Thursday, September 27, 2007

A Social(ist) Experiment

That was merely one of several descriptions that Anand Sivashankar's (and absentee QM Vibhendu Tewari's) quiz drew from the small group of participants that did show up on a rainy Sunday afternoon. A late notification email to the group could have been the main culprit (and we'll do our best to be more timely about such matters).

As Anand explained in his intro, his rather original direct-and-passing system was designed to ensure that all teams had an equal opportunity to answer questions. Whether this intention was met, we shall see, but it did result in a very tight quiz indeed, with the lead changing hands amongst at least four of the eight teams.

Teams answered questions in increasing order of their points tally after each question, with tied teams taking turns in clockwise or anti-clockwise patterns. With this system in place, Anand proceeded to ask a number of excellent questions, something which could easily have been missed amidst the novel system which contained them.

New system or old, some things never change, and Rajiv Rai, with Ravi Venkatesh in tow (and solo for the last few questions), won the day. Again. Prasann Potdar, Saurav and Kartik Ramadass fended off four other teams for second place, leaving them tied for third place.

The Results:

First Place - 14 Points
Rajiv Rai
Ravi Venkatesh

Second Place - 13 Points
Prasann Potdar
Kartik Ramadass
Saurav

Third Place (tied) - 12 Points
Ameya Samant
Avinash Mudaliar
Sarat Rao

Rishi Iyengar
Sumant Srivathsan

Souvik Basu
S Balakrishnan

Amit Pandeya
Francis Rodrigues
Mukund Krishnan

Seventh Place (tied) - 11 Points
Ajith Prabhakar
Dhananjay Shettigar

AP Alagarsamy
Devang Ghia
Kedar Sastry

BQC Season Two Standings (from 11 quizzes, as of September 23, 2007)

69.5 points

Rajiv Rai (from 9 quizzes)

48 points
Ashwan Lewis (7)

47.5 points
Rishi Iyengar (9)

41 points
Prasann Potdar (7)

38 points
Amit Varma (8)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (8)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)
AP Alagarsamy (9)
S Balakrishnan (7)

26 points
Govind Grewal (9)

24 points
Amit Pandeya (9)
Anand Sivasankar (9)
Kartik Srivatsa (4)

23 points
Sumant Srivathsan (7)

22.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (4)

22 points
Ajith Prabhakar (9)

20.5 points
Ameya Samant (9)

18 points
Kedar Shastry (7)

17 points
Ravi Venkatesh (5)

16.5 points

Dhananjay Shettigar (9)

15 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (9)
Devang Ghia (9)

14 points
Samrat Sengupta (3)
Kartik R (?)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (3)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (2)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (5)
Avinash Mudaliar (6)
Sarat Rao (?)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Raghu (?)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (2)
Saurav (?)

4 points
Francis Rodrigues (6)
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (5)
Sushant Raut (5)
Udatta Duarah (2)

1 point
Souvik Basu

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Barbecue Nation

Come prepared for a grilling.

Time: 3pm, Sunday, September 2 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmaster: Anand Sivashankar (with questions from Vibhendu Tewari)
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

Sunday, September 02, 2007

The dark horse uses fairness cream

Just when the leaderboard seemed to be a one-horse race, Ashwan Lewis galloped into the frame of the Bombay Quiz Club. Ashwan, together with Mukund Krishnan, Sarat Rao and Raghu, romped to an emphatic win in the 10th BQC quiz of the season to storm back up to second place in the standings. Rishi Iyengar, the man he displaced, put in a strong showing to come second and slip to third. (Read slowly; this isn't easy.) And Rajiv Rai, shock horror calumny, finished fourth, thus remaining stationary in the BQC League points tally, albeit still the leader by a fair (but diminishing) margin.

Dhananjay Shettigar was the quizmaster, and asked around 70 questions in a superbly balanced quiz. There were two questions involving sado-masochism, two involving rape, but do not go by that, for in tabloid mode I report only the sensational. The quiz was enjoyed by all, and would have passed as family entertainment had a family cared to show up. Ha!

The results:

1st with 36 points
Ashwan Lewis
Mukund Krishnan
Sarat Rao
Raghu

2nd with 32.5 points
Rishi Iyengar
Prasann Potdar
Govind Grewal
Kartik R

3rd with 27 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Meghashyam Shirodkar
Nandan Krishnaswamy

4th with 25.5 points
Rajiv Rai
Avinash Mudaliar
Sireesh Rao

5th with 22.5 points
Anand Sivasankar
Udatta Duarah
Ajith Prabhakar

6th with 19.5 points
Mahesh Murthy
Ameya Samant
Kedar Shastry

7th with 18.5 points
Amit Varma
Vibhendu Tiwari
Shambhu Shankar
Devang Ghia

8th with 17 points
AP Alagarsamy
Arvind Krishnaswamy
Francis Rodrigues

And now for the standings:

BQC Season Two Standings (from 10 quizzes, as of September 2, 2007)

59.5 points

Rajiv Rai (from 8 quizzes)

48 points
Ashwan Lewis (7)

46.5 points
Rishi Iyengar (8)

38 points
Amit Varma (8)

34 points
Prasann Potdar (6)

29 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (8)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)

27 points
AP Alagarsamy (8)
S Balakrishnan (6)

26 points
Govind Grewal (9)

24 points
Amit Pandeya (8)
Anand Sivasankar (9)
Kartik Srivatsa (4)

22.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (3)

22 points
Ajith Prabhakar (8)
Sumant Srivathsan (6)

19.5 points
Ameya Samant (8)

17 points
Kedar Shastry (6)

16.5 points
Dhananjay Shettigar (8)

15 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (9)

14 points
Devang Ghia (8)
Samrat Sengupta (3)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (3)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (2)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (5)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Avinash Mudaliar (5)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Sarat Rao (?)
Raghu (?)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Ravi Venkatesh (4)
Rahul Bhaskar (2)
Kartik R (?)

4 points
Francis Rodrigues (5)
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (5)
Sushant Raut (5)
Udatta Duarah (2)


The next quiz will be conducted on September 23. Watch this blog for more details.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Dhananjay Shettigar will ask...

... You will answer! There's a BQC quiz tomorrow -- do you have the cojones to take part? Huh? Huh?

Time: 3pm, Sunday, September 2 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmaster: Dhananjay Shettigar
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

The latest league standings, and a report for the last quiz, are here. Are you missing all the fun?