New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by etchdulac »

Dominator wrote:When we left, Seven Lakes, Loyola, and Dorman were playing off for third (ranked in that order).
Talking to Romero, sounds like Dorman was third and Seven Lakes fourth.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by jonah »

Congratulations to IMSA A for clearing the field in the Über-Competitive Division. In second place was Auburn A; third place, Dorman; fourth place, Seven Lakes; fifth place, Loyola Academy A; and sixth place, Carbondale. Stats will be available in the next 24 hours.

Congratulations to Barrington for winning the Standard Division in a final over St. Viator A. In third place was Fenton; in fourth place was Oak Park-River Forest. Stats: preliminary rounds; playoffs; overall

David Reinstein and I would like to thank all the teams in attendance, the Maggie Walker team for providing a solid set, Fred Morlan for his suggestions regarding seeding, and the staffers: Joe Ahmad, Zach Blumenfeld, Greg Dzuricsko, Tom Egan, Brad Fischer, Laura Freymiller, Martin Funk, James Garcia, Jeff Geringer, Jack Glerum, Mark Grant, Shao-Yun Guo, Zahed Haseeb, Meghan Hickey, Hannah Hoffmann, Jordan Hoffmann, Rachel Hyman, Jonathan Irving, Danielle Long, Emma Meyer, Ali Nagib, Mike Perovanovic, Greg Peterson, David Riley, Caleb Robbins, Chris Romero, Steve Server, Robert Sido, Jeff Sommars, Kristin Strey, Donald Taylor, Mark Taylor, Jay Winter, Mike Wong, Ben Yang, and Jan Zasowski.

We appreciate all feedback on anything related to the tournament. Please post here or contact David Reinstein or me privately.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by Emil Nolde »

Order more pizza, I wanted to try the spinach.

But in all seriousness, the only slightly annoying thing was how long it took to announce the brackets for Round 2. All of the moderators were considerate of players and play moved pretty fast. Basically being a substitute for Srinivas, the tournament went as well for me as I really could have hoped for. Just aim the Kudos more carefully and it'll be really excellent.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by Dominator »

Thank you very much to David Reinstein and Jonah Greenthal for once again putting on an awesome event.

Also, thanks to all of the out-of-state teams whose presence elevated this event to the year's premier Illinois tournament. I hope your travels went well and that you enjoyed your trips.
jonah wrote:We appreciate all feedback on anything related to the tournament.
I know this is contentious, but I'm just weighing in. I do not like PPB being the sole criterion for the wildcard spots heading into the top bracket. This bothers me both in theory and practice because, all things being equal, I would have liked to play DCC yesterday. Ultimately, I feel that wins and losses are also a pretty important statistic, and so I would have preferred a record-then-PPB tiebreaker.

Of course, the much better solution is to use a set with at least 13 packets. Last year, ADVANTAGE had the problem of trying to differentiate too strong a field with too few packets, and this year the field got even stronger. If we want this event to continue drawing a national-caliber field (and we do), we need to plan for a more appropriate structure, like 4x6 mornings and 3x8 afternoons.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by jonah »

Dominator wrote:
jonah wrote:We appreciate all feedback on anything related to the tournament.
I know this is contentious, but I'm just weighing in. I do not like PPB being the sole criterion for the wildcard spots heading into the top bracket. This bothers me both in theory and practice because, all things being equal, I would have liked to play DCC yesterday. Ultimately, I feel that wins and losses are also a pretty important statistic, and so I would have preferred a record-then-PPB tiebreaker.
Noted. We will discuss this in the future.
Dominator wrote:Of course, the much better solution is to use a set with at least 13 packets. Last year, ADVANTAGE had the problem of trying to differentiate too strong a field with too few packets, and this year the field got even stronger. If we want this event to continue drawing a national-caliber field (and we do), we need to plan for a more appropriate structure, like 4x6 mornings and 3x8 afternoons.
You're absolutely right that having more packets is the best way to solve this problem. We have discussed this with the GSAC editors, indicating that we would like to continue mirroring and would also love to have more packets available, and I am optimistic that this might happen for next year. At present, I'm not aware of any quality sets that are available and have more than 12 packets.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by Stained Diviner »

To add to all of Jonah's thanks, I want to thank him for pretty much running everything this year. In addition to thanking all the teams who showed up, we want to give a special thanks to teams that traveled long distances and/or postponed Winter Break by a day to play in our tournament. Teams demonstrated a lot of class and sportsmanship in addition to answering lots of questions.

We also want to apologize to Andrew Wang and Dylan Minarik for messing up the neg prize. We announced that it was Andrew, but it actually was Dylan. (We looked in the 10 column instead of the -5 column.)
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

Jonah got the neg prize to me before the day was over, so it's fine. Other than the shame of outnegging everyone else, I guess.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by Cody »

Dominator wrote:I know this is contentious, but I'm just weighing in. I do not like PPB being the sole criterion for the wildcard spots heading into the top bracket. This bothers me both in theory and practice because, all things being equal, I would have liked to play DCC yesterday. Ultimately, I feel that wins and losses are also a pretty important statistic, and so I would have preferred a record-then-PPB tiebreaker.
Why do people keep saying this? Certainly, PPB has its flaws (enter one game slightly wrong and you could screw a team over, and, sure, 0.01 PPB means practically nothing), and, sure, there are probably better ways to determine wildcards (or preferably not have them at all), but why in the world would a record tiebreaker where teams have played completely different opponents be any fairer and why would anyone possibly think this is the case? You might as well choose your wildcard on PPG if you're going to use record and surely you understand how little sense that makes.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by Dominator »

SirT wrote:
Dominator wrote:I know this is contentious, but I'm just weighing in. I do not like PPB being the sole criterion for the wildcard spots heading into the top bracket. This bothers me both in theory and practice because, all things being equal, I would have liked to play DCC yesterday. Ultimately, I feel that wins and losses are also a pretty important statistic, and so I would have preferred a record-then-PPB tiebreaker.
Why do people keep saying this? Certainly, PPB has its flaws (enter one game slightly wrong and you could screw a team over, and, sure, 0.01 PPB means practically nothing), and, sure, there are probably better ways to determine wildcards (or preferably not have them at all), but why in the world would a record tiebreaker where teams have played completely different opponents be any fairer and why would anyone possibly think this is the case? You might as well choose your wildcard on PPG if you're going to use record and surely you understand how little sense that makes.
I don't think anybody anywhere is saying that there is a perfect statistic we can use to compare teams across brackets. However, to pretend that record is meaningless is absurd. The point of competitions is to win, not to put up the best statistics. For example, there was a team in the prelims yesterday with a 2-3 record but over 25 PPB. Although 25 PPB is impressive, a team that cannot pull a winning record should have no chance moving up (not that this team did, as advancement procedure only involved 2nd place teams within each bracket). A similar albeit much less severe example is that of Carbondale vs. DCC for the top playoff bracket. DCC lost a match to a slightly higher seed and won everything else. Carbondale lost to a lower seed. On any given Saturday, you need to win the games you need to win to advance. If you do not, there is next Saturday. Carbondale did not win those games this Saturday, but DCC did.

I am not arguing that this be the tiebreaking criterion for all tournaments, and I am particularly not making this argument for national tournaments. For geographically-diverse top-quality fields, tournament structures need to do more to ensure fairness. But for this 12-packet Saturday tournament, I feel record-then-PPB is the fairer solution.

(Oh yeah: this is nothing personal, I really like Carbondale, etc.)
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

This worked on two levels, since had Belvidere North not lost to a lower seed, we would have made the top bracket with a 4-1 record. I think Dr. Prince makes a good point that upsets can happen in any game. Did seeding consider that Carbondale was without their second best player, Srinivas? Because had he been there, the outcome of our game with Carbondale would have been different.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by jonah »

King of Carrot Flowers wrote:Did seeding consider that Carbondale was without their second best player, Srinivas?
Yes.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by Emil Nolde »

Besides, taking into account how much of a normal team we could field, and then giving us credit because Ben was basically soloing (the rest of us combined for ~10 TUs all day, I'm pretty sure our record could have been the same with just him) basically assumes that we have the divine right to a trophy, which is a total fallacy. Yeah, had Srin been there, we probably could have jumped up a couple of places, but he wasn't, and we shouldn't be treated better just because of that. That would be the quiz bowl equivalent of the Bears getting a handicap just because Cutler is out.

On the other side of the coin, DCC knew the format, and the numbers don't lie, based on said format, we got in, and they didn't. So maybe it should be changed for next year, but griping on whether or not DCC got a raw deal is not really worth it.

Besides, our performance was decent, all things considered. Dylan's team was the only lower bracket we lost to, and only by a 5-point margin. We beat Dorman, and came pretty close to beating IMSA and Loyola in the afternoon; it came down to the last tossup both times, if I remember correctly.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by pblessman »

Ditto on much of what has been said:

1. Kudos for a VERY well-run tournament, including great moderators and excellent seeding (even though the wait for the afternoon was a tad long).
2. More packets would have been good- going 3x8 and then 4x6 or vice versa would have been better for the Uebercompetitive group (but many teams in the standard division might have melted by round 11... I know our B team had some opponents with players already missing in Round 8).
3. I think there was enough pizza, I just think some people took too much... I saw at least a couple teams who took boxes and ended up having slices left over.

One thing which hasn't been addressed, is the quality of the set... we felt the questions were generally a bit easy for the Uebercompetitive bunch. We had several games with more than 10 powers between the two teams, some of which were very early first line powers on what are generally easier clues given later in the question. We also weren't a big fan of the TRASH... I'm just a bit perplexed that the national consensus has gelled so well around NO COMPUTATIONAL MATH but NO TRASH is still to be decided...
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

pblessman wrote:We also weren't a big fan of the TRASH... I'm just a bit perplexed that the national consensus has gelled so well around NO COMPUTATIONAL MATH but NO TRASH is still to be decided...
Why are you perplexed? You can write good pyramidal questions on one but not the other.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by AKKOLADE »

pblessman wrote:One thing which hasn't been addressed, is the quality of the set... we felt the questions were generally a bit easy for the Uebercompetitive bunch. We had several games with more than 10 powers between the two teams, some of which were very early first line powers on what are generally easier clues given later in the question.
More than 10 powers between top teams? My goodness, I do believe I have the vapors.
We also weren't a big fan of the TRASH... I'm just a bit perplexed that the national consensus has gelled so well around NO COMPUTATIONAL MATH but NO TRASH is still to be decided...
One you can write pyramidal questions around. The other is computational math.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by pblessman »

Fred wrote: One you can write pyramidal questions around.
I understand that. However, I can also write a pyramidal question about many things we DON'T ask about in "good quizbowl."
Fred wrote: More than 10 powers between top teams? My goodness, I do believe I have the vapors.
Absolutely... I have the "vapors." I am a Southern antebellum woman in a tight corset about to pass out because I can't handle the excitement.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by dtaylor4 »

One point that I think needs to be made about this tournament is seeing Sam Blizzard, a freshman (someone correct me if I'm wrong) average 96 PPG in the morning, including a line of 10/3/3 against Libertyville.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by the return of AHAN »

dtaylor4 wrote:One point that I think needs to be made about this tournament is seeing Sam Blizzard, a freshman (someone correct me if I'm wrong) average 96 PPG in the morning, including a line of 10/3/3 against Libertyville.
EDIT: No need for my comment as the stats are now finally up for UC...
Last edited by the return of AHAN on Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by jonah »

pblessman wrote:2. More packets would have been good- going 3x8 and then 4x6 or vice versa would have been better for the Uebercompetitive group (but many teams in the standard division might have melted by round 11... I know our B team had some opponents with players already missing in Round 8).
As already stated, I'm in agreement that more packets would've been better. I think we did the best we could have given what was available, and I hope we can do even better in the future.
pblessman wrote:One thing which hasn't been addressed, is the quality of the set... we felt the questions were generally a bit easy for the Uebercompetitive bunch. We had several games with more than 10 powers between the two teams, some of which were very early first line powers on what are generally easier clues given later in the question. We also weren't a big fan of the TRASH... I'm just a bit perplexed that the national consensus has gelled so well around NO COMPUTATIONAL MATH but NO TRASH is still to be decided...
Personally, I don't care much for trash in academic tournaments, though I don't feel that strongly about it. If we could've gotten a set with 13 or 14 packets and no trash—or even one of those—, I think we would have done so. (It's not exclusively my decision, but I suspect Reinstein would've agreed).

Incidentally, I also agree that the reasons trash is undesirable are completely different from the reasons that computational math is undesirable, and that having trash (in some reasonable amount) is much less inherently bad than having computational math.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by jonah »

23 hours and 15 minutes ago, I wrote:[Über-Competitive Division s]tats will be available in the next 24 hours.
preliminary rounds; playoff rounds; overall
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by djones »

dtaylor4 wrote:One point that I think needs to be made about this tournament is seeing Sam Blizzard, a freshman (someone correct me if I'm wrong) average 96 PPG in the morning, including a line of 10/3/3 against Libertyville.
Yes, Sam is a freshman. I think he has been the top scorer in every TU/B tournament he has played this year, so I was really interested to see how he would do against a field of this caliber and am obviously very happy with that performance. He was absolutely on fire in that first game, though I will agree with Phil that I thought some of the power marks were incredibly easy (we thought that at least a couple of those powers probably shouldn't have been). He was actually sitting at around 128 ppg through four rounds until Auburn shut him out in round 5.

We ended up 5-5 on the day and in 9th place, which is right where we finished last year with our all senior team, so I was pretty happy with the finish at the end, though our team's inexperience really showed in a couple of matches where we blew huge leads or dug huge holes we couldn't get out of. With around 95% of our points coming from two freshman, we still have some holes to fill in order to be competitive nationally.

I want to thank Jonah and David for a great tournament. We enjoy coming up every year due to how well run things are.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by the return of AHAN »

I echo the sentiments of gratitude for a well-run tournament expressed by all of the others. Our team is pleased with their win, and we'll make great hay with it with the administration. After all, the trophy says "New Trier Varsity First Place." :grin:
But I know our Barrington team did very well to escape with the first place trophy in the standard division, and we would've been destined for the bottom playoff pool in the U-C Division. Nonetheless, it was a really nice coming out party for the two freshmen playing varsity who each managed to average >20 PPG, and hopefully they're encouraged to continue to work to get better and go learn things.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by Boeing X-20, Please! »

I believe Michael from Carbondale was 1/0/0 against us, rather than 12/0/0 as a typo would indicate.

EDIT: Or 1/2/0
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by jonah »

Gus Honeybun wrote:I believe Michael from Carbondale was 1/0/0 against us, rather than 12/0/0 as a typo would indicate.

EDIT: Or 1/2/0
Fixed. I went with 1-2-0, since it's a more logical data entry error to make, and it makes Carbondale's points per bonus make sense.
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Re: New Trier Varsity: ELEGANT — 12/17/2011 (Winnetka, IL)

Post by Aaron Goldfein »

I would like to apologize to Jonah and David for the Niles West team having to drop out at the last second. It seems you were able to replace them, so I'm happy to see that you were able to clean up that mess and pull off another highly successful tournament.

Also, I think these are some of the best bracket names I have ever seen.
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