The Quizbowl Resource Center

Since Auburn is unable to host the Ben Cooper Memorial, Jonah contacted me and Centennial High School in Champaign, IL has agreed to host on Saturday May 8th. May 1st appeared to be the ideal date, but we are unable to host then because of a marathon that day. The Ben Cooper Memorial: QUizbowl's Antoine Lavoisier Memorial - French Revolution Ended him Early (QUALM-FREE) will be run by Jonah and I, so for questions ask either of us. The packets will be of high quality and are intended for teams which are preparing for various national tournaments.

Cost will be $50/team with a $10 discount for teams traveling from distant lands like Detroit or Culver. (sorry, Rockford, Carbondale, and Chicago teams are not distant enough) We will be following ACF-format plus powers (i.e., negs, no bonus bouncebacks, teams of 4). There are 13 packets in the set, and we will set up the tournament format at a later date. Ideally, it would be 16-20 teams with a morning round robin and an afternoon re-bracketing. Unofficial teams are permitted, so just in case your full team cannot make it, we will accept hobos and vagabonds, but full-teams should bring a buzzer set. We are looking for some staffers. If you can, please email Jonah or I, or reply here.

Checks can be made out to Centennial Scholastic Bowl and mailed to James Garcia, 913 S. Crescent, Champaign, IL 61821. Please email me if your team would like to register: [email protected]

The fee for solo teams is $30. No mixed teams are permitted.

Field (to be updated regularly):
Champaign Centennial x2
Champaign Central
Hobo
IMSA x3
Latin
Lisle
Loyola
St. Joseph-Ogden
Total: 11

Expressed interest:

Staff: Egan, Garcia, Greenthal, Laird, Laudermith, Martin, Robbins, Taylor, Terrell

I am expressing interest, maybe with teammates. Not sure on whether it will work out logistically.

Jonah wrote:Expressed interest: Proviso North, Wolfpack of One/Serenity, Latin/Volgman, Carbondale, The School of Ford Rock

Consider me/Loyola interested.

This is coming up, and we still need to hear officially from the teams who are just listed as "expressed interest", and would like to hear from others (in the affirmative). Out-of-state teams are very welcome; this is a good chance to hear a great set just in time for nationals.

I sent in an email expressing my intent to register several days ago but still haven't heard back. "Team Cheif" will be playing with probably 3 of Latin's starters.

Is there a field update available?

Field updated. More people should register, especially those in the second half of the alphabet. IMSA C will be allowed based on how many other teams register: if there are fewer than 11 other teams, they're in; if there are more than 11 other teams and it gets us to a nice number, they're in.

Do you still need staffers for this?

crobbins52 wrote:Do you still need staffers for this?

Sure. We can't pay you, but you'll get lunch. Email me if you're still interested.

By the way, I would be happy to staff this tourney somehow if you are in need.

Dominator wrote:By the way, I would be happy to staff this tourney somehow if you are in need.

Thanks for offering. We're not pressed enough to need to take coaches away from their teams, but if that becomes the case, I've taken note.

We'd really like to hit twelve teams so as to get maximum packet-utilization efficiency. Please register.

Attached is a draft of the tournament's schedule, assuming the field stays as it is. We would be glad to accommodate more registrations, of course. Please contact me privately if there are any concerns about scheduling, procedures, or whatever else.

So if I'm reading this correctly, a team one game ahead of second place gets an advantaged final only if there isn't a tie for second place? This doesn't seem right to me.

EDIT: Also, at the bottom, there is a procedure for a five-way tie, but a tie among six or more teams only allows the top four to participate in the tiebreaker. Was this intended?

rjaguar3 wrote:So if I'm reading this correctly, a team one game ahead of second place gets an advantaged final only if there isn't a tie for second place? This doesn't seem right to me.

Well, we don't have the packets to both break the tie and play two games of a final. My reasoning is that by winning the tiebreaker, the previously-tied-for-second team has in a weak sense gotten to the same number of wins as the one-game-ahead team. If you can suggest a better procedure given that we have 13 packets, I am very open to reconsidering.

rjaguar3 wrote:EDIT: Also, at the bottom, there is a procedure for a five-way tie, but a tie among six or more teams only allows the top four to participate in the tiebreaker. Was this intended?

I don't feel strongly about this, but I did it that way because a four-way tie uses only full games for the breaking, and full games are significantly better at giving fair results than half-games. It would probably be easy to convince me to change it. Fortunately, the chances of a six-plus-way tie for first are similar to the chances of Mike Hurley graciously thanking you for your kind letter from last year and announcing his plans for reform.

In light of several of my teammates dropping out in the last day or two, I probably will end up playing solo or with a sophomore or something.

All the teams are here, save the homeless idiot who missed the Loyola bus, and we are about to start. Stats will be almost-live, and can be seen here.

Breaking for lunch, R6 will start at 12:50.

Loyola and Lisle undefeated, IMSA A has taken a loss to Homeless, Centennial lost to IMSA A, Homeless lost to Lisle.

Stats completed through 6. Bum beat Centennial, who is now on two losses.

Packet mixup has led to chaos. Also, St. Joseph-Ogden, a mere ten miles from Champaign, has left.

Two teams not in contention will be hearing a finals packet in lieu of the normal pack for this round.

IMSA A takes its second loss, as does the dude on the street, the latter losing to Loyola by 5.

Loyola beat Lisle, the former still undefeated, the latter with one loss. Everyone else has two or more. Last prelim round commencing.

Giving out individual awards. Loyola vs. Lisle, one-game final.

Hmmm...IMSA had a nice match with Loyola, it seemed to be a very close match. I looked at the rosters and it seems they had a no-name varsity team consisting of people like Eric Ordonez, Webster Guan, Sarah Lisk, and Sai Parapelly. I only recognize Sai Parapelly...and they didn't even have Bonny Jain. How'd they do that? Probably a fluke, right...

Or maybe it's because Loyola is an overrated team. We'll see how things play out next year.

User was banned for impersonating another quizbowl player in various posts culminating in this one. User is banned for a year, this account is banned permanently. --the mgmt

Dayo Dankole wrote:Hmmm...IMSA had a nice match with Loyola, it seemed to be a very close match. I looked at the rosters and it seems they had a no-name varsity team consisting of people like Eric Ordonez, Webster Guan, Sarah Lisk, and Sai Parapelly. I only recognize Sai Parapelly...and they didn't even have Bonny Jain. How'd they do that? Probably a fluke, right...

Or maybe it's because Loyola is an overrated team. We'll see how things play out next year.

Hey idiot:

Perhaps your "math and science" school should teach you about IP addresses, since this is the third time you have posted from an IMSA IP while claiming to be from "LPHS."

You're banned for impersonating people, pimping your own team in an out-of-bounds fashion, generally useless posting, etc. Come back in a year under your real name.

Matt Weiner wrote: You're banned for impersonating people, pimping your own team in an out-of-bounds fashion, generally useless posting, etc. Come back in a year under your real name.

It's about time, imo.

Let me be the first to say this was an excellent tournament. This was my favorite set of questions all year. Thank you Jonah and James and also to the whole tourney staff. We're looking forward to QUALM-FREE 2.

Jonah will post the stats including the final, but:

Lisle won the final 330-250 over Loyola. Using PPG as the tiebreaker, IMSA was 3rd, followed by someone probably sleeping outside.

As reported, Lisle beat Loyola in a one-game final; IMSA A took third place over Hobo based on a PPG tiebreaker (excluding IMSA A's game against St. Joseph-Ogden, who Hobo didn't have a chance to play because of St. Joseph-Ogden's early departure) since IMSA A didn't want to play it off. Stats are here; please notify me of any errors.

Thanks to Centennial crew for hosting, especially my co-TD James, the readers—Tom Egan, Mike Laudermith, Caleb Robbins, and Mike Sorice—, Donald on stats, the producers of the Ben Cooper Memorial set, and all the teams who came. We had a great time.

dtaylor4 wrote:Jonah will post the stats including the final, but:

Lisle won the final 330-250 over Loyola. Using PPG as the tiebreaker, IMSA was 3rd, followed by someone probably sleeping outside.

Technically, because of the St. Joseph thing you should use PPB, but the result is the same. And reading the wrong packets makes neither perfect anyway.

Edit: Nevermind, Jonah explained why I'm wrong.

jdeliverer wrote:Technically, because of the St. Joseph thing you should use PPB, but the result is the same. And reading the wrong packets makes neither perfect anyway.

We took out IMSA's game against St. Joseph when calculating PPG for this purpose, so the opponents are the same, making PPG preferable to PPB. You're correct that neither is perfect because of the packet mix-up, but I'm pretty sure it's the best we can do.

In case anyone wants to know how the packets worked:
Round 1 - packet 8
Round 2 - packet 1
Round 3 - packet 2
Round 4 - packet 3
Round 5 - packet 4
Round 6 - packet 5
Round 7 - packet 6 for everyone except Cheif vs. Hobo; packet 7 for Cheif vs. Hobo
Round 8 - packet 9
Round 9 - packet 7 for Loyola vs. IMSA C and Lisle vs. Centennial A; packet 13 for Centennial B vs. Hobo and Champagin Central vs. Cheif
Round 10 - packet 10
Round 11 - packet 11
Finals - packet 12

I'll add my two cents as well: thanks to James and Jonah and the abovementioned readers for a great tournament. Congrats to Lisle on their victory!

jonah wrote:

jdeliverer wrote:Technically, because of the St. Joseph thing you should use PPB, but the result is the same. And reading the wrong packets makes neither perfect anyway.

but I'm pretty sure it's the best we can do.

Well the best thing to do would have been to play it off, but Dr. Prince and IMSA left under the impression that I had won a head-to-head tiebreaker by virtue of beating them. Just a general FYI: head-to-head is almost never used as a tiebreaker at good tournaments.

Anyways congratulations to Jonah and Mr. Garcia for an awesome tournament. I am extremely happy to see Centennial supporting good quizbowl downstate and look forward to good things from their team in the future. And congratulations to Lisle--they have definitely resurged after a good showing at Ultima and a so-so regular season. In particular, Greg is getting a lot of support. They should do better than anticipated at nats. Thanks to GDS for a great set, Donald for doing stats beautifully, and the moderating crew for being excellent.

My apologies for setting my alarm for 4:30 PM and consequently delaying Loyola's bus (which I should have been in) and the start of the tournament slightly.

Dan-Don wrote: Well the best thing to do would have been to play it off, but Dr. Prince and IMSA left under the impression that I had won a head-to-head tiebreaker by virtue of beating them. Just a general FYI: head-to-head is almost never used as a tiebreaker at good tournaments.

For the record, I left because I had to be back at IMSA before 8. As it stood, we got back around 7:45, so I would have been late if we had played a 3rd place game. Otherwise, my team and I would have loved a second chance against Dan-Don. As we left, I suggested that Dan-Don get 3rd place on account of (1) he was willing to playoff but I was not (2) he won head-to-head.

Dominator wrote:

Dan-Don wrote: Well the best thing to do would have been to play it off, but Dr. Prince and IMSA left under the impression that I had won a head-to-head tiebreaker by virtue of beating them. Just a general FYI: head-to-head is almost never used as a tiebreaker at good tournaments.

For the record, I left because I had to be back at IMSA before 8. As it stood, we got back around 7:45, so I would have been late if we had played a 3rd place game. Otherwise, my team and I would have loved a second chance against Dan-Don. As we left, I suggested that Dan-Don get 3rd place on account of (1) he was willing to playoff but I was not (2) he won head-to-head.

Ah well in that case, thank you. It's really not of critical importance who gets the title of third place, I was just a little confused.

Is this set going to be posted now?

For Robert and Dan-Don:

At lunch, after each of you had beaten my C team by a large margin, my C-team freshman was talking about how the morning went, and when the Hobo and Cheif rounds came up, awestruck, he repeatedly asked me "But how does one person get so good?" (He had not yet faced Loyola, who nearly beat IMSA C by 600, otherwise I'm sure he'd have felt the same way about them.)

While I hope there is not a need for Illinois students to go rogue in the future in order to meet their quizbowl needs, I really appreciate the sacrifices you two made this year to both promote good quizbowl and inspire the future generations of quizbowlers, including my freshman.

Dominator wrote:For Robert and Dan-Don:

At lunch, after each of you had beaten my C team by a large margin, my C-team freshman was talking about how the morning went, and when the Hobo and Cheif rounds came up, awestruck, he repeatedly asked me "But how does one person get so good?" (He had not yet faced Loyola, who nearly beat IMSA C by 600, otherwise I'm sure he'd have felt the same way about them.)

While I hope there is not a need for Illinois students to go rogue in the future in order to meet their quizbowl needs, I really appreciate the sacrifices you two made this year to both promote good quizbowl and inspire the future generations of quizbowlers, including my freshman.

I appreciate the sentiments, but I'm sure you're doing more than I am to do those things by letting kids from IMSA have the opportunity. It's awesome to see a new school with so much potential joining the circuit.

Thanks to all involved for making this tournament so great - this is my last Illinois tournament, so I probably won't be playing any of these teams again. It's been awesome playing with you guys, and hope you have a lot of success at nationals/in future years. Congrats to Lisle and Loyola - no matter what LPHS people have to say you'll be even more fearsome in the future. I'm sure Nolan and Marcel will be even more ridiculously good in the next two years.

Maybe I'll see some of y'all in college. Until then, it's been a great time. Good luck!

Ben Cole wrote:Is this set going to be posted now?

The University of Missouri is hosting a tournament using this set on the 22nd, so until I know that's finished, no.

Dominator wrote:For Robert and Dan-Don:

At lunch, after each of you had beaten my C team by a large margin, my C-team freshman was talking about how the morning went, and when the Hobo and Cheif rounds came up, awestruck, he repeatedly asked me "But how does one person get so good?"

fraud, buzzer races, being moderately skilled at one category, guessing...also ACE Camp and, on rare occasion, studying

Dan-Don wrote: fraud, buzzer races, BROADWAY!!!!!!!

This sums up the entire Dan Donohue experience for you.

Dan-Don wrote:

Dominator wrote:For Robert and Dan-Don:

At lunch, after each of you had beaten my C team by a large margin, my C-team freshman was talking about how the morning went, and when the Hobo and Cheif rounds came up, awestruck, he repeatedly asked me "But how does one person get so good?"

fraud, buzzer races, being moderately skilled at one category, guessing...also ACE Camp and, on rare occasion, studying

He's being too kind; he also writes a lot of questions (including to bail out my first tournament, for which I'm eternally grateful) and is presumably intellectually curious and reads.

Dan-Don wrote:

Dominator wrote:For Robert and Dan-Don:

At lunch, after each of you had beaten my C team by a large margin, my C-team freshman was talking about how the morning went, and when the Hobo and Cheif rounds came up, awestruck, he repeatedly asked me "But how does one person get so good?"

fraud, buzzer races, being moderately skilled at one category, guessing...also ACE Camp and, on rare occasion, studying

Yeah but how do people other than Deveau get so good?

Fraud, quizbowl osmosis, and being fascinated by art history, mostly.