Tata Crucible 2008 – Pune round report

There was a huge turnout of participants and viewers and the QM said that it was probably the toughest round of TC 2008. Nice set of elims. As usual, the elims were followed by the finals of the Tata track which had a few 'firsts'. Arnab B from TIFR qualified for the finals; probably the first all-woman team in TC finals from TCS consisted of Abha Shah and Sowmya, who is Arnab's wife. In fact, Arnab and Sowmya's daughter accompanied them on to the stage and took turns in sitting with the TCS and TIFR teams! The team from TAL which had the two members boasting of a 'cumulative experience of 4 finals of the Crucible, Pune edition' were consistent through the rounds and eventually won. TCS came second.

The non-Tata track finals was also quite interesting. Vasu's team stood 7th in the elims and just missed out qualifying on a tie-break question. The finalists were Infosys (Jay +1), ZS Associates, BMC Software (Harish + Shubhadeep), Kotak Mahindra (Samrat and Ashit - they travelled from Mumbai), IBM India (old fogey from AIT - Nikhil Lasrado +1) and Cognizant Tech. Solutions ( Chetan K + Gagan Jain).

The rounds were interesting and different and because many of the questions were on buzzer, not having IR didn't pain that much. The only crib was that on more than a couple of questions on the buzzer, the QM gave teams time to think for a long time. We also benefited from this on one question. So probably can't complain a LOT. :)

Kotak Mahindra were the eventual winners with 65 points while BMC Software were runners-up on 45 points. (Need to confirm the final standings and score - I think Infosys finished third on 15 points). All in all, a very engaging quiz, especially for a biz quiz. The prizes were good and the whole event was managed quite well. As expected, Suvajit added to his winnings from quizzes - this time as a member of the audience, only because this quiz was only for the corporates.

The Pune edition will be aired on CNBC on 6th September at 1800 hours. The repeat telecast is on 7th September at 1730 hours.

:: Report by Harish, who finished 2nd. Corrections/missing information plugs welcome.