Sunday, February 23, 2014

Feb Open Quiz - Reports

Many thanks to Extentia (venue partner) and Landmark (prizes sponsor).


"The World is Awesome"
Flavour: Geography
Set & Conducted by Kunal Sawardekar
Format: 30 questions written quiz

Results
1st: Shrirang Raddi & Arnold D'Souza (24)
2nd: Aditya Gadre & Samrat Sengupta (21.5)

Report
A nice quiz on what is still a niche topic for many. A conscious attempt was made by the QM to make the questions accessible through clues and references (some of which were lost on some of us!)



'Garbology' - Feb Open Quiz
Flavour: Military aviation, Maratha history, scandals old and new, turnarounds in sports and politics, stuff you can buy at kirana shops
Set & Conducted by Shrirang Raddi
Format: 17 qn prelims, 41 qn finals

Results
1st: Harish Kumar, J. Ramanand (team 6 - 23)
2nd: Raghu, Mayank, Venkat (team 5 - 18)
3rd: Kunal S, Aditya Gadre (team 3 -16)
Other finalists: Samrat S + Ajay R (team 1 - 13), Avaneendra+Deepak Mohoni+ (team 2 - 5), Aditya Joshi + Naval Malpani (team 4 - 3)

Report
A highly unusual quiz, both in content and presentation - definitely not something people here are used to. "Out of the quizzing zeitgist" is how Kunal described it. One of the comebacks hinted at in the opening slide was that of the QM himself, who is returning to Pune quizzes after a while. This was his first BC Open as well, with the Opens having begun since his previous quizzing stint.

Most of the questions were interesting, but some could have been framed/presented better. The topics were eclectic and relatively unexplored, but the older folks were at a distinct advantage.

We had a relatively low turnout, partly due to the fact that there were some college quizzes at the same time.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

2013 Shyam Bhatt Memorial Quiz at AFMC, Pune - Report

2013 Shyam Bhatt Memorial Quiz, AFMC, Pune
14th Feb, 2014
Set and Conducted by Chandrakant Nair
Flavour: General

Format: Written elims of 37 questions. Finals (3 written rounds, 2*20 questions on Bounce+Pounce)

Results:
1st - Vikram Joshi and Meghashyam Shirodkar - 340 points
2nd - Aditya Gadre and Shubhankar Gokhale - 335 points
3rd - Hrishi Varma and Justin Thomas - 325 points

The other finalists (in no particular order)

Gopal Kidao and Sachin Deshpande
Navin Rajaram and Venkatesh Srinivasan
Ramanand JN and Shrirang Raddi
Balakrishnan Satyam and Rahul Kottalgi
Debanjan Bose and Suraj Prabhu
Aniketh Rallabhandi and Vibhav Bhave
Aryapriya Ganguly and Avinash Mudaliar
Wg Cdr Anurakshat Gupta and Maj Safal Muhammad

Report

The Shyam Bhatt Memorial Quiz is, by our estimation, the oldest running quiz in Pune. This edition of the quiz, interestingly, had a mix of several newcomers to the quiz (from many parts of the country) and several old-returners (who took part in editions as far back as two decades ago.) And then there were some of the usual suspects.

Chandrakant Nair, an alumnus of AFMC, is the Amit Trivedi of Indian quizmasters: one has always been astonished by the depth, the breadth, and prolificity of his quizzes that does not sacrifice quality. This edition was yet another instance of his excellent work.

There were eleven fine teams on stage, whose collective achievements were both answering these excellent questions and surviving without grievous injury, a tiger-trap of a stage at the Dhanwantari Auditorium! (the quiz returned to that august setting after a few years of being sidelined to a classroom).

I particularly enjoyed the prelims (perhaps because my team did well at it) - the 'pitch' was true and one could trust the 'bounce' in terms of the clues offered. The finals had some terrific questions, but since we had begun late, I found myself feeling impatient towards the end (it didn't help that I had to be somewhere else pretty soon.) Overall, I though this year's final was much more interesting and generally accessible compared to 2013.

Great answering by the winners, who kept their calm, and to the runners-up, who mounted a rousing challenge in the last round to give the winners a little bit of a scare, not to mention the scorer.

Special mention of the scorer, who needs to be given a quizzing medal of some sort, just to keep up - singlehandedly - with the scores of 11 teams, a couple of whom were getting increasingly restive, and lots of pounces and negatives flying around. Also a nod to the college team of Aniketh and Vibhav who had a great preliminary round and some good final answers.

Some suggestions/cribs:

1. No 10-11 teams please. I find 8 teams a stretch as well, but 11 was the height (the breadth?). Too much of a pounce-fest for my liking, and found it hard to listen to teams making interesting guesses.
2. The Friday scheduling was harsh on many local quizzers who could not make it, and missed out on a good quiz (and the quiz missed out on them). Also resulted in a negligible audience.
3. ~7 hours of quizzing (inclusive of just sitting around) is avoidable - shorter prelims/finals with more breathing space between questions would have been appreciated by me. Also, I don't get a chance to 'savour' the questions, because there is this mad rush to speed-read the question, to try and get the pounce in.
4. The middle round's secret theme was a little too obscure, IMO, and definitely not very 'crack-able' with just the visual hint and not having a chance to look at the 'puzzle' more carefully when it is in progress.
5. The last round had too much at stake - almost as much as the 2 passing rounds.

Finally, my partner Shrirang returned to AFMC and Shyam Bhatt after a couple of decades - this is a quiz where he has never won despite several close finishes (an unfulfilled ambition this time as well!). But the QM's nod to COEP in the prelims was much appreciated, especially as Shrirang mentioned to me, the seeds of the COEP Saturday Quiz Club, the precursor to what is the BCQC were sown in AFMC. Read more here.

2013 InFest - Day 2 - Report

Apologies for the late report. Day 1 report is here.



In contrast to Day 1, Day 2 of the 2013-14 BC InFest had more of the traditional session-like quizzes. By the time the day ended, we had about 25-30 participants. Fortunately, we ran out of time and saved ourselves the ent-al torture of an Ent quiz by this blogger. (Meanwhile, the unasked questions are growing alarmingly monstrous in their little pods, waiting patiently for that one day when they will be unleashed on a...)


But to hairy adventures first: the day began with a quiz on facial hair by Oboneendro and Devanjan. It was only on the arrival of Anannya Deb that this hirsute pursuit gained its core audience. We broke for a not-so leisurely lunch to return and find that the real BCQC.orgy was in progress: an exam for some people for something. That began a pattern of oscillation between our regular spot and the New BC Grassy Knoll Annexe.


The first post-lunch engagement was time for some morbid curiosity - "Quizz Macabra" was an excellent quiz on the subject of death; set by Abhinav Dasgupta and Shubhankar Gokhale and conducted by the former, the questions were not mourned by anyone.


Aditya Gadre then took the stage for his innovative 'bcqc.orgy/history' quiz which had themes based on six BC quizzers (Niranjan, Anand Sivashankar, Gaurav Sabnis, Abhishek Nagaraj, Avaneendra, and Kunal Sawardekar) from BCQC history. The scoring system also involved choices of cards (Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Fail), and the resulting "eh, what, what?" was an excellent example of BC convolutedness. The questions were interesting, and punctuated by VCat's unfailing cry of "I know this!" on hearing the first word of the question, only to be proved otherwise on hearing the first word of the answer.



The day ended with our last autobiographical quiz, this time by Anannya Deb. The journey through music, places, people, and yes, football, was an enlightening one, and fitting way to close this edition of BC InFest.


We may see you next year - who really knows?

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

February Open Quizzes 2014

On Saturday, 22 February 2014 we conduct two Open Quizzes.

Quiz I - The World is Awesome - Written Quiz














Time: 2:30 pm
Flavour: Geography, World
QM: Kunal Sawardekar
Teams of 2
Written Quiz - Please bring writing instrument(s)

Quiz 2 - Open Quiz by Shrirang Raddi
















Time: 3:30 pm
Flavour: A mishmash of military aviation, Maratha history, scandals old and new, turnarounds in sports and politics, stuff you can buy at kirana shops and many other things besides
QM: Shrirang Raddi
Teams of 2
Written Elims followed by Stage Finals

Venue
Extentia Information Technology,
Nilanjali Housing Colony,
Kalyani Nagar,
Pune