Dunbar Academic Fall Tournament (10/24/09) (NSC Qualifier)

[Huang]

I just got word from Mr. Jones of DCC that DCC is bringing 2 teams and 1 buzzer. This is pretty cool.

[Scott]

Glad to see some more competitive teams signing up at the last minute.

Hopefully the field will be pushed of 20 to get the extra qualifying spots.
We could provide a third team if needed to tip the field over.

Is there any chance that this tournament will be given gold status?

[dtaylor4]

Glad to see some more competitive teams signing up at the last minute.

Hopefully the field will be pushed of 20 to get the extra qualifying spots.
We could provide a third team if needed to tip the field over.

Is there any chance that this tournament will be given gold status?

This cannot be determined until after the tournament is completed.

[Scott]

Thanks for clearing that up.
I guess that creates even more suspense in our prospects for qualification, especially if we get 5th 6th in a 20 team field.

[bmonster09]

Yes, FFHS is interested in the tournament, but we'll have to check into it. I should be able to get back to you by tomorrow.

[Huang]

Is there any chance that this tournament will be given gold status?

Gold-certified tournaments are affiliated tournaments which offer all teams at least seven games, use varsity-level questions deemed "good" by the PACE Certification Committee

I can only hope the questions will qualify as "good." Since I'm notably not on the PACE Certification Committee, I obviously can't give a solid answer. But most likely it will qualify, if everything goes correctly.

have at least two teams in attendance likely to finish in the top half of the NSC.

We have DCC A for sure as one of those teams. But this will again be totally up to PACE. I know duPont Manual can't make it, along with most Louisville schools, because some school/organization in Jefferson County decided to host a quick recall tournament with a $100 prize. Hopefully PACE will consider DCC B or maybe even one of these Kentucky schools as a top half NSC team. Maybe stats, such as bonus conversion, will be considered.

Dunbar is also doing everything it can to make this even platinum-certified including the following: Offering all teams at least 9 rounds, using "excellent" questions, not using single elimination, and reporting stats with SQBS. Hopefully PACE will consider our recent spring NAQT tournament as an example of "excellence in scheduling, staffing, and other aspects of tournament operation."

But really, all this will heavily depend on the competition present. So if you know some good teams out there within distance of this tournament, please let them know.

[Huang]

Yes, FFHS is interested in the tournament, but we'll have to check into it. I should be able to get back to you by tomorrow.

Sorry for my ignorance, but I'm unfamiliar with the acronym FFHS

[Rococo A Go Go]

The only one I know of is Frederick Fraize High School, which is the high school for the quaint little river town of Cloverport in Breckinridge County. They're in our region (they were in our district in middle school) and I've heard are showing more interest in good quizbowl this year. But I have no idea if that is the right FFHS.

[Scott]

That is Fredrick Fraize High School.

[bmonster09]

The only one I know of is Frederick Fraize High School, which is the high school for the quaint little river town of Cloverport in Breckinridge County. They're in our region (they were in our district in middle school) and I've heard are showing more interest in good quizbowl this year. But I have no idea if that is the right FFHS.

That's a great way to put it, and is the right FFHS.

[Huang]

The only one I know of is Frederick Fraize High School, which is the high school for the quaint little river town of Cloverport in Breckinridge County. They're in our region (they were in our district in middle school) and I've heard are showing more interest in good quizbowl this year. But I have no idea if that is the right FFHS.

That's a great way to put it, and is the right FFHS.

Awesome. Let me know as soon as possible.

[bmonster09]

First of all, sorry to get back to you later than I said I would. But as far as the tournament goes, it looks like Frederick Fraize isn't going to be able to make it. However, we hope that the Dunbar tournament goes well for those participating, and we might try to get to the tournament in future seasons.

[Huang]

First of all, sorry to get back to you later than I said I would. But as far as the tournament goes, it looks like Frederick Fraize isn't going to be able to make it. However, we hope that the Dunbar tournament goes well for those participating, and we might try to get to the tournament in future seasons.

Alright that's fine. Field is at 17. Three away from increasing the number of qualifying teams to four.

[Scott]

Any word on Madisonville yet?

[Huang]

Any word on Madisonville yet?

Aaron tells me they're on fall break right now. So I'll know next week.
Faiyad has also told me Johnson Central will bring another team if there's a JV division.

And there seems to be major communication problems right now within Dunbar. So I'm giving full disclosure for the teams attending:
1) I was completely unaware of us guaranteeing a JV division. I've only simply considered it as a possiblility.
2) I am being told Dunbar won't allow me to send the set out to mirrors unless I send it to a faculty member first due to Dunbar's name being on it. Have any high schools/colleges dealt with something similar to this before? Surely one of the most absurd things I've heard in the past few days but I'll explain below as to why I'm being told this.
3) I am also being told hard copies (here in lies the reason why the above "requirement" was mentioned to me; so unnecessary hard copies could be made) must be printed off even though we have an absurdly large amount of laptops available. Such a large amount that only Y2K could stop this tournament from happening. I am pretty convinced this tree-killing back up plan is not reasonable given the large amount of laptops available at Dunbar, although I could certainly be wrong.

Here is why I post the above: Am I wrong in..
1) Not guaranteeing a JV division (which had been apparently guaranteed to a couple teams without my knowledge)?
2) Sending the set to the Loyola mirror first before dealing with absurd bureaucratic "requirements" that could certainly be made up given the ridiculousness of them?
3) Being strongly against the printing of hard copies due to the large amount of laptops available and because it's just plain environmentally-friendly to not print hard copies when they're not needed?

I know I've asked a couple people about this in private but I would like multiple opinions, especially those opinions telling me I'm wrong on any of the three points.


Edit: I have not sent the set to Loyola yet

[jonah]

And there seems to be major communication problems right now within Dunbar. So I'm giving full disclosure for the teams attending:
1) I was completely unaware of us guaranteeing a JV division. I've only simply considered it as a possiblility.
2) I am being told Dunbar won't allow me to send the set out to mirrors unless I send it to a faculty member first due to Dunbar's name being on it. Have any high schools/colleges dealt with something similar to this before? Surely one of the most absurd things I've heard in the past few days but I'll explain below as to why I'm being told this.
3) I am also being told hard copies (here in lies the reason why the above "requirement" was mentioned to me; so unnecessary hard copies could be made) must be printed off even though we have an absurdly large amount of laptops available. Such a large amount that only Y2K could stop this tournament from happening. I am pretty convinced this tree-killing back up plan is not reasonable given the large amount of laptops available at Dunbar, although I could certainly be wrong.

Here is why I post the above: Am I wrong in..
1) Not guaranteeing a JV division (which had been apparently guaranteed to a couple teams without my knowledge)?
2) Sending the set to the Loyola mirror first before dealing with absurd bureaucratic "requirements" that could certainly be made up given the ridiculousness of them?
3) Being strongly against the printing of hard copies due to the large amount of laptops available and because it's just plain environmentally-friendly to not print hard copies when they're not needed?

1) I have no opinion on this.
2) It's annoying, but I guess I understand the requirement.
3) I agree with you on this. If they absolutely insist, print to PDF, then use Foxit Reader to print to PDF again with many pages per sheet, so that you have an entire packet (or more!) on a page. It'll be tiny and unreadable by most people, but since they won't actually be using it, it doesn't matter. And you have technically printed out a hard copy, but will be using far fewer pages. (Let me know if I need to explain this more clearly.)

[at your pleasure]

1) Probably, as the teams presumably signed up under the assumption that a JV division would be offered(as opposed to making an unwarranted assumption that there would be a JV divison). I'm honestly not sure what the solution is, though. If you cannot under any circumstances offer a JV divison, you should inform the teams that were told there would be one, offer to cancel their registrations, and refund any fees they've already paid.
2) Go along initally, but go ahead if/when not sending the set could cause problems for Loyola's mirror. Go through the set and black out Dunbar's name on it if you feel safer doing that.
3)Paperless tournaments are a capital thing, but print some backups in case things go wrong or people can't get wireless.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

2) Sending the set to the Loyola mirror first before dealing with absurd bureaucratic "requirements" that could certainly be made up given the ridiculousness of them?

Is is really "absurd" or "ridiculous" for a school to want to monitor what it is given credit for? If you are using the Dunbar name on your set, you are obliged to let your school approve your work. That's not being burdensome on the school's part at all. If you want to call it the "Sandy Huang Question Set," then you can do whatever you want.

Edit: Acronym issues

[dtaylor4]

2) Sending the set to the Loyola mirror first before dealing with absurd bureaucratic "requirements" that could certainly be made up given the ridiculousness of them?

Is is really "absurd" or "ridiculous" for a school to want to monitor what it is given credit for? If you are using the Dunbar name on your set, you are obliged to let your school approve your work. That's not being burdensome on the school's part at all. If you want to call it the "Sandy Huang Question Set," then you can do whatever you want.

Edit: Acronym issues

So all schools should submit their house-written sets for administration approval? I do not like the precedent established by this.

[Mechanical Beasts]

2) Sending the set to the Loyola mirror first before dealing with absurd bureaucratic "requirements" that could certainly be made up given the ridiculousness of them?

Is is really "absurd" or "ridiculous" for a school to want to monitor what it is given credit for? If you are using the Dunbar name on your set, you are obliged to let your school approve your work. That's not being burdensome on the school's part at all. If you want to call it the "Sandy Huang Question Set," then you can do whatever you want.

Edit: Acronym issues

So all schools should submit their house-written sets for administration approval? I do not like the precedent established by this.

Not much of a precedent; I bet school x doesn't feel terribly bound to mimic Dunbar. It's very possible that the most important thing is specifically the mirror element. That is, that this set will represent the school elsewhere.

[Huang]

2) Sending the set to the Loyola mirror first before dealing with absurd bureaucratic "requirements" that could certainly be made up given the ridiculousness of them?

Is is really "absurd" or "ridiculous" for a school to want to monitor what it is given credit for? If you are using the Dunbar name on your set, you are obliged to let your school approve your work. That's not being burdensome on the school's part at all. If you want to call it the "Sandy Huang Question Set," then you can do whatever you want.

Edit: Acronym issues

So all schools should submit their house-written sets for administration approval? I do not like the precedent established by this.

William, you're ignorant of the fact that the same people informing me of this "requirement" are the same people who informed me that, "Barack Obama is inappropriate for school because politics isn't allowed in school," even though in the past year there have already been two incidents of Barack Obama being introduced into the classroom: his inauguration and his speech concerning education. So based on these facts, I'm dubious of this "requirement's" validity.

The better question I should've asked might have been: have any other teams experienced this with their schools?

[Huang]

Field - 19 teams and 5 buzzers (Dunbar has 3 working buzzers)

Danville Bate (2) - $120 fee
Detroit Catholic Central (2) - 1 buzzer - $100 fee
Grayson County (2) - 1 buzzer - $120 fee
Johnson Central (2) - $120 fee
Madisonville North Hopkins (?)
Paintsville (2) - $120 fee
Parkersburg (1) - $60 fee
Pike County Central (2) - $120 fee
Portland (1) - $60 fee
Woodford County (5) - $270 fee


Yeah, still need teams to confirm how many buzzers they're bringing.
Let me know of any errors

[Scott]

It's good to see Pike Central finally become an "active" quizbowl team.
John's Creek Middle School is always great at the middle school level, and it has seemed that their talent either moves to Pikeville of goes to waste.
It will be interesting to see how they progress over the next few years.

[akinney]

I have a few things to say about Madisonville and then a few questions.

1. I do not believe that Madisonville has any starters taking the ACT on the 24th. I'm pretty sure I'm not. Even if there is one or two taking the ACT, I will make it my personal responsibility to get Madisonville to attend, regardless.

2. It is currently 2:54 AM. I will be at school in approximately 4 hours. I will immediately ask our coach about our team's status, and I will report back to you with the results.

My questions are fairly common (sorry I didn't read the posts, but I joined kind of late):

1. Is there anything important we should know?

2. Will you send out an email with more information?

3. How do we register?

I'm sorry I'm getting into this late, but I don't talk to my coach outside of school.

That's it. I should be back on here later this evening. Cheers!

[New York Undercover]

I have a few things to say about Madisonville and then a few questions.

1. I do not believe that Madisonville has any starters taking the ACT on the 24th. I'm pretty sure I'm not. Even if there is one or two taking the ACT, I will make it my personal responsibility to get Madisonville to attend, regardless.

2. It is currently 2:54 AM. I will be at school in approximately 4 hours. I will immediately ask our coach about our team's status, and I will report back to you with the results.

My questions are fairly common (sorry I didn't read the posts, but I joined kind of late):

1. How much is the fee? Are there any discounts for buzzer systems or anything like that?
2. Any requirements?
3. I take it the questions are NAQT, correct?

That's it. I should be back on here later this evening. Cheers!

Answering for Sandy what is clearly in the opening post.

1.

Fee Structure

Base fee: $70 for the first team and $50 dollars for any subsequent teams from the same school.

Buzzers: Each school should bring at least one working buzzer system if possible. Each additional working buzzer system will result in a discount of $5. The number of times a school can qualify for the buzzer discount will equal the number of teams it brings. Each team from a school will have a maximum buzzer discount of $5.

Travel: -$10 for every 200 miles traveled by a team one way according to Google Maps (no rounding up). This means if School X brings 10 teams then all 10 teams will receive the travel discount. We encourage out of state teams, especially those in Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, to make the trip to Lexington. I know Michigan teams could make the trip to Lexington since I know I’ve seen DCC teams at Russell tournaments.

3. The set is housewritten, with Sandy being the chief editor. Discussion of the set (which does not reveal any answers to participants at future mirrors or the main site) is here


er welp, above post was edited quicker than i could respond

[akinney]

You're pretty quick, but not quick enough.

[Huang]

1. Is there anything important we should know?

2. Will you send out an email with more information?

3. How do we register?

1. I'll send you information. What's your email?
2. Mr. Darnell should be sending out an email soon. I'll ask him to add in Madisonville North Hopkins.
3. Email me and then pay the appropriate amount of money when you guys get here Saturday. I'll "register" you for 1 team since you seem to be sure you can make it. If not, it won't negatively affect our "registration" process.

[Huang]

Field - 20 teams and 5 buzzers (Dunbar has 3 working buzzers)

Danville Bate (2) - $120 fee
Detroit Catholic Central (2) - 1 buzzer - $100 fee
Grayson County (2) - 1 buzzer - $120 fee
Johnson Central (2) - $120 fee
Madisonville North Hopkins (1) - $70 fee
Paintsville (2) - $120 fee
Parkersburg (1) - $60 fee
Pike County Central (2) - $120 fee
Portland (1) - $60 fee
Woodford County (5) - $270 fee


So now four teams can qualify for nationals!

Yeah, still need teams to confirm how many buzzers they're bringing.
Let me know of any errors

[akinney]

my email is kinney DOT aaron AT gmail DOT com.

I asked my coach earlier today. She said if I get three other people to play on the team we would go. I did not anticipate that the ACT would affect our team this drastically, but I haven't been discouraged. I will inform you in the coming days if Madisonville has put a team together.

[Faiyad]

Field - 20 teams and 5 buzzers (Dunbar has 3 working buzzers)

Danville Bate (2) - $120 fee

Danville Bate? As in the Middle School?
Or do you mean the High School?

[Huang]

Field - 20 teams and 5 buzzers (Dunbar has 3 working buzzers)

Danville Bate (2) - $120 fee

Danville Bate? As in the Middle School?
Or do you mean the High School?

Middle school

[Huang]

So it's getting pretty close to tournament day. We will cut off registration when we get the ideal number of teams (21 and 24 come to mind or any other ideal multiples of 5, 6, or 7)


We have several scheduling options with 20 teams:

Add a house team in the morning. Do a round robin with 3 divisions consisting of 7 teams and each team gets 6 rounds in the prelims. We have two options on doing lunch. Put lunch in after Round 5 or put lunch in after Round 6.
Take out the house team in the afternoon. Do a tiered round robin with 4 divisions consisting of 5 teams and each team gets 4 rounds in the playoffs.

Alternatively we could do both morning and afternoon round robins with 4 divisions consisting of 5 teams but this only guarantees teams 8 games compared to 10 games (the above option).

Another alternative would be doing a round robin with 2 divisions consisting of 10 teams and each team gets 9 rounds. We would put in lunch at an appropriate time. Then teams would do cross bracket matches. We would then finally determine the winner as outlined below.


Winning the tournament and breaking ties
After all the afternoon playoff brackets play a full round robin and a team, or multiple teams, in the first playoff bracket are tied for first, then we will use the 2 extra packets remaining after the morning preliminary and afternoon playoff rounds to determine final placement. If a lot of teams are tied for first then we might split those 2 extra packets into 4 half round packets of 10/10.
If a team clears the field in the top bracket but there’s one team, or multiple teams, with only one loss then we will also use the 2 extra packets remaining after the morning preliminary and afternoon playoff rounds to determine final placement. However if teams have an urgent need to return home by a reasonable time, then we will leave the afternoon playoff bracket results as is with ties broken by points per 20 tossups heard.

[Haaaaaaaarry Whiiiiiiiiiite]

Add a house team in the morning. Do a round robin with 3 divisions consisting of 7 teams and each team gets 6 rounds in the prelims. We have two options on doing lunch. Put lunch in after Round 5 or put lunch in after Round 6.
Take out the house team in the afternoon. Do a tiered round robin with 4 divisions consisting of 5 teams and each team gets 4 rounds in the playoffs.

That takes up all 12 rounds, though. You'd have no room for finals or tiebreakers.

[Rococo A Go Go]

Add a house team in the morning. Do a round robin with 3 divisions consisting of 7 teams and each team gets 6 rounds in the prelims. We have two options on doing lunch. Put lunch in after Round 5 or put lunch in after Round 6.
Take out the house team in the afternoon. Do a tiered round robin with 4 divisions consisting of 5 teams and each team gets 4 rounds in the playoffs.

That takes up all 12 rounds, though. You'd have no room for finals or tiebreakers.

6+4=10

[Mechanical Beasts]

Add a house team in the morning. Do a round robin with 3 divisions consisting of 7 teams and each team gets 6 rounds in the prelims. We have two options on doing lunch. Put lunch in after Round 5 or put lunch in after Round 6.
Take out the house team in the afternoon. Do a tiered round robin with 4 divisions consisting of 5 teams and each team gets 4 rounds in the playoffs.

That takes up all 12 rounds, though. You'd have no room for finals or tiebreakers.

6+4=10

I bet Harry White didn't know that! Unfortunately, you yourself didn't know that a seven team round robin takes seven rounds, and a five team round robin takes five.

[Rococo A Go Go]

Add a house team in the morning. Do a round robin with 3 divisions consisting of 7 teams and each team gets 6 rounds in the prelims. We have two options on doing lunch. Put lunch in after Round 5 or put lunch in after Round 6.
Take out the house team in the afternoon. Do a tiered round robin with 4 divisions consisting of 5 teams and each team gets 4 rounds in the playoffs.

That takes up all 12 rounds, though. You'd have no room for finals or tiebreakers.

6+4=10

I bet Harry White didn't know that! Unfortunately, you yourself didn't know that a seven team round robin takes seven rounds, and a five team round robin takes five.

Actually, I didn't...

[at your pleasure]

Add a house team in the morning. Do a round robin with 3 divisions consisting of 7 teams and each team gets 6 rounds in the prelims. We have two options on doing lunch. Put lunch in after Round 5 or put lunch in after Round 6.
Take out the house team in the afternoon. Do a tiered round robin with 4 divisions consisting of 5 teams and each team gets 4 rounds in the playoffs.

That takes up all 12 rounds, though. You'd have no room for finals or tiebreakers.

6+4=10

I bet Harry White didn't know that! Unfortunately, you yourself didn't know that a seven team round robin takes seven rounds, and a five team round robin takes five.

Huh? I always thought it took 4. Each team plays every team in the round-robin but itself, so each team plays 4 games.
EDIT: The above refers specifically to a 5-team RR, but the situation would be much the same for a 7 team RR.

[Huang]

Add a house team in the morning. Do a round robin with 3 divisions consisting of 7 teams and each team gets 6 rounds in the prelims. We have two options on doing lunch. Put lunch in after Round 5 or put lunch in after Round 6.
Take out the house team in the afternoon. Do a tiered round robin with 4 divisions consisting of 5 teams and each team gets 4 rounds in the playoffs.

That takes up all 12 rounds, though. You'd have no room for finals or tiebreakers.

Thanks Harry!
We are now going with the second option of morning and afternoon round robins with 4 divisions consisting of 5 teams. It looks like as of now we can only guarantee 8 rounds. Field could certainly change and we will definitely not forget about bye rounds in the case a new schedule needs to be made.

[jonah]

Huh? I always thought it took 4. Each team plays every team in the round-robin but itself, so each team plays 4 games.
EDIT: The above refers specifically to a 5-team RR, but the situation would be much the same for a 7 team RR.

Trouble is, with an odd number of teams, at any given time one team has a bye. For n teams, if n is odd, then it takes n rounds for teams to play n-1 games. For five teams, we have something isomorphic to this:
Round 1: 2 v 3, 4 v 5, 1 bye
Round 2: 3 v 4, 1 v 5, 2 bye
Round 3: 4 v 1, 2 v 5, 3 bye
Round 4: 5 v 3, 1 v 2, 4 bye
Round 5: 1 v 3, 2 v 4, 5 bye

[Andrew from jc]

Sandy, due to sickness and lack of attendance at our school, the school board has voted to cancel school till Tuesday. This will not allow us to come to the tournement. Sorry

[akinney]

Madisonville will be able to come.

[Huang]

Field - 17 teams and 5 buzzers (Dunbar has 3 working buzzers)

Danville Bate (2) - $120 fee
Detroit Catholic Central (2) - 1 buzzer - $100 fee
Grayson County (2) - 1 buzzer - $120 fee
Madisonville North Hopkins (1) - $70 fee
Paintsville (2) - $120 fee
Pike County Central (2) - $120 fee
Portland (1) - $60 fee
Woodford County (5) - $270 fee


It looks doubtful we'll break 20 teams. We might add some house team to make it 18 or something.

[Huang]

Field - 19 teams and 13 buzzers (Dunbar has 3 working buzzers)

Danville Bate (2) - 1 buzzer - $120 fee
Detroit Catholic Central (2) - 2 buzzers - $90 fee
Grayson County (3) - 1 buzzer - $170 fee
Madisonville North Hopkins (1) - 2 buzzers - $65 fee
Paintsville (3) - 1 buzzer - $170 fee
Pike County Central (2) - 1 buzzer - $120 fee
Portland (1) - 1 buzzer - $60 fee
Woodford County (5) - 1 buzzer - $270 fee


We'll probably add a house team

[Huang]

Quick Results

1. DCC A
2. Grayson A
3. Madisonville North Hopkins
4. DCC B
5. Woodford County A


Seems as though the prelim stats aren't working. Would someone like me to send them the stats so they can fix them?
Playoff stats all seem to be working fine but I want to try to post both at the same time.

[Huang]

Prelims
Playoffs


The set was indeed too hard for the bottom bracket teams. Ordering answers by difficulty from round 1 to round 12 was a terrible idea. I also need to recalibrate my difficulty gauge even more than I did over the summer.
Even rounds 1 to 4, which were heavily playtested and edited over the summer, did not achieve the desired conversion rates at this particular tournament.
Four to five months is too short of a timespan for me to write a complete set even with a lot of help coming from other people. I should start writing sets a lot earlier.
Maybe this can happen again. But some things will need to change for that to happen including me relearning difficulty and listening more to others who have written good difficulty-appropriate tournaments before.

The field sorely missed teams like Russell, Johnson Central, Ballard, duPont Manual, and etc.
However, the teams I moderated for during two of their bye rounds seemed to enjoy themselves.
Congrats to DCC A, Grayson County, Madisonville North Hopkins, and DCC B for qualifying for PACE NSC 2010!


Edit 1: It's also occurred to me that a few games are missing in the Prelim stats. This was due to a plethora of reasons including a lack of familiarity with SQBS. Even with the SQBS guide created by Donald and Dwight, we were still slightly unready. However, the statkeepers and scorekeepers got a lot better as the day went on. I'm also pretty sure the Playoff stats are all correct.

Edit 2: By the way, we started the tournament at 9AM and ended at 5PM. I think that's pretty decent timing. So all the pre-tournament discussion of "oh no! teams will leave early" is sort of moot now. And, as expected, none of the teams left after lunch because of silly reasons.

[Beastman]

I like the playoff stats, lol. We had less ppg and points per ten heard and bonus conversion than the two teams right after us.

[Rococo A Go Go]

Well, this was a very fun tournament to attend, all of the players throughly enjoyed it. This was the first time I've got to see Grayson play in person this season, and I'm happy with our performance, although I've still got to work on getting them better at US History and Current Events. The tournament was very well run, and as always Dunbar was very friendly and hospitable. We're looking forward to attending their tournament in the spring.

The questions were of a good quality, and I'm sure by now Sandy knows what issues he'll need to work out. The only things that really stood out to me was that the later rounds were WAY too difficult when compared to the early rounds, and that the bonuses didn't always follow any easy-medium-difficult order. All in all though, they were very good questions, and the problems were not a huge deal.

As for the tournament itself, I wish we'd seen some of the stronger teams in Kentucky there, although them not being there did kind of pave our path to qualifying for NSC. DCC is very good, and I was impressed (as usual) with both their A and B teams. Madisonville played excellent today, and Aaron is definitely one of the best quizbowl players in the state. 105 PPG at any tournament is impressive, but even more impressive is that he cleared the number two (which was Scott, congrats to him) by 30 points. Woodford did good to get to the top bracket, and Paintsville B gave us quite a scare in the prelims. Congrats to all those teams.

[Huang]

Woodford did good to get to the top bracket, and Paintsville B gave us quite a scare in the prelims. Congrats to all those teams.

From what I know, Paintsville B should have been in the top bracket instead of Woodford County. I'm not 100% sure though. In the case I'm right, Dunbar apologizes to Paintsville B for screwing that up. This problem again stemmed from poorly done prelim stats resulting in us overlooking Paintsville's record of "2-1" which was actually "3-1." If we had delayed teams about 20 or so minutes, this problem wouldn't have happened. But certain non-stats people of the team decided to rush out schedules. The next time Dunbar hosts a tournament, this will hopefully not ever happen again.

[akinney]

I was pleased with how the tournament went. But like Nick said, the playoffs were VERY difficult. Not so much the tossups, but more that the bonuses were a bit off the wall.

DCC A is very good, as is Grayson. Congrats to them. I really wish we could have had two of our starters, though.

[Scott]

It would have been interesting to see how teams did if Johnson Central had been there.
They probably would have qualified; not sure how they would have done against DCC A though.