Results: NAQT Mid-Atlantic at George Mason (2/10/07)

Zip Zap Rap Pants · Post by **Zip Zap Rap Pants** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:31 am

Thanks for the link. Wow, I'm sorry, but that's hella bullshit, way to quit on question writing NAQT. As a TD for an IS-66 tournament to be held on March 3rd, this makes me nervous, but I'll just have to pray that no one blabs...

EDIT: Whoops, it's March 3rd, not March 10th, don't want to make anyone panic. That was the tired talking...

Matt Weiner · Post by **Matt Weiner** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:32 am

Matt Morrison wrote:Thanks for the link. Wow, I'm sorry, but that's hella bullshit, way to quit on question writing NAQT. As a TD for an IS-66 tournament to be held on March 10th, this makes me nervous, but I'll just have to pray that no one blabs...

Don't worry, the system has only failed eighteen or nineteen times before.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 9:41 am

Damn... that would be quite upsetting.

Okay... working on schedule as dictated before:

Everyone has a RR, followed by bracketted playoff groups of 4 or 3. Efforting that today.

Byko · Post by **Byko** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 12:14 pm

One more note regarding clocks:

I have not yet received the package (darn FedEx and their policies of requiring signatures for deliveries even when the sender doesn't require them), but I believe we will have 15 clocks in our possession by the end of today. I'll confirm this later tonight. If this is the case, we won't need additional clocks as was referenced earlier.

Zip Zap Rap Pants · Post by **Zip Zap Rap Pants** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:19 pm

Dr. Chuck,

If you wanted rosters:
Mohammad Torabinejad
Matt Morrison
Misha Bernstein
Ben Cassell
Sean Walsh

Too bad NAQT frowns upon alternate name schemes, I was going to go with Top Gun characters, but then some TJ kids would probably send death threats...

Oh and our buzzer system is having an issue we hope to get resolved in the next couple days. One buzzer at the very end periodically doesn't work, and no it's not a loose connection, as far as we can tell. At worst 1 buzzer out of 8 won't be totally reliable.

By the way I'm assuming there will be trophies for 1st-3rd in D2? This normally isn't important to me, but as a new club trying to gain some attention, reliable recruits, and possibly funding for next year, it does mean something for us if we wind up with say 3rd because at least it's something we can show our student activities office.

Darren was glad to hear from you, he should show up for us for VCU's tournament, so maybe some Duke reunion will go down (which is pretty disgusting to me as a UNC guy, but y'all can wallow in Dukie Decadence if you like

).

BuzzerZen · Post by **BuzzerZen** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:26 pm

Actually, anyone who wants to submit a roster in advance should send it to me at buzzinearly <at sign I hate spam> gmail <period> com. I'm going to be reading, and I convinced Dr. Chuck to use Taft for stats.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:32 pm

Well, you can use alternative names, but we need your real names too.

Also, please note members who are undergraduates (F, So, Jr, Sr) or graduate students (G). Obviously make it clear which team is which (D1Open, D1UG, D2) with appropriate designations (A, B, C).

Post by **DumbJaques** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 2:25 pm

Wait, Evan, question. From what I saw of your system, doesn't it not calculate useful things, like 10s, 15s, -5s, and how individual scoring worked out per round? I found myself having to reverse engineer when a players tossups-negs happened. Will those things be rectified (since in other respects your system seems better)?

BuzzerZen · Post by **BuzzerZen** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 2:44 pm

I've probably worked on it a lot since you last saw it. It now pretty much duplicates all the information provided by SQBS.

Post by **DumbJaques** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 2:52 pm

Cool. Just keep in mind that NAQT uses that secret statistical formula to compute who gets bids, so you might be at a disadvantage not knowing if you're leaving something out they look at. I'd like to see your system used more, hopefully that won't be an issue.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:24 pm

Oh also, Evan...

We have to figure out things related to computer power.... do you have a laptop or want me to reserve one?

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:36 pm

Five clocks are coming down with Dwight, so that alleviates some of the need for timers.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:51 pm

Intended timeline:

I'd like to have us start by 9:30-9:45 am if at all possible. If you are taking any of the CUE buses from Vienna/Fairfax-GMU metro:

CUE Green 1 leaves Metro at 8:02 AM, arriving at Mason at 8:30 AM; 9:07 AM, arrives at Mason at 9:35 AM.

CUE Gold 1 leaves Metro at 8:25 AM, arriving at Mason at 8:45 AM

CUE Green 2 leaves Metro at 8:25 AM, arriving at Mason at 8:57 AM.

The goal is to be complete by 6:00 pm, so people can make the buses back to Metro with plenty of time.

Matt Weiner · Post by **Matt Weiner** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:05 pm

E.T. Chuck wrote:I'd like to have us start by 9:30-9:45 am if at all possible.

Is this the meeting or Round 1?

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:09 pm

I pray R1. I have to decide whether I want to preset the schedule and just get us started, or we "wait" until everyone shows. I'd rather not wait. If there's a meeting it's a staff meeting to be sure all the staff knows where to go and what to do.

The short meeting that would be had is to be sure we knew which rooms are assigned and go with those. Otherwise, do I have to go over rules with the players? Maybe with the staff... but hopefully not everyone else.

As for rooms, I have 8 of the 12 I've asked... hopefully I'll find out the other 4 rooms.

Location: Krug Hall. At least we have that established for now.

Review the Brief rules document.

ArloLyle · Post by **ArloLyle** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 9:17 pm

Matt Weiner wrote: On that note: the NAQT site lists IS-66 as being used last week at the "Bulldog Brawl" which it seems at least some members of the UGA team staffed at, as per http://www.hsquizbowl.org/phpBB2/viewto ... 4646#44646 . This could cause some major problems should such teams participate in SCT (as "2 to 3" D2 Georgia teams are listed as doing according to the latest UTC update) but at this point I've totally exhausted my energy for ferreting out whether this is yet another massive NAQT screwup or just an error on NAQT's website, so someone else will have to look into it.

I was the only current member of the UGA team who read at the Bulldog Brawl. All the rest of the people listed in the post you linked are either faculty members of UGA or merely enrolled at UGA. I am a graduate student and besides that have played in two ICTs, so I am very much DI. The overlap between questions in IS-66 and SCT D2 was noted beforehand, but it did not apply to any of the people at the tournament. None of the questions from the tournament have been or will be discussed with any member of our D2 teams. Thanks for your concern.

Matt Weiner · Post by **Matt Weiner** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 9:20 pm

ArloLyle wrote:I was the only current member of the UGA team who read at the Bulldog Brawl. All the rest of the people listed in the post you linked are either faculty members of UGA or merely enrolled at UGA. I am a graduate student and besides that have played in two ICTs, so I am very much DI. The overlap between questions in IS-66 and SCT D2 was noted beforehand, but it did not apply to any of the people at the tournament. None of the questions from the tournament have been or will be discussed with any member of our D2 teams. Thanks for your concern.

I'm glad that you guys are conscientious enough to make arrangements for these things on your own, but it speaks ill of NAQT that they just sent the questions that will be used at SCT out for use at a different event a week ago. Some teams are notably less scrupulous, plus innocent mistakes happen.

My problem is not with Georgia (anymore!) but with NAQT for relying on this lazy method of producing the D2 SCT despite the multiple sorts of problems it causes. For one example, what if this tournament needed more staffers, but you had to keep your D2 members home for question security purposes?

Byko · Post by **Byko** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 9:36 pm

Byko wrote:One more note regarding clocks:

I have not yet received the package (darn FedEx and their policies of requiring signatures for deliveries even when the sender doesn't require them), but I believe we will have 15 clocks in our possession by the end of today. I'll confirm this later tonight. If this is the case, we won't need additional clocks as was referenced earlier.

We can confirm having 16 clocks and batteries in hand ready to go for Saturday.

dschafer · Post by **dschafer** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:14 pm

Matt Morrison wrote:I was going to go with Top Gun characters, but then some TJ kids would probably send death threats.

Seeing as how Princeton and UNC are both coming, you might have two of that particular team there. With that in mind, I actually think it'd be rather funny if you did it.

wwellington · Post by **wwellington** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:19 pm

Dan won't be there (I doubt he'd care much anyway).

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 1:36 pm

We are meeting in Krug Hall, right now I think we'll be in Room 19 or Room 7 (close by). It's in the basement of Krug within close walking distance of the CUE bus stop. The other building we are using will be Robinson A, and we'll explain that later. Please wear comfortable shoes.

If you could be there by around 9am so we can try to get our act together by 9:30, it would be appreciated.

If you are driving, lots are still active until 3pm on Saturday, so I recommend parking in the Mason Pond parking garage, which is also relatively close to where the event is going to be held.

There does not seem to be an anticipated reason for the campus to be closed due to weather.

Your Genial Quizmaster · Thu Feb 08, 2007 12:29 am

Matt wrote:

I'm glad that you guys are conscientious enough to make arrangements for these things on your own, but it speaks ill of NAQT that they just sent the questions that will be used at SCT out for use at a different event a week ago. Some teams are notably less scrupulous, plus innocent mistakes happen.

My problem is not with Georgia (anymore!) but with NAQT for relying on this lazy method of producing the D2 SCT despite the multiple sorts of problems it causes. For one example, what if this tournament needed more staffers, but you had to keep your D2 members home for question security purposes?

If it helps to clarify things any, here's what I know: Robin Richards, who runs the Bulldog Brawl, is no longer associated with the UGA program. Back in December, I noticed that the IS-66 questions were scheduled for use at the Bulldog Brawl on 2/3 and the NAQT 2-year school tournaments on 2/10. (I didn't realize they were also being used in the SCT Div. II set -- maybe I just missed that.) When I spotted the potential conflict, e-mailed Robin to make sure he knew not to ask area juco players to help at Bulldog Brawl. He told me that NAQT had told him about the issue in October when the arrangements were made, and that he didn't expect to need any help from current collegians.

Still, Matt's point is well taken. I was once burned by an extremely unlikely glitch with question security. Many years ago we had a high school tournament one week after COTKU and cherrypicked the easiest COTKU questions to make up four high school rounds. I made sure to announce this to all the COTKU teams right before the tournament so they'd know not to share the questions. Two players from one team arrived late, a few minutes after that announcement. That team bought a set of the packets, and one of those two guys took them to his high school in the Atlanta area that week for practice. Naturally, that was the one team in the Atlanta area that came to our tournament. And naturally, that was the last time we used overlapping questions in a tournament. (We do use recycled trash tossups at high school tournaments for an exhibition all-trash round while we compile stats & set playoff brackets.)

I'm confident that the Bulldog Brawl overlap won't affect this weekend's SCT. Still, I'm going to recommend to NAQT that if they must use overlapping questions for the SCT, they make sure the SCT gets them first. One thing I respect about NAQT is that they do take feedback seriously and often make the recommended changes; I hope this will be such a case.

BuzzerZen · Post by **BuzzerZen** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 10:15 pm

Remember, sending me your roster in advance will save up to forty-five seconds on Saturday!

Mike Bentley · Post by **Mike Bentley** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 11:16 pm

BuzzerZen wrote:Remember, sending me your roster in advance will save up to forty-five seconds on Saturday!

Well in that case...

Maryland A:
Michael Bentley
Brittany Clark
Casey Retterer
Jonathan Magin

I'll leave it to Chris to post the Maryland B roster, as I don't know if he's found a fourth player yet or not.

dschafer · Post by **dschafer** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 11:46 pm

From what Evan said when I talked to him over IM, I think class status for undergrads would also be helpful.

Red-necked Phalarope · Thu Feb 08, 2007 11:50 pm

I'll save Sara a few seconds here:

UNC-
Sara Garnett
Brice Russ
Michael Buchanan
Graham Rowe

wwellington · Post by **wwellington** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:06 am

if you really need class status, for UNC it's sophomore, junior, sophomore, junior (in the above order).

ramlrasul · Post by **ramlrasul** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:30 am

If you need class status for Maryland A:
Michael Bentley(Jr)
Brittany Clark(Jr)
Casey Retterer(Sr)
Jonathan Magin (Jr)

Matt Weiner · Post by **Matt Weiner** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:56 am

Tom, any final word on the format?

VCU roster:
Matt Weiner (G)
Andrew Alexander (So)
Vinod Kondragunta (So)
Haris Niaz (Fr)

I'd also like to request that our statkeeper misspell Leo Wolpert's name in some sort of hilarious and improbable fashion, so as to maintain his streak of such indignity at various quizbowl tournaments.

The Time Keeper · Post by **The Time Keeper** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 3:59 pm

Matt Weiner wrote:I'd also like to request that our statkeeper misspell Leo Wolpert's name in some sort of hilarious and improbable fashion, so as to maintain his streak of such indignity at various quizbowl tournaments.

I'm going to be extremely disappointed if the stats page doesn't show the scoring prowess of "Leo Wolpoop" or "Leo Wetpert"

Rothlover · Post by **Rothlover** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:08 pm

Dolemite wrote:
Matt Weiner wrote:I'd also like to request that our statkeeper misspell Leo Wolpert's name in some sort of hilarious and improbable fashion, so as to maintain his streak of such indignity at various quizbowl tournaments.
I'm going to be extremely disappointed if the stats page doesn't show the scoring prowess of "Leo Wolpoop" or "Leo Wetpert"

My money is on "Leo Westbrook."

wwellington · Post by **wwellington** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:17 pm

I'm going to be extremely disappointed if the stats page doesn't show the scoring prowess of "Leo Wolpoop" or "Leo Wetpert"

"Wolpoop" is my favorite.

Snoopy17 · Post by **Snoopy17** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:22 pm

We have had someone cancel from coming to the tournament, we would like to consolidate to 2 div 2 teams.
Thank you,
Sarah Mahood
Virginia Tech

Post by **DumbJaques** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 8:42 pm

Man, it's a good thing nobody did a last minute drop Friday night!

Anyway, we couldn't dig up a 4th person, so it's just:

Maryland B (Div II)

Chris Ray (Fr)
Zach Hommer (So)
Jeremy Eaton (Fr)

And I vote for "Wartpert"

Zip Zap Rap Pants · Post by **Zip Zap Rap Pants** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 10:22 pm

Snoopy17 wrote:We have had someone cancel from coming to the tournament, we would like to consolidate to 2 div 2 teams.
Thank you,
Sarah Mahood
Virginia Tech

If this had been known earlier (like Wednesday), I might have been able to rustle up enough people to justify a second W&M team, but it would have been super ragtag and just to keep the nice 12-team number and prevent anyone from having byes. Almost the exact same thing happened with VT at SVU, didn't it? Ah well, you can't force people to come to tournaments, unfortunately, unless you hold people hostage as Dr. Chuck suggested I do on the first page of this thread.

Zip Zap Rap Pants · Post by **Zip Zap Rap Pants** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 10:36 pm

By the way I think we fixed our buzzer system.

If the field is indeed 11 and 11, will it be possible to have the Div II team that has a bye play the Div I team that has a bye, for exhibition purposes (and for shytes and giggles)?

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:55 pm

Matt Weiner wrote:Tom, any final word on the format?

VCU roster:
Matt Weiner (G)
Andrew Alexander (So)
Vinod Kondragunta (So)
Haris Niaz (Fr)

I'd also like to request that our statkeeper misspell Leo Wolpert's name in some sort of hilarious and improbable fashion, so as to maintain his streak of such indignity at various quizbowl tournaments.

After seeing VT's post to consolidate... Format is single RR with playoff subgroup RR as suggested by NAQT (4,4,3 for D1; 4,4,3 for D2).

The schedule I have set up is totally "abstract", so no teams or rooms are actually "assigned." So when you all come in, you'll get assigned your number. No fancy stuff.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:59 pm

Matt Morrison wrote:If the field is indeed 11 and 11, will it be possible to have the Div II team that has a bye play the Div I team that has a bye, for exhibition purposes (and for shytes and giggles)?

I guess it could be possible except we couldn't figure out which set of questions to read for you. DK might be able to advise on that situation.

Post by **DumbJaques** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:59 pm

But now div II only has 11 teams.

THE UNIVERSE IS WRONG AGAIN.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 12:00 am

Yeah yeah... I changed it after reading Sarah's post.

Leo Wolpert · Post by **Leo Wolpert** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 12:17 am

Matt Morrison wrote:By the way I think we fixed our buzzer system.

If the field is indeed 11 and 11, will it be possible to have the Div II team that has a bye play the Div I team that has a bye, for exhibition purposes (and for shytes and giggles)?

Bad idea. 2002 ICT Valencia incident.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 12:19 am

Leo Wolpert wrote:
Matt Morrison wrote:By the way I think we fixed our buzzer system.

If the field is indeed 11 and 11, will it be possible to have the Div II team that has a bye play the Div I team that has a bye, for exhibition purposes (and for shytes and giggles)?
Bad idea. 2002 ICT Valencia incident.

Okay... good point and memory.

And I suppose we have to sequester D1 and D2 teams from listening in on each other's games on byes.

Zip Zap Rap Pants · Post by **Zip Zap Rap Pants** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:17 am

Couldn't we compete on some other question set, like old sectionals? I don't know, maybe it's better to just watch anyway, so as to avoid negging with an answer that's already come up and looking like a complete buffoon.

vandyhawk · Post by **vandyhawk** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:17 am

NAQT fixed the problem of overlapping questions appearing in different rounds for DI and DII, so that should be fine, unless there's some other reason there was the 2002 incident?

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:12 pm

Short results from Fairfax:

D1 champion: Virginia Commonwealth University.
D1 undergraduate: Princeton B
D2 champion: Maryland B

I have statistics available in PDF format, which I'll try to post shortly.

Top scorers:
D1 open: Matt Weiner (VCU)
D1 undergraduate: Jonathan Magin (Maryland A)
D2: Chris Ray (Maryland B)

Thank you to all the people who helped at today's events, and all the students for participating. It was great to see everyone competing, and I hope those of you who did not automatically qualify will get a chance to play in Minnesota.

BuzzerZen · Post by **BuzzerZen** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:13 pm

Statistics are available at http://e.mrow.org/demo/

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:17 pm

Thanks, Evan!

We got a few other bugs identified through beta-testing, and I think that with a few other suggestions, this program can work really well.

I also have prelim-only statistics on PDF which I have sent to Craig.

Post by **DumbJaques** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:37 pm

Uh, unless I'm mistaken, there seems to be no way to access an easy view of a teams performance in a specific game (you have to look at individual scores and add them up, then combine this with the main team stat page). This is really annoying since it involves clicking on like 5 different things just to view how performances, powers, negs, bonus conversion, etc. broke down game by game. Upgradeable?

Edit: Also, the individual points broken down on each game are incorrectly totaled, counting powers as tens. This doesn't seem to factor into the final ppg, which appear accurate.

BuzzerZen · Post by **BuzzerZen** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:48 pm

Yeah, Chris, that is definitely addable. I can't imagine it would take more than half an hour, tops. I'll work on it today or tomorrow. I'll look into the math error you mentioned. [edit: That is now fixed.]

If anybody else has bug reports for the statistics system, e-mail me. Don't bother with feature requests, because I've probably thought of it and plan on adding it.

Post by **DumbJaques** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:55 pm

That was some crazy ass response time. Nice.

On a non-comp sci note, congratulations to Virginia Tech for their strong day. I found the div 2 packets to be decently harder than last year's div 2 sectionals, and found some of the playoff rounds to have some decently difficult answer selection and clues. All in all, I was pleased at the set being notably not IS level.

EDIT: No, not really. No edit.