The BC Cup 2025 - Report

 Set by Aditya Gadre, Aniket Khasgiwale and Yash Marathe

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. 60 question quarter to determine the top 4 for the semi finals. 40 question semi-final to determine the top 2. A 28 question final to determine the winner.

Report

The 16th edition of the BC Cup took place at the Boat Club steps on the 4th of October, 2025 - continuing from last year's schedule of doing this in the second half of the year but for completely different reasons - this year saw Aniket Khasgiwale return to the BC for the first time in at least 5 editions and scheduling was done around this visit. He sure chose a good edition to attend as this was one of the most closely contested and certainly most dramatic BC Cups ever.  The proximity to Dussehra and the festive season perhaps impacted the turnout with many regulars not making it - something to correct for next year. 

The elims this year turned out to one of the toughest in years with the cut off going as low as 9. The top score was 15 by Rohit Suresh and among those just missing out was two-time runner up Ingit sir (Venkatraghavan S)  

The Quarters: 

The top 8 in the quarter finals were: 

Anannya Deb, Suraj Menon, Prithwish Datta, Amlan Sanyal (his first time in the quarters), Deepanjan Deb aka DD, Arnold D'Souza, Samrat Sengupta and Rohit Suresh. 

The quarters started slowly with most players struggling to get on the board. Arnold had a great start racing away to 4 points while everyone else was on 1 or 2. As the quarters went on everyone found their rhythm and started cracking answers - there were a few frustrations on account of the luck of the draw with directs going to those who absolutely didn't want them but that is par for the course. Arnold slowed down in the second half and got stuck on 5 - while others slowly caught up. Amlan and DD were standout performers consistently getting answers and chugging along, Rohit had a late surge and cemented his place in the semi as well - all 3 with scores of 9. Suraj and Prithwish - last years finalists were tied with Arnold on 5 with 3 questions to go - and both got one each to tie on 6 for the last question - with only 1 spot left. The last question was a deep cut on India - which passed all the way around only to be stopped by DD - which forced a tie breaker and ensured that only one of last year's finalists would make it to the semis. The tie breaker was also tied after 3 questions and Suraj won the sudden death to book his place in the semi once again. 

The Semis: 

The top 4 were: DD, Suraj, Rohit, Amlan 

The semis started as many BC semis start - with Suraj hitting his stride and getting 2 of the first 3 to put pressure on the others. But this being the year of drama, the others pulled out all stops and caught up equally quickly. With 3 questions to go, the scores stood at 8 for Suraj, 6 each for Rohit and Amlan and 5 for DD - the familiar trope of DD self-combusting seeming to be the likely outcome yet again. But DD showed the strong mindset mentality that he holds in high regard and cracked 2 of the last 3 to storm into the final with 7 points - facing the five time champion Suraj. 

The Finals:

If you thought the quarters were dramatic, the semis blew those out of the water, and then finals went even further. We started with the toss that Suraj won and put DD in first. Suraj who often shows a Thanos-esque inevitability in he finals did so again with wide ranging answers across sports to take an early lead of 3-0. DD answered a toughie on tennis to open his account. The score stood at 3-1 after the first leg. All 3 goals being scored away gave him almost an extra goal in terms of advantage. He started his own set with a crack answer on squash - something DD would have surely hoped to score - to make it 4-1. DD then pulled one back with the last question of the set to make it 4-2 (away goals 3-1) - an answer on basketball - a sport that most would expect Suraj to get more than DD. DD's second leg was frustrating for both players as they struggled to recall names they thought they knew. On the last question, Suraj scored again - this time with a cycling answer - to make it 5-2 and add more frustration to DD as this was another away goal (now at 4-1). With Suraj facing 7 directs - surely an iconic 6th win was in the bag but DD had other plans. Like his idol,  MS Dhoni, DD left it late to score 2 goals and make it 5-4 (away goals 4-3) going into the last question. And as fate would have it, the last question was on India and more importantly on hockey at the Olympics. Suraj missed, DD answered to force a dramatic tie at 5-5 with away goals at 4-4. The BC Cup final would go to a penalty shootout for only the 2nd time ever (the last time this happened, Suraj beat Prithwish 1-0). Both finalists kept missing questions till 4 kicks down we were still at 0-0 looking perilously close to sudden death. The last question again was on India - Suraj missed, DD scored and sealed the most remarkable of comeback wins - at the quiz that means more to him than any other. 

BC Cup 2025 Winner: Deepanjan Deb 

Runner up: Suraj Menon

List of BC Cup Winners:

2009: Sameer Deshpande and Suraj Menon

2010: Anannya Deb

2011: Anannya Deb

2012: Sumant Srivathsan

2013: Ramkey V

2014: Prithwish Datta

2015: Samrat Sengupta

2016: Shrirang Raddi

2017: Suraj Menon

2018: Suraj Menon

2019: Prithwish Datta

2020: No tournament

2021: Deepanjan Deb

2022: Suraj Menon

2023: Suraj Menon

2024: Prithwish Datta

2025: Deepanjan Deb 

The BC Cup 2024 - Report

Set by Aditya Gadre, Aniket Khasgiwale and Yash Marathe

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. 60 question quarter to determine the top 4 for the semi finals. 40 question semi-final to determine the top 2. A 28 question final to determine the winner.

Report

The 15th edition of the BC Cup took place at the Boat Club steps on the 24th of November, 2024 - perhaps a welcome change in terms of weather, but no-so-welcome change in terms of availability of refreshments. 

The elims were a mixed bag - some finding it easy like Rohit Suresh aka Rotti, Prithwish Datta aka Boss and Deepanjan Deb aka DD all breaching 20 points. The rest of the field was clustered in the range of 12 to 15 points. Venkatraghavan S aka Ingit sir corrected his blip from the last 2 editions by qualifying comfortably. Sammy sir, Arnold and Anannya Deb were all on 12 points - where Dada missed out by the narrowest of margins on stars. 5 time winner Suraj Menon, and our runner up from 2022 Sachin Deshpande rounded off the quarter finalists. 

The Quarter Finals:

The top 8 in the quarter finals were:

Venkatraghavan S (Ingit sir), Deepanjan Deb (DD), Rohit Suresh (Rotti), Prithwish Datta, Arnold D'Souza, Samrat Sengupta, Suraj Menon and Sachin 'Talent' Deshpande

All the quarter finalists started pretty well  but Talent and Boss maintained consistency and kept chugging along to build a good lead. Ingit sir got all the cricket questions that came his way and worked up to a good score in the first half of the quarters. Suraj and Sammy sir started surprisingly slowly and missed several answers they would normally have put away easily. In the second half, Ingit sir couldn't add to his tally, and Boss and Talent secured their place in the semi with Suraj, Sammy sir, Rotti and DD in the fray for the other two spots. In the last 10 questions, Suraj hit a purple patch and pulled away to cement his spot in the semi. The fight for the last spot came down to Sammy sir, DD and Rotti and to the last 2 questions of the quiz. DD managed to pull a clutch answer on Q no 59 and held on through q60 to make his first semi in 3 years. 

The Semi Finals: 

The top 4 were: Suraj, Boss, DD and Talent 

The semis, like the quarters, started with all players scoring early. But again, slowly and consistently Suraj and Boss kept putting away answers to pull away from Talent and DD. In the end Suraj (who had found his groove) and Boss (who seemed to be at his nonchalant best) - the two most historically successful participants easily made it to the finals. 

The Finals:

Suraj won the toss and decided to go second. Boss had a bad start- missing a question on Olympics athletics - a subject he is an expert in - and Suraj duly swatted it away for an early lead and a precious away goal. Boss did pull one back in his first home leg itself to tie the game 1-1. Suraj's first home leg and Boss's second home leg ended scoreless - meaning that we went into Suraj's second home leg still tied at 1-1, but with Suraj ahead on away goals, he would win with another scoreless set. Boss though seemed to have other plans and got two successive away goals on questions 5 and 6 of the set - to seal the deal and win the cup. 

For someone who flew into India from the US specifically for this quiz, landing in Bangalore at 2am, and flying into Pune at an ungodly hour, fighting jetlag through the day - this was truly a remarkable win. 

Many congratulations to Prithwish for winning his 3rd BC Cup! 

BC Cup Winner 2024: Prithwish Datta

Runner Up: Suraj Menon

List of BC Cup Winners:

2009: Sameer Deshpande and Suraj Menon

2010: Anannya Deb

2011: Anannya Deb

2012: Sumant Srivathsan

2013: Ramkey V

2014: Prithwish Datta

2015: Samrat Sengupta

2016: Shrirang Raddi

2017: Suraj Menon

2018: Suraj Menon

2019: Prithwish Datta

2020: No tournament

2021: Deepanjan Deb

2022: Suraj Menon

2023: Suraj Menon

2024: Prithwish Datta

The BC Cup 2023 - Report

Set by Aditya Gadre, Aniket Khasgiwale and Yash Marathe

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. 60 question quarter to determine the top 4 for the semi finals. 40 question semi-final to determine the top 2. A 28 question final to determine the winner.

Report

The 14th edition of the BC Cup took place at the Boat Club steps on the 13th of May, 2023 - one of the hottest day of the year.  The heat and perhaps the QFI event the next day saw a slightly diminished participation at this year's edition. 

The elims was a close affair as usual and the biggest surprise was Ingit sir not qualifying for the second year in a row. One big surprise was that Dada (aka Anannya Deb) didn't make it - and by that I mean the most consistent performer at BC Cup didn't show up at all. Prithwish Datta lived up to his wounded tiger billing by putting in an imperious 21/30 to top the elims, while Rotti got 18. It was also nice to be debutants Titash and Bissanka make it to the quarter finals. 

The Quarter Finals

The top 8 in the quarter finals were:

Suraj Menon, Prithwish Datta, Rohit Suresh (Rotti), Bissanka Dassarma, Titash Bannerjea, Deepanjan Deb (DD), Samrat Sengupta  and Sachin 'Talent' Deshpande, 

All the quarter finalists except for Titash started on rocky ground with most people failing to build together some momentum. Titash on the other hand blazed to 5 points after a mere 15 questions. Slowly but surely the experience and class of the field shone through with Boss casually dispatching some extremely tough name recalls, Suraj and Talent working their rank 2 and 3 in Mahaquizzer gen quizzing chops to brilliantly work out answers, and DD, as always, pulling out some gems. Towards the end, multiple results were possible with 7/8 quizzers in contention after 50 odd questions. In the end, Titash topped the QF with Boss close behind to secure their places in the Semi Final. There was a 3 way tie between Suraj, Talent and DD - and a 3 question tie-breaker saw DD cut out a correct answer which would have forced a sudden death, and Suraj and Talent got the other two SF slots . One point of note is that 55 of the 60 questions were answered - which is testament to the quality of the field at play. 

The Semi Finals: 

The top 4 were: Suraj, Boss, Titash and Talent 

This was one of the closest Semi-finals in recent memory with all semi-finalists regularly scoring points. Suraj had pulled away to a good lead at the beginning but over time the others caught up. There were a few questions where the quizzers would feel like they should have gone with their first guess or have taken the obvious answer - and things might have ended differently. On the last question Suraj had 6 points with all 3 other semi finalists on 5. Boss missed his direct and Suraj answered forcing another 3-way tiebreaker. Talent lost out in the main tie break and then Titash beat Boss after a lengthy sudden death to book his place in the final on his debut BC Cup 

The Finals:

Suraj won the toss and decided to go second. Titash unfortunately missed a question on cricket - a sport he is exceptiopnal at - and Suraj got off to an early lead. In the second round Suraj answered two questions on his direct and in the second home round for Titash, Suraj pulled a great name recall on an old Japanese athlete. Titash did pull one back on his last home leg, but by then Suraj had built up an insurmountable lead. Suraj won the finals 4-1. 

Many congratulations to Suraj for winning his 5th BC Cup! 

BC Cup Winner 2023: Suraj Menon 

Runner Up: Titash Bannerjea 

List of BC Cup Winners:

2009: Sameer Deshpande and Suraj Menon

2010: Anannya Deb

2011: Anannya Deb

2012: Sumant Srivathsan

2013: Ramkey V

2014: Prithwish Datta

2015: Samrat Sengupta

2016: Shrirang Raddi

2017: Suraj Menon

2018: Suraj Menon

2019: Prithwish Datta

2020: No tournament

2021: Deepanjan Deb

2022: Suraj Menon

2023: Suraj Menon

BC Cup 2022 - Report

 Set by Aditya Gadre, Aniket Khasgiwale and Yash Marathe

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. 60 question quarter to determine the top 4 for the semi finals. 40 question semi-final to determine the top 2. A 28 question final to determine the winner.

Report

The 13th edition of the BC Cup saw a return to the Boat Club steps after a brief online sojourn on account of the pandemic last year. 

The elims was an even affair and threw its fair share of surprises as long time BC Cup veteren and perennial favourite Ingit sir didn't qualify, and last years winner Deepanjan Deb (aka DD) just about scraped through with the cut off 12.5 points. Samrat Sengupta lived up to his moniker of Sabse Bada BC and topped the elims with a whopping 19 points. 

The Quarter Finals

The top 8 in the quarter finals were:

Anannya Deb, Gokul, Prithwish Datta, Suraj Menon, Sachin 'Talent' Deshpande, Deepanjan Deb (DD), Samrat Sengupta and Rohit Suresh (Rotti) 

The quarter finals were extremely even this year with the most of the 8 participants remaining in the fray till the last few questions. Talent and DD started strongly, but Rotti and Sammy sir soon caught up. Boss had a surprisingly off day and missed questions on his pet topics - cricket, india and olympics. Dada was trailing for the longest time but his range helped him get stuff nobody else knew and suddenly he was within a point of qualification. Suraj and Gokul started slowly but picked up momentum in the second half and clawed their way to the top. At one point we had Talent and Rotti comfortably through, with all other participants within a point of each other and fighting for the other two spots. DD had a few classic DD moments where he forgot the name of a TT player he is a megafan of and displayed his inner SIIMIA by missing all the India questions. In the end, Sammy sir, Suraj and Gokul were tied on 6 points with DD and Dada on 5 - all with a chance to enter the semi finals along with Rotti and Talent. Sammy sir duly swatted away a football question and booked his spot - leaving Suraj and Gokul to fight it out in a tiebreaker. The first tiebreaker round of 3 questions ended with both at 1 pt each, but in the next sudden death round, Suraj answered a chess question that Gokul missed and took the last spot in the semi-final. 

The Semi Finals: 

The top 4 were: Rotti, Suraj, Sammy sir and Talent 

The semi-final was one of the lowest scoring and (thus fastest run) semi in BC Cup history with all 4 players struggling to get off the mark for the longest time. Finally everyone got going but it was extremely even for the longest time. Everyone missed questions that would be called their strong points - with Sammy missing football questions, Rotti missing NBA questions and Suraj missing cricket questions all the way. Going into the last question we had Rotti and Sammy on 3 points each and Suraj and Talent on 4 points each. Talent answered his direct and entered the BC Cup final on his debut. 

The Finals:

Talent in his debut at the BC Cup went up against 3 time winner Suraj playing his 6th final. Talent won the toss and took an early lead answering a tough cricket question, but Suraj immediately brought back the pressure by answering the very next question to score a crucial away goal. The next set was all un-answered - and Talent will kick himself for missing questions on 3 of his pet topics - women's cricket, Italian football and the Tour de France. Needless to say the real winner was the audience who - operating in a pack and without the pressure or fatigue our finalists were dealing with answered most questions. Suraj followed up with 2 excellent answers on his home stretch including one particularly clutch pull on the third last question - a tough cricket name recall which Talent knew immediately. In the end Suraj won seemingly comfortably 3-1 but it must be said there were moments through the quarters and semis where Talent seemed like the strongest quizzer in the best form. Perhaps the atmosphere, the over-whelming home support and the sheer fatigue that one learns to manage thorugh experience helped Suraj pull out a memorable win in one off the most closely contested and competitive BC Cups in years. 

Many congratulations to Suraj for winning a scarcely believable 4th BC Cup! 

BC Cup Winner 2022: Suraj Menon 

Runner Up: Sachin 'Talent' Deshpande 

List of BC Cup Winners:

2009: Sameer Deshpande and Suraj Menon

2010: Anannya Deb

2011: Anannya Deb

2012: Sumant Srivathsan

2013: Ramkey V

2014: Prithwish Datta

2015: Samrat Sengupta

2016: Shrirang Raddi

2017: Suraj Menon

2018: Suraj Menon

2019: Prithwish Datta

2020: No tournament

2021: Deepanjan Deb

2022: Suraj Menon

BC Cup 2021 - Report

 Set by Aditya Gadre, Aniket Khasgiwale and Yash Marathe

Format: After no tournament last year on account of the pandemic, this year we decided to the take the BC Cup online. Hence the format was sligtly modified for this year. 

For starters we had a 40 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. The elim was specially designed to deter googling - with automatic transitions every 40 seconds and significant efforts put to ensure questions are not google-able. For the first time ever, we used guinea pigs for a BC Cup set - from the point of view of google stress testing. (On that note, many thanks to Sumant, Rajiv, Abhinav and Yasho). 

The rest of the quiz was the same format - 60 question quarter to determine the top 4 for the semi finals. 40 question semi-final to determine the top 2. A 28 question final to determine the winner. The only difference was that we also shared the question in the chat window so that people could read the question (another BC cup first) which was necessary for time management. 

Report

The 12th edition of the BC Cup saw the strongest field ever with 60 stalwarts from all over the country taking part. The elims were intentionally on the tougher side and in our opinion did a great job to identifying the best quizzers to go ahead to the Quarter Finals. Prithwish Datta and Kinshuk Biswas joint top scored with 18 points. We has a bit of a snafu with 1 question which impacted 2 individuals - hence we took 10 quarter finalists for this year. The cut off was 12 points with 2 stars.  Venky Srinivasan actually qualified with 13.5 pts but unfortunately had another engagements and had to pull out of the quarters. 

The Quarter Finals

The top 10 in the quarter finals were:

Prithwish Datta, Kinshuk Biswas, Gokul S, Arnold D'Souza, Suraj Menon, Anannya Deb, Deepanjan Deb, Venkatraghavan S (Ingit Sir), Samrat Sengupta, and Ranajeet Soman. 

The quarters as expected were a very close affair - with at least 5 different people in the lead at various points of time. Most of the time all 10 people were separated by 1-2 points across the 60 questions. Over time Prithwish, Deepanjan and Ingit sir pulled away and had secured qualification spots, with all 7 other individuals in contention with 3 questions to go. Suraj and Samrat both pulled out clutch answers to stick their nose ahead (6 pts) leaving 4 others tied on 5 going into the last question. Ranajeet - routinely called BFQI (Best Football Quizzer in India) - got the last question on direct - and somehow missed a question around his pet topic and favourite club in football - to ensure that only Suraj and Samrat go into the tie breaker to decide the last semi final slot. 

Suraj won the 3 question tie breaker 2.5 - 1 and booked his spot in the Semi. 

The Semi Finals: 

The top 4 were: Suraj, Ingit sir, Deepanjan and Prithwish

All participants started well and everyone was close by with one third of the semis gone. But then Deepanjan and Prithwish both started pulling brilliant answers out of nowhere to build a lead over the other two. Deepanjan took it to another level all but booking his slot in the final with a few questions to spare. Suraj then made a good comeback with a few great answers and was just 1 point behind Prithwish with about 5 questions to go. But then Prithwish got 2 of the last 5 and comfortably booked his slot in the final. 

The Finals:

Prithwish and Deepanjan faced off in the BC Cup final. Prithwish in his fourth consecutive final and Deepanjan in his first. Deepanjan won the toss and decided to go second. Prithwish missed his first question and Deepanjan scored a crucial away goal to put the pressure on right from the outset. He then scored another away goal - to take a commanding 2-0 lead with just 7 questions gone. Deepanjan started his set well scoring a goal on his question to make it 3-0 but then Prithwish pulled back two quick away goals on consecutive questions to make it 3-2. Prithwish's second home set started familiarly with Deepanjan scoring an away goal on the first question to make it 4-2, but the rest of the set was a washout, fatigue surely now setting in as we entered out 6th hour of quizzing for the day. Deepanjan's last set started with an away goal from Prithwish to make 4-3. Prithwish now ensured that he just needed to tie to win since he had matched Deepanjan on 3 away goals with this answer. Deepanjan duly answered the next question to make it 5-3. The next few questions were unanswered, and we came to the last 2 questions both of which Prithwish had to score to win. He missed the second last question and Deepanjan won the highest scoring BC Cup final in years. 

BC Cup Winner 2021: Deepanjan Deb  

Runner Up: Prithwish Datta 

List of BC Cup Winners:

2009: Sameer Deshpande and Suraj Menon

2010: Anannya Deb

2011: Anannya Deb

2012: Sumant Srivathsan

2013: Ramkey V

2014: Prithwish Datta

2015: Samrat Sengupta

2016: Shrirang Raddi

2017: Suraj Menon

2018: Suraj Menon

2019: Prithwish Datta

2020: No tournament

2021: Deepanjan Deb 

BC Cup 2019 - Report

Set by Aditya Gadre, Aniket Khasgiwale and Yash Marathe

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. 60 question quarter to determine the top 4 for the semi finals. 40 question semi-final to determine the top 2. A 28 question final to determine the winner.

Report
The 11th edition of the BC Cup saw about as strong a field as last year. The elims turned out to be bit on the tougher side and Anannya Deb topped with 15.5 points. All other qualifiers were bunched together and the cut off was 10.5 with 2.5 stars. Rajiv Rai just missed out qualification on stars. 

The Quarter Finals

The top 8 in the quarter finals were:
Prithwish Datta, Deepanjan Deb, Venkatraghavan S (Ingit Sir), Suraj Menon, Anannya Deb, Saahil Sharma, Samrat Sengupta, Anand Sivashankar

Suraj, Prithwish and Anannya were a different league and led from start to finish to very comfortably take the top three spots in the quarter finals. All other qualifiers were in the hunt till the very end, with us going into the last question of the quarters with a three-way tie between Samrat, Deepanjan and Ingit Sir. Samrat got knocked out in the tie breaker - but we needed 4 sudden death questions to finally resolve the tie between Deepanjan and Ingit sir. Ingit sir prevailed with a good cricket answer and ensured the semis were a repeat of last year's line up.  

The Semi Finals: 

The top 4 were: Suraj, Ingit sir, Anannya and Prithwish

Ingit sir started well - but Suraj took his game to another level and won the Semis very comfortably. Anannya and Prithwish were tied at 4 points a piece going into the last 2 questions of the quarters. Anannya missed a question on Indian football and Prithwish answered corrected to narrowly go ahead. The last question went unanswered and Prithwish took up the second spot in the finals - another repeat of last year's final . 

The Finals:

Prithwish and Suraj faced off in the BC Cup final for the third year running  - they have been the dominant performers at this quiz - and this final was one for the ages. Prithwish won the toss and went first - he scored on the first question itself to put pressure on Suraj. Suraj too answered his first home question and leveled things. No one scored in the second home leg for Prithwish and we went into the last 7 questions tied and potentially heading to another penalty shootout (like 2017). Prithwish pulled out an outrageous cricket answer to score an away goal meaning Suraj had to score both his last questions to win. Suraj answered the penultimate question to tie the scores on aggregate - but he needed another one to win. The last question went un-answered to give Prithwish the win that has eluded him for the last two years. 

BC Cup Winner 2019: Prithwish Datta 
Runner Up: Suraj Menon 

List of BC Cup Winners:
2009: Sameer Deshpande and Suraj Menon
2010: Anannya Deb
2011: Anannya Deb
2012: Sumant Srivathsan
2013: Ramkey V
2014: Prithwish Datta
2015: Samrat Sengupta
2016: Shrirang Raddi
2017: Suraj Menon
2018: Suraj Menon
2019: Prithwish Datta

BC Cup 2018 Report + BC Cup of BC Cups Report

BC Cup 2018

Set by Aditya Gadre, Aniket Khasgiwale and Yash Marathe

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. 60 question quarter to determine the top 4 for the semi finals. 40 question semi-final to determine the top 2. A 28 question final to determine the winner.

Report

The 10th edition of the BC Cup saw easily the strongest field we have ever seen at the BC Cup with at 6 past winners and general studs travelling from all over the place for the quiz. The elims were a bit easier than previous years and thus high scoring. Prithwish top scored with a phenomenal 21 out of 30 and Deepanjan was close behind with 20.5 points. The cut off was 14.5 and some very good sports quizzers just missed out with 12 to 14 points. This included former winners Ramkey and Shrirang, Venky, Souvikda, a regular quarterfinalists Shubhankar, Kaushik et al 

The Quarter Finals

The top 8 in the quarter finals were:
Prithwish Datta, Deepanjan Deb, Venkatraghavan S (Ingit Sir), Suraj Menon, Anannya Deb, Kunal Malhotra, Samrat Sengupta, Anand Sivashankar

Ingit, Suraj and Anannya started strongly with Kunal hot on their heels. Prithwish took a while to get going but when we did, he consistently kept climbing. Suraj and Ingit continued their form through the quarters to comfortably take the top 3 spots. Anannya and Kunal kept going neck and neck. Kunal tied their scores on the second last question and somehow the last question passed all the way roun for Anannya to answer to dramatically take the last spot in the semi

The Semi Finals: 

The top 4 were: Suraj, Ingit sir, Anannya and Prithwish

Anannya took forever to get off the mark and Ingit sir had a few good moments, but the semis were the Prithwish and Suraj show with both scoring a strong 7 points each to emphatically book their place in the final

The Finals:

Prithwish and Suraj faced off in a repaet of last year's very closely contested final. Prithwish won the toss and went first. He came close to answering a question but got only half of the answer. The first leg ended scoreless. Suraj gave 2 great answers in his home leg to take 2-0 lead. Prithwish's second home leg also ended scoreless. The final leg saw some surprises with both Suraj and Prithwish missing a cricket question that the crowd seemed to get immediately. Suraj put away another brilliant answer to extend his lead to 3-0 leaving Prithwish needing to answer all the last 3 questions correctly to win on away goals. Prithwish couldn't answer any of the question and Suraj won 3-0

BC Cup Winner 2018: Suraj Menon 
Runner Up: Prithwish Datta 

List of BC Cup winners
List of BC Cup Winners:
2009: Sameer Deshpande and Suraj Menon
2010: Anannya Deb
2011: Anannya Deb
2012: Sumant Srivathsan
2013: Ramkey V
2014: Prithwish Dutta
2015: Samrat Sengupta
2016: Shrirang Raddi
2017: Suraj Menon
2018: Suraj Menon


BC Cup of BC Cups 

Since this was the 10th edition of the quiz, we had a special event for past BC Cup winners. A short quiz to determine the BC Cup of BC Cups

We had 5 former winners taking part: Ramkey, Suraj, Prithwish, Samrat and Anannya

The quiz had three sections to replicate the BC Cup format - easy, difficult and sadistic

In the easy section - Samrat took an early lead with 4 and Suraj scored 3 points. Dada scored 2, Boss and Ramkey scored 1 each 

In the difficult section - we introduced an element of risk - a +1/-1 pounce system. Samrat scored 2 points with no negs to take his score up to 6 with Suraj scored an equal number of positives and negatives to stay at 3. Prithwish, Ramkey and Dada didn't see their scores move much

In the sadistic section - Suraj started with a cracker of an answer to take him to 5 points (just one short of Sammy sir). Unfortunately for him, he got a few questions after that wrong and then Sammy sir parked the bus to ride out to victory

BC Cup of BC Cups Winner: Samrat Sengupta

BC Cup 2017 - Report

Set by Aniket Khasgiwale, Yash Marathe and Aditya Gadre

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. Then a 60 question quarter final to determine the top 4 i.e. the semi finalists. A 40 question Semi final to narrow down to the top 2 in the finals. A 24 question Finals played over two legs (home and away) to determine the winner. 

Report: 
The 2017 edition of the BC Cup was amongst the toughest we've ever seen both in terms of the field as well as the close-ness of the results. The elims itself produced two huge shocks with two time BC Cup winner Anannya Deb and pre-quiz favourite Shouvik Guha both missing out on qualifying. Rahul Kottalgi, Kaushik Koley and Deepanjan Deb narrowly missed out by 1 point. The elims seemed to favour the younger lot with the most of the experienced folk losing out. 

The Quarter Finals:
The Quarter finalists were Shrirang Raddi, Venkatraghavan S (aka Ingit Sir), Gokul S, Shubhankar  Gokhale, Suraj Menon, Pratyush Jha, Prithwish Dutta and Samrat Sengupta 

Gokul performed brilliantly right from the get go and led from start to finish - ending the quarters with a phenomenal 11 points. All results were possible at the end of the first half of the elims, but Suraj, Prithwish and Samrat kept chugging along to finish joint second to make it to the quarters. 

The Semi Finals
The Semi finalists were: Gokul, Prithwish, Suraj and Samrat

The semis were remarkable low scoring with all participants at 1 point at the end of the first half. We saw some excitement towards the end - when in the last 10 odd  questions, all participants scored, and Gokul answered the last question correctly to force aa four way tie! A first in the BC Cup. Suraj and Prithwish won the 3 question tie-breaker and went through to the finals. 

The Finals 
The finals picked up where the semis left off - with both finalists struggling to score. In the last leg, Prithwish came perilously close with two answers off by just a syllable. Sadly this was equivalent of hitting the post, and not good enough for points - especially in the final. In another first at the BC Cup, the finas ended in a tie and we had the first ever penalty shootout. Suraj took the lead on the second kick, and held on for the next three questions to win the 2017 edition of the BC Cup. 

BC Cup Champion 2017 : Suraj Menon
Runner Up : Prithwish Dutta

List of BC Cup Winners: 
2009: Sameer Deshpande and Suraj Menon
2010: Anannya Deb
2011: Anannya Deb
2012: Sumant Srivathsan
2013: Ramkey V
2014: Prithwish Dutta
2015: Samrat Sengupta
2016: Shrirang Raddi
2017: Suraj Menon

The BC Cup 2017 - Annoucement

The BC Cup is the BCQC's annual bigly, YUUUUGE open solo quiz to crown the Best Sports Quizzer. This is the 9th edition of the quiz

QMs: Yash Marathe, Aniket Khasgiwale and Aditya Gadre
Theme: Sports
Teams: Individual
Restrictions: (or the lack of one) Open quiz. Everyone is welcome
Time: 12:45 pm, Saturday, 6th May, 2017
Venue: The Boat Club, College of Engineering Pune

Prizes: Cash prizes totalling INR 9000 (up almost 40% this year!)
1st place: INR 3000
2nd place: INR 1500
3rd and 4th place: INR 1000 each
5th to 8th place: INR 500 each 
Best U-22 participant (who doesn't qualify for the quarters): INR 500

Format: First, a 30 question elim determines 8 qualifiers (or Quarter Finalists). These 8 people take part in a 60 question quarter final. The top four go through to the semi final. The semi-final will consist of 36 questions with scoring reset to zero. The top two then go to the Final where they face off one-on one for a 24 question final.

BC Cup 2016 - Report

Set by Aniket Khasgiwale, Yash Marathe and Aditya Gadre

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. Then a 60 question quarter final to determine the top 4 i.e. the semi finalists. A 40 question Semi final to narrow down to the top 2 in the finals. A 24 question Finals played over two legs (home and away) to determine the winner. 

Report: 
The elims were slightly easier than the previous year with more participants making double digits. Shrirang topped the elims with 14 points. The cut off was 8.5 with two stars. The field was quite strong and the youngsters Snehasis Panda and Rishwin Jackson put in a great performance to qualify for the Quarter finals. Seasoned sports quizzers Anand Sivashankar, Harish Kumar, Kaushik Koley, Sameer Deshpande and Deepanjan Deb all narrowly missed out on qualification. 

The Quarter Finals:
The Quarter finalists were Shrirang Raddi, Venkatraghavan S (aka Ingit Sir), Snehasis Panda, Shubhankar  Gokhale, Anurag Danda, Arnold D'Souza, Rishwin Jackson and Anannya Deb (Dada)

Rishwin started strongly and was leading for a while but as time went on he seemed to run out of steam. Shrirang and Ingit kept giving good answers and comfortably finished the quarters on 7 and 8 points respectively to book their place in the Semi finals. Dada kept missing questions he would normally have got and we ended the quarter with Dada, Arnold and Snehasis tied on 6 points. Dada easily won the regular tie breaker. After a lengthy sudden death tie breaker - Arnold finally prevailed over Snehasis to take the last slot in the Semis.  

The Semi Finals
The Semi finalists were: Shrirang, Ingit, Arnold and Anannya

Ingit continued his sublime form from the quarters to win the semi final and book his place in the final. Shrirang, Anannya and Arnold were locked in a back and forth battle for the second slot - finally Shrirang won with 4 points to Anannya and Arnold's 3. 

The Finals 
Shrirang and Ingit in the final meant we would definitely have a new BC Cup Champion. Shrirang won the toss and went first. The final turned out to be extremely tough with both contestants struggling to score points. Ingit came close with a half answer twice but couldn't strong together enough to score a goal. Just as it looked like we were heading to a penalty shootout for the title, Shrirang answered the second last question of the quiz on Ingit's home leg to seal a very hard fought victory. 

BC Cup Champion 2016 : Shrirang Raddi 
Runner Up : Venkatraghavan S 

List of BC Cup Winners: 
2009: Sameer Deshpande and Suraj Menon
2010: Anannya Deb
2011: Anannya Deb
2012: Sumant Srivathsan
2013: Ramkey V
2014: Prithwish Dutta
2015: Samrat Sengupta
2016: Shrirang Raddi

The BC Cup 2016 - Announcement

The BC Cup is the BCQC's annual solo, open, loooooooong quiz to crown the Best Sports Quizzer in Pune, perhaps Maharshtra (probably India). This is the eight edition. 

Format:   

First, a 30 question prelim determines 8 qualifiers (or Quarter Finalists). These 8 people take part in a 60 question quarter final. The top four go through to the semi final. The semi-final will consist of 36 questions with scoring reset to zero. The top two then go to the Final where they face off one-on one for a 24 question final. 

The top college finisher (UG only, we may ask for ID cards) will get a prize in addition to all the top eight open finishers

Administrivia  

QMs: Yash Marathe, Aniket Khasgiwale and Aditya Gadre
Theme: Sports
Teams: Individual
Restrictions: (or the lack of one) Open quiz. Everyone is welcome

When? 12:45 pm, Saturday, 7th May, 2016
Where? The Boat Club, College of Engineering Pune

Prizes: The top 8 in the Open category and the top two College participant get cash prizes. The total prize money will be INR 6500

BC Cup 2015 - Report

Set by Aniket Khasgiwale, Yash Marathe and Aditya Gadre

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. Then a 60 question quarter final to determine the top 4 i.e. the semi finalists. A 40 question Semi final to narrow down to the top 2 in the finals. A 28 question Finals played over two legs (home and away) to determine the winner. We ditched the college finals due to lack of turnout.

Report: 
The quiz started with a 30 qn elims set which turned out to be quite tough with all contestants claiming they wont qualify at the end! Venkatraghavan (ie Ingit Sir) topped with a phenomenal 16.5 pts and Shrirang too put in a strong performance with 13.5 pts. The others were bunched up around 10 points, with Rohit Suresh just making the cut above Suraj with 9 points. A lot of good quizzers were on 8 or 8.5 points - Suraj, Kaushik, Atul, Samridh and Parijat (who also won the College section) which shows how strong the field was this year.

The Quarter Finals:

The Quarter finalists were :
Shrirang Raddi, Prithwish Datta, Samrat Sengupta, Ingit Sir, Rohit Suresh, Anannya Deb, Arnold D'Souza and Shubhankar Gokhale.

The Quarters were very even till the first half with all 8 people on 2-3 points. Anannya put in a stellar performance to top the elims consistently scoring in all sports. The QF ended up being very close with all 8 people having a chance to qualify with 3 questions to go. It ended with Anannya comfortably winning with 9 points and Samrat and Arnold also qualifying with 6 points. Ingit got a NBA question right and forced a three way tiebreaker against Shubhankar and Rohit for the 4th Semi final spot. A lengthy tie breaker later, Rohit won on sudden death to take the final spot.

The Semi-Final
Anannya continued his form from the Quarters and steadily built a lead which was enough for him to win. For most of the quiz, Samrat seemed to be comfortably taking the other final spot, by Arnold pulled off a brilliant comeback to answer two of the last four to tie scores on the last question of the semis. Another tie-breaker ensued - and Samrat won to cement his place in the finals.

(Side note: Q19 of the Semis was the 1000th question asked in the BC Cup - many thanks to all participants for continued support. We hope to go on for a 1000 more)

The Finals 
Samrat won the toss and went first. In his first home half he scored 1 goal and almost got a second. Anannya failed to score in his first home half. Things were getting interesting as Anannya got an away goal in Samrat's second home half, but Samrat rallied to get two answers in quick succession to take the score to 3-1. Anannya needed to just tie to win the match in his second home half, but he remembered the name of a Soviet gymnast and an Indian athlete just after giving the wrong answer. Anannya thus lost a successive BC Cup final and continued his tremendously consistent run at the Cup while Samrat won his first BC Cup in style.

BC Cup Champion 2015 : Samrat Sengupta
Runner Up : Anannya Deb 

College Champion: Parijat Chaudhary

As for the review of the quiz, I request those who attended to share their feedback in the comments section. 

BC Cup 2015 - Announcement

The BC Cup is the BCQC's annual solo, open quiz to crown the Best Sports Quizzer. This is the seventh edition. 

Format:   

First, a 30 question elim determines 8 qualifiers (or Quarter Finalists). These 8 people take part in a 60 question quarter final. The top four go through to the semi final. The semi-final will consist of 36 questions with scoring reset to zero. This is to keep the 'winning three consecutive matches' concept constant from last year's edition. The top two then go to the Final where they face off one-on one for a 28 question final. 

This year we are introducing an additional round for the top 4 college quizzers who do not qualify for the Open section. There will be a 24 question "College final" for these 4 college quizzers between the Quarter finals and the Semi finals of the Open Section 

Administrivia  

QMs: Yash Marathe, Aniket Khasgiwale and Aditya Gadre
Theme: Sports
Teams: Individual
Restrictions: (or the lack of one) Open quiz. Everyone is welcome

When? 12:45 pm, Saturday, 9th May, 2015
Where? The Boat Club, College of Engineering Pune

Prizes: The top 8 in the Open category and the top 4 in the College get cash prizes. The total prize money will be in excess of INR 5000

If you are planning to show up for sure, please let us know by filling in your name at this link. This will help us gauge interest and save some paper.

The BC Cup 2014 - Report

Set by Aniket Khasgiwale, Yash Marathe and Aditya Gadre

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. Then a 60 question quarter final to determine the top 4 i.e. the semi finalists. A 40 question Semi final to narrow down to the top 2 in the finals. A 28 question Finals played over two legs (home and away) to determine the winner.

Report: 
The quiz started with a 30 qn elims set - the elim seemed much simpler this year and we had a lot of people crossing double digits. Defending Champion Ramkey topped the elims with a phenomenal 21 pts. Ramanand cleared the elims but had to leave so he gave up his spot. The Cut off was 13.5 - with Venkatraghavan (aka Venky) beating Kaushik Koley in a tiebreaker to enter the Quarter finals.

The Quarter Finals:

The Quarter finalists were :
Shrirang Raddi, Ramkey, Suraj Menon, Shubhankar Gokhale, Suvajit Chakraborty, Prithwish Datta, Venky and Anannya Deb 

The Quarters were very even till the first half with most people on 3 -4 points. Suraj answered practically every cricket question and topped the QF with 8 points. Anannya had a good second half and ended on 7 points to tie with Shubhankar, Shrirang and Prithwish. Last year's finalists Ramkey and Venky would have both been disappointed with their performances and crashed out with 3 and 4 pts respectively. 

We needed a tie breaker as 4 people were tied and 3 spots were open. At the end of a 3 question tie breaker Shrirang was eliminated and Anannya, Shubhankar and Prithwish were through to the semis 

The Semi-Final
Anannya was in vintage form throughout the semi and scored 8 points to win comfortably. Shubhankar missed a few questions on his pet topic of cycling and finished on 3 points. Suraj lost some of his form from the Quarters and finished on 2 points. Just as we seemed to be headed for a tiebreaker for the second final spot - Prithwish scored a point on the second last question to finish on 4 points and book his place in the final.

The Finals 
Prithwish won the toss and went first. In his first home half he scored 1 goal and and followed this up by scoring an away goal in Anannya's first home half. The second half for Prithwish turned out to be tougher than the first and no-one scored any goals. Anannya went into his second home half trailing 2-0 on aggregate and 1-0 in his home leg, thus needing 3 goals to win. Anannya lost the plot a bit as Prithwish scored another away goal and more or less sealed his victory. Anannya then needing to score all his last 4 attempts - missed and could not make it a third triumph at the BC Cup

BC Cup Champion 2014 : Prithwish Datta
Runner Up : Anannya Deb 

As for the review of the quiz, I request those who attended to share their feedback in the comments section. 

The BC Cup 2013 - Report

Set by Aniket Khasgiwale, Yash Marathe and Aditya Gadre

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. Then a 60 question quarter final to determine the top 4 i.e. the semi finalists. A 36 question Semi final to narrow down to the top 2 in the finals. A 28 question Finals played over two legs (home and away) to determine the winner.

Report: 
The quiz started with a 30 qn elims set - general feedback indicated that the elim was much tougher than in previous years. The elims also threw up some drama when two-time BC Cup Champion, Anannya Deb did not qualify for the Quarter Finals. Subhankar topped the elims with a phenomenal 17pts and Venkatraghavan (referred to as "Venky" hereforth in this report) came second with 13.5 points. The rest of the quarter finalists were mostly bunched in the 8-10 pt mark.

The Quarter Finals:


The Quarter finalists were :
Shubhankar Gokhale, Ramkey, Anand Sivashankar, Samrat Sengupta, Nishant Chaudhary, Venky, Rohit Suresh and Kaushik Koley


Anand started the quarter finals spectacularly and pulled away with a strong 4 pt lead before losing the plot midway as others - particularly Samrat and Ramkey upped the ante. BC Cup debutant Nishant , the ever consistent Kaushik and "young Rohit" gave some great answers and kept things interesting. In the end,  Venky and Shubhankar's overall good performances (especially in areas of their strengths) helped them finish 3rd and 4th to complete the semi final lineup.

The Semi-Final
Ramkey hit top form as he capitalised on a few critical misses from Samrat and threw in a few amazing answers of his own to win comfortably. Venky held a slender 1 pt lead over Shubhankar going into the last question of the semis which was duly cracked by Shubhankar (hardly surprising since the question involved cycling) to force a tie breaker for the final spot. After the 3 question tie breaker the two were still tied and we went into sudden death. Venky correctly answered his question while Shubhankar missed and we had our other finalist.

The Finals 
Ramkey won the toss and went first. In his first home half he scored 2 goals to 2-0 up and followed this up by scoring a crucial away goal in Venky's  first home half. The second half for Ramkey turned out to not live up to the excitement and high scoring nature. Venky went into his second home half training 3-0 on aggregate and 1-0 in his home leg, thus needing 4 goals to win. Venky put in a couple of superb answers to win his home leg 2-1, but could not complete the spectacular comeback to win the tie. In the end, Ramkey won on aggregate 3-2.

BC Cup Champion 2013 : Ramkey 
Runner Up : Venkatraghavan Sahasranaman 

As for the review of the quiz, I request those who attended to share their feedback in the comments section. 

BC Cup 2013 - Announcement

This is the BCQC's annual solo, open quiz to crown the Best Sports Quizzer. This is the fifth edition. ( Reports for 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 editions). 

Format:   

First, a 30 question elim determines 8 qualifiers (or as Quarter finalists). These 8 people take part in a 60 question quarter final. The top four go through to the semi final. The semi-final will consist of 36 questions with scoring reset to zero. This is to keep the 'winning three consecutive matches' concept constant from last year's edition. The top two then go to the final. 

The finalists will then face off one-on one for a 28 question final. The match consists of a home leg and an away leg. Home leg essentially means you get direct questions. If one gets a direct question wrong which the opponent answers, it counts as an away goal and is used for tie breakers (as per UEFA rules ).
So that's a total of 154 questions + tie breakers.

Administrivia  

QMs: Yash Marathe, Aniket Khasgiwale and Aditya Gadre
Theme: Sports
Teams: Individual
Restrictions: (or the lack of one) Open quiz. Everyone is welcome

When? 1 pm, Sunday, 19th May, 2013
Where? The Boat Club, College of Engineering Pune
Registration: Free online registration. 

You can register here. Please register before 18th May.

This is required as we need to get elim sheets printed. On the spot registration is not impossible (but not recommended either). 

BC Cup 2012 Report

When: 10th June, 2012
Where: BC, Pune
By: Aniket Khasgiwale, Aditya Gadre, Yash Marathe

Format:
First, a 30 question elim determines 8 qualifiers (or as Quarter finalists). These 8 people take part in a 60 question quarter final. The top four go through to the semi final. The semi-final will consist of 36 questions with scoring reset to zero.
The finalists will then face off one-on one for a 28 question final. The match consists of a home leg and an away leg. Home leg essentially means your direct questions. If one gets a direct question wrong which the opponent answers, it counts as an away goal and is used for tie breakers (as per UEFA rules ).

Group stages
The fourth edition of the BCQC's megalithic sports quiz began with a low scoring and very close prelim. The prelims cutoff was 10.5, with a top score of 14 by Sumant and Suraj. The 8 qualifiers in random order were:

Sumant, Suraj, Annanya, Kaushik, Samrat,Ranajeet, Aniket R and Shubhankar.

Shubhankar took his spot after a tie-break decider where he beat Abhinav and Omkar

The Quarter Finals: Annanya won the Quarters with 8 points. Suraj and Samrat (7) were next in. Sumant, Shubhankar and Ranajeet were tied on 4 for quite some time, before Sumant scored 2 more to complete the Semi Final line up.

The Semi Final: Suraj put in a great performance to comfortably win it with 7 points. Annanya and Samrat underperformed finished on 3 points and 2 points respectively while Sumant held on to a slim 1 point lead to join Suraj in the final and  break Annanya's winning streak.

The Final
Sumant vs Suraj
In a surprisingly one-sided and low-scoring final, Sumant turned the tables and won both the home and away legs 2-0 to win it 4-0.

The winner for BC Cup 2012 is Sumant Srivathsan

Previous winners:
2009: Suraj and Sameer
2010, 2011: Annanya Deb
2012: Sumant Srivathsan