Player Poll 2014: WORD LIFE

Cheynem · Post by **Cheynem** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 12:55 pm

It's another iteration of the wildly unpopular player poll.

I will be running this concurrently with the postseason team poll because it might be easier for people to make two ballots at the same time. I will be using similar criteria to the team poll.

1. Please fill out a FULL 25 person ballot.

2. You may not vote for high schoolers.

3. You may vote for anyone who played a regular season or above collegiate difficulty tournament, who was eligible for ICT/ACF Nationals (i.e., still a student as defined by those companies).

4. In terms of how you rank, that is up to you. I think different perceptions make the voting more interesting--you can think about it in terms of "player value" or how the players would square off in singles play or however. I do think it makes the most sense to think of it in terms of skill/value on nationals-level difficulty, though.

Please look over various stats in context.

Cheynem · Post by **Cheynem** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 1:58 pm

This is less serious than the team poll, so I will allow some ballots with interesting omissions to slip through, mainly because I don't have the time or effort to police them, but I urge voters to look over their ballots and the stats of various tournaments.

ryanrosenberg · Post by **ryanrosenberg** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 2:16 pm

Who's going to pull a Gary Washburn and vote for Mukherjee over MattBo?

Cheynem · Post by **Cheynem** » Thu Apr 17, 2014 12:43 pm

8 ballots are in already.

Closing April 27.

Cheynem · Post by **Cheynem** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 1:52 pm

RESULTS

Voters: The Alston Imperative, Hapticity, Operation Conder, Dogra with a Blog, Andrew the Hart, Funnyman Isaac Hirsch, The Law FIrm of Will, Holub, and Moorman, M.J., J-Law, Stephen Lou, Sajeezy Moyen, Genocide's #1 Fan, Will Nediger, Nuts for Quizbowl, J.B., Puma Man, Ja-Reed, Adamle Sperber, The Omniscient Marshall, the real mat weiner, Hot Dog, Richard Yu's on First, and It's Libo Time!

There were 22 ballots.

#1 Matt Bollinger, Virginia (550, all 1st place votes, same as last year)
#2 Eric Mukherjee, Penn (514. highest #2, lowest #4, +1)
#3 Matt Jackson, Yale (513, highest #2, lowest #5, -1)
#4 Will Nediger, Michigan (471, highest #3, lowest #7, +3)
#5 Matt Weiner, JSRCC (462, highest #2, lowest #10, not ranked)
#6 John Lawrence. Chicago (442, highest #4, lowest #7, +3)
#7 Rob Carson, MCTC (411, highest #5, lowest #11, +1)
#8 Stephen Liu, Harvard (378, highest #6, lowest #17, +7)
#9 Aaron Rosenberg, Illinois (346, highest #6, lowest #14, +2)
#10 Chris Ray, Maryland (333, highest #6, lowest #14, -5)
#11 Tommy Casalaspi, Virginia (314, highest #7, lowest #22, not ranked)
#12 Adam Silverman, Georgia Tech (293, highest #8, +2)
#13 Jordan Brownstein, Maryland (265, highest #10, lowest #22, not ranked)
#14 Evan Adams, Virginia (221, highest #9, -2)
#15 Neil Gurram, MIT (210, highest #9, +3)
#16 Trevor Davis, Alberta (166, highest #13, same)
#17 Richard Yu, WUSTL (143, highest #10, not ranked)
#18 Max Schindler, Chicago (119, highest #8, not ranked)
#19 Nick Jensen, Dartmouth (101, highest #15, not ranked)
#20 Marshall Steinbaum, Chicago (98, highest #15, +1)
#21 Sinan Ulusoy, Alberta (89, highest #13, not ranked) and Saajid Moyen, Penn (89, highest #14, not ranked)
#23 Dallas Simons, Penn (87, highest #15, -3)
#24 Libo Zeng, Washington (79, highest #13, -2)
#25 Charles Tian, Chicago (66, highest #13, not ranked)

Amusingly, I hold the distinction of being the only player in last year's top 25 to still be eligible and not make it again this year.

Also receiving votes: Billy Busse (65), Shan Kothari (60), Jacob Reed (57), Benji Nguyen (39), Mike Cheyne (32), Jarret Greene (30), Jasper Lee (19), Dylan Minarik (17), Dan Puma (9), Doug Graebner (9), Jordan Palmer (8), Grace Liu (7), Natan Holtzman (7), Cody Voight (6), James Bradbury (4), Will Holub-Moorman (3), Will Alston (2), Sean Smiley (2), Ian Lenhoff (1), and Jacob O'Rourke (1).

Thanks for voting.

Cheynem · Post by **Cheynem** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:07 pm

I have been informed that someone named Jarret Greene was also on the poll last year but not this year. I am unfamiliar with this person though.

Ras superfamily · Post by **Ras superfamily** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:30 pm

I totally voted for a player who does not appear anywhere in Mike's post

Cheynem · Post by **Cheynem** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:32 pm

fixed--sorry, dig-doug

The Ununtiable Twine · Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:37 pm

Ras superfamily wrote:I totally voted for a player who does not appear anywhere in Mike's post

Thanks!

EDIT: totally missed the last post! On second thought, maybe I have no groupies.

The King's Flight to the Scots · Mon Apr 28, 2014 4:49 pm

Well, to start discussion: I think that the voters slightly overrated top players of second-tier teams at the expense of supporting players on contending teams. To be direct, Tommy and Evan should be higher. It's crazy to me that somebody ranked Tommy at 22nd when he overcame the shadow effect to outscore Chris Ray in the Nats playoffs.

EDIT: This causes an especially weird effect in the case of Yale. Voters put Yale ahead of Penn but ranked Eric ahead of Matt individually, which would seem to suggest that they consider Matt's teammates better than Eric's...but Saajid and Dallas are ranked here, and Jacob/Grace/Ashvin aren't.

vinteuil · Post by **vinteuil** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 4:55 pm

Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr. wrote:Well, to start discussion: I think that the voters slightly overrated top players of second-tier teams at the expense of supporting players on contending teams. To be direct, Tommy and Evan should be higher. It's crazy to me that somebody ranked Tommy at 22nd when he overcame the shadow effect to outscore Chris Ray in the Nats playoffs.

Building on this, it's interesting to me how many places Chris Ray dropped this year, because his ppg is so much lower; I imagine that Jordan Brownstein being an excellent player has not actually made Chris worse, only made him score less.

And, yeah, I'm amazed that anyone didn't rank Evan.

Ringil · Post by **Ringil** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 6:26 pm

Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr. wrote:Well, to start discussion: I think that the voters slightly overrated top players of second-tier teams at the expense of supporting players on contending teams. To be direct, Tommy and Evan should be higher. It's crazy to me that somebody ranked Tommy at 22nd when he overcame the shadow effect to outscore Chris Ray in the Nats playoffs.

EDIT: This causes an especially weird effect in the case of Yale. Voters put Yale ahead of Penn but ranked Eric ahead of Matt individually, which would seem to suggest that they consider Matt's teammates better than Eric's...but Saajid and Dallas are ranked here, and Jacob/Grace/Ashvin aren't.

Well, there are some players whose ppg doesn't change much regardless of what team they're on. For example, my ppg at the Nats level hasn't changed much switching from Michigan (a top tier team) to Washington (a second tier team). So, I would think that that consider might cause many to underrate people especially if they don't know much about the player's history. For what it's worth I voted Tommy #8.

Excelsior (smack) · Post by **Excelsior (smack)** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 6:30 pm

Can I just point out that it's ridiculous that _nobody_ voted for Sriram? Sriram is, at minimum, the third best science player in the game right now, and I'd personally put him even with Billy.

EDIT: This causes an especially weird effect in the case of Yale. Voters put Yale ahead of Penn but ranked Eric ahead of Matt individually, which would seem to suggest that they consider Matt's teammates better than Eric's...but Saajid and Dallas are ranked here, and Jacob/Grace/[...] aren't.

Yeah, this is kind of weird. Notice that 3/4 of Virginia, 3/4 of Penn, and all of Chicago are ranked, whereas only Matt Jackson/4 of Yale is ranked. I don't even really know what to attribute this to. It can't be a low profile on the forums, because Jacob Reed posts _so many_ things. I doubt it's malice-driven undervoting either, seeing as Marshall is ranked. Perhaps the narrowly-defined set of Virginians takes special umbrage at their North Carolinian neighbors. (Also, Grace is really good at answering questions too, folks.)

Auroni · Post by **Auroni** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 6:33 pm

The player poll, flawed?!

touchpack · Post by **touchpack** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 6:34 pm

Excelsior (smack) wrote:Can I just point out that it's ridiculous that _nobody_ voted for Sriram? Sriram is, at minimum, the third best science player in the game right now, and I'd personally put him even with Billy.

I can confirm Sriram is really really good--he had some sick buzzes in our game at Lederberg

Cody · Post by **Cody** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 6:36 pm

Excelsior (smack) wrote:Can I just point out that it's ridiculous that _nobody_ voted for Sriram? Sriram is, at minimum, the third best science player in the game right now, and I'd personally put him even with Billy.

Fourth, but that doesn't really mean much. Being good at science doesn't mean you're a top 25 player if you aren't getting much else* (at least, if you're going by nationals-difficulty "one-on-one" voting - obviously if you're going by value added relative to other teams or something, nearly any good science player would be ranked in the top 25 somewhere).

*I haven't seen Sriram play many regular games, so I have no idea what else - if anything - he gets and he may indeed be deserving of being in the top 25. But I object to the idea that being a good science (or good x) player means you're top 25 material: it's simply not in accordance with how many people are voting.

Excelsior (smack) · Post by **Excelsior (smack)** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 6:40 pm

Cody wrote:
Excelsior (smack) wrote:Can I just point out that it's ridiculous that _nobody_ voted for Sriram? Sriram is, at minimum, the third best science player in the game right now, and I'd personally put him even with Billy.
Fourth, but that doesn't really mean much. Being good at science doesn't mean you're a top 25 player if you aren't getting much else* (at least, if you're going by nationals-difficulty "one-on-one" voting - obviously if you're going by value added relative to other teams or something, nearly any good science player would be ranked in the top 25 somewhere).

*I haven't seen Sriram play many regular games, so I have no idea what else - if anything - he gets and he may indeed be deserving of being in the top 25. But I object to the idea that being a good science (or good x) player means you're top 25 material: it's simply not in accordance with how many people are voting.

Eric, Billy, ?

Anyway, with all due respect to Billy, I have no idea what else he gets either (playing with Matt Jackson does that to you), and the point I was making was that if the answer is "some stuff but not much", then any voter voting for Billy should also be voting for Sriram (because Sriram also gets "some other stuff, but not much"), irrespective of voting methodology. (If the answer for Billy is "lots of things", then perhaps not.)

Plus, I'm sure Grace would be delighted to transfer some of her votes SRIIIIIRAAAAM's way.

Muriel Axon · Post by **Muriel Axon** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 7:27 pm

I was vacillating over whether to post basically what Ashvin just posted now. Cody says that if you measure quality by value added relative to other teams, nearly any good science player would be in the top 25. I agree, but I don't see why that's a bad thing. Harvard still seems to have something vaguely like a four specialists model (or at least more so than most teams), and Sriram does his job of getting science questions very well, as does Ashvin. (Source: I watched them rip up Lederberg for many rounds.) They both made great contributions to very good teams. I'm not saying that either necessarily deserves to be top-25 ranked (though I do think Billy does), but considering who did get votes, the fact that these two didn't baffles me.

Cody · Post by **Cody** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 7:37 pm

Muriel Axon wrote:I was vacillating over whether to post basically what Ashvin just posted now. Cody says that if you measure quality by value added relative to other teams, nearly any good science player would be in the top 25. I agree, but I don't see why that's a bad thing. Harvard still seems to have something vaguely like a four specialists model (or at least more so than most teams), and Sriram does his job of getting science questions very well, as does Ashvin. (Source: I watched them rip up Lederberg for many rounds.) They both made great contributions to very good teams. I'm not saying that either necessarily deserves to be top-25 ranked (though I do think Billy does), but considering who did get votes, the fact that these two didn't baffles me.

I mean, if we are going by the old 1-on-1 on Nats level questions, then yes specialists suffer significantly. If you wanted people to vote on some hypothetical value-added thing, that's great - but I don't think they did (I certainly did not and only ranked Eric and Tommy, of top 5 science players). It's great if you want to quibble with people's methodology, but it doesn't mean much because they were voting based on entirely different precepts than you. I would rank someone like Mike Cheyne (a person I did vote for - <3 you Mike) over Sriram because he's a better individual player. Who exactly are you singling out as getting votes here, I guess is the question?

vinteuil · Post by **vinteuil** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 7:43 pm

Muriel Axon wrote:Harvard still seems to have something vaguely like a four specialists model (or at least more so than most teams), and Sriram does his job of getting science questions very well, as does Ashvin. (Source: I watched them rip up Lederberg for many rounds.)

Yeah, Will, Sriram, and Mark are all extremely good players (note that Will scores a whole lot despite _serious_ overlap with Stephen), and I'm starting to rethink my ballot a little bit (it seems that just about everybody voted as if Stephen makes Harvard as good as it is just by himself, which is clearly not true).

EDIT: I'm seriously curious about the methodology of whoever ranked Stephen #17, but didn't rank Will above #23, and didn't rank Mark or Sriram at all

Grace · Post by **Grace** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 7:49 pm

I should have voted in this player poll.

1. Ashvin
2. Sriram

10/10 would form cheer section for them at Lederberg again.

naan/steak-holding toll · Mon Apr 28, 2014 7:51 pm

The drop in Chris's ranking could be just a result of Jordan cutting into his PPG, but I think a few top-level generalists have improved a fair bit more than he has (I'm looking at Stephen Liu and Will Nediger in particular) while others who have returned to consistent circuit play (Rob, John, Matt Weiner - Rob and John played sporadically but seem to have improved thanks to playing more) are getting well-deserved high rankings. I wouldn't put Aaron over Chris, though.

As for the anomale of the Yale supporting players not being ranked, I have a feeling that this is a "the whole is more than the sum of its parts" thing. When I see Yale play, Matt combines with his teammates to pull all sorts of bonus parts (from what I've seen in particular, difficult works that Grace is familiar with) all the time whereas the Penn team overall seems to rely more on a single person knowing something, though Eric and his teammates do a fine job of collaborating as well. Perhaps this is because, except for Ashvin, all of the Yale players are generalists to a much greater extent than the Penn players are (they even have three people on science - Matt, Grace, and Ashvin), though to be fair I haven't seen Saajid play without Eric for a while.

I didn't vote for Sriram because I haven't seen Billy play enough to make a comparison between the two, and Billy's Lederberg stats were a lot more impressive. In general, I agree with the sentiment that non-Tier 1 generalists are being overrated on this poll, while people who can make deep buzzes in a fewer number of categories are being underrated.

I would also like to dub Charles Tian the "Billy Busse of History." I'd definitely put him as #2 on that subject, and think he should have made it higher on this list.

Finally, I'm not sure who voted for me and why, but thank you! And, of course, I'm very happy Nick made the list.

ThisIsMyUsername · Post by **ThisIsMyUsername** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:17 pm

Here is the order of the people who made the Top 25 both last year and this year, with the orders from the two years:

2013:
Matt Bollinger
Matt Jackson
Eric Mukherjee
Chris Ray
Will Nediger
Rob Carson
John Lawrence
Aaron Rosenberg
Evan Adams
Adam Silverman
Stephen Liu
Trevor Davis
Neil Gurram
Dallas Simons
Marshall Steinbaum
Libo Zeng

2014:
Matt Bollinger
Eric Mukherjee
Matt Jackson
Will Nediger
John Lawrence
Rob Carson
Stephen Liu
Aaron Rosenberg
Chris Ray
Adam Silverman
Evan Adams
Neil Gurram
Trevor Davis
Marshall Steinbaum
Dallas Simons
Libo Zeng

A lot of things have remained pretty constant.

According to this, the major shifts were:
- Chris Ray dropped considerably
- Stephen Liu rose considerably

The minor shifts were:
- Eric Mukherjee overtook Matt Jackson
- I overtook Rob Carson
- Adam Silverman overtook Evan Adams
- Neil Gurram overtook Trevor Davis
- Marshall overtook Dallas

As people have mentioned, several of these shifts seem suspicious. Chris Ray's plummet is probably due to people failing to account for Jordan Brownstein's shadow effect; but, given how well known Chris is, it's rather surprising that this happened. Ranking Matt Jackson below Eric makes little sense, given that consensus is that Yale is a stronger team even though Eric has a stronger supporting cast. (In fact, if the polls are to be believed, Matt Jackson's supporting cast has gotten significantly weaker each year for the past two years, and yet Yale stays in the Top 2!) Ranking me ahead of Rob and Chris this year (when my stats are fairly low, due to shadow effect) but not last year (when my stats were high, due to my playing solo) also makes little sense to me. (In a cruel stroke of fate, I was 10 points closer to beating Penn at ACF Nats last year playing solo than I was playing them this year with teammates…) Stephen is clearly better than he was last year; being out of the region, I can't contribute to the assessment of whether he has really improved as much as the poll results suggest.

I have a hard time believing that the general voting body is actually using "1-on-1 on Nats level questions" as their metric. I think both Aaron Rosenberg and I are ranked ahead of several people who could defeat us under such circumstances. One question I try to ask to guide my voting is: "Which player would be the most useful addition to a team of three players who possess base-line competence in all categories in which base-line competence is common?". A related question to this is: "How many questions would I expect this player to get in a game against a good team?". I have to believe that some kind of metric more similar to these than to "1-on-1" has to be guiding the voting, or else the results wouldn't look like this.

I get the feeling, though, that many people first write a list of the people they know should be on the Top 25. Then, to fill out the rest, they start by looking at the results of last year's poll, and then carry over as many people as possible. This might be an explanation for why certain supporting cast members who have made it onto previous polls (e.g. Marshall, Dallas, and Libo) continue to appear on the current poll and supporting cast members who were omitted last year (e.g. Billy, Ashvin, and Sriram), even in cases where they put up similar stats, or for why Kevin Koai was a consistent feature of the Top 25, but no other member of the Yale supporting cast ever manages to break Top 25.

From what I've heard over the years, the bias against specialists is based on the fact that they are "in play" for fewer questions, or that the maximum number of questions they could get in any given game is fairly low. I've never bought this as a good argument. With the exception of the very top players, who can put up high numbers in almost any situation, most everybody in the Top 25 has a low realistic maximum number of questions they will get in any top bracket game. If you among the Top 25 players and are on a Top 10 team, but you are not one of the Top 10 or so players, you are probably not going to average more than 20 ppg. (ACF Nats playoffs stats corroborate this.)

I must admit that I'm one of those people that voted for Billy, but did not vote for Sriram. I'm totally willing to believe that this was a bad call on my part. (And I definitely underestimated some other players too. This is why I wish we had pre-voting discussions, like we used to.) Part of the problem is that even before coming to the Midwest circuit, I had seen Billy play, in the finals of last year's Nats, in numerous CO's, etc., whereas I have seen Sriram play maybe only two or three times, ever. As such, he had only two or three opportunities to make an impression on me; and if he happened not to make any spectacular buzzes in those games (as was the case), I was liable to underrate him.

Exposure is always a problem. I mentioned to Charles Tian that he was probably going to make the Top 25 this year, even though he didn't come anywhere close to making the Top 25 last year. He was incredulous at this: he was scoring so much more on the B team last year than he was this year, and he hasn't gotten that much better overall. Why would people be more liable to realize that he's good this year, when he's putting up fewer points? I told him that by the psychology of the average voter: (a) He was on stage for a bunch of playoff games that everyone saw, so that put him more in voters' minds. (b) People are less liable to remember five good buzzes put up by one of their opponents in a game where they crushed that opposing team than they are to remember three good buzzes by one of their opponents that seemed "crucial" to a very close game against a stronger opposing team; those three buzzes could be the exact same buzzes, but because they helped to decide a top-bracket match, they are more remembered.

vinteuil · Post by **vinteuil** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:27 pm

ThisIsMyUsername wrote:This might be an explanation for why...Kevin Koai was a consistent feature of the Top 25, but no other member of the Yale supporting cast ever manages to break Top 25.

I mean, considering how much better Kevin "just look at http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... dividuals/" Koai is, this isn't at all surprising (he should have been ranked higher in past years).

EDIT: Oh yeah, no offense to Eric, but Matt Jackson is really, really, really good at winning matches and scoring points.

Nine-Tenths Ideas · Post by **Nine-Tenths Ideas** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:29 pm

Excelsior (smack) wrote:Can I just point out that it's ridiculous that _nobody_ voted for Sriram? Sriram is, at minimum, the third best science player in the game right now, and I'd personally put him even with Billy.

Stephen Hines has some words for you, sir.

Ike · Post by **Ike** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:52 pm

A couple of thoughts on this:

If you look at 2012, you'll notice that Billy Busse didn't get any voting points outside of one or two votes here or there. Billy got much better from 2012 to 2013, but if I weren't around, I'm almost positive he would not have gotten any votes. Part of the reality with voting for specialists is that they have to be on a good team in order to get votes. I can almost assure you that if Sriram was playing next to me last year, he would be on this player pool this year.

Although this is a purely player poll, and we are ranking players based on how they would perform on questions, I - and those who actually voted probably took external, halo-effect-like factors into account. For example, when I evaluate non-Billy science players the question isn't "how many science questions did they get?" it's "did they buzz on a point in a question that would require almost specialist, real, knowledge?" If the answer is yes, I would tend to rank them higher. If a player who I have seen quite a bit has never made an impressive buzz - he only seems to be buzzing just out of power or whatever - I would tend to rank him lower. Another example: one player who I saw this year had science buzzes that were pretty good, but he made a pretty asinine post about science this year, indicating to me that he has never engaged with science outside of a quizbowl setting; if I had voted, i would have been much inclined to rank him lower as a science player.

The King's Flight to the Scots · Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:58 pm

Ike wrote: Another example: one player who I saw this year had science buzzes that were pretty good, but he made a pretty asinine post about science this year, indicating to me that he has never engaged with science outside of a quizbowl setting; if I had voted, i would have been much inclined to rank him lower as a science player.

Have you learned to take potshots at my teammates obliquely now?

Skepticism and Animal Feed · Mon Apr 28, 2014 9:21 pm

Do Matt Jackson and Matt Bollinger have good science knowledge now? Because otherwise they're not beating Eric Mukherjee 1-on-1 on ACF Nats. Eric is a scientist who can buzz with authority on other subjects and to me this is better than an elite non-scientists

Ike · Post by **Ike** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 9:29 pm

The general sentiment of "people talking out of their asses" isn't directed at you or your teammates - there are many instances of asstalking happening this year alone. In case it wasn't clear: the point of my last post is that you can collect a lot of points on a topic, but unless you are actually able to talk about said topic in a smart way (ie - real knowledge), a lot of people are probably going to rank you lower. In fact, one person who contacted me in between this post and the last post I made, admitted to me that he did so for this year's player poll! It happens - I can think of many instances where people were ranked lower because they were either too grumpy, cantankerous or asinine on HSQB that, you just don't like them as much.

Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr. wrote:Have you learned to take potshots at my teammates obliquely now?

I first learned to take potshots after one of your teammates tried feeding me scooby snacks.

Adventure Temple Trail · Mon Apr 28, 2014 9:34 pm

I agree that voters in these player polls could do more to bump people up who suffer from shadow effect, or bump people down such that skill trumps mere exposure/familiarity. In particular, I will agree that Tommy was pretty severely underranked this year; his near-doubling of average PPG this year under the biggest shadow effect in ages, including becoming a competitive science player (and frankly, Ike, who cares where that ability came from), were banner accomplishments which helped UVA surge to both championships this year. I say this as someone who is relatively personally distant from him. I'm not sure what future poll voters can be told to adjust their biases better to account for supporting players (or if it really matters that much; it is, after all, just a poll, and the real stats which matter most are wins and losses), but John may be onto something.

Re:Bruce: I am capable of getting some Nats-level science tossups near the end, sometimes just before the giveaway (cf. the Chicago game from Nats 2014 where I got two science tossups), and 10ing or 20ing some science bonuses at that level; I've seen Mattb do the same. I will readily admit in my own case that most of this comes from packet osmosis / years of hearing things like "Hofmann rearrangement" fly by my ears, and I'd gleefully fail the Jose Realness Test or any similar analogue. That said, I personally usually pick up science tossups against Eric only in the event that he has already negged on them.

Mewto55555 · Post by **Mewto55555** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 9:42 pm

John Lawrence got 100% of the bio tossups we heard against Penn at Nats, without Eric negging.

The Ununtiable Twine · Mon Apr 28, 2014 9:49 pm

Mewto55555 wrote:John Lawrence got 100% of the bio tossups we heard against Penn at Nats, without Eric negging.

Jonathan Thompson answered the biology question in three consecutive rounds at Nats without anyone negging. ACF Nationals 2014, never change.

Matt Weiner · Post by **Matt Weiner** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 10:16 pm

Disregarding the way someone actually plays in games when ranking players because you think you have intuited what classes he is taking from his message board posts and don't approve of said classes for some reason is incredibly stupid, and the fact that it's coming from someone who should know better such as Ike means that the legions of people who don't know better and vote in this poll can't be expected to be any less dumb. I don't think my "these players polls are broken for many reasons including the fact that people have petty and ridiculous criteria for what makes a good player" observation is anything radical, though.

Cody · Post by **Cody** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 10:29 pm

Skepticism and Animal Feed wrote:Do Matt Jackson and Matt Bollinger have good science knowledge now? Because otherwise they're not beating Eric Mukherjee 1-on-1 on ACF Nats. Eric is a scientist who can buzz with authority on other subjects and to me this is better than an elite non-scientists

While I personally think Eric would beat MJ due to science (though I certainly can see the arguments for MJ making up the difference on humanities), you're senile if you think Eric can take Matt Bo 1-on-1 because Eric has science.

Skepticism and Animal Feed · Mon Apr 28, 2014 10:34 pm

Cody wrote:
Skepticism and Animal Feed wrote:Do Matt Jackson and Matt Bollinger have good science knowledge now? Because otherwise they're not beating Eric Mukherjee 1-on-1 on ACF Nats. Eric is a scientist who can buzz with authority on other subjects and to me this is better than an elite non-scientists
While I personally think Eric would beat MJ due to science (though I certainly can see the arguments for MJ making up the difference on humanities), you're senile if you think Eric can take Matt Bo 1-on-1 because Eric has science.

I was asking an honest question. There's a reason I didn't vote in this year's poll, and its because I legitimately don't know how good Matt and Matt are at science these days. I haven't seen them play in over a year.

I just wanted to make the point that science knowledge is more valuable than other kinds of knowledge, so its not totally indefensible or absurd to rank a science-turned-generalist ahead of a more decorated humanities-based generalist.

EDIT: it's now been brought to my attention that Matt Bollinger is now approaching Yaphe levels of good on the humanities question, so perhaps he would now so dominate those categories against Eric that science would be irrelevant.

Muriel Axon · Post by **Muriel Axon** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 10:41 pm

Cody wrote:
Skepticism and Animal Feed wrote:Do Matt Jackson and Matt Bollinger have good science knowledge now? Because otherwise they're not beating Eric Mukherjee 1-on-1 on ACF Nats. Eric is a scientist who can buzz with authority on other subjects and to me this is better than an elite non-scientists
While I personally think Eric would beat MJ due to science (though I certainly can see the arguments for MJ making up the difference on humanities), you're senile if you think Eric can take Matt Bo 1-on-1 because Eric has science.

Especially since MattBo has mad refrigerator knowledge.

Sima Guang Hater · Post by **Sima Guang Hater** » Tue Apr 29, 2014 10:02 am

ThisIsMyUsername wrote:Ranking Matt Jackson below Eric makes little sense, given that consensus is that Yale is a stronger team even though Eric has a stronger supporting cast. (In fact, if the polls are to be believed, Matt Jackson's supporting cast has gotten significantly weaker each year for the past two years, and yet Yale stays in the Top 2!)

This isn't that hard to justify. If you base the player poll on a statistical argument, the (apparently undisputed) fact that I have a better supporting cast than Matt does, yet I/Penn still scored a higher ppg/ppb over 19 rounds of ACF Nationals, makes that ranking pretty defensible.

vinteuil wrote:EDIT: Oh yeah, no offense to Eric, but Matt Jackson is really, really, really good at winning matches and scoring points.

We...won the same number of matches...and I scored more points...

vinteuil · Post by **vinteuil** » Tue Apr 29, 2014 11:22 am

The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:
ThisIsMyUsername wrote:Ranking Matt Jackson below Eric makes little sense, given that consensus is that Yale is a stronger team even though Eric has a stronger supporting cast. (In fact, if the polls are to be believed, Matt Jackson's supporting cast has gotten significantly weaker each year for the past two years, and yet Yale stays in the Top 2!)
This isn't that hard to justify. If you base the player poll on a statistical argument, the (apparently undisputed) fact that I have a better supporting cast than Matt does, yet I/Penn still scored a higher ppg/ppb over 19 rounds of ACF Nationals, makes that ranking pretty defensible.

vinteuil wrote:EDIT: Oh yeah, no offense to Eric, but Matt Jackson is really, really, really good at winning matches and scoring points.
We...won the same number of matches...and I scored more points...

I'm a little confused: how does the fact that you have an indisputably better supporting cast (sorry Grace!) couple with a higher ppb (based on your collective knowledge pool) to distinguish you and Matt individually?

Cody · Post by **Cody** » Tue Apr 29, 2014 11:27 am

vinteuil wrote:I'm a little confused: how does the fact that you have an indisputably better supporting cast (sorry Grace!) couple with a higher ppb (based on your collective knowledge pool) to distinguish you and Matt individually?

If we accept that Eric has a better supporting cast [which I don't know is true team-wise, but if you split them out and made them play 1-on-1 certainly is], then if his team has better stats than Yale, there is no "gotcha" as John or you claim.

Since John seems to take such umbrage at the voting methods of the populace at large, perhaps he would like to post his ballot and a rationale for future voters to consider.

grapesmoker · Post by **grapesmoker** » Tue Apr 29, 2014 11:49 am

who are you guys telling me that different people have different criteria on which they vote in the player poll and that some of those criteria are inconsistent with each other

my monocle

Adventure Temple Trail · Tue Apr 29, 2014 11:50 am

I'm not really interested in the litigation going on here over which of me or Eric is a better player here.

Skepticism and Animal Feed wrote:EDIT: it's now been brought to my attention that Matt Bollinger is now approaching Yaphe levels of good on the humanities question, so perhaps he would now so dominate those categories against Eric that science would be irrelevant.

To me, this is the most interesting question (and perhaps the only interesting question) regarding player skill in 2013-14. Has Matt Bollinger now eclipsed Seth Teitler as the second best quizbowl player ever, behind only Yaphe?

grapesmoker · Post by **grapesmoker** » Tue Apr 29, 2014 11:52 am

I would never bet against a motivated Seth Teitler in his prime.

The Time Keeper · Post by **The Time Keeper** » Tue Apr 29, 2014 11:59 am

I think we should have Yaphe and Bollinger stand at opposite sides of a room and run head first towards each other and see if they fuse into some kind of superbeing.

Cheynem · Post by **Cheynem** » Tue Apr 29, 2014 12:12 pm

It would be a weird looking being, I'll tell you that.

I think it's safe to say that Bollinger's last season was one of the all time great seasons. I don't know how it compares to the other all time great seasons or careers. I will say that to note just how HARD it is to win in quizbowl, though, that even with this all time great season, even with two other Top 25 players on his team...UVA was a question or so away from losing ICT.

naan/steak-holding toll · Tue Apr 29, 2014 3:30 pm

RyuAqua wrote:I'm not really interested in the litigation going on here over which of me or Eric is a better player here.

Skepticism and Animal Feed wrote:EDIT: it's now been brought to my attention that Matt Bollinger is now approaching Yaphe levels of good on the humanities question, so perhaps he would now so dominate those categories against Eric that science would be irrelevant.
To me, this is the most interesting question (and perhaps the only interesting question) regarding player skill in 2013-14. Has Matt Bollinger now eclipsed Seth Teitler as the second best quizbowl player ever, behind only Yaphe?

No offense to Seth but I don't see how this is even a question, looking at their relative performance in various ICTs ant Nationals. Despite a superb supporting cast, Matt took #1 in scoring (over Matt Weiner and Rob Carson on two-player teams!) and single handedly out powered every team in the tournament on his own. He also was #1 in scoring at Nats. Matt is the best active history and classics player, arguably the best literature player (JL may dispute), and top 2 or 3 in every non science category, except perhaps music. I haven't seen Seth play at his peak but I can't imagine this level of dominance from a non Yaphe player on the national level.

The King's Flight to the Scots · Tue Apr 29, 2014 3:38 pm

I would give Matt Weiner and John Lawrence the #1 spots in their respective Big Three categories. Matt's individual performance at the CO history events has been better than mine - I've improved since then, but not enough, I think, to overcome Matt's knowledge. Regarding literature, I would say there are lots of areas I haven't had to know anything about over the past three years thanks to Evan and Tommy. We were the best team on that category, but because of the way I allocated my study time, John would probably beat me one on one on a literature packet. Not modesty, just how it is.

I'm laying claim to #1 active myth player, though.

grapesmoker · Post by **grapesmoker** » Tue Apr 29, 2014 3:41 pm

gamegeek2 wrote:No offense to Seth but I don't see how this is even a question, looking at their relative performance in various ICTs ant Nationals. Despite a superb supporting cast, Matt took #1 in scoring (over Matt Weiner and Rob Carson on two-player teams!) and single handedly out powered every team in the tournament on his own. He also was #1 in scoring at Nats. Matt is the best active history and classics player, arguably the best literature player (JL may dispute), and top 2 or 3 in every non science category, except perhaps music. I haven't seen Seth play at his peak but I can't imagine this level of dominance from a non Yaphe player on the national level.

Oh wow, someone ranking players based on recency bias and limited information, who could have ever seen that coming?!

Cheynem · Post by **Cheynem** » Tue Apr 29, 2014 3:49 pm

I don't think it's that goofy to say that Matt Bollinger's season this year was a season of seasons, one of the all time greats. On the other hand, Seth was an absolute winner, someone who played unflappably in the big games not just over a year but over many years (I am not trying to impugn Matt here, just stick up for Seth). I think someone (Jerry?) said the brilliance of Seth was not that he was lockdown on a topic, but his overall style of play.

grapesmoker · Post by **grapesmoker** » Tue Apr 29, 2014 3:53 pm

Cheynem wrote:I don't think it's that goofy to say that Matt Bollinger's season this year was a season of seasons, one of the all time greats. On the other hand, Seth was an absolute winner, someone who played unflappably in the big games not just over a year but over many years (I am not trying to impugn Matt here, just stick up for Seth). I think someone (Jerry?) said the brilliance of Seth was not that he was lockdown on a topic, but his overall style of play.

I don't think it's an insult to Matt Bollinger, an amazing player who really has had a great season, to not just pick him unanimously against Seth.

naan/steak-holding toll · Tue Apr 29, 2014 4:23 pm

grapesmoker wrote:
gamegeek2 wrote:No offense to Seth but I don't see how this is even a question, looking at their relative performance in various ICTs ant Nationals. Despite a superb supporting cast, Matt took #1 in scoring (over Matt Weiner and Rob Carson on two-player teams!) and single handedly out powered every team in the tournament on his own. He also was #1 in scoring at Nats. Matt is the best active history and classics player, arguably the best literature player (JL may dispute), and top 2 or 3 in every non science category, except perhaps music. I haven't seen Seth play at his peak but I can't imagine this level of dominance from a non Yaphe player on the national level.
Oh wow, someone ranking players based on recency bias and limited information, who could have ever seen that coming?!

I will fully admit that I have much more experience with Matt, and I don't know much about either players play style, but I did take a lot of time to look at old stats to make this judgment. Seth certainly had a longer run of dominance, but UVA just stood well above the crowd this year in a way that (at least from what numbers tell me) was not true of Chicago under Seth's leadership. Feel free to mock my largely numbers based judgments to your heart's content.