The Quizbowl Resource Center

The Scobol Solo will be held at New Trier and PORTA on November 20. Both sites are in Illinois--New Trier is just north of Chicago, and PORTA is just north of Springfield. Scobol Solo is for individuals rather than teams.

A pdf letter of invitation can be found here, and a registration form can be printed from here. If you want to reserve spots, email me (New Trier) or Mark Grant (PORTA), or post below. Anybody, inside or outside of Illinois, can play at either site.

Each student who enters is guaranteed seven matches, with each match consisting of 20 tossups without bonuses. The distribution is four each in history, literature, and science, three in fine arts, two in math, and one each in current events/geography, religion/mythology, and social science. There is no computation.

The questions were written primarily by me, but I have gotten much more input than in the past. Significant overall help has been provided by Jonah Greenthal, significant math help has been provided by Matt Bardoe, and significant science help has been provided by Mark Grant and Mike Laudermith. A group headed by Mike Cheyne is in the process of playtesting the questions. Anybody outside of Illinois interested in mirroring should contact me.

For reserved student spots at New Trier, see below.

Staffers:
Banasiak
Bardoe
Bellucci
Bianchi
Donohue
Egan
Fedewa
Fischer
Fitzgerald*
Foley
Funk
Garb
Gauthier G
Gerhardt
Greene
Greenthal
Hampton
Kfoury
Kidd
Laird
Laudermith
Long
Lorinskas
Nagib*
Noble
Perovanovic
Riley
Rogers
Rowe
Sacks
Shah
Sperber
Stankevitz
Strey
Taylor M
Wehrman
Wong
Yang
* leaving at lunchtime

Westwon wrote:Each student who enters is guaranteed seven matches, with each match consisting of 20 tossups without bonuses. The distribution is four each in history, literature, and science, three in fine arts, two in math, and one each in current events/geography, religion/mythology, and social science/philosophy. There is no computation.

Added a detail on the last category.

More specifically, there will be one question each in physics, chemistry, biology, other science (including computer science, earth science, astronomy, biochemistry, etc.); "curricular math", "other math"; U.S. history, European history, world/ancient history, military history (so the other history categories include no military-focused questions); U.S. literature, British literature, world/European literature, poetry (so the other literature categories include no poetry-focused questions); painting, instrumental classical music, other fine arts (including opera, architecture, sculpture, photography, etc.); and the one-each categories mentioned above.

Unlike previous years, the order of the categories will be "randomized" (not true randomization, but unpredictable) within each round. We will continue to track category champions, etc.

Kings Park would like to reserve one spot o.o

WSchneider wrote:Kings Park would like to reserve one spot o.o

wow, that's.... that's something all right.

Frater Taciturnus wrote:

WSchneider wrote:Kings Park would like to reserve one spot o.o

wow, that's.... that's something all right.

We're from New York, but I'm going to be out in Chicago over that weekend with family... so I figured "why not?"

I am bumping this because the tournament is five weeks away, and there still is a lot that I don't know in terms of who will be there. The first post in this thread is updated as I find out more. If your school is not listed, then I am not saving space for it as of right now.

IMSA tentatively plans to bring 5 players, and I have another who would like to staff. I'm working on getting a roster.

The field at New Trier is now full, though you may enter the waitlist if you desire. The following schools have the indicated number of players registered:

Auburn - 11
*Buffalo Grove - 5
Carbondale - 2
*Crete-Monee - 5
Culver - 2
*Fenton - 5
Fremd - 3
*Homewood-Flossmoor - 7
*IMSA - 5
Kings Park - 1
*Latin - 7
Leyden - 4
Libertyville - 5
Lisle - 5
Loyola Academy - 9
Maine East - 5
*Maine South - 4
Metea Valley - 2
*Naperville Central - 1
New Trier - 6
*Niles North - 1
Oak Park-River Forest - 5
*St. Ignatius - 5
*Sterling - 1
*Stevenson - 7
Wheaton North - 7
Wheaton Warrenville South - 8

*We're holding the indicated number of spots, but don't know who the players are.

Field updated. 25 spots left, and they're being taken pretty quickly, so get those registrations in to <[email protected]>.

8 spots remain.

We're down to the last 7 spots, so if you want to play (and you do), right now is a good time to tell Reinstein.

To avoid confusion, there are openings at the PORTA location. I have planned for 64 slots and we are about half full. If you are South of the Illinois Quiz Bowl Mason-Dixon, we would love to have you.

3 spots left at the New Trier site; sorry for any confusion about that.

The New Trier site is full.

New Trier will run with 128 students, and PORTA will run with 40.
There are two students on the waitlist at New Trier, one from Lisle and one from Metea Valley. (Lisle now has six students playing in addition to two moderators.)

I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but I have just one question. What exactly is this round known as the "Desperation Shot"? Like, what is it, how is it run, and how do people qualify for it?

The Desperation Shot is a themed multiple-choice test of 15 questions, plus a tiebreaker that involves who can be closer to some numerical answer. It is taken by all the players who went 5-2, and the one of them with the highest score plays in the Championship Round.

This year, live stats will be available:
category champions
category results by player
category conversion statistics
results by match for each player
players' overall records

For obvious reasons, there's no data there right now, so some of the pages look a little funny. It'll be more interesting on Saturday.

I'm also working on tweeting the results of every game, but the Twitter API is acting weird and it's not a super-high priority anyway.

We are hoping to record the Championship and post it on Youtube. If you think you might make it, please get this release form signed and bring it with you.

and how exactly does the championship round work? I've seen statistics from past years and they seem to have certain kids sitting out for part of the beginning or end.

WSchneider wrote:and how exactly does the championship round work? I've seen statistics from past years and they seem to have certain kids sitting out for part of the beginning or end.

Each player starts with X number of points, usually 3. If a person gets a TU right, it's 1 point. You miss, you lose a point. Hit 0, you're out.

The only undefeated person from the championship enters at 20, tied with the leader(s). After 40, it's reduced to 4. After 50, it's down to 2.

Some of the questions are done as handouts, and you can choose whether or not they count towards your score.

dtaylor4 wrote:

WSchneider wrote:and how exactly does the championship round work? I've seen statistics from past years and they seem to have certain kids sitting out for part of the beginning or end.

Each player starts with X number of points, usually 3. If a person gets a TU right, it's 1 point. You miss, you lose a point. Hit 0, you're out.

The only undefeated person from the championship enters at 20, tied with the leader(s). After 40, it's reduced to 4. After 50, it's down to 2.

Some of the questions are done as handouts, and you can choose whether or not they count towards your score.

No handouts this year. Also, to explain things a little more: everyone who goes 6-1 or 7-0 in the regular rounds makes the championship, plus the 5-2 player with the best score on the Desperation Shot (as explained above). The 7-0 player's advantage is skipping the first 20 questions and entering tied for the lead. The 5-2 player has no disadvantage.

Players' first matches are as follows. There is a chance these will change, but they probably won't.

Mark Anderson (Loyola Academy) vs. Mark Savin (Stevenson)
Aldo Ansel (Buffalo Grove) vs. Kevin Staller (Rockford Auburn)
Jacob Balogh (Rockford Auburn) vs. Matt Wilber (Buffalo Grove)
Bayo Bankole (IMSA) vs. Eli Lichtenberg (Homewood-Flossmoor)
Jessica Beard (Rockford Auburn) vs. Andrew Van Duyn (Culver)
Jake Bergal (Homewood-Flossmoor) vs. Kevin Malis (Stevenson)
Thomas Birt (Wheaton North) vs. Alex Kling (Latin)
Noah Bishton (Crete-Monee) vs. Nolan Winkler (Loyola Academy)
Zach Blumenfeld (Stevenson) vs. Michael Redlich (Wheaton North)
Amy Brabec (St. Ignatius) vs. Greg Kryzwicki (Fenton)
Will Brady (Maine East) vs. Nick Connolley (Homewood-Flossmoor)
Erik Brandel-Tanis (Latin) vs. Ben Chametzky (Carbondale)
Craig Breckenridge (Libertyville) vs. Paul Galusza (Leyden)
Jake Brekelbaum (Rockford Auburn) vs. Ben Carbery (Oak Park-River Forest)
Steve Buchko (Homewood-Flossmoor) vs. Blake Tutt (Fenton)
Matt Buckley (Maine South) vs. Michael Swartz (Lisle)
Ben Carbery (Oak Park-River Forest) vs. Jake Brekelbaum (Rockford Auburn)
Ben Chametzky (Carbondale) vs. Erik Brandel-Tanis (Latin)
Joe Charaska (Leyden) vs. Matt Leung (Buffalo Grove)
Megan Chen (IMSA) vs. Ned Lauber (Wheaton Warrenville South)
Elam Coalson (Oak Park-River Forest) vs. Alex Cooper (Rockford Auburn)
Nilo Cobau (Metea Valley) vs. Bill Fitzsimmons (St. Ignatius)
Miranda Coleman (Lisle) vs. Mark Maskeri (Wheaton North)
Nick Connolley (Homewood-Flossmoor) vs. Will Brady (Maine East)
Alex Cooper (Rockford Auburn) vs. Elam Coalson (Oak Park-River Forest)
Andrew Deveau (St. Ignatius) vs. Allison Rott (Wheaton Warrenville South)
Greg Dzuricsko (Lisle) vs. Alex Pandya (Rockford Auburn)
Peter Ericksen (Wheaton Warrenville South) vs. Adam Smith (Maine South)
Addison Euhus (Wheaton North) vs. Matt Felz (Stevenson)
Matt Felz (Stevenson) vs. Addison Euhus (Wheaton North)
Bill Fitzsimmons (St. Ignatius) vs. Nilo Cobau (Metea Valley)
Paul Galusza (Leyden) vs. Craig Breckenridge (Libertyville)
Jeffrey Gaynes (Niles North) vs. Ian Young (Crete-Monee)
Samantha George (Rockford Auburn) vs. Tom Lis (Maine South)
DJ Germano (New Trier) vs. Elaine Zhou (Latin)
Soumya Ghosh (Libertyville) vs. Patrick Swindle (Lisle)
Zainub Ghouse (Maine East) vs. Matt Wenzel (Lisle)
Greg Grabarek (Wheaton Warrenville South) vs. Abid Haseeb (Rockford Auburn)
Brian Gutelius (Crete-Monee) vs. Sabrina Lato (IMSA)
Kelsey Hamilton (Libertyville) vs. Marcel Youkhna (Loyola Academy)
Doug Hansel (Maine East) vs. Ron Nwumeh (Homewood-Flossmoor)
Abid Haseeb (Rockford Auburn) vs. Greg Grabarek (Wheaton Warrenville South)
Jake Haseltine (Lisle) vs. Kevin Hu (Naperville Central)
Zach Hayes (Loyola Academy) vs. Justin Koehler (Wheaton Warrenville South)
Brody Hooker (Rockford Auburn) vs. Daniel Thirman (New Trier)
Kevin Hu (Naperville Central) vs. Jake Haseltine (Lisle)
Luke Kahn (Oak Park-River Forest) vs. Rebecca Wight (Fremd)
Adam Kalinich (IMSA) vs. Ben Manis (Latin)
Nikhil Kamath (Libertyville) vs. Stephen Skapek (Oak Park-River Forest)
Sanam Kansara (Crete-Monee) vs. Bryan Ulrich (Homewood-Flossmoor)
Vincent Kenny (St. Ignatius) vs. PJ McQuirk (Lisle)
Alex Kling (Latin) vs. Thomas Birt (Wheaton North)
Tom Kloehn (Latin) vs. William Schneider (Kings Park)
Justin Koehler (Wheaton Warrenville South) vs. Zach Hayes (Loyola Academy)
Nebu Kolenchery (Buffalo Grove) vs. Thomas Schubert (Wheaton Warrenville South)
Andrew Krajewski (Fenton) vs. Claire Neri (Leyden)
Greg Kryzwicki (Fenton) vs. Amy Brabec (St. Ignatius)
Sabrina Lato (IMSA) vs. Brian Gutelius (Crete-Monee)
Ned Lauber (Wheaton Warrenville South) vs. Megan Chen (IMSA)
Emmanuel Lazcano (Leyden) vs. Pete Weber (Homewood-Flossmoor)
Matt Leung (Buffalo Grove) vs. Joe Charaska (Leyden)
Jason Liang (Fremd) vs. Amar Shah (Maine East)
Eli Lichtenberg (Homewood-Flossmoor) vs. Bayo Bankole (IMSA)
Tom Lis (Maine South) vs. Samantha George (Rockford Auburn)
Alwina Liu (Fremd) vs. Rahi Shah (Fenton)
Kevin Malis (Stevenson) vs. Jake Bergal (Homewood-Flossmoor)
Ben Manis (Latin) vs. Adam Kalinich (IMSA)
Stephanie Marcotte (Fenton) vs. Jake O'Shea (St. Ignatius)
Mark Maskeri (Wheaton North) vs. Miranda Coleman (Lisle)
Matt McBride (Loyola Academy) vs. Kevin Salat (Wheaton North)
PJ McQuirk (Lisle) vs. Vincent Kenny (St. Ignatius)
Kevin Medrano (Maine East) vs. Andrew Wang (New Trier)
Claire Neri (Leyden) vs. Andrew Krajewski (Fenton)
Amanda Nguyen (New Trier) vs. Jake Rebnord (Stevenson)
Ron Nwumeh (Homewood-Flossmoor) vs. Doug Hansel (Maine East)
Jake O'Shea (St. Ignatius) vs. Stephanie Marcotte (Fenton)
Srinivas Panchamukhi (Carbondale) vs. Ben Sigal (Stevenson)
Alex Pandya (Rockford Auburn) vs. Greg Dzuricsko (Lisle)
Maggie Peacock (Wheaton Warrenville South) vs. Hannah Spooner (Latin)
Brian Peterson (Loyola Academy) vs. Bernard Xie (Buffalo Grove)
Steven Quirk (Libertyville) vs. Sam Reinhart (Wheaton Warrenville South)
Pat Rahlfs (Loyola Academy) vs. Rose Sloan (IMSA)
Greg Ramel (Oak Park-River Forest) vs. Alex Williams (Wheaton North)
Jake Rebnord (Stevenson) vs. Amanda Nguyen (New Trier)
Michael Redlich (Wheaton North) vs. Zach Blumenfeld (Stevenson)
Sam Reinhart (Wheaton Warrenville South) vs. Steven Quirk (Libertyville)
Allison Rott (Wheaton Warrenville South) vs. Andrew Deveau (St. Ignatius)
Pat Ruane (Maine South) vs. Karen Suarez (Wheaton North)
Isabel Rubin (New Trier) vs. Saad Sheikh (Rockford Auburn)
Kevin Salat (Wheaton North) vs. Matt McBride (Loyola Academy)
Mark Savin (Stevenson) vs. Mark Anderson (Loyola Academy)
William Schneider (Kings Park) vs. Tom Kloehn (Latin)
Thomas Schubert (Wheaton Warrenville South) vs. Nebu Kolenchery (Buffalo Grove)
Kelli Schuette (Crete-Monee) vs. John Van Duyn (Culver)
Amar Shah (Maine East) vs. Jason Liang (Fremd)
Rahi Shah (Fenton) vs. Alwina Liu (Fremd)
Collin Shapiro (Stevenson) vs. Rishi Sriram (Metea Valley)
Saad Sheikh (Rockford Auburn) vs. Isabel Rubin (New Trier)
Ben Sigal (Stevenson) vs. Srinivas Panchamukhi (Carbondale)
Stephen Skapek (Oak Park-River Forest) vs. Nikhil Kamath (Libertyville)
Rose Sloan (IMSA) vs. Pat Rahlfs (Loyola Academy)
Adam Smith (Maine South) vs. Peter Ericksen (Wheaton Warrenville South)
Alex Smith (Loyola Academy) vs. Lloyd Sy (Rockford Auburn)
Hannah Spooner (Latin) vs. Maggie Peacock (Wheaton Warrenville South)
Rishi Sriram (Metea Valley) vs. Collin Shapiro (Stevenson)
Kevin Staller (Rockford Auburn) vs. Aldo Ansel (Buffalo Grove)
Karen Suarez (Wheaton North) vs. Pat Ruane (Maine South)
Michael Swartz (Lisle) vs. Matt Buckley (Maine South)
Patrick Swindle (Lisle) vs. Soumya Ghosh (Libertyville)
Lloyd Sy (Rockford Auburn) vs. Alex Smith (Loyola Academy)
Ben Tannebaum (Latin) vs. Morgan Venkus (Loyola Academy)
Daniel Thirman (New Trier) vs. Brody Hooker (Rockford Auburn)
Blake Tutt (Fenton) vs. Steve Buchko (Homewood-Flossmoor)
Bryan Ulrich (Homewood-Flossmoor) vs. Sanam Kansara (Crete-Monee)
Andrew Van Duyn (Culver) vs. Jessica Beard (Rockford Auburn)
John Van Duyn (Culver) vs. Kelli Schuette (Crete-Monee)
Morgan Venkus (Loyola Academy) vs. Ben Tannebaum (Latin)
Andrew Wang (New Trier) vs. Kevin Medrano (Maine East)
Pete Weber (Homewood-Flossmoor) vs. Emmanuel Lazcano (Leyden)
Matt Wenzel (Lisle) vs. Zainub Ghouse (Maine East)
Rebecca Wight (Fremd) vs. Luke Kahn (Oak Park-River Forest)
Matt Wilber (Buffalo Grove) vs. Jacob Balogh (Rockford Auburn)
Alex Williams (Wheaton North) vs. Greg Ramel (Oak Park-River Forest)
Nolan Winkler (Loyola Academy) vs. Noah Bishton (Crete-Monee)
Bernard Xie (Buffalo Grove) vs. Brian Peterson (Loyola Academy)
Marcel Youkhna (Loyola Academy) vs. Kelsey Hamilton (Libertyville)
Ian Young (Crete-Monee) vs. Jeffrey Gaynes (Niles North)
Elaine Zhou (Latin) vs. DJ Germano (New Trier)

There has been a little bit of shuffling from the listing above, so take those match listings with a grain of salt. Most of them are right, and most changes involve Homewood-Flossmoor and Leyden students changing into different Homewood-Flossmoor and Leyden students.

Our waiting list is currently empty. If you want to add your name, you can play in the tournament for free if I get any more cancellations, play in the extra room for free if I don't, and get a free lunch.

Paging Tanay Kothari!!!!!

One last question, are there any negs in the preliminary rounds? As in, are wrong answers penalized points-wise?

WSchneider wrote:One last question, are there any negs in the preliminary rounds? As in, are wrong answers penalized points-wise?

No.

Each match is 20 tossups, no bonuses. Tossups are worth one point.

In case anybody wants to spend the next 20 hours figuring out matchups, I have posted cards and a master schedule. The card assignments could change a little between now and tomorrow, so to save confusion don't bring any card you print out into New Trier--you'll get the real card when you register. Remember that cards change hands whenever the student with a number closer to 128 wins. Also, I realize that this may not be the easiest schedule to read if you're trying to figure out all your potential opponents, but that's not going to change at this point. Anyways, everybody at the tournament is your potential opponent.

Also, are there any powers, seeing how there aren't any negs? Or will it just be 1 point per correct question no matter what?

gauss1181 wrote:Also, are there any powers, seeing how there aren't any negs? Or will it just be 1 point per correct question no matter what?

Yes, a right answer is worth 1 point and a wrong answer is 0.

I put together a few more reports that can be publicly accessed throughout the day. Here is the full listing:
category report - how many people got each number of tossups in each category
category report by player - how many tossups in each category each player got
conversion report - conversion statistics for each question
player report - what happened in each match, sorted by player
record report - players' overall records and total points
scoreboard - the outcome of every match played
coming up next - every match that hasn't been entered yet, but is ready to be entered (i.e., both matches feeding it have been entered)

Out of respect for the PORTA Mirror, do not comment on specific questions on the internet until three hours after the question is used, even during the Championship. If it's a replacement question, wait longer than that.

When we say LIVE STATS, we mean LIVE STATS!

The morning champion is Ben Carbery (OPRF). The other players in the championship match will be Ben Chametzky (Carbondale), Andrew Van Duyn (Culver), Lloyd Sy (Auburn), Zach Blumenfeld (Stevenson), Kevin Malis (Stevenson), Andrew Wang (New Trier), Andrew Deveau (St. Ignatius), and the TBD winner of the Desperation Shot.

That's a heck of job with the stats, Jonah. Also, I can't help but root for Alex Kling to take the Desperation Shot bid - took the morning champ to OT, then got matched up against Lloyd in a win-or-go-home game... but won the rest? That's a strong performance.

cornfused wrote:That's a heck of job with the stats, Jonah. Also, I can't help but root for Alex Kling to take the Desperation Shot bid - took the morning champ to OT, then got matched up against Lloyd in a win-or-go-home game... but won the rest? That's a strong performance.

Yup, it was really impressive. For what it's worth, Carbery actually had to win a protest to win that game against Kling.

Also, thanks.

Free at Solo.

Secretary of Bobcats wrote:Bull

Dude, you lost to players who are better at getting tossups. Go learn more, and maybe you'll do better next year.

dtaylor4 wrote:

Secretary of Bobcats wrote:Bull

Dude, you lost to players who are better at getting tossups. Go learn more, and maybe you'll do better next year.

I'm guessing Nolan was unhappy with the quality of the seeding and the set--not not getting tossups, since he had the fifth most.

Props to Jonah for the awesome score keeping system. It was a lot of fun to use, and it was great to see the up-to-the-minute stats between rounds.

Kevin Malis wins over Ben Carbery. The last group to leave the finals was Chametzky and Deveau; the Desperation Shot champion had been Jacob Rebnord (Stevenson).

Thanks to everybody for playing and helping out, particularly Jonah for his help with the questions and stats system. Final responsibility for the questions lies with me. I also received significant help from Matt Bardoe on the Math and Mark Grant and Mike Laudermith on the Science. Congrats to Kevin for winning the whole thing and to a lot of people who played very well.

The questions are now posted.

I'd also like to thank a group led by Mike Cheyne for playtesting many of the questions and giving useful feedback.

I want to say this tournament had the best math I've ever seen in quizbowl. Most questions were only got near the end, but that was more of a result of a lack of experience with good noncomp math. The math was at a level that should be where the good teams and players are at. If more people write math of this quality, then maybe people are going to start actually studying math.

I don't have the details from PORTA, but it was won by a student from Chatham Glenwood, with a Greenville student finishing 2nd, and two Springfield students finishing 3rd and 4th. They had 40 students.

I sincerely hope no games were decided on tiebreakers like:

TB 3. Name the mode of transportation that…carried the Freedom Riders on their trips to integrate the South; Rosa Parks was on when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger; and transports millions of children to and from school each day.
ANSWER: bus

TB 3. Name the mode of transportation that…was made safe by inventor Elisha Otis; is called a “lift” by people in Great Britain; and is the usual way to get from the ground floor to the top of skyscrapers like the Sears Tower.
ANSWER: elevators

Name the mode of transportation that…was called a “freedom machine” by suffragists like Susan B. Anthony;
allowed Lance Armstrong to win the Tour de France seven times; and is named for the fact that it consists of two
wheels.
ANSWER: bicycles [or bikes]

I get that these are apparently your last resort tiebreakers or whatever, but that doesn't seem like a good reason to make the third tiebreaker radically different than the previous 22 tossups.

I hope not as well. If you look at each of these tiebreakers, they were preceded by easy tiebreakers that are standard questions. In the three cases you listed, the combinations of zone of stability/Orwell, Pavarotti/Portugal, and Louisiana Purchase/Egypt had to both go dead before they were used (and in the first case due to seeding there was a strong student in each match, making it unlikely that Orwell would go dead). We don't keep track of which tiebreaker ends each match. At some point we use those questions, which admittedly is the rough equivalent of flipping a coin.

Actually I had one game I moderated decided on the tiebreaker of the elevator one..

That set seems to have an odd set of tiebreakers. A modern-day Italian Opera singer isn't that easy, and I think it might be possible for someone to guess "Belgium" early on based on the house of burgundy clue, and then the other person guessing Spain. But that round looks to be an exception.

The stats pages Reinstein linked to will be coming down soon-ish. Permament stats are available as follows:
scoreboard
records
player details
category report
category report by player
conversion

And, not previously available:
Championship Round