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
Last edited by
Great Bustard on Wed Aug 10, 2011 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
David Madden
Ridgewood (NJ) '99, Princeton '03
Founder and Director: International History Bee and Bowl, National History Bee and Bowl (High School Division), International History Olympiad, United States Geography Olympiad, US History Bee, US Academic Bee and Bowl, National Humanities Bee, National Science Bee, International Academic Bowl.
Adviser and former head coach for Team USA at the International Geography Olympiad