Triads

Sanjeev "Sancho" Chandran, one of the old stalwarts of the BC during his engineering days at COEP from 1993-97 wrote in w.r.t the posts on Connections to mention something known as triads. Here's what he had to say on it:

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I seem to remember we used to run a version of connexions called triads which did not find mention in your post. i don't know if it still exists - it was never very widely done because it was a little complicated (especially to explain in a mail, as you will see below) but good fun when done in practice.

The basic funda is as follows. there are three distinct clues for something say 10122, 79, 34 or pc barua, saigal, dilip kumar (these might not be very good q's - i am quite rusty).

let's say the q is to be asked to team A.

Normally the teams are first told what the answer is expected to be (a person, an event, a place, a book etc). this is however optional and the QM may choose to give this or not depending on his feeling of how difficult the q is.

They are told the clues one by one. they are given a chance to answer after each clue with points reducing after each clue (say 10,8,6)
A has two choices, say "next clue" or answer.
if they answer and it is correct they get the points.
If they answer and it is wrong it passes to B who has the same choices. if it goes all the way through without a correct answer the next clue is given to team A.
A can of course, upfront say "next clue"
Whenever a team asks for the next clue, any other team can say "overrule". (in a bigger quiz you could actually have a buzzer for this)
e.g in the above case say after pc barua, A says next clue. Everyone is quiet. So, then the clue saigal is given. A again says "next clue". however, team D might think they know the answer, so they say "overrule".
Once any team says overrule, Team A is obligated to answer.
If they answer correctly they get the 8 points or else it passes to B. Since there is an overrule, B too is obligated to answer for the 8 points.

This continues till a correct answer is given or it reaches the team which called the overrule (D). Now, if D answers correctly they get the 8 points on offer plus a bonus 8 points. The next triad is, as per infinite rebound, asked to E

If D answers incorrectly, they get no points and lose 8 points (which were on offer) as a negative. the question passes to E. E can now ask for the next clue or choose to answer for 8 points (in some variants once an overrule was in place all six teams had to attempt before the next clue could be given)

If all clues are given and all teams cannot answer then the QM provides the answer and as per infinite rebound the next triad is asked to team B.

It does sound a bit complicated but i used to find it good fun. People like Anand S, George, Kunal Vaed might remember this format. you could also ask them.

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:: Sancho