Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Julian wins Mastermind Junior title



The hunt for SEQC's Junior Mastermind came to a tense climax on the evening of December 18, at the same location where the senior contest had been played out two years previously -- the beautiful setting of the Divli Lawns at the International Centre Goa (ICG) in Dona Paula. Rajiv D'Silva, who had been the Quizmaster for the entire event, set things up nicely before the contests began, with some funny introductions to the participants.

The final result may have been true to form -- with Julian D'Costa taking the title -- but the path there was anything but easy. The specialised subject round saw the four finalists arrayed close together, with just 3 points separating the first from the last.

At the end of the specialised subject round, Tarun, whose chosen topic was 'The Synoptic Gospels', was placed fourth, with a score of 10; Shubham, who had elected to be quizzed on the band 'LMFAO', was on 12; and Kunal ('The Inheritance Novels of Christopher Paolini') and Julian ('Platonic Solids') were tied at 13 each.

For the first time in the competition, one could see distinct signs of nervousness on the faces of the front-runners.

The four finalists in the hot seat.

In the general knowledge round, Tarun more or less dropped out of the reckoning with a low score. Shubham, who was up next, did only slightly better, setting up an edge-of-the-seat face-off between Kunal and Julian.

Kunal was characteristically polished at his general knowledge, setting Julian a target of 11 to win the title. For a little while, as Julian stumbled on a couple of questions, it seemed that it was going to come down to the wire, but in the end, he finished with 12 points, for a cumulative total of 25 points to Kunal's 23.

SEQC was lucky to have pulled off something of a coup, having chess wunderkind Ivana Furtado at hand to give away the prizes. Also visiting for the day, and forced into the photo op was a distinctly uncomfortable Vidyadhar Gadgil, who had been crowned SEQC's senior Mastermind two years ago.

Chief Guest for the event, Ivana Furtado, flanked by a beaming Junior Mastermind, Julian D'Costa, and an awkward senior Mastermind, Vidyadhar Gadgil.

Ivana evidently enjoyed the event enough that she, along with her father, stayed back to witness the second event of the day -- the Sports Quiz conducted by Amit Shet. That was also quite a hit, with a sizeable crowd watching the six finalist teams battle it out on stage.

Ameya and Rohit, the latter attending his first SEQC quiz, pipped Annie and Gadgil at the post, winning by 65 points to 60. The young team of Shashwat and Shubham came in 3rd.

Ivana presenting the 1st prize for the Sports Quiz to Ameya and Rohit.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Read my lips - NO Quizzing

Liberation Day Football Match

Date: 19th December 2011
Time: 8.00 am. Skirmishes will begin at 8.15 sharp. We ought to be finished (deliberate choice of word, that) by 9.30 am.
Venue: Caranzalem Beach. Along the stretch of beach just across from the main gate of the Goa Science Centre.
Participation: Open to all.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Mastermind Junior Finals

Date: 18th November 2011
Time: 5.45 pm, right after the Sports Quiz Prelims
QM: Rajiv D'Silva
Format: Classic Mastermind
Venue: Divli Lawns, International Centre Goa, Dona Paula
Finalists: Julian D'Costa, Kunal Naik, Shubham Tiwari, Tarun Mascarenhas.

From Thomson to Thompson

(Jeff and Daley, to be precise)


Date: 18th December 2011
Time: 5.00 pm. Prelims will begin at 5.15 sharp.
QM: Amit Shet
Flavour: Sports
Venue: Divli Lawns, The International Centre Goa, Dona Paula
Participation: Open to all, in teams of two. Registration on the spot.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

SEQC December Results

QM: Yogesh Pai

1st: [Akshay Rege, Aniruddha Sen Gupta, Justin Pereira, R. Nirmala, Samyak Rajanala, Shubham Tiwari] & [Atharv Joshi, Conrad Fernandes, Kanchan Gatward, Rajiv D'Silva, Sunil Sardessai] - 135
3rd: Carmen Pereira, Jay Kamat, Mahesh Prabhu, Nitish Fatarpekar, Sajan Venniyoor, Shaswat Salgaonkar, Yash Pathak - 100
4th: Aditya Mallya, Ajachi Chakrabarti, Ashwin Mascarenhas, Kunal Naik, Nikhil Shirsat, Rani Pathak - 85
5th: Manguesha Kamat, Nate Hook, Nitish Wagle, Paola Mambro, Paul Gatward, Tanmay Naik, Sanket Nayak - 50
6th: Agastya Keni, Anjali Sen Gupta, Cyrus Pereira, Malcolm Gurjao, Ratan Doddalinganavar, Shobha Doddalinganavar, Soham Gaunekar, Srijit Kumar - 45

The next Panjim monthly will be held on the 8th of January 2012, to be hosted by Nitish Wagle.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Mega-Whats 2011

The third edition of Mega-Whats, the KQA’s National Open Quizzing Championship will be held on Sunday, 11 December 2011.
The quiz will be held across thirteen cities simultaneously - Bangalore, Chennai, Guwahati, Goa, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Coimbatore, Mumbai, Mysore, New Delhi, Pune, Thrissur, and Thiruvananthapuram.
The Goa edition will be held at the International Centre Goa, Dona Paula.
Please register in advance to ensure good seating.
An entry form is provided here–scroll to the end of the page: http://kqaquizzes.org/megawhats/

The details:
  • Date: Sunday, 11 December 2011
  • Please report by 1430hrs at the venue. Since we need to ensure a coordinated start nationwide, the quiz will start at 1500hrs sharp. The doors will be closed five minutes before we begin.
  • General quiz, open to all.
  • Teams of FOUR members (or less).
  • Prior registration is essential.
  • To register, please use the form as indicated above.
  • Please provide the names of the four people who comprise your team; also indicate whether you are taking part in the school, college or open categories
  • Registrations will close on Tuesday 6th December 2011. City co-ordinators will allow entries after the cut-off date at their discretion.
  • The school category is open only to teams comprising students from Std. VIII-X
  • Contesting teams will answer in writing a quiz of six sections and about sixty questions, inclusive of audios, videos and visuals.
  • Answers and scores will be announced immediately after the event–prizes will be given out for Best School Team, Best College Team, and Best Open Team.
  • The prizes aren’t small–they are insignificant.
  • We will rank the top 100 teams across the country–this list will go up by the 25th of December.
  • The rankings will be announced after adjudication. The decision of the quiz-masters will be final and binding on all participants.
  • The city-winners will face off in June 2012 as part of the KQA 29th Anniversary.
For more details, please visit www.kqaquizzes.org or call Arul Mani at 097312-14519