Quiz Report - BCQC November Open - 'My Favorite Things' by Suraj Menon

The two-day quizzing melava at College of Engineering Pune was a momentous affair as it saw the return of BC Cup back in its in-person avatar and a general quiz by Suraj Menon which was billed as a set on his favorite topics. The venue for the general quiz was the well-equipped Kirloskar Auditorium in BHAU Institute which saw a great turnout (over 25+ teams).

The elims kicked off with a wonderful audio question paying tribute to two beloved Punekars. There were thirty such succinctly framed questions and it was a thoroughly enjoyable set filled with great fundaes centered majorly around things one might’ve heard/read about.

The cutoff was 19 out of a possible 30, with top score being an impressive 24. Top 8 teams made it to the finals and one draft was added to each team. Finals had 46 questions divided into four rounds – Two written and two IR. First written round was a set of 10 questions loosely themed on veteran quizzers in the circle. Loved the concept and how each answer was tied to the interests/monikers/team-names of quizzers. IRs covered a wide array of topics and allayed concerns (if any) that it will be specifically focused on QM’s pet topics, which I guess, speaks highly of his diverse interests. Notable ones being the concept behind design of martini glass and the modern usage of a symbol depicted on the shields of hoplites. Teams 8 and 7 built a massive lead in the first written round and maintained it until the end of the quiz securing top 2 spots. Team 5 which began leisurely in the first two rounds, staged a brilliant comeback in the written sports and IR-2 to take the third position.

Overall, a brilliant quiz put together by Suraj with wonderfully framed questions. There was an entire written round on Sports, but the framing and clues were sufficient to arrive at the answer and served as a great aperitif for the event on the following day. And as is the case with his other quizzes, there were no pritams (peter kon?) in the entire quiz.

Hopefully, Suraj is done with his recurring retirement announcements because we all know that’s his way of saying ‘Mi Punha Yein, Mi Punha Yein!’ All in all, it was a great weekend marked with two brilliant quizzes followed by a visit to the usual haunt and a lot of fun was had.

Results:

First position: Team 8 Sachin Deshpande, Prithwish Datta and Gokul S (draft) – 215 points
Second position: Team 7 Sania Narulkar, Rohit Suresh and Ingit Sir (draft) – 185 points
Third position: Team 5 Aditya Gadre, Brajendu Bhaskar and Pranav Floyd Joshi (draft) – 155 points

Other teams in the finals:

Team 1: Ritwik Ghosh, Chinmay Deshpande and Naman Jain (draft)
Team 2: Hrishi Varma, Ranajeet Soman and Charles Mathew (draft)
Team 3: Akshay Parale, Shivam Sharma and Pitambar (draft)
Team 4: Col Sandeep Shankar+1 and Shubhankar Gokhale (draft)
Team 6: Piyush Kedia, Shubham and Pranav Hari (draft)

Report by: Akshay Parale

 

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