Thursday, October 02, 2008

Chakravyuh 2008

Set by : Aditya Gadre and Aniket Khasgiwale with Kaustubh Bhat and Yasho Tamaskar in supporting roles. Gaurav Sabnis made a sweeping cameo with several questions for the finals and the elims.

Conducted by : Aditya and Aniket

Standings (elim score in brackets):
1st : J Ramanand and BV Harish Kumar : 110 pts (28)
2nd : Amit Varma and Sumant Srivathsan : 90 pts (25)
3rd : Sarat Rao and S Balakrishnan : 70 pts (24)
4th : Meghashyam Shirodkar and Amit Garde : 60 pts (25)
4th : Salil Bijur and Yash Marathe : 60 pts (24)
6th : Prasann Potdar and Mukund Krishnan : 50 pts (24)

QM's notes : (JR will be putting up unbiased detailed report later)
- Simple elims just like last year . The cut off was 24 . The top six teams were very close on elims score.
- Finals : We tried as much as possible to make good questions on all topics. Some topics were slightly neglected (Current affairs , Literature, Art to name a few)
-Though there seamed to be some simpler ones , as far as I remember , there was no god-awful sitter as such.
- An altercation-free finals would have been desirable , but unfortunately that was not to be. Maybe a more clear policy on part marks is needed.
-Also a final without questions falling prey to the finger of god would be awesome but Kaustubh Bhat goes into the record books by managing to fit in the finger of god even with a flash presentation.
-We apologise for the lighting and state of the auditorium. The college really let us down in that department.
- As for the result , Ramanand and Harish gave some really good answers and finally broke their string of four consecutive bridesmaid trophies with an excellent and deserved win. Sumant and Amit also gave some great answers to give Ramanand and Harish some stiff competition for most of the quiz.


Participant's views Report by Ramanand:

Chakravyuuh 2008 - Report and Results An excellent Chakravyuuh once again. The elims were felt to be on the easier side, but that was a sentiment pronounced mainly by the 'experienced' lot. The setters had designed it so that most people could do reasonably well at the preliminary stage. The result was a high range of 24-28 for the finalists.

Several questions in the finals were brilliant. Despite some of these being unanswered by anyone, the answers were of the "should have thought of that" variety. A nice variety of themes, especially some good Indian questions.

There were a few odd easy ones, but I don't think that affected the standings too much. All teams had their share of excellent answering, and the final result clusters do not completely reflect the closeness of the contest.

Both quizmasters took us through the quiz with a very competent air; in addition, the partly refurbished COEP auditorium made it an easier place to quiz compared to the exhaustion of the past. The quiz was simple in format too, with the setters resisting the temptation to add unnecessary frills.

On a personal note, our team won its first Chakravyuuh in its 6th attempt, with 4 of those attempts ending in a runner-up's bridesmaid gown. (Old-timers will recall that Harish and I were among the organisers for the first ever Chakravyuuh quiz and so have treated this is a performance at 'home', hence the desire to win it at least once!)

Participants are invited to post your views on the quiz in the comments section. Any comments , opinions or suggestions will be useful to the quiz organisers. The quiz was organised under the aegis of "Mindspark", COEP's flagship technical event, and there are two more quizzes coming up on Friday (Technical) and Saturday (Entertainment).

Do leave opinions/suggestions in the Comments section.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought overall the quiz was excellent -- my congrats to Aditya and Aniket on a job well done. The balance was good (though yes, more lit and current affairs would have been welcome), and the questions were light and interesting.

Two quibbles:

1] Too many chestnuts, which added a crapshoot element to the quiz -- we felt we got on the wrong end of this slightly, which is all to do with luck.

2] Many questions weren't workoutable. Sometimes the funda was lovely, but the question itself was framed poorly.

As I said, these are minor quibbles, and there were many terrific questions in there.

Also, Ramanand and Harish were in fine form and deserved their win. I could sense their disappointment at their Chakravyuh record being tarnished by this humiliating win, but, well, poop happens.

Harish Kumar said...

The quiz was easy-going but highly entertaining. It was conducted well by Aditya and Aniket. The Auditorium, once complete, should be good enough to rival the Dhanwantris, Vishvabhawans and Bhageeraths of Pune. Till now, we could always say that the Chakravyuuh content compensates for the almost war-like conditions, especially in March!
Hopefully the improvement in the playing conditions should not get compensated by a proportional deterioration in the content :)

Some points I noted abt the questions -
I don't remember seeing a q on Chembai in Pune in the last 10 years and now we have 2 in 2 quizzes!!
There is something typical of some kinds of qs @ Chakravyuuh and I have noticed these kinds of questions don't feature in quizzes done by the same QMs (over the years) at other venues but are always present in Chakravyuuh and make it special. e.g. the elementary question this year.
There was no 'special' round this year and I didn't mind it.

Overall, a very entertaining quiz and yes,Federer is winning the French Open in '09.

Anonymous said...

Amit : Thanks . We took quite a few efforts to not have chestnuts in the quiz , but then we are , after all, very inexperienced compared to most of the finalists and i guess that makes the difference.

PS : Actually you should blame the chestnuts totally on our advisers : Abhishek , Samrat , Kunal and Gaurav :)

Harish : Thanks again. It's always a great challenge to set questions for teams that are way better than you , so I guess that's what makes the difference in our mindset while setting the quiz. Or maybe Chakravyuh simply means more to us than other quizzes do.

Gaurav said...

Sounds like I missed a great show...yet again. Congrats to Gadre and co for a job well done.

Personally, I am quite distressed at the results. The only boasting point I ever had against JR and Harish was the fact that I have won both the Chakravyuhs I have taken part in, and they haven't won even 1 in 5 attempts. Now, even that is gone. Pah!

Hope you all enjoy the ent quiz tomorrow.

Siddharth said...

I desperately wanted to participate in this year's chakravyuha, after failing to make it to the finals last time. But, being out of station, couldn't do much about it. May be next time...
Congrats to Ramanand and harish for winning the quiz!!

Kunal said...

>> PS : Actually you should blame the chestnuts totally on our advisers : Abhishek , Samrat , Kunal and Gaurav :)

That you can say that without being struck down by, eg, lightning proves once and for all that there are no Gods.

Also, now that you have preempted me by showing me the final questions ahead of time, can I have the elim questions please?

One last thing for personal satisfaction: Was the "Abolish Economists" questions left in the finals? Was it answered?

Kunal said...

Oh and congrats to JR and BVHK!