InFest T20 - Medium Raw (Food Quiz)

Slot: Sunday, 5-1-2020, Afternoon.
Quiz: Medium Raw
Venue: College of Engineering, Pune

Fest/Organized by: InFest T20
Flavour: Food Quiz
QM(s): Pranav “Floyd” Joshi

Format: Teams of 2. Written.

Winners:
1. Anisha Karnail and Manas Mahaveer: 34/45 points
2. Rajeev Rai and Abhishek Kapoor: 25.5/45 points

Being a post-lunch quiz, despite the QM being on-time, the room was slow to fill up and the quiz started after a delay of 20 minutes (taking into account the postponed time due to the previous quiz ending slightly late).

There were issues regarding the laptop and the VGA port systems. Here a special thanks has to be given to Omkar Yarguddi without whose laptop the quiz would not have taken place. Thank you!

The quiz was a written one, 35 questions long. Some questions had multiple parts, taking the points to 45.

The questions were well thought out and fun. Being a flavoured quiz, some were bound to be know-it-or-don’t, but a majority of them were deducible and well-framed. Plenty of “Aha!” moments, so to say. The mix ranged from the humble Misal-Pav to French desserts, Aztec cooking and saving the dolphins. Like a Ferrero Rocher, behind the chocolate cover, hid true gen fundae.

The entire quiz was designed to look like a cookbook. On hindsight, the formatting of the ppt (was it even a ppt? Or a pdf read via a different software?) though aesthetically pleasing, its practicality was circumspect. Images being on different slides, and the font too small to be seen from behind being some complaints.

Other than that, partly to share the blame being the quizzers who came in late, the affairs could definitely have been sped up, especially during the second-run and corrections.

Special shout-out to the winners, college quizzers from IISER, defeating well-known powerhouses by a huge margin.

Report by: Omkar Dhakephalkar

InFest T20 – Free Solo (Solo quiz) - Report

InFest T20 – Free Solo (Solo quiz)

Set & conducted by – Kunal Sawardekar
Date: 4th January 2020
Venue: Academic Complex, COEP
Flavour: General quiz

Format:

Elims – 25 questions

Semi-Finals – 26 questions on IR plus 2written rounds 

Finals – 22 questions on IR plus 1 written round

Results:
Winner – Vibhendu Tiwari 142 pts

Runner-up – Rajiv Rai 139.5 pts

2nd runner-up – Samrat “Sammy Sir” Sengupta 117 pts

Other finalists – Aman Sheikh, Divij Ghosh and Omkar Dhakephalkar

Semi-finalists – Ranajeet Soman, Aditya Gadre, Arnold D’Souza, Shubhankar Gokhale, Brajendu Bhaskar, Vcat Srinivasan

Report:

This year, we saw a new winner of the solo quiz after Dhake and Kunal alternated to win the last few years. Kunal had clearly taken the ‘lesser-seen side of the Dunning-Kruger effect’ feedback to heart and had set an accessible yet interesting set this year. The overall quality of the questions was excellent and although the QM played to his strengths of history-geography and pop-culture, there was enough diversity of topics to give everyone a fair shot.

12 people were drafted into the semis after a 25-question elims which saw a double-digit cut-off, a clear sign of improvement on the QM’s part. The semis were a lot of fun and even with 12 people on IR there were no questions which could be ‘chimped’ on. The staggered pounce system proved a blessing for some and resulted in the downfall of others. Some great fundae were brought to the fore and unanswered questions usually got applause rather than groans. The semis were quite close with a bunch of contestants near 40-50 points. 

Eventually, 3 youngsters from Pune and 3 experienced gentlemen from Bombay made it to the finals. The finals began with a bang for the young guns with Aman and Divijcapitalizing on the pop-culture questions. They got close enough to the lead to worry Rajiv, which is a high compliment, especially in a solo quiz. Sammy sir was in exceptional form throughout the day and kept in contention till almost the end. Vibhendu had not had a strong semi-finals but he made up for it in the finals. While the youth was distracting Rajiv, he slowly but surely crept up the leaderboard till he had taken the lead two questions from the end. As the last question appeared, multiple combinations of outcomes were possible but experience trumped youth in the end, if only just.

The quiz was great fun without losing competitiveness, which is a compliment to the quizmaster. Vibhendu’s performance was so well-received that it earned him extra plaudits at the festivities following the quiz. He is now given the onerous task of setting next year’s quiz (possibly with the runner-up). We are confident he will keep the high standard going at Infest 2021.

InFest T20 - Cineaste (Movies Quiz) - Report

InFest T20 - Cineaste (Movies Quiz)

Set by - Avaneendra Bhargav and Aniket Khasgiwale
Conducted by - Avaneendra Bhargav
Date: 5 January 2020
Venue: Academic Complex, COEP
Format - Elims: 25 questions; Finals: 36 Questions on IR plus 3 written rounds (6 questions each)
Flavour - Movies Quiz

Results:
Winners: Team 5 - Govind Grewal, Devang Ghia and Anuradha Dhanwadkar (draft)
Runners up: Team 1 - Rajiv Rai, Abhishek Kapoor and Pranav Pawar (draft)
2nd Runners up: Team 4 - Vansa David, Nadeem Ansari and Ranajeet Soman (draft)
Other finalists: Team 2 - Brajendu Bhaskar, Pathikrit Basu and Rahul Surana (draft), Team 3 - Kunal Sawardekar, Aditya Gadre and Vibhendu Tewari (draft); Team 6 - Ritoban Maitra, Chinmay Deshpande and Abhinav Dasgupta (draft)

Report:
This was, if memory serves, the fourth edition of Cineaste with the only common factor in each edition being Avaneendra Bhargav. This time, Avaneendra and Aniket (all the way from Straya), served up a great set of movie questions without ever being obscure. As an armchair movie watcher and not really a big-time buff, I found all answers relatable and significant.

The quiz overall went off shockingly quickly and we finished on time at 7:30 against all odds on account of Avaneendra's rock solid QMing, and the crispness and clarity of question framing.

The elims were a short 25 question affair with a few Indian and several nice Western fundas and were largely driven by recent famous movies. The crowd no doubt found the elims  accessible as the cut off was quite high with some stalwarts like Vibhendu, Abhinav and Anannya failing to qualify. On the bright side, we saw some new young, local  teams in the finals.

The finals had a good mix of Western and Global cinema while never going too much into random unknown unreleased film type territory. The questions were well framed and clear on what was required as answers. All the answers were names of people or movies - which really helped in checking pounces at a brisk pace. The quiz was on the easier side which made it fun for everyone involved (all teams crossed 200 points!) in the finals. The written rounds were interesting if a bit hardcore. Aside from a misguided attempt to move things along at a higher pace and introducing a kamikaze element for about 5 questions, Avaneendra did a fantastic job of conducting the quiz. My only real quibble with the quiz would be the relative lack of representation of Indian movies.

While the quiz was always high scoring, the top two teams - Rajiv, Kapoor, PP and Govind, Devang, Anuradha were neck and neck and the lead went back and forth several times. After several nail-biting exchanges, we went into the final written round - where Govind and co held on to their slender 5 point lead to win the quiz.
All the other teams were more or less even for most of the quiz, but Vansa, Nadeem and Rana just pulled out a few good answers and took the third position. 

InFest T20 - The Maazical Mystery Tour (Music Quiz)

Set by - Aditya Gadre and Debanjan Bose
Conducted by - Aditya Gadre
Date: 5 January 2020
Venue: Academic Complex, COEP
Format - Elims: 30 questions including 6 two-pointers; Finals: 36 Questions on IR plus 4 written rounds (3 questions * 10 points each)
Flavour - Music Quiz

Results:
Winners: Team 1 - Rajiv Rai, Abhishek Kapoor and Sumeet Pai (draft)
Runners up: Team 6 - Vansa David, Govind Grewal and Sania Nerulkar (draft)
2nd Runners up: Team 5 - Anannya Deb, Gokul Panigrahi and Kunal Sawardekar (draft)
Other finalists: Team 2 - Ranajeet Soman, Pranav Pawar and Anuradha Santhanam (draft); Team 4 - Anisha Karnail, Manas Mahaveer and VCat Srinivasan (draft); Team 3 - Devang Ghia, Gaurav Sabnis and Nadeem Ansari (draft)

Report:
This is the second time Aditya and Debanjan brought the Maazical Mystery Tour to InFest, and this edition lived up to the high standards set by the first. Compared to the previous edition of MMT at InFest (in 2018), this time the quiz was quite well attended and more than 20 teams braved the chilly weather to attend the quiz.

The QM noted that following feedback in the last iteration of this quiz, the difficulty level in the elimination round had been moderated. True to the QM's word, the Elims were indeed accessible and fun while at the same time covering a time period from the 6th Century to the 21st and many parts of India and the world. 

The Finals had a similar format to the previous edition of MMT, with four written rounds on what the QM described as "whimsical themes" and 36 questions on IR with a (in this writer's opinion) very forgiving pounce. Once again, there was a great representation of various genres, time periods and places.

One minor quibble was that the written rounds had a comparatively high weightage - the points on offer in the 4 written rounds were a quarter of the total points available in the finals. I'm not usually in favour of this as it can potentially skew the outcome of the quiz - but the setters' care in ensuring balance in topics even within each written round ensured that this would not be a concern. 

With a good sprinkling of entertainment quizzing heavy-hitters spread throughout the teams in the finals, the quiz was keenly contested. Team 6 pulled into an early lead with their deep knowledge of bhangra, but Team 5 edged ahead by the end of the second written round with their fundas on dance forms and the Billboard Charts. After this, Team 1 brought the vast experience of the pre-CHOGM era and prodigy of the post-Aashiqui generation (they had both in one team!) to bear and the rest of the quiz was pretty much a contest between Teams 1 and 6 with Team 1 coming through in the end.

On a parting note, I should tell you that I am listening to a song I heard for the first time at the quiz, as I am writing this. I don't know what higher compliment I can pay a Music Quiz.

(Our report on the previous edition of the Maazical Mystery Tour at Infest 2018 can be found here).

The Winners with the QM

TechWit - The Intercorporate Tech+Biz Quiz at Infosys

Conducted by - Shrirang Raddi and Chintan Shah
Set by - Thinq2Win
Date: 28 November 2019
Venue: Infosys Phase-II campus
Format - 20 Question Elims; 32 Questions on IR, one written round and one "Pounce" round in the Finals

Results:
Winners: Talentica (Gokul & Nilay)
Runners up: Arcubus (Avaneendra & Kunal)
Second runners up: BNY Mellon (Kapinjal & Rakesh)
Other Finalists: UBS (Ashish & Nishant), Infosys (Gaurav +1) and PriceWaterhouse Coopers (Nikhil & Anil)

Report:

People who are not into business quizzes have a stereotype of biz-quizzes being boring and formulaic; and this quiz was anything but. The elims were really well-framed, with lots of clues for each question to help you along even if you aren't up to date with the zeitgeist of biz-quizzes and were generally a lot of fun for the participants. Though slightly short at 20 questions, the elims managed to separate the top 6 teams to go through to the finals, with a few teams narrowly missing out.

The finals had a stronger focus on core Business and Tech quizzing, with somewhat of a lesser focus on workability than the elims did. There were two special rounds to break up the Infinite Rebounds rounds - a written round on famous fathers halfway through and a "Pounce" round at the end. At the end of the IR rounds, UBS were ahead with a slight lead, with Talentica, Arcubus and BNY Mellon tied 10 points behind them. However, this leaderboard was upended in the Pounce round, which consisted on 5 questions open only on the pounce on the various members of the Paypal Mafia. UBS eschewed the safe strategy, taking some chances on the pounce, and unfortunately fell 20 points behind the other teams, with Talentica, Arcubus and UBS tied after the second-last question was asked. Talentica pulled ahead with a correct pounce on the very last question to a much-deserved win, while Arcubus and UBS went into a tie-breaker to determine second place. QM Shrirang, conscious of the Boy Scouts motto, had prepared for sudden-death questions beyond the initial three in the tie-breaker, but these were not needed as Arcubus eked out ahead of UBS.

Overall, the quiz was a great experience for all the participants. QM Shrirang conducted the quiz with great flair, keeping a decent clip with the pounces and keeping the audience engaged. Thanks to Shrirang, Chintan and the whole Infosys team for a well put-together event, and we hope this quiz becomes a regular event going forward.

Session Note: Sunday, 13th October 2019

This Sunday too, we had a regular session being conducted at the Boat Club of COEP (for the lack of a better venue). Sai Ganesh's Pop Ki Kamai set was proctored by Gokul Panigrahi.
It was a very good set from Sai Ganesh with a significant weightage being given to Indian Pop Culture. It was conducted in a shoutout format.

After this set Gokul also ran his personal sets: one SciTech and one General. All in all a great session. No better way to spend a lazy Sunday evening.

Note by: Prajot Patne.

In attendance
Gokul Panigrahi
Prajot Patne
Nikhil Jadhav
+1

Session Note: Sunday, 6th October 2019

Last BCQC Sunday (6th October) brought forth another afternoon session,  Quizmasters Aditya Singh and Gokul Panigrahi put out four Applause-worthy sets.

Gokul went first, starting with a QFI gen quiz.

This was soon followed by Aditya's heavily- Film and Literature influenced Questions with an equal dosage of intensive Pop Cult trivia, including a set from DQC as well!

The last lap saw Gokul taking the reins once again with another QFI Gen set and a  SciTech set, bringing a well executed end to yet another lovely session 

The members went for the obvious choice of shout-out style that more than made up for the human presentee at the time. 

Indeed a most engaging, informative and well spent Sunday afternoon. 

Note by: Nikita Bhakre

In attendance:

Aditya Singh, BITS

Gokul Panigrahi

Nikita Bhakre

Prajot Patne

Vrushabh Gudade

Pranav "Floyd" Joshi

Poorva

Session Note: Sunday, 22nd September 2019

It was another balmy afternoon of the unseasonal September of 2019. Quorum was reached by 1530 and we settled down to conduct the first set of 30 MELA questions by Nikita Bhakare from ILS Law College, Pune. Selecting a long table in the canteen, teams were forwent in favour of having a shout-out session. A twist in the tale, wherein the canteen adhikari was asked to shut down the canteen and kick everyone out, forced us to take a Mosaical journey through the campus in search of a promised land. We were led by the BCQC-the COEP Quiz Club head, (quite appropriately named in this case) Disha, in this journey to the Riverside Relaxation Area (West) in the New Academic Building.

There we procured a table and Nikita ran her questions. The questions were fun and engaging. An excellent debut. Her last question was an acapella connect of Zimmer music. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed guessing and just watching the video. Props to Gokul for getting his speaker.

This was followed by another 30 questions by Ritoban Maitra from Symbiosis Law School, Pune. Also conducted in the shout-out fashion, these questions too marked an excellent BCQC debut. Each question had multiple parts, sometimes connected, sometimes not. The hive-mind of the quizzing collective buzzed together to answer the questions. Though MELA, there was a generous Gen proportion as well.

At this time, just as we were wrapping up, Gokul pulled out 20 questions form the Tata Crucible Elims. Yaay! While these were being answered, a few had to understandably leave due to other commitments. But keeping balance, like a Lost Tribe, we had Aastha and Chaitanya join us. Because we had been displaced, they spent time searching for us and arrived at the end.
Note: Update location when displaced from the Boat Club.
For them, Omkar Dhakephalkar ran another 10 questions from his phone and the session was wrapped up.

Overall, another fun Sunday.

In attendance:

Nikita Bhakare
Ritoban Maitra
Chinmay from SLS
Samiran
Aditya, BITS
Disha, head of BCQC-the COEP Quiz Club
Atharva Soman, COEP
Prajot Patne, COEP
Boshitwa, Talentica
Gokul Panigrahi
Aastha
Chaitanya
Omkar Dhakephalkar

Session Note: Sunday, 15th September 2019

After an unbrief hiatus, BCQC had a Sunday session on the 15th of September 2019. The quizmasters for the afternoon were Venkat "VCat" Srinivasan and Samiran Mondal who collectively conducted appox. 100 questions.
The weather was a perfect Pune afternoon, but the hint of rain forced us to preemptively take refuge in the adjacent canteen. Quorum was met by 1510 and so Vcat started his quiz by 1515. He ran fun, swift, general sets which he conducted at his workplace. Though some of the "current events" questions were dated (he ran sets he conducted since June), he gave us enough hints to crack them.
After his set, which was a shout-out, Samiran ran a proper elims+IR quiz. We had four teams of two so the quiz ran for a good while. Some really nice fundae were garnished with hard-core stuff.
We wrapped up the session by 1815.

It was a pleasure to see some new faces: ex-BITSians as well as from SLS, and good ol' regulars.
Overall, a fun afternoon.

In attendance:
Samiran Mondal
Venkat "VCat" Srinivasan
Sneha
Anirudh, ex-BITsian
Aditya, BITS
Chinmay from SLS
Ritoban from SLS
Vrushabh Gudade
Gokul Panigrahi
Omkar Dhakephalkar

BC Cup 2019 - 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 11th edition of the BC Cup saw about as strong a field as last year. The elims turned out to be bit on the tougher side and Anannya Deb topped with 15.5 points. All other qualifiers were bunched together and the cut off was 10.5 with 2.5 stars. Rajiv Rai just missed out qualification on stars. 

The Quarter Finals

The top 8 in the quarter finals were:
Prithwish Datta, Deepanjan Deb, Venkatraghavan S (Ingit Sir), Suraj Menon, Anannya Deb, Saahil Sharma, Samrat Sengupta, Anand Sivashankar

Suraj, Prithwish and Anannya were a different league and led from start to finish to very comfortably take the top three spots in the quarter finals. All other qualifiers were in the hunt till the very end, with us going into the last question of the quarters with a three-way tie between Samrat, Deepanjan and Ingit Sir. Samrat got knocked out in the tie breaker - but we needed 4 sudden death questions to finally resolve the tie between Deepanjan and Ingit sir. Ingit sir prevailed with a good cricket answer and ensured the semis were a repeat of last year's line up.  

The Semi Finals: 

The top 4 were: Suraj, Ingit sir, Anannya and Prithwish

Ingit sir started well - but Suraj took his game to another level and won the Semis very comfortably. Anannya and Prithwish were tied at 4 points a piece going into the last 2 questions of the quarters. Anannya missed a question on Indian football and Prithwish answered corrected to narrowly go ahead. The last question went unanswered and Prithwish took up the second spot in the finals - another repeat of last year's final . 

The Finals:

Prithwish and Suraj faced off in the BC Cup final for the third year running  - they have been the dominant performers at this quiz - and this final was one for the ages. Prithwish won the toss and went first - he scored on the first question itself to put pressure on Suraj. Suraj too answered his first home question and leveled things. No one scored in the second home leg for Prithwish and we went into the last 7 questions tied and potentially heading to another penalty shootout (like 2017). Prithwish pulled out an outrageous cricket answer to score an away goal meaning Suraj had to score both his last questions to win. Suraj answered the penultimate question to tie the scores on aggregate - but he needed another one to win. The last question went un-answered to give Prithwish the win that has eluded him for the last two years. 

BC Cup Winner 2019: Prithwish Datta 
Runner Up: Suraj Menon 

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

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