Last Announcements

When is the next game? Who will play? Where?

The Fall Season 2014 of "What?Where?When?" Intellectual Quiz will open in September, 2013.

The Organizing Committee promises a breathtaking and unpredictable game, combining both excitement of gambling and intellectual quest with time. The prizes will be announced at the game and presented to experts and question senders!

What are the latest results?

The FINAL GAME was played by two teams with highest Intellectual Rating. Such teams were AMORG Superstars (C: Marcell Fehér), and Team #2 (C: Dávid Szalóki).The final game took place on July 3, 2013. The final score was 5:6:4, and Team#2 has won the Final Game! We especially congratulate Viktor Kovács, as he was the second expert that has answered all 3 questions of Superblitz, and received the Superblitz prize! The "Best Expert Award", a medal with officially issued medal-certificate, was presented to László Blázovics, he is the best expert of 2013. The Team of Question Senders (Bertalan Forstner, Kristóf Csorba, Anikó Bere, Varga Dániel, Koszó Norbert) have lost the Final Game, so the "Best Question Sender" award was not presented to anybody. The winners of WWW IQ, Season 2013: László Blázovics, Viktor Kovács, Gergő Szalóki, Richárd Nagy, Dávid Szalóki (C).

The video trailer for Final Game is available here.

Some photos of the Final Game are available here.

The May Game took place on May 28, 2013: Utánpótlás played against Team #2. The experts of the first team were just PhD students at the Dept. of AAIT, while another team was a mixture of BSc, MSс, PhD students and the staff of the Dept. of AAIT. The final score was 5:6:5, and Team #2 did the impossible - they have got into the Finals! Some photos of May Game can be found here.

The April Game took place on April 25, 2013.  It was played between two teams of experts: Digital Cloud and Kertesz22. The first team was newly formed, while the second has already played in February Game, and lost it. In this game, the experts of Kertesz22 did their best to gain revenge and achieve the positive Intellectual Rating. The final score was 5:6:5. We congratulate Mr. Sergey Semashko, as he was the first expert that has answered all 3 questions of Superblitz, and received the prize! The names of winners: Andrii Tkach, Anton Kolesnikov, Katya Semenova, Dmitro Choban, Sergey Semashko (Captain).  Some photos of April Game provided by János Illés are available here.

The March Game took place on March 21, 2013: Analog Ground played against Between 2 Worlds. The experts represented such countries as Hungary, Germany, South Korea, Nigeria, Australia, and Turkey. Unfortnately both teams have lost the game, and their chances of getting into the Finals are low. The final score of the March Game is 2:2:6. Some photos of the game provided by János Illés are available here.

The February Game, which took place on February 8 in QBF15, was played by two teams of experts: AMORG Superstars and Kertesz22. AMORG Superstars won the game, the final score was 6:3:5. The names of winners: Zsombor Erdődy-Nagy, Lászlo Kundra, Péter Gerencsér, Gábor Imre, László Blázovics, Marcell Fehér (Captain). The video trailer for this game is available here.

The teams' position in Season 2013 according to different calculating systems of the TIR (Team's Intellectual Rating).

What are the rules of the game?

The actual rules of "What?Where?When?" Intellectual Quiz (ver. 1.1 valid since Spring Games 2013) can be downloaded from here.

Can I play the "WWW" Intellectual Quiz as an expert? How can I send my question to the game?

Everybody is invited to actively participate in the "WWW" Intellectual Quiz by forming Teams of Experts and/or sending questions for games. Any 4-5 persons, who would like to play the game, can form a team of experts. Questions for experts that will be asked during the game, can be sent directly to the Organizing Committee. Do not hesitate to contact the Organizing Committee, we are glad to help you: Dmitriy Dunaev, Kristóf Csorba.

Backgrounds and History

The original "What? Where? When?" game was developed in 1975 by an artist, television host and director Vladimir Voroshilov. The game aired in 1977 was already close to the today's TV format: a top spinning on the table selects a question which is discussed for one minute by a team of 6 persons (experts); the host is "invisible" and present only as a voice. Since 1978, the game is aired regularly. The final major change in rules, in 1982, established that the game continues until 6 points are scored by either side. Since 1986, the games are broadcast live.

The "WWW" quiz quickly became popular in different countries of the world. In addition to the original TV version, a competitive variant of the game exists that is played by over 17,000 teams in many countries, most notably in Russia, Israel, Germany, Italy, United States, Turkey, Finland, Bulgaria, United Kingdom, Canada, etc. Face-to-face World Championships have been held every year since 2002. As for the original TV version, these competitions rely on logic rather than knowledge. The game, combining both excitement of gambling and intellectual quest with time, always attracts many people.

Since 2013 the "WWW" Intellectual Quiz is played in the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. The Organizing Committee includes the staff and PhD students of the Dept. of Automation and Applied Informatics. The teams are not restricted by the Department, and can include BSc/MSc students of other faculties, as well as international exchange students, University staff, etc.

Game Description

Throughout the game, one or several teams of experts brainstorm in order to answer questions chosen randomly from a set. For each question the time limit is 1 minute. The kind of the questions is such that it takes logical thinking, intuition, insight, etc. to find the correct answer, but not the exact knowledge. A prize can be arranged to a question and in this case the person who sent in the question earns a prize if the team cannot get the correct answer, while the team of experts earns the prize if they manage to get the correct answer.

If any team of experts answers the question correctly, it earns a point and a prize (if announced). If none of the teams gives a correct answer, the “Team of questions senders” earns a point and a person who sent in this question earns a prize (if announced). The questions are put to the round table divided into sectors, which contain envelopes with questions (pre-checked for validity). The arrow on the spinning top selects the sector which will be played next (that is the question, which will be asked). If the arrow points to a sector which has already been played, the next clockwise sector is selected.

A question may involve material objects or media (video or audio) demonstrated to the players. Sometimes a subject of the question is located inside a "black box" which is brought into the room and placed on the table but not opened until the correct answer is announced. In this case, the question is usually ended with the phrase "What is in the black box?" You can find examples of questions in the actual "WWW" Intellectual Quiz Rules.

The game continues up to 6 points scored by either side.

General Rules

In qualifying games two or more teams of experts play the “What?Where?When?” Intellectual Quiz. But only teams with the highest team's intellectual rating (TIR) get to the Finals. The process of calculating TIR is described in the Rules.

The team can consist of at least 4 experts and at most 5. One expert can play in more than one team, but the “core” of 3 experts should not change during the (Spring or Fall) Games. It means that teams can change not more than 2 experts during the season, otherwise the team is considered to be “newly formed” with empty rating. A team should elect one expert to be a team’s Captain, and he/she will perform important functions at the stage of preparation for the game (administrative) and during the game (representative). Once during the game a Captain may ask for a musical time-out. During time-out the experts usually have a rest or discuss their further strategy, and the audience can relax listening the music.

The game consists of several rounds; in each round one question is asked in accordance with the sector chosen randomly by a spinning top. The minimal number of rounds is 6; the maximal depends on the number of teams playing (e.g. for two teams it is 16). The team, which answers correctly, gets the point. If none of the teams answers correctly, the point goes to “Question senders”. If “Question senders” get 6 points, then all teams of experts lose the current game.

The games are played once a month and are divided into two seasons.