Penn Bowl Trash Mirror @ UC Berkeley (5/9/09)

unnecessarily hot · Post by **unnecessarily hot** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 5:14 pm

Hi everyone,

After a few hiccups, we've set a date: Berkeley Quiz Bowl will be hosting a mirror of UPenn's Penn Bowl Trash Mirror (we formerly were mirroring Fake TRAShionals) on Saturday, May 9. Original announcement for the Penn Bowl TRASH tourney is here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=7061

REGISTRATION: Please e-mail me (scpham AT berkeley DOT edu) letting me know if you're interested, and how many teams you expect to send. Also please let me know how many buzzers you plan on bringing.

LOCATION: UC Berkeley campus, meet at 140 Barrows Hall (http://berkeley.edu/map/)

TIME: Registration will begin at 9AM on Saturday May 9, and play will begin
hopefully at or before 9:30AM.

FEES: All checks should be made out to "ASUC/Quiz Bowl".
Base fee: $120/team
Buzzer discount: -$10/working buzzer
Extra team discount: -$10/per additional team (i.e. $120 for team 1, $110
for feam 2, etc.)
Staffer discount: $-10/staffer, if we need them

ELIGIBILITY: Anyone is free to play. Teams of 1-4.

FORMAT: Games will use the ACF rules. For all practical purposes, these
are exactly the same as the TRASH rules, except there are no lames.

CURRENT FIELD:
Berkeley (Jeff, Larissa, , )
Berkeley (Yogesh, Jennifer, Michael, Beat )
Stanford
UCI
"Dinosaur team" (Jen, Rory, Matt , Ron)
UCSC

FREE AGENTS:

The tournament is 10 rounds, enough for a double round-robin given the current field.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to e-mail me.

manary · Post by **manary** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 6:40 pm

We'd like to come, but couldn't do it on the 4th. What about May? or late april?
Micah

unnecessarily hot · Post by **unnecessarily hot** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 3:10 am

I've updated the above post with the set date. The tournament will be held on UC Berkeley's campus, but the rooms haven't been set yet. Expect that update fairly soon.

unnecessarily hot · Post by **unnecessarily hot** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 4:49 am

The field has been updated, and will continue to be as more teams contact me.

1 team of Jeff Hoppes and Larissa Kelly has noted that they'll need to round out the team with free agents, especially someone who knows some football.

unnecessarily hot · Post by **unnecessarily hot** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 11:25 pm

UC Berkeley's Fake TRASHionals mirror is still expected to be held this Saturday, 5/2!

If you're interested in coming, either as a team or free agent, please e-mail me at scpham AT berkeley DOT edu.

Also, just FYI, the free agents field has been updated in the original post.

unnecessarily hot · Post by **unnecessarily hot** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 12:16 pm

The tournament has been postponed until Saturday May 9, to help Matt Weiner tweak the packets a little and also to hopefully flesh out our field a little more.

The field above has been updated to include a Stanford team.

manary · Post by **manary** » Mon May 04, 2009 1:36 pm

I do not see a Caltech team coming. Good luck!

unnecessarily hot · Post by **unnecessarily hot** » Mon May 04, 2009 9:27 pm

Sorry to hear that CalTech can't make it.

Currently the field stands at 6 teams, with two teams (Berkeley "A", and UCI) only consisting of two players. If any free agents are interested, we have homes for you. If any other teams are interested in playing, we could do some consolidating to keep the field even.

Also, Marcus Luna proposed the idea of a Star Trek viewing after the tournament. I for one am interested, and I'm sure that there are others out there who want to come. I can't find showtimes for this Saturday yet, but there is a movie theater in downtown Berkeley that's 15 minutes walking distance from where the tournament will be held. Keep that in mind when making your post-tournament plans!

unnecessarily hot · Post by **unnecessarily hot** » Thu May 07, 2009 9:42 pm

Unfortunately, I just received word that the tournament cannot be completed by this weekend.

As recommended by Matt, I am looking into exploring a previous TRASH tournament from UPenn's Penn Bowl this previous January. I await an e-mail from that TD and will update everyone on the status of the tournament ASAP. I will cancel if this doesn't pan out.

Birdofredum Sawin · Post by **Birdofredum Sawin** » Thu May 07, 2009 10:01 pm

unnecessarily hot wrote:Unfortunately, I just received word that the tournament cannot be completed by this weekend.

As recommended by Matt, I am looking into exploring a previous TRASH tournament from UPenn's Penn Bowl this previous January. I await an e-mail from that TD and will update everyone on the status of the tournament ASAP. I will cancel if this doesn't pan out.

Is this a joke?

Matt Weiner · Post by **Matt Weiner** » Thu May 07, 2009 10:04 pm

Andrew: It is not a joke. I am having trouble completing this tournament and I'd rather let people know now than have them show up on Saturday and find that they are playing a small or nonexistent number of packets, and then make excuses after the fact. I have suggested mirroring the Penn set as a way to let people play a trash tournament at Berkeley this weekend despite my situation.

MichaelKearney · Post by **MichaelKearney** » Fri May 08, 2009 12:08 am

Or, you could mirror RC Cola, a tournament that hasn't been discussed on the boards at all. It's an 11 round tournament that you can have, with questions blind to everyone but Mike Cheyne and some Southern circuit people. Toss me a line at friendlyneighborhood(AT)gmail(DOTCOM) if you want it.

unnecessarily hot · Post by **unnecessarily hot** » Fri May 08, 2009 6:39 am

I have the UPenn questions on my computer, and it appears that none of our potential participants have seen this tournament's questions.

We are still having a TRASH mirror this Saturday, 5/9, at UC Berkeley.

Michael, thank you for the offer. If it turns out that this UPenn thing doesn't work out for whatever reason, I will e-mail you.

A big thanks to Mehdi at UPenn for helping me out in a timely fashion. See you guys this Saturday.

If you have any questions, again, feel free to communicate with me at scpham at berkeley dot edu.

unnecessarily hot · Post by **unnecessarily hot** » Fri May 08, 2009 6:39 pm

Is Stanford bringing its buzzer?

As far as I know we have 2 buzzers, and need 1 more.

unnecessarily hot · Post by **unnecessarily hot** » Sat May 09, 2009 2:09 pm

We need some people's opinions on dealing with a protest that has implications for 1 of our games. The below regards one of the TU's and answers from Penn Bowl TRASH tournament.

[Removed, because I'm not sure if it's open for discussion, and my question has been answered. Thanks for your help.]

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) · Sat May 09, 2009 2:16 pm

dtaylor4 · Post by **dtaylor4** » Sat May 09, 2009 2:18 pm

You don't prompt on literary subtitles, do you? Same concept applies.

AKKOLADE · Post by **AKKOLADE** » Sat May 09, 2009 2:28 pm

Agreeing with Donald and Charlie.

Birdofredum Sawin · Post by **Birdofredum Sawin** » Sun May 10, 2009 4:05 am

So, these Penn questions were not so great, in addition to being a bit dated. I'm not sure why people thought these rather perfunctory questions were just fine, but they could have used some work.

Theory Of The Leisure Flask · Sun May 10, 2009 10:44 am

Birdofredum Sawin wrote:So, these Penn questions were not so great, in addition to being a bit dated. I'm not sure why people thought these rather perfunctory questions were just fine, but they could have used some work.

I don't think anyone's ever called PB Trash a great set. Most of it was written by rookie question writers and editors (I wrote 10/10, and Bentley contributed a packet, but basically everything else was done by folks in their first year of college-level question writing), and yeah, the inexperience showed.

I presume Matt suggested using it as the "least bad" way out of a bad situation.

Birdofredum Sawin · Post by **Birdofredum Sawin** » Sun May 10, 2009 1:26 pm

Theory Of The Leisure Flask wrote:
I don't think anyone's ever called PB Trash a great set. Most of it was written by rookie question writers and editors (I wrote 10/10, and Bentley contributed a packet, but basically everything else was done by folks in their first year of college-level question writing), and yeah, the inexperience showed.

I presume Matt suggested using it as the "least bad" way out of a bad situation.

Fair enough, but then I wish Matt had said "I won't be able to finish the tournament I said I'd have done by the 9th, but instead you can play this set almost entirely written by people who have no question-writing experience." I'm not sure me and my Stanford teammates would have been quite so prepared to invest in the tournament under the latter, more accurate, description. (I for one had no idea what "Penn trash" was other than "a trash event held at Penn," and didn't want to go back and read about the tournament for fear of uncovering some discussion of the set.)

MichaelKearney · Post by **MichaelKearney** » Sun May 10, 2009 2:13 pm

Having played a Southeastern Mirror of Penn Bowl a couple months ago, I think the general consensus was that the tournament was written well, but obviously by new players. I still find it weird that a 4-month old tournament discussed on the boards was used.

Jamnman23 · Post by **Jamnman23** » Mon May 11, 2009 12:27 pm

MichaelKearney wrote:Having played a Southeastern Mirror of Penn Bowl a couple months ago, I think the general consensus was that the tournament was written well, but obviously by new players. I still find it weird that a 4-month old tournament discussed on the boards was used.

I was one of the rookie question writers for penn bowl trash. I admit that some of my questions may not have been perfectly written, but I hoped at the least to strive for good answer selection. If people were not satisfied with that as well, I apologize. I also found it weird that our questions would be used so long after the actual tournament. However, we did have mirrors for the tournament which were rather spread out. As a result, since the most recent mirror, no one had posted the set or even cleared it for detailed question discussion, so it was still legitimate to play it I guess.

Birdofredum Sawin · Post by **Birdofredum Sawin** » Mon May 11, 2009 2:51 pm

Yeah, I don't really mean to hate on a tournament produced largely by novice writers (as I said, I had no idea that was the case, as Matt didn't mention the fact in his announcement of the switch to Penn questions).

I'm not sure that criticism at this remove would be any help, but I will say that some of the distributional choices made by this tournament struck me as odd. E.g. I was surprised by what seemed to be the absolute absence of questions on comic books, and by the significant attention paid to hockey (which seemed to be getting 1/1 per round). Also there seemed to be a number of questions on things which would be fine to ask about if they had happened in the last year or two, but which were probably too old to still register in people's mental space. (I'm thinking here of things like "answer the following about [a certain year's -- no idea if these questions are clear for discussion yet] Stanley Cup finals," which might have been fine at a trash tournament held the year after that event, but which seems awfully dated today.)

Otherwise, just the usual unsurprising remarks about a tournament written by people without much experience -- tossups were too transparent, bonus difficulty was really uneven, etc. Still, decent as a product of first-time writers.

unnecessarily hot · Post by **unnecessarily hot** » Mon May 11, 2009 5:46 pm

Just as a quick summary of the tournament:

Finishing at number one with a record of 8-2 was a "Whiz Bang Quiz Gang" team of Yogesh, Jennifer, Michael, and Beat from Berkeley. At 7-3, "New Justice Teams," consisting of Jeff, Larissa, Paul, and Juliana, came in at second.

Top 3 individuals were:
Emerson Cod (a.k.a. Yogesh) of Whiz Bang Quiz Gang
Andrew of Stanford
The Melter (a.k.a. Marcus) of Iron Man Villains.

Stats will be posted as soon as possible.

A big thanks to everyone that helped out, and also to those who came out. We had a few set backs, and I'm glad you were able to bear with me on those.

unnecessarily hot · Post by **unnecessarily hot** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 11:26 pm

Sorry that this took so long to post (I didn't have access to the club website until today,) but here are the stats from our mirror of Penn Bowl Trash: http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~quizbowl/t ... dings.html

The Quizbowl Resource Center