As mentioned in a previous post, I attended the British Open Grand Prix yesterday down in Rolleston. Although I have attended an event ran by the IQA in Edinburgh previously, this was my first major event with the BQA and certainly, in terms of numbers of players, the biggest event I have attended.
We were there in plenty of time and before long the individual quiz had started. I knew what to expect of course having purchased the questions previously from the BQA website so the content and difficulty were no surprise. As mentioned in a previous post I also knew where I would be roughly placing in the overall standings so had set myself a target score, which I exceed by three, so in that respect I was certainly happy with the totals. My score was of course much lower than the experience players I was sitting with but I wasn't made to feel belittled or "stupid" in anyway and everyone was full of advice and tips for me which I really appreciated.
The questions themselves were great. The Sport round is always going to be my strongest I feel, and is likely to be for some time yet. 39th in Sport was indeed my highest placing of the day and even though it appears a lot of people "drop" that subject I was not far off some of the others in my table which is encouraging. Its the other areas that let me down though, I took the strategy of neglecting one paper (Physical world) and focusing on the others. (Lowest scoring paper is dropped and the best 5 scores count). I had also been told for now to spend as little time on the tiebreakers as possible and I indeed ignored them completely. I do of course intend to study through all the questions at some point and work out how to improve.
Last word on the individual quiz, which was won by Eggheads Pat Gibson with Jesse Honey (Mastermind winner, World Quiz Champion) in second, is to say that I was happy with my score and if I can keep improving every GP then the only way is up. Roll on Coventry!
After Coventry the team quiz began. I did like the idea of randomised teams and I was placed with some very good quizzers indeed and managed to come 4th in the team aspect. Thrown into the mix was an individual element where 90 questions were given and the average of the middle three scores added to the team score to give the winner. The social side of things is as important as the quiz to many so meeting new people is always good!
In all I had a very enjoyable day indeed and would certainly encourage anyone considering attending an event ran by the BQA to do so (click HERE for the link and head to the forum). Everyone is very friendly, welcoming and as I stated earlier, full of advice and tips so even if like me you imagine you may struggle, its well worth attending.
Roll on Coventry!
Glad you enjoyed yourself. I've been doing it for about eighteen months, and have been hooked. The "nerdy niceness" which Radio Times labelled OC with does prevail. If anyone was minded to belittle a fellow quizzer, I don't think they would be welcome very often. After all, we're just testing ourselves against the setter(s).
ReplyDelete