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Rice wins Challenge Bowl

Dean Clark, TLE Editor, SEG

Maximiliano Bezada and Amy Lasseigne of Rice University bolted from behind in both the semifinals and finals to win the fourth SEG Challenge Bowl and US$1000, Monday, 26 October 2009.

The event concluded a year-long competition that featured regional challenge bowls held around the world. Regional winners represented, the United States, Italy, Canada, China, Bulgaria, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates.
 
The presence of nine teams in Monday’s showdown “overloaded” the equipment and forced the first round to be divided into two competitions with five and four teams, respectively.

Rice quickly took command in the first-round competition and advanced to the semifinals along with the University of Oklahoma. Other semifinalists were Italy, Stanford, and Canada.

Rice got a quick 20 points at the start of the semifinals, but did not pick up another point until the 24th question of the round. By that time Stanford had all but assured itself of a spot in the finals and either Oklahoma or Italy seemed likely to win the other spot.

However, Rice ignited their “hometown” crowd with correct answers to five of the final nine questions while neither Oklahoma nor Italy managed to add points.

The final match against Indrajit Das and Nicholas Van Buer of Stanford was a virtuoso display of geoscience knowledge. Only seven of the 30 questions, sometimes circuitously phrased by ebullient emcee Peter Duncan, were answered incorrectly, and four of those were then correctly answered by the other team, even though the questions were deliberately made harder than in previous rounds.

Success in the first two rounds depends upon speed, the ability to “buzz in” before the other competitors. The two-team final round, however, has a different format and the key is gaining the “lead” which allows picking the category (Seismic, Geology, Unseismic, and My SEG) and answering first—with no pressure to buzz in quickly. Stanford opened the finals with correct answers to nine straight questions, including one missed by Rice, which caused Duncan to quip, “Do you think they’re going to run the table.”

However, Stanford failed to answer the 10th question correctly, letting Rice seize the “lead.” Rice answered seven of the next eight questions, leaving both teams with 200 points apiece after 19 questions. Rice then ran a string of five straight correct answers (and nine in a 10-question span) to take a 40-point lead entering the final round which featured ten “short snappers” and which reintroduced the “buzzing in” element. Rice built a lead of 60 points after two questions, meaning Stanford was essentially faced with “running the table” over the final eight questions to win. Both teams had three correct and one incorrect answers the rest of the way resulting in a final score of 270 for Rice and 210 for Stanford. Stanford did win US$600 for reaching the finals.

The other competitors in the finals were Angelo Sajeva and Francesco Grigoli, University of Pisa and winners of the Italian Challenge Bowl; Bradley Wallet and Oswaldo Davogustto, University of Oklahoma, winners of the Sooner Challenge Bowl; Fereidoon Vasheghani Farahani and Hossein Aghabarati, University of Calgary and winners of the CSEG Challenge Bowl; Rui Tang and Qing Yang, Yangtze University and winners of the China Challenge Bowl; Vladislav Angelov and Miglena Toncheva, University “St. Ivan Rilski” of Sofia, and winners of the Balkan Challenge Bowl; Ammar Husseiny El Husseiny and Mohammad Eid Alsuwaidi, Petroleum Institute, and winners of the Middle East Challenge Bowl; and Diego Melgar Moctezuma and Diana Calipse Rosado Viurques, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and winners of the Latin America Challenge Bowl.

The finals were sponsored by bp, Chevron, EnCana, Total, MicroSeismic, and Noble Energy.