Shiva Oswal

Shiva Oswal
Noted subjects	History, Generalist, anything related to the Seven Kingdoms
Current college	Carnegie Mellon University (2022 - present)
High school	Pi-oneers (2018 - 2020 ) Stanford Online (2018 - 2022)
Middle school	Pi-oneers (2014 - 2018)
HSQB profile	Agnimandur
Pronouns	he/him
Stats	HDWhite • NAQT

Shiva Oswal is a former quizbowler, best known for winning the 2018 MSNCT as a solo team. He has participated in Middle School and High School tournaments at the local, state, and national level. He first started playing Quiz Bowl in 5th grade, after being introduced to the game in late 2014 by Ankit Aggarwal. In 2016, he wrote the 60-tossup Russian History Bee set, which was played at the 2016 International History Olympiad run by David Madden.

Notable Achievements

Shiva first entered national prominence when he became the youngest player to become an All Star at the 2015 MSNCT. Since then, he has been a National All-Star at the MSNCT in 2016, 2017, and 2018, including being the top scorer at the 2018 MSNCT and the second-highest scorer at the 2017 MSNCT.

In January 2017, NAQT began its program of honoring top teams and players each week. As part of this program, Shiva was named the first-ever NAQT Middle School Player of the Week for the week of Jan 7, 2017. Later, Shiva was also named to the National Middle School Quiz Bowl A Team for 2017.

At the 2018 MSNCT, Shiva posted a 14-1 record en route to winning the entire tournament while playing as a solo team. In the semifinals, Shiva ended the game down 85 points versus Challenger Berryessa A. However, the game included 3 protests. On protest, Shiva's answer of the "1849 California Gold Rush" was accepted, and he went on to win the game by a score of 400-395. In the finals, he defeated BASIS Silicon Valley A 490-335 to clinch the tournament. He was the National Middle School Player of the Year and Captain of National Middle School A Team for 2018 [1].

Shiva after soloing, and winning, 2018 MSNCT! From L-R: NAQT President R. Robert Hentzel, Shiva, and Shiva's father Vikas

In 2019, Shiva won David Madden's JV National History Bee title, scoring 47 points in the final on the 6-5-4-3-2-1 scoring system.

Quizbowl / History Bowl career

Team Pi-oneers

Shiva Oswal was the captain of Team Pi-oneers between 2014 and 2020.

Team Stanford Online

In 2018, Shiva Oswal started playing Quiz Bowl as a member of Stanford Online, an online school based in the Bay Area. Shiva captained many local and regional tournaments as a member of Team Stanford Online B where his team won multiple times. The team made its regional debut in the fall of 2018, and its national debut at the 2019 HSNCT, where the team finished T-49th.

COVID Pandemic

Shiva essentially retired from Quizbowl and History Bowl in March 2020, partially due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and the necessity of online quizbowl tournaments.

Outside of Quizbowl

Shiva appeared on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire's Whiz Kids edition in late 2017, winning $250,000. He was invited a second time to the show in 2018, winning $50,000.

He is current majoring in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the founder of the USACO Coaching Company Recursive Dragon.

MSNCT Leading Scorer
Preceded by	Year	Succeeded by
William Groger	2018	Arin Parsa