InFest 2019 reports | The Undecided Quiz

Slot: Sunday, 6-1-2019, Evening.
Quiz: The Undecided Quiz
Flavour: Gen
QM(s): Pranav ‘Floyd’ Joshi, Charles Matthew

Format: Teams of 2. Written elims, followed by finals with draft.

Winners:
1. Aditya Gadre and Arnold D’Souza  + Ankita (Draft): 250 points
2. Kunal Sawardekar and Divij Ghose + Vrushabh Gudade and Prajot Patne (Drafts): 125 points
3. Ajai Ragde and Sandeep Shankar + Vencat Srinivasan (Draft): 110 points

The Undecided Review

(This review was hurriedly written minutes before the deadline set by Comrade Dhakephalkar, in homage to the quiz being reviewed here.)

“A quiz only works out if one of the two setters is that annoying guy who keeps pushing the other one to set questions and get the work done. Neither of us (Floyd and Charles) is that person.”

: Pranav “Floyd” Joshi, kinda

The surprise, then, is that it actually turned out to be a decent (and more importantly, complete) quiz. The prelims were quite enjoyable: a mixture of well framed questions, a couple of peters, and the occasional know-it-or-you-don’t question. Overall, most questions were workout-able. Turnout was the same as the earlier quizzes, unfortunately. Top 6 teams went to the finals, but draft pick ensured that everyone present in the room participated in the finals.

Finals started with an 11 question IR, all of which were well framed and largely workout-able. Next was a written round on classic books badly explained by minimalism, with a bonus for getting all books and authors right. The round proved to be little of a challenge for Lit Gawds, and hence there were teams that scored the full 45 points. The second IR was as enjoyable as the first one, with some really good, well-framed fundaes. The second written round was on movie posters inspired by famous works of art, with bonus points for identifying all artworks and their respective painters. Again, if you are an Art Gawd, not much of a challenge for you, since this round too had a team scoring the full 45 points. I’m tempted to write that I wish the written rounds were more General , but this was after all an undecided quiz, so there’s nothing wrong with the QMs setting rounds specific to their taste.
Lastly, there was a long connect, with points for individual questions. Personally, I don’t have a favourable opinion about long connects, and this one didn’t do much to change that opinion. The individual questions were essentially elements on an exhaustive list, with the list being the connect. If you know the funda, you get the connect. Nothing to work out. Maybe I’m being too salty, considering the fact that a couple of teams did attempt and get the connect.

To summarize, I would say that this quiz occupies a niche: it was better than a good college quiz, but perhaps not as good as a good open quiz. The fact that the winning team (an open team) scored twice as much the team in second position (a college team) probably proves my argument.

Maybe I’m being too critical. Maybe not. I am, after all….undecided (sorry).

Report by: Divij Ghose

Winning Team with QMs

InFest 2019 reports | The Italia Quiz

Slot: Sunday, 6-1-2019, Afternoon.
Quiz: The Italia Quiz
Flavour: Italian
QM(s): Omkar Yarguddi and Avaneendra Bhargav

Format: Teams of 2. Written.

Winners:
1. Kunal Sawardekar and Divij Ghose: 21 points
2. Aditya Gadre and Arnold D’Souza: 20 points
3. Ajai Ragde and Sandeep Shankar: 17 points

They went. They came back. They set this quiz.

Avaneendra and Omkar returning from their Italy tour put together this 30 question set. From ancient cities to renaissance art to modern carmakers – the set had a well-balanced mix of Italian culture questions and Italy in pop-culture questions.

Except for the question where the answer to a previous question was mentioned in it, the questions were very well framed.

The quiz was a nice post-lunch refresher between two full quizzes.

Report by: Pranav Pawar

QM with half the winning team.

The Lone Wolf Quiz at InFest 2019

Akela, A Kela - The Solo Quiz 
Set and conducted by Omkar Dhakephalkar

Format: Written elims followed by a very complicated finals for top 8 (details below)

Results:
1st: Kunal Sawardekar
2nd: Aditya Gadre
3rd: Samrat Sengupta
4th: Pranav Pawar

Other finalists: Sandeep Shankar, Omkar Joshi, Arnold D'Souza and Gokul Panigrahi

Report: 
Omkar set this year's edition as the reigning Solo quiz champ from 2018. The quiz started with a nice elims set (a bit on the tougher side) which did a good job of separating the top 8 from the rest. The quiz saw a huge turnout - almost packed room with several benches needing to be double loaded.

In the finals, Omkar unleashed a super fun, crazy format for the quiz. There would be a series of written "BLED" rounds featuring questions on Businessmen, Lawyers, Engineers and Doctors (or as Omkar put it "the only four meaningful professions in the world"). Each correct answer in these rounds would earn you a card with certain special powers. The Businessman card let you double the points on a question, the Lawyer card let you give multiple answers for a question, the Engineer card let you attempt only a part of the question for points, and the Doctor card allowed you to pounce without a negative. These were on randomised coloured cards. And one could use only the cards available for the colour that was indicated on the question.

While originally skeptical, once we got the hang of it, the finalists had a great time in strategising and using their cards wisely or at least comically.

The bottom two finalists would get eliminated after the 24th and the 32nd question. This led to some interesting permutations especially with the usage of the cards.

The content of the quiz was interesting and wide ranging. And as a good solo quiz should be, was quite extensive and long.

As for the results, Kunal topped the elims and led for the whole quiz. Once or twice there was some hope for Pranav and Aditya but everytime, Kunal pulled away to an unassailable lead. All in all, a very fun quiz by Omkar and congrats to Psaw, Pune's most dominant solo quizzer, for a second win in three years.

InFest 2019 Reports | The Military Quiz, Mk. 1

Slot: Sunday, 6-1-2019, Morning.
Quiz: The Military Quiz, Mk. 1
Flavour: Military
QM: Kunal Sawardekar

Format: Teams of 2. Written elims, followed by finals with draft.

Winners:
1. Col. Sandeep Shankar, Ajai Ragde + Gokul Panigrahi (Draft)
2. Mihir and Shrirang Raddi + Col. Anand Karve (Draft)
3. Divij Ghose (Solo) + Prajot, Saqib and Samarth (Drafts)

Due to it being a Sunday Morning quiz, the attendance was low, but as the day warmed up, quizzers trickled in till quorum was fulfilled. The quizmaster for this eagerly awaited quiz was Kunal Sawardekar, the Military Gawd of Pune.

We had about 10 teams by the time the quiz started. What was great was we had specific attendance thanks to the topic chosen. Otherwise-non-quizzers turned up with their big guns, ready to prosecute the quiz to victory. There were 24 questions in the elims, with the last 4 having two answers each, so two-pointers. From the start there was a clear gap between the top teams (15+) and the teams that just made through (8+). This would not change much through the finals. The questions were topical and hence it is difficult to measure the easiness unless one is a specialist. However, there was a generous mix of derivable, interesting fundae and kolstylez thrown in for the fanatics.

Top 6 teams were taken into the finals. But staying true to his generosity and kindness as a QM and the fact that ‘Draft’ just played into the quiz, everyone was incorporated into the teams. The draftees were given the choice to choose their regiment. I am ambivalent towards this aspect at least.

The finals consisted of IRs interspersed with written rounds. Not much to complain about. All the questions were thoroughly enjoyed. 40 in all, at question number 20 there was a round reversal. There was close competition between pairs of teams for every spot. It was only until a few negatives put the Raddis behind, that the slow and steady team of Ajai and Shankar Sir marched to triumph. Weapons, armour, tactics and history, all were well-covered. Pouncing was fun and negatives did not seem to subtract enthusiasm, such was the research put into the quiz.

The first written round was a List it! of all non-posthumous PVC winners. This was a personal gripe of course and I guess not mine only. Had forgotten to rote-learn those. This created a huge margin of difference early on (before the 20^th Q) with a few teams missing only one and a few getting none .

The second written round was much more fun: Air Force roundels.

Overall a brilliant pre-lunch quiz which whetted the appetite for the quizzes later in the afternoon.

Report by: Omkar Dhakephalkar

Winners with QM