Main Quiz Results
1st: Gaurav Sabnis & Shamanth Rao
2nd: B.V.Harishkumar & J. Ramanand
3rd: Kunal Sawardekar and Shriniwas Kulkarni
Other finalists: Niranjan Pedanekar+Sudarshan Purohit, Samrat Sengupta+Siddharth Dani, Aditya Udas+Meghashyam Shirodkar
Quiz setters & hosts
Abhishek, Vineet, Aniket and all the rest from the COEP
Media Quiz
Organised by Kapeesh
Winner: J. Ramanand
Report
* The quiz opened differently, with the new look Chakravyuuh round being conducted first. The format was: six questions on six topics ranging from 5 to 15 points based on difficulty levels for each team. Bonus points for other teams if a direct was not answered correctly.
An early lead was taken by Harish and me. Later, during the conventional IR rounds, the other teams too pressed on the accelerators turning the quiz into an extremely close fight. The special themes were cracked early by G+S and S+N who went into the lead. K+S and H+me made a late surge. In the end, there were only 5 points separating the top two teams. G+S made a very good comeback considering they were trailing after the Chakravyuuh round.
* For the fourth time in a row, Harish and I came second at Chakravyuuh, something that caused a lot of disappointment :(
* The disappointment was quelled by one of the best quizzing days I've personally had with some of the best post-quiz Sharvaree sessions ever. (Will be posting the DCH stuff in detail next week)
* It was one of the tightest quiz finishes I have participated in
* Some great moments: Dani, Samrat (returning back after a long while with no attenuation of his bon mots)
* We had some kids turn up for the quiz (duly rewarded with chocs!) reminding us that we really have to try and get the schools quiz going.
Comments/Criticisms
* Good organisation, excellent production, time was adhered to
* Overall, IMO, the quiz was quite good. I didn't like Theme 2 much, thought it was contrived and definitely too local and tough for non-Maharashtrians (though ironically, we'd remember Dani's outburst for a while :-) ) Theme 1 was better, but the general observation that it is very hard to set such pyramid connects while maintaining consistency.
* Chakravyuuh round: nice concept, but some of the 5-pointers were too tough and some of the 15 pointers too easy. Connects were decent. Questions inspired some good answering.
* We have to standardise irritants like these thousand variations of Infinite Rebounds. I'll start a thread on it on this blog - it's very frustrating when we end up arguing on stage.
* Could some of the questions pared down in their length?
Overall, an memorable experience.
21 comments:
I have a question which i contended myself by asking only kunal S till now,but shall beg leave to make it official:no offence meant and hoping none is taken, just wondering: why are the pune quizzing circles dominated by bcqc members, both in terms of organising and participating,and winning of course?with all due respect to you guys (i really admire all of your brains) but do u think it borders on a tad bit unfair?not saying that i know many other good quizzers but well,how would we ever know?
Shreevardhini, it's a free market. :)
There are two facets to this. One is participating and the other is organising.
Now as far as participating is concerned, it truly is a free market. If it is your observation that BCQC guys win a lot of quizzes, then, well, they are good. It's not that we win only quizzes which we ourselves oprganise. Kunal and Ramanand swept the Mood-I quizzes. Shamanth and I were doing well at IIM-I's quizzes. And even those Pune quizzes which are not organised by us are often won by people from the BCQC.
And hey, what is BCQC really? A group of people who like quizzing? Unless someone is intensely alergic to the name BCQC or something, I don't see why there should be a BCQC and "others" phenomenon. Its not like the BCQC is a snobbish by-invitation-only club. ANYONE can join.
And what is "joining" BCQC really? You just come for quizzes. As I wrote once before, to borrow the MTV liftman'sd words, there is no building, no secretary, no bearer...no soft drink even(unless you buy your own ;)).
And look at this BCQC. Whom will you see? A few folks from VIT, a few from COEP, Fergusson, MESCOE. A couple of software professionals. a couple of other folks. once in a while you'll see a couple of writers, an hr exec coming down from Bombay....an army doctor...an army major...the list is as diverse as can get.
So Shreevardhini, it is not that only BCQC folks dominate organising and participating in quizzes. It's the other way round. Those who are good at quizzing and are passionate enough about quizzing to go through the trouble of organising them, more often than not end up becoming BCQC regulars. As simple as that.
And I also don't see how the BCQC is a hindrance to finding other good quizzers. In fact hjaving a vibrant quizzing community which ensures regular quizzing is the best way to know and unearth these good quizzers.
Let me give you a few examples. Shamanth, who's won quite a few quizzes in the last year isn't a BCQC veteran. He is a guy who is great at quizzing, came to Pune, and started dominating the quizzing scene at once. because he is good! Look at Sudarshan. Again, not a veteran BCQC member. But he's a regular finalist in almost every quiz. Ditto with Meghashyam. And Amit Varma and Leslie Matthew. In fact the last 2 come from Bombay.
I am glad you posted this comment Sreevardhini (are you Puranjay's sis?). And seriously, no offence is taken. It is probably a question that many people are thinking about. Hope my answer clarified things.
Now about Chakravyuh. :)
I found this quiz to be amazing...probably the quiz of the year so far. Organisationally perfect, good questions, innovative rounds, and the best part is, the quiz didn't seem like excruciatingly long. All in all, it was crisp, tasty, and impressive. Plus we won!!! :)
A few general points. Maybe I will write a post about this in a few days.
There are some cribs which just can't be avoided, because such cribs are very subjective in nature. But some are subjective AND avoidable.
One such crib is about questions worth lesser points being tougher and those worth more points being easier. Now seriously, this is so subjective that agreement is just not possible about whether a question is easy or not. At the end of the day, it is the QM's subjective judgement.
SO as long as there are going to be rounds with differential points, this crib is going to present itself. How can it be avoided? By having equal points for all q's.
S, I think your worries of cartelisation are unfounded. The bunch of people loosely grouped under the BCQC don't gain an advantage, IMO, beyond being exposed to a lot many questions than perhaps the non-BCQC quizzer. And, if you were a serious quizzer and knew about a place where other serious quizzers got together regularly, it's very likely you'd head there too.
Like Gaurav says, there have been several non-BCQC guys who've done very well. We don't "run a club" and fundamentally, there's no "joining" - you just show up and stick around if you like what's going on! Very positively anarchic.
P.S.: (in-joke) Does everyone see Ayesha-deja-vu in the air w.r.t these comments? :-)
Abhishek et al,
Thanks for a great quiz!
Liked:
- Many good questions
- Topic coverage was decent
- Organization was friendly and 'technologically advanced'
Disliked:
- The Chakravyuha round; Balancing was not good, no need for such a round IMO
- Some questions, but that happens
a question for all the ex-Chakravyuuh organizers,
how were the previous chakrayuuh rounds held?(if at all)
and another being, the round having its existential necessities (or does it) has often proven to be the achilles heel of Chakrayuuh, atleast this year.
So please suggest ideas for next year.
(and thanks Gaurav for your glowing comments, made my day :-) )
Existential necessities? No such thing.
The first ever CVyuh, i.e 2001, was a completely seamless quiz and in fact, held the honour of being the first such quiz in Pune. Before that there were separate audio visual rounds and there were often topical rounds too.
In 2002, there was no CVyuh round as such. The final round was a Stage 3(i.e where themes themselves have a common theme) but we didn't call it the CVyuh round.
I think Arka and Manish started the concept in 2003, and if I recall corrctly, the concept got decent reviews.
However such a round isn't a must.
Personally, I didn't mind the round too much. My only non-standard crib (apart from the unavoidable 5 were too tough 15 too easy bit) is that several questions would have been done better justice had they been passed around. So instead of a positive/negative for other teams, it should have been passed around.
In general I think the concept of negs should be avoided. For a theme it makes sense, because if we don't have it, then people will keep guessing. But even for that I have been thinking of a variation. Giving each team just 1 or 2 shots at the theme, with no negs.
But negs for a normal question takes something away from it. People don't think about it that hard and tend to hedge their bets.
Like Gaurav, I have no problem with the way this year's Chakravyuuh round in terms of structure - only dispute the choice of difficulty in questions which has been the recurring issue as this is very hard to judge and can be different for a different combination of 6 finalist teams.
Tho' this wasn't a "chakravyuuh" round technically in which there was entry deeper and deeper in layers...
How about putting Questions asked in Chakravyuh on this Website or Gaurav's Blog. If this site is not entirely meant for backslapping, can we have a Dekkho at the Questions before pronouncing the Verdict
*Amused Bystander*
Why do you have to be an anonymous amused bystander? The questions will be put up somewhere, and well, if you could identify yourself, we can even email it to you.
As for backslapping, well, clearly shows you haven't been following this blog.
*Amused Bystander* can now attempt the quiz at : http://crossstyx.blogspot.com/2006/02/online-quiz-chakravyuuh-2006.html
I remember Chakravyuh having a single 'u'. Additional 'u' for numerological reasons? :-)
:-))
No, for ITrans reasons of getting the transliteration right from the Devanaagari. Though I think, the logo, flyers etc all still say it with a "u".
point taken. yes,i guess thats another way of looking at it-that the smart blokes invariably end up becoming intergrated into the BCQC eventually..and im sorry I didnt mean it to sound like the quizzes are rigged,i know you guys win a lot of other quizzes too.. to be very frank this was more of venting out the...ummmm, complex a lot of non-BCQC people invariably develop on seeing you guys at quizzes:so keep up the good work! and gaurav: yes, im puranjay's sister...
to deviate a bit from the subject, everybody's favourite quiz master Parnab Mukherjee is coming to Pune again. see him live on 11th March from 3:15 onwards at Symbiosis Vishwabhawan. kunal, i do hope you will be convering it again..
I'll be there all right, why would I miss this? You should come too. Aise mauke bAr bAr nahi.n Ate!
Hi friends .. I am Manish co-organiser of Chakravyuh 2003. Thought i should share my views on the chakravyuh round which was conceptualised by Arka and me.
Heres all i can recall, though i am certain a joint effort with Arka would rake up the nitty-gritties. We had modelled it exactly on the events of the real Chakravyuh. ie
1. Abhimanyu had an option of entering the Chakravyuh, not an obligation.
2. Getting inside was very easy, it was the retreat which was tough
3. The entire exercise was a high beta affair so the gain was huge and the loss was death
Now i ll try to explain the manifestation of these core values of the Chakravyuh into quizzing terms
The C round was the last round. This along with the scoring( which i'll explain later ) covered point no.3 There were three concentric circles on the screen. Six dots representing six teams were placed just outside the outer ring. To invoke interest all teams were obligated ( a minor deviation from point no. 1 ) to enter the first cirle. So the first question for entering the mythical maze was very very simple and to the best of my memory all teams answered it and entered the Chakravyuh.
Now, an option was given wether each wanted to attempt at entering further. The scoring was such that it factored in the risk involved in the second stage. Moreover I remember the toughest task for me and Arka was to find six questions which we could classify as medium difficulty .. considering there was a furhter third round.
The flash program was done beautifully by Anup Mankar.
IMO purists may lambaste this thespianisation of quizzing. Point is taken, since stratifying questions as easy, medium, difficult to an audience as majestic as the BCQC is very difficult. That said for all those who witnessed the Chakravyuh round certainly appreciated the concept's novelty and help in positioning COEP's quiz as differnt from the clutter.
After all, there is no escape !
hmm...i guess i have developed the fine art of missing chakravyuh...the better editions of it... as the one i attended was miserable to say the least...
anyway nice to hear that the number of good quizzes are on the rise every year..
Could you please put up the questions for the 2 themes and the super theme (stage 3) that you had? Actually even if you don't put up the question can we please have the themes only.
i have actually put up few Qs. The link is -
http://crossstyx.blogspot.com/2006/02/online-quiz-chakravyuuh-2006.html
As for the themes, there was no supertheme, only 2 distinct themes.
As for the theme questions, maybe i'll post them sometime on my blog. dunno.
Abhishek when are you posting the answers to the chakravyuuh-2006
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