MUT Mirror 4/2 @ NGCSU

[North_GA_ATeam]

The North Georgia College & State University AcademicTeam will be hosting Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament, a below-collegiate-varsity-difficulty tournament, on April 2, 2011.

Many thanks to the University of Minnesota quizbowl organization for bringing us this excellent opportunity.

There is no packet submission requirement for this tournament.

Graduate students are not normally permitted to play, but with permission from editors, we will allow graduate students with limited previous Quizbowl experience to play at this mirror only.

-------------Full logistical announcement below---------------

Date: April 2, 2011

Location: The Newton-Oakes Center on North Georgia College & State University's campus in beautiful Dahlonega, Georgia

Schedule (tentative):
8:00 - 8:30am - Registration
8:30 - 9:00am - Rules meeting to go over the rules and tournament format and answer questions.
9:00am - Morning rounds
approx. noon - Lunch break
1:00pm - Afternoon rounds

Parking:
The closest and most convenient location to park will be the Student Lot right outside of the Newton-Oakes Center. A map detailing this parking lot may be found here: http://www.northgeorgia.edu/uploadedFil ... pusMap.pdf

Newton-Oakes is listed as 8B on this map, and the parking lot immediately to the right of that building will be available.

Hotels:
Lodging information is available upon request at northgeorgiaateam@gmail.com

Lunch options:
Local restaurant information is also available upon request at northgeorgiaateam@gmail.com



Registration fee:
Base fee: $100
Buzzer discount: -$5
Moderator: -$10
Scorekeeper: -$10
Travel: -$10 if over 200 miles by Google Maps' first location.
A steep discount for new-to-quizbowl teams will probably be offered, pending negotiation with the editors over mirror fees

Please make all checks payable to "NGCSU Academic Team".

To register: E-mail northgeorgiaateam@gmail.com with the following information:
1) School name
2) Coach/responsible individual's name and contact information
3) Number of teams you are entering
4) Number of buzzer systems you can bring
5) Any workers you are planning on bringing

If your team has any working buzzer systems, please bring them; the NGCSU Academic Team only has one buzzer system.

Feel free to e-mail northgeorgiaateam@gmail.com with any questions.

Field as of 1 April

North Greenville University (1)
Snead (1)
Georgia Tech (1)
Berry (1)
Alpharetta HS/Chattahoochee HS (1)
South Carolina (1)
Valdosta State (1)
NCSU (1)
UGA (1)

[Sun Devil Student]

8:00 - 8:30am - Registration (in PSA 118)

Wait, you guys have a PSA 118 on your campus too!?

(I suspect not, but that was so hilarious... sorry ;)

Glad to see my eloquent announcement language being adopted by others in our community. :) As long as it serves the good of all quizbowl, I don't mind. Hope you get lots of new teams and maybe some new grad students and so on. Good luck!

[North_GA_ATeam]

8:00 - 8:30am - Registration (in PSA 118)

Wait, you guys have a PSA 118 on your campus too!?

(I suspect not, but that was so hilarious... sorry ;)

Glad to see my eloquent announcement language being adopted by others in our community. :) As long as it serves the good of all quizbowl, I don't mind. Hope you get lots of new teams and maybe some new grad students and so on. Good luck!

Haha! That one got by me! I thought I'd read through it carefully enough to tailor it to our needs, but apparently not.

Thanks for the blessing and for catching my mistake!

[49-Mile Scenic Drive]

I would love to come play this but alabamas high school naqt state tournament is that day and I've already committed to reading, if the date could be moved we would consider coming

[centralhs]

This tournament is also the same day as the Georgia Varsity State tournament. I know that a number of Georgia high school players had hoped to play in the MUT this year, but they will not be able to now. Also, this may potentially cause some conflicts as college players are often called upon to serve as readers at Varsity State.

[North_GA_ATeam]

I did not realize there would be a scheduling conflict! I apologize for this oversight, and I will confer with my team on moving to a later date.

Hope this can work out for the best for everyone.

Thanks so much for bringing this to our attention.


Edit:
I have tentatively moved this to April 2. This should be the official date unless there are other HUGE scheduling conflicts.

[eldermaas]

North Greenville University will bring 1 team and 1 buzzer.

[geekjohnson]

Consider a tentative UWF team, al la just me, to be interested.

[49-Mile Scenic Drive]

Consider some Snead contingent to be interested, I'll know more soon

[North_GA_ATeam]

Sounds great. I've updated the field to reflect this.

[Owner of a Thorne-Zytkow Object]

Georgia Tech is interested and may be sending 1-2 teams.

[49-Mile Scenic Drive]

Pretty sure we will be coming to this unless something unexpected and out of the ordinary happens. Will there be discounts for shorthanded or solo players? Because there is a strong possibility I'll be playing this solo if I attend

[North_GA_ATeam]

I'm sure that we could work something out.

Shoot me an email when you have more information.

[pretzeldude92]

Alabama is interested in sending a team, but we'll know for sure soon.

[49-Mile Scenic Drive]

University of Alabama-Huntsville (1, tentative)

Have I missed something? Or did you just put UAH instead of UA?

[The Ununtiable Twine]

University of Alabama-Huntsville (1, tentative)

Have I missed something? Or did you just put UAH instead of UA?

UAH has a team? Is this true?
EDIT: If you meant to put us down, we're in Tuscaloosa. If UAH has a team, my bad.

[North_GA_ATeam]

University of Alabama-Huntsville (1, tentative)

Have I missed something? Or did you just put UAH instead of UA?

I definitely just put the wrong thing down. I'll change it.

[azngod1992]

Consider Duke interested in attending this tournament with one team.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

Alpharetta should have a team at this.

[North_GA_ATeam]

I've added both Duke and Alpharetta HS to the list.

Expect an email sometime later this week or early next week regarding the tournament.

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

South Carolina would like to register for this. We'll bring 2 buzzers and 2 readers.

[North_GA_ATeam]

South Carolina has been added.

[azngod1992]

Unfortunately, Duke is withdrawing from this tournament due to (again) a lack of interest. I apologize to the tournament staff for such a late notice. Best of luck to all the other teams.

[North_GA_ATeam]

I've updated the field. We're (again) at an even number.

Hopefully we'll stay at ten!

[North_GA_ATeam]

We've lost another team.

[North_GA_ATeam]

Even with only eight teams (NCSU didn't show up this morning), the event was a smashing success! Thanks to everyone who competed!

First Place: University of Georgia
Second Place: University of South Carolina
Third Place: Georgia Tech

[gwaustin4]

the event was a smashing success!

Second Place: University of South Carolina

0 for 2. But with very high quality!

Congratulations to USC, who is smashingly successful, and who also won the tournament.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

First of all, I'd like to thank NGCSU for hosting the tournament--it was fun to get a chance to play a college tournament not too far from Alpharetta. Logistically, I would say the tournament ran well. The readers were generally good. Getting 9 rounds in by 5 pm is fairly timely, especially when you consider that we waited until 9:30 for NCSU, who didn't show up.

There were some issues, though, that seriously affected the tournament. The first is that, after we lost NCSU from what was a 9-team field the decision was made to continue with the printed 9-team schedule, leading to a situation where 2 teams had byes each round. This wouldn't have been so bad if the teams had been at least allowed to play an unofficial game, but instead the team scheduled to play NCSU was forced to play a game against empty chairs where the score was counted in the official stats. This room inevitably held up each round because teams would sit on every tossup to ensure maximum points scored. It also led to a really anticlimactic final two rounds for us, since we had a bye and then the empty-chairs round.

The one thing, though, that was completely unacceptable was how the final placement was determined. UGA and USC finished with 1 loss each, and GT and Chattaretta finished with two losses apiece. But no tiebreaker games were played (though UGA and USC decided to stay to play a final after the TD offered a room and another round of questions); instead, ties were broken by some weird statistic related to the "quality" of a team's wins, and which essentially rewarded teams that had lower margins of victory. Thus Georgia Tech was awarded the 3rd place trophy despite Chattaretta holding all 3 commonly-used tiebreakers (PPG, PPB, and head-to-head) over them. The same situation happened between USC and UGA. When I asked the reasoning behind this, the TD responded with something along the lines of "This is the tournament director's final ruling."

I offer this criticism because I'd like to see NGCSU continue to host tournaments in the future, and I think that those future tournaments can be even better. Most of the quirks of this tournament seem to come from the staff's unfamiliarity with some common practices of quizbowl tournament directing; along that vein, I think it would be good if they attended some nearby college tournaments to see how other schools do things.

I've posted SQBS stats to Alpharetta's page. Let me know if I need to correct anything. I'll input the score for the UGA-USC final, too, if someone wants to post that here or email me.

[dtaylor4]

Was this not made clear at the beginning? There should have been a riot when this was revealed.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

Was this not made clear at the beginning? There should have been a riot when this was revealed.

That would have been the immature thing to do. We want to encourage NGCSU with constructive criticisms, not slander them and make them disinterested in hosting again. Thankfully, USC and UGA resolved things after the fact, which was the right thing to do. I don't know if anyone at all agrees with the situation between Chattaretta and Georgia Tech, but congratulations to them for not only showing that they can compete with teams like USC but for showing that our region has great potential for the future. Maybe a good thing for NGCSU to have done beforehand would have been to consult someone with TDing expertise to make sure they knew exactly what they were doing, but they're honestly trying to promote good quizbowl. No, you don't invent strange statistics to determine placing at a tournament. Absolutely not. But as a TD it is your responsibility to know what the standard tiebreakers are, most definitely. It sounds to me like NGCSU will be a fine tournament host if it gets these little things straight.

It shouldn't be that tough to recreate a schedule (an 8-team schedule at that, which makes it easier) to make things go more smoothly. It is a TD's responsibility to have alternate schedules just incase people drop out of the tournament (like we unfortunately had to do) at the last minute.

Also, no negs? That's mighty curious. That should lead you to think that they needed some advice with regards to rules, which, from this discussion, is obviously the case.

If we want to promote good quizbowl in our region, Donald's way is definitely not the way you should handle things, and I'm proud of the competitors for not handling themselves in this way. Congratulations to all the teams that made it out today - I'm sorry we couldn't make it out there today.

[Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant]

Also, no negs? That's mighty curious.

Exactly what I was going to say.

[Kenneth Widmerpool]

No negs isn't even close to what the real problem was with this tournament. Not including negs is justifiable if you consider the missed opportunity at a bonus and thus a shot at up to 40 points enough of a penalty.

[North_GA_ATeam]

First of all, I'd like to thank NGCSU for hosting the tournament--it was fun to get a chance to play a college tournament not too far from Alpharetta. Logistically, I would say the tournament ran well. The readers were generally good. Getting 9 rounds in by 5 pm is fairly timely, especially when you consider that we waited until 9:30 for NCSU, who didn't show up.

I would like to thank you for the commendation regarding the timeliness of our tournament and the general quality of our readers.

There were some issues, though, that seriously affected the tournament. The first is that, after we lost NCSU from what was a 9-team field the decision was made to continue with the printed 9-team schedule, leading to a situation where 2 teams had byes each round. This wouldn't have been so bad if the teams had been at least allowed to play an unofficial game, but instead the team scheduled to play NCSU was forced to play a game against empty chairs where the score was counted in the official stats. This room inevitably held up each round because teams would sit on every tossup to ensure maximum points scored. It also led to a really anticlimactic final two rounds for us, since we had a bye and then the empty-chairs round.

As the Tournament Director in question, I made the call to respect NCSU's commitment to attend. Because of this, I assumed that they might show up a round late. Or two rounds late. Or even at lunch time, if they had some serious issues. While this ended up not being the case, it was a decision made with respect to a team who had made a commitment to attend. I would have felt that it was in poor taste to exclude them in the event of their arrival. Perhaps this was not the best decision to make, but it was (to me) the right and sporting one.

The one thing, though, that was completely unacceptable was how the final placement was determined. UGA and USC finished with 1 loss each, and GT and Chattaretta finished with two losses apiece. But no tiebreaker games were played (though UGA and USC decided to stay to play a final after the TD offered a room and another round of questions); instead, ties were broken by some weird statistic related to the "quality" of a team's wins, and which essentially rewarded teams that had lower margins of victory. Thus Georgia Tech was awarded the 3rd place trophy despite Chattaretta holding all 3 commonly-used tiebreakers (PPG, PPB, and head-to-head) over them. The same situation happened between USC and UGA. When I asked the reasoning behind this, the TD responded with something along the lines of "This is the tournament director's final ruling."

I must disagree with your use of the word "unacceptable." I find this entirely too strong a word for this instance.

I feel that I am being misrepresented in your portrayal whereby I "offered a room and another round of questions," when in fact, I had made the promise at the beginning of the day that the entire set of MUT questions would be made available for all interested teams present, even if we did not count them all towards the results of our tournament.

I also wish to comment regarding my "TD fiat" at the end of the tournament. To my knowledge, all parties who were taking issue with the scorekeeping system had been informed of the "quality" (which, after consultation amongst the North Georgia Team, will be renamed 'difficulty rating') system. This is not a weird statistic, nor is it an arcane one. It is something that is very grounded within mathematics and good sportsmanship (something I believe that we at North Georgia, as the Leadership Institute, should strive to promote within the Quiz Bowl Community). I shall elaborate more on this 'difficulty rating' in a following post.

I offer this criticism because I'd like to see NGCSU continue to host tournaments in the future, and I think that those future tournaments can be even better. Most of the quirks of this tournament seem to come from the staff's unfamiliarity with some common practices of quizbowl tournament directing; along that vein, I think it would be good if they attended some nearby college tournaments to see how other schools do things.

Again, I must thank you for your concern and your criticism. We ourselves would like to continue growing within the Quiz Bowl Community and would like to continue hosting tournaments for the benefit of local and regional teams.

I will add that a good deal of the quirks noticed from my position dealt with a transition to a paperless tournament. We did have some issues getting the stats system working quickly in the morning because this was our "trial run" for a paperless tournament. However, I believe most of those technical difficulties were sorted out after lunch.

That would have been the immature thing to do. We want to encourage NGCSU with constructive criticisms, not slander them and make them disinterested in hosting again. Thankfully, USC and UGA resolved things after the fact, which was the right thing to do. I don't know if anyone at all agrees with the situation between Chattaretta and Georgia Tech, but congratulations to them for not only showing that they can compete with teams like USC but for showing that our region has great potential for the future. Maybe a good thing for NGCSU to have done beforehand would have been to consult someone with TDing expertise to make sure they knew exactly what they were doing, but they're honestly trying to promote good quizbowl. No, you don't invent strange statistics to determine placing at a tournament. Absolutely not. But as a TD it is your responsibility to know what the standard tiebreakers are, most definitely. It sounds to me like NGCSU will be a fine tournament host if it gets these little things straight.

I also thank you for your kind and welcoming words.

As TD, I am aware of some of the more standard tiebreakers are, but I also feel that our 'difficulty rating' system better captures the essence of sportsmanship. Perhaps in the future, we shall merely test the waters by providing this statistic as a background one, while relying on more traditional methods to determine winners.

Also, no negs? That's mighty curious. That should lead you to think that they needed some advice with regards to rules, which, from this discussion, is obviously the case.

I will admit fault at this; I had been under the impression that negs were only used when they were offset by the allure of powers. After discussing with several teams about the benefits and drawbacks of including them in a tournament, we at North Georgia will most certainly consider their inclusion in future college events. However, I do not feel (and I shall not name names) that it is appropriate for a team to demand that future tournaments include negs.

[dtaylor4]

Re the tiebreaker:

The only place I've seen a "difficulty rating" used is in the History Bowl, which uses opposing PPG as a "SoS" third tiebreaker.

A while back, Dwight Wynne et al did a statistical analysis on PPG, PPB, and H2H in terms of accuracy as tiebreakers. The latter two were pretty accurate, while H2H was much less so.

Re: NC State:

If a team hasn't shown, and you have byes, switch two rounds such that the no-show team has the first bye.

Going back further, did you not collect emergency contact info, i.e. a cell phone #? A simple phone call to the contact, along with a contingent n-1 schedule, would have solved this without any issues.

[Kenneth Widmerpool]

As the Tournament Director in question, I made the call to respect NCSU's commitment to attend. Because of this, I assumed that they might show up a round late. Or two rounds late. Or even at lunch time, if they had some serious issues. While this ended up not being the case, it was a decision made with respect to a team who had made a commitment to attend. I would have felt that it was in poor taste to exclude them in the event of their arrival. Perhaps this was not the best decision to make, but it was (to me) the right and sporting one.

While I understand that your team is new to tournament hosting, you should understand that it is common practice to obtain emergency contact info from all teams for just such a situation and that a team that's completely AWOL shouldn't be allowed to worsen the enjoyability of the tournament experience for present teams.

I also wish to comment regarding my "TD fiat" at the end of the tournament. To my knowledge, all parties who were taking issue with the scorekeeping system had been informed of the "quality" (which, after consultation amongst the North Georgia Team, will be renamed 'difficulty rating') system. This is not a weird statistic, nor is it an arcane one. It is something that is very grounded within mathematics and good sportsmanship (something I believe that we at North Georgia, as the Leadership Institute, should strive to promote within the Quiz Bowl Community). I shall elaborate more on this 'difficulty rating' in a following post.

This is, in fact, a completely arcane and silly-sounding statistic from the perspective of some one who has attended many tournaments. The three statistics that William mentioned are just how tournaments break ties, and to go against them with a non-rigorous and dubious gut-feeling stat is unfair and infuriating.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

As the Tournament Director in question, I made the call to respect NCSU's commitment to attend. Because of this, I assumed that they might show up a round late. Or two rounds late. Or even at lunch time, if they had some serious issues. While this ended up not being the case, it was a decision made with respect to a team who had made a commitment to attend. I would have felt that it was in poor taste to exclude them in the event of their arrival. Perhaps this was not the best decision to make, but it was (to me) the right and sporting one.

Having been the TD for 13 events in the past, I'll offer up the advice that you should provide a cell phone number for teams to reach you at in case they are not able to make it to the event. Did NCSU ever show up? The reason I'm asking is because there are teams that sign up for tournaments that simply don't show up (it happens), and you have to be prepared to handle this problem. It's also a good idea to ask for their phone number as well so that you can call if something like this happens. You simply must know if they are just running late or if they are simply not coming.

Note: Donald and Auroni beat me to the punch about cell phones.

Edit: fixed the quote, oops.

[North_GA_ATeam]

Re the tiebreaker:

The only place I've seen a "difficulty rating" used is in the History Bowl, which uses opposing PPG as a "SoS" third tiebreaker.

A while back, Dwight Wynne et al did a statistical analysis on PPG, PPB, and H2H in terms of accuracy as tiebreakers. The latter two were pretty accurate, while H2H was much less so.

I am not familiar with the History Bowl, but see my next post for a better explanation of our difficulty stat.

Re: NC State:

If a team hasn't shown, and you have byes, switch two rounds such that the no-show team has the first bye.

Going back further, did you not collect emergency contact info, i.e. a cell phone #? A simple phone call to the contact, along with a contingent n-1 schedule, would have solved this without any issues.

I will keep that advice in mind in the future, however that was not the decision I made this time.

Furthermore, I requested contact information and was not provided with it. I hardly think I can be found at fault for this.

While I understand that your team is new to tournament hosting, you should understand that it is common practice to obtain emergency contact info from all teams for just such a situation and that a team that's completely AWOL shouldn't be allowed to worsen the enjoyability of the tournament experience for present teams.

See my previous explanation.

This is, in fact, a completely arcane and silly-sounding statistic from the perspective of some one who has attended many tournaments. The three statistics that William mentioned are just how tournaments break ties, and to go against them with a non-rigorous and dubious gut-feeling stat is unfair and infuriating.

See my next explanation.



Also, to DarkMatter: I did provide my cell info. to NCSU.

[North_GA_ATeam]

The ‘difficulty rating’ statistic explained:

This statistic and its method of derivation has been used by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) which, for those not familiar, is a international robotics competition hosted in our very own Atlanta, Georgia.

The basis of this statistic is to determine the difficulty of a match/round based on the relative scores of the two teams. That is, to compare how close those two scores are to each other in order to determine a relative level of ability and thus, a relative level of difficulty.

The statistic is based on a simple percent difference calculation. The points scored by the opposing team (B) is subtracted from the team’s (A’s) score. This is divided by the sum of both scores (the total amount scored by A and B). A constant of 1 is added in order to adjust the normalization.

What this means in practicality is that if Team A scores 20 and Team B scores 10 then we would, to determine Team A’s difficulty rating, subtract 10 from 20 (getting 10) and dividing by the sum of both scores (30) getting (1/3). We then add the constant in order to normalize the scores (getting 1.333). To determine Team B’s, we do the same thing for B. Taking 10-20=-10. Then dividing it by 30 getting -1/3. Adding the constant, however, returns us into the wonderful realm of positive numbers (which is why this constant exists), giving us a difficulty rating of .667.

If you notice, the sum of both difficulty ratings for ANY match will equal 2. (Without the normalization, it would equal zero.)

What this means in terms of application is that, the winner’s number will always be 2>x>1 and the loser’s number will always be 1>x>0. The closer the difficulty rating is to 1, the more evenly matched the two teams are. The lower the number, the more difficult that particular match was for that team. The higher the number, the easier that particular match was for that team.

Because of the way that this statistic accurately and fairly illustrates difficulty, we “reward” teams who have proven to have more difficult matches.

I hope that this better explains how we arrive at this statistic, and I am quite certain that it is not a “gut-feeling” statistic.

[Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant]

Also,

Was this not made clear at the beginning? There should have been a riot when this was revealed.

That would have been the immature thing to do.

I interpret this as "people should have told the hosts to create a new schedule (which they really should have prepared the night before but oh well) and not continued before doing that". Kind of like when the brackets needed fixing last year at ACF Winter.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

Also,

Was this not made clear at the beginning? There should have been a riot when this was revealed.

That would have been the immature thing to do.

I interpret this as "people should have told the hosts to create a new schedule (which they really should have prepared the night before but oh well) and not continued before doing that". Kind of like when the brackets needed fixing last year at ACF Winter.

I think we should make a page with precisely this link on it and sticky it somewhere.

[Matt Weiner]

A while back, Dwight Wynne et al did a statistical analysis on PPG, PPB, and H2H in terms of accuracy as tiebreakers. The latter two were pretty accurate, while H2H was much less so.

This was flawed in many ways, from both a statistics and quizbowl theory perspective (notably, it found that "who won a game" did not predict who had won that game with 100% accuracy) and, much like the various other attempts people use to make up for woefully insufficient data with algebraic wizardry, should not be cited as evidence for anything.

The reason that the "stat" NG used is flawed is similar: it's made-up nonsense from people who seem hellbent on reinventing the wheel for its own sake rather that doing what is sensible and/or precedented.

[North_GA_ATeam]

A while back, Dwight Wynne et al did a statistical analysis on PPG, PPB, and H2H in terms of accuracy as tiebreakers. The latter two were pretty accurate, while H2H was much less so.

This was flawed in many ways, from both a statistics and quizbowl theory perspective (notably, it found that "who won a game" did not predict who had won that game with 100% accuracy) and, much like the various other attempts people use to make up for woefully insufficient data with algebraic wizardry, should not be cited as evidence for anything.

As I've said, I'm personally unfamiliar with this study. I'd be interested in reading it if anyone has a link to it.

The reason that the "stat" NG used is flawed is similar: it's made-up nonsense from people who seem hellbent on reinventing the wheel for its own sake rather that doing what is sensible and/or precedented.

I really do wish to see how our stat is made-up nonsense.

Furthermore, we are not reinventing the wheel, but instead inventing a better mousetrap. Or rather, introducing a better mousetrap into Quiz Bowl.

As for sensibility and precedence, our system has both.

[grapesmoker]

I also wish to comment regarding my "TD fiat" at the end of the tournament. To my knowledge, all parties who were taking issue with the scorekeeping system had been informed of the "quality" (which, after consultation amongst the North Georgia Team, will be renamed 'difficulty rating') system. This is not a weird statistic, nor is it an arcane one. It is something that is very grounded within mathematics and good sportsmanship (something I believe that we at North Georgia, as the Leadership Institute, should strive to promote within the Quiz Bowl Community). I shall elaborate more on this 'difficulty rating' in a following post.

Unless you have a really strong mathematical theory of how this difficulty rating system works (in which case I would like to see your results published in the Journal of Quizbowl Studies), you really shouldn't be using made up statistics on the spot. I'm not sure you're aware of this but there's been a lot of effort to come up with a reasonable difficulty rating system and it's still a mostly unsolved problem. So unless you've solved this problem for real, it seems like a pretty poor decision to try and reinvent the wheel when lots of other, more robust statistics are available to you.

[Matt Weiner]

Somehow I doubt you are really that interested in having your mind changed by reason, but to humor you, the problem is you just took a bunch of available numbers and did some arbitrary mathematical operations on them, then declared it Superstat. There is no empirical or deductive evidence for what your stat is supposed to demonstrate or how it is useful for anything. It's the Drake Equation of quizbowl.

[Sir Thopas]

I really do wish to see how our stat is made-up nonsense.

Since it's a round robin, every team plays all the same opponents, excepting itself. Should a team be rewarded for playing an opponent who played better than they normally did? I don't see why. Should a team be rewarded for playing worse than average? Absolutely not. Both of these are being rewarded, but why?

[Charbroil]

A while back, Dwight Wynne et al did a statistical analysis on PPG, PPB, and H2H in terms of accuracy as tiebreakers. The latter two were pretty accurate, while H2H was much less so.

This was flawed in many ways, from both a statistics and quizbowl theory perspective (notably, it found that "who won a game" did not predict who had won that game with 100% accuracy) and, much like the various other attempts people use to make up for woefully insufficient data with algebraic wizardry, should not be cited as evidence for anything.

As I've said, I'm personally unfamiliar with this study. I'd be interested in reading it if anyone has a link to it.

I think all of the relevant information is located in this thread.

The reason that the "stat" NG used is flawed is similar: it's made-up nonsense from people who seem hellbent on reinventing the wheel for its own sake rather that doing what is sensible and/or precedented.

I really do wish to see how our stat is made-up nonsense.

Furthermore, we are not reinventing the wheel, but instead inventing a better mousetrap. Or rather, introducing a better mousetrap into Quiz Bowl.

As for sensibility and precedence, our system has both.

I'd like to second Guy's question and ask how a system which rewards teams that win by closer margins (and thus are apparently weaker) seems like a "better mousetrap." Why do you think a team which wins all of its games by, say, 300 points should lose to win which wins all of its games by 5 points, assuming the same caliber of opposition?

[grapesmoker]

I'd like to second Guy's question and ask how a system which rewards teams that win by closer margins (and thus are apparently weaker) seems like a "better mousetrap." Why do you think a team which wins all of its games by, say, 300 points should lose to win which wins all of its games by 5 points, assuming the same caliber of opposition?

This is not a terribly germane point since it never happens.

[grapesmoker]

Ok, the basic logical problem with your metric, as you yourself admit, is that it rewards teams for winning close games and punishes them for winning easily. This is wrong because the question should be "which is the stronger team?" and you can only assess that over the course of multiple rounds. The noise in a single round is pretty high but over the course of 10 rounds or however many you had, it tends to average out. That's why PPB is so robust whereas your statistic would not be robust at all. I don't know for what purposes FIRST uses it, but it's very clearly not applicable to quizbowl.

[NGTech]

Ok, the basic logical problem with your metric, as you yourself admit, is that it rewards teams for winning close games and punishes them for winning easily. This is wrong because the question should be "which is the stronger team?" and you can only assess that over the course of multiple rounds. The noise in a single round is pretty high but over the course of 10 rounds or however many you had, it tends to average out. That's why PPB is so robust whereas your statistic would not be robust at all. I don't know for what purposes FIRST uses it, but it's very clearly not applicable to quizbowl.

I am the person responsible for the design of the statistic used in the last two NGCSU tournaments.

My equations are based on the design used by FIRST. FIRST has been using their statistic for 15 years to break ties and determine the winners of the preliminary rounds.

The system is design to go against the normal competitive thinking. The idea is to promote a more cooperative spirit and improve sportsmanship.

I do believe this statistic is robust in the way we currently use it. That being said, I am planning to do a random number black box simulation. This will provide a system to test the statistic across as many teams and rounds as I wish.

[grapesmoker]

My equations are based on the design used by FIRST. FIRST has been using their statistic for 15 years to break ties and determine the winners of the preliminary rounds.

I'm not sure why this matters. I don't understand what relationship FIRST could possibly have to quizbowl.

The system is design to go against the normal competitive thinking. The idea is to promote a more cooperative spirit and improve sportsmanship.

The first sentence is certainly true. I'm not sure what the second sentence has to do with anything, or how sportsmanship enters into this.

Seriously, let's think about this. You've got a system in which it is actually not to a team's advantage to score points. That, frankly, is bizarre and encourages gaming. To see why this is so, imagine Harvard (one of the best teams in the country) playing against Buffalo B. I'll take it as axiomatic that Harvard can basically get any tossup it wants against Buffalo B, but why should they? If they're comfortably ahead after 8 questions and Buffalo B is converting just a shade under 7 PPB (according to SCT stats, and in DII at that), why wouldn't Harvard just neg or not answer the next 12 tossups? After all, if they ever do find themselves in trouble, they can always just answer the last few, and if they don't, they're rewarded with a win that, according to your metric, actually rewards them more. This is plainly incorrect; the question we should be asking is not whether Harvard did or did not win some number of close games but whether Harvard overall is a superior team to some other team that they might be in a tiebreaker situation with. And we can't answer that question unles we assume that every question Harvard plays on, it is always to its advantage to answer correctly.

So not only do you have a system which is set up to reward the opposite of sportsmanship, but it almost certainly does not enable you to make cross-team comparisons!

I do believe this statistic is robust in the way we currently use it. That being said, I am planning to do a random number black box simulation. This will provide a system to test the statistic across as many teams and rounds as I wish.

It may be valid for whatever purpose FIRST uses it; I couldn't say. It is patently invalid for quizbowl tiebreakers which should tell you which of x (where x >= 2) teams should be considered better than the others, given identical records. If you really want to check the validity of this statistic, just take the ACF Nationals 2010 stats, compute your "closeness of game" stat, and see if it predicts the winners of games. I am almost certain that it does not.