The BC Cup 2023 - Report

Set by Aditya Gadre, Aniket Khasgiwale and Yash Marathe

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. 60 question quarter to determine the top 4 for the semi finals. 40 question semi-final to determine the top 2. A 28 question final to determine the winner.

Report

The 14th edition of the BC Cup took place at the Boat Club steps on the 13th of May, 2023 - one of the hottest day of the year.  The heat and perhaps the QFI event the next day saw a slightly diminished participation at this year's edition. 

The elims was a close affair as usual and the biggest surprise was Ingit sir not qualifying for the second year in a row. One big surprise was that Dada (aka Anannya Deb) didn't make it - and by that I mean the most consistent performer at BC Cup didn't show up at all. Prithwish Datta lived up to his wounded tiger billing by putting in an imperious 21/30 to top the elims, while Rotti got 18. It was also nice to be debutants Titash and Bissanka make it to the quarter finals. 

The Quarter Finals

The top 8 in the quarter finals were:

Suraj Menon, Prithwish Datta, Rohit Suresh (Rotti), Bissanka Dassarma, Titash Bannerjea, Deepanjan Deb (DD), Samrat Sengupta  and Sachin 'Talent' Deshpande, 

All the quarter finalists except for Titash started on rocky ground with most people failing to build together some momentum. Titash on the other hand blazed to 5 points after a mere 15 questions. Slowly but surely the experience and class of the field shone through with Boss casually dispatching some extremely tough name recalls, Suraj and Talent working their rank 2 and 3 in Mahaquizzer gen quizzing chops to brilliantly work out answers, and DD, as always, pulling out some gems. Towards the end, multiple results were possible with 7/8 quizzers in contention after 50 odd questions. In the end, Titash topped the QF with Boss close behind to secure their places in the Semi Final. There was a 3 way tie between Suraj, Talent and DD - and a 3 question tie-breaker saw DD cut out a correct answer which would have forced a sudden death, and Suraj and Talent got the other two SF slots . One point of note is that 55 of the 60 questions were answered - which is testament to the quality of the field at play. 

The Semi Finals: 

The top 4 were: Suraj, Boss, Titash and Talent 

This was one of the closest Semi-finals in recent memory with all semi-finalists regularly scoring points. Suraj had pulled away to a good lead at the beginning but over time the others caught up. There were a few questions where the quizzers would feel like they should have gone with their first guess or have taken the obvious answer - and things might have ended differently. On the last question Suraj had 6 points with all 3 other semi finalists on 5. Boss missed his direct and Suraj answered forcing another 3-way tiebreaker. Talent lost out in the main tie break and then Titash beat Boss after a lengthy sudden death to book his place in the final on his debut BC Cup 

The Finals:

Suraj won the toss and decided to go second. Titash unfortunately missed a question on cricket - a sport he is exceptiopnal at - and Suraj got off to an early lead. In the second round Suraj answered two questions on his direct and in the second home round for Titash, Suraj pulled a great name recall on an old Japanese athlete. Titash did pull one back on his last home leg, but by then Suraj had built up an insurmountable lead. Suraj won the finals 4-1. 

Many congratulations to Suraj for winning his 5th BC Cup! 

BC Cup Winner 2023: Suraj Menon 

Runner Up: Titash Bannerjea 

List of BC Cup Winners:

2009: Sameer Deshpande and Suraj Menon

2010: Anannya Deb

2011: Anannya Deb

2012: Sumant Srivathsan

2013: Ramkey V

2014: Prithwish Datta

2015: Samrat Sengupta

2016: Shrirang Raddi

2017: Suraj Menon

2018: Suraj Menon

2019: Prithwish Datta

2020: No tournament

2021: Deepanjan Deb

2022: Suraj Menon

2023: Suraj Menon

The Open Team Quiz | InFest 2023

Date: 23 January 2023, Sunday, Day 2 of InFest 2023
Venue: COEP's BHAU Institute
Format: Elims + Finals
QM: Aditya Gadre, Debanjan Bose, Sachin ‘Talent’ Deshpande, and Ranajeet Soman

Team 1 – Prithwish Dutta (Boss), Nikhil Sonde and Anuradha Dharwadkar (draft)
Team 2 – Kunal Sawardekar, Shivam Sharma and Malhar Patel (draft)
Team 3 - Vibhendu, Rajiv Rai and Abhishek Hariharan (draft)
Team 4 - Omkar D, Pranav Pawar, Pranjal (draft)
Team 5 - Meghashyam, Nadeem and Anisha Karnail (draft)
Team 6 - Suraj, Anannya Deb and Anmol Dhawan (draft)

The last quiz of InFest 2023 was a general quiz by Aditya Gadre, Debanjan Bose, Sachin ‘Talent’ Deshpande, and Ranajeet Soman.
The quiz kicked off with a nice and accessible elims set that covered a wide range of topics and included some absolute gems that were worthy of being in the finals too.

The finals were a great set of questions kicking off with a small written round on famous speeches, before segueing into a phenomenal set of questions covering topics ranging from a famous Oxford bequest to sex symbol Gina Lollobrigida interviewing Castro, political arrangements in Cyprus, Christian subsects, Ruskin Bond’s autobiography and the origins of Krumping among others.
While the excellent coverage (this literally was a quiz that had something for everyone) meant most teams were in the hunt, the real fight was between teams 2 and 3 who battled it out pretty much from start to finish, with team 3 prevailing on the last question to eke out a narrow win
All in all, much fun was had and it was a fitting end to cap off what was a great InFest weekend

Note: The report writer blames the twin malaise of procrastination and old age for forgetting the name of the draft pick in Kunal and Shivam’s team. Someone from IISER please provide details

Report by: Suraj Menon

The Ajai Ragde Memorial History-Geography Quiz 2023 | InFest 2023

Date: 22 January 2023, Sunday, Day 2 of InFest 2023
Venue: COEP's BHAU Institute
Format: Elims + Finals
QM: Kunal Sawardekar and Omkar Dhakephalkar

Results:
1st: Brig. Sandeep Shankar, Shrirang Raddi & Pranav Pawar (Draft)
2nd: Anannya Deb, Aditya Gadre & Anisha Karnail (Draft)
3rd: Brajendu Bhaskar, Somashish Ghosh & Sania Narulkar (Draft)

Report:
Other Finalists: Nikhil Sonde, Prithwish Datta & Krishna Girish; Meghashyam Shirodkar, Samrat Sengupta & Akshay Parale, Rajiv Rai, Vibhendu Tewari & Abhinav Dasgupta (Draft)

This year's edition of the quiz started with a nicely set, well-rounded but relatively tough elims (even though that may not be evident on account of the lack of outraged tweets from Ranajeet Soman on the topic) with the cut-off being 10/25. We had our usual mix of 6 teams that qualify directly and 3 teams making up draft picks - with the shocker being that Suraj and Rana didn't make it.

The final had 2 written rounds and 2 IR rounds - with what has now become the standard Kunal Variation of the Infinite Pounce system. Pounces remain infinite but there are only a finite number of pounces at a reasonable neg available to teams. All other pounces are at a -20 risk. Team 1 started strongly and kept their lead throughout the quiz - nonchalantly swatting away hardcore fundas and most of the time not even using their free pounces - ending up with multiple -20s which makes their performance all the more impressive.

Team 3 was neck and neck for most of the quiz - before Team 1 pulled away in the second half. Team 3 eventually lost steam with Team 4 catching up and just pipping them to 2nd place with a strong finish to the quiz. Anisha from Team 4 particularly gave some crackers to keep their scoreboard ticking.

Overall the fundas were excellent and wide-ranging - and for such a niche topic, extremely accessible.

The quiz maintained its reputation and high standards in this edition as well - and it was very generous of the Ragde family to sponsor a few prizes as well. 

Report by: Aditya Gadre

The Solo Quiz at InFest 2023

Quiz: Solo Quiz

Date: 21 January 2023, Saturday, Day 1 of InFest 2023
Venue: COEP's BHAU Institute
Format: Elims + Semis + Finals
QM: Vibhendu Tiwari and Rajiv Rai

Results:
1. Suraj "Phenom" Menon
2. Aditya "Gadre" Gadre
3. Abhinav "DG" Dasgupta

Other Finalists: Sania Narulkar, Ranajeet Soman, Prithwish Dutta

Semi-finalists: Abhishek Hariharan, Samrat Sengupta, Nikhil Sonde, Meghashyam  Shirodkar, Suvajit  Chakraborty and Kunal Sawardekar

Report: The exciting conclusion of the last Solo Quiz at an in-person InFest left us with two setters for this years' Solo Quiz, a sort of E Pluribus, Duos situation that may just create a precedent for future InFest Solo Quizzes.

The Elimination round was a fun set of 25 questions, with some effort taken by the QMs to make the questions accessible and a provide local flair. After a relatively high-scoring elims (you do not want Ranajeet to start complaining about difficulty of the elims questions on Twitter - trust me on this), 12 participants qualified for the semi-final round. Participants elims points were doubled to form an opening score for the semi-final round which took place immediately following. The semis were relatively high-scoring with plenty of pounces and by the end Suraj, Gadre, Prithwish, Sania, Ranajeet and Abhinav beat out the rest of the filed to qualify for the finals.

The semi-final scores continued through to the finals, where the answers were worth 15 points to compensate for the increased difficulty. Sania had some amazing pounces and great answers through the semis but Gadre and DG surged back in the finals to take second and third places. Suraj maintained his spectacular run of form and dominated the quiz throughout with the outcome for the first place never really being in doubt.

Overall, I really enjoyed the quiz - the questions were accessible, easy-to-understand (I cannot overstate how nice it is not to have to parse through dense blocks of text on the ppt) and above all, interesting. I really appreciated how both quiz setters from across the Sahyadris made an effort to ask questions with some great fundas on Pune.

This quiz has set a high standard for the next edition of the Solo Quiz (I'm not saying which year because I don't want to jinx it as Ranajeet did with his 2020 report), but we are confident that the winner(s) of the 2023 edition are quite up to the task.

(This post has been updated to correct the person at the second runner-up position - our apologies to DG and Prithwish)

InFestYouUs 2023 | InFest 2023

 InFestYouUs, the flagship event of the annual InFest, is a Mastermind-style quiz in which participants choose a specialized topic on which they are asked ten questions. They play against everyone else, who collectively form the 'Mob'. The participant gets +1 per correct answer, and -0.5 for every answer they pass/get incorrect and the Mob answers correctly.
             
This year we had 30 sets and a large Mob. Everybody was ready for a great start to InFest and the quizzes did not disappoint.

This year’s winner was was Jayant Pande with an 8 out of 10 (Urdu Poetry at the Court of Bahadur Shah Zafar set by Suraj Menon). This was Jayant Pande’s debut at InFestYouUs and he gave some brilliant answers in a brilliantly set quiz. The Mob got did not answer anything in his set. There was a two-way tie for second place. At 7.5 points we had Vibhendu Tewari (Hindi Music Directors Pairs set by Anannya Deb) and Prithwish Datta (Couples from the World of Art set by Rajiv Rai). In both cases, they answered 8 each with Mob stealing half a point of their tallies. There were times when Vibhendu answered even before the question was finished in the full-of-songs set by Anannya. And Rajiv’s full-of-visuals set had everyone but Prithwish scratching their heads. Pune-boy Kunal Sawardekar bagged the third spot (Canadian Prime Ministers by Abhinav Dasgupta). The Mob was left in a Canadian chill as Kunal showed his mastery over Anglo and Quebecois history.

             A special mention must be made of Aniket Khasgiwale, Suraj Menon, and Sumant Srivathsan for stepping in and giving us some excellent sets when quizmasters backed out. Thank you!

             A sincere thank you to the huge number of quiz-setters for setting such diverse and excellent sets for InFestYouUs. The participants for showing up and staying with us, and the awesome Mob all deserve praise. I would be remiss in thanking the professors and coordinators at the College of Engineering, Pune. The technicians who helped us, we thank you too. And of course members of the COEP quiz club, including Srinivas. Cheers until next year!

Top Scores:

Report by: Omkar Dhakephalkar

Quiz Report - BCQC November Open - 'My Favorite Things' by Suraj Menon

The two-day quizzing melava at College of Engineering Pune was a momentous affair as it saw the return of BC Cup back in its in-person avatar and a general quiz by Suraj Menon which was billed as a set on his favorite topics. The venue for the general quiz was the well-equipped Kirloskar Auditorium in BHAU Institute which saw a great turnout (over 25+ teams).

The elims kicked off with a wonderful audio question paying tribute to two beloved Punekars. There were thirty such succinctly framed questions and it was a thoroughly enjoyable set filled with great fundaes centered majorly around things one might’ve heard/read about.

The cutoff was 19 out of a possible 30, with top score being an impressive 24. Top 8 teams made it to the finals and one draft was added to each team. Finals had 46 questions divided into four rounds – Two written and two IR. First written round was a set of 10 questions loosely themed on veteran quizzers in the circle. Loved the concept and how each answer was tied to the interests/monikers/team-names of quizzers. IRs covered a wide array of topics and allayed concerns (if any) that it will be specifically focused on QM’s pet topics, which I guess, speaks highly of his diverse interests. Notable ones being the concept behind design of martini glass and the modern usage of a symbol depicted on the shields of hoplites. Teams 8 and 7 built a massive lead in the first written round and maintained it until the end of the quiz securing top 2 spots. Team 5 which began leisurely in the first two rounds, staged a brilliant comeback in the written sports and IR-2 to take the third position.

Overall, a brilliant quiz put together by Suraj with wonderfully framed questions. There was an entire written round on Sports, but the framing and clues were sufficient to arrive at the answer and served as a great aperitif for the event on the following day. And as is the case with his other quizzes, there were no pritams (peter kon?) in the entire quiz.

Hopefully, Suraj is done with his recurring retirement announcements because we all know that’s his way of saying ‘Mi Punha Yein, Mi Punha Yein!’ All in all, it was a great weekend marked with two brilliant quizzes followed by a visit to the usual haunt and a lot of fun was had.

Results:

First position: Team 8 Sachin Deshpande, Prithwish Datta and Gokul S (draft) – 215 points
Second position: Team 7 Sania Narulkar, Rohit Suresh and Ingit Sir (draft) – 185 points
Third position: Team 5 Aditya Gadre, Brajendu Bhaskar and Pranav Floyd Joshi (draft) – 155 points

Other teams in the finals:

Team 1: Ritwik Ghosh, Chinmay Deshpande and Naman Jain (draft)
Team 2: Hrishi Varma, Ranajeet Soman and Charles Mathew (draft)
Team 3: Akshay Parale, Shivam Sharma and Pitambar (draft)
Team 4: Col Sandeep Shankar+1 and Shubhankar Gokhale (draft)
Team 6: Piyush Kedia, Shubham and Pranav Hari (draft)

Report by: Akshay Parale

 

BC Cup 2022 - Report

 Set by Aditya Gadre, Aniket Khasgiwale and Yash Marathe

Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. 60 question quarter to determine the top 4 for the semi finals. 40 question semi-final to determine the top 2. A 28 question final to determine the winner.

Report

The 13th edition of the BC Cup saw a return to the Boat Club steps after a brief online sojourn on account of the pandemic last year. 

The elims was an even affair and threw its fair share of surprises as long time BC Cup veteren and perennial favourite Ingit sir didn't qualify, and last years winner Deepanjan Deb (aka DD) just about scraped through with the cut off 12.5 points. Samrat Sengupta lived up to his moniker of Sabse Bada BC and topped the elims with a whopping 19 points. 

The Quarter Finals

The top 8 in the quarter finals were:

Anannya Deb, Gokul, Prithwish Datta, Suraj Menon, Sachin 'Talent' Deshpande, Deepanjan Deb (DD), Samrat Sengupta and Rohit Suresh (Rotti) 

The quarter finals were extremely even this year with the most of the 8 participants remaining in the fray till the last few questions. Talent and DD started strongly, but Rotti and Sammy sir soon caught up. Boss had a surprisingly off day and missed questions on his pet topics - cricket, india and olympics. Dada was trailing for the longest time but his range helped him get stuff nobody else knew and suddenly he was within a point of qualification. Suraj and Gokul started slowly but picked up momentum in the second half and clawed their way to the top. At one point we had Talent and Rotti comfortably through, with all other participants within a point of each other and fighting for the other two spots. DD had a few classic DD moments where he forgot the name of a TT player he is a megafan of and displayed his inner SIIMIA by missing all the India questions. In the end, Sammy sir, Suraj and Gokul were tied on 6 points with DD and Dada on 5 - all with a chance to enter the semi finals along with Rotti and Talent. Sammy sir duly swatted away a football question and booked his spot - leaving Suraj and Gokul to fight it out in a tiebreaker. The first tiebreaker round of 3 questions ended with both at 1 pt each, but in the next sudden death round, Suraj answered a chess question that Gokul missed and took the last spot in the semi-final. 

The Semi Finals: 

The top 4 were: Rotti, Suraj, Sammy sir and Talent 

The semi-final was one of the lowest scoring and (thus fastest run) semi in BC Cup history with all 4 players struggling to get off the mark for the longest time. Finally everyone got going but it was extremely even for the longest time. Everyone missed questions that would be called their strong points - with Sammy missing football questions, Rotti missing NBA questions and Suraj missing cricket questions all the way. Going into the last question we had Rotti and Sammy on 3 points each and Suraj and Talent on 4 points each. Talent answered his direct and entered the BC Cup final on his debut. 

The Finals:

Talent in his debut at the BC Cup went up against 3 time winner Suraj playing his 6th final. Talent won the toss and took an early lead answering a tough cricket question, but Suraj immediately brought back the pressure by answering the very next question to score a crucial away goal. The next set was all un-answered - and Talent will kick himself for missing questions on 3 of his pet topics - women's cricket, Italian football and the Tour de France. Needless to say the real winner was the audience who - operating in a pack and without the pressure or fatigue our finalists were dealing with answered most questions. Suraj followed up with 2 excellent answers on his home stretch including one particularly clutch pull on the third last question - a tough cricket name recall which Talent knew immediately. In the end Suraj won seemingly comfortably 3-1 but it must be said there were moments through the quarters and semis where Talent seemed like the strongest quizzer in the best form. Perhaps the atmosphere, the over-whelming home support and the sheer fatigue that one learns to manage thorugh experience helped Suraj pull out a memorable win in one off the most closely contested and competitive BC Cups in years. 

Many congratulations to Suraj for winning a scarcely believable 4th BC Cup! 

BC Cup Winner 2022: Suraj Menon 

Runner Up: Sachin 'Talent' Deshpande 

List of BC Cup Winners:

2009: Sameer Deshpande and Suraj Menon

2010: Anannya Deb

2011: Anannya Deb

2012: Sumant Srivathsan

2013: Ramkey V

2014: Prithwish Datta

2015: Samrat Sengupta

2016: Shrirang Raddi

2017: Suraj Menon

2018: Suraj Menon

2019: Prithwish Datta

2020: No tournament

2021: Deepanjan Deb

2022: Suraj Menon

BCQC October Open Quiz Report: Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai

The BCQC October Open was set by the suave duo of quizmasters Akshay Parale and Naman Jain with questions on “Mumbai, Pune and everything in between.” The venue for the quiz was the Kirloskar Auditorium at the Bhau Institute located in the campus of the College of Engineering, Pune, just adjacent to the BC steps. The venue, secured thanks to the efforts of Srinivas from COEP, was well-equipped with all the necessities that a quiz club wants and more; and will hopefully see more quizzing in the recent future.

The quiz started at 11.45 am with twelve teams of two attempting a 25-question preliminary set with a total of 29 points for grabs. Eight out of twelve teams present consisted of undergraduate college students. The preliminary round was well set, with questions on temples, personalities, buildings, art, culture and even rare minerals (yes, you read that right). The difficulty level was fairly balanced, with most questions being workable. The prelims ended with a top score of 21 out of 29.

The prelims were followed by lunch (thoughtfully coordinated by the quizmasters). Members of teams staying back were drafted into the top seven teams for the finals. The finals consisted of two written and two infinite rebound rounds. The infinite rebound rounds had 16 questions each and were notable for both their range and depth. There were hardly any peters in the quiz, and the questions reflected the enormous amount of research that had gone into setting the quiz – particularly notable in questions from the Peshwai and colonial eras of Pune, including details of a particular kind of surgery performed in the 1790s and the ingredients of an aloe vera jam from the 1870s. The quiz proceeded rather smoothly, apart from few technical A/V glitches. Akshay and Naman had a good control over the proceedings of the quiz and ensured that it finished within the stipulated time, to allow for the ceremonial post-quiz trip to the local watering hole. It was a tight battle between the top two teams, which at one point in the quiz were separated only by half a point. The battle for third place was also hotly contested by three teams, all within five points of each other.

Some of the questions were a bit wordy and there was scope for some text-trimming, but there wasn’t much else in the quiz to find fault with.

All in all, it was a fantastic quiz and was unanimously enjoyed by the participants. I’m sure the Boat Club Quiz Club is looking forward to more quizzes by Akshay and Naman.

 

Results:

1.      First place: Dr Anmol Dhawan and Pranav Pawar

2.      Second place: Nikhil Motlag, Shivam Sharma and Pitambar Pandey (draft)

3.      Third place: Maj Saikat Sarkar, Surg Lt Cdr Kshitij Jyoti and Yash Pathak (draft)

     Report by: Dr. Anmol Dhawan

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