A repeat of last year, perhaps?

LoA has to catch up on Australia at some stage; may be the semis! And they were able to leave out Doug Bollinger :-|

England is pretty hot with Yardy doing the hard yards and Swann swooning people around. KP, the new dad is likely to come and play with gay abandon.

India has a new captain. Suresh Raina. Ha Ha Ha!

Suddenly all and sundry seem have remembered Shakespeare: 

"Is this a dagger I see before me? 

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee!"

Yeah, Dhoni's blue eyes are turning paler slowly.

Answer to BQ-5:

It is not such a devilish problem to NOT give 666 as the answer. Indeed it is the answer. Go figure!

Again a very good response. Anand Re, Bob, Ganesh Kumar, Guru, Letchu (welcome!), Maanasa, Rambo, Shiv and Siva* got it right.  Siva* has answered all the questions and Anand Re, Guru and Ishan are lagging behind by one. 

Let us see if the following cracker - Thanks to Bob, will separate the boys from men.

BQ-6:

A bit long. But quite good, I have to say. Remember the Shooting problem from IPL and its answer? This one goes somewhere along those lines...

There are 5 pirates on a ship, in descending order of seniority, as follows:

Jack (seniormost pirate, Captain)

John (2nd-seniormost)

Jules (3rd-seniormost)

Jim (4th-seniormost)

Joe (juniormost)

They loot a ship and come in possession of a chest with exactly 100 gold coins in it. As the Captain of the ship, Jack has to decide how the 100 gold coins get distributed amongst the 5 of them, without consulting anyone else. Once he announces his distribution decision, all 5 of them (including himself) will vote for/against his decision.

If Jack gets > = 50% of the votes, then his decision stands valid and he remains Captain with honour.

If Jack gets < 50% of the votes, then he is deemded unfit to remain Captain, is beheaded and thrown to the sharks. In that case, John (2nd-seniormost) becomes Captain, and then John has to decide the distribution. John's decision would then be subject to the same voting rule and conditions. If John fails and is killed, Jules becomes the Captain and so on.

Everyone is aware of these rules.

The question is - What should Jack's distribution be, such that:

1) Jack gets the maximum no. of gold coins possible for himself, and

2) Jack remains alive (and thus remains Captain)

There is only one number possible as his maximum limit.

Enjoy your Thursday & send in your entries for the semi#1 + the quiz.