aware that so much of it is luck, and the fact that you might have won one show is no guarantee of anything, or of any subsequent success. I didn’t really think there’d be that many quiz opportunities… But I thought ‘I’ve got to compartmentalise some time for that avenue’.

One of the things I found quite unenjoyable about my win was the attention I got from people whose attention I didn’t necessarily desire. For instance, there was a woman from an insurance company who really had her claws in me. She was determined that I was going to invest in annuities with her insurance company. And we had, I don’t know how many cups of coffee and she took me back to the head office to meet her managing director or something, and they really wanted me to put that money into annuities. And I was just getting the big hard sell on what I should be doing with that jackpot. The whole thing never felt right to me. And in retrospect, it would have been a really dumb thing to do. I mean, annuities are a sort of pension-age product.

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So, if David doesn’t necessarily want to be seen as The Quiz Guy, but people are seeing him as The Quiz Guy anyway, and he’s very good at being The Quiz Guy, and he’s doing all the homework that a Quiz Guy does… where does that leave him?

Find out next week, Dear Reader, in our subsequent exciting instalment!

A nightly burst of quick quizzy goodness…

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Hello!

Just a quick one today, to let you know about a fun new quiz competition that’s the brainchild of Australian quiz show question writer Miles Glaspole. In his spare time, Miles has created a brand new quick-fire general knowledge quiz format for TikTok!

It’s called The TikTok 10, and it’s a rapid round of 10 general knowledge questions that you have to answer before Miles says the answer. The thing is, he says the answer right after the question, so you really do have to be pretty darn fast…

There’s a new episode every weekday at 7 PM AEST.

Speaking as a gentleman of a certain age, I must confess that I’m not totally, entirely, 100% super-familiar with the intricacies of TikTok… but from what I’ve seen, this looks ace!

And I think it’d certainly be excellent training for anyone contemplating going on a fast-paced fire quiz show.

Nice one, Miles!

My EXCLUSIVE interview with ‘Hard Quiz’ winner Markos Hasiotis – Part I

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That’s Markos on the left, in the red shirt.

Hello! Today sees the first part of a three-part interview with Markos Hasiotis, who’s one of the winners of the Australian game show Hard Quiz; a show that requires its contestants to have great general knowledge and outstanding knowledge of their own specially selected subjects. Or to put it another way, they need to know a little about a lot, and a lot about a little. And in November 2017, Markos absolutely nailed it. Let’s meet him!

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SH: Markos, thanks so much for talking to me today for HowToWinGameShows.com. By way of background, what was your life like before going on the show? I’m assuming you’ve always been interested in trivia (especially since your trivia handle is @FactBuffet)!

MH: Thank you, Stephen. Well, my life was pretty normal: I grew up in Melbourne, went to school, had fun with friends. I graduated from university in 2014 where I studied media, and since then have worked in different media roles. Hard Quiz was probably the most out-there thing I had done up to that point!

Facts have definitely been a constant throughout my life. As a kid, we didn’t have a TV in the house, so I read fact books instead and fell in love with facts. That love manifested itself into an enjoyment of trivia nights, my fact-based Twitter account and, eventually, the aforementioned quiz show.

SH: Had you watched Hard Quiz from its beginning in 2016?

MH: I’d actually auditioned for the show in 2016 but wasn’t successful, so I didn’t watch the first season… because it hurt too much! After I auditioned the second time in 2017 and got the green light, I binged on all the episodes that I’d missed and I very much enjoyed doing so.

SH: Some regular visitors to this site may be unfamiliar with Hard Quiz‘s format, so could you please give them a quick description of how the show works?

MH: Sure. Well, each episode has four contestants, each with an expert subject. (The show’s host) Tom Gleeson briefly chats with / insults each of us and then the game begins:

Each contestant is asked 5 questions about their expert subject, they get 5 points for a correct answer and 5 points off for a wrong answer. Other contestants are allowed to buzz in and answer a question on someone else’s subject; if they’re correct, they receive 10 points and they lose 5 points if they’re incorrect.

After that, it’s a round called ‘Tom’s Subject’, where you’re asked 5 multiple-choice questions on a random subject. In my case, it was Indonesia. You receive 5 points for a correct answer and lose 5 points for an incorrect answer… except on the 5th question where correct answers get 10 points.

The contestant with the lowest score after that round is eliminated.

Then it’s ‘The People’s Round’, where Tom asks general knowledge questions for 30 seconds. 5 points for a correct answer, 5 points off for an incorrect answer. The person with the lowest score after that round is also eliminated.

In the Final Round, the 2 remaining contestants go Head to Head. They’re each asked 5 questions on their expert subject, one tick for a correct answer and one cross for a wrong answer. Whoever gets the most ticks, wins the mug.

SH: What made you decide that you wanted to go on the show?

MH: I couldn’t resist! It seemed like an exciting chance for me to put my knowledge to the test, and the fact that Tom Gleeson was hosting indicated that it’d be a funny experience. I had no work or study commitments either, so the timing felt just right.

SH: Your special subject was James Bond – and I could see why it would be! (I’m something of a fan myself) How did you train for going on the show?

MH: Bond-A-Rama! looks great, I wish I’d gone to see it.

SH: Haha! Thank you!

MH: I trained by doing lots of James Bond quizzes online. I also had several James Bond books and a James Bond board game at my childhood home, so I looked through them which was helpful. I wanted to watch the movies but my DVD player broke after From Russia with Love which threw a spanner in the works. However, there’s an online channel called Haphazardstuff which has detailed video reviews of James Bond movies, so watching them was a worthy alternative.

As for general knowledge, I’m quite lucky that I essentially train for it daily, through my tweeting. I also scanned newspapers and encyclopaedias often and also quizzed myself with every Carlton Draught bottle cap I could find!

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And that’s where we’ll leave it for this week. For our overseas visitors, I should explain that Carlton Draught is an Australian brand of beer. The caps on the 375 mL bottles always have a trivia question (and answer) printed on their underside. Loads of paradoxical quizzing fun to share with friends over drinks in the pub; why not exercise a few brain cells while simultaneously killing a few off?

I’ll be back next Tuesday with Part II of my chat with Markos. See you then! 

My EXCLUSIVE interview with ‘Millionaire Hot Seat’ Winner Judd Field! Part VI

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And so now here we are at the climax of Judd Field’s Millionaire Hot Seat journey. The top prize amount on offer in Judd’s episode has turned out to be $50,000, and Judd has now battled his way through several questions to get here. He started the game in the Hot Seat, he’s been out of the Hot Seat, and is now back in it again, and he’s just about to have a crack at the big one…. ==============

SH: Before the final question, Eddie made you sing for your supper, literally. Presumably, this was something you’d worked out beforehand?

JF: Haha, yeah that was the song I sung down the barrel of the camera in my audition to stand out, for a bit of fun. I knew they would ask me to do something, so was ready to bust it out. In the recording of the show, they actually showed part of a clip of the song I helped write for a UK RAF war widow charity, that ended up being filmed in Westminster Abbey as the only song ever allowed there. After they played that, Eddie asked me to sing something else. The video clip part of the conversation never made it to air, which is a shame cause I might have got 10 seconds of royalties as well. Haha.

SH: Your final question – for $50,000 – was

“Well, nobody’s perfect” is the final line of which classic film?
A) Some Like It Hot
B) Chinatown
C) A Clockwork Orange
D) Psycho

You hadn’t seen any of them recently… but you were leaning towards A. Why was that?

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My EXCLUSIVE interview with ‘Millionaire Hot Seat’ Winner Judd Field! Part V

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Welcome to the fifth instalment of my exclusive interview with Millionaire Hot Seat winner Judd Field. At this stage of proceedings, Judd’s been in the Hot Seat, he’s chosen to pass on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles question, and so has returned to the contestant queue. None of his competitors have lasted long in their turns in the Hot Seat though, and we’ve cycled through them all quite quickly, and now Judd’s back in prime position. His next question is about rice, and it’s worth $4000…
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SH: Judd, you seemed pretty sure of your next question…

Which of these rice varieties is named after a town in Italy?
A) Arborio
B) Basmati
C) Calrose
D) Japonica

You seemed sure it was Arborio. Of course, it WAS Arborio, and that answer earned you $4,000.

JF: Yeah. I actually started a chef apprenticeship in an Italian restaurant when I left school, so I was very sure.

SH: For the question after that…

Which of these current model motor vehicles is not produced by Holden?
A) Captiva
B) Equinox
C) Mondeo
D) Trailblazer

 

At first you seemed unsure, but you then locked in “Ford Mondeo”. That was correct, and you were now sitting on $6,000.

JF: Haha, yes! That was one of those questions where the words of the producer’s pre-show talk were ringing in my ear; “Read the question properly”. I remember working through which of the options it wasn’t; “Holden Captiva”, “Holden Trailblazer”, “Holden Captiva”… they all sounded kinda right. Or at least not wrong. “Holden Mondeo”? No, that did sound wrong – it’s “Ford Mondeo”. Also, I used to have a Captiva and my Ford-mad uncle used to have a Mondeo (I used to tease him….haha!) So I was sure… once I had read the question 5 times haha.

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My EXCLUSIVE interview with ‘Millionaire Hot Seat’ Winner Judd Field! Part IV

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Welcome back to my interview with Judd Field. Let’s dive right back in!
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SH: The show starts with 15 questions in the ‘Fastest Finger First’ format – did you do any specific training for that?
JF: Yes; playing the iPhone app quiz games, just trying to answer as quickly as possible. It’s a hard one to prepare for, as (on the show) it’s effectively an iPad with a stylus pen. The question comes up on screen and you have to click on the answer. It’s hard to hover the pen, as then you can’t see the answer. After a terrible start (the pen didn’t seem to register on the iPad), I did okay, and got a number right. That included having the only correct answer to a visual question (“Which of these cathedral rooves is the Pantheon roof?” Maybe my spiritual background helped haha), but anyway I finished third, and that helped my confidence levels.

SH: Central to the format of Millionaire Hot Seat is the contestants’ option to ‘Pass’ on a specific question, and go back to the queue, hopefully to have a another turn in the Hot Seat later in the episode. Did you have a particular strategy about how and when to use this?

JF: The lack of lifelines in the Millionaire Hot Seat format makes it a lot harder to just sit in the chair and answer everything. Something I noticed when watching over the years was that there was often that one question completely out of my interests or field of knowledge, and that was the hardest thing to prepare for.
As much as I wanted to turn off the TV and just study encyclopaedias, I realised you do need every bit of information from current events too. You need to be a sponge, but even then, there are always your weak areas.
For example, in my episode, there was a 92-year-old man – sharp as a tack, he nearly won the ‘Fastest Finger’ section – and when he got to the Hot Seat, he answered quite a number of difficult questions very confidently. His general knowledge was becoming very intimidating and I was starting to wonder if the gameplay would even get back to me. But he hit a question from current events;
American footballer Colin Kapernick appeared
in a 2018 ad campaign for which sports brand?
A) Converse
B) Adidas
C) Under Armour
D) Nike
He clearly had no idea, tossed up between Adidas and Converse and incorrectly guessed Adidas. I love sports, and remembered the “kneeling for the national anthem” controversy on Facebook, and was pretty sure it was Nike.*
It’s hard sitting in the next seats “hoping” someone gets it wrong so you can get back in the Hot Seat, but I must admit as soon as I saw that question, I breathed a sigh of relief, as I had a feeling that a modern sporting current event question might be outside his field of knowledge.
And that’s the thing; with the lack of lifelines in this format, it highlights strategically using the “pass” as the only other way you can avoid those left-field questions, short of being a certified, card-carrying genius like your good self Stephen.
SH: Oh, you’re too kind!
JF: Not at all. So my plan was; if I drew the first or second seat, I wanted to pass early to reduce my chances of hitting that kind of curve-ball question in the mid rounds. Watching the show, I’ve noted if you pass when you’re the third contestant, it’s likely you won’t get another chance, so if you are in those seats (third or above) you really have to just go all in, all the way.
SH: Judd, I’d like to run through your game in a bit more detail now, in the hope that that’ll be helpful for our readers. Now, your first two questions were…

Which of these is not the name of a Melbourne Cup winning jockey?

(3 names + the joke answer “Anita Winn”)

A cultural phenomenon beginning in the early 2000s were impromptu group performances known as what?

(Flash mobs)

Your answered both of these easily, but then your third question was….

The options being:

A) Lasagne

B) Pizza

C) Macaroni and cheese

D) Garlic bread.

Judd, when you passed at that point, were you thinking that your ‘Hot Seat’ journey was over? Or were you thinking that the other five contestants would all cycle through, and you’d get a chance to get back into the Hot Seat again before the episode was done?

JF: As I mentioned earlier, I’d always wanted to pass early – in fact, the earlier the better – so as soon as I had the slightest hesitation in my answer I decided I’d pass. Almost as soon as I left the chair, “Pizza” dropped into my head, but I was completely happy with the pass.

SH: And lo and behold… the other five contestants DID all cycle through, and you found yourself back in the Hot Seat again, with a shot at the new top prize of $50,000. What were you thinking at that moment?

JF: I can only reiterate this calm feeling I had that I was going to win. In my head It was like someone is watching over me and “it was all just meant to be.”

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Aha! But WAS Judd’s win actually ‘all meant to be’?** You’ll have to check back here next Tuesday to find out!

* For those of you playing along at home, it was Nike.
** SPOILER ALERT: Yes.

My EXCLUSIVE interview with ‘Millionaire Hot Seat’ Winner Judd Field! Part III

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Hello and welcome to the third part of my chat with Judd, about his Millionaire Hot Seat experience.
You’ll see at the start of this section that I bombarded poor Judd with a load of questions about his experience in the studio on the record day, but I must confess I was surprised by the direction our conversation took after that…
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SH: I understand that Hot Seat tapes six episodes on each record day… before we get down to the nitty-gritty of your particular game, Judd, can you talk a bit about the studio experience itself?
What surprised you about the way the day was run?
What did you notice about other contestants, and the way they handled it?
How did you manage your energy levels?
Were there any elements of the show itself – such as the studio audience, the host Eddie McGuire, the speed of proceedings, or even the physicality of the set, the brightness of the lights, the loudness of the music – that surprised you?
JF: Having done a lot of TV work in my singing career, the whole studio lights stuff didn’t faze me at all. You soon realise that it’s all smoke and mirrors, and that TV sets always look smaller in real life.
They provided a light lunch and some snacks for the audience during the show.
All the waiting contestants became the audience for the other shows. There was very little turnaround time between each of the three episodes recorded before lunch; basically they move the new contestants’ audience partners into the stand directly behind the contestants chairs as they are filing the new contestants into the stage and it all starts again. It was hard to even duck out to the toilet once the machine was rolling! They don’t pause very long for ad breaks and so just fire from one segment to the next almost straight away; it’s all very fast-paced.
The lady seated beside me on the show was super nervous. She had flown in from Perth the night before. I felt for her and tried to make a few light-hearted jokes to relax her. But she settled down and actually won the ‘Fastest Finger First’ section, so she walked away with the $1000 cheque. Some of the other contestants in my episode were also clearly nervous.
I did feel quite sorry for the other contestants; it’s a long day to get maybe one question that just happens to be the curly one, out of your field, and bang, you are going home to Perth with nothing. I was also fortunate that my episode was the second one recorded on the day, so I got to watch episode one, which helped me settle… and then I basically got to relax for the rest of the day! I felt for those episode 1 contestants (with no warm up to watch), and also for the last two episodes’ contestants; having to nervously wait all day must have been torture.
I will also add the importance of being calm and relaxed will definitely help you think clearly. If you are a meditation type or religious praying type, I think that will all definitely give you something to fall back on in the heat.
For me my faith definitely helped me have a quiet confidence. Now, this may all sound bizarre, and maybe even far-fetched… but if you want to honestly know how I felt emotionally, this is how it went down for me. I had had a very, very rough few weeks prior to the show. My house had been broken into, my wife had been in hospital, my kids had been going through school bullying issues, and I’d had a business deal go sour with a “friend”. He was trying to take a project from me that I had been working on for three years.

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