Report on Pop Ki Kamai

Day, Date: Sunday, 19-1-2020, Afternoon.
Quiz: Pop Ki Kamai 2020
Venue/Centre: AFMC, Pune

Fest/Organized by: Sai Ganesh and Debasish Mishra from KQA
Flavour: Pop Culture

Scores:
1. TIE at 115 between
Pranav Pawar, Ranajeet Soman, Kunal Sawardekar (all OPEN) &
Anirudh S, Amita A and Satish
3. Anisha K, Trisha and Bhavesh (all from IISER) + Aditya K (draft, AFMC): 80

4. Hitesh Mahato (OPEN), Sai Krishna Venigalla (OPEN), Advay Aundhekar (AFMC) + Shobhit Chamoli (draft, AFMC): 70
5. TIE at 65 between
Pranav “Floyd” Joshi, Samiran Mondal and Gokul Panigrahi (all OPEN) + Sagnik (draft, AFMC) &
Krishna, Punya and Shomik (all from IISER) + Pranav (draft, AFMC)
7. Nikita Bhakre (ILS), Omkar Joshi (COEP), Prajot patne (COEP) + GG (draft, AFMC): 55

8. Vaibhav Vishal, Aparna Ramchandran, Arnold D’Souza (all OPEN) + Ritvik Joshi (draft, AFMC): 30

9. Yash G, Ashwin V, Srestha Y + Akriti (draft) (all from AFMC): 10

The annual pop culture quiz by KQA was hosted in Pune by Omkar Dhakephalkar at AFMC.

An excellent turn-out ensured we started only slightly late. This was because the ppt had to be shifted to the venue computer and there was no mechanism to attach the QM’s laptop. Since there was media-error during transfer, the ppt was run off the shared drive.

One audio question was scrapped due to bad audio, two others had the answer slides along with the question. But groans only spurred the quizzers to be more competitive.

To ensure that everybody present could participate, top 9 teams were taken into the finals. The remaining 3 were split among them as draft picks.

The finals were a very interesting affair. The grid format was a refreshing, where one quizzer even quipped “We’ve come so far along with pounces and bounces that we need to be told how direct and pass works.” The fact that pounce was retained ensured the fairness of the quiz. The spread was clearly defined and wide. Though some were of course audience-specific, rather, city-specific(?), overall there was great brain-searching to derive answers.

All the spots were closely fought for among different sets of teams with 5 point differences and ties being the norm.

The teams decided to split the 40 questions equally and attempt the last 4 only on pounce. That was until one team inadvertently blurted out the answer to a question they pounced on. But that did not affect the proceedings much.

AFMC, as always was an excellent host. Though, the audio system could have been better-suited (the volume when increased tore the audio), the hall, projector etc were great. We could use single chairs to increase the team-size. At this point, the cooperation of Sulci and Gyri, and especially the co-ordinators Yash and Manpreet need a special shout-out. Thank you! This is despite the fact that getting assured rooms, and the confirmation thereof has become a slightly sketchy affair as the process is indeed lengthy. Like before, if quizzing had a dedicated room, it would be awesome to hold more last-minute quizzes there. Also, quizzes need to be run via pen-drive! There has to be a mechanism to use the QM’s laptop!

The publicity to quality ratio was slightly north of 1, all in all a fun quiz, that could’ve been better, and that we were grateful to host in Pune.

Report by: Pranav Pawar, with inputs from Omkar Dhakephalkar

Report on Sir Visvesvaraya Open at COEP

Day, Date: Sunday, 12-1-2020, Afternoon.
Quiz: Sir Visvesvaraya Open
Venue: College of Engineering, Pune

Fest/Organized by: Sir Visvesvaraya Debate and Quiz Festival
Flavour: Gen
QM(s): BCQC-The COEP Quiz Club

Winners:
1. Team 1: Sonie Shende and Shrirang Raddi (Batch of ’95), 185 Points
2. Team 2: Aman Shaikh and Omkar Dhakephalkar, 130 Points

3. Teams 6 and 7: Gokul Panigrahi, Samiran Mondal and Shantanou Gangakhedkar, Shantanu Pant. Tied at 110 Points

5. Team 5: Nikita Bhakre and Omkar Joshi (College Team, ILS Law+COEP), 90 Points

6. Team 3: Aaditya Yawalkar and Shounak Joshi (College Team, VIT), 75 Points

7. Team 8: Parth Hasabnis, Aditya Pethe (College Team, COEP), 25 Points

8. Team 4: Sagnik Sarkar, Ritwik Johari (College Team, AFMC), 15 Points

The first edition of the Sir Visvesvaraya Open was a successful one, no doubt. With only a slight delay of about 45 minutes, the elims began in the Mechanical Department. Eight teams would go to the finals.

The elims were fine, with the score difference varying widely. The top score was 20/26, with the eighth team coming in at 8/26.

The structure of the finals was two IRs (Clockwise and Anti) split between three written rounds, of which two were connects. The written rounds had five questions with 10 points per correct answer (and a bonus for the connect). In this case, I will echo the words of Kunal Sawardekar who discourages hefty weightage to written rounds as that can severely disrupt the balance. But to each QM his own.

As the finals began, the lead taken by Team 1 in the first written round quickly became unassailable, as the other teams struggled to put points on the board. Team 5 had a strong start but lost the plot towards the second IR. However, Team 2 and Team 7 were in a cut-throat competition with negatives giving one team a lead or the other until the last few questions of the second IR where Team 2 scored a quick 20 to take the lead. By this time, Team 6 had snuck up for a tie.

The spread was justifiable, almost formulaic. Art, History, Geography, Business, Sports, Science all made an appearance. However, the last written round left a tinge of bitterness due to the flavour and slightly arcane choices. But then I am biased against Sports anyway. The difficulty was definitely towards the higher side, putting the College teams at a significant disadvantage. What was not absent, was definitely the fun all the teams had during the entire quiz. Surely a Sunday well spent in awesome quizzing company.

Overall, there were some excellent fundae which showed in-depth research and the potential to create several ‘Aha!’ moments. But, very often the framing of the questions was not effective enough to derive the answer, creating situations where you either know-it-or don’t. However, this being the first Open set by this batch of quizmasters, this can be readily forgiven. Setting of quizzes over time (and I hope several more) will definitely help. Other than that, the projectors everywhere in COEP definitely need to be upgraded, or their jacks and cables at least.

To conclude, I definitely see this being a bigger and an annual event. 2021 will surely see Sir Vivesvaraya Open attract larger crowds from other cities too.

Report by: Omkar Dhakephalkar

InFest T20 - InFestYouUs T20 Report

                           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. 

                          With registrations exceeding 35 participants and as the day warmed up, a Mob of over 40 the challenge to the participant to answer correctly was grand. The venue was a classroom in the Academic Complex at the College of Engineering, Pune, next to the COEP Boat Club.

                          The winner of InFestYouUs T20 with a score of 9 on 10 was Prathamesh Pawar, who consistently has been among the top performers at InFestYouUs. His topic was ‘Roads of Pune'. Set by Ranajeet Soman and Kunal Sawardekar, this was definitely not an easy set. Shrirang Raddi, whose set was ‘Famous Cons and Conmen’ was second, with a score of 8. The set was framed by Maitreyi Gupta. Perhaps being among the first sets to be conducted, the mob was absent to heckle and give a few negatives. But a nice set earned a nice game.  Sneha Ranjan was next at 7.5. Her topic was ‘Michelle Obama’, set by Gaurav Sabnis.

                          Abhinav Dasgupta won the Boatie for the Best InFestYouUs Set for his ‘A Decade Under Influence – Hollywood of the 70s’ set. That said, the most memorable result of InFestYouUs T20 was the moniker “Sari God” given to Vibhendu Tewari for acing a fine “Types of Saris” set by J. Ramanand. A special mention is also must for Kushan Patel and Anuradha Dharwadkar who travelled all the way from Gujarat for the event.

                        A sincere thank you to all the quiz-setters for setting such brilliant sets for InFestYouUs. Heartfelt thanks to all the setters who could actually come and take their set. Sincere thanks to Vrushabh Gudade, on whose laptop the sets were taken (due to VGA-HDMi misadventures). Extra-special thanks to Pradnya, Disha Koetcha, Prajot Patne, Athava Soman and COEP for providing such prompt facilities on time so early in the morning.

Full Score Sheet available on event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2186091818354962/

Report by: Omkar Dhakephalkar