The Quizbowl Resource Center

My earlier post about the playoff format was a horrid lie. TJ will play the holder of card 4 in round 8, but will be in the final regardless. If card 4 beats TJ, card 4 will play the winner of 2-3 to get into a non-advantaged final. If TJ wins, they will play an advantaged final against the winner of 2-3.

The change in playoff structure was announced in the folders teams received when they checked in and at yesterday's morning meeting. The system they used for pairings and byes last year assumed 64 or fewer teams made the playoffs. I didn't fully understand the system they used this year, but I think the choice came down to adding another Sunday round or disadvantaging the 6-4 teams.

Things seemed a little disorganized this morning when I talked to people, though the matches were running close to on time. Don't hold your breath waiting for naqt.com to have everything.

Me earlier wrote:I said at the beginning of the year that TJ would win NAQT and Whitman would win PACE so I guess I'll stick to that.

The prophecy is unfolding according to the words of the great one.

There were 38 6-4 teams. Disadvantaging in excess of half the playoff field seems extreme. With 176 teams in the field it was highly likely that more than 64 teams would have winning records, and the card system guaranteed that there would be a large number of 6-4 teams. There are other alternatives that work better.

1) Use pts/20TUH as a tie breaker. This would have severely disadvantaged (eliminated) 4 teams.
2) Have a play-in round to pare the field down to 64 teams. This would have impacted 8 teams and added 30 minutes to a two-day, 12- hour tournament.

The whole idea of quizbowl tournaments is to play, so let them play. That's why so many team are included in the playoffs and why those teams that don't make the playoffs are encouraged to participate in ad hoc games during the playoffs. It's one thing to play a game and lose; it's quite another to be summarily branded with a loss without even getting to put your hand to the buzzer. Personally I'd like to see a play-in round simply because it involves more play, not less.

BTW, which 6-4 team(s) advanced the farthest?

Final is TJ v. Wilmington Charter, TJ advantaged.

Well according to Evan Silberman Charter won the first game by 50.

TJ won the second game 4something to 2something. 4 of the last 6 HSNCTs have been won by TJ, and 5 of the last 6 by Virginia schools.

Congratulations to TJ!

Congrats to TJ for winning and Charter for their best finish ever!

Huge congrats to TJ, only wish I could have been there to see it first hand.

Congrats to TJ for the well deserved win against the most competitive field the HSNCT has seen perhaps ever.

Dynasty?

How did Dorman and Fort Mill do in the playoffs?

Congratulations to Thomas Jefferson, as we (James Island) played you guys at DACQ, and you demonstrated yourselves as a great team at that tournament.

Joe-James Island academic team

MOHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fort Mill didn't make the playoffs, and Dorman A tied for 5th while Dorman B got 4th after Whitman got 3rd. I thought this tournament was crappy although I am very pissed off that we got "17th" after losing on that horrid packet to Bergen County after they seemed unable to actually convert their bonuses well but happened to like the subjects they got asked so they were able to lock us out of being able to actually get the deep knowledge points. Actually in general I felt like this tournament had some real problems with their bonus consistency and tossup writing, along with the continued use of biography crap, lateral thinking, and other NAQT nonsense, and I find it a joke that all of these upsets happened to everyone (Especially Dorman). All I can say is that I look forward to PACE where this kind of crap shouldn't be determining matches. The Gaddis tournament was awesome though.

The Gaddis tournament was awesome though.

Seconded.

And I only buzzed one time on a certain website that I am absolutely embarrassed for knowing.

I will agree with Charlie on the bonus difficulty consistency problem. I'll leave all other comments about the questions to my team members.

I want to congratulate TJ, Charter, Whitman, Dorman and all the other teams who put on spectacular performances this weekend. It was a very wide-open field and TJ was able to pull away at the end.

I do have to comment that when I first arrived at the Wyndham, I thought "how the hell is this going to work?," but it ended up being pretty darn efficient, regardless of the basement (and the building as a whole) being split into two parts and GH seemingly alternating each round between buildings.

Good luck to everyone at PACE next weekend.

Dees wrote:An NAQT tournament happened!

You are surprised by this at all? You knew what you were getting into when you signed up for an NAQT tournament.

I am rather disappointed I didn't get to see Charter finished 2nd. Silly University of Delaware and their irregular semester schedule.

Congratulations to TJ. Even during their less awesome years I have always thought that TJ was the team to beat, even when Maggie Won last year.

dsfcaptains2005 wrote:

Dees wrote:An NAQT tournament happened!

You are surprised by this at all? You knew what you were getting into when you signed up for an NAQT tournament.

Doesn't mean he can't complain about issues with it. Since NAQT is supposed to be "good quizbowl", it falling into "bad quizbowl" habits is not something that should be welcomed.

What specific things were problems? And what specifically is so much better about PACE?

I say this as a totally un-biased coach who doesn't prefer one format over another, i'm just trying to understand the complaints when i've never really seen much wrong with NAQT at all. So i'm not trying to ruffle any feathers here...

what was wrong with the ?s

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:What specific things were problems? And what specifically is so much better about PACE?

I say this as a totally un-biased coach who doesn't prefer one format over another, i'm just trying to understand the complaints when i've never really seen much wrong with NAQT at all. So i'm not trying to ruffle any feathers here...

Most of the issues come from the amount of current events, pop culture/trash, and geography in the distribution, the use of an overall tournament distribution instead of a per-packet distribution, and various forms of bad question writing.

What subject were most of the questions because if everybody thinks that this tourney was terrible then NMB would have to do the unthinkable

turn to

I guess from being a former player who excelled at geography/current events and having a few players who currently excel at those (much more than science, etc.), i don't see the bias in NAQT. Ha, but i guess that's just me being blind to it. Point taken, i suppose.

What type of history was there because Military History is my strong area

NMBlumberjax wrote:What subject were most of the questions because if everybody thinks that this tourney was terrible then NMB would have to do the unthinkable

turn to

This tournament could have a 15/15 board game distribution and be better than Chip...

1. Congrats to TJ. I'm very proud of you, guys.
2. Congrats to the NAQT folks for running yet another near-flawlessly-efficient nationals. Staffing was fun and didn't require me to think very much, which I approve of.
3. My own thoughts on the questions is that the questions in more legitimate categories were good, and things were certainly much better than the 2003 HSNCT I was reading for scrimmage rounds. On the other hand, the 1/6 or so of the 26 questions that make NAQT rounds rather more unpredictable than they ought to be had not notably changed in quality from the 2003 set.

Adamantium Claws wrote:This tournament could have a 15/15 board game distribution and be better than Chip...

I, for one, would play this tournament.

Hey, congrats TJ! I couldn't stay to see all of the playoff rounds, but the rounds I saw were moving, even. A quizbowl match between two top teams can be beautiful.

I thought the questions were the epitome of NAQT (i.e. very typical of NAQT), and probably the exact kind of product that the writers wanted to produce. Obviously a lot of teams enjoy it, and NAQT probably has no reason to change its style, but it's unlikely that I'll ever play in HSNCT again, or in IS-series if I can help it.

give a question

NMBlumberjax wrote:give a question

I believe that they are refraining from giving questions because of NAQTs copyright on the questions and out of courtesy for people playing mirrors of the questions. If you purchase the set from NAQT you cans see what people mean, or really you could just look at a past NAQT set, the problems mentioned happen on most NAQT sets.

Also, posts like that are unhelpful to the general flow of conversation about a set. People will post examples as they feel necessary. Set discussion is primarily for the editors and players, not for outside observers

NMBlumberjax wrote:What subject were most of the questions because if everybody thinks that this tourney was terrible then NMB would have to do the unthinkable

turn to

Geez... All I am saying is give PACE a chance.

where can i look at a past set

NMBlumberjax wrote:where can i look at a past set

Here:
http://naqt.com/samples/t1163packet_1.pdf

Also letting people discuss the tournament would be nice. There are probably better threads to begin developing your opinions about various formats.

NMBlumberjax wrote:where can i look at a past set

You can purchase one from NAQT, or you can look at their sample packet, which can be easily found by navigating the NAQT website. But it seems like you may need help doing that so I found it for you. http://naqt.com/samples/t1163packet_1.pdf

wowitsquinthaha wrote:

You can purchase one from NAQT, or you can look at their sample packet, which can be easily found by navigating the NAQT website. But it seems like you may need help doing that so I found it for you. http://naqt.com/samples/t1163packet_1.pdf

http://naqt.com/samples/t1163packet_1.pdf

We all think this is were you find NAQT quesitons

Yeah this ain't such a good example of current NAQT by any stretch.

Congrats to TJ.
Congrats to Kurtis as well - it is notably hard for a one man team to do well, but he gave it his best effort.
Congrats to NAQT on an efficient tournament.

A (hopefully enough so) general question complaint -
Repeats between rounds - bonus parts being used as clues in later TU's. One egregious bonus that had the answer to the third part in the first part.
Oh yea, consolation round organization sucked. But that doesn't matter.

And GADDIS WAS EXCELLENT. Even if I didn't do very well.

Congratulations of course to TJ, as well as to Charter on a great run this year - especially the first of the final games. Many thanks to NAQT for a fantastic tournament, and a round of applause to all the teams that participated. This was fun

Anyone know when podcasts will be up on the site?

Sifting through them can be just as tense as playing.

evilmonkey wrote:One egregious bonus that had the answer to the third part in the first part.

And a bonus part in round 2 of the playoffs that resurfaced in the semifinals...

ILoveReeses wrote:

NMBlumberjax wrote:What subject were most of the questions because if everybody thinks that this tourney was terrible then NMB would have to do the unthinkable

turn to

Geez... All I am saying is give PACE a chance.

There never was a good buzzer war, nor a bad PACE.

--Benjamin Franklin (adapted)

That's what I was talking about, but I don't think it's right to discuss question specifics.

Stat Boy wrote:

evilmonkey wrote:One egregious bonus that had the answer to the third part in the first part.

And a bonus part in round 2 of the playoffs that resurfaced in the semifinals...

There was also a bonus in the final that was verbatim repeated from an earlier round. Also a toss-up in a playoff round that was if not actually identical (I don't have them in front of me.) then practically identical to one read in a scrimmage on Friday. I understand topics are going to be reused over time, but this had a certain "curved, yellow fruit" quality of repeat to it. Luckily the repeat in the final did not matter as TJ put up a 250 point lead after 7 q's and never looked back.

EDIT: Almost forgot in of the latter prelim rounds there was also a tu where the answer served as a subject for a bonus IN THE SAME PACKET. While there was no informational overlap, it would defy reason and sanity to say that it did not limit the packet's overall breadth of topics. If you were there, you know exactly which one I'm talking about.

Speaking of TJ, congratulations! The last two rounds of the day were incredibly memorable and the win was very very well-deserved. Congrats also to NAQT for running such a large tournament successfully. The idea of a tournament with 176 teams makes my brain melt, and I am very impressed with how it was pulled off. It was very nice to see a lot of old faces this weekend, and meet a lot of new ones.

I'm pretty sure that you can talk about specific questions from this tournament and that people playing the mirrors are suppossed to just stay away from these discussion threads. But someone from NAQT should probably give the go-ahead before you actually do this.

Anyways, congrats to TJ for their win and the exciting two games that Charter gave them in the final.

Thanks to everyone for all your support in our run, and congrats to TJ for winning the final.

Does anyone else think this card system as written needs some fixing? I thought it was really crappy that TJ, Whitman, and East Lansing were forced to play each other over and over while some other teams' schedules seemed much less rough.

I wish we could go back to where the computer paired the very last rounds, but I guess that'll never happen.

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:I'm pretty sure that you can talk about specific questions from this tournament and that people playing the mirrors are suppossed to just stay away from these discussion threads.

Precisely what are you smoking? It is incredibly easier (and frankly the only responsible option) to protect the integrity of these packets against potential cheating by NOT discussing them then it is to discuss them in full (and a blunt dissection of some of these q's are needed) and cross your fingers that everyone is on scout's honor and doesn't look. Because no one has ever cheated in QB. Ever. Please.

Then why, in the past, have they uploaded the podcast matches within a day or so of the HSNCT with the warnings not to listen to them if you're playing in their tournament later.

allythin wrote:

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:I'm pretty sure that you can talk about specific questions from this tournament and that people playing the mirrors are suppossed to just stay away from these discussion threads.

Precisely what are you smoking? It is incredibly easier (and frankly the only responsible option) to protect the integrity of these packets against potential cheating by NOT discussing them then it is to discuss them in full (and a blunt dissection of some of these q's are needed) and cross your fingers that everyone is on scout's honor and doesn't look. Because no one has ever cheated in QB. Ever. Please.

XTREME TUDE IN THIS THREAD

Yeah, see, this is how it's always worked, with NAQT and the administration here telling people who play these mirrors to not follow these discussions while refusing to stifle discussion on the questions for their most important high school event. If somebody cheats on a mirror, then they have bigger issues than we can deal with.

allythin wrote:

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:I'm pretty sure that you can talk about specific questions from this tournament and that people playing the mirrors are suppossed to just stay away from these discussion threads.

Precisely what are you smoking? It is incredibly easier (and frankly the only responsible option) to protect the integrity of these packets against potential cheating by NOT discussing them then it is to discuss them in full (and a blunt dissection of some of these q's are needed) and cross your fingers that everyone is on scout's honor and doesn't look. Because no one has ever cheated in QB. Ever. Please.

Mirrors of HSNCT are unofficial and aren't played for championships or anything. Anyone going to such a mirror is personally responsible for avoiding this discussion.

All I know is the UTC tournament is listed on the NAQT site without any indication whether or not it is "official" and thus q's should remain blind, or "unofficial." Charlie's post in the high school thread looks like one for a real tournament played like any other UTC tournament. I, for one, would prefer a discussion on the content of the q's as soon as possible while it's still fresh in our minds.