RESULTS: TJIAT 07 (10/13/07) at Thomas Jefferson HS

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RESULTS: TJIAT 07 (10/13/07) at Thomas Jefferson HS

Post by kpillai »

Hi all, I'm Keshav from TJ, and I'm pleased to announce that TJ will be hosting our invitational tournament on the 13th of October 2007.
This tournament is regular-season, with NAQT questions (our house-written tournament should be early next year, stay tuned). We usually get quite a large field and plenty of play for any team that wishes to come. More details will be posted at a later time.

Keshav Pillai
Last edited by kpillai on Sun Oct 14, 2007 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by gonzagaeagleahy »

That sucks. Gonzaga's not going to be able to make it cause that's our first taping date.
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Post by DumbJaques »

You could always pull a Blair and show up for your third round (I'd hope the TD would be willing to put you in 2nd bracket). Considering their alternating round structure and the fact that you usually only need a 3-2 record to make playoffs, I'd say it's very doable. Cmon puma/leahy, be hardcore.
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Post by gonzagaeagleahy »

Based on the list, though, we're probably gonna be one of the later tapings, which does not bode well for trying to do both.
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Post by Byko »

gonzagaeagleahy wrote:Based on the list, though, we're probably gonna be one of the later tapings, which does not bode well for trying to do both.
Yep--looks like the last taping of the day according to http://itsac.aiquizbowl.com. That's unfortunate. What I'm curious about is how come it isn't on the first Saturday of October this year like in years past (especially with the 13th being a taping date that would also take out Hayfield, Marshall, and Falls Church).
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Post by aestheteboy »

I would say that any good team has a very good chance of winning the first round taping with a B-team. But then again, I guess a lot of people like getting on TV.
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Post by BuzzerZen »

10/6 is an SAT date, and TJHSST is an SAT location.
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Post by gonzagaeagleahy »

aestheteboy wrote:I would say that any good team has a very good chance of winning the first round taping with a B-team. But then again, I guess a lot of people like getting on TV.
Not our B-team haha.

Maybe we could go for like the first half and then just not do the playoffs. Iuno.
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Post by kpillai »

DumbJaques wrote:alternating round structure
I think this year we may go ahead and have all teams play 10 rounds, instead of alternating for 5 rounds each.

Still tentative, though...and I'm sorry to hear Gonzaga has taping the same day. Try and make it though :cool:
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Post by gonzagaeagleahy »

Do you know already what set you're planning to use?
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Post by kpillai »

gonzagaeagleahy wrote:Do you know already what set you're planning to use?
Sorry to respond so late, but it looks like we'll be using IS-68. Which is kind of a shame, because I wanted to go to Brown this year...oh well...
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Post by kpillai »

Registration for the fall 2007 TJIAT is now open, at http://activities.tjhsst.edu/itsacademic/tjiat.php

Our tournament, as in years past, is Swiss-paired NAQT; teams are guaranteed at least 5 prelim rounds, but that may increase as we get word from our school on how many rooms exactly we'll be able to use.

Pricing:
First team: $60
Additional teams: $50 each
Buzzer discount: -$5
Questions: $20
We're also probably going to have a travel discount, $10 for each 200 miles

All the above pricing information is subject to change, so please don't send us checks yet...please bring your checks with you to the tournament, in case any changes do come up. Checks should be made out to TJHSST, with It's Academic in the memo line.

Registration will be open until the tournament begins or we fill our field--ideally, 48 teams.

Hope to see all you guys there!
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Post by kpillai »

One other thing...for questions or comments just email me ([email protected]) or Jacob Kohn ([email protected]).
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Post by Diet Chuck »

bumping thread with a FIELD UPDATE:

Elizabeth Seton High School
Georgetown Day School (2)
Maret (2)
Maurice J. McDonough
Russell Independent High School
South County Secondary
St. Stephens and St. Agnes School (2)
State College (2)
Stuyvesant
Wilmington Charter (6)
Woodrow Wilson Senior High School

Please register soon for your 10* rounds of cold hard NAQT, we have like more than half our field limit to fill.

Register here: http://activities.tjhsst.edu/itsacademic/tjiat.php
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Post by aestheteboy »

kpillai wrote:I think this year we may go ahead and have all teams play 10 rounds, instead of alternating for 5 rounds each.
Not to sound, you know, queer or something, but 10 rounds would be lovely.
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Post by dyetman89 »

aestheteboy wrote:
kpillai wrote:I think this year we may go ahead and have all teams play 10 rounds, instead of alternating for 5 rounds each.
Not to sound, you know, queer or something, but 10 rounds would be lovely.
Seconded.

And where are the rest of the DC/Virginia powers?
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Post by The Atom Strikes! »

dyetman89 wrote:
aestheteboy wrote:
kpillai wrote:I think this year we may go ahead and have all teams play 10 rounds, instead of alternating for 5 rounds each.
Not to sound, you know, queer or something, but 10 rounds would be lovely.
Seconded.

And where are the rest of the DC/Virginia powers?
3rded. And I agree. Where are RM, Whitman, 'Zaga, etc.?
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Post by Byko »

SwissBoy wrote:3rded. And I agree. Where are RM, Whitman, 'Zaga, etc.?
Gonzaga has an It's Academic taping that day.

http://itsac.aiquizbowl.com/
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Post by Stat Boy »

Whitman hasn't officially registered yet, but we'll be there.
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Post by Sir Thopas »

Stat Boy wrote:Whitman hasn't officially registered yet, but we'll be there.
Same with Hunter, most likely.
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Post by Bugsy »

Same with RM.
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Post by jbarnes112358 »

Maggie Walker will be there. We are just trying to determine the number of teams.
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Post by kpillai »

Field update as of October 1, with 32 total teams:

Collegiate School (2)
Elizabeth Seton High School
Fairfax
Flint Hill School
Georgetown Day School (2)
James W. Robinson Jr. Secondary School (2)
Maret (2)
Maurice J. McDonough
Mercersburg Academy (2)
Robert E. Lee HS
South County Secondary
St Annes -- Bellfield School (2)
St. Stephens and St. Agnes School (2)
State College (2)
Stuyvesant (2)
Walter Johnson
Wilmington Charter (6)
Woodrow Wilson Senior High School

Registration will be capped at 48 teams. We're still undecided as to whether we'll be doing 5 guaranteed prelim rounds per team or 10. Stay tuned.
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Post by kpillai »

As of now, we have 40 teams registered for our tournament.

One important announcement: WE NEED MODERATORS!

It would greatly help us have the max 10 rounds if some teams could provide moderators on Saturday. Help moderating from anyone with quizbowl experience would be greatly appreciated. If you have anyone who could moderate for us please email me at [email protected] ASAP.
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Post by First Chairman »

Damn... I'm out of town.
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Post by Byko »

Will Run PACE for Reese's wrote:Damn... I'm out of town.
So are we. Sorry.
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Post by jkohn »

We were thinking about doing 10 rounds, but decided to stick with the 5 alternating rounds for logistical reasons.
Sorry for those of you who were looking forward to playing every round. Hope this clears up any confusion, and we look forward to seeing you there.

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Post by Siow52 »

Hey, so some of my teammates and I were wondering if any of the teams staying at the same hotel (Best Western in Springfield, VA) as us (Stuyvesant) would want to get together on Friday night for a scrimmage or two or just to hang out, get dinner, supper, late night snack etc.

I can't guarantee anything yet because we might be in pretty late on Friday the 12th. But if anybody's interested and is staying at the same hotel (or one that is relatively close by) please email me at
[email protected] so we can exchange phone #s or something.

Thanks

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Post by kpillai »

Hi all,
here's the timetable for tomorrow's tournament. We'll be doing the same format as last year, so it's 5 rounds, Swiss-paired staggered rounds in two brackets.

Registration begins in auditorium lobby, 8:15
Rules assembly begins in auditorium, 9:00
Round 1 begins, 9:30
Lunch for odd bracket, 12:00
Lunch for even bracket, 12:30
Rounds start again, 1:00
Playoff announcements, 3:10
Playoffs begin, 3:30
Finals end, 5:30

Questions? Email Jacob at [email protected]

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Post by btressler »

Short results:

1. Richard Montgomery A
2. Stuyvesant A
3. Wilmington Charter A
4. Hunter College
Quarters: Gov A (I think), State College A, Whitman A, and I forget because they never post the playoff bracket and I wish they would (w/ room numbers please)

All the things that are good about TJ tournaments were good about this one. They attract an impressive field with many of the teams you'll see in playoff rounds at nationals this year. With minor exceptions, on balance I thought the moderating was good. We played on the clock and only a few times did I hear of rounds not getting through at least 18 tossups. I like that you used the clock, but please tell us if you're using the clock, I would have practiced on the clock so my teams knew to expect it and the minor strategy changes that go with it.

The biggest disappointment of the day was the brackets and power matching. At times it was based on faulty information, and at times it produced counterintuitive results. Rather than publish a manifesto, I will give one example:

In round 1 Charter A had a 500+ point win. Charter G had a win with about 120 points. In their second match, Charter A was rewarded with a match against Richard Montgomery A, while Charter G got a match against another low-point winner. After that round, Charter A was 1-1, while Charter G was 2-0. Here's a clue: the sophomores are not better than Henry's team. This method gave a team a perverse incentive to win with as few points as possible.

You can argue that by the end of the day it will all even out, but that wasn't completely true. Even with three more high scoring wins, Charter A was only able to come back to 4th in the bracket. Yet they finished 3rd overall.

Whatever method was in use, please reconsider.
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Post by aestheteboy »

I'll be frank: I thought the tournament was badly run.

1. I thought the time between rounds was just too great. Even after the game finished, we had to wait for a while for the schedule to be posted. I remember that in previous TJ tournaments, the schedule was posted while we played, so this was rather disappointing. Also, I don't know why, but we had to wait a lot after we entered the room and both the teams and the moderator were there. It's probably not necessary that all the rooms begin at the same time.

2. Odd bracket seemed significantly stronger than even bracket. I guess we'll see about this once the stats are posted.

3. Swiss pairing seemed almost completely random. I don't know what the methodology was, but teams with different record kept on getting paired when it was apparently avoidable.
I've always thought that 5 rounds are not enough to have a reliable results from swisspairing, but what I can definitely say is that the demerits of doing alternating bracket system outweigh its merits unless the swiss pairing is impeccable.

Still, it was good to see a lot of the best teams come together and play. RM was as good as always and Stuyv was shockingly fast (on some subjects, at least).
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Post by MLWMathStar »

The questions appeared to be better made in terms of difficulty. The first few rounds were like last year's questions, with games between top teams featuring tons of powers and buzzer races. That's probably okay though; as NAQT said, they do need to cater to teams not in this area. But come round 7 or so and especially in the playoffs, NAQT seems to have succeeded in making questions that are a bit more capable of separating the teams in terms of knowledge instead of speed. There still were several buzzer races in our games, but there probably always will be.

Perhaps I'm wrong here, as I didn't watch the semifinals or finals.

EDIT: To confirm Stat74, we did get 5th through the consolation games.
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Post by dyetman89 »

I'll jump on the bandwagon and agree that the power pairing was a little funky. What got to us a bit was that team stats were not posted at all, so far as we could tell. Moderators on the whole seemed passable, with at least one (Mohit, I believe) being truly excellent, but a few did seem rather inexperienced (given to chatting while on the clock, losing their place in the packets, etc.).

I have to emphasize that Whitman's quarterfinal finish does not reflect their skill at all - they played an incredible game against us in the last prelim round.
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Post by jbarnes112358 »

Stat74 wrote:Short results:

1. Richard Montgomery A
2. Stuyvesant A
3. Wilmington Charter A
4. Hunter College
Quarters: Gov A (I think), State College A, Whitman A, and I forget because they never post the playoff bracket and I wish they would (w/ room numbers please)
5. Maggie Walker A
6. State College A
7. Walt Whitman A
8. Richard Montgomery B

We were definitely pleased with our 5th place finish. I was not sure how we would fare against the strength of this field. Our A team lost only to RM A and Whitman A, and though the games were not especially close in the end, we hung with them for a half. Both RM A and WW A were impressive. Whitman A is much better than their 7th place would indicate. In our game against them they had 8 powers and averaged over 26 on bonus conversion.

It was good to see State College back with another competitive team.

I was surprised not to see Walter Johnson in the final 8. They were very strong when I saw them play. They had our B team down by 220 points before we could get on the scoreboard, though we came back strong the second half to keep it from being a total blowout.

It seems like every year there are some surprising results at this tournament, though nothing like college football this year.
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power pairings & general tournament impressions

Post by Robbie Ram »

I have to agree with the disappointment about power pairings.

Going into the 4th round we were 2-1 after losing to Hunter College by less than 100 and then beating Centennial B and MWGS B. So who do we get for round 4? RM A-- who have a record of 3-0. :shock: Yikes.

OK, but that's not all... after losing to RM A, we are now 2-2, so who do we get next? Wilmington Charter A-- who have a record of 3-1. What?!? :sad:

In a Swiss-paired tournament, every team should face teams of progressively *more* similar ability as the tournament goes on, and by the last two rounds we really should have been facing teams against whom we would be very competitive-- progressively *more* competitive, really-- (and vice-versa). Instead, we ended our day getting stomped by the eventual 1st & 3rd place tournament teams, after already having lost the first match of the day to the eventual 4th place team. That's very disappointing.

Everyone but the most elite teams gets blown-out sometimes, but it generally shouldn't happen during the last 2 of 5 rounds of a Swiss-paired tournament... and it really, *really* should never happen that a team faces two teams who both have *better* records in consecutive rounds!

I'm not saying we would have or should have been a playoff team, because we're not an elite team by any definition and nowhere close to as good as the top three teams in this tournament... but we should have had a "fighting chance" in rounds 7 & 9, and instead we were thrown to the wolves for no apparent reason.

In past years, TJ tournament directors have always gotten the pairings right in the prelims (well, at least in the 3 1/2 years I've been the Robinson sponsor). There must be some power-matching formula out there that worked for previous TJ tournament directors; maybe the new TJ hierarchy can get some help from the "old" guys (Evan, where are you?).

[mini-rant ends here. sorry.]

On the positive side, the tournament did have a great field with virtually all of the regional powers attending (minus Gonzaga, through no fault of their own). We also appreciated the tournament staff allowing us to scrimmage/ practice with the even bracket questions between our odd bracket rounds, including finding us an empty classroom for that purpose. That should probably be a regular feature of TJIATs in the future with more empty classrooms (and, if possible, spare buzzers) available for teams who want to practice between their own rounds.
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Post by jkohn »

Congratulations to all the teams who qualified for NAQT Nationals:
1. RM A
2. Stuyvesant A
3. Wilmington Charter A
4. Hunter College
5. Maggie Walker A
6. State College A
7. Whitman A
8. RM B

That being said, there were plenty of teams who had great records and/or scores that didn't make it to the qualify or make it to the playoffs this time. I'll admit that I did make some mistakes with the swiss pairing in the early rounds which probably contributed to that. I now know what we can do to fix the problems/crises that occurred this time so January's house-written tournament can be better.
I'd just like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding--with 3 years of experience running TJ tournaments with impeccable skill and precision, Evan was a hard act to follow. This was my first time running the show and with a record 51 teams I'd say we did a decent job. Obviously there are some things we could improve on like better pairings and not having so much time between rounds, though.
I'll definitely take your comments into consideration so we can do a better job next time, and I hope that despite the avoidable problems, you had fun.

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Post by segregold »

I think that all TJ tournaments are well run and this was no exception. I personally love Swiss pairing and will probably try and implement it at some form at RM's tournament; that said, I heard that the pairing in the prelims was just being done by highest point totals from the previous round, which is not the best way to utilize the system. I agree that time between rounds always seems to be too long at this tournament, but it's a minor complaint. One suggestion: try to start before 10, it's always a long tournament and I think everyone would appreciate getting out of there a little sooner.

As for teams, we did not play Whitman but I heard good things. Charter A played very well against us, and Hunter was very good as well. It will be interesting to see how the season plays out.
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Post by BuzzerZen »

I'd just like to congratulate Jacob on running this tournament as well as he did. I didn't have as much time to train him as I'd have really liked, and all things considered, it seems like he did an excellent job.

Also, the prelim stats for the day are all available on Taft.
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Post by Robbie Ram »

Agreed, Evan. Jacob did a fine job for his 1st tournament... and I hope I didn't come across too harshly in my previous post.

We really did have fun... we were just hoping to be more competitive in our last two matches whether we were playoff-bound or not, and we thought the wacky power pairings (for us, anyway) in rounds 7 & 9 prevented that from happening-- at least to a certain extent.

The teams who finished in the top eight are all outstanding and have the sort of consistent excellence to which we and many other quiz bowl teams aspire. Besides, if we had to get stomped by anyone, at least we got stomped by the very best! Congrats, RM, Wilmington Charter, Hunter College (and Stuyvesant too... even though we didn't have the privilege of being stomped by you)! :smile:
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Post by Sir Thopas »

Robbie Ram wrote:The teams who finished in the top eight are all outstanding and have the sort of consistent excellence to which we and many other quiz bowl teams aspire. Besides, if we had to get stomped by anyone, at least we got stomped by the very best! Congrats, RM, Wilmington Charter, Hunter College (and Stuyvesant too... even though we didn't have the privilege of being stomped by you)! :smile:
Thanks! You guys played well also: you kept your cool after we mounted a lead, and you almost pulled off a comeback (although not getting through more than 18 tossups sorta brought that to a halt) in what was, admittedly, a pretty strange game if you look at it.
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Post by DumbJaques »

Playoff scores?
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Post by catsasslippers »

Why is it that Hunter, State College, and RM never played each other in prelims?
I have to admit that I think the swiss-pairing wasn't done particularly well, and having looked at the stats in some cases it looks as though it were pool play and there was no power pairing at all.
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Post by Siow52 »

Just to add my own two cents...

The pairing was curious to me at some times-- my team (Stuy B) ended up playing State College A and Charter A back to back (and getting thoroughly trounced by both). Although we did indeed have the same record at 2-1 as Charter by the 4th round, this was a product of Charter playing RM A early in the tournament. My point is that this pairing curiousity of having the eventual 1st and 3rd place teams playing in the 2nd round affected other teams as well, including my own.

As for the playoffs... I noticed on the Team Standings board that the teams with the same records were ranked on the basis of PPG. I'm really hoping that PPG was not the tiebreaker used to determine which 3-2 teams made the playoffs--not that this would have pushed Stuy B over the hump, but to use this category is quite unfair in a timed tournament.

That being said, I found the tournament enjoyable and had a good time.
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Post by The Atom Strikes! »

catsasslippers wrote:Why is it that Hunter, State College, and RM never played each other in prelims?
I have to admit that I think the swiss-pairing wasn't done particularly well, and having looked at the stats in some cases it looks as though it were pool play and there was no power pairing at all.
It seemed that way to me, too. It seems to me that having a card system like that at NAQT nationals would work better. That way, there would be less risk of screwupage, and instead of having to wait for their results to be calculated, teams could just play all 10 prelim rounds
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Post by MLWMathStar »

Time was not the thing preventing 10 rounds. Logistics, as in available moderators, was the problem.

Even so, the card system would have a lot of advantages.
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Post by The Atom Strikes! »

MLWMathStar wrote:Time was not the thing preventing 10 rounds. Logistics, as in available moderators, was the problem.

Even so, the card system would have a lot of advantages.
That seems surprising. At least on paper, TJ's team had more than enough members to moderate and scorekeep rounds for 48 teams. Especially since w/ a card system, fewer tabulators would be required. Especially if extra moderators came, there should be more than enough people to run the tournament.
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Post by jbarnes112358 »

Siow52 wrote: I noticed on the Team Standings board that the teams with the same records were ranked on the basis of PPG. I'm really hoping that PPG was not the tiebreaker used to determine which 3-2 teams made the playoffs--not that this would have pushed Stuy B over the hump, but to use this category is quite unfair in a timed tournament.

That being said, I found the tournament enjoyable and had a good time.
I agree. Points per 20 Toss-ups heard, or something like that, would be better as a tiebreaker. In some games we only heard 16 questions and some went over 20.

As for using alternating rounds, the issue was having enough readers, I believe, as much as the Swiss pairing thing.

After looking at the prelim. stats, I believe the two brackets were fairly well balanced, based on powers and bonus conversion, which are my favorite stats for assessing team knowledge.

Aforementioned issues aside, our teams seemed to enjoy themselves, too. We would like to thank TJHSST for hosting the event.
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Post by Tower Monarch »

To represent a team from the bottom half of the tournament, I thought the tournament went well, save only things to be expected with a new TD. I won't bother to comment on these as they have already been mentioned and GSAC will be in the same position this year without Mehdi. My team enjoyed the day's game except for our own poor performance against two Wilmington Charter teams.
In fact, our biggest grudge was not against the swiss pairing but against the makeup of WC's teams. Although it did not affect the higher teams, it did throw our swiss pairing off to suffer a close defeat by an F team only to face an equal opponent in their B team the next round. I was not suprised to see in the stats that the F team appears to have Wilmingon Charter's second highest scorer, and individual statistics show one or two strong players on each team. My team did not appreciate playing what should have been a landslide win followed by a crushing defeat against a normal F and B team roster, respectively.
Other than this, I enjoyed the entire tournament, and took advantage of the odd rounds to watch our B and D teams, the latter of which put an impressive 145 points up against State College A with strong Bonus conversion. That D team of a rookie junior, a sophomore and two freshmen, ended with a winning record, which is more than both the B team and my own can say, compliments of swiss pairing. One thing about swiss pairing is it really benefits the weaker teams and makes it more fun for our weaker new players.
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Post by The Atom Strikes! »

About the Performance of various Charter teams:
I knew that likely we would take some flak for our strong F-team. This is what happened: Our coach, wanting to avoid drama and feuding between teammates, allowed us to pick out our own teams using a ballot to select teammates, and those they wanted to avoid, then solving the Discrete Math Problem from Hell to create teams. The A-team, who are probably the 4 best players (whose scores are somewhat depressed, due to all competing for tossups), selected itself, and the others coalesced into 6 groups of approximately equal ability. We labeled teams according to how we think that they would do, which wasn't entirely correct. However, if the swiss pairing had actually worked, this likely would not have been terribly significant to teams like Maggie Walker C.

Edit: In the future, if the team known as Charter F plays together at future tournaments, they'll play as Charter B until another of the non-A teams finishes higher than them.
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Post by btressler »

Ugh. It's LIFT all over again.

Here's another plea to allow me to label the teams with something other than letters at tournaments. (see this example)

After team A, I have about 20 players who are very comparable, each with their own strengths. To ask me to get a perfect linear ordering of them on the first time out in the year is asking a lot. I was quite surprised that F beat B, that G started 2-0, and that D had quite the rough day. But some of this was caused by pairings that pitted teams with unequal records against each other.

Henry is correct: that group plays as B until further notice.

And Henry is also correct: the second best player on our team is either Raja or Neeraj. But they both score less due to the shadow effect of sitting next to Henry.
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