Report on the 14 September Quiz

The down and dirty on the 14 September 2008 edition of the HQC Monthly Quiz series. Thanks to Renu and Majji for the report (with minor editorial kirkiri).

QM: Ravi Mundoli, Priyambad Pattanayak, Nitish Khadiya, Diwakar Pingle (in absentia)

Format: Teams of 2 and 3. There were 20 odd people in 8 teams, in toto.

Report: Earlier this year, the QMs conducted the Greenko Hyd Open Quiz – which was the biggest quiz in recent years in Hyd and which was attended by some of the top quizzing teams in the country. The quiz this Sunday (Sept 14th) was essentially culled from the surplus questions of the aforementioned Open Quiz.

In terms of attendance, the quiz could have done better. Some of the usual suspects were missing perhaps because it was the day of Vinayaka Nimarjana or a lazy Sunday morning.

The quiz was divided into three rounds based on the level of difficulty: Plain Sailing, Base Camp and Summit Assault – a format inspired by the Quiz Mountain, apparently. Needless to say, the level of difficulty of questions in Summit Assault racked the brains of all present.

The questions ranged from word-origins to mythology to sports to movies, making sure all kinds of palates were satiated; and were of the top quality. In fact, some of us felt that quite a few of these should have made it to the Open Quiz in August.

Most of the teams did well in the Plain Sailing round (the round with the easy questions). It was the next 2 rounds - Base Camp and Summit Assault where the boys were separated from the men. Bhargav was in cracking form and could not have been stopped by anyone on that day. His team led from the beginning and had their hands on the top place by the time the rounds were reversed. Subbareddy and Sudhir – with their late surge in the final Summit Assault round - gave a run for the "coupons" to the team placed 2nd (Debjit & Co.), but it was too late to catch up.

The prizes in the form of coupons from Walden (and not Odyssey as always!). The venue – a small, comfy conference room with a seating of about 40, was provided by Innobox. The QM (Ravi Mundoli alias Kiddo) livened up the quiz with his easy style and sarcastic humour.

The 48 question quiz lasted an hour and a half, and left the entire group thoroughly satisfied with having taken the effort to wake up early on an otherwise sleepy day.

Winners:
1. Bhargav & Navneet
2. Debjit & Co.
3. Subbareddy & Sudhir Pai.

Thumbs Up
1. Great questions (Kudos to Diwakar, Priyambad, Nitish & Ravi)
2. Ravi
3. Bhargav (superlative performance!)
4. Cozy and comfortable (air-conditioned?!) venue

Thumbs Down
1. Not enough participation
2. Venue a tad difficult to locate
3. Some of the questions were possibly mis-classified i.e. we didn't judge the difficulty properly. --Ed
4. Power went off and on a couple of times. --Ed

Memorable Questions
Coaches of the Palace on Wheels, creamy layer, Bharuch/Kalyan, Kishore Kumar, flags of convenience

Quizmasters' Note
Our thanks to everyone who took time off on a potentially troublesome Sunday morning to attend. In particular, we were thrilled to play host to the new K-Circle executive committee! Of course, none of this would've been possible without Innobox's continued support, so thanks for that too.

The next quiz will be by Pradeep Ramarathnam of the BQC is tentatively scheduled for 12th October, 2008 (Sunday) at the same time and in the same place.