A Close Fought Battle

A close fought battle resulted in a win for the extremely strong team comprising Amit Varma, Sumant Srivatsan, Shrikant Narasimhan and Mahesh Murthy. Avinash Mudaliar and co. also performed well and were the only team to crack the second theme. The quiz was fairly easy by normal BQC standards. This did not detract from the interest, quality and workability of the questions, though. Amit Varma and the Jew lead the league table at this very early stage in the season. Normal services will be restored once Rajiv Rai returns to do battle from this weekend on.

At this point there are no seeds, with teams being formed through random draws. If the first two quizzes are any indication, this BQC season is going to be extremely competitive with little to differentiate teams not containing Rajiv Rai. The top five league positions could be occupied by just about anyone. Several new faces have added to the overall strength and diversity of the league, while many of the younger quizzers who joined us last season have become increasingly dangerous. It just goes to show that a steady diet of infants and a sharp battleaxe are all that is needed to thrive in the league.

Ia! Ia! BQC fthagn!

1st with 135 points (on tiebreaker)
Amit Varma
Sumant Srivathsan
Mahesh Murthy
Shrikant Narasimhan

2nd with 135 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Udatta Duarah
Avinash Mudaliar
V Sreeharsha

3rd with 130 points
Kedar Sastry
Ameya Samant
Anand Sivasankar
Sireesh Talluri Rao

4th with 120 points
Vibhendu Tiwari
S Balakrishnan
Sandeep Rajpurohit
Abilin Mukherjee

Tied 5th-6th with 105 points
Rishi Iyengar
Govind Grewal
Samrat Sengupta
Aditya Agrawal

Amit Pandeya
Francis Rodrigues
Mukund Sridhar
Mitul Kodali

7th with 90 points
Raamesh Gowri Raghavan
Sritanu Chakrabarti
Brian D'Souza
Neelabh

8th with 70 points
Ajit Prabhakar
Sarat Rao
Devang Ghia
Sriram Krishnan

The league standings are calculated with 10 points going to each member of a winning team, 7 to each runner up and 4 to each of the quizzers coming third. At the end of two quizzes, the standings are:

BQC Season three Standings (from two quizzes, as of April 27, 2008)

17 points
Amit Varma (from 2 quizzes)
Sumant Srivathsan (2)

10 points
Rishi Iyengar (2)
Govind Grewal (2)
Mitul Kodali (2)
Sandeep Rajpurohit (2)
Mahesh Murthy (1)
Shrikant Narasimhan

8 Points
Sireesh Talluri Rao (2)

7 points
Raamesh Gowri Raghavan (2)
Ajay Ravindran (1)
Pradeep Ramarathnam (2)
Udatta Duarah (1)
Avinash Mudaliar (2)
V Sreeharsha (1)

4 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (2)
S Balakrishnan (2)
Brian D'Souza (2)
Kedar Sastry (2)
Ameya Samant (1)
Anand Sivasankar (2)

Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Ke Baap Hai?

Tho phir Shah Rukh ko maariye goli, aur aa jaayiye BQC ke quiz mein, R-R-R-R-Rajiv Rrrai ke saath. The second quiz of the 2008 season takes place tomorrow. Details:

When: 3:00 PM, Sunday, April 27, 2008. (Be there by 2.45 please.)

Quizmaster: Rajiv Rai.

Location: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz (W).

Directions:

From the south: If you come north on Linking Road from Bandra to SantaCruz, you'll find a large Benetton Store on the right. At the end of that block is a Kotak Bank at the corner. Take a right and it's the next building, take the first gate and tell the sentry you've come for a meeting.

From the north: If you get on to Linking Road at the airplane park end, you'll cross a HDFC Bank. A block later, you'll see a Kotak Bank on the corner - do not cross it. Take a left at that point and it's the building next to Kotak Bank.

The results of the previous quiz are here. Newcomers are welcome to our quizzes. Teams are formed at the venue by drawing lots, so don't worry about turning up alone.

Rishi Iyengar zooms off the blocks

League champion Rajiv Rai was absent for the first BQC quiz of the 2008 season, held on April 13, but there was no dearth of quality quizzing. Samrat Sengupta, the quizmaster for the day, ran us through a largely workable quiz , and Rishi Iyengar, last year's overall runner-up, zoomed to first place. Vibhendu Tiwari and S Balakrishnan's team took an early lead, after which my team, with Sumant Srivathsan in it, led till about the halfway point, when the special topics round gave Rishi and gang the momentum to streak ahead. Good fun to begin the season.

The results:

1st with 56 points
Rishi Iyengar
Govind Grewal
Sandeep Rajpurohit
Mitul Kodoli

2nd with 50 points
Amit Varma
Sumant Srivathsan
Raamesh Gowri Raghavan
Ajay Ravindran

3rd with 48 points
Vibhendu Tiwari
S Balakrishnan
Sireesh Talluri Rao
Brian D'Souza

4th with 45 points
Anand Sivasankar
Srinath TB
Vidya Kumar
Anand Satyan

Joint 5th-6th with 42 points
Ajith Prabhakar
Amit Pandeya
Devang Ghia
Saurabh Garg

Arvind Krishnaswamy
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Abilin Mukherjee
Francis Rodrigues

7 with 41 points
Sarat Rao
Avinash Mudaliar
Nandan Krishnaswamy
Abad Eh*

8th with 26 points
Sriram Krishnan
Sritanu Chakrabarti
Aditya Agarwal
Neelabh
Kedar Sastry

(*Not sure about one name, wasn't legible in the team list I received. Do correct me...)

The people coming first get 10 points each in the league table, while the second-placed quizzers get 7 each and the third placed guys get 4 each. So those are the league standings. The next quiz is conducted this Sunday, April 27, by Rajiv Rai. More details will follow here.

Back to Square One

The phrase comes from radio commentary on football matches, as the old chestnut tells us (and which we hopefully eliminate from our quizzes by using it in blog posts).

Samrat Sengupta will kick us off on a brand new season with a quiz that he conducted at the BCQC in Pune (and coincided with our own season-ender). Much fun can be anticipated, given past experiences.

As always, details and directions below:

When: 3:00 PM, Sunday, April 13, 2008

Location:

Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz (W).

Directions:

From the south: If you come north on Linking Road from Bandra to SantaCruz, you'll find a large Benetton Store on the right. At the end of that block is a Kotak Bank at the corner. Take a right and it's the next building, take the first gate and tell the sentry you've come for a meeting.

From the north: If you get on to Linking Road at the airplane park end, you'll cross a HDFC Bank. A block later, you'll see a Kotak Bank on the corner - do not cross it. Take a left at that point and it's the building next to Kotak Bank.

All Hail The BQC Champion: Rajiv Rai

This post must begin with an apology: in my report of the last quiz, I had referred to Rajiv Rai as 'avuncular'. Rajiv has taken offense, and has threatened to inflict unspeakable and eldritch monstrosities on me (such as the company of Govind Grewal). I am, thus, forced to say sorry for my transgression. Forgive me, O Young One.

Back to the report. The season-closing quiz of the BQC last Sunday ended fittingly, with Rajiv underscoring his year-long dominance by winning in a canter. I notched up my eighth second place of the season (pah!) to seal third place in the league table. After 26 quizzes in the season, we were all done and ready to take a break. Except that, um, quizzers don't take breaks. The season begins again one Sunday from now.

Sumant Srivathsan conducted the quiz, and threw in lots of audio and video questions, which was a refreshing change from our mostly-dry quizzes. His theme round was perhaps too high-scoring, and pretty much handed the quiz to the two teams that cracked the theme early. A similar thing happened a quiz before, when I played around with written questions that awarded every team cracking a question points depending on how many other teams didn't crack it. These rounds meant that a team that had a good five minutes could take an almost unassailable lead, and the lesson for the future is not to have rounds that are too high-scoring.

Enough. Here are the results:

1st with 45 points
Rajiv Rai
Kedar Sastry
Rahul Gaur
Amit Sharma

2nd with 30 points
Amit Varma
Sandip Sen
Rangraj Setlur
Francis Rodrigues

3rd with 26 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Udatta Duarah
Ananya Deb
+ 1?

4th with 23 points
Vibhendu Tiwari
Arvind Krishnaswamy
+ 2?

5th with 21 points
Prasann Potdar
Mukund Krishnan
Nandan Krishnaswamy
Shujodeep Ghosh

6th with 18 points
S Balakrishnan
Ameya Samant
Sarat Rao
Abilin Mukherjee

7th with 16 points
Ajith Prabhakar
Amit Pandeya
Kaushik Chatterjee
+ 1?

8th with 13 points
Rishi Iyengar
Devang Ghia
Aditya Agarwal
Shivanant Tayal

As you can see, there are some blanks there I'll duly fill in once participants are tortured and information extracted. And now (ta da!) for the final BQC League standings of 2007-08:

Final BQC Season Two Standings (from 26 quizzes, as of March 30, 2008)

150.5 points
Rajiv Rai (from 20 quizzes)

98 points
Rishi Iyengar (22)

86 points
Amit Varma (22)

75 points
Sumant Srivathsan (21)

72 points
Kedar Sastry (17)
Prasann Potdar (20)

67.5 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (23)
AP Alagarsamy (19)

59 points
Ajith Prabhakar (18)
Govind Grewal (19)

48 points
Ashwan Lewis (8)
Amit Pandeya (13)

47.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (14)

47 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (16)

44 points
Anand Sivasankar (19)

43.5 points
Souvik Basu (?)

42.5 points
Devang Ghia (23)

42 points
S Balakrishnan (17)

40 points
Ameya Samant (20)

31 points
Shambhu Shankar (?)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)

26 points
Sarat Rao (?)

25 points
Udatta Duarah (10)
Francis Rodrigues (13)

24 points
Kartik Srivatsa (5)

18 points
Avinash Mudaliar (9)
Kartik R (?)
Sandip Sen (5)

17 points
Ravi Venkatesh (6)

16.5 points
Dhananjay Shettigar (12)

14 points
Samrat Sengupta (7)
Sritanu Chakravarty (4)
Arvind Krishnaswamy (8)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (4)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (3)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (7)
Atulya Bharadwaj (2)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Raghu (?)
Sowmya Ramaswamy (1)
Hansraj Singh (1)
John Mascarenhas (3)
Vaibhav Devanathan (1)
Sameer Nair (2)
Movin Miranda (1)
Aditya Agarwal (3
Rahul Gaur (1)
Amit Sharma (?)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (3)
Saurav (?)
Nrupal Choudhari (?)
Harshil Shah (1)
Devangshu Datta (1)
Kaustubh Chakraborty (1)
Rangraj Setlur (1)

4 points
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (8)
Sushant Raut (5)
Chitra Raghunath (1)
Sandeep Randery (1)
Kishalaya Bhattacharjee (1)
Brian D'Souza (1)
Ramesh (1)
Arnab Bhattacharya (?)
Ananya Deb (1)

The first quiz of BQC Season 3 begins on April 13. Prasann Potdar will conduct. The slate is clean, and the possibilities are endless...

New Kid vs Old Sage

David met Goliath a weekend ago -- and they won a quiz each. First, in an open quiz conducted by Dhananjay Shettigar at NM College on March 15, the avuncular Rajiv Rai beat out an impressive field of finalists, partnered by AP Alagarsamy. Then, a day later, the young, almost foetal Govind Grewal stormed to victory in the BQC quiz, letting out a feral roar when first place was assured.

"You're an obnoxious little weed," Rai told him.

"You're a big monkey," Grewal replied.

Anyway, apologies for this late report -- the results of those two quizzes are below, as well as the league standings. With one quiz left in the season, Rajiv has wrapped up first place, and Rishi Iyengar is assured of second. Third place is still open, so bloodshed cannot be ruled out.

NM Open Quiz

First with 240 points
Rajiv Rai
AP Alagarsamy

Second with 140 points
S Balakrishnan
Udatta Duarah

Third with 130 points
Sumant Srivathsan
Arnab Bhattacharya

Fourth-sixth with 120 points (tied)
Amit Varma
Rishi Iyengar

Vibhendu Tiwari
Anand Sivasankar

Govind Grewal
Souvik Basu

As this was an open quiz, with prelims, all finalists got two points for the league table. The other points were awarded as usual: 10 for the winning team, seven for second place, four for third.

The quiz on the 16th was conducted in two halves, by me and Rishi Iyengar respectively. As has become the custom for such quizzes at the BQC, we also took part in each other's halves, swapping places on the same team. The results:

First with 87 points (48 after first half)
Govind Grewal
Amit Pandeya
Pradeep Ramarathnam
Mukund Krishnan

Second with 74 (53)
Rajiv Rai
Sandeep Sen
Anand Sivasankar

Third with 61 (8)
Rishi Iyengar/Amit Varma
Sarat Rao
Devang Ghia

Fourth with 60 (14)
Vibhendu Tiwari
Dhananjay Shettigar
Aditya Agarwal
+ one?

Fifth with 57 (32)
Sumant Srivathsan
Sireesh Rao
Souvik Basu

Sixth with 48 (24)
S Balakrishnan
Arvind Krishnaswamy
+ one

Seventh with 47 (16)
AP Alagarsamy
Udatta Duarah
Sushil Menon

Eighth with 46 (9)
Prasann Potdar
Sandeep Rajpurohit
Sriram Krishnan

A couple of names, of latecomers, are missing. I'll duly fill them in.

And now for the league standings:

BQC Season Two Standings (from 25 quizzes, as of March 28, 2008)

140.5 points
Rajiv Rai (from 19 quizzes)

98 points
Rishi Iyengar (21)

79 points
Amit Varma (21)

75 points
Sumant Srivathsan (21)

72 points
Prasann Potdar (19)

67.5 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (22)
AP Alagarsamy (19)

62 points
Kedar Sastry (16)

59 points
Ajith Prabhakar (17)
Govind Grewal (19)

48 points
Ashwan Lewis (8)
Amit Pandeya (12)


47.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (13)

44 points
Anand Sivasankar (19)

43.5 points
Souvik Basu (?)

43 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (15)

42.5 points
Devang Ghia (22)

42 points
S Balakrishnan (16)

40 points
Ameya Samant (19)

31 points
Shambhu Shankar (?)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)

26 points
Sarat Rao (?)

24 points
Kartik Srivatsa (5)

21 points
Udatta Duarah (10)

18 points
Avinash Mudaliar (9)
Kartik R (?)
Francis Rodrigues (12)

17 points
Ravi Venkatesh (6)

16.5 points
Dhananjay Shettigar (12)

14 points
Samrat Sengupta (7)
Sritanu Chakravarty (4)
Arvind Krishnaswamy (7)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (4)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (3)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (6)
Atulya Bharadwaj (2)
Sandip Sen (4)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Raghu (?)
Sowmya Ramaswamy (1)
Hansraj Singh (1)
John Mascarenhas (3)
Vaibhav Devanathan (1)
Sameer Nair (2)
Movin Miranda (1)
Aditya Agarwal (2)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (3)
Saurav (?)
Nrupal Choudhari (?)
Harshil Shah (1)
Devangshu Datta (1)
Kaustubh Chakraborty (1)

4 points
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (8)
Sushant Raut (5)
Chitra Raghunath (1)
Sandeep Randery (1)
Kishalaya Bhattacharjee (1)
Brian D'Souza (1)
Ramesh (1)
Arnab Bhattacharya (?)

There is exactly one quiz left this season, which will be conducted this Sunday by Sumant Srivathsan. The details:

Time: 3pm, Sunday, March 30 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmaster: Sumant Srivathsan
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

A BQC celebration is expected after the event, and rumour has it that Rajiv, to celebrate his win, will take all past and present BQC quizzers, and their extended families, for drinks to a suitable watering hole. A large catering order for infants has also been made, and fun will no doubt come. So must you.

More Exciting Than the Democratic Convention

Yes, the BQC is all set to meet again! Details:

Time: 3pm, Sunday, March 16 (reporting time: 2.40pm)
Quizmasters: Amit Varma and Rishi Iyengar
Venue: Pinstorm, Ground Floor, Swati House (Next to Kotak Bank on Linking Road), North Avenue, Santa Cruz West. (Detailed directions here.)

A report of the last quiz, and the latest standings, are here.

Like Obamaniacs at a Democratic Caucus...

... the crowds thronged to the latest BQC quiz, conducted by Arvind Krishnaswamy and Govind Grewal. Attendence was high and the quiz was good, with no chestnuts that I spotted -- though there was a question about the Banquet of Chestnuts -- and many current questions. It was an ideal quiz, especially as it almost led to a homicide, caused by Young Grewal displaying an unwareness of the difference between "whose name" and "what name". Still, he is young, and even Nixon left Watergate behind him. (I kid; the rest of his questions were wonderful.)

The seedings went awry, old warriors returned to the BQC stage, and as a result, some immensely strong teams were formed after the draw of lots. Rishi Iyengar and AP Alagarsamy got together with Aditya Agarwal and Francis Rodrigues to take first place, while the all-star team of Rajiv Rai, Vibhendu Tiwari, Kaustubh Chakraborty and Shambhu Shankar came second. My team came third, half a question behind. The results:

First with 240 points
Rishi Iyengar
AP Alagarsamy
Aditya Agarwal
Francis Rodrigues

2nd with 210 points
Rajiv Rai
Vibhendu Tiwari
Kaustubh Chakraborty
Shambhu Shankar

3rd with 205 points
Amit Varma
Devang Ghia
Sritanu Chakravarty

4th with 180 points
S Balakrishnan
Samrat Sengupta
Neelabh

5th with 150 points
Ameya Samant
Udatta Duarah
Avinash Mudaliar
Karthik R

6th and 7th with 135 points each
Ajith Prabhakar
Kedar Sastry
Amit Sharma
Sriram Krishnan

Sumant Srivathsan
Mukund Krishnan
Souvik Basu

8th with 130 points
Prasann Potdar
Brian D'Souza
Kartik

(Some names aren't filled in, I'll fill them in as soon as I get them. Done.)

As for our league standings, well, with two quizzes left in the season, first and second places are wrapped up. But a battle for third place is taking place that seems destined for a bloody ending. Indeed, I wake at night panting, dreaming that Mr Potdar is at my bedside about to carve my neck open, even as Mr Srivathsan stands behind him, about to decapitate Mr Potdar with a battleaxe, unware of Mr Tiwari behind him, about to set fire to a tyre. We all wish we'd never gotten involved, but the BQC is a bit like Hotel California -- you can never leave.

Here come the standings (we give 10 points for first place, seven for second, four for third):

BQC Season Two Standings (from 23 quizzes, as of March 3, 2008)

123.5 points
Rajiv Rai (from 17 quizzes)

92 points
Rishi Iyengar (19)

73 points
Amit Varma (19)

72 points
Prasann Potdar (17)

71 points
Sumant Srivathsan (19)

65.5 points
Vibhendu Tiwari (20)

62 points
Kedar Sastry (16)

59 points
Ajith Prabhakar (17)

57.5 points
AP Alagarsamy (17)

48 points
Ashwan Lewis (8)

47 points
Govind Grewal (17)

41.5 points
Souvik Basu (?)

40 points
Ameya Samant (18)

38.5 points
Devang Ghia (21)

38 points
Amit Pandeya (11)

37.5 points
Mukund Krishnan (12)

35 points
S Balakrishnan (14)
Anand Sivasankar (17)

33 points
Pradeep Ramarathnam (14)

31 points
Shambhu Shankar (?)

28 points
Mahesh Murthy (6)

24 points
Kartik Srivatsa (5)

22 points
Sarat Rao (?)

18 points
Avinash Mudaliar (9)
Kartik R (?)
Francis Rodrigues (11)

17 points
Ravi Venkatesh (6)

16.5 points
Dhananjay Shettigar (11)

14 points
Samrat Sengupta (7)
Udatta Duarah (8)
Sritanu Chakravarty (4)
Arvind Krishnaswamy (6)

11 points
Ajay Ravindran (4)
Meghashyam Shirodkar (3)
Nandan Krishnaswamy (6)
Atulya Bharadwaj (2)

10 points
Aravinda Talluri (1)
Neeraj (1)
Nilesh Jain (1)
Tanmay Sharma (2)
Gaurav Singh (1)
Raghu (?)
Sowmya Ramaswamy (1)
Hansraj Singh (1)
John Mascarenhas (3)
Vaibhav Devanathan (1)
Sameer Nair (2)
Movin Miranda (1)
Aditya Agarwal (1)

8 points
Hanisha Vaswani (5)

7 points
Akshay Mahajan (1)
Rahul Bhaskar (3)
Saurav (?)
Nrupal Choudhari (?)
Harshil Shah (1)
Devangshu Datta (1)
Kaustubh Chakraborty (1)

4 points
Padma Sinha (3)
Pranav Kukreja (1)
Sireesh Talluri Rao (7)
Sushant Raut (5)
Chitra Raghunath (1)
Sandeep Randery (1)
Sandip Sen (3)
Kishalaya Bhattacharjee (1)
Brian D'Souza (1)
Ramesh (1)

The next quiz will be conducted on March 16, with Rishi and me contributing half a quiz each. That will be the penultimate quiz of the year. Be there, much carnage is promised.