Cambridge

Overview

The Cambridge Quiz Society is the official quiz bowl team for the University of Cambridge, located in sunny Cambridge in England.

History

UK University quizzing sprang up, or at least gently emerged from its cave, in the mid-1990s when the return of BBC quiz show University Challenge in 1994 began to reanimate those competitive instincts among the new generation of trivia-hungry students. In 1998 Chris Harrison, one of the Imperial team who had won the 1996 TV series, organised the first British Student Quiz Championships, and several Cambridge colleges sent teams. A year later Oxford plucked up the courage to challenge Cambridge to the first Varsity quiz match, and though the result was eventually decided by a scoring error it at least started an august annual tradition of hard-fought rivalry. It was clearly time to back up the brave teams with a proper university society and so in June 1999 Sean Blanchflower and Robin Bhattacharyya of Trinity's 1995 winning University Challenge team founded the Cambridge University Quiz Society.

Although Oxford has largely had a strangehold over the British Quizbowl scene, Cambridge has emerged as a strong challenger over the past few years. In 2014, University Challenge winner Alex Guttenplan inspired Cambridge to its first ever victory in the Varsity match, a feat which was repeated in 2016 with a strong performance from Samuel Cook.

Performances

A strong core of novice players contributed to success at the 2016 VCU Novice tournament in London.

Cambridge teams additionally performed very well at MUT with all 4 Cambridge teams handily defeating a strong Oxford A and an upset with Cambridge B defeating Cambridge A.

At 2016 ACF Fall's UK site, Cambridge A cleared the field taking a win against both Oxford A and Oxford B by healthy margins.

Hosted Tournaments

• Cambridge Open 2015

• Penn Bowl 2016

• MUT 2016

• Cambridge Open 2017

Notable Players

• Ewan MacAulay, a strong physics and chemistry player whose skills were sharpened by playing at Oxford as an undergraduate, and dulled by playing at Cambridge as a PhD student.

• Sam Cook, a geography specialist

• Oliver Sweetenham, a top tier literature and history player specializing in the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

• Elysia Warner, a strong linguist specializing in creoles and the musical Hamilton.

• Matthew Nixon, a musical and mathematical savant

• Daniel Chiverton, a specialist in mathematics, religion, and Westerosi politics

• Ephraim Jacob Jacobus Levinson, a feisty competitor who studies the works of Steven Wallace

• Tom Hill, a disciple of the famous quizzer Bobby Seagull, who has a lockdown on Sicilian religious persecution from 1120-1129

• Bobby Seagull, whose twitter can be found here

• Theo Howe, a trash and East Asia specialist

• Vitalijs Brejevs, a musical scholar studying the works of Stravinsky

• Julian Sutcliffe, a fan of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

• Salman Iftikhar, expert in Beethoven and ethical bowls

Notable Former Players

• Florence Chen, since graduated, a harvard undergraduate who played while getting a master's degree. Played at VCU Novice despite not being a novice.

• Tomas Kesek, since graduated, a strong player who despite being a physician by training failed to get biology questions

• Sarah Binney, a physicist turned philosopher and one of the pub quiz managers