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