The Spanish Inquisition!
Set and Conducted by Aditya Gadre
Format: 30 question elims followed by 60 question finals - 48 IR (10 pounces on +10/-5) + 1 written rounds of 6 questions + 1 written round of 6 questions on differential scoring
Results:
1st: Team 3 - Kunal Sawardekar, Ranajeet Soman and Venkat Srinivasan : 187 pts
2nd: Team 2 - Aniket Khasgiwale, Samrat Sengupta and Abhishek Upadhyay (sub for Salil Bijur) : 169 pts
3rd: Team 1 - Vibhendu Tewari, Abhinav Dasgupta and Ajay Ragde: 160 pts
4th: Team 5 - Shubhankar Gokhale, Avaneendra Bhargav, Gokul Panigrahi: 159 pts
5th: Team 4 - Vibhav Bhave, Rohan Danait and Navin Sharma :103 pts
6th: Team 6 - Debanjan Bose, Aniketh Rallabhandi, Aditi Prabhudesai: 96 pts
Kunal and Ranajeet topped the prelims with 21/30. The cut off for the top 6 was 13/30. The cut off for the top 9 for the draft pick spots was 10/30
All teams were extremely even at the end of the first round (24 questions) with barely 15 points separating the top 5 teams. Team 6 was trailing at this point having picked up a few negatives on the pounce. The first written round saw all teams scoring quite comfortably. The second written round with differential scoring saw Team 2 pull ahead of Team 1 (who could not score in this round). In the second IR passing round, Team 3 used up their pounces and remained in close contention for the lead (just 2 points behind Team 2 for much of the second half of the quiz).
Team 6 got almost all their pounces correct in the second half and were aided by Team 4 getting some pounces wrong to come close, but could not overhaul the lead Team 4 had over them.
Team 5 kept consistently chugging along, but could not build on enough momentum to pull away with the lead. In the end, Team 3 answered two questions which no-one else got and pulled away with a 18 point lead going into the last question. "A keen contest on the cards" - Team 1 on 160 and Team 2 on 169 if either answered they would cement second place. Neither answered that last question which was finally answered by Team 5 who missed out on third place by just 1 point.
All in all, Team 3 were extremely consistent throughout the quiz with both - the stuff they knew as well as very good with their guesses - and emerged deserving winners. Team 1 will no doubt rue a few misses on topics they were comfortable on especially on the pounce and in the written rounds which could have taken them to second place quite easily.
Please post your reviews and feedback in the comments.
Set and Conducted by Aditya Gadre
Format: 30 question elims followed by 60 question finals - 48 IR (10 pounces on +10/-5) + 1 written rounds of 6 questions + 1 written round of 6 questions on differential scoring
Results:
1st: Team 3 - Kunal Sawardekar, Ranajeet Soman and Venkat Srinivasan : 187 pts
2nd: Team 2 - Aniket Khasgiwale, Samrat Sengupta and Abhishek Upadhyay (sub for Salil Bijur) : 169 pts
3rd: Team 1 - Vibhendu Tewari, Abhinav Dasgupta and Ajay Ragde: 160 pts
4th: Team 5 - Shubhankar Gokhale, Avaneendra Bhargav, Gokul Panigrahi: 159 pts
5th: Team 4 - Vibhav Bhave, Rohan Danait and Navin Sharma :103 pts
6th: Team 6 - Debanjan Bose, Aniketh Rallabhandi, Aditi Prabhudesai: 96 pts
Kunal and Ranajeet topped the prelims with 21/30. The cut off for the top 6 was 13/30. The cut off for the top 9 for the draft pick spots was 10/30
All teams were extremely even at the end of the first round (24 questions) with barely 15 points separating the top 5 teams. Team 6 was trailing at this point having picked up a few negatives on the pounce. The first written round saw all teams scoring quite comfortably. The second written round with differential scoring saw Team 2 pull ahead of Team 1 (who could not score in this round). In the second IR passing round, Team 3 used up their pounces and remained in close contention for the lead (just 2 points behind Team 2 for much of the second half of the quiz).
Team 6 got almost all their pounces correct in the second half and were aided by Team 4 getting some pounces wrong to come close, but could not overhaul the lead Team 4 had over them.
Team 5 kept consistently chugging along, but could not build on enough momentum to pull away with the lead. In the end, Team 3 answered two questions which no-one else got and pulled away with a 18 point lead going into the last question. "A keen contest on the cards" - Team 1 on 160 and Team 2 on 169 if either answered they would cement second place. Neither answered that last question which was finally answered by Team 5 who missed out on third place by just 1 point.
All in all, Team 3 were extremely consistent throughout the quiz with both - the stuff they knew as well as very good with their guesses - and emerged deserving winners. Team 1 will no doubt rue a few misses on topics they were comfortable on especially on the pounce and in the written rounds which could have taken them to second place quite easily.
Please post your reviews and feedback in the comments.
8 comments:
Aditya G. is one of my favorite QMs at the BCQC and this quiz reiterated (for me) why that is. I liked the spread of the topics, and the framing of the questions, and the fact that many questions followed the Mother Rule (in spite of the BDFLian fatwa against it). The Python tributes were a nice touch as well - although one wonders if three straight-up Python questions might not be a wee bit unfair on those whose tastes don't quite run that way. I really liked the theme rounds as well, particularly the first one. Some sitterers, but the Pounce took care of those, so that wasn't too bad.
All in all, I enjoyed the quiz, and I'm looking forward to Aditya's next quiz in these parts.
For the record, after the recent regime changes in Persia, there is no more fatwa on the Mother rule ;-)
Extremely enjoyable quiz, worth enduring the rains to make it. I second Kunal S; Aditya is also one of my favorite QMs. The sartorial sense with his T-shirts, adding to it :).
Interesting Elims, the questions similar to finals in general, which is something I prefer. Also reflected by the fact that 1st two teams in Elims were the same as in the Finals. The Theme rounds were quite unique. Framing of questions was good, and the fact that after hearing the answers, one could relate to it.
The competition was also fun, with teams being closely bunched together. But Kunal was in stellar form, and his team fully deserved to win.
Looks like the pounce system is here to stay. I know we have done several analyses of advantages/disadvantages of pounces, but has it become the norm for all quizzes now? Asking since I haven't attended an open quiz final in a long time.
The major advantage of allowing pounces is that it reduces the impact of sitters and other luck-of-the-draw factors. The major disadvantage of allowing pounces is that it leads to many teams submitting written answers which are no fun at all for the audience. Since BC Open finals seldom have audiences even in the double digits, I think the benefits outweigh the costs.
Thanks for the kind words guys. I am glad you guys enjoyed the quiz.
And with regard to the pounces, the only reason I keep pounces in quizzes to ensure that sitters a few of which always creep into the quiz do not affect final standings.
Limited Pounces also add a bit of a strategic aspect to the quiz - for example I felt Team 2 and Team 5 were very successful on the pounce in that they pounced on questions which most other teams knew the answer - whereas Team 1 pounced on 3 questions which no-one got (and hence wasted their pounces) and failed to pounce on one question which everyone else got.
If the main aim is to account for sitters and provide equal access to all teams to them, then how about the following variation (which I term "1nfinite pounce" or "one-finite pounce" :-) ):
* At the beginning of every passing round, every team has an active pounce.
* If they attempt and get a pounce right, it remains alive. Else, it expires for the rest of the round.
* One can also do away with -ves for the pounce since there is enough penalty to prevent random guessing (except may be on the last qn)
* This also does away with the need for extra book-keeping (which I find very tedious)
Of course, if your aim is to reward 'knowledge' (i.e. go for it if you are confident rather than wait for your turn on the pass), this won't be to your liking (i.e. you are probably going for an infinite variety anyway).
In general, as a QM, I find the book-keeping and the moving from team to team quite tiresome. Plus the somewhat debatable audience effect.
For 6 team finals with sufficient qns in the quiz, an odd sitter shouldn't affect matters too much, I think. It is the 8 team final with only about 15 qns per round (like Landmark) which is more prone to have its result affected by sitters.
I also think most good quizzes somehow manage to avoid having more than a couple of sitters in an entire quiz, so I am still to be convinced of the trade-off.
To Salil's original qn that no one has answered so far :-) :
- Looks like it is the norm in most KQA/QFI quizzes, and quizzes done by QMs from these places
- Pune etc. still has mixed implementation (I am unlikely to use Infinite Pounce, as of today)
- At Mood I, for instance, about half the quizzes that I saw had pounces.
- Not sure about the other parts of the country
- Landmark tried it for a year but seem to have dropped it for now
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