Duke Academic Festival 2005

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Duke Academic Festival 2005

Post by snhou »

Here's the full announcement - to clear up any and all confusion, it will be held on the February 19, 2005

The Duke Academic Festival will be held on February 19, 2005 on Duke's East Campus. Registration should be sent by e-mail to the tournament director at [email protected] by February 10.

The entry fee is $95 for the first team of four to six students, with additional teams at $65. Buzzer discounts of $20 (each) are available to all teams with an additional early registration fee discount of $10 if the first team is registered by January 15. A moderator discount of $30 will also be given for each person needed to work reading for the tournament. The minimum fee is $25. Checks may be submitted on-site and addressed to Duke College Bowl.

The format, like last year, will be modified PACE format, with 10 tossups with related 2-part bonus, 10-item worksheet, and 10 tossups with 3-part bonus. The questions will be written in-house. The Duke Academic Festival traditionally draws a strong field and has proven to be good preparation for PACE Nationals, and for the past two years the winner of the Duke Academic Festival has gone on to win PACE Nationals. We would like to cap the field at 48 teams.

Thank you for your consideration, and we look forward to seeing you in February.
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Early Registration

Post by snhou »

Just a reminder that the early registration deadline of January 15 is fast approaching for the Duke Academic Festival on February 19.

We would love to see you there.
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Post by snhou »

Because January 15 falls on MLK Weekend, I'm extending the early bird registration discount until Monday, January 24. From the registrations so far, it looks like we'll have a strong field this year.
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Results in brief

Post by First Chairman »

Playoffs
#5 Thomas Jefferson C 290 - #4 275 Raleigh Charter A
#3 TJ B 335 - 150 #6 Maggie Walker B

Semifinals
#1 TJ A 535 - 60 TJ C
#2 MW GS A 260 - 245 TJ B

Championship
TJ A 425 - 130 MW GS A

Consolation placements
#7 Spotswood B
#8 Fort Mill
#9 Raleigh Charter B
#10 Salisbury
#11 Scotland
#12 TJ D
#13 Spotswood A
#14 Richmond Senior (left early)
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Post by vcuEvan »

Very... Virginiaish...

1. TJ A
2. Gov A
3. TJ B
4. TJ C
5. Gov B

Gongratulations on fabulous upsets to TJ C for beating Raleigh Charter A and to TJ D for beating TJ B in the prelims
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Post by DumbJaques »

Was RC missing people?
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Post by pakman044 »

Actually, the fifth place spot was tied with Maggie Walker B and Raleigh Charter A. There was no fifth place game to break that tie.

The stats will probably be available eventually, but from what I remember, one of the score sheets was missing so the stats will be slightly inaccurate.

There was another competition in North Carolina today, High IQ Bowl in Greensboro (for North Carolina schools only); I had heard from someone I know that Raleigh Charter wasn't there, but until I get the official stats from that event I won't know for sure (unless someone actually tells me).

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Random notes

Post by jbarnes112358 »

Was the consolation game for 5th place not played because the TD did not want to read it, or because RC A chose to not play it? I know MWGS B was there and ready to play it.

I am not sure if RC A was at full strength or not. But regardless, RC A is one of the best teams we have seen this year. In a tournament like this, with short games and hard questions, upsets become more likely. In any case, this tournament certainly helps to solidify TJ's reputation. We already knew TJ A was perhaps the most powerful HS quiz bowl team that ever existed and that TJ B was also a national power. Now we have to worry about TJ C and TJ D. What an amazing quiz bowl program TJHSST has developed!

It is a shame more NC teams could not be present. I wonder why NCSSM was not there. They could have just walked down the street.

Despite their finish and record on the day, I was very impressed with Fort Mill. MWGS A had to scratch and claw their way back from a big deficit to beat them by the slimest of margins. We were able to win only because Mark has a copy of the world atlas hard wired in his grey matter.

Spotswood apparently flipped their A and B teams. I suppose this was for strategic reasons.
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Post by snhou »

RC A wanted to go home. That's why the second semifinal was delayed when I had to switch RC's buzzers out.

From what their coach told me, NCSSM has an interim between-semesters period when most of their students are not on campus.

Congratulations to TJ and apologies for any unevenness in the questions. Next time, I'll try not to lose 80% complete sets twice in the span of 48 hours.
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Post by pakman044 »

jbarnes112358 wrote:It is a shame more NC teams could not be present.
I'm not extremely surprised by the turnout from NC teams. High IQ Bowl probably drew a number of teams that might have come this year to that event, especially since they can offer $cholar$ship$ to the first and second place teams.

I also think that some students might just be too busy in February to add one more event. Most Science Olympiad regionals are this month (although more and more of those are being held in March), and PLQB Regionals went through the first two weeks this month, so for *most* NC teams that will take a weekend out too. I personally wish that more events were held in January and March rather than in February, where it's just so loaded up; however, I also know how difficult it is to make these events happen as is, which might be harder when you're coming back from winter break in January or have spring break to contend with in March.

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Post by First Chairman »

Certainly it's possible for us to consider moving the tournament into January. I'd personally want to avoid March since apparently basketball tournament time makes students very crazy (or maybe that's just midterms).

If you would like to see the comp moved up to end of January for example, this would be a good time to discuss it. The only drawback is that room reservation procedures here would have us scramble around like crazy since we could not reserve rooms until the semester of our event. Yeah... you think our room situation is scary now... I don't know how the people who ran the tournament on MLK weekend (in the years after I immediately graduated) could do it.
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Post by rchschem »

Raleigh Charter was at 75%; our russian lit expert was out. They still shouldn't have missed that Master and Margarita question, especially when we've missed it in competition a number of times before and one of our coaches has a degree in Russian Lit.

No excuses, though--a beatin's a beatin'. It's tough to take after getting knocked out of Public Library quiz Bowl in the first round (since we are defending state champs and all, but if they ever get that conflict with Science Olympiad figured out we might have another chance). Just when you hope that TJ's seniors will finally graduate they just reload, and now we're seeing 2 more years of it! Arrrggh.

We opted out of Hi-IQ because we didn't have 4 seniors to rub together; maybe next year we'll have a complement. Feburary is murder, especially on us. 5 of our 8 top quiz bowl players are also top science olympiad team members, so we get burned there. March is totally open, though, to any of you thinking about scheduling tournaments in the future.

Full disclosure: I wasn't at Duke, so all I have is hearsay to go on.

Thanks, John, for the nice words.

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Post by NRScout98 »

Spotswood apparently flipped their A and B teams. I suppose this was for strategic reasons.
They did indeed. Does anyone know why?
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Post by rchschem »

E.T. Chuck wrote:Certainly it's possible for us to consider moving the tournament into January. I'd personally want to avoid March since apparently basketball tournament time makes students very crazy (or maybe that's just midterms).
I've been trying for 3 years to get the Wake County Public Library to move their regional PLQB qualifying rounds to the last week of January so we can finally avoid the conflict with Science Olympiad Regionals. There are so few tournaments in NC that I'd rather not have to opt out of the DAF. Wake is supposedly on board now; while they may not go with the end of January they are committed to not scheduling on the same date as SO regionals.

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Post by snhou »

They did indeed. Does anyone know why?
Spotswood A was slotted into the same division as TJ A. Spostwood B was in the same division as TJB and Raleigh Charter A. They probably figured that TJ A was unbeatable and instead of going for a safer #2 slot in the division decided to take a chance and go for a #1.
The only drawback is that room reservation procedures here would have us scramble around like crazy since we could not reserve rooms until the semester of our event.
A quick summary of the conversation I had with the woman who takes these reservations in November.

Her: We don't allow reservations until the semester of the event.
Me: Not any? What if I'm running an event on the first weekend?
Her: Well, you'd have to show up early then and do it. Especially if there are more than one group.
Me: So you're saying you want me to tent for room reservations?
Her: Well if you put it that way...
Me: So how do sororities manage to reserve space for rush over Winter Break?
Her: They reserve space through Residential Life, not OSAF.
Me: Yeah, but they get the BC also.
Her: That's conference services. Again, another office. Panhel acts as a liaison for each group that acts further up to the administration to Larry Moneta which then works with the various offices before finally coming back to us.

Then again, it's not like the situation could get much worse, with their overbooking the building, arbitrarily not opening up access to rooms that they say we'll have until 4 hours after they say we'll have them, etc.

I'd personally want to avoid March since apparently basketball tournament time makes students very crazy (or maybe that's just midterms).
Well, the last day of tenting, personal check day, isn't the most ideal on the basketball front either. As for midterms, I had two on the 17th, one on the 15th, and the last one tomorrow. In summary, I'd actually prefer March.
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Post by jewtemplar »

snhou wrote:
They did indeed. Does anyone know why?
Spotswood A was slotted into the same division as TJ A. Spostwood B was in the same division as TJB and Raleigh Charter A. They probably figured that TJ A was unbeatable and instead of going for a safer #2 slot in the division decided to take a chance and go for a #1.
This type of thing is one reason why I think publishing brackets in advance is a bad idea. It reduces flexibility on the part of the tournament staff in responding to no shows (for instance, cross-bracket matches would have been much appreciated; our bracket only contained four teams--it was a long trip for a total of 3 prelim and 2 playoff matches on 80% rounds, however high the question quality), and it encourages unsportsmanlike idiocy on the part of teams who want to gain an advantage. While it's a nice idea in principle, it unfortunately conflicts with the reality of qb tournaments.
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Post by jbarnes112358 »

Well, MWGS B only got to play 4 games! ( with the bye and RC's early departure.)

In general, we like the questions and level of competition at the Duke tournament. But, we have come to expect the unexpected there. Last year seemed to go fine. But, the year before had the weather-induced madness, and the year (ot two) before that, if I recall correctly, was an even greater snafu with rooms than this year.

Back to the Spotswood "strategy": I should be greatful, I suppose, since it made MWGS B's path to the playoffs easier. But, it wasn't very nice to the teams in the bracket they joined. The strategy probably backfired anyway. Sure, losing to TJ A was a given. But, beating MWGS B and going for a wildcard berth was probably going to be easier than beating RC A or TJ B to go for a wild card. I guess they figured differently. Actually, I thought the TD did a good job balancing the brackets, though any bracket that contains TJ A is going to look scary.
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Post by mzirkle »

Spotswood played the way the students wanted to play in preparation for next year. Our "B" team may be our "A" team next year and we decided to try to let them be our "A" team. We decided to put them in a bracket where they could face tougher teams and develop confidence in their abilities. We consider it a rather exciting achievement that they scored well against other teams of much tougher competition. Besides, our team has played against MWGS and TJ and we wanted our other team to have that experience as well. We wanted to play for fun and not for placement in the playoff brackets. We wanted this to be a warm-up for states.
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Post by STPickrell »

iambusyeating wrote:Very... Virginiaish...

1. TJ A
2. Gov A
3. TJ B
4. TJ C
5. Gov B

Gongratulations on fabulous upsets to TJ C for beating Raleigh Charter A and to TJ D for beating TJ B in the prelims
I for one have no problem with this.

Were any VA teams aside from Spotswood, TJ and Walker in attendance?
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Post by NRScout98 »

Richmond Senior was from Virginia as well.
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Post by jbarnes112358 »

I thought Richmond Senior was from Rockingham, NC
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Post by jbarnes112358 »

Eight of the 14 teams were from VA. One was from SC (Fort Mill) . Five were from NC. TJHSST, MLWGS, and Spotswood were the only Virginia schools.
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Post by NRScout98 »

Forgive me, you're correct.
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Post by pakman044 »

Stats are now available at:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~paking/daf2005/

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Post by crackerwithak »

I love the Top Gun aliases for the players on TJ A, especially Rabbi, which may be the most obscure reference of all time. Wasn't that the pilot name of one of the film's technical advidors?
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