Interrobang

Chakravuuh 2005

Held on the 6th of March

Results

1st: Amit Garde & Sudarshan Purohit
2nd: J. Ramanand and B.V.Harishkumar
3rd: Anand Sivashankar & Vibhendu Tiwari
Other finalists: Shivaji & Vivek, Meghashyam & Anupam, Shrikanth (spelling?)+1

Set and conducted by Siddharth Natarajan, Shabbir, Abhishek Nagaraj et al

Report

Finally, a Chakravyuuh quiz the way we used to know it! After the embarassing aberration of last year, Siddharth & gang gave us a good quiz. A few organising glitches as we just waited desultorily for the finals to begin, but none too major.

Tough elims but interesting questions. The finals had their usual share of connects as befits a Chakravyuuh, but this time they were more balanced and good. But I felt they put too many elements even in the simplest of radial connects because of which in many such questions, the explanation of all the elements with the central theme could not be given. Case in point for me was the Emirates question where the tough part was getting the Emirates connection, but not explaining the Arsenal stadium relation shouldn't have mattered. Anyway, the stadium element didn't add a great deal to the qn IMO. A case where they got the balance right was in the VAT connection which was well made, as was the Mandrake one. There were a couple of sitters, and also a reappearance of the cascade connections.

Amit & Sudarshan answered some very good questions to never be in doubt of finishing first towards the end. BVHK & I started well but then couldn't keep the tempo, and also fell foul of not be able to complete some of the connects. Special mention must be made of Anand-Vibhendu & Shivaji-Vivek who had their moments.

The "Chakravyuuh" round wouldn't have affected top spot, but there was enough to play for the remaining teams. Luckily, we got our first two qns right to seal the second spot. Shivaji-Vivek were not so fortunate, and lost 3rd spot to Anand-Vibhendu. I think the Chakravyuuh round should probably have at least one more level if you want to make it tempting for the teams to go further inside.

The turnout was a little less than what I had expected, and we also had a few of the regulars missing. Still, it was an enjoyable quiz and one befitting past editions. This is the first time no COEPian has figured among the winners, so that's a first. What didn't change was Harish & me completing a hat-trick of second places (3 out of 3 attempts). Ivan Lendl, the English cricket team at the World Cup, Martin Scorcese - we have some idea how you felt :-)

Past winners

2001 - Shrirang Raddi & Amalesh Mishra
2002 - Shrirang Raddi & Amalesh Mishra
2003 - Niranjan Pedanekar & Samrat Sengupta
2004 - Gaurav Sabnis & Neeraj Sane

Comments

Abhishek said…

Akshay was a bit upset about the topic he got , and everyone thought his was the toughest of the lot. This has happene twice with a lot of people thinking the mahabharata is a bad topic to chose with the winners usually laughing in the end. I think this happened at an AFMC india quiz two years ago, when people were going specific with topics like city of chandigarh and capitals one team went with Mahabharata and won. So a point to consider. Also great job with Abhimanyu - very Mastermind like, and yes if had not worked on Chakravyuh till 5 am in the morning i would have been awake to answer the sultans and the ambani Q which eventually cost me. ;-)

9:16 PM

J Ramanand said…

Yes Abhishek, it always seems so when you have such a large topic. But Niranjan had effectively spotted this few years ago at the owl-in-the-bowl competition at BCJ - he observed that it was actually better to go in for a general topic (i.e. hindi films vs films of say shah rukh khan) as quiz-setters were inclined to set generic stuff instead of getting obsessed with major indepth trivia. That apart, Harish & I had consciously set the qns in Abhimanyu as easy-to-medium as we wanted them to be gettable and scoring.

9:37 AM