University Challenge S53E26 Sheffield v Imperial College London

[@justinleecw]

Justin here. I should’ve known that having my first ever cup of coffee before this game (we played Lincoln a few hours ago and I was knackered) was probably not a good idea. Fair play to Sheffield for mounting a serious challenge - they were a very entertaining team to talk to! P.S. I thought they were asking for the Duke of Gloucester instead of the Duke of Cornwall (also Prince of Wales), hence my rather embarrassing gaffe around the end.

[@Scruffi]

I might suggest starting with half-caff next time; work your way up to full strength over time. Great performance, regardless. Grats on the win :)

[@annereidy7981]

First ever cup of coffee? Must have made you a bit hyper. Well done tonight anyway.

[@kingG69]

huge G

[@ellentronicmistress4969]

Credit to you Justin.

[@staffordahoy679]

You're really enjoyable to watch Justin! Another great game from you.

[@lancelot848]

Probably the first time for Imperial that Lee and Jones weren't quite at their best in the buzzer race but Debnath pulled through brilliantly for them. Great stuff from both teams - Sheffield were really quick on the buzzer.

[@late8641]

As a classical musician from Finland, I'm super proud of the Imperial team for getting all the Sibelius bonuses right, even most Finns couldn't have answered those questions! 🇫🇮

[@Heather-876]

Imperial are a great team to watch, they work well together and don't spend too long quietly conferring! Thanks for the upload

[@lindorsibande]

MATCH STATS BELOW *Sheffield : 160* *Imperial : 195* *Starter Questions Stats* SHEFFIELD : 110 Rujak = 2/2 {20} McGough = 2/2 {20} Colclough = 2/3 {20} Nail = 5/6 {50} Starter Success Rate: 84.62% IMPERIAL : 90 Lee = 2/6 {20} Jones = 1/4 {10} Haddad = 1/1 {10} Debnath = 5/5 {50} Starter Success Rate: 56.25% *Bonus Questions Stats* SHEFFIELD : 50 Bonus Success Rate: 32.26% (10/31) IMPERIAL : 105 Bonus Success Rate: 77.78% (21/27) ------------------- *QF Win/Loss Record* 1. [W] Manchester 2. [W] Imperial 3. [L] Birkbeck - London 4. [L] Sheffield 5. *** Trinity - Cambridge 6. *** Open 7. *** Christchurch - Oxford 8. *** UCL

[@davidklompenhouwer555]

Thanking you

[@lindorsibande]

@@davidklompenhouwer555 you are most welcome.

[@thadrin]

I think Jones' stats are hurt by a few "might as well take a pop at it" buzzes when noone else went hard in.

[@davidnicholas2856]

​@@thadrin He was also fantastic at the bonuses. Enough to be forgiven for thinking Tchaikovsky died at age 11, I'd say.

[@lindorsibande]

​@@davidklompenhouwer555 you are more than welcome

[@333cale]

It was a much closer game than I expected. All credit to Sheffield (they are a fantastic team who I could easily see qualifying for the semis, despite this loss) however overall this match made me less certain that Imperial will storm to the title. Still hope they do though, as they have an eclectic and really likeable team. Debnath really pulled this win out the bag for them on this occasion with all those correct starters.

[@chrishobbs58]

Thanks again, CosmicPumpkin! A tough match for both teams. The winning team got their first real challenge, yet were equal to the task. The losing team proved it could hang with anyone. It's fitting that we will see both teams again. My best to both teams, and each individual.

[@sharanyaray2454]

The players on our right and their left of each team were the highlights of this match. Both Debnath and Nail were brilliant. I love how each member of Imperial have their day for each match. A very well rounded team. Sheffield might have to convert those bonuses, even at the beginning the host pointed that out.

[@jjjj8644]

Debnath is getting better over time. Overall the whole team seems to be in good shape.

[@freespirit2908]

Laudable effort by Debnath! I find Amol Rajan refreshing and great at his job. Enjoy watching UC ! Warm greetings from South Africa

[@gabsymalone6307]

If anyone ever tells you buzzing speed alone wins games, this game is complete proof of the opposite 😮! Winners surprisingly outbuzzed 9-11, but a phenomenal 21/27 vs only 10/31 is the telling fact here ;). Also nice to not see the usual suspects contributing all the starters - everybody got at least one starter, and second week in a row with no penalties which is doubly pleasing :). Also IMO a much better game than last week - bring on the remaining QF's!

[@thadrin]

Cracking game. Haddad noticably calmer than last game. She played a blinder here. I would be unsurprised in Sheffield take two straight now.

[@emmapeel829]

Thank you CP for our lovely Monday treat! Great match - two wonderful teams. Best of luck to both of you in the coming rounds.

[@freddiethecutestcavapoo9184]

Thanks CosmicP! A closer game than I had anticipated, mostly due to Nail's good starter work. Imperial lost their record of never being behind in the score but the phenomenon didn't last long!

[@alexmercer8788]

No, they haven't?

[@jeff__w]

Imperial continued its amazing run while Sheffield put up a spirited defense, tying 9:03 and then causing Imperial to be on the back foot for the only time in this season’s series. Imperial coolly pulled ahead but, impressively, Sheffield wasn’t all that far behind. *Adam Jones* continued to be the MVP-his rare lapse of answering _torta rima_ for _ottava rima_ in characterizing the stanzaic form of the Portuguese epic poem _Os Lusíadas,_ 20:30 is a mistake that any one of us could have-and probably have-made. *Justin Lee* jumped the gun a few times, incurring penalty points-due to, he lets us know helpfully in a rare but welcome behind-the-scenes glimpse in the comments, having his first-ever (!) cup of coffee prior to the match-but, given his, and the team’s, overall performance, he has nothing to be embarrassed about. The real standout here was *Sourajit Debnath,* who, while undoubtedly valuable in the previous rounds, really stepped up to the plate with several correct answers in this one. Again, somewhat unusually, Imperial continued its practice of not waiting till the end of the question even during the bonus rounds 10:35, where they would lose nothing but time hearing the entire thing. That didn’t appear to be an overconfident “flex” so much as, as I said in a comment on their previous appearance, a desire to “move things along,” probably a consequence of team captain *Suraiya Haddad’s* and the overall team’s no-nonsense style, i.e., there’s no reason to wait if you know (or are reasonably sure of) the answer. Sheffield, for its part, didn’t crumple under the pressure. Team captain *Cameron Colclough,* bearing a bit of a resemblance to actor Josh Bowman, was fully engaged, but, really, it was teammate *Safiyyah Rujak* who was the most fun to keep an eye on, given her expressive style 14:54 15:26 22:43. It will be good to have an opportunity to see each team again in an upcoming match.

[@jamesmakey2792]

Hi. Thank you for the thoughtful comments and observations. I was wondering how many of the 90-100 questions per episode do you estimate that you get right? I am finding the questions in this series harder than in previous series.

[@jeff__w]

@@jamesmakey2792 Thanks! I think the questions in this series are easier than last year’s. I think there are roughly 25-30 questions per episode.※ I probably get about 15 or so right (but I’ve never counted all the way through). ※I am mistaken about this, as *jamesmakey2792* kindly points out below. I was confusing questions with rounds. My apologies for the error.

[@ofnothing]

Not really unusual, I think speed is Imperial’s quizzing club’s signature tactic, with the 2021 and 2022 Imperial teams being incredibly quick (both on starters and bonuses) and very willing to pass if they don’t know the answer within a few seconds. I’m always a big fan of the Imperial teams because it makes for very entertaining matches - see Imperial out-speeding Reading by milliseconds in starter buzzes in 2022 and Michael Kohn’s insanely quick answers in 2021.

[@jeff__w]

@@ofnothing I think it’s unusual-or at least atypical-during the bonus round, when there is no race against the other team to buzz in. But I might be wrong. _Edit:_ Maybe it’s not unusual for teams from Imperial. 🤔

[@jamesmakey2792]

Hi. I'm not sure if you were talking about 'questions' or 'rounds'? If you look at the match statistics that lindorsibande does (above), there were 20 rounds in this episode, though only one bonus question was asked in the 20th round because the game ended, meaning that there were 58 bonus questions in total. Obviously, there is a starter question for each round, so that is at least another 20 questions ('at least', because, on occasion, neither team will be able to answer one of the starter questions and a second starter question will be asked). Adding the 20 starter questions and 58 bonus questions means that there were at least 78 questions in total in this episode. Note that there are 29 attempts at starter questions in lindorsibande's match statistics, because when the first team gets a starter question wrong, the other team will also attempt it. @@jeff__w

[@raphaeleyald]

Haddad amazed me. I was going to Northwestern University in Chicago when Fred Hampton was killed in Chicago during a 1974 police raid, but I couldn’t recall his name before Haddad did. She is a medical student born many decades later in England. How in the world did she recall Fred Hampton almost instantaneously? Imperial is an extremely knowledgeable team.

[@sskgmail]

True - her breadth of knowledge is impressive. She was phenomenal in the bonus round.

[@evan.escent]

he’s a very well known figure dude

[@s-6019]

They probably have revision notes

[@bradleyharrison3946]

The ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ film may of been part of the reason

[@raphaeleyald]

It could have been the movie or even the Dana Chandler bullet hole ridden door that tipped her off. . Her response was still very rapid considering that the questioner had not completed the movie title before she answered.

[@kirbysnap]

my favs are backkk rujak we love u

[@sfumato8884]

Debnath destruction! Strong performance from Nail too.

[@enlisty]

Imperial seems to be a very strong team across all 4 members.

[@ellentronicmistress4969]

'CP' surely stands for Cosmic Pumpkin

[@DreamtOfSleep]

Cosmic Pumpkin 3 bowing to the Paul God

[@wiitabix320]

@@DreamtOfSleeplmao

[@aydc6740]

@@DreamtOfSleep 😂

[@Starvinskyy]

Silly joke

[@havingalook2]

Many thanks for posting.

[@marty9011]

Thank you CP.

[@Ramboost007]

14:32 "Albums co-released with a short film they soundtracked? The third bonus has to be a song from Daft Punk's Discovery for sure" 15:24 "Fucking knew it"

[@Dalexb]

Thank you.

[@SaoriFrekl]

Quite unexpected from Sheffield there. I thought it would be a slaughter.

[@daniel15yearsago66]

Sheffield are very clever

[@enlisty]

Good to see Debnath coming into his own.

[@Gwydda]

What a great match!

[@chromatos7428]

3/3 for the Sibelius round. Amazing!

[@anttihelin6820]

As a Finn I was very impressed. I can't even fathom how they started with Finlandia but got to Tapiola in bonus 2.

[@danny53012]

Thank you so much 😊👏😊👏😊👏

[@isaacscott1832]

I liked imagining guerilla mennonites in 168BC Palestine :^)

[@Tesserae]

I thought of the Judean People’s Front suicide squad in “The Life of Brian”.

[@koipen]

First and maybe last time I'll hear Animal Collective in UC but I'll take it for probably the most niche bonus I've gotten right this season.

[@DarrenBates]

Imperial are in great nick to advance. Haddad is a very good captain, with a very good team.

[@jameshogan6142]

Rujak is wearing a rather fetching outfit.

[@tejassuresh8221]

Debnath is so good at physics astronomy and math

[@BlueSoulTiger]

Would've loved to have seen Imperial's reactions after 20:47

[@jessicaellina3878]

Another exciting game! Two good teams but Sheffield missed quite a few of their bonus questions. Great effort nonetheless. Well done Imperial. Many thanks C.P.

[@rajeshshankaran4808]

Haddad is the best captain so far I think

[@vsamoto]

imperial jones!!!!!!

[@grimftl]

From Allen, Texas, thanks to CosmicPumpkin for taking the time and trouble to upload these vids to give me *some* culture in the soulless wasteland that is NE Texas. Actually, in the IC question, Jack Kilby invented the IC at Texas Instruments, here in the area (although he was from Iowa). It happened b/c he couldn't take a vacation (he was new), so he got to play around in the lab, unsupervised. His daughter said his speech for winning the Nobel Prize was "Thank you," but his longer speech was "Thank you very much."😄 PS Hadda is a foxemous babe!

[@RyuSensei42]

Results so far: Manchester 1-0 Imperial 1-0 Birkbeck 0-1 Sheffield 0-1 UCL 0-0 Christ Church, Oxford 0-0

[@EvilBlakey]

So, who else was screaming "STOICISM!" at Mr. Nail?

[@ubiergo1978]

This competition always have someone screaming something... =P. For example, as a Chilean, I was screaming HUMBOLDT !!!! xD

[@josephkarl2061]

It was "INTEGRATED CIRCUIT!" from me 😂

[@mjmcb1]

@@ubiergo1978 I swam in the Humboldt current off the coast of Lima in September, so I was also shouting at the screen.

[@genevievedolan1288]

Eve of st Agnes for me…..and he heard me!

[@johnahearn7964]

I’m going to Peru 🇵🇪 in March so I’ll feel the Humboldt Current!!! The host still stinks!

[@andreaswong8829]

I wanted to hear the other FA Cup questions lol

[@Haris1]

Why

[@nope2dat]

As a spurs fan I was just waiting for the in 1901 which club became the only non-league club to win the cup following establishment of the efl

[@slobodanreka1088]

Paxo would have pronounced an early answer as "Don Quicks Oat".

[@TheSabian321]

Lee really killed the opponent's time at the end.

[@mineaguscraft]

dutch angle 15:56

[@robnorton9496]

In an attempt to kick my porn addiction I've stared watching University Challenge reruns!

[@thfccfht]

whatever you say, aint popular music, its music for robots or the derivative of .....does anyone do music anymore..

[@davidrboland]

Haddad is fitter than the average contestant.

[@stfuna4b]

She’s beautiful

[@minhhao5031]

Most of the questions from Sheffield team were philosophy and history-centric, which are their majors, but they could correctly answer most of them. How could you be philosophers and historians despite the fact that you couldn't answer questions about them? I am so disappointed and frustrated. All the questions were their advantage, but they couldn't win. What a joke! Imperial team is super hardcore and they are superb at any aspects! GOAT of UC is Imperial, no doubt!

[@macroeconomics101]

For a team composed of historians, Sheffield were disgustingly bad at history. WTF????

[@late8641]

It's typical. I major in history, and we attend a weekly pub quiz with our student association. Ironically, it's the history questions we struggle with the most. 😂

[@minhhao5031]

Yes, they didn't deserve with the title "historian"!

[@minhhao5031]

WTF how couldn't all history students correctly answer only a historical question? They never deserved the title "historians"! Super shameful of them!

[@s-6019]

These science questions are so boring and pointless (at least to me). And this one was really science-heavy.

[@thesneakydiamond4519]

The last few episodes have been rather science heavy but I thought this one was a little better with a small return to the arts and literature. However, I do like the odd science question (even if I get them all wrong). It would be rather dull if they only 'quizzed' us on topics we already know!

[@cfb15jan]

Science is an important part of life so justifies quite a few questions in my view. Sadly seldom get them right, though!

[@s-6019]

@@cfb15jan Well, no doubt it is important for our lives, but not so much in our lives - certainly not this type of questions. It does not constitute general knowledge, and it is not something that you could bring up in a conversation with your friends.

[@stfuna4b]

@@s-6019we have different kinds of friends

[@JanKosinski-x8h]

Haddad, as always, contributed nothing - at least she learned to nominate their teammates as opposed to misspelling their answers thereby losing points for the team

[@nathelondon3719]

What will the Palestinians say about the question on Channukah?! Judea not the West Bank. Second Temple in Jerusalem not a mosque. Jews not Muslims. Get ready for violent demonstrations!

[@thewhowhatwherewhyho]

Give it a rest. You people are obsessed.

[@esotericist]

If Rajnan was a tube of toothpaste, he would ooze pure smug

[@Ramboost007]

In other words, your typical University Challenge presenter

[@andrewclifton9772]

He does a great job.

[@hayekianman]

you have never seen paxman then. he was a bottle of heinz

[@Tesserae]

That’s because he knows all the answers.

[@cfb15jan]

@@andrewclifton9772 Certainly gets gold award from me, well. except for occasional diction mangling.

[@seanolaoire8476]

Thanks 🎃 .. Jones is a favourite.

[@HorseloverFat-ss3ff]

Sorry to have to say this as someone who appeared about twenty years ago but I'm finding this show almost unwatchable now because of so many contestants being so up themselves. As for the question-master...................