Tembak Series 1—Return Of The Terrifying Question

Whenever I set a hunt, I would try to give a good mix of easy and tough questions to cater for the wide range of hunters' skills and abilities. If possible, I'd like to allow the weak teams to achieve at least 40% to 50% of the score; while at the same time disallow the top teams to achieve the perfect score.

Dealing with the weak teams is much easier—I can play with the questions at will and the performances of the weak teams are very predictable. The same, however, can't be said of the top teams. They have seen most, if not all, of the tricks in the book, and no matter how you turn and twist your riddles, they're bound to find their ways to the solutions. For this reason, being a CoC, the challenge is to set something which the top hunters can't solve somehow, but at the same time giving them sufficient opportunities to actually solve those questions. In a way, the thrill is to bring them very close to the answers, yet not allowing them to actually see the solutions!

These are the type of questions which I have described as “reserved for the CoC”, meaning that it’s very far-fetched to expect the hunters to be able to solve them. Nonetheless, in spite of the “reserved for the CoC” I’m always guided by the principle of fairness—there is no point to set a question which is impossible to solve. What I really want is to allow the prudent hunter who analyses my question methodically and systematically, and with a bit of patience and lateral thinking, he has a good shot of arriving at the answer.

I have written about the “terrifying question” of last year’s Kiwanis Hunt, of which I considered unfair, though perhaps some teams might have solved that question anyway. In the Tembak Series 1, we had another terrifying question, of which Dr Liaw objected to when the answer was revealed. No one solved that question. It’s like this:

QC5) PUT ON FIRST TO GET READY.

The answer for the above question was to be found within the City Mall sector. In the case of my team, it meant during the dying minutes of the hunt, and under the scorching sun. And upon reading the question, I immediately saw the “terrifying question” of the Kiwanis in my mind. I saw the question for what it was—a mere equation comprising variables with no known value.

Looking at the question, one can quickly figure out the intention of the CoC. He wants the synonym of “PUT ON” which is to come first, i.e. before something which is found on the board (the answer); and when those two elements are combined together, we can get the synonym of “READY”.

Thus the equation which we can construct from the question is like this:

[Synonym of PUT ON] + [the ANSWER (found within sector)] => [Synonym of READY]

All 3 elements of the equation have no known value. In mathematical sense, it is something like trying to solve the equation:

X + Y = Z

In other words, what’s really required from the hunter is for him to stretch his mind to guess at least one of the unknown elements above, and then start on trial and error therefrom to solve the equation somehow. Flipping through a good Thesaurus, one is able to find quite a lot of words which can fit “PUT ON”, for example. Perhaps the word “WEAR” might come to mind. And if you looked up for “WEAR” in the Thesaurus, you can find quite a daunting amount of possible synonyms.

This, however, should not be surprising, because the trend of “searching for a needle in a haystack” is quite commonly seen in most hunts these days.

Anyway, if one had plenty of time to do the trial-and-error thing, he might be able to decide—for certain—on the word “DON” for “PUT ON”. He then comes up with the following equation:

DON + [ANSWER] = [Synonym of READY]

And then flipping through the Thesaurus again, he is able to find "DONE", which is a synonym of the word “READY”. Therefore, he is able to simplify the equation further to become:

DON + [ANSWER] = DONE

And so, he is able to find the required answer:

A) E @ column of building

But of course, when looking at the solution from the direction of answer -> question, the whole thing appears to be very easy and solvable. Nevertheless it absolutely whitewashed the entire field in the Tembak Series 1. If I had only found "DON" during those dying minutes, I might have been able to solve this question. But, y'know, I'm just not such a lucky person.

Interestingly, when Dr Liaw objected, the CoC had a foolproof response which was not to be gainsaid:

Just consider like every team had 39 questions today—and not 40 questions.

I must remember that line; I could use it one of these days. (Smile)

Tembak Series 1—Fighting For A Candy

In the Plaza Grand Millennium, while my skin was burning in the extremely hot and humid condition, under serious time pressure, and mentally resigned to the reality that my team was gonna lose big time to the other teams, I failed to solve some annoyingly easy questions.

However, a couple of those questions, though not very tough, were tricky enough to catch the regular hunters. Consider the question below, which I'd like to think that I'm be able to solve in any ordinary day, but which I failed to solve under the circumstances mentioned above:

QF8) SOUNDS SWEET?

A) K & Y TRADING CO

The CoC explained the solution like this:

The word SOUNDS in the question is a homophone indicator. It means that the word we're looking for sounds like another word with a different meaning and different spelling.

The "&" found in the intended answer is first converted to "AND", of which we would then yield "K AND Y" from the original "K & Y".

KANDY, when read like that, sounds like CANDY which is a synonym of SWEET.

At this point, however, a regular hunter, Richard Tsen, interrupted the CoC to challenge his solution. He pointed out that when looking at that signboard, the way it is read is K-AND-Y, i.e. a 3-syllable word. Anyone looking at that signboard would not read it as KAN-DY, i.e. a 2-syllable word. Therefore, if that intended answer is not read as KAN-DY, then it follows that it's not possible for that answer to sound like CANDY. And if it doesn't sound like CANDY, why, then it does not satisfy the requirement of sounds like. That being the case, "K & Y" is not an acceptable answer to the question!

Everyone in the audience perked up to this little debate between Richard and Alvin. And then Richard turned an appealing face to me. I made up my mind about this particular question—and the arguments for and against the solution—there and then, but I did not think it was appropriate for me to take up the role of an arbitrator for the dispute. I didn't think it's amusing that everyone should think that I'm some sort of authority in treasure hunts, because of course I am simply not!

As everyone knows, the CoC has always been, and will always be, the sole decision maker whenever there is any dispute in his hunt. I'm not saying that the CoC is always right; merely that he always has the final say. I said to Richard that I understood his point of argument, but did not elaborate whether I supported him or Alvin. And then that was that; thus Richard was silenced, the audience turned attentive faces to Alvin once again, and the presentation continued.

In my opinion, Richard had a very strong point. Looking at the signboard as it was, an average person in the street would read it as a 3-syllable word, i.e. K-AND-Y, and not as a 2-syllable word, i.e. KAN-DY. When viewed rigidly from this angle, it is very easy to agree with Richard.

That said, however, in this particular case, my decision would without any doubt be in favour of the CoC, even though I myself have failed to answer this question!

There are 2 points I'd like to raise to support the CoC's case. Firstly, the character of treasure hunt questions has been cryptic in nature for many years now. What it means is that a lot of the time, one must be able to view the clues not only in the literal sense, but also in the lateral sense. "Space deception" has been an integral part of hunt questions, and I can't imagine how restricted the setter would be without the use of "space deception". Even if the "K & Y" are separated into 3 elements, and pronounced as 3 separate elements as a norm, it doesn't follow that we are restricted to pronounce it only as a 3-syllable word. I must ask Richard why he did not object to another question in the same hunt where "space deception" was also used.

Q) ADULT MALE IS FAST!

A) MANIS EXPRESS

Based on the question, we're talking about 2 separate words, each with its own independent meaning, i.e. "MAN" and "IS". But in the answer, what we have is a single word, i.e. "MANIS". And even if we want to argue that "MANIS" is pronounced as a 2-syllable word, that still can't stand, because the pronunciation is "MA" and "NIS"— not "MAN" and "IS".

Secondly, I feel that the CoC had protected himself sufficiently in this case with the clever use of the question mark (?). The "?" is used in cryptic clues to signal to the solver some sort of pun—an indirect interpretation or a lateral way of looking at a particular word or sentence. I have discussed about this before in another post in this blog.

On account of the "?" in the question, it is suggestive of an alternative way of pronouncing the word on the board. Which means eventhough we're seeing K-AND-Y, because of the suggestive "?", the solver should also explore the possibility of KAN-DY.

For the above reasons, I'm inclined to take the side of the CoC. I thought it's a decent question of an average difficulty level. Unfortunately, I failed to see the KAN-DY during the hunt. Sigh.

Tembak Series 1—The Search For Something In Common

I have mentioned that the CoC for this hunt did a good job in balancing the easy and tough questions. However, sometimes hunters need to slow down a bit when dealing with "easy" questions. For even the simplest-looking question may have an unexpected twist which renders it "difficult".

QB3) IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A KITE! IT'S AN ISLAND.

A devilish idea of the CoC which almost caught me unaware. It's an obviously easy and straightforward question which required a bit of general knowledge. We reached the sector, saw the obvious "SWALLOWS (K.K.) TRADING SDN. BHD." and mechanically wrote down the answer—all done within a minute.

However, when we were making our final round of the sector, the "grammatical inclination" kicked in. "IT'S A BIRD..." could only mean one thing—it meant we were looking for a singular item. Since "SWALLOWS" is plural, it followed that it couldn't have been the required answer. We were discussing a treasure riddle when Mia suddenly saw a superior answer—LAYANG-LAYANG, which was a perfect fit for the question. And that was quickly followed by the excitement of everyone in the car trying to claim credit for this obviously correct answer. Not exactly a very neat red herring, but we almost fell for it anyway!

Later on, in a different sector, we had a similar question:

QH3) RED, BALTIC AND MEDITERRANEAN.

This time it was a shorter sector. Well, actually, the sector was quite long, but we were able to quickly shorten it substantially because we found the other answers in the sequence. Looking up to the top of the tall building, we saw "SEA" at SABAH ENGINEERS ASSOCIATION. And again it's very tempting to just quickly accept SEA as the answer. However, SEA failed on grammatical grounds. We're talking about the Red (SEA), Baltic (SEA) and Mediterranean (SEA). Those are THREE Seas, and therefore the answer must be in plural form—SEAS.

It was for this reason that I lingered on for a while, trying to search for a less visible SEAS (with the "S" in the end). It's quite obvious to me that this was yet another red herring. Good try by the CoC, but sorry, their red herring was not gonna work on a hunter with grammatical obsession like me!

Although I did not fall for this second decoy, I failed to find the required SEAS or OCEANS even though I spent some time scanning practically each and every single board within that sector. Now what?

Well, that's the funny thing about treasure hunting—sometimes, when you are unable to find the correct answer, you would take an answer which you know is wrong. Yet you still offer that wrong answer anyway if only for the sake of filling up the answer space!

Of course, later on, when the answer was revealed by the CoC, you can imagine my relief when it turned out that SEA @ SABAH ENGINEERS ASSOCIATION was indeed the required answer.

I think it was a minor oversight by the CoC which could have saved some precious minutes for us hunters. But this is where prudence can lose out to the new hunters. I suspect that most of them arrived at the sector, saw the SEA, took it and left the sector in a jiffy; whereas this experienced hunter made a fool of himself, looking for something which did not exist in that sector!

A possible improvement to the question is by replacing the word "AND" with "OR", thus making it:

Q) RED, BALTIC OR MEDITTERANEAN.

In which case we're talking about the Red SEA, Baltic SEA or Meditteranean SEA independently in isolation one at a time. And it would then fit the singular SEA perfectly.

Tembak Series 1—Treasure Hunt

What a day—and a very exhausting one too!

The treasure hunters started to assemble at the Celyn Hotel in City Mall at around 7:00am. The Tembak Series 1 is a debut role as Clerk-of-Course (CoC) by Team Main Tembak. However, because its team members were convinced that they're gonna get lots of criticisms from this Tukang Kutuk, they've changed their name to Kena Tembak.

There were 40 route questions and 4 treasure questions in this hunt, spread within an approximate distance of 50km and time control of 5 hours plus 30 minutes penalty time. Before the flag off, however, Alvin Wong conducted a hunt briefing which lasted for about half an hour. Immediately after the briefing, teams were flagged off at about 8:00am.

I have a shrewd suspicion that the CoC got a bit carried away in view of the reduction of fuel prices a few months ago—they brought us from City Mall to Kolombong/Inanam, to Indah Permai, to Kingfisher; then back to Damai and further to Plaza Grand Millennium before making our way back to City Mall again.

I thought we had a strong field today. Most of the regular teams were there. In accordance with a habit of my friend, Teck Koon, I took the trouble of seeding the teams before the hunt. I seeded my own team, Megapawns, fourth. I felt it was a bit far-fetched for us to even get into the top 3.

As for the hunt, I must say that the CoC performed beyond my expectation. Those of you who's been following this blog would know that I'm not known for my generosity in giving praises to CoCs. And when I criticise, I usually do so brutally. But my criticisms are not meant to be personal. Whenever I do my tukang kutuk thing, I do not see the CoC as a friend or enemy. I try to ignore my relationship with the CoC because only then am I able to give an unbiased comment on the hunt.

Well, as I was saying, I felt that the CoC performed beyond my expectation. But of course there's no reason why they shouldn't, because after all the team members of Kena Tembak are master hunters, with many years of hunting experience. In my opinion, the CoC did very well in balancing the level of difficulties while at the same time giving the local hunters a good challenge. It was a fairly tough hunt, but not to the extent of killing the fun for the new teams. To me, that in itself is already a good achievement.

Although I wrote down the results when they were announced at the end of the hunt, my record is incomplete. So I have asked Alvin to send me the official results soon. I shall publish them here when I get them from Alvin.

The CoC has an interesting style of repeating some words in his questions. And those words have different roles to play. Consider this example:

Q) SHAKE SHAKE IN LONG HEART.

A) PEAK SHINE SDN. BHD.

One SHAKE is the anagram indicator, while the other is the fodder. I'm happy to see this kind of confusion/deception in hunt questions. The only thing that I'd like the CoC to improve is on the elegance of the surface reading. It means that the storyline in the question should be as meaningful and natural as possible. Of course I am not trained in the medical field, but I doubt that there is such a thing as a long (or short) heart.

Consider another example of repetitive words in a question:

Q) INSERT AND INSERT BETWEEN TWO.

A) the S'wich

A somewhat confusing clue. And if one is unable to think along the right track, he is bound to get to a dead end—like what happened to me. Sometimes it's like that in a hunt—if you can't see it, you just can't see it! The point is, the "INSERT AND" is the instruction of what action needs to be done to the intended answer; and "INSERT BETWEEN TWO" defines the resulting word of that action.

In terms of accuracy, I must say that I was a bit surprised that the CoC also did quite well. Except for one small grammatical inaccuracy, it's hard to find any holes in the rest of the questions. Perhaps my only minor unhappiness is on the issue of elegance of the surface reading as mentioned earlier.

My team started the hunt very well, we managed to solve all the questions in Kolombong. Many of the KK hunters would know that I almost always bring them to Kolombong in my hunts. And can almost memorize all the boards there. One glance at the questions, I could pinpoint where the answers were. So we covered this sector fairly quickly and easily.

The Inanam Business Centre was also a familiar sector for me, and we did well there too. But beyond that, we started to get into trouble. When we got to Nountun, we started to drop questions. Later on, we dropped a few more questions in Indah Permai and Kingfisher.

By the time we got to Millennium, I had resigned to the fact that we had dropped too many questions to even hold on to our fouth seeding. By then we were running short on time. And the extremely hot sun did not help either. It's funny how quickly the mind can stop functioning when one has mentally given up hope. Everything just went downhill for me. Even easy questions became tough. Something meant for the beginners became quite a challenge to me. I walked on that long sector, of course, but with my mind not really working. Out of 9 questions in Millennium, we only managed to answer 3! This is where my friend, KK Chai, would help if he were my team mate. I remember him saying, "If it's tough for us, it can also be tough for the rest." That is very true. And even if it's not true, at least the mind would still continue fighting.

Well, we rushed back to City Mall where we had to answer 6 more questions. Luckily there were mostly easy ones. One question, which was apparently a tough one for the other teams, turned out to be very easy to me. But that's not because I'm too clever; rather it's because the question was the "jigsaw puzzle" kind, the kind which is my favourite:

Q) WHEN FINAL PART STARTS HERE AGAIN.

A) CORE FITNESS

However, there was one question in City Mall which was not meant to be answered—it's the kind which I'd describe as "reserved for the CoC", though after the CoC explained it, I'd say the question was indeed solvable.

When the hunt was over, and while we were having lunch and chit-chatting with the other teams, I realised that they dropped quite a lot of questions too. And I suddenly felt there's hope to maintain my fourth seeding again! But when the results were announced, I was surprised that we actually had enough to win the hunt! 78 points out of the possible 100 maximum points. Had we hunted in KL, I seriously doubt that we'd get anywhere within the top 10 positions with that kind of score. So it's a good thing this is not KL!

Well, a good ending for my team. Some stupid mistakes, though luckily we made fewer of them when compared to the other teams.

As always, I shall discuss and analyse some of the interesting questions in separate threads later.

_________________________________________________________


Update (10/05/09):

Have just received official results from Alvin shortly ago, and am updating it here accordingly. There was apparently a slight mistake in the order of positions 7th, 8th and 9th. The final standings as follows:

Champion: Edward Baki, Euphemia Thien, Cornelius Koh, Dennis Koh - 78pts
2nd: Harry Koh, Vivian Cham, Chan Moon Hueg, Jona Stidi - 72pts
3rd: Frederick Samson, Teo Chen Lung, Leslie Liew, Jason Chin - 68pts
4th: Onalia Kong, Allister Kong, Benjamin Liew, Jeremy Pinso - 65pts
5th: Ellen Yee, Mary Lokupi, Shirley Lim, Dr Liaw Yun Haw - 65pts
6th: Claire Andrew, Grace Joy Chin - 64pts
7th: Gan Po Tiau, David Wong, Winnie Chee, Shirley Chai - 63pts
8th: Francis Omamalin, Eileen Yeoh, Moira Liew, Lee Tze Jim - 62pts
9th: Malcolm Abidin, Talissa Kiandee, Andrea Abidin Callum Abidin - 61pts
10th: Chee Chui Mee, Juriah Hj Uda, Ana Hiew, Angeline Joimol - 57pts

Visitations

Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, our new Prime Minister, made a visit to Sabah earlier this week; and I thought perhaps it's just right that I mention his visit here in this blog.

As a general "rule" in Malaysia whenever a new Prime Minister takes office, he will visit all the states to meet the people. He is also bound to make visits to unlikely places, of which when reported in the press, deserve the exclamation marks. His predecessor, Pak Lah, for example, made a "surprise" visit the to an Immigration Office to observe the kind of service given to the public. Najib, too, suddenly appeared on a train in KL on one Saturday afternoon to experience for himself the kind of transportation system we have in the city.

These frequent visitations will most probably continue for about 6 months—but certainly not beyond a year. After that, the Prime Minister will be very busy with more important matters such as trying to develop the country and eradicating corruption in the administration. That should keep him busy for a long time. The next round of frequent visitations will be around the time when it's near to the general election. There is, of course, nothing strange about this visitation trend. If the Opposition can somehow form the next government, the new Prime Minister will also do exactly the same thing.

I for one would love to see more of Najib in Sabah. It's nothing to do with whether I am a big fan of the man, but when someone "important" like him makes visit, a lot of things can suddenly get done—literally overnight. Roads which are long overdue for upgrading because of insufficient budget can suddenly be upgraded, with workers working throughout the night, just in time to make a grand welcome for the Prime Minister. How or where the budgets for such works came from has always been a big mystery.

The streets in the city, and even the handicraft stalls can suddenly become exceptionally clean and beautiful. All the outstanding works which have been left undone for years are suddenly completed almost magically. Many other things which the relevant authorities have neglected for years are also attended to.

If only the Prime Minister can make more frequent visits, a lot of things can actually get done for the good of the people. I would therefore welcome Najib to Sabah with open arms.

No—seriously—I mean it!

A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Damn that van—did it really have to reverse and hit the violently-shaking car in the park? Must have been quite an impact too! And holy cow!... never, ever, surprise a woman when she's busy dealing with the weenee. [The Star]

To sidetrack a bit, during the Rotarian meeting yesterday, we were enjoying the fellowship when suddenly someone brought up the subject of Viagra. I said I've heard the warning that Viagra is not an entertainment drug. Well if it's not an entertainment drug, then what is it? Iskandar—trying to be smart—responded, saying that it's meant to pump more blood into the heart. Then Amrullah corrected him, saying that the drug pumps the blood into the wrong organ and as the side effect, it will cause a heart attack. These are people better off staying away from the medical profession. Otherwise a lot of people will die.

Anyway, just imagine the series of unfortunate events those poor souls had to endure. While enjoying (I'm assuming at least the man was enjoying it) the intimate moment, a van just had to reverse into their car. Of the many, many thousands of vehicles in Singapore, it just had to be their car. But never mind the damage to the car—the penis, what's to become of it? Then there's the woman's husband he had to deal with. Not to mention getting very famous in this region for the wrong reason. Oh man, he's screwed.

But seriously, I don't know what's the problem between the woman and her husband. I don't have a problem between 2 consenting adults having this kind of relationship. Well, OK, I do not condone the woman's act, and I honestly sympathise with her husband. But to accidentally bite off her lover's penis?

Don't you think there is more justice in this world if this kind of thing can happen to these fellows instead?

Uphill Task

Since running the half marathon in Singapore last December, I've been doing mostly short runs of 5km to 10km over the last couple of months. I got carried away last year and injured my ankle. So I decided to go easy this year.

However, it's now time to embark on a serious training programme for the coming Borneo International Marathon 2 which will be held on October 11. Now is a good time to start building up on my distance again, since I have enough time to gradually increase on the long runs during the weekends.

I thought it'd be a good idea to do my first 15km in a while on Friday which was a public holiday. But of course as Murphy's Law would have it, when I woke up in the wee hours of the morning, it was raining. We haven't had any rain for a while now, and it just had to happen on the very morning when I had planned to go running. So I had to postpone it to yesterday (Saturday).

When I woke up on Saturday morning, again it was raining. Since I was already awaken, I went to the wet market to buy some fresh fish instead. I haven't been to the wet market for ages now. Might as well, because I'm beginning to get sick of eating chicken all the time.

Anyway, I was determined to do my run one way or another, so instead of going first thing in the morning, I decided to beat Murphy's Law and went in the evening. I reached the jogging track and started running at around 6:00pm. The sun sets around 6:15pm to 6:30pm here in KK.

Somehow the first 3km felt like hell—I felt so exhausted and tempted to stop. After that first 3km, I stopped for a few seconds for a drink. Then I continued again, running very slowly. As it was getting dark, people were leaving and very soon there were only a few of us freak runners there, running in the dark.

I kept stopping to drink every few kilometres, and soon I realised that I was the only one running in the dark; quite a spooky feeling. So good to be a man—not such a good idea for women to run in the dark like that.

Well, I completed the intended 15km in the end. Surprisingly, I felt that I had a bit of extra energy to continue running had I wanted to. It's not easy; in fact I was struggling all the way, but I could've continued another kilometre or two. But I decided not to push it. Last week I did 13.5 km on the treadmill in the gym. So 15 km for this week should be just nice. Next week will be a "step back" to 13.5km again before the gradual climb to 15km, 17km and 19km.

Still a very, very long way from the target of 42km for the October marathon. Frankly, I really don't know how I'm gonna achieve that 42km when I'm struggling to finish even the 15km. In fact, I can't imagine how I managed the 25km across Penang Bridge last November.

I woke up this morning feeling very hungry. My legs are sore up to now. But at least my ankle is holding steady—so far there is no pain, so I guess that's a good sign.

I frequently bump into Dr Liaw at the jogging track (he's doing the full marathon in October too; as well as in Singapore.) He's such a hard-working runner. He failed in his attempt to finish the full course in under 4 hours last year. That in itself was a surprising result because he's such a strong and fast runner. When I was training for my half marathon last year, I once ran at his pace for about 7km at about 5 min/km, but after that I had to admit defeat; too fast for this old man, I guess. It's good to be young and active. I see he's starting his training much earlier this year. I'm sure he's gonna do well.

As for Teo, I don't know what's he been up to. He mentioned running a few kilometres on the treadmills every now and then. And he's gonna go for a second attempt of the full marathon this October (sadly, he was unable to finish last year with 7 km to the finish line). He's a young man, of course; tall and with the advantage of longer legs. But, y'know, if he doesn't start doing some training soon, he's at risk of falling short of the 42km again this year!

Well, a little under 6 months to build up on my distance. Plenty of time to improve, but also plenty of time to become lazy again. But even if I somehow have the discipline to train religiously, I foresee it's gonna be an uphill task to complete the 42km. Not my habit to give up though, so 42km it is—bring it on!