The Quizbowl Resource Center

by **Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 1:37 am

We've included bonuses in our packet. I think it's common sense for most of the teams competing (I say most only because as far as I know the Irvington team's only exposure to the tossup/bonus format was at Hills West, correct me if I'm wrong).

by **Ondes Martenot** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 7:21 am

I'm including bonuses

by **saintanthony** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 12:35 pm

Since it's looking like a Jersey trip will be in my future, I've started working on a packet --well, completed a packet except for chemistry and physics tossups and bonuses -- and would be interested in any teammates who are interested in joining up. Then again, If the logistics are convenienced, I have no problems fourthing on another team.

by **Great Bustard** » Fri Jul 15, 2011 5:30 pm

Drew, I've got you down for now playing with Greg, Jon, and Nick Clusserath. But teams will get finalized next week. Space is still available for everyone, though I'd like to have everything taken care of asap, but no later than July 25, so that packets can come together.

by **Ondes Martenot** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 1:03 am

I'm looking for more teammates-possibly up to three since Doug Yetman's status is quite volatile.

by **Great Bustard** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 12:42 am

Okay - we're including bonuses in the sets. We're aiming for 9 packets; teams are coming together as per update on post in the early part of this thread. If you're confused about who you should be contacting to coordinate your packet, let me know.

by **idrayer** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 3:54 pm

Can you PM me the address that this is happening at so I can start looking at trains to get there, and deciding if I need to ask my parents to borrow their car (as I'm planning on going down to D.C. right after the tournament, and want to figure out which way is more cost-efficient).

by **Great Bustard** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 5:19 pm

For all who are coming or are thinking of it, the address for the tournament is:
1115 Ocean Avenue
Mantoloking, NJ

If you are coming by public transportation, take NJ Transit's North Jersey Coast train line to Bay Head (last stop). Then call me, and I or someone else can come pick you up. The house is less than 2 miles from the station.

by **Angry Babies in Love** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 8:35 pm

idrayer wrote:Can you PM me the address that this is happening at so I can start looking at trains to get there, and deciding if I need to ask my parents to borrow their car (as I'm planning on going down to D.C. right after the tournament, and want to figure out which way is more cost-efficient).

I just did some calculations and DC to Bay Head (via NJ Transit and Amtrak Northeast Corridor, transferring at Newark Penn Station) is about $60 (at least that's the cost to NJ, I haven't calculated from but I can't imagine it being much different)

by **Fucitol** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 10:21 pm

What's the status on room/space availability?

by **Great Bustard** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 10:28 pm

People are still more than welcome to stay over at the house on August 8, though it's recommended at this point to bring a sleeping bag and/or air mattress. I don't anticipate we'll run out of space for people to crash as long as it's possible to bring a sleeping bag/air mattress/something comparable.
@James - what's the status of your team at the moment? I.e., who do you have lined up to join you?

by **Fucitol** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 11:48 pm

Currently I have Nik, Marisol, and Hunter, not John as I told you before, he was unable to attend, so there is no longer an "underage" problem.

by **Great Bustard** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 11:47 am

The National History Bee and Bowl is pleased to announce that JSO is now officially entry free, although each team should bring a food or drink item (say about $5 per person worth of food) to help feed the masses. Email me to say what you'll bring, so we don't end up with all desserts or whatever. Also, email me if you are planning on staying over on Monday night, so I can start sorting out the rooming situation.
-D.

by **Yeah, that's a thing** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 3:12 pm

Do we need to power-mark our questions?

by **Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 7:32 pm

Second post says to "go ahead" and do so.

by **Great Bustard** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 3:38 pm

For those writing for this tournament:
Non-standard bonuses are ok other than 30-20-10. Don't do those; they're basically tossups in disguise. But 15-5, 15-5; 10-5, 10-5, 10-5; 5 for 1, 10 for 2, etc. are all fine and even encouraged. I kind of like bonus variety; it was fun playing old packets like that in the staff matches at ACE this summer.
Another point - I'm leaning to allowing bouncebacks - PACE does it, and we played that way at ACE. Ultimately, it just allows for more quiz bowl. It's not like we're in a hurry or whatever.
Final question: would people be willing to kick in $3 each to cover the cost of commissioning a finals packet? As it stands, there's no way to break a tie in the standings and I would like to do this, though not to the point where I'm willing to pay over $100 out of pocket for a whole new packet myself. If we did this, the top 8 teams would play each other (1 v 2, 3 v 4, etc.) on the packet to determine the final champions unless one team was two whole matches clear of the field. Does this sound okay?

by **Susan** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 4:29 pm

Where is this $100 figure coming from?!

by **Cheynem** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 4:33 pm

I assume the packet black market.

by **idrayer** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 5:10 pm

Can you try to get Mike Bentley's VETO packet as a finals packet? Or some similar thing?

by **Great Bustard** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 5:59 pm

Okay, sure, although the idea for $100 was based on a preliminary estimate of what it would cost to get a packet of 20 tossups and bonuses written from scratch. I have no interest in black market packets or anything like that.

by **Mike Bentley** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 6:00 pm

idrayer wrote:Can you try to get Mike Bentley's VETO packet as a finals packet? Or some similar thing?

Yeah you guys can use this packet for free if you want. Rob Carson and Will Nediger also have VETO packets that are worth playing if you need them as well.

by **Great Bustard** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 2:21 pm

Great, Mike, thanks a lot. If you have access to the VETO and any other packets, email them to me when you get a chance. Can you include information on the distribution when you send it, as it is likely to be different from the JSO sets?

by **Black-throated Antshrike** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 5:46 pm

Where do we email the packets when they are done?

by **Great Bustard** » Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:02 pm

To me: director at historybowl dot com

by **Black-throated Antshrike** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 5:16 am

My team has submitted our packet with bonuses and powermarks and the like.

We will be playing under the name Guidon't Need No Education.

ALSO, if I have time to write this weekend, would anyone be interested in playing an anime/manga/Japanese videogames side event here shootout style? It would probably be three rounds of only tossups, so it should be pretty quick if people are interested.

by **idrayer** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:36 am

Andrew Jackson's Compatriot wrote:ALSO, if I have time to write this weekend, would anyone be interested in playing an anime/manga/Japanese videogames side event here shootout style? It would probably be three rounds of only tossups, so it should be pretty quick if people are interested.

Yes, absolutely!

by **idrayer** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 3:33 am

This happened, is happening and is an absolutely amazing experience. A team consisting of Aaron Cohen, Gabe Johnson and Brian Smiley defeated "What's the situation room" consisting of James Lasker, Marisol Brady and Hunter Brook.

We then played the anime packet by Joe, and then all 5 rounds of the Harry Potter theme tournament which Aaron cleared everyone with 900+ points.

We're now playing CULT in the most amazing weekday of quizbowl that I've ever been a part of.

by **Angry Babies in Love** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 9:43 am

idrayer wrote:This happened, is happening and is an absolutely amazing experience. A team consisting of Aaron Cohen, Gabe Johnson and Brian Smiley defeated "What's the situation room" consisting of James Lasker, Marisol Brady and Hunter Brook.

We then played the anime packet by Joe, and then all 5 rounds of the Harry Potter theme tournament which Aaron cleared everyone with 900+ points.

We're now playing CULT in the most amazing weekday of quizbowl that I've ever been a part of.

We played CULT from 3:30 AM until 8:30 AM. Major props to Marisol for reading.

by **Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 6:36 pm

This event was all kinds of awesome.

by **WSchneider** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 7:41 pm

idrayer wrote:This happened, is happening and is an absolutely amazing experience. A team consisting of Aaron Cohen, Gabe Johnson and Brian Smiley defeated "What's the situation room" consisting of James Lasker, Marisol Brady and Hunter Book.

Noteworthy, Brian left early, and Aaron and Gabe dedicated the trophy (Humorously) to their "deceased" teammate, thus creating the Brian Smiley Memorial Trophy.

A bunch of side events ran this morning, including a Pokemon-visual quizbowl game (By Drew), a round of History-bee style general history tossups (By Raynell, which Aaron notably destroyed), "Country Club Bowl" (Which my team left before, so I cannot comment on how it went)....

This was by and far an unorthodox, but enjoyable tournament. Most of us got little or no sleep; we enjoyed eachothers company playing trash-bowl late into the morning (the last round finished at about 8am). I think the size was absolutely ideal; 7 teams was perfect for the amount of space, and provided 6 playing rounds of quality questions (erm, excepting the numerous overlaps), against great players and good people.

This is definitely an event I would love to be a part of again (if just a few minor logistical things were able to be taken care of a touch more in advance; stupid things like arranging food/meals, having an arrangement for sleeping locations, and potentially a touch more attention to time-allocation). I had an amazing time at this event; it was fun, it was informal, it was just a great time. JSO2012!

by **Geriatric trauma** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 7:52 pm

WSchneider wrote:...provided 6 playing rounds of quality questions (erm, excepting the numerous overlaps)...

Sorry if this was the case; with only a day to look over the questions, I just tried to avoid repeats in answer lines, not to do a whole scale editing job. I think that in the future, it would be good to have an actual editor, especially with what would project to be some less experienced teams submitting packets. From what I saw of the questions, though, they were very solid, although I was disappointed at the lack of a bonus on J-Woww (or Springsteen, for that matter).

by **Angry Babies in Love** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 9:44 pm

WSchneider wrote: "Country Club Bowl"

This was actually pretty fun, I got to play half of it and there were some interesting answer lines. Very well-written too.

by **Adventure Temple Trail** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 10:05 pm

Will the packets from this event be available for future use?

by **Black-throated Antshrike** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 12:07 am

RyuAqua wrote:Will the packets from this event be available for future use?

I am assuming so. They were all really fun.

This was a great event. We had a lot of good times playing quizbowl with some great players. This was so fun and I loved it. I really hope that this would happen again as it is a great experience playing until 8am of nothing but quizbowl.

by **idrayer** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 10:30 am

If David isn't able to host again next year, and people are willing to come out to Suffolk County, I would likely be able to host something like this again next year, just with a pool instead of the beach. Either way, something like this almost certainly will happen next year.

by **Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 12:41 pm

Dripping Springs State Park wrote:Sorry if this was the case; with only a day to look over the questions, I just tried to avoid repeats in answer lines, not to do a whole scale editing job.

I think everyone noticed that it didn't extend to the bonuses, however. The funniest thing about the main event was that the Ehrenfest theorem came up in three different packets. While certainly it would be cringe-worthy in any other set, I think it added to the unorthodox feel of the whole tournament. What was annoying, though, was that two packets didn't get randomized.

by **Great Bustard** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:06 pm

Hi All,
Thanks to everyone who made the trek to Mantoloking over the past few days for the inaugural JSO. I personally had a wonderful time from start to stop, and can assure everyone that this will be an annual event as long as we don't burn the house down. Ian, if you host anything out on Long Island next summer, I will not only come to it, but offer to help with any logistics, and can bring as many buzzer systems as you would ever need.
I'd like to thank everyone who made this possible, including first off my family who gave us the run of the place for two days, Alec Johnsson and Bob Borders who were exclusive readers, Jon Pinyan for providing scoresheets, Mike Bentley for providing the VETO packets we used in the finals, Ryan Rosenberg and Nolan Winkler for looking over the sets (more later on that), and to ACE Quiz Bowl Camps for letting us mirror their side events. Thanks also to Spence Weinreich, Zoe Madonna, Alec Johnsson, Joe Brosch, Jonathan Graham, and Tanay Kothari for writing for Eastern Bloc Party, Vercingetorix's Revenge, The Western Cannon, and Country Club Bowl. All of these sets are available for mirroring along with JSO for a nominal fee ($10 per person for everything) that accounts for the fact that I paid the writers of the side events, and would like to recoup that.

As far as results go, here were the results of the main event (pt. totals and records are for prelims):
1st Place (6-0, 2270 pts) A Jew, A Black, and a Pole walk into a bar... - Aaron Cohen, Gabe Johnson, Brian Smiley
2nd Place (5-1, 1645 pts) What's the situation room? - Marisol Brady, Hunter Brook, James Lasker
3rd Place (4-2, 1775 pts) Ballroom Blitzkrieg - Connor Teevens, Chris Wolfe, David Ciccarelli
4th Place (3-3, 1485 pts) Jersey Sharks - David Madden, Rohit Prakash, Alan Blayne
5th Place (2-4, 1140 pts) Guidon't Need No Education - Joe Brosch, Raynell Cooper, Drew Scheeler
6th Place (1-5, 1155 pts) Pine Barrens Mind Barons - Greg Bossick, Will Mantell, Milt Hathaway, Barbara Hathaway
7th Place (0-6, 975 pts) No Shore like the No. Shore - Robert Pond, Ian Drayer, Will Schneider, Naib Mobassir

Final Match - A Jew and a Black (the Pole had left) defeated What's the Situation Room 445-205

Side Event Winners (help me fill in the blanks!)
Harry Potter - Aaron Cohen
Western Cannon - Rohit Prakash
Eastern Bloc Party - David Maddden
Country Club Bowl - Rohit Prakash
ACE History - Aaron Cohen
Anime -
ACE Poetry - Some DCCer
ACE Trash - Drew Scheeler
All Night Trashathon - Drew Scheeler and company
Vercingetorix's Revenge - Hunter Brook

Changes for next year:
I apologize for the repeats in the tournament; I didn't get the rounds off to Nolan and Ryan until just a few days before the tournament, which wasn't really enough time to fully go through it. On the other hand, I don't think there were too many repeated answer lines; it was more questions about generally similar or identical things. This is an easy fix for next year, as is getting all the rounds randomized.
Logistically, I think I'll just ask everyone to bring a specific food item for lunch/dinner, and see whether it makes sense to order pizza again or do something else for dinner. Actually, I think the pizza break worked out very well. We'll definitely start earlier, and I think so as to avoid burnout, we'll do any NHBB meeting the night before. That way the actual tournament can start maybe around 2 or so. That would also let us expand to nine teams, which I think is the optimal size (though seven was perfect this year).
Anyone who played this year has first dibs on coming back for version 2.0 in 2012, but, again, there will be at least 12 entirely new spaces available for next year. Sleeping arrangements I think worked out well enough, but next year, we'll clear out the entire basement after the tournament (that would be the fourth room), and that way, anyone who wants to crash could do so from 11 or so onwards.
As far as the questions themselves go, I had a lot of fun playing the sets, and think the difficulty (with maybe one or two sets excepted) was right about what I was aiming for. The science questions (esp. physics, math, and chem) seemed very difficult though, so those could be toned down a notch for next year. The distribution seemed pretty much what we were looking for too. Any suggested changes?
I do have scoresheets from this tournament, but in all honesty, I really don't have time to enter them into SQBS. If anyone would like to do that though, please let me know and I'll send them to you. Also, if anyone has any more comments / feedback / side event winners, let me know that too.
Jersey Shore Open 2.0 will be announced at some point next spring once the rental calendar for next summer becomes clearer. Hope to see everyone back who came this year, and those who couldn't make it this year too!
-DM

by **Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:28 pm

I don't believe scores were kept for the anime packet. When I went to fall asleep, Drew was beating everyone else who was playing CULT during the fourth round (before that, Drew's team had won 2 out of 3 rounds).

by **Naib** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:58 pm

For my first tournament since high school, this was definitely an ideal way to start the coming year and an all-around memorable experience. Playing against such talented players has left me both in awe and hopeful for the challenges I'm sure to face at college level quiz bowls which I will make sure to attend once we get the quiz bowl team at SBU up and running. For myself, the event has given me a new perspective on quiz bowl; my promise is that within a year, I will broaden my quiz bowl knowledge and provide a greater challenge to the teams at the next JSO, which I'm emphatically looking forward to. Thanks again to everyone who attended and made the first JSO such an enjoyable experience and thanks to David for being such a gracious host.

I'll be more than happy to help with any of the preparations for the next JSO so let me know as I'll make sure to have a greater presence on the QB forums. Also, I'd be happy to help with anything Ian might be planning as well.

As for the scoresheets, if no one else volunteers to put them up, I'd be happy to help with that.

-Naib

by **Angry Babies in Love** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 4:25 pm

Production of Watchmen wrote:I don't believe scores were kept for the anime packet. When I went to fall asleep, Drew was beating everyone else who was playing CULT during the fourth round (before that, Drew's team had won 2 out of 3 rounds).

Drew won all of the trash basically except the round he fell asleep in, which was done modified Prussian style; that was won by the moderator.

Also, when were Western Cannon and Eastern Bloc played? Was this while I was at breakfast?

by **Important Bird Area** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 4:42 pm

Hayley Legg wrote:modified Prussian style; that was won by the moderator.

Excellent.

by **Fucitol** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 5:31 pm

This was an awesome tournament!!! Much thanks to Dave Madden and Family for allowing us to stay at their house and play quizbowl for effectively 36 straight hours. It was a great time and I will certainly do it again next year.

About the side event winners:

Poetry was the DCC player who was playing(not the ones that were reading the set or sleeping)
I don't think we played ACE myth
Hunter Book won Vercingetorix's revenge.
I forget about the others.

by **gabjoh** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 4:02 am

Just want to say thanks to David Madden (and also to my fellow participants) for a goshdarn great tournament and great time.

by **saintanthony** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 10:50 am

I second everything that has been said about this tournament thus far. This tournament is/was the epitome of how entertaining quiz bowl can get.

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