The Quizbowl Resource Center

Richard Montgomery of Rockville, Maryland proudly announces the third annual Rumble on the Pike for Saturday, May 13. We hope for a strong field from the DC area and beyond. The tournament will use house-written pyramidal tossups, as in previous years, though please note a major shift in format. This year, we will be using the PACE NSC tournament format. We are the first area high school to use this format in a tournament, and the only one in the country in the last 5+ years. Since we are likely to be the last decently-sized area tournament of the regular season, and are the only tournament which uses the PACE format, we hope to serve as excellent preperation for teams hoping to attend one or both national tournaments and a last hurrah for those who are not.

Format: We will be using the PACE NSC format, with some slight mofications for the sake of round time. There will be three rounds:
Round 1: Eight 10-point tossups with related 20-point bonuses.
Round 2: Six 10-point tossups with a "give and take" bonus system. That is, your team, upon answering a tossup correctly, chooses from one of eight categories (such as Literature, Social Sciences, Mathematics, etc.) and hears a single 15-point bonus question.
Round 3: The "stretch" round. Ten 10-point tossups with unrelated, 30-point bonuses. In addition, answering the tossup (correctly) before, during, or immediately after the phrase "FTP" (that is, before the word following "FTP" begins") will result in a bonus 10-point power.

There are no negs at any time. Incorrect answers will be completed for the other team. All bonuses bounce back.


Competition Structure: More details TBA, but we will likely be using bracketed prelims and power matching for the playoffs. This means that all playoff teams (and probably all interested consolation teams) will be rebracketed and play several round-robin games. This ensures that your team will be guaranteed multiple games against equal and top competition. A regular semifinal-final sequence will follow.

Price/registration:
1st team: $50
Additional teams: $45 each
Buzzer System: -$10 each

Please send reservation emails to <[email protected]>
Please include your school name, coach's name/email, number of teams, etc.


I heartily encourage you to make nebulous statements about your team's attendance on this board. However, please ALSO send an email.

If you have any questions at all, please email me at <[email protected]> We look forward to seeing you there.

-Chris Ray, TD

Is this PACE-affiliated? i.e. do top 4 qualify for nationals or is it already too late by that point?

We'll be there for AP detox.

Seton Hall might try to come as well. (We have a local tournament on that date but would love to come down to Maryland.)

I have just been informed that not only is the tournament PACE-affiliated (top four teams qualify for PACE nationals), but that because of the late date of the tournament, you may elect to use your bid for PACE for either the 2006 or the 2007 NSC. We invite you to become the first team to win a nationals bid for the 2006-2007 quizbowl season.

Just a reminder that registration for Rumble on the Pike is still open. We're looking forward to a strong (and hopefully, larger) field, so please email us if you plan to attend.

I've been hearing that several teams have scheduling conflicts on Saturday night. Both previous Rumble on the Pike tournaments have ended quite early, and since we are using a timers and a truncated schedule this year, I'm confident we can finish quite early. If you share these or any other concerns, feel free to email me.

I'll be posting a field update in the next week, when some of the teams who've verbally committed register officially.

Those teams who do finish in the top 4 at this event should let me know as soon as possible if you intend to participate in the 2006 NSC or want to defer to the 2007 NSC (which will not be held in the DC area).

ETC --

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same format that was used at CWRU for Great Lakes Regional Academic Championship until like two or three years ago?

Yes.

Here is a field update a week out. We would like all registrations in by Tuesday. Please email me or DumbJaques to register. A post here could hold a spot until Tuesday.

Teams # Buzzers Total
TJ 5 2 210
Blair 1 0 50
GDS 1 1 40
NCS 1 1 40
Churchill 2 1 85
Banneker 1 1 40
WJ 2 1 85
Paint Branch 1 1 40
Whitman 2 2 75
Hanover 1 1 40
ER 1 1 40
Calvert Hall 1 1 40

This is shaping up to be a very competitive field. We expect it to grow to at least 30 given verbal commitments, etc. As Dumb mentioned, we will use a PACE format, but will add timers (a 14 minute first period followed by a 10 minute stretch round) to make sure the individual games do not drag to 40 minutes as they sometimes do at nationals. We aim to be finished before 4, which we have done the last two years.

Contact us soon.

This is shaping up to be a very competitive field. We expect it to grow to at least 30 given verbal commitments, etc. As Dumb mentioned, we will use a PACE format, but will add timers (a 14 minute first period followed by a 10 minute stretch round) to make sure the individual games do not drag to 40 minutes as they sometimes do at nationals. We aim to be finished before 4, which we have done the last two years.

Great, now my quizbowl coach calls me 'Dumb.'

That was the best word I could come up with after hearing your assessment of the subtle art of lineup tweaking. Something about darts and lineup cards, I think it was. Just remember that if the right situation came along I would sit you down and make the call to the bullpen of underclassmen.

But seriously . . . add Maret and probably Quince Orchard to the above list.

I believe Maggie Walker plans to bring at least 3 teams. Dr. Barnes will hopefully register soon.

Gonzaga's bringin' dos teams

Howard's wavering. Two players working on more. Should be able to confirm one way or another by Tuesday afternoon.

Robinson will be bringing 2 teams.

We're new to this tournament (and the PACE format), so our goal is mostly to not embarass ourselves too badly...

I didn't see this on the flyer, so what time is the tournament scheduled to start? 9, I assume? Thanks!

The field of 30 teams looks complete. Robinson scratched, but Centennial and Quince Orchard have taken their spots in the field. Check out Kellenberg's $10 registration fee.

Remember that registration starts at 8:15 am in the cafeteria (up the front stairs one flight and all the way back).

Schedule

8:15-8:45 registration

8:45 rules meeting

9:00 - 1:00 Games 1-5

1:00 Lunch and trash round

1:45 Playoff game 1

2:25 Playoff game 2

3:00 playoff game 3

3:35 Final

Games will be timed (14 minute first "half" and a 12 minute second "half") and will consist of:

An 8 question tossup/related bonus round

A 6 question tossup/chosen category bonus round

A 10 question stretch tossup/bonus round

Complimentary breakfast food will be offered and teams will have 1 hour for lunch, which will also feature the trash round.

The top four teams qualify for PACE '06 OR '07 (you pick).

An email with directions will be sent out later today, but our address is

250 Richard Montgomery Drive
Rockville, MD 20852

Let me know ASAP about changes or questions. We look forward to a great day of competition.

Teams # Buzzers Total

TJ 5 2 210
Blair 1 1 40
GDS 1 1 40
NCS 1 1 40
Churchill 2 1 85
Banneker 1 1 40
WJ 2 1 85
Paint Branch 1 1 40
Whitman 2 2 75
Hanover 1 1 40
Calvert Hall 1 1 40
Reservoir 3 1 130
Maggie Walker 3 1 130
QO 1 ? 50
Gonzaga 2 1 paid
Centennial 1 1 40
Howard 1 1 40
Kellenberg 1 4 10

bigmac wrote:Check out Kellenberg's $10 registration fee.

...

Kellenberg 1 4 10

I think you've got exactly the right idea. 1 5 0 would have been even better. If a school brings one team and five buzzers, they deserve free entry.

bigmac wrote:
1:00 Lunch and trash round

1:45 Playoff game 1
...

and teams will have 1 hour for lunch, which will also feature the trash round.

hmm...

Quit showing off, not all of us can do addition. We in the non-adding community don't appreciate you rubbing it in our faces.


How much time you get for lunch is actually a computation question in the fifth round. If you power it, you get an hour. If you neg, we cook you.

But seriously, the 1-1:45 time should be correct for lunch. Since we're on the Pike, it shouldn't be a problem. At least, that's how much time they let us have for lunch. Although, we probably have one of the worst 5th period attendance rates in the county.

There was a bonus in quarter final round, and it asked for Snow whatever by Kawabata. The answer was Snow Spring but I'm pretty sure it's Snow Country.

There was a bonus in quarter final round, and it asked for Snow whatever by Kawabata. The answer was Snow Spring but I'm pretty sure it's Snow Country.

Yes, it's snow country, that was a mistake. I apologize. Having read both Spring Snow (by Mishima Yukio) and Snow Country (Kawabata), it's somewhat embrarrassing. However, it didn't come close to affecting any outcomes.

Thank you for creating an account specifically to note an error in one-third of a 30 point bonus that didn't affect anything. I know, I can't really fault you for making a valid correction to a dumb mistake I made, but come on, you obviously could have just googled that if you wanted to know what the real title was. I really encourage feedback, I hope everyone who would like to say something about our tournament does, but creating an account specifically to post one little thing that didn't matter for no other apparent reason then to point out a flaw is kind of annoying. At least make another post detailing all of our flaws, it's not like you have to limit yourself. Go nuts!


With that out of the way, on to the important stuff

Results:

1) Maggie Walker A
2) TJ A
3) Gonzaga A
4) Blair
5-8) WJ A, Whitman A, GDS A, TJ B

I believe the finals score was 395-265. I think the consolation match was something around 320-180, but I'm really not sure.

Thanks to all who participated, and to Joe Caulfield and David Bykowski for reading. Feedback on questions is always appreciated, as well as overall comment on the the tournament/format/offensive personalities.

Also, Dr. Chuck has set up an online survey for players/coaches/observes at the tournament, to evaluate the PACE format at the high school level. I invite him to post the link in this thread.

Thanks to RM for running a great tournament; the question quality was very high, and the tournament was run quite smoothly (more tournaments need to end before 5 PM, as this one did.)

The final team in your 5-8 listing is TJ B, who lost to Gov A in the quarterfinals.

On the PACE format: The stretch round power system is interesting, and I like the huge bonus for powering the quesiton, but I think I prefer the early power marks of NAQT. I like the second round, where the team selects the topic for a bonus; it really allows teams to focus on their strengths for the bonuses in that round. The one thing about this format I dislike is the bouncebacks on bonuses; it might just be because I'm so used to bonuses going entirely to one team, but this was very different, and I think I prefer the directed bonus system.

I thank Chris and the rest of RM for a great tournament that was well-run with excellent questions (although the lack of a question on hemorraghic fevers is a disappointment), and finishing rather early as well. It was a truly good way to end the Blair seniors' quizbowl careers (we're not going to any nationals, unfortunately).

The format was interesting, to say the least, and definitely took some getting used to, but I suppose we're all the better for being familiar with that as well.

Also, Chris, I think ours is worse, and we don't even have open campus...

Yes. Congrats to RM for pulling off a smoothly run tournament. Good content selection and creative bonuses. For anyone who did not attend, this would be a great packet to practice on before PACE. I'm sure a good number of the teams at the tournament were unfamiliar with the PACE format. Hopefully this will be good advertising for nationals for those not having experienced the style.

Good content selection and creative bonuses. For anyone who did not attend, this would be a great packet to practice on before PACE. I'm sure a good number of the teams at the tournament were unfamiliar with the PACE format. Hopefully this will be good advertising for nationals for those not having experienced the style.

Thanks Mehdi. To that end, we are offering our packets for sale. They are available either through email or snail mail, and are going for $25. You recieve 5 prelim packets, 4 playoff packets, and 1 trash round. The questions were written in an attempt to approximate PACE style, though not quite PACE difficulty. If your team is looking to prepare for PACE this year or in the future (or for a similar pryimidal format), they may be quite useful.

To arrange a purchase/submit inquiries about the offer, email me at <[email protected]>

As Chris and Dan have mentioned, I have set up a survey for all the teams that competed in this weekend's Rumble on the Pike. While I do post the link here, I would request that only those teams that competed should fill out the form (obviously).

The entire survey probably takes about 20+ minutes to fill out with a few "mandatory questions" interspersed. Obviously feel free to be as complete as you want, but please be brief. :)

The survey will remain open for 10 days (May 24) before I take the survey down. I'm interested in your impressions of the format, especially since many of you were novices for this particular event. The PACE NSC game format involves more questions and no clock.

Any teams that wish to compete at PACE Nationals should contact me as soon as possible. If you are not already on the PACE NSC 2006 listserver, let me know. ALL previous questions from 1998 to 2005 are now available to those who register for the tournament.

dschafer wrote:On the PACE format: The stretch round power system is interesting, and I like the huge bonus for powering the question, but I think I prefer the early power marks of NAQT. I like the second round, where the team selects the topic for a bonus; it really allows teams to focus on their strengths for the bonuses in that round. The one thing about this format I dislike is the bouncebacks on bonuses; it might just be because I'm so used to bonuses going entirely to one team, but this was very different, and I think I prefer the directed bonus system.

Just to go into answering a bit on how the format was designed 10 years ago: the power-marks are "known powers" unlike the blind powers of NAQT. It's just a preference; there wasn't so much a "standard" to placing a power mark then as there may be now with NAQT's questions. Nevertheless, power marks are not protestable, and to know that you could lose a game because you didn't buzz in "early enough" ... I didn't quite agree with that outcome since you never knew how "early" the power mark came. It's nice to have easter eggs, but you should be rewarded for your knowledge and not necessarily penalized on the presentation of that knowledge with writing style. But that's my opinion. We had discussed the merits of also enforcing negs, but in the end, we ditched it in favor of a higher point value on the power (akin to the last round of It's Academic where the tossups are double in value, or triple on a visual question).

Bounceback/reboundable bonuses are a Southern thing (acknowledge Rick Barry for pushing for it in our format), but it does keep everyone in the match at all times. It forces a somewhat higher level of writing bonuses because you can't really do "red, green, or blue" (choice of two or three) well.

The give/take category quiz section is designed to remove some of the "randomness" of the quiz bowl game by allowing a team to choose a bonus category on its perceived strengths. I'll credit Kevin (aren't you the Quizmaster!!!???) Keegan for helping to convince me that this is a good strategic element to put into our game design.

Hmm, the survey link does not seem to be working for me. Is anyone also having this problem?

If the survey link doesn't work, email me.

Otherwise, I think I corrected the problem.

Working now. Thanks.

RM did an excellent job hosting the tournament. They did a great job keeping things moving and provided excellent readers. The team, Chris Ray especially, wrote wonderful questions despite the [small] errors. This tournament was a wonderful way to end the It's Ac year, at least as far as non-televised, non-national competitions go. Why didn't you guys use power bracketing this year? Will stats be made available online?

I only wish our playoff performance was as good as our prelim performance. We don't appear to match up well with Gonzaga this year: with the exception of one tournament, every tournament we're ranked higher then them after the prelims and lose to them in the playoffs including a tournament where we had beaten them in the prelims. The one time we were ranked lower coming out of the prelims we beat them in the playoffs. Gonzaga is definately a team that will be extremely strong on a national level next year considering they're bringing Ted back. He's the only player I've seen who comes close to being as good as Chris Ray on lit. Congratulations to TJ and especially Gov for completely outplaying the rest of the field.

EDIT: Chris, nice job scoping us out for our It's Ac game next Saturday by watching our game .

bigtrain wrote:Chris, nice job scoping us out for our It's Ac game next Saturday by watching our game .

Sorry, that was kind of my fault. He asked me if we could switch rooms, and while I like reading for y'all, I was fine with moving so I wasn't reading for you 4 times in 5 prelim rounds. Yeah, someone could've used a little helping in scheduling who played in which rooms.

But seriously, a very good tournament indeed--question difficulty was right on for this time of the season, and it was a very good, competitive field.

While I have only been to about 10 tournaments I thought this was the best run by far with good time management and moderators getting question packets qquickly so we could get the game started.

DumbJaques wrote: Thank you for creating an account specifically to note an error in one-third of a 30 point bonus that didn't affect anything.

No, that was not the reason I made the account.

Anyway, the questions were very good. I don't know about some of the readers we had, though.

Yea the question quality was great overall. However, there seemed to be a lot of protests on unclear math questions (when Palmer Mebane is confused, you know there's a problem) and everybody thought I was crazy when I protested the notion of the Volga flowing into the Black Sea! It didn't affect the outcome of the game though, and I've been told the story behind all that so s'all good.

The trash round was the highlight of the day though (aside from some sort of trivial trophy business A team had to deal with at the end of the tournament).* Fortunately, the other team (every Gov player, coach, and parent save Mark, Evan, Will, and I) fell for the American Idol category bonus trap because that guy from Richmond is in it, so that might have given us the win.

This was the closest I've ever come to playing the actual PACE NSC format at a tournament. Overall, I agree with what a lot of people have said about it being a format that rewards knowledge over speed and luck (though those help still). However, the differences between each of the three rounds can become tiresome and seemingly unimportant sometimes, so I guess my ideal format would be NAQT, only with non-blind powers, bounceback bonuses, and none of that 9-minute half timed crap (that's no diss to RM because I realize they timed it for the sake of running things quickly).

By the way, I feel like Ron Mexico did a halfway decent job, but I think he's got a minicamp to go to and I'll try using Maurice instead at PACE, maybe being around all that crack will wake him up more... Oh yea, I'll bring some CD's to sell at both nationals, very close to finished by now (a much better song than 50 Sense and Runnin will serve as the token diss track though)

*PS: So nobody explodes on me, I'm kidding here. A team did an excellent job without Xun or any other sciency seniors. From their playoff games I watched (TJ A/B and Gonzaga), their opposition put up some solid performances against them too, so it was by no means a cakewalk.

Matt Morrison wrote: However, the differences between each of the three rounds can become tiresome and seemingly unimportant sometimes, so I guess my ideal format would be NAQT, only with non-blind powers, bounceback bonuses, and none of that 9-minute half timed crap

Sounds like you like PACE better, then. I kind of agree with you about the differences in the three parts of the rounds - a little too gimmicky perhaps. It might be more interesting to just make the whole game like the stretch round. It would be simple, pure academic competition, and no category lists to fiddle with.

Of course an entire round of just "stretch round" format would be just like NAQT, and I don't want to infringe on their format... which is similar enough to "College Bowl" TM format.

Matt Morrison wrote:Yea the question quality was great overall. However, there seemed to be a lot of protests on unclear math questions

There are 6!/3! = 120 distinct rearrangements of the letters in "SECEDE". That question was not unclear. Palmer had the answer in less than 2 seconds I would estimate. We did not pursue the protest because it was not pivotal. Other than that, the math seemed fine. I especially liked the Matt Morrison question, didn't you?

E.T. Chuck wrote:Of course an entire round of just "stretch round" format would be just like NAQT, and I don't want to infringe on their format... which is similar enough to "College Bowl" TM format.

Except the major differences of known power marks, bouncebacks, no negs, no timers, and larger powers. These are significant differences - No copyright infringement here.

Well, it is a touchy subject. Sometimes I get the feeling NAQT thinks we are infringing on their rights. (Plus historically, when we did establish our organizations, there was some concern that NAQT was infringing on CBI's IP).

Again, I don't mind straight-up 20 tossups and bonuses even with PACE-formatted powers. That would be similar to the college "ACF" format except they don't do powers or bouncebacks.

Then again the PACE NSC game format does make it possible to provide some meaning to the scores of games since there are only 1000 points possible in every regulation NSC match. That's one of our unique points that give our records their meaning. :)

E.T. Chuck wrote:Well, it is a touchy subject. Sometimes I get the feeling NAQT thinks we are infringing on their rights. (Plus historically, when we did establish our organizations, there was some concern that NAQT was infringing on CBI's IP).

Don't get me wrong. I very much like NAQT and their format. Their success as an organization has been phenomenal in recent years. They seem to be on the verge of driving out certain unnamed competitors, or at least marginalizing them. In certain cases, this is probably a good thing. But, PACE is a quality "competitor" that needs to stay in the game and to thrive. We do not need a monopoly in quality high school quiz bowl. As teams, we need choices so that the respective organizations stay honest and don't become too expensive, etc. Plus, with two legitimate national championships, teams have more chances to play at the national level.

You should not try to be different from NAQT just for the sake of being different. I doubt they have a copyright or patent on their format. And even if they do, or could even obtain one, PACE's format is a sufficiently different format (even the stretch round) with its own nuances and strategies. We enjoy both games and hope they both survive and thrive. With the obvious demand that seems to be growing, there is not only room for both tournaments, but also a need for both.

I am probably a little biased toward the stretch round. It was in the stretch round that our team was able to overcome a 200 point deficit to knock off TJ in the finals a couple of years ago.

jbarnes112358 wrote:I especially liked the Matt Morrison question, didn't you?

There were a number of computation questions referencing coaches and players that were pretty funny. My favorite questions were the ones I heard were in the finals on Alex and Andre burning CDs in a microwave and Adam's blood alchohol content. Unfortunately, both were references to my team. The latter is the reason why we were playing with only three players for the first few rounds .

Actually, I've heard from my (rather young) physics teacher that microwaving a CD doesn't result in melting, but rather electrical activity of some kind. This is the kind of thing you spend your time on in college, apparently.

Yeah, it doesn't melt at all. It actually just sparks and eventually catches on fire.

It is the dream of every tournament director to have his questions spark a discussion of the physics of microwaving CDs.

I also maintain that only first names were used in the computation questions. It certainly is not implied that we were advocating juvenile delinquency.

jbarnes112358 wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:Yea the question quality was great overall. However, there seemed to be a lot of protests on unclear math questions

There are 6!/3! = 120 distinct rearrangements of the letters in "SECEDE". That question was not unclear. Palmer had the answer in less than 2 seconds I would estimate. We did not pursue the protest because it was not pivotal. Other than that, the math seemed fine. I especially liked the Matt Morrison question, didn't you?

That was actually another one I had in mind. Dan Schafer had a legitimate point in his protest that it wasn't clear whether it was 7% from the original 100% each time or 7% of each new percentage, but again, that time it didn't matter.

That protest was interesting, as I can see both sides of the argument. Expanding on what Matt said for those who haven't heard the question: I won't attempt to quote it here, as I could not do it justice, but the general idea was that a player starts out making 100% of his free throws, but every time an event occurs, his ability to make a free throw drops 7%. The question asks how many times the event must occur before the ability to make free throws drops below 80%. The correct answer is four, as each time the event occurs, the player's skill drops to 93% of its current level, and thus the progression was (.93)^1, (.93)^2, (.93)^3, (.93)^4. My interpretation was that the skill drop was fixed at the start, and thus the progression went 93, 86, 79. I can certainly see either side of the protest, and I am rather glad that the protest ended up not being resolved, as that would not have been an easy decision.

The 6!/3! question amused me, seeing as how I accidentally did 5!/3! and got 20, powering the question. Oops. I didn't even think about that question until Palmer mentioned it to me before our game against Gov A.

Regarding the "visible" power marks in the PACE format, I'm rather torn on this issue. I like the idea that the players know when the power mark is and can strategize accordingly, but I also prefer the early placement of NAQT's powers. Powering a question in NAQT is a huge rush (especially for younger players), because it is only an incredible buzz that will get the power (in most cases). With the late placement of these powers, in games between two strong teams, there were occasional buzzer races for power (the particular race I was thinking of was in our game against Blair).

And being powered upon is an incredible demoralizer. Witness RM A's unholy disemboweling of my team at the fall 2005 TJ finals. They powered on 13 of 20, I think, and 8 of the first 13 or something ridiculous like that.

Eric