The BiG Q 2011 by Numbers

The turnout for the BiG Q 2011 was rather disappointing -- just 72 participants this time, compared to more than 120 last year. The competition, however, was as keen as ever.

As per the provisional scores, the top score across Goa was that of Rajiv D'Silva, who had 62. The next best was Ajachi Chakrabarti, whose provisional tally was 57. But during the verification process, I found that Ajachi's paper had been poorly marked. By the time I had corrected it for myself, Ajachi's score had risen to tie with Rajiv's!

Contemplating the prospect of joint winners for the event, I reached for Rajiv's paper. The marking of his paper, it initially seemed, had been perfect, but I noticed one correct answer left unmarked -- and, by the margin of the froth on a glass of beer, Rajiv came out on top, to be deservedly crowned Best-in-Goa Quizzer. Ajachi wins the Best Open Quizzer (BOQ) title from Vasco.

Though the fight for the top spot was as even as it could be, a more remarkable performance was that of Julian D'Costa. This little Boy Quizzard of ours -- a student of Class VIII -- notched up a score of 55 to top the Margao centre!

In Panjim, too, Shashwat Salgaocar, a Class XI student, took the title of BOQ (as Rajiv, the BiG Q, is not eligible for a second award), pipping out the favoured Adish Talwadker by a point. Shashwat, too, benefitted from the checking of the scores, climbing from a provisional total of 39 to a final score of 46.

In both Panjim and Margao, following the norm that no one person will be eligible for two prizes, the Best School Quizzer (BSQ) prizes will go to the second best among the school category participants -- Vilas Pavithran in Margao (with a score of 34) and Kunal Naik (33) in Panjim. Anand P.S. wins the Vasco BSQ title with 25 points.

Among the venues, Ponda was disappointing, with a turnout of just four participants. Anirudh Shirsat scored 33 to be named the BOQ for Ponda, but there were no takers at all for the BSQ prize. That prize we will hand out to the highest-scoring unrecognised school participant across all the locations, which happens to be Akshay Rege (26) from the Panjim venue.

As there are other quiz clubs that have decided to conduct the BiG Q at their venues, we will not be putting up the questions and answers on our blog till about the middle of November. As a courtesy to those clubs, please refrain from giving away any of the questions and answers on public forums until then. I have a lot of funny answers to reveal, but will refrain from doing so till the other cities are done with their BiG Q events.