In 2018 I wrote a post about my appearance in my favourite Polish quiz show. The minimum time after which it's possible to sign up again is four years and they just have passed, so here I come again.

I was a bit more serious about the preparations than the last time, because sometimes I was taking notes of the hard questions when watching the show in TV. It resulted in about 4000 questions and answers, which then I tried to practice as flashcards in Anki app. In fact, not a single question of the ones I've learned has repeated for me, but in general obviously there were a few repetitions.

Also, based on my statistics I'm taking daily, my efficiency of giving correct answers has increased from 74.25% (2017-mid 2021) to 79,89% (second half of 2021). So I felt I'm getting a bit better during the preparations for another recording.

The rules of the show

They didn't change since 2018, so I'll mostly refer to the description from my previous appearance:

To start, there are ten participants who need to answer the questions. Every player has three chances, which means they can make at most two mistakes.
In the first phase each player gets two questions. Answering for at least one of those is needed to go to round two. In round two players, after a correct answer, choose who should be asked next. This phase continues until just three players remain in the game. They take part in the final.
It is pretty similar to the previous phase: After a few free-for-all questions, the first player who correctly answers for three questions can select who will answer next. It goes on until only one player remains or they run out of questions. The questions can fall in one of about 100 categories, so one may be asked for almost anything, like history, geography, chemistry, actors, sport, foreign languages (especially Latin :) )... It's also possible to select yourself to answer for the question to gain more points, but they matter only if you win and want to take part in the (monthly) Grand Final, consisting of the top ten players of the twenty episodes.

Prelude

I've signed up for another eliminations in spring 2021. Soon later there were some disruptions, because it was not clear whether my favourite quiz won't be cancelled. Fortunately it wasn't and I got an invitation for September to Wrocław. It's quite a bit of distance, but I was proposed to accept or wait for another eliminations in spring 2022, so I've preferred not to defer that and travelled there for a nice weekend. This time I was invited for a specific date and time and there were just a few people scheduled for the same moment. I didn't wait much and went in. I've got the same result as four years earlier, 19 of 20, so I passed (16 correct answers were needed). The thing I didn't know was the composer of Turandot. After successful qualification, I had to wait to finally get an invitation for the end of January.

I was a bit stressed, because at the beginning of 2022 I got COVID and was on quarantine for two weeks, but, fortunately, it ended about a week before the recording. Another funny thing was I just switched the job and I didn't work for half of January, and then, during the first week of the real work, I had to take some time off. As a result, I didn't have much chance to give a good first impression of being a dedicated worker, but I was sure the second encounter with Tadeusz Sznuk is totally worth it.

So I went to Lublin a day before. I had some typical trouble with PKP (Polish Railroads) so I got to the Hotel well after 1 a.m. and I wasn't able to rest too much. The next morning I've prepared my best (because the only) suit and went to the building of TVP Lublin. I was farsighted enough to leave early, because I was able to go wrong twice, even though the recording was just two streets away from my hotel. After reaching the destination I hoped it's the last thing to go wrong that day.

It's probably there

Because of COVID precautions, the meeting before the recording wasn't as nice as usually. For example I had to wear mask all the time, even after having a makeup. It was also impossible to meet Tadeusz Sznuk, who needs to be isolated from the participants. Then the game has begun.

I was very stressed for days before the recording, but luckily the feeling has disappeared when the competition started.

The game

The first phase was pretty easy, as I got two simple questions. But almost nobody had any trouble with theirs, so I had to be prepared for a long struggle. In the second phase I was lucky enough to also get a few easy questions, which resulted in me keeping all the chances. Because of that, the other players preferred to select the other opponents, as they were easier targets. As a result, the last part of the second phase was me observing the duels of potential opponents for the final. It had another benefit, because the questions gradually become tougher then the time passes, in order to keep the second phase short enough for airing. There were some questions I wouldn't be able to answer, but fortunately somebody else had to answer them.

When it goes to strategy, not making mistakes on the beginning is profitable, but it's just a special case of an obvious rule, that generally it's better to give correct answers.

This way I reached the final, just like four years earlier, but this time I really thought that winning is an option. My wild guess who will get to the final was different, but it's better to not make any assumptions about the potential outcome of the final, because it's hard to guess who is the strongest player just based on just a few questions. My plan was:

1. to win
2. if I will be doing fine, to take a few questions for myself to give myself a chance to get to the grand final

My lifetime record was getting 44 correct answers in a row (when sitting in front of TV), but in the vast majority of cases it went much worse. I knew it's almost impossible for me to ever get more than 200 points (20 correct answers), so I had to be careful. I knew I should be able to get about 10-15 answers correct before losing all the chances.

The competition was pretty fair and I've seen I was getting an upper hand, so I decided to take two questions for myself to have some fun and then I managed to win. Unfortunately, right after winning I got a spree of questions I wasn't able to answer, so I didn't get enough points to be sure of participation in the Grand Final. As a note, Grand Final has exactly the same rules as a normal episode, but consists of the ten best winners of the twenty episodes making up a season.

My questions

I got seven questions in the first and second phase, which is close to average.

(I put my additional comments in the parentheses, they were not a part of question or answer)

Q: When somebody is riding a horse without a saddle, it's called "jedzie na..."
A: "na oklep" ("bareback", a question about polish vocabulary)

Q: Who wrote "Ferdydurke" (a Polish book)
A: Gombrowicz

Q: Name at least three countries with Andes Mountains
A: Chile, Peru, Bolivia

Q: Which of the following acids has no oxygen: sulphuric acid, Hydrochloric acid, Isocyanic
A: Hydrochloric (HCl)

Q: On which sea are Frisian Islands located?
A: North Sea

Q: Did Caste system officially exist in Indian law after the World War II?
A: Yes

Q: How is called a hot spring that sometimes discharges water and steam
A: Geyser

Final

Q: Greek name of the Roman godness Diana
A: Artemis

Q: Is 100 km/h more or less than 30 m/s?
A: Less

Q: What was the nationality of settlers who drained Żuławy Wiślane (a region in the delta of Vistula)
A: Dutch

Q: Was Cistercians a knight order?
A: No

Q: From how many journeys around the world did Magellan come back?
A: From none

Q: Is water polo played during Olympic Games?
A: Yes

Q: (taken for myself) What was the name of alliance of Prussia, Austria and Russia formed in 1815?
A: Holy Alliance

Q: (taken for myself) How many angelic trumpets infomed about the end of the world in the Apocalypse
A: Seven

Q: Who painted "The School of Athens"?
A: Rafael Santi (my first mistake, I've said Leonardo da Vinci even though I was pretty sure it's not him)

Q: In which city reigned king Sisyphus?
A: Corinth

Q: Who constructed a steam locomotive called "Rocket"?
A: Stevenson (I gave no answer. Apparently, I've read Stevenson's Rocket was in Science Museum in London till 2018, but I visited it in 2019)

Q: Which format of paper is bigger: A1 or B1?
A: B1 (I said A1, probably misled by the fact that it's numbers that go in reverse order)

Video

Below I've reuploaded the recording so it will never disappear.

Official link is here, but it might become outdated some time after airing.

Aftermath

I didn't know if bare 113 points will be just enough to stay on the leaderboard, so I was pretty confident that I have another four-year break before another attempt.

I took the main prize: coffee machine (sadly, I don't drink coffee), cosmetics (I was running out of the ones won last time) and some money. Then I decided to have some fun in Lublin.

Museum of Cebularz, a Lublinian special made of dough and onions, a bit similar to pizza

Of course, I made sure I'll be back to the hotel in the evening to watch another episode of the show.

A traditional photo on the day of recording

Two weeks later I was proved to be wrong. I've managed to qualify to the Grand Final, so I had to prepare for another journey to Lublin in a few weeks. This time I wasn't hoping to win or even to show off as a good player in comparison to the best of the best, but I was determined to participate. And, for no logical reason, I started to feel the stress again.

To be continued.