Teammate Appreciation Thread

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Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by reindeer »

It's player poll season and I'm getting the sense that a lot of people want to praise their teammates, including the ones who aren't necessarily in the world's top 25. I personally love reading these stories, and it'd be nice to collect them somewhere that doesn't require the Teammate Appreciator to try to pretend there's a connection to the poll. To that end: praise your teammates here!

I'll start: as a very occasional player but longtime attendee of Northeast-area schools, I have had both very few and very many teammates. Without exception, they have welcomed me into their teams and their social spaces, and made my experience in quizbowl infinitely more rewarding. Harvard's Chris Gilmer-Hill has a stunning depth of country-related knowledge, based on his extensive set of alphabetized notes. MIT's Grace Liu (in addition to being a truly excellent player) is one of the most supportive teammates I've ever encountered and inspires everyone around her to be better. Yale's Michał Gerasimiuk is terrifying to play Botticelli with and is very likely to be an equally fearsome quizbowl player in the coming years. I could go on (and on) but I want to hear your stories! Post away.
Last edited by reindeer on Fri Aug 13, 2021 8:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by Good Goblin Housekeeping »

shout out to big al fregeau
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Dreams »

Hari is kind of cracked at Celeste. He played glyph before farewell and managed to beat it in like 1500 deaths
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by Abdon Ubidia »

My teammates this season were excellent. I am continually astounded by Walter Zhang's extremely diverse knowledge-base and ability to be super clutch when the moment requires it. Jason Hong is well on his way to becoming one of college quizbowl's best history players, and I'm very glad to have finally been able to play a real, in-person tournament sitting next to him. Michael Li is already one of the best active classical music players in quizbowl and I'm happy to say he's also one of my best friends. Most importantly, playing with them this year made the game fun, even when we all were living through times that weren't all that fun. I am very excited to see what the next two years of Brown quizbowl bring all of us.

I also want to mention some other players in New England. Mazin Omer is sneakily an excellent fine arts and literature player and is also hilarious. Grace Liu has been really kind to us and I'm very glad she came out of retirement to become a genuine force for good in the circuit. My former high school teammate Katherine Lei has clearly brought her strong personality and elite science play into college. Daniel Sheinberg is an absolute monster at quizbowl and also comes across as a super nice guy (and so did his parents when they came to Brown for TO, which was a really sweet moment.)
Last edited by Abdon Ubidia on Fri Aug 13, 2021 9:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by caroline »

The people on Columbia B are the best teammates I could ask for: Gareth, John John, Ryan, Albert, Jeffrey, I miss y'all and I hope the B team gets to play a Nationals together like we wanted to. Every tournament with you was a blast, and hopefully, we'll finally get one together in person. I miss your humor, grace, and astounding knowledge. Also, thanks for agreeing to play WORKSHOP 2021 with three people so I could have more editing money.

I played on Columbia A for a total of one tournament, but it was a really great tournament and a treasured memory. In the words of Noah Chen, Will Alston is passable at quizbowl. Particular shoutout to Noah S for being a good friend who knows a lot of random cool things and saves me from having to pick where to eat.

I suppose the people on the 2020-21 ACF board are my teammates in some sense, so thank you so much to Alex, JinAh, Ryan, Matt, Cody, Margaret, and Michael for being my team—I enjoyed working with all of you, learned a lot in the process, and despite all the struggles accompanying the pandemic, had an excellent year.
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by mico »

I would like to thank both Taylor Harvey and Jonathen Settle for how much they taught me about question writing during the set production for FLopen. It was my first experience writing for a structured set and they acted as excellent examples of how to produce a high-quality product within a deadline while equally valuing and encouraging all individual contributors. While I may not have been asking them tons of questions, the opportunity to observe their editing work prepared me well for future opportunities, and I am grateful to have had that experience.
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by Krik? Krik?! KRIIIIK!!! »

This thread is wonderful, so thank you Olivia, Hasna, and Annabelle for coming up with the idea! I apologize if this thread feels like a "call out" thread, but there are so many amazing people out there who deserve more widespread recognition in the community.

I'll start at Iowa. Rachel Mattson is one of the most dedicated people to quiz bowl I know. She staffed or helped organized attendance for easily over 20 high school and college level tournaments. She has been a fantastic mod and a great ambassador for quiz bowl for quiz bowl in Iowa, her home in Southern Illinois, and elsewhere. The team could have operated without the wonderful spirit of Carson Melinder, the long time experience and skill of Tony Cosimini, and the technical whiz of Andy Swiston. I look forward to seeing what the future holds for the team!

I'd also like to thank Tora Husar and Nina Kaushikkar for being the organizational geniuses for the entire North circuit. Tora and the rest of the Minnesota club have done miles for creating a community in our distant circuit, and Nina is an incredible force for bringing in new voices and making sure team leadership across the region communicates. Trevor Negus and Jay Winter are both complete legends in the circuits of Southern Illinois and Iowa respectively for their huge advancements in bringing about high quality high school quiz bowl and leading local tournaments where nobody else could. They should definitely be considered in the future for any sort of involvement award for the community.

I've been very grateful to work with so many incredible writers and editors over the past year. Jacob O'Rourke has been at my side from being the head editor of the first set I worked on to being an advisor for the first one I head edited, all on top of being MOQBA's greatest ambassador across the country. I'm so happy to have worked for over three years with Chandler West, from him editing my first questions to us together working on numerous sets. William Grossmann and I have worked on 8 (!) different sets in some capacity together, and that too is an amazing friendship I'm happy to have. Of all the writers I've worked with, Nick Jensen is by far the best teacher I've ever had and completely revolutionized the way I think and write about questions from the topics to answerlines to clues and everything in between.

The teams for ACF Winter and NASAT were some of the most fun I had working with others ever. Vishwa Shanmugam and Matthew Lehmann were both great leaders, kind friends, and amazing editors who I am so happy to have grown closer to. Clark Smith and Joseph Krol are two of the best writers in the entire game right now, and any tournament they write is worth a play.

My friends at ACF have been incredible to work with as well. JinAh Kim persuaded me to try my hand at editing for the first time, has opened up many other professional doors for me, and is an amazing person. I'm so happy to have worked extensively with Caroline Mao on personal and quiz bowl related projects. Their skill, time commitment, and honesty have all boosted our projects to success.

Going online during the pandemic, the community really relied on online discussion and chat to keep itself sane. I especially want to point out the efforts of Aidan McWilliams and Felix Wang for creating the Missouri High School Discord and keeping an entire high school circuit in touch. When I was growing up in their circuit, I always felt like it was difficult to meet and talk to other teams immediately out of my local league. They've completely changed the game and have made a much more friendly environment for play across the state.

I am missing so many people in this post, but I hope you all know I am so grateful to be a member of this community and I am so excited to hopefully meet more friends this year!!!
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by knife emoji »

In lieu of writing a long sappy email to the YSAC panlist, I’m writing a long sappy post about appreciated teammates here:

Michał Gerasimiuk impresses me constantly with his deep, rapidly-expanding fine arts and Poland knowledge. Daniel Ma is a great editor and a great Bach (and fine arts) player, and I'm glad to have gotten to play with him this year. I’m so very proud of Daniel Sheinberg, who regularly outbuzzes me to both biology and books I’ve read, and who, besides being a very impressive player, is a very impressive friend. Michael Kearney deserves my immense appreciation for his unrivaled classics knowledge (which spared me from ever learning Greek myth), his head for logistics, and all his support and advice. Adam Fine is hilarious, provides lovely cat pictures, and is always willing to commiserate with me when science is hard (also: he’s a very good quizbowler—particularly an incredible science player who should believe me and everyone else when we tell him that!). Everyone knows that Stephen Eltinge is a phenomenal player (who certainly deserves a place in the top 25!), but he’s also been a calm, steady presence in YSAC and someone I could always count on over the past four years. Olivia Murton is one of the best people I’ve ever met, and getting to know her has been the brightest point in what might have otherwise been an incredibly disillusioning year. Annabelle Yang’s myth knowledge is unparalleled and she’s a fantastic editor as well, but more importantly: she’s my oldest, favorite teammate, and one of my very best friends.

Though not my teammates, I would feel remiss without mentioning two other players from the Northeast and my favorite people to play against. I’ve never met anyone as kind or encouraging to both their teammates and their opponents as Grace Liu, and I live in constant awe of both Jason Golfinos' Islam knowledge and his ability to make even our tensest games against Harvard bright points during long tournament days.
Last edited by knife emoji on Mon Aug 16, 2021 7:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by warum »

I'd like to express my appreciation for several people. Tim Morrison emits an unflappable aura of calm in every game no matter how close the score is, and scales ridiculously well on literature questions. I should also learn not to neg him out of applied math/stats tossups. Ethan Strombeck has incredibly broad and deep music knowledge, leaving me to pick up the scraps in that category for the first time in my QB career. Eric Wolfsberg knows so much about history and bio/chem, and I'm looking forward to getting to know him better (we found out at Nats that we work in buildings next-door to each other on campus). It's been wonderful having Marianna Zhang and Ryan Rosenberg as friends in Palo Alto, and I look forward to playing more tournaments with each of them in the future. Young Fenimore Lee did an admirable job as the Stanford club's financial officer this year despite all the challenges of the pandemic. And Jennie Yang generously stuck around in the club officers' groupchat to impart institutional wisdom despite having graduated.
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by tpmorrison »

I’m not his teammate anymore, but Matthew Lehmann is an eminently delightful person and would be well-deserving of some “nicest person in quiz bowl” votes if that ever happens again. Ben Miller, Grant Li, and Alston Boyd were an exceptionally fun group of people to play with last year, and I of course have to shout out the Chicago Botticelli contingent (Halle, JL, Vivek, Ian, Teddy, etc.) for helping me procrastinate on other things during Covid.

Besides being amazing at quiz bowl, Natan, Ethan, and Eric are all incredibly nice teammates and keep things very fun and stress-free. And though circumstances have prevented me from meeting most of the Stanford team, it’s been great seeing Marianna Zhang again (speaking of nicest people in quiz bowl).
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by Zealots of Stockholm »

I would like to make a post to appreciate all of my new teammates this year at Vanderbilt. Starting a new graduate program in the middle of a pandemic certainly isn't a fun task, and I didn't really know anyone in Nashville when I got here. They all accepted me with open arms and made me feel welcome despite being the only grad student in the club. While none of them are quite top 25 yet, I have no doubts that at least some of them will get there before graduating, and more importantly they're all great people to be around. I especially appreciated the tournaments we were able to play together from my living room, which made things feel a little bit more normal.

Thanks for starting this thread, it's a great idea!
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by On a lurgid bee »

This thread is a superb idea, but unfortunately its creation at the end of my undergraduate career means I have a lot of people to appreciate and only so much room to do so before I become obnoxious. As a result, I’ll be interpreting “teammates” fairly strictly, as if I included things like editing teams (I appreciate all of the writers of NASAT and ACF Fall, I loved working with you all!) this post would be even longer than it already is.

To begin, my teammates this year: Ben, Adam, and Alston. I had a great time playing with you all this year, you all did an incredible job keeping things lighthearted, positive, and very fun. Ben is completely unflappable, his history knowledge is consistently extremely impressive, and he’s very fun to converse with quietly during games. Alston is extremely funny during gameplay and it has been a joy to play with him over two of the previous three years. Watching Adam play science questions is the most entertaining activity in quiz bowl, when you play with him you get the points and a show, and his cats were the real MVPs at ICT for getting us timeouts at opportune times through their mischief.

I also have to appreciate members of Chicago B 2019-2020, undoubtedly the most fearsome Chicago B ever assembled, and also probably the most pleasant iteration! Tim is as kind as he is good at math, which is very difficult to accomplish, and one of the highlights of an in-person nationals was getting to see him again in person! Grant is perhaps the nicest person on the team, and he also taught me that some people pronounce NAQT “Nack-it” which has increased my enjoyment of the company tenfold. I’ve already discussed Ben and Alston, but overall the team was extremely fun to play against and chat with, despite the nerve-wracking experience of also playing against a top 4 team.

My non-Alston teammates in 2019, Kai and John, did an excellent job ensuring I didn’t have to listen to music questions. John was an excellent mentor and is always a joy to play with, he’s very good at both playing quiz bowl and providing hilarious asides to keep gameplay fun. Kai has perhaps the most enjoyment for quiz bowl as a game of anyone I’ve ever met, nobody provides as much energy and fun as he does, and nobody buzzes with more glee on named things in science.

My time at Chicago quiz bowl was definitely improved early on but a whole host of encouraging older players. James and Tamara did an excellent job making my entry into college quiz bowl a good one, and both provided mentorship and superb quiz bowl play. Samir was a superb officer to play under and he provided us with one of Chicago’s most enduring jokes during my time as an undergraduate! Jason has been a consistently great person to talk to, and it was extremely exciting to watch him end a year of hard work as a history player with an ACF Nationals championship, while still demonstrating a concerning lack of certainty as to what may or may not be fit for human consumption. Marianna is, as Tim said, one of quiz bowl’s nicest people and it has been a delight to watch her lead a contingent of Chicago’s most loved players to gather at Stanford. Sam Winikow provided the team with a whole host of insane history buzzes and also let me eat some pancakes he made once, a trait shared by few quizbowlers indeed. Olivia is another one of quizbowl's kindest people, I enjoyed getting to interact with him at practice, and nobody could've been rooting harder for your success during your ICT run than I.

Halle and Ian were both spectacular D2 teammates and both provided consistent practice presence and positive energy to boot, and I’m lucky to consider both friends. Halle has also continued to attend practice and read questions after graduation, which very much helped bolster our numbers and enthusiasm during some pretty long pandemic practices. I don’t think Andy reads the forums anymore, but I loved getting to know him better hanging out outside of practice and I enjoyed playing with him on teams when I got the chance. I’ve enjoyed getting to know Jack outside of practice discussing books and film, and I hope to see him at a tournament or two next year if he finds the time to play! Edgar was a delightful teammate at Terrapin Open, a very strong player for the D2 team, and provided a consistently eclectic knowledge base that was always fun to play with or against. I am very grateful to have gotten to know Christine through quiz bowl, and I’m happy we got to take one full class together and part of another before she wisely bailed on a (horrible) class we were sharing in my final semester. I apparently first met Teddy when I played him at PACE, but he has been a consistently wonderful presence at practice, team social events, and spectating our last game at ACF Nationals this year. Teddy is someone with both the desire to play bad high school questions from 2008 and the sheer personality to make the experience fun. It's been very rewarding to watch John Marvin's game develop as he adjusts to playing with stronger teammates and grows into a more balanced style of gameplay. His results from Nationals bely all of the progress he has made on this front (just check his other stats this year!), and besides that he has also consistently attended practice and figures to be a positive mentor for younger players until the end of his PhD, so the Chicago team can still look forward to having him for years to come!

Finally, I’ll go over the Chicago people who were younger than me, who I appreciate in part because it means my efforts in helping out the recruitment process did not result in abject failure. Vivek, Daniel, Adam, and Yohhan are all really kind people who are incredibly good at quiz bowl and were robbed from their rightful D2 championship last year. You will never convince me y’all wouldn’t have won, and I’m happy that you all have stuck with the game. Your performances at tournaments like ACF Nationals show that you all are developing at an impressive rate, and I hope you can show the first and second years next year how to get older team members free meals properly use their meal swipes.

Walker, Robert, William, and Shiv. It’s a shame that we never got in person practices but I really enjoyed getting to know you all, particularly in the hours after practice when we hung out and chatted. I look forward to seeing you all in person more at Midwest tournaments in the coming years! Similarly, I enjoyed getting to know Sam at practices, I very much appreciated that he was willing to start practice at 1 a.m. in his time zone and finish at 3 a.m. Doing so while being consistently extremely knowledgeable and pleasant is an even more impressive feat, and to stay after practice and socialize with us is nearly beyond comprehension. I've had the pleasure of being teammates with Michelle during both high school and college, and besides being an excellent player and practice presence I hope she can continue to lead Barrington's slow takeover of UChicago's quiz bowl team.

I apologize again for a rather long post in which I probably have still managed to forget someone (please message me if that happens, I promise it's not because I don't have something to say about you, I'm just growing increasingly intimidated by the scale of this post!). I have a lot of fond memories of the Chicago team during my time as an undergraduate and I wanted to give some people some shoutouts and make it clear how much I'll miss everyone on the team.

Wonyoung, despite being a Celtics and Patriots fan, is also quite pleasant to be around and I very much enjoyed the tournament I played with him as well as befriending him outside of quiz bowl. He’s also very funny and a great friend, unfortunately he still gets a really small font here because this is the life he has chosen.
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by reindeer »

I’m delighted by all the posts in this thread so far—thank you all!
I realized I'm not quite done; I’d like to thank some more of my “teammates” (broadly defined) from this past whirlwind of a year. Ophir thinks through important problems carefully, all the time; I learn something new whenever I talk to him. Jaimie stepped up to a particularly difficult task with ACF Regionals and took genuine delight in the endless variety (or, sometimes, endless sameness) of the submitted questions. Kevin, Wonyoung, and the entire WORKSHOP 2021 team trusted me with new responsibilities and did fantastic work. Adam, in particular, taught me to have faith in the apparently-limitless amount of work he’s able to do before a deadline. Jordan cheerfully took on any editing task anyone asked of him, and also continues to take in stride all my unsolicited suggestions for linguistics questions. Matt (Bollinger) waded through the onslaught of comments I left in the last days of Nationals production, and turned around and wrote the kindest thank-you post to the proofreaders that I have ever seen. Alex and JinAh shepherded me into ACF and have constantly encouraged me, cheered me up, and generally been on my team. Grace is an incredible friend who has perpetually inspired me to seek joy in quizbowl and the best in myself.

I’m also profoundly grateful to everyone who has welcomed me into Yale quizbowl over the last six years, despite my ongoing uncertainty as to what a "residential college" is. I’m especially proud of the current cohort, who have persisted and flourished in the face of unprecedented challenges. Michał, as noted above, is a real connoisseur of both hard clues and dry humor, and astonishingly willing to join practice despite being many timezones away. Daniel is not only a true rising star of a quizbowl player, but is also conscientious, incisively funny, and dedicated to helping me find the right IKEA bookcase. Matt (Pecoraro) and Ben can mind-meld for mindbogglingly sparse celli clues, and have deep wells of specialized knowledge for quizbowl clues. Mauricio masterfully took up the mantle of YSAC practice emails and left an indelible mark on the art form. Hasna’s talents are too numerous to accurately summarize, but I’m perhaps most impressed by her dedication to making the world better for everyone around her—as a friend, as a writer/editor, and as a leader. And finally, Stephen has not only had a quizbowl career that wildly exceeded any reasonable expectations for the 15-year-old I met, but he has also believed in me fiercely and without hesitation, even when I did not.
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by Inscrutable Fox »

It’s a funny thing to walk away from a year of online quizbowl feeling more connected to the community, so I hope you’ll all excuse this long, sappy, and superlative-laden post.

I first want to express my appreciation for the Duke team. Jacob Egol is an incredible music player, with the added bonus of perfect pitch and experience as a top tier cellist. He’s also so earnest and hardworking, and sets such high standards for himself as a player and a leader. Payton Schubel was already a good lit player and is fast improving, in addition to excellent CS knowledge and really fun, creative answerlines as a writer. We all benefit whenever you add your opinion. Ashish Subramanian is insanely good at geography - I’ve seen him get strong buzzes across literature, history, and the arts based on it and he’ll be a force to be reckoned with in the years to come. He’s also deeply invested in improving as a writer/editor and member of the quiz bowl community, and it shows in his conversations with me and others. Jamie Wang also deserves recognition for her continual willingness to staff (online!) tournaments, even on short notice, and her eternal patience with my disorganization. Brandon Weiss always shows up, and you made me so proud in taking the initiative to organize broader outreach with a charity trivia event at Duke. Justin Zhang ’s unfathomable enthusiasm for chemistry is always a delight to see. Kevin Jiang undersells himself constantly, but he’s a calm and constant presence on an often hyperactive team. We had an especially rocky start to the season, and I especially want to thank Jacob, Jerry Lin , Billy Luqiu, and Ridge Ren for helping to hold it all together and keep me sane. Thank you all for being amazing teammates. I’m so excited to watch as you all continue to grow.

I’m also very proud of the UNC team. Daniel Cronin has impressively deep history, literature, and arts knowledge. From what I can understand of philosophy, Michael Bucknell is quite good at it. Eric Gunter is an excellent music player. Kevin Thomas is a truly exceptional myth player, who routinely outbuzzes me and everyone else. His surreal imaginings also always make for entertaining reading and conversation. Vincent Du is very very good at just about everything (and deserves your consideration in the player poll), and is so passionately curious about the things he has yet to learn. As someone with no understanding of the lit distro, I don’t think I’m doing Henry Goff justice, but he is also Good. He’s also been a pleasure to work with as the club president and does a superb job of balancing fun at practices with keeping us focused. Grant Peet deserves an extra shoutout as a strong history, world lit, and vfa player who started quizbowl in college and improved insanely quickly over the last couple of years - and he also has great taste in books. One of the best parts of online quizbowl for me has been how much easier it is to practice with you guys. Thanks for always hyping me up and being generally so positive. For someone who has spent a year watching you work together and improve, it wasn’t an upset you guys achieved at nats!

I’ve already thanked the regs editing team elsewhere, but want to reiterate what a wonderful experience it was. In particular, Jaimie Carlson is an amazing head editor and Jordan Brownstein always has such supportive feedback. I was extremely nervous jumping into editing a tournament as important as regs, and all of you helped me find confidence in my work and taught me so much about writing and editing.

I also want to thank Olivia Murton, Ryan Humphrey, and John Stathis for being pillars of sense and reassurance, and giving very good Adult advice. There was a point when I thought I didn’t want anything more to do with quizbowl, and times when I wasn’t sure I was doing more good than harm, and your support made me feel much less alone.

Hasna Karim has, per usual, already said everything I felt with such eloquence. She’s such a good biology and Islam player, and a highly creative and rigorous editor. She’s also brave in pushing continually forward, fiercely dedicated to all she does, and so much fun to be around. Thanks for being my co-conspirator in all things.
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by oops »

Davis op at math and physics fr
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by Good Goblin Housekeeping »

I think it would be tragic if quizbowl associates were not familiar with how much of a treasure Aaron Rosenberg is. While he’s gone off to bigger and better things for the most part, I am going to skip over his great work in the last with editing, PACE stuff, and him generally being a cool cat with a cooler dog (hi Drew!) to report that it is tragic that Jerry’s recording of Illinois vs Maryland A at 2014 nats is lost because not only was it a short window where I had a 100% win rate against Jordan Brownstein (subcategory non-NAQT), but also because of a tremendous moment where Aaron, upon our team receiving a bonus part on Osterns managed to divine that maybe a spaghetti western type movie set on the steppes would be called a Borscht western for a sweet 10 points
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by dni »

Everyone is sleeping on Coby Tran, the 18 year old VFA prodigy from Oregon. He's also a cracked Science Bowl player, who beat Conor Thompson on the Putnam when he mocked it at home. After leading the national powerhouse Westview High School to 27th place at ONCT, Coby burst onto the collegiate scene with an epic performance at STROT earlier this month. Pacific Northwest players beware, because Coby is going to make the circuit his new stomping grounds, and this Tran Train is not showing any signs of slowing down.
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Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by t-bar »

Now that I've successfully rendered myself no longer a Yale student, I have time to post in this thread about how great my teammates are. (Whoops!) Hasna and Olivia shouted out several deserving Yale quizbowlers upthread. In addition to cosigning everything they said, I want to offer some kudos of my own, especially for some people not yet mentioned. Hasna herself has handled every quizbowl responsibility of the past few years, no matter how reluctantly shouldered, with grace and intelligence. Jeremy Sontchi has an infectious energy for all quizbowl activities that is utterly undeterred by editors taking an axe to his BHSAT questions, and I wish him the best as he leapfrogs back across the Atlantic yet again. I've been thrilled by the enthusiasm that Arthur Delot-Vilain and Matt Siff have shown by attending several practices already, and I hope they're joined by many more first-years this fall. Alisia Pan, David Rubin, Aryan Sehgal, Sebastians Torres and Li, and Sophie Lai all bring a welcoming spirit of camaraderie to the club. Finally, I think Hasna, Daniel Sheinberg, Michał Gerasimiuk, and Matt Pecoraro probably set out for this year's ACF Nationals with a little trepidation, but they wowed me and, I hope, many others with their 19th-place finish. Look out for the returning players next year!

Mostly unrelatedly, I also had a really great time playing quizbowl again with my old teammates Neil Gurram and Anderson Wang last weekend. We first made plans to play a CO together in January 2020 (!) and I'm glad that it finally came together.
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Cheynem
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Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by Cheynem »

I'm picking ten teammates from my past that I loved and explaining what I loved about them as a teammate (if I didn't write about you, that doesn't mean I don't think you're an awesome teammate!):

1. Rob Carson is so much fun as a teammate. He has a childlike joy for quizbowl, and so it's fun seeing him get excited at your buzzes and his buzzes and when he chuckles in glee at your buzzes.

2. Andrew Hart is a teammate I sync very well with, for whatever reason. He has a generally even-keeled style that I love--even when I neg, he's not fazed and he's supportive.

3. Matt Bollinger has excellent leadership skills. He knows when a team is losing focus or needs some direction/confidence and provides that.

4. Seth Teitler is just such a calm, steady presence. You know like how in Star Trek V, Spock's half-brother can like put a hand on someone's shoulder and calm them down? That's what Seth does on teams.

5. Matt Weiner is also a steady presence. For someone who earned an Internet reputation as antagonistic, Matt is one of the calmest, relaxed players I've seen. His quick compliments also are impressive.

6. Tejas Raje is an unflappable player. When we're in crunch moments or down in big games, Tejas is always ready to buzz and usually be both very early and correct. He's great on bonuses and doesn't get too high or too low in big moments.

7. Sam Bailey is very funny as well as being unflappable. During my CO 2018 miracle team's run (a fantastic group of people), Sam was our rock, keeping us steady and offering his usual hilariously dry comments.

8. Mike Bentley is good at many aspects of the in-game game, like figuring out what bonus parts are asking for, managing time wisely, and playing at a comfortable level. I don't feel rushed playing with Mike, which is great.

9. Will Alston is very supportive as a teammate--I played with Will for the first time this weekend, and was impressed that he trusted me a lot to take the lead on bonuses, even on topics that weren't my specialty. That's very empowering for a player to see that confidence.

10. Carsten Gehring consistently enrages me by outbuzzing me to things I know very well. This makes me play better and angrier.
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota

"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
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AGoodMan
Rikku
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Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2014 10:25 pm

Re: Teammate Appreciation Thread

Post by AGoodMan »

Cheynem wrote: Sun Aug 29, 2021 11:03 pm
4. Seth Teitler is just such a calm, steady presence. You know like how in Star Trek V, Spock's half-brother can like put a hand on someone's shoulder and calm them down? That's what Seth does on teams.
I have to echo this comment about Seth. I've played only one tournament with him, when we were both on the free agent team for the Harvard mirror of TTIAC in spring 2017. It was my first college regs+ tournament and I did not contribute much for the team, yet Seth was quite supportive and did a great job of involving everyone on all bonuses (even science); I really appreciated that. He also emailed me to congratulate me when Harvard B "won" the D2 Nationals title in 2018. It's interactions like those that have kept me playing quiz bowl in college, even when I was extremely daunted by the great jump in difficulty from high school / NAQT D2.
Jon Suh
Wheaton Warrenville South High School '16
Harvard '20
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