Friday, February 13, 2009

Quiz 5 report -- balls, bats, beers and blunders

77 runs in an over, lots of beer and the unheralded players of Indian world cup cricket teams -- Pranav's quiz made for the lack of good old cricket questions over the last of couple weeks. But of course, where there is sport, there is controversy -- dubious decisions, questionable umpiring and sledging were all a part of the game :-)

The quiz started with a cool "handout" question before the standard IRs and long connects; overall about 3/4th of questions were answered. Teams had some great answers to many well-researched questions -- Suyash's correct answer that was phrased "if we don't have anything meaningful to guess, then I will take a bizzare guess that the answer is Eric Cantona"; Apurva's know-how of beer cans consumed on flights, Nishtha's info about "groupie" sleeping, Harsha's lady godiva answer that was completed by the next team and the winning teams answer where all members gave three different answers about a (pseudo-)scientific theory (and the QM heard the right one to give them points ;-)). Keshav got some good help, both from his teammates (Gaurav/Srinivas/Varun) and from an umpiring gaffe, to continue his winning spree. Apurva/Ayshwarya/Swapnil finished second by an improbable margin of one-fourth of a question. And the third-place tie went in favor of Murali/Pradipta/Suyash.

The only dubious "umpiring" decision was when the QM refused to scrap a question due to an inadvertent error. The unwritten laws of quizzing clearly state that a question stands scrapped -- complete scrap, no questions asked -- if the QM blunders that question. Most people (except the team that benefited from the gaffe) rightfully called for scrapping it, the QM did hint at doing so and then he changed his mind ... But another unwritten law of quizzing states, the QM's decision is the final decision ... however questionable that decision might be :-)
Where there's sport, there's controversy!

Quiz teams (and standings) --

Harsha/Nishtha/Shantanu + 1
Apurva/Ayshwarya/Swapnil (second place)
Ayan/Chirantan/Varun
Murali/Pradipta/Suyash (third place)
Siddharth/Vinay/Vyas
Gaurav/Keshav/Srinivas/VarunAg (first place)

Latest league standing are up at:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pad8OkPTEUANT0-QEnI_oTA

Next week: Varun will bring 36 questions of which only 15 to 21 will be answered. That's all he needs to become the first one to get the bonus QM points, simple :-)

5 comments:

  1. I repeat, there was no malicious intention of acquiring bonus points :) Also as Apurva rightly pointed out during the quiz, the +1 bonus question was scrapped. If there had only been a +2 the buck would have stopped at Keshav and there would have been no axe to grind :)

    Great post otherwise :) Looking forward to Varuns quiz and yet another day where Swapnil comes 2nd :) Hari Om

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  2. actually i didnt think the question needed to be scrapped, (so technically tommy isnt right but other teams wanting it to get scrapped)keshav's team got one part of the question right for which they got points...and the next part got scrapped...and of course the other teams would want it to be scrapped(my team was trailing so i didnt care)...but all the teams were close , every point mattered in the end i guess...fun quiz, and fun post too

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  3. Thank you once again Nishtha...very valid point that all other teams would want that question scrapped after we got 2 points for it..but only the 1 point part being scrapped made sense.

    But all quizzes are really close...anyway looking forward to Varun's next week...am quite sure this time Tommy will win...he's been knocking on that door for quite a while and my luck can't last too long.

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  4. Tommy will always knock on the door as the door does not have the pet door ;)
    Ya the 1 point Q was scrapped... and I can never forgive exodus for putting stairway to heaven Q.. also Lost In Thought ( my next Quiz) is almost ready and this time I am going to target 70%... Tommy mentioned my drinking answer ( :-) ) but I liked the chakravyuh question. It was pure figuring it out...
    Cheers!!!

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  5. Chakravyuh was a good answer..our team's best one wa the ball of the century one...loved that figured it from scratch once we realized it was cricket related also Delhi was a beauty from Gaurav..should have got man with no name...

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