De StoneS, the obviously happy champions. They won a fruit basket, 2 cartons of 100PLUS and a colour printer which they themselves donated. But the winning was worth millions to them! They were not just smiling—they actually laughed out loud, a very infectious laugh!
Jolly Roger, the family team of Johan Amilin, wife and children. It's been a while, but today they've redeemed their pride by finding their way back to the podium finish. How did that boy grow so damn fast? It was just like last year he was a small little kid!
The FOURgettables 1, Gan Po Tiau and David Wong and team beat the odds to finish third. David shocked everyone when he demonstrated his elation—an amazing display of achievement by raising the carton of 100PLUS he won to the heavens! As Murphy's Law would have it, they had to hunt during an extremely hot day; and of all the days, it had to be today that their car air-conditioner was suddenly not working.Maximum score 100 points.
1) Teo Chen Lung, Tan Cher Kian, Leslie Yew—75pts
2) Johan Amilin, Siti Nur Hanaa Abdullah, Siti Nur Liyana, Johari Jan—74pts
3) Gan Po Tiau, David Wong, Winnie Chee, Shirley Chai—74pts
4) Ellen Yee, Dr Liaw Yun Haw, Shirley Lim, Mary Lokupi—73pts
5) Liaw Lam Thye, Fong En Fui, Florence Lajagang, Emmanuel Edward—71pts
6) Joanna Stidi, Suzanne Stidi, Adoree Malinjang—66pts
7) Chin TT, Vivian Cham, Grace Chong, Tony Teo—66pts
8) Harry Koh, Buddy Jiliun, Sophia Lai, Evelyn Chew—65pts
9) Malcolm Abidin, Talissa Kiandee, Callum Abidin, Estelle Alana Lee—60pts
10) Eileen Yeoh, Francis Omamalin, Moina Liew—55pts
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This wasn't intended to be a tough hunt. Alvin and I had quite a tough time suppressing our inclinations to set more "artistic" questions, but in the end, we had to keep our promise to make this some sort of tutorial hunt mainly to encourage the new hunters.
To this end, we set a number of basic questions like these:
Q) MALU NAMPAK DARI BELAKANG.
A) YHS @ YEO HIAP SENG TRADING SDN BHD
Q) TAKING NOTHING WITHIN.
A) SYKT. TA KIONG (SABAH) SDN BHD
Q) A DEMON'S TRANSFORMATION.
A) MODENAS
Q) DAY BEFORE BIRTHDAY.
A) KEDAI BUKU SYARIKAT HARI HARI JADI
Q) SHREDDED MAT FOUND HERE.
A) TMA SDN. BHD.
And quite many other basic hunt questions. Apart from the above, we have also given some "spotting" questions, i.e. spotting taglines, or very basic general knowledge questions like the party responsible for the American space program (NASA). Even basic "initial" question like this:
Q) START PAYING AFTER YOU OFFER THEM, PERHAPS ADDING RELATED INSTALLATION SERVICES.
A) PAYOT PARIS.Yet we were somewhat surprised and baffled to see that the highest score was only 75%, i.e. still a huge gap of 25%. I can't blame the new hunters, but I'm more concerned with the performance of the regular teams. I can only guess what went wrong.
On the whole, I think most teams did not do well in the treasures. Many of the regular teams got only 2 out of 4. Some stronger ones got 3. Only one team got all 4 treasures and emerged second. I didn't think our treasure clues were very difficult. This is perhaps one area our local regular teams should focus on in future hunts. The winning team, for example, only managed to get 1 treasure. So it is obvious that all of them need to work on their treasures.
Another weakness which could use a lot of improvement is their cryptic skill. Although I said we gave plenty of basic hunt questions, I also threw in some higher-level cryptic clues to give the regular teams a bit of challenge. But I am quite disappointed to find that either none or very few of them could answer those questions. I thought if those questions were set for a field of KL regular hunters, most of them would be answered. It goes to show that we still have a lot of catching up to do.
Consider these questions:
Q) IT IS NOT ENOUGH WHEN TAKEN BY THE FRENCH.
A) CKS SUPERMARKET
Q) EDGE OF DAMASCUS?
A) DORS ENTERPRISE
Q) WITHIN THE HOUR, PROTECT OR HIDE A FUGITIVE.
A) ARB @ BORNEO 4WD
I feel that regular hunters should reasonably be able to tackle the above questions. But too few of them did. In fact, no one found DORS.
Another strange thing about KK hunters is what I said in the briefing this morning. For some reason, they just simply will never remember the Roman numerals, I don't know why! Some of them have hunted in several of my past hunts. They knew very well that I almost always set some questions on Roman numerals. Yet they just never learned! Consider this following question which only a few teams solved:
Q) START BY ENTERING NUMBER 509 HERE.
A) BENDIX
During the hunt, I went around to watch the hunters in action. I noticed that hardly any of them spent much time checking their dictionaries or thesaurus. They don't have the habit to research a bit on possible alternative words or synonyms. If I'm not wrong, only one team found the answer to this question:
Q) INTELLIGENT AND KEEN.
A) SHARP
A question which I thought should be achieveable by everyone if only they took the trouble to check, say, the thesaurus. They woud then find that SHARP=INTELLIGENT=KEEN. In other words, this is a double definition question.
On the whole, I think as far as KK hunts are concerned, there in no need to go very far to make the questions challenging. Only a few high-level cryptic ones are quite good enough to throw 'em all into all sorts of trouble!
But I think the highlight of the day was the fact that De StoneS (previously known as Bachelords) donated a brand new printer for the first prize; and then in the end, they won that prize back! So now they have again donated that same printer to my KK Challenge 5, meant for 17 October. They told me to put it into the top prize so that they might just repeat their feat again then. Well, not that I am underestimating De StoneS, but Main Tembak will be there on that day, so it won't be very straightforward. But the good thing is that a few of the top teams are apparently very determined to make Main Tembak run for their money! This is all going to be very exciting!
UPDATE (01 Sept):
My sincere apology for forgetting to mention here that, apart from De StoneS donating the colour printer, Eileen Yeoh also donated several car window shades for this hunt.
Thank you once again to everybody for supporting this hunt.
UPDATE (01 Sept):
My sincere apology for forgetting to mention here that, apart from De StoneS donating the colour printer, Eileen Yeoh also donated several car window shades for this hunt.
Thank you once again to everybody for supporting this hunt.
7 comments:
Hi Cornelius, Thanks for taking the time out to organize the Novice hunt.
The goal for Team Jolly Roger at the moment is to rekindle the passion in hunting after the tension we experienced as a team (or rather non-team) during the KK City Hunt of '09.
My younger team mates have been given more responsibilities, have invited friends to be part of the team (the Kena Tembak hunt) and in this hunt, instead of Hana being the driver as usual, I handled the driving and she got to do the solving with the children.
I am happy to say that our 2nd placing yesterday has rekindled some of the embers, we'll be doing a post-mortem of yesterday's hunt and i have already received approval from my team members to participate in your upcoming hunt on the 17th even though we will only be back from an overseas trip on the 14th.
Hopefully we can step up our game a bit in your hunt which we have not done too badly in in previous editions.
Thanks again for your time and sacrifice for the game.
journeyman,
Congratulations for a fine achievement. And I am particularly impressed by your team for solving all the treasure riddles.
I can understand - I'm sure most regular hunters can understand - the tendency to become "overly excited" during a hunt. I have been through some lousy episodes myself. That is just human, I guess. But the most important thing is how quickly can we recover from such setback. I used to laugh about my own behavior. Things can become totally out of hand in a competitive environment, and there is the tendency to forget that that can absolutely ruin the fun. When winning becomes more important than having fun, that can spoil the whole thing, of course.
I'm glad to know that I have already secured at least a team for my KK Challenge 5. I look forward to another good outing for Team Jolly Roger!
hey, 1st of all, thanks for organizing and it was great fun.
regarding the printer thingy in your Oct 7 KK Challenge, of course, with Main Tembak in the fray we are not dreaming of getting anywhere near them or other regulars. this time is really our luck :)
our team really has to work on the clues especially for the treasure section. and you pointed it out rightly that 25% gap is still a far way to go! so for our team i guess, in the midst of having fun in the hunts, we have to really step up our game ... hopefully hahaha....
can't wait for KK Challenge 5!
On behalf of Team Kena Tembak and myself, I want to say thank you for all the kind SMSes, emails, and the compliments from hunters after this hunt. I am glad to know that you have had fun and learned something valuable. But I hope you people won't learn too much to the extent of beating my team the next time I hunt again!... HAHAHA!
The scary thing, however, is that a number of you have already verbally "booked" places in my 17 October hunt. I have to be on my toes now. I'm under a lot of pressure to set at least an equally enjoyable hunt as yesterday's! I shall try my best to prepare some exciting dish for you all.
CK,
Apart from congratulating your team for winning the hunt, I must also congratulate you for being the sexiest hunter yesterday! Are you sure you did not get mixed up yesterday's event with some sort of running event? I can imagine you must have suffered sun burns after that hunt? What was that all about?... trying to take advantage of the outing to get some sun tan?
sounds like a fun day! :)
Oh yes, Sarah, it was indeed a fun day! How I envied the hunters in their mind-torturing quests that day.
But on the other hand, it was also enjoyable to be the one to set the riddles for them all. It was also an exciting experience working with Team Kena Tembak.
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