The Quizbowl Resource Center

To All Quizbowlers Whom May Be Concerned By The Content Of This Forum Post:

My name is Devin James John Bartholomew Humphreys, and I am proud to announce that I will be tournament-directing Math Monstrosity, Conor Thompson's tossups-only math side event, at PACE NSC the night of June 10. Absolutely anyone is welcome to participate in this open mirror as long as they are willing to pay. That includes competitors, staffers, parents, coaches, and even complete strangers.

The only things I ask of those who desire to participate are as follows:

1. $10 per person. I'm willing to dock $5 off that if you can provide me with a room or a buzzer system for the duration of the tournament. Minimum fee $5 per person.

2. Willingness to participate in this side event on a doubles team AS A LADDER-STYLE SHOOTOUT EVENT. Details below.

You may register for the side event here, and pay your entry fee in the Conference Center Foyer.

Sincerely,

Devin Humphreys

Just so everybody is clear on PACE policies with side events: PACE cannot provide any buzzers or rooms for this tournament, including staffer hotel rooms. NSC control room staff (i.e. staffers whose duties are not "reading and/or scorekeeping"), are forbidden to play this or any other NSC side event. All other staffers may participate as they wish.

This is our general policy and has nothing to do with the specifics of this tournament. In fact, I pretty much copied and pasted this post from two years ago.

Alright. I have a couple of quick updates in light of the fact that the official schedule for NSC has been posted. Assuming that we're involved in a tiebreak:

1. Mass will start promptly at 7:00 PM and will go until about 7:40.
2. I will then move from the Hartsfield Room, where Mass will be said, to the foyer of the Lobby Level Conference Center, where I will accept payment for this side event. Cash or check, please.
3. At 7:50 we'll move into game rooms, and I hope to have Round 1 started by 8:00. Since each round consists of 20 tossups, we hope to keep things moving so that each round takes a maximum of 20 minutes.

Other announcements:

4. THIS IS EDITED AS OF 8 JUNE. Because we were not able to secure four rooms that would be otherwise unused, I have made the executive decision to change the format of the tournament. The tournament will be run ladder-style, a la Imaginary Landscape at last year's NSC. The basic format idea is as follows:

Four teams start in Room A. Another four teams start in Room B. Any free agent pairings start in Room B. Those groups are equal in strength. At the end of Round 1, the two Room B teams with the highest scores will advance to Room A, while the two Room A teams with the lowest scores will move down to Room B. This process will repeat until Round 4, at which point ONE team per room will move. The two teams with the highest scores in Room A Round 6 will play a one-game final for the championship.

If I am able to secure from you, the participants in this side event, THREE (3) rooms by 5:00 PM Central Standard Time Friday, we will run the tournament the way we originally intended. Otherwise, this is how the tournament will be run. I apologize for the last-minute format change; this is what was necessary to keep the tournament running.

dhumphreys17 wrote:Cash or check, please.

In this digital age where nobody has a reason to carry around outdated methods of payment made of paper is there perhaps another method of payment possible such as paypal or a mobile equivalent???

Borel hierarchy wrote:

dhumphreys17 wrote:Cash or check, please.

In this digital age where nobody has a reason to carry around outdated methods of payment made of paper is there perhaps another method of payment possible such as paypal or a mobile equivalent???

The smart-aleck in me wants to say that there is now a reason for people to carry around "outdated" methods of payment made of paper, but really it's just that I have no PayPal or mobile equivalent. Yes, I know I'm living in an antiquated world where payment is made of paper. No, I don't think that's going to change anytime soon unless someone would play this side event but won't unless they can pay in an electronic form.

Is this schedule still accurate? It looks like the mass started really late

I don't see anyone?

I'm intending to come once I got an update about the event.

How did this go?

The Ununtiable Twine wrote:How did this go?

In my opinion, it was quite well-run considering the delays because of NSC matches and the fact that a lot of teams that signed up did not come. The questions were quite good and difficult and many of the players that came were extremely impressive.

To everyone who played this: thanks, and I hope you enjoyed it!

This is just a reminder that there is a private discussion forum in which to discuss the set.

Also, if you were one of the teams who couldn't play for whatever reason, there's still a chance to play the set at my online mirror next Sunday!

The Ununtiable Twine wrote:How did this go?

...as in who won the tournament etc etc

The Ununtiable Twine wrote:

The Ununtiable Twine wrote:How did this go?

...as in who won the tournament etc etc

This happened. After a preliminary seeding round, five rounds of ladder-style play did occur between five very talented teams, and the results are as follows:


5th place - The Euler-Macaronis, consisting of Kieran Kaempan and Brian Kalathiveetil (10 points in one round of top-room play)
4th place - Finite Simple Group of Order Two, consisting of Jon Hillery and Agustin Garcia (25 points in two rounds of top-room play)
3rd place - Great Ascending Chain of Being, consisting of Eric Mukherjee and Ankit Aggarwal (165 points in three rooms of top-room play)
2nd place - State College A, consisting of two people playing under the pseudonyms Martin and Graham (230 points in four rounds of top-room play)
1st place - Bolzano/Why are we here, consisting of Stephen Eltinge and Sam Rombro (525 points in five rounds of top-room play)

Teams earned a spot in the top room by winning the match in the bottom room, which had two teams, and stayed there by not losing the match in the top room, which had three teams. Both Finite Simple Group and the Euler-Macaronis earned their way into the top room and got some wicked buzzes, and although State College A and Great Ascending Chain went back and forth a couple of times, both teams were very strong. Stephen Eltinge and Sam Rombro were like Hades in Pantheon Bowl, to quote a SHA teammate of mine; in other words, they were O.P.

Stat-lines in the top room for rounds 2-6 were as follows:

Brian (Euler-Macaronis; one round) - 0/0/1 (-5 points; -5 PPG)
Agustin (Finite Simple Group; two rounds) - 0/0/1 (-5 points; -2.5 PPG)
Ankit (Great Ascending Chain; three rounds) - 0/5/5 (25 points; 8.3 PPG)
Sam (Why are we here; five rounds) - 3/3/1 (70 points; 14 PPG)
Kieran (Euler-Macaronis; one round) - 0/2/1 (15 points; 15 PPG)
Jon (Finite Simple Group; two rounds) - 1/3/3 (30 points; 15 PPG)
Graham (State College A; four rounds) - 2/7/6 (70 points; 18.8 PPG)
Martin (State College A; four rounds) - 5/11/5 (160 points; 40 PPG)
Eric (Great Ascending Chain; three rounds) - 6/7/4 (140 points; 46.7 PPG)
Stephen (Why are we here; five rounds) - 19/19/4 (455 points!!; 91 PPG)

Thanks to everyone who came out to enjoy this set. It was an honor to read for you all, and major props have to go to Ian Dreyer and Harris Bunker, without whom this event would have either (a) been a disaster or (b) not run.

This set was fun. I apologize for not giving Devin the scoresheets for my room but I didn't keep individual scores anyway. Ian read the rest of the set to us as a shootout and everyone got some things which was cool to see. We all thought that is was impressive that there could be a dozen packets of just math content even if some of the answerlines were not purely mathematical in nature. Thanks Conor for writing this and to everyone I read for or played with! I applaud Devin's patience as I made him to wait to start this event as I was staffing the Sivakumar event.

dhumphreys17 wrote: Stephen (Why are we here; five rounds) - 19/19/4 (455 points!!; 91 PPG)

Not bad for a physicist! No really, great job. Go math mafia go!

Why do people not keep individual score at side events? HoW dOeS qUiZbOwL wOrK?

Cody wrote:Why do people not keep individual score at side events? HoW dOeS qUiZbOwL wOrK?

This was a mistake on my part. There was only two two-person teams in my room and I asked if just tallying a team score was adequate. I apologize to all the players who played for this stats snafu that was wholly caused by me being lazy and not wanting to have two additional columns on my scoresheet.