Sunday 27 July 2008

Battle of the Brains

Our English Bridge Union team of Jeremy Baker, Amy Cherry, Stuart McPhee, Ian Mitchell, John Pain, Ian Payn and Colin Porch competed well in the quiz show and were seen on BBC Two on 21 August at 6pm. Our team won their second game on Battle of the Brains but sadly won't be returning for a third episode. Congratulations to them all for a good performance!

Battle of the Brains is a game show hosted by Paddy O'Connell and sees two teams of 6 members plus a team captain play a series of games focusing on different parts of the brain.

Introduction
Battle of the Brains is a game show hosted by Paddy O'Connell and produced by Shine Ltd. for BBC Manchester. It is broadcast weekdays on BBC Two at 6:00pm, and started on 28 July 2008. Two teams of 6 members plus a team captain play a series of games focusing on different parts of the brain.

How does it work?

Round 1
Each captain chooses one member from their team of 6 to take part in one of 6 different tests of skill in one of 15 different categories. This happens 5 times in the first round and any member of the team can play except the team captain. If the player is successful they rejoin their team, if not, then the player is eliminated. If one team is totally successful, then they would have all 6 players intact, while the other team would be down to one.

The 6 different types of challenge are:
Accuracy - The players are asked three near-to-the-mark questions. The person who gets the nearest to the correct answer wins a point. The first to 2 wins. If both players type in the same answer, both get a point and it would become the first to 3 correct answeres who would win.

Identity - The players are asked to identity one thing related to the chosen subject. Clues are read out by Paddy one at a time. The player who answers the question first wins the round. If the player answers incorrectly, they are frozen out of the next clue.

Memory - The players have to take it turns to name things of a list relating to the chosen subject. The round ends when an incorrect answer is given or if no answer is given within 5 seconds.

Nerve - Like a penalty shootout, each player is answered a question each. If Player 1 answers correctly, then Player 2 would have to answer correctly or lose. If Player 1 answered incorrectly and Player 2 answered correctly, then Player 1 would lose. If both players did the same, the round will continue.

Speed - The players will be asked questions about the chosen subject on the buzzer. The winner is the first person to answer three questions correctly.

Wisdom - Both players will have 60 seconds on the chosen subject to answer as many questions as possible. The person with the most correct answers wins. If there is a tie, a sudden death tie-breaker question on the buzzers is asked.

Round 2
In the second round, the players who won the head-to-heads in round 1, along with the player who didn't play compete in a series of questions. The captain of the opposing team chooses which player to answer the question. If the answer is correct, the player stays, if the answer is wrong, the player is eliminated. This continues until one team has no players left.

Final Round
The winning team gets all their players regenerated. They have 90 seconds to get 6 consecutive questions correct. The question is read out, the captain chooses a player. If they get it right their light is turned on and they can't answer another question. If they answer wrong, then everyone's light is turned off. If all 6 lights are on the team wins £2,000.

Captain's Question
Following the final round the team captain has to answer a question correctly. With the captain turned around, so no signals of any kind can be made, Paddy offers the team 2 questions. They have to pick which one their captain will know the answer to. If the captain answers correctly the team can return to the next show. If answered incorrectly the team are eliminated and 2 new teams appear on the next show. (Incidentally, the captain gets asked the other question to see if he/she would have known the right answer.)