2011 ICT discussion

[Important Bird Area]

The ICT set is clear now; please discuss --JTH, 4/24.

[Auroni]

It's probably a good idea to just keep this private, given the non-negligible instances of high schoolers cheating this last year.

[AKKOLADE]

no dont

[AKKOLADE]

This is fine for very, very general discussion, I suppose, but we'll be getting a private conversation forum set up as soon as we can.

[AKKOLADE]

Okay, a private forum should be set up now; Jeff is currently the only one who can approve your admittance.

[AKKOLADE]

Oh, and if you can somehow view this forum improperly, I'd hope you'd speak up.

[MicroEStudent]

Wow, that question on was unfair. I felt bad for the teams.

The questions in the distribution were easier than normal and the distribution was unusually tough.

Overall, this tournament .

[AKKOLADE]

I'd like to buy an 'e.'

[MicroEStudent]

I'd like to buy an 'e.'

That'll be $250. I take cash, American Express and PayPal.

[AKKOLADE]

Let me just hit alt+shift+ctrl+c

rosebud
rosebud
rosebud

[Cheynem]

I liked everything until I didn't win. And then Ted Gioia beat me up and made me cry.

[Magister Ludi]

Well, I only had one profanity laced meltdown about question quality, which is a record low for me at a NAQT tournament. Seriously though, I thought this was the best NAQT tournament I've ever played, but I'm still annoyed that NAQT seems to ignore some of the most basic tenets of good question writing. Aside from distribution concerns, I was annoyed (and occasionally infuriated) that so many questions would devote two lines to describing some tangential leadin about a writer and devote very few clues to actually describing the works themselves. When there are already such strict limits on length, it's doubly harmful to waste significant portions of a tossup on unhelpful leadins because it basically transforms an already regrettably short 5 line tossup into a 2 or 3 line tossup.

But I don't want to be too harsh on NAQT and want to applaud Seth et al because ICT was a decidedly decent tournament. I especially enjoyed that there were a number of tossups on core literary works, which I assume is Seth's influence.

Also, it would be very helpful for specific critiques in the private forum if an electronic copy of the questions were made available to players. This is common practice for all modern tournaments and I hope NAQT would consider doing this in the future.

[EDIT: Grammar]

[Mechanical Beasts]

I'll echo Ted's positive comments; I really enjoyed this set. I think Seth did a great job on the science. Difficulty seemed appropriate, and having a physics-y bias to the chemistry made the questions overall very interesting. Congratulations to Minnesota, as well; both games of the effective final were absolutely terrifying and I look forward to playing you again at ACF.

[The King's Flight to the Scots]

Yeah, despite the unfortunate circumstances around our team, I enjoyed the questions in areas that I knew. A couple clunkers, some questions that seemed top-heavy, but I really didn't feel frustrated at question quality all that often.

[setht]

Hey all,

can I entice you to join the discussion forum and elaborate on these comments? It would be nice to have a clearer idea of which questions you felt were clunkers/top heavy/biography heavy/otherwise problematic and hash things out a bit in discussion--for instance, I think at least one of the author tossups that didn't immediately go into descriptions of works had a defensible lead-in, but perhaps I'm wrong about that.

I can't send out electronic copies of the set, but I (and Jeff and various others) can post question text in the discussion forum, so if anyone wants to make comments on specific questions but needs the text let us know.

Thanks,
-Seth

[Nine-Tenths Ideas]

There were some readers at this tournament who were not very good. That's all I really want to say about that.

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

Yeah, looking at the stats online it seems the D2 moderators were hitting 24/24 with remarkable consistency but D1 was far behind getting to 26 and in multiple cases didn't get to 20. In my rounds, we hit tossup 24 as the second half was ending, so 26/26 with somewhat longer questions seems like more than 10 minutes would be necessary to satisfy people.

Or, you know, you could just get rid of the clock. That'd be nice. We had a couple moderators who seemed to start the rounds at a pace too fast for them to handle, then upon getting to halftime at tossup 13-14, noticeably relaxed having avoided the problem of not finishing the packet in time.

[jonah]

Yeah, looking at the stats online it seems the D2 moderators were hitting 24/24 with remarkable consistency but D1 was far behind getting to 26 and in multiple cases didn't get to 20. In my rounds, we hit tossup 24 as the second half was ending, so 26/26 with somewhat longer questions seems like more than 10 minutes would be necessary to satisfy people.

I was looking through the stats to see the details of this for myself, and noticed that the Div I Oxford-Virginia and Harvard-Wash U games in round 3 both had 31 TUH. In Div II, there were two games with 27 TUH: NIU-Michigan in round 3 and Valencia-Snead in round 10.

[cvdwightw]

I was looking through the stats to see the details of this for myself, and noticed that the Div I Oxford-Virginia and Harvard-Wash U games in round 3 both had 31 TUH. In Div II, there were two games with 27 TUH: NIU-Michigan in round 3 and Valencia-Snead in round 10.

Both of the 27 TUH games were close enough that it could have easily been 24 plus NAQT tiebreaker procedures (3 tossups). The 31 TUH is probably a mistype in the first digit, of which there are multiple (we definitely lost to RPI 340-305).

[jonah]

I was looking through the stats to see the details of this for myself, and noticed that the Div I Oxford-Virginia and Harvard-Wash U games in round 3 both had 31 TUH. In Div II, there were two games with 27 TUH: NIU-Michigan in round 3 and Valencia-Snead in round 10.

Both of the 27 TUH games were close enough that it could have easily been 24 plus NAQT tiebreaker procedures (3 tossups). The 31 TUH is probably a mistype in the first digit, of which there are multiple (we definitely lost to RPI 340-305).

Ahhh, I forgot that the tiebreaker is 3 questions. 31 is still almost certainly a problem (unless at least 3 questions went dead after the initial 3/0 tiebreaker).

[ValenciaQBowl]

One thing I was thinking while hiking over to Maria's for our staff lunch (thanks, NAQT!) and, frankly, well before, is that I would really like to see the ICT move again. I completely understand the very good reasons why it has stayed at the Hyatt Regency for a while now, and I further understand that my own reasons are selfish (bored with same old place, tired of lack of food/entertainment options in the Rosemont area, interest in having excuse to go to different cities).

But I wanted to put this out there and see if anyone else agrees. Even if going back to campus locations is unfeasible, I'd still prefer to be in gargantuan, bland airport hotels in different cities, and certainly those cities could remain to be large airport hubs in reasonably central parts of the country. But as one of those (rare?) people who does like to do some non-QB stuff on these trips, I'd sure be interested in checking out some new places.

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

The NIU-Michigan game was OT.

[evilmonkey]

Both of the 27 TUH games were close enough that it could have easily been 24 plus NAQT tiebreaker procedures (3 tossups). The 31 TUH is probably a mistype in the first digit, of which there are multiple (we definitely lost to RPI 340-305).

I can confirm that the games listed as 27 TUH are games that went to OT.

[49-Mile Scenic Drive]

One thing I was thinking while hiking over to Maria's for our staff lunch (thanks, NAQT!) and, frankly, well before, is that I would really like to see the ICT move again. I completely understand the very good reasons why it has stayed at the Hyatt Regency for a while now, and I further understand that my own reasons are selfish (bored with same old place, tired of lack of food/entertainment options in the Rosemont area, interest in having excuse to go to different cities).

But I wanted to put this out there and see if anyone else agrees. Even if going back to campus locations is unfeasible, I'd still prefer to be in gargantuan, bland airport hotels in different cities, and certainly those cities could remain to be large airport hubs in reasonably central parts of the country. But as one of those (rare?) people who does like to do some non-QB stuff on these trips, I'd sure be interested in checking out some new places.

Wholeheartedly agree here Borglum. Having been to Chicago 4 years in high school then the visits since I've been at Snead, I'd love to check out a new place. Hopefully next year it will be somewhere new to me, but then again I didn't even go to ICT this year. Next year will be fun and hopefully Alabama's Division II team qualifies for ICT. Roll Tide!!!!

[Duncan Idaho]

I can confirm that the games listed as 27 TUH are games that went to OT.

I have a question for NAQT about tiebreaker tossups- do they count towards a team's bonus conversion? If they do, this seems unfair, since teams only hear tiebreaker tossups and not tiebreaker bonuses. (Obviously if I had taken better notes in our round that went to tiebreakers, I could measure this myself, but my notes for that round are incomplete.)

EDIT: I'm cross-posting to the actual discussion thread to avoid continuous posting in this thread.

[Important Bird Area]

No, tiebreakers don't count toward bonus conversion (there's a check-box in SQBS that tracks this).

[Bartleby]

A logistical question: did the promised hamburger/sandwich stand ever get set up? And if so, where might it have been??

[Important Bird Area]

A logistical question: did the promised hamburger/sandwich stand ever get set up? And if so, where might it have been??

It was not a separate stand as it was last year, but there was a $10 sandwich/drink/chips deal available in the hotel lobby coffee shop.

[Bartleby]

A logistical question: did the promised hamburger/sandwich stand ever get set up? And if so, where might it have been??

It was not a separate stand as it was last year, but there was a $10 sandwich/drink/chips deal available in the hotel lobby coffee shop.

Making this abundantly clear would have been good, because no one could really direct us as to what was going on. I mean, we still got lunch (from the Oh Grill in the lobby), but we had to rush to make our tiebreaker because we were under the impression that some sort of stand would be set up.

[Duncan Idaho]

I have a question about the tournament's format. If, after 14 rounds, Chicago, OSU, VCU, and MIT all had three losses and Yale had none, why wasn't Yale awarded the Div II championship outright? I was under the impression that this was now universally how (good, bracketed) tournaments were settled. Even in HSNCT's non-bracketed format, though there's always a final, there is never greater than a one-game difference between the two teams in the final. Was this done just to ensure there was a final? It seems to me that allowing Chicago, or any other team, to play even an advantaged final with Yale could result in an unfair outcome, as Yale could lose the two matches to Chicago and Chicago could be awarded the championship with a worse final record, 12-3 to Yale's 13-2.

EDIT: grammar

[jonpin]

I have a question about the tournament's format. If, after 14 rounds, Chicago, OSU, VCU, and MIT all had three losses and Yale had none, why wasn't Yale awarded the Div II championship outright? I was under the impression that this was now universally how (good, bracketed) tournaments were settled. Even in HSNCT's non-bracketed format, though there's always a final, there is never greater than a one-game difference between the two teams in the final. Was this done just to ensure there was a final? It seems to me that allowing Chicago, or any other team, to play even an advantaged final with Yale could result in an unfair outcome, as Yale could lose the two matches and to Chicago, and Chicago could be awarded the championship with a worse final record, 12-3 to Yale's 13-2.

"NAQT finals format" (as compared with ACF finals format) requires that there always be a final, regardless of the various records of the top two teams at the end of the pre-finals games. A similar (but not quite as drastic) situation happened in the 2005 D-II ICT. After playoffs, Michigan was 12-1 while Chicago and Harding were both 10-3. Chicago beat Harding in a tiebreaker and then took two straight from Michigan to win the D-II title. There was a modest uproar at the time, as I recall.

[Sun Devil Student]

Yale could lose the two matches and to Chicago, and Chicago could be awarded the championship with a worse final record, 12-3 to Yale's 13-2.

I actually thought of this a while ago when I first read NAQT's hosting requirements for high school State Championships, which actually explicitly allow this kind of outcome (as I remember, NAQT allows hosts to decide whether to hold a final or not; the only restriction is that the final can't be *one* game if the teams have different records and the worse team wins the first game. The host could choose to have no final or an advantaged final.)

I also thought of a simple tweak like this: If the top team in the finals is n games ahead of the second place team, the second place team must win (n+1) games in a row while the top team needs to win only 1 game. This way, the second-place team is not declared the victor until their record improves to the point of being better than the first-place team. For example, you could have an extremely-advantaged final between a 12-1 and a 10-4 team in which the 9-4 team has to win 4 games in a row, boosting it to 13-4 with the other team down to 12-5 having lost all four games in the final series. A win by the 12-1 team at any point during the series terminates the tournament.

Of course, in practice there often aren't enough packets for such a long finals series, and beyond about 3 games it starts to get kind of ridiculous (and almost impossible for the second place team to win anyways, if they're that different in skill).

So just one idea. Let advantaged finals go up to 3 games, rather than 2.

[Kyle]

Back before we got to the point where a fundamental quizbowl axiom could be violated by three undergrad teams making the top bracket, this situation was likely to be even more pronounced among the teams competing for the undergrad title. I was on both sides of it in consecutive years. In 2007, Carleton made the top bracket and we made the second; we got to play a final against them anyway. In 2008, we were the only undergraduate team in the top bracket and got to have an advantage against Dartmouth, who squeaked past Minnesota in a second-bracket tiebreaker. The teams' records are irrelevant when they're in different brackets, too, meaning that in 2008 we had an advantage with a 6-7 record (having lost the top bracket) over Dartmouth, who had a 9-5 record (having won the second bracket). I bring this up to point out that any resolution to the perceived problem is going to be a little more complicated than the previous few posts suggest. I tend to be of the opinion (a) that it's worth contesting a final regardless and (b) that if you can't win at least one of two games in the final, you don't really deserve to win no matter how good your record was in the prelims and playoffs.

[Important Bird Area]

The set is clear now; I'll move the question-specific discussion over from the private forum.