Thursday, December 09, 2010

Now for some levity...


La Triviata Quizzing Lookalike #1

Pat Gibson or Henri-Marie Beyle, aka Stendhal

Sunday, December 05, 2010

British Open : Europe-wide results

Click on the image below to have it open in a fresh tab/window and then click on it again (in the new tab/window) to have it display full-zize.

Many thanks to our friends in Estonia and Norway for getting their results to me so quickly, and for taking part of course!

Monday, November 22, 2010

iQa European Rankings

These are the official European Rankings post EQC2010. Please note that in error gareth Kingston is listed as English when he is in fact Welsh.






Wednesday, November 17, 2010

EQC2010 Part 4: European Pairs

For the first time ever we had a winner who was forming part of a Pair (Pat Gibson) that previously won the title while playing with a different partner (Dr. Ian Bayley, Tallinn 2005). Pat emerged triumphant this year, alongside partner Kevin Ashman, only after beating off the strongest of challenges from a Finnish duo of Jussi Savanto and Tero Kalliolevo.

Warm and heartfelt commiserations go to Tero who must rate as the unluckiest player of the weekend - finishing runner-up in both the Pairs (by 2 points) and Individuals (by just 1 point) and a Bronze medalist too in the Nations event. Hard luck Tero, that Gold medal will come soon, I'm sure of it!


Third place went to last year's winners David Stainer and Olav Bjortomt. Doubtless they will make another strong challenge for the title when we all meet again in Bruges/Brugge next year.

EQC2010 Part 3: Club Team

Milhous of Swindon, England regained the title they last won in Paris in 2006 (Broken Hearts had triumphed in Blackpool, 2007, Oslo, 2008, and Dordrecht, 2009). The field this year was tremendously strong, here's how they finished after 100 questions spread over 7 rounds.



The 'Milhous' team comprised Kevin Ashman, Pat Gibson, Sean O'Neil and Tim Westcott. Reigning World and British Champion Pat Gibson took the place left vacant by the very sad demise of Mark Bytheway in July 2010. Mark had himself been World Champion (2007/08), and was reiging British Champion at the time of his death from cancer at the age of just 46. RIP Mark.

EQC2010 Part 2: Individual Competition

The Individual Competition was held on Saturday 13th November. This began with a 100 question quiz, over 8 rounds. The top 10 players at the end of round 8 went into a finale, featuring 20 questions worth 2 points each.

At the conclusion of the 20 question finale the placings were as follows…

1st Olav Bjortomt (Eng) 96 points
2nd Tero Kalliolevo (Fin) 95
3rd Pat Gibson (Eng) 94
4th Kevin Ashman (Eng) 93
5th Ronny Swiggers (Bel) 90
6th Nico Pattyn (Bel)
7th Jesse Honey (Eng)
8th Tom Trogh (Bel)
9th Bernard Kreps (Bel)
10th David Stainer (Eng)

This is how the players had stood after the first 100 questions….



For the purposes of the UK Order of Merit, ranking points will be awarded per the following table (with the exception that Olav and Pat exchange places, in light of developments in the finale)...

Headline EQC2010 results: Part1, Nations

The weekend of the 12th-14th November saw quizzers from 15 countries gather at the Derby Conference Centre, Derby, England, for the 7th annual European Quizzing Championships.

The first event of the weekend was a qualifier quiz for the main European (Nations) Championships. A 'table quiz' of 100 questions was played to rank all competing teams in order to settle the draw for a knock-out tournament. In each of the Nations and Aspirational Cups 1st placed finishers would play 4th and 2nd place would play 3rd. Teams finishing 5th to 8th similarly played a KO tourney to formally decide overall 5th to 8th finishes.

Here are the scores after the Qualifier quiz:


From among the national teams (rows 1-9 above the bold line in the graphic above), the top 4 played semi-finals - England defeated Finland and Belgium beat Wales. In the final England beat Belgium, thus retaining the trophy they won in Dordrecht, Holland last year, and Finland defeated Wales in the 'Bronze' match. The top 4 non-national sides (below the bold line in the graphic) played semi finals: England B and Kramerica both beating sides from Belgium to reach the final, where England B triumphed. 'Smurfs' won the 'Bronze' play-off.

The formal placings for the nine nations who fielded a full side were as follows

1. ENGLAND
2. BELGIUM
3. FINLAND
4. WALES
5. NORWAY
6. NETHERLANDS
7. SCOTLAND
8. ESTONIA
9. GERMANY

Results of international semi-matches:

Belgium - Wales 61-60
England - Finland 75-55

Result of lower semi-finals:

Norway beat Estonia
Netherlands beat Scotland

Placing games:

1st place: England 97 - Belgium 74

3rd place: Finland 55 – Wales 51

5th place: Norway 63 – Netherlands 63

7th place: Scotland 59 – Estonia 59


Other countries represented at Derby who did not field a team of four were...

Croatia
Denmark
France
Hungary
India
Ireland
USA

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Norwegian Individual Championships, 2010

It would appear from the Norwegian Quiz Association website that Trine Aalborg, edging out Thomas Kolåsæter, has retained her individual title. Click on heading above for a link to the results on the official Norwegian site.

Well done Trine, just the Team quiz now to repeat last year's hat-trick of titles!

Norwegian Quiz Championships, 2010

What follows is a slightly tweaked Google translation of the article linked to in the headline above:

"This weekend arranged NM quiz. It consists of three quiz competitions. The first is a Pairs Competition (Friday night, 25.9). The other is individual, and takes place Saturday morning. But the big highlight is the Team Championship. There will be set between 100 and 125 questions in each competition to some of the best quizere.

For the occasion, we have Christer Falck as quiz master in the studio of Good Morning Norway, who will ask some questions to some of the biggest quiz profiles - "I think it's fun music quiz. I think it can be fun with the film quiz, but geography quizzes and such, where I come up short" says Falck.

Ole Martin Halck is president of the Norwegian Quiz Association. He is by creating questions to a championship, but he will also help it from quizere that are not in competition. Falck recalls school days together with Ole Martin. "He is probably the smartest person that ever set their feet in Drøbak" says Falck.

Trine Aalborg is the reigning Norwegian champion of Quiz. She says that the broad interests needed to be a great quizzes. "It's no use saying that you do not bother to read about sports because they are not interested in it. Moreover, it is an advantage if things stick a little, "she said.

Lars Heggland is the reigning European champion in Quiz for siblings. "There are not many siblings who lined up in just the competition. In fact, there were only two, us included. But there is still a prestigious title to have!" says Heggland.

Here are the questions that were posed. (Answers below)

1: What two James Bond films, has recorded the most and least translated into today's currency?
2: What was the first, and the last nation, to win the World Cup on home soil?
3: What is the all-time second best-selling music albums and what is the world's best selling single?
4: Which country in the world is what limits to most citizens, that the total number of inhabitants in neighboring countries? And what is the capital?

...."

[Note from Chris - Playing with Lasse Midttun, Trine Aalborg appears to have retained her Norwegiasn Pairs title on Friday 23.9]


Answers to those earlier five questions:
1. 'Thunderball' and 'Licence to Kill'
2. Uruguay and France
3. AC/DC 'Back in Black', and Elton John 'Candle in the wind'.
4. Burma, Naypyidaw

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Quiz Rankings, post 2010 British Championships

Every quizzer who attends a Quizzing.co.uk associated event earns ranking points according to their placing in the individual quiz. The bigger the field, and the greater its strength (calculated by reference to the UK Order of Merit rank), the more ranking points there are up for grabs.

After each event we are able to update two ranking tables...

The first of these is the Order of Merit table - showing players by rank and the points they have earned in the current season. Also indicated (at the foot of the graphic) is the 'promotion pace' target - being the number of points that would be required to achieve each rank (i.e. supposing the season ended now, rather than in early June 2011 when it is actually due to end).

[Right click on graphic and chose 'open in new browser' or simply click to enlarge]



The second graphic shows the top 225 ranked players by points secured over the last 25 events. As time passes players totals erode unless they are doing well in current events.



Tuesday, September 07, 2010

British Pairs Quizzing Championships 2010

We offer our congratulations to David Edwards and Nic Paul, winners of the 2010 British Pairs Quizzing Championships. In our now traditional knock-out format they emerged triumphant from a field of 36 pairs to become the first pairing to regain the title. They did this thanks to top scoring in the final round, digging out 40% more correct answers than the highly fancied pairing of Kevin Ashman and Pat Gibson. Over the three knock-out rounds Ashman and Gibson outscored the eventual winners by two points, but could not maintain their momentum in the final round, garnering only the bronze medals behind the pairing of Jesse Honey and Sean Carey.

The KO stage was preceded by a preliminary round requiring 60 answers. The top scoring 30 pairs were then placed into six groups, with the top scoring sides kept apart (i.e. the quarter final round draw was seeded by reference to scores in the preliminary round).

Click on the images to view full-size in your browser or right click and chose "open in new tab".




British Quizzing Championships 2010: Results

Herewith details of the finishing positions in the three competietive individual contests run on Saturday 4th September 2010. More info on the Championships weekend and Order of Merit rankings etc. to follow:

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