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)