Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

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Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by bmcke »

The University of Ottawa will be hosting an SCT on February 5, 2011, for teams from Region 2 and other nearby schools.

Details
Registration starts at 9 AM, and the tournament should end by 6 PM. Headquarters are room 232 of Fauteux Hall. Games will take place in Fauteux and across the street in the Brooks building (connected by a second-floor tunnel).

Fees
$120 for a school's first team
$100 for each extra team from a school
-$20 for teams from schools new to SCT

-$20 for bringing a working buzzer system
-$5 for bringing a working game clock
-$20 for bringing an experienced staff member

Signing Up
You can register for this event on the NAQT website.

SCT will be split into separate Division I and Division II tournaments. Before signing up a team, please make sure you're familiar with the Division II criteria to see which division your team should enter.
bsmith wrote:Since all the active [Southwest] Ontario teams are, by travel distance, closer to Ottawa than Columbus, [they] would be allowed to attend the Ottawa site without even needing to get permission.
We'll keep posting details as we figure them out. If you have any concerns about this event, you can email Aaron Kozak ([email protected]),
Britney Castleman ([email protected]), or myself ([email protected]).
Last edited by bmcke on Thu Jan 13, 2011 7:11 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by MacSR »

Any teams want to maybe try and arrange a group rate at a hotel?
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by bsmith »

MacSR wrote:Any teams want to maybe try and arrange a group rate at a hotel?
Not speaking as the host, but you'd be hard-pressed to look for deals at downtown hotels when Ottawa's major winter festival is on. From my experience of the last time Ottawa hosted during the festival, any teams that needed a hotel room ended up finding one, but if you have a car, it is easier to get a hotel outside of the downtown core and drive the rest of the way in in the morning.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by bmcke »

Some notes:

- Pizza. The U of O club will be selling pizza at lunch. Pizza is a good way of making sure your club gets back from lunch on time. If your team does NOT want pizza, then let us know so we can adjust the size of our order.

- Hotels. We're pretty close to figuring out an affordable hotel deal for this tournament. Watch this space, I guess.

- Attendance. Right now we're expecting teams from Western, Queen's, Toronto, MacMaster, and Waterloo. It's no obligation, but it would help us a bit to know which other schools to expect -- ideally by those schools registering their teams. As things are, we have a capacity for 18 or 19 teams to play SCT in Ottawa.

- Buildings. SCT will take place in rooms across two different buildings, which will be connected indoors by a Secret Quizbowl Passage. I've updated the original announcement to reflect this.

[EDIT: Removed discounts workaround. Discounts are now properly available on the registration site.]
Last edited by bmcke on Thu Jan 13, 2011 7:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by Important Bird Area »

bmcke wrote:Some notes:

- Discounts. Our buzzer / clock / staff discounts are as listed above, but we managed to not properly inform NAQT of these discounts. If you are bringing any of those three things, please let us know on forums or Facebook, and we'll refund you the difference on the day of the tournament.
I will go fix this right now. Please let me know if we need to change any invoices that have already been issued.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by bmcke »

Perfect! We can check with the teams who've signed up. Thanks for the fix.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by bmcke »

Accomodations
The Embassy Hotel in Ottawa, about fifteen minutes' walk from the tournament site, is offering "executive suites" to quizzers for $150/night on February 4th and 5th. These rooms each have two double-beds and two pullout couches, so they can fit up to eight people. This is probably cheaper than the other hotel rooms in Ottawa on this weekend.

You can reserve these rooms starting Monday (January 17), when their sales department gets my fax, through January 25 (Tuesday), ten days before the event. They're "blocking" five of these rooms under the code "NAQT" for this period, but it's possible that more than five rooms would be available, or that rooms would be available after the 25th if unclaimed by the public.

You could also try to arrange room splits with other schools in the Facebook event for this tournament.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by Masked Canadian History Bandit »

Division I here is done. Toronto A won, Western was second, and Waterloo A was third. Will Nediger of Western was the top scorer, followed by Jamie Cooper of Waterloo A.

After Round 6: http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings
Prelims: http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings
Playoffs: http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by bmcke »

Div II finished at least an hour later. Guelph A wins.

D2 prelim stats
D2 final stats
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by bmcke »

Thank you list:
- Moderators. I hope this was some fun for you lot, and I appreciate a ton that you got through your rounds quickly.
- Scorekeepers. It was a long day, and I hope you weren't too bored. Thank you for writing round number and room number on every sheet.
- Jeff Hoppes, for untangling a bunch of our problems both before and during this tournament. And then especially for watching IRC when I couldn't get through on the phone.
- Joe and Patrick, for being fast at stats and reliable at packet handoffs, plus for putting up with my yelling.
- Ben, for figuring out a plan when it looked like we'd run out of packets.
- Katie, for doing great prizes and for putting all the packets in envelopes.
- Kathy, for being pizza captain and also money captain.
- Aaron, for sitting with me while I finished stats, plus for the generous loan of a stapler.
- Jon, for detective work in solving a protest dilemma.
- Britney, for booking rooms and recruiting our entire staff.
- Various Ottawa players who planned/expected to staff but were great sports about just playing in the tournament. I think it went pretty good.
- Ottawa people in general, for setting up/cleaning up rooms and reminding me to calm down.
- Dmitry, for apparently driving seven players to the tournament, even though he already graduated.

I am probably forgetting some people. There were a lot of helpful, cooperative people at this tournament. I hope it was a good time for everyone. Congrats to all those who did well; we'll see you in Chicago.

:party: :party: :party: :party: :party:

Oh, and Waterloo A were an undergraduate team; I just forgot to mark it on the stats. This means there were four UG teams in the Div I tournament.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by bsmith »

bmcke wrote:Div II finished at least an hour later. Guelph A wins.

D2 prelim stats
D2 final stats
Before the stats get shipped off to NAQT:
- Ottawa C/Mac C was entered twice (round 14)
- Queen's B/Guelph B has 0 tossups (round 11)
- Queen's A/Ottawa B has 0 tossups (round 9)

Also, thanks to all the Lisgar people that showed up, making sure there was never a staff shortage. The delays in DII were not due to staff, just a mess of tiebreaks.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by bmcke »

I'll fix those tonight, plus the UG thing and Meraj's name, before I send the files to NAQT. If anyone else has corrections, here's your ten-hour window.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by maxis7 »

Just to clarify, Toronto B was also an all-undergrad team and should be given an UG tag - this might make a difference in the top undergrad team qualifying since there were 4 such teams in the field.

I thought the tournament was a lot of fun and would like to thank Ottawa for doing a very good job at keeping things running on time - finishing Div 1 before 4:30 and having almost all games reach 20+ tossups is pretty impressive - the readers were all uniformly good.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by Important Bird Area »

maxis7 wrote:Just to clarify, Toronto B was also an all-undergrad team and should be given an UG tag - this might make a difference in the top undergrad team qualifying since there were 4 such teams in the field.
It very much does; duly noted.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by minusfive »

Just wanted to thank Brendan, Britney,Ben, Kathy, Katie, Aaron, and all the rest of the UOttawa and Ottawa HS volunteers for running a superb tournament and making sure everything ran smoothly! A truly enjoyable experience.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by Camelopardalis »

Thanks to everyone who made this tournament happen. Brendan, Britney, and the rest of the Ottawa/Lisgar teams deserve a lot of credit for making this large event run so smoothly - protests/ties were dealt with quickly, lunch was handled very efficiently, and the game rooms were great as well. Most of all, I thought that the staff did a great job communicating with the players when there were delays. As usual, we were very pleased with an Ottawa-run tournament!
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by Camelopardalis »

Oh, I forgot to add, our team does have one sort of general question relating to quizbowl rules, which arose during this tournament. It's certainly not a complaint by any means, just a matter of clarification.

Let's say the following situation occurs: in University's game against College (won by College 200-190), there is a tossup on chemistry (to avoid giving the actual answer that was involved, let's say that the answer line was "bromine"). College buzzes in during the tossup and answers "boron" (again, not the actual answer given). The moderator hears "boron", but not being totally familiar with the elements, mistakes the answer line, bromine, for boron, and awards College the tossup, who proceeded to thirty the bonus. University, lacking the x-ray vision required to know that answer line wasn't actually boron, does not protest during the game. The game proceeds as normal, with everyone thinking the game is fine.

Upon chatting with another team after the game, University finds out that the answer is actually bromine. They bring the discrepancy to the attention of the tournament staff, who quickly and politely look in to the matter. Unfortunately, they rule that because the protest was filed well after the game had ended, there is nothing they can do, and the tossup stands. Had the tossup been overturned, University would have automatically and deservedly won the game.

So I guess my question is this: shouldn't there be some sort of better rule regarding post-game protests? I mean, let's say you're playing against a team who first-lines a tossup on "Mrs. Malaprop" with the totally incorrect answer "Ms. Marple", and the moderator makes an honest mistake and rules it as correct; how are you to know that the other team is incorrect? There's no level of interpretation or "he said/she said" pronunciation - it's just a clear cut neg that is recorded as a ten that should be resolvable post-game. Does anyone have any insight on this?

Just for the record, the moderator involved was great throughout the day and this definitely isn't any sort of reflection on him - it was an honest mistake.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by Bartleby »

NAQT has posted the statistics for this tournament on their website, but they have omitted a game between UWO/Mac A, that took place in round 10. The stats for this game are definitely on SQBS.

ETA: In taking a further look at the statistics, NAQT has indicated a nine-round preliminary and a three round playoffs. This is not what transpired in Div I. There were ten preliminary-round games, and three playoff rounds, of which each team played two (six Div I teams, re-bracketed into trios, so each team had a bye during the playoffs).
Last edited by Bartleby on Tue Feb 08, 2011 4:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by Bartleby »

Camelopardalis wrote:Oh, I forgot to add, our team does have one sort of general question relating to quizbowl rules, which arose during this tournament. It's certainly not a complaint by any means, just a matter of clarification.

Let's say the following situation occurs: in University's game against College (won by College 200-190), there is a tossup on chemistry (to avoid giving the actual answer that was involved, let's say that the answer line was "bromine"). College buzzes in during the tossup and answers "boron" (again, not the actual answer given). The moderator hears "boron", but not being totally familiar with the elements, mistakes the answer line, bromine, for boron, and awards College the tossup, who proceeded to thirty the bonus. University, lacking the x-ray vision required to know that answer line wasn't actually boron, does not protest during the game. The game proceeds as normal, with everyone thinking the game is fine.

Upon chatting with another team after the game, University finds out that the answer is actually bromine. They bring the discrepancy to the attention of the tournament staff, who quickly and politely look in to the matter. Unfortunately, they rule that because the protest was filed well after the game had ended, there is nothing they can do, and the tossup stands. Had the tossup been overturned, University would have automatically and deservedly won the game.

So I guess my question is this: shouldn't there be some sort of better rule regarding post-game protests? I mean, let's say you're playing against a team who first-lines a tossup on "Mrs. Malaprop" with the totally incorrect answer "Ms. Marple", and the moderator makes an honest mistake and rules it as correct; how are you to know that the other team is incorrect? There's no level of interpretation or "he said/she said" pronunciation - it's just a clear cut neg that is recorded as a ten that should be resolvable post-game. Does anyone have any insight on this?

Just for the record, the moderator involved was great throughout the day and this definitely isn't any sort of reflection on him - it was an honest mistake.
That's definitely a tricky situation. If the difference in the actual question was as clear-cut as bromine/boron, then obviously it should have been a neg; this is not an ambiguous situation. You're also right that because you can't see the answer lines as a playing team, that you'd have no way of knowing. What I don't know is how to resolve a situation like this. Would you re-play one toss-up/bonus between the two teams? What if neither team knew the answer to the substitution toss-up? That sounds like a quagmire to me.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by bmcke »

I consulted NAQT on that protest; their ruling (that it was too late) was consistent with their official rules.

The missing game was just a goof in the stats file I sent to NAQT; I'm told they'll add it in before they calculate D-values. The prelims/playoffs issue looks like it's been fixed by now.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by Camelopardalis »

bmcke wrote:I consulted NAQT on that protest; their ruling (that it was too late) was consistent with their official rules.
Oh, I'm certainly not implying that you made the wrong decision; like I said above, I thought all protests were dealt with perfectly. I'm just wondering if the possibility of situations like these might suggest that perhaps there ought to be a different rule.
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Re: Region 2 SCT at Ottawa (February 5, 2011)

Post by Masked Canadian History Bandit »

Camelopardalis wrote:
bmcke wrote:I consulted NAQT on that protest; their ruling (that it was too late) was consistent with their official rules.
Oh, I'm certainly not implying that you made the wrong decision; like I said above, I thought all protests were dealt with perfectly. I'm just wondering if the possibility of situations like these might suggest that perhaps there ought to be a different rule.
I can see why you don't want teams protesting after the game is done and complete, but surely there should be exceptions for when the teams would've had no idea that the other side got undeserved points (i.e. other team buzzes in with incorrect answer really early in the question, and is deemed correct). In this specific case, I remember when doing stats, that it would've affected the outcome of the game, and reduced the need for time-consuming tiebreaker rounds in Div. II.
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