AOL Email Address Haver wrote:Short-beaked echidna wrote:Everyman wrote:
b. And what was the furthest? (As above.)
Whoever put me second.
Someone who doesn't have finals should do a quick explanation of this list - I imagine some non-UK players might want to know more about these players beyond their names.
Sure.
1.) Joey Goldman (OXF) (374 pts, highest 1st, lowest 2nd)
Humanities generalist with specialisms in VFA, philosophy and "thought" in general. Also solid at lit and history. I think I scale pretty well too in my categories, as seen by my "stanford housewrite" and nationals performances (6-1 against chicago
). Didn't make any improvements since the beginning of this year, though.
2.) Spencer Weinreich (OXF) (354 pts, highest 2nd, lowest 3rd)
Same as above but less. Best Shakespeare player in the game. Doesn't neg and instead just knows things. Should overrule me on bonuses more often. An absence, rare on this side of the pond, of inhibitions relating to loudness is very useful for starting tournaments and setting the floor for announcements.
3.) Ewan Macaulay (CAM) (350 pts, highest 1st, lowest 4th)
Surely as good at chemistry as basically anyone in the US and pretty darn formidable on the rest of science (cf. him locking Tommy out of science at ACF Nats last year combined with the fact he's improved since then). Solid on myth and pockets of history. Best absolute lockdown of any 1/1 of anyone in the UK, and probably safest 4/4 too. Most prolific UK question writer.
4.) Evan Lynch (CAM) (328 pts, highest 2nd, lowest 6th)
Solid science player but sits next to Ewan most of the time so his points come a lot from a burgeoning specialism in fine arts and lit. Made a big leap since the end of last year.
5.) Daoud Jackson (OXF) (304 pts, highest 4th, lowest 9th)
Excellent thought/philosophy player but plays next to me and Spence so that's hidden a bit. One of the top religion players in the UK and really good game sense and calm. Solid in lit and history in pockets and is easily the most improved player in the UK over the course of this year. Future is bright.
6.) George Corfield (OXF) (280 pts, highest 5th, lowest 11th)
100% lockdown on human bio and very solid on the rest. Also an excellent music player (beat Jacob to the music in our game at Nats), giving him a pretty safe 2/2 every round. Is solid on the rest of science as well and actually managed to outscore Spence at ACF Nationals thanks to this.
7.) Charlie Clegg (OXF) (279 pts, highest 5th, lowest 12th)
Very good at history, Christianity, fine arts and British literature. One of the few people in the UK with enough humanities generalism to anchor a solid team (I'd say me, Daoud, Spence, Evan and Henry are the others). Elite film player too.
8.) Henry Edwards (SOAS) (260 pts, highest 6th, lowest 15th)
Scales to arbitrary difficulty in parts of the distribution. Especially solid in jazz, classics, Arabian world and the middle east. As said above one of the few people in the UK who can buzz well across most of the humanities distribution. Carried SOAS to an undefeated finish in the second bracket at BSQC.
9.) Bob de Caux (SOU) (231 pts, highest 6th, lowest 20th)
Bob is another player with really good breadth who's not likely to power a huge amount, which is what's led to the wide spread in his rankings here, I think, since that's a hard skill to pinpoint a value fo.
10.) Oliver Clarke (OXF) (229 pts, highest 6th, lowest 16th)
Possibly the best single history player in the UK. Another classics monster, though with a different focus from Henry. Solid Renaissance Italy and religion knowledge too. Has outscored Henry whenever they've played together.
11.) Ben Salter (WAR) (209 pts, highest 7th, lowest 17th)
Excellent at maths and music, solid in the rest of the humanities. Beats me to painting and George to science sometimes too.
12.) Oliver Sweetenham (CAM) (204 pts, highest 7th, lowest 21st)
He's first lined basically every British poetry question I've seen him play. Unfortunately that number is only, like, four.
13.) Samuel Cook (CAM) (201 pts, highest 9th, lowest 23rd)
Absolute monster on geography and general "British-stuff" which is why he smashed BSQC but had a bad time at Regionals. This makes Samuel a hard person to rank, since if we're just thinking BSQC he's probably a top 8-10 player.
14.) Sophie Rudd (WAR) (174 pts, highest 10th, lowest 21st)
I have never been able to get a grasp on when Sophie is likely to buzz, but she's definitely a really good jazz player.
15.) Elysia Warner (CAM) (154 pts, highest 10th, lowest 22nd)
I had no idea how rank Ellie myself since her performance has been pretty inconsistent. She seems to be planning to learn a bunch of stuff and I trust her to do so since the inconsistency has included some really good performances that might be made the new baseline sooner rather than later. Actually knows linguistics.
16.) Julian Sutcliffe (CAM) (148 pts, highest 10th, lowest 23rd)
Really solid on British history and "British stuff", has a sister who loves Telford and is good on world history and geography too. A rogue buzzer which leads to good power counts and not so pretty neg counts a lot of the time.
17.) Jonathan Foxwell (OXF) (97 pts, highest 12th, lowest 0)
Doesn't play much but is really good at biology and music and decent at the rest of science while also being a respectable British circuit humanities generalist. We all wish he would play more.
18.) Tristram Burke (MAN) (96 pts, highest 12th, lowest 0)
Played one tournament and reminded everyone that he has read a lot of books.
19.) Hasneen Karbalai (OXF) (90 pts, highest 13th, lowest 0)
Solid on bio and a good myth and trash player. Brings a certain calm to any team he's on.
20.) Afham Raoof (CAM) (74 pts, highest 13th, lowest 0)
Underrated science player with good history too, from what I've seen. Possibly just edges Daoud for best Islam player, too.
21.) Richard Freeland (CAM) (62 pts, highest 17th, lowest 0)
I only saw Richard for one game this year that I can remember, but he's really good at maths and seems to know other stuff pretty well based on scoring and power counts. Maybe a Tab can add more?
22.) Chris Savory (61 pts, highest 11th, lowest 0)
A lot of people left Chris off their poll because, while eligible as a student, he didn't actually play any tournaments with UCL this year instead ending up on a lot of open teams. He's a very good chemistry player and a solid physics and myth player. Would probably end up in the upper-teens if he played something with a university tream this year.
23.) Tomas Kesek (CAM) (52 pts, highest 15th, lowest 0)
Knows human bio and science in general. Need input from Tabs on what he knows.
24.) Chris Stern (OXF) (45 pts, highest 14th, lowest 0)
Will be a really good chemistry and possibly music player soon. Needs to work on buzzer technique and neg less. Will likely improve due to writing much of next year's OOT's science with Ewan off the editing team.
25.) Pietro Aronica (IMP) (44 pts, highest 12th, lowest 0)
Physics? I haven't seen Pietro play for over a year.