2008 Housh Classic (01/12/08) at TJHSST (Alexandria, VA)

Diet Chuck · Post by **Diet Chuck** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:58 pm

Field update with like 5 days left before tournament:

Blake (1)
Centennial High School (3)
Collegiate School (3)
Eleanor Rooseelt (1)
Fairfax (2)
Gonzaga (1)
Hunter College High School (1)
James W. Robinson (Jr.) Secondary School (2)
Langley High School (2)
Maggie Walker (4)
Paul VI High School (1)
Richard Montgomery (2)
St. Anselms Abbey School (2)
St. Stephens and St. Agnes School (3)
State College High School (2)
W. T. Woodson High School (1)
Wakefield (2)
Walt Whitman (2)
Walter Johnson (1)
Wilmington Charter (7)

TOTAL: 43 TEAMS

I believe we are using the card system no matter how many teams, but math jenius harry white says that numbers divisible by higher powers of two are better. 43 is prime.

Anyway, we do still have space so please register if you haven't already thanks

flylikeaneagle · Post by **flylikeaneagle** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 11:39 pm

Due to the fact that midterms are two days after your tournament, Centennial is only bringing 2 teams. We will however, bring all the buzzers we have signed up for. I think that the president/secretary/treasurer should contact you soon.

btressler · Post by **btressler** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:51 am

Make it official: Charter is bringing "just" 6 teams.

I tried to make the change on the website but was prevented because 'the field is almost full'.

EDIT: It looks like this was changed on the webpage. Do you realize that George C. Marshall appears to have registered twice?

Whiter Hydra · Post by **Whiter Hydra** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 10:36 pm

Field Update

* Blake (1)
* Centennial High School (2)
* Collegiate School (3)
* Eleanor Rooseelt (1)
* Fairfax (2)
* George C. Marshall HS (1)
* Gonzaga (1)
* Hunter College High School (1)
* James W. Robinson (Jr.) Secondary School (2)
* Langley High School (2)
* Maggie Walker (4)
* Paul VI High School (1)
* Perry Hall HS (1)
* Richard Montgomery (2)
* St. Anselms Abbey School (2)
* St. Stephens and St. Agnes School (3)
* State College High School (2)
* W. T. Woodson High School (2)
* Wakefield (2)
* Walt Whitman (2)
* Walter Johnson (1)
* Wilmington Charter (6)

Total: 44 teams

It looks like (unless 4 teams sign up soon) that we'll be trying a 44-team card system. It's going to be messy, but we should be able to pull it off.

Angry Babies in Love · Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:22 pm

Should be better than TJ's "Swiss".

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:55 am

Since I don't do cards very well, I'll be interested to see this.

Whiter Hydra · Post by **Whiter Hydra** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:35 am

rmgeokid wrote:Should be better than TJ's "Swiss".

It better be, considering how many times I've had to redo the spreadsheet. Note however that it will be far from perfect, especially in the latter rounds, since teams with mismatched records have to play each other starting in the third round.

fzhang · Post by **fzhang** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 11:47 am

Field update a day before the tournament:
* Blake (1)
* Centennial High School (2)
* Collegiate School (3)
* Eleanor Rooseelt (1)
* Fairfax (2)
* Gonzaga (1)
* Hunter College High School (1)
* James W. Robinson (Jr.) Secondary School (1)
* Langley High School (2)
* Maggie Walker (4)
* Paul VI High School (1)
* Perry Hall HS (1)
* Richard Montgomery (2)
* St. Anselms Abbey School (2)
* St. Stephens and St. Agnes School (3)
* State College High School (2)
* W. T. Woodson High School (2)
* Wakefield (2)
* Walt Whitman (2)
* Walter Johnson (1)
* Wilmington Charter (6)

Total: 42 teams

We advise everyone to please not drop out of the tournament at the last minute, as it makes our card system guy Harry very unhappy.

Stat Boy · Post by **Stat Boy** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 3:35 pm

lots of battle tossups from Phil, m i rite?

Dachspmg · Post by **Dachspmg** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:39 pm

Stat Boy wrote:lots of battle tossups from Phil, m i rite?

I have no idea what you're talking about.

BuzzerZen · Post by **BuzzerZen** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 4:19 pm

Complete prelim stats are now available.

Nine-Tenths Ideas · Post by **Nine-Tenths Ideas** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 5:14 pm

Not my kind of tourney, but it's a personal thing- I'm terrible at world/ancient history and science, which left me a small, strangely shaped window of stuff. I had no problem with the way the tournament was run, and all the readers were excellent except one [who read like there was a fire in the building and he had to complete the gameset to get out.] Well done.

[Sidenote: My teammate lost a game for us by buzzing in on the "squib" question and saying "wizard."]

EDIT: And much kudos for having SSB playing. I'll remember to bring Melee next year

aestheteboy · Post by **aestheteboy** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 6:45 pm

The card system seemed to have worked out well. It was good being able to play with many top teams. I hope you guys continue to use it, and I hope teams don't drop out at the last second in the future.
The questions were hard. I guess that could be a good thing, but by the end of the day I was exhausted. The bonuses difficulty fluctuated too much, the question should have been distributed, and there was a transparency issue, but over all, I thought it was a good set of questions.
Moderators were decent to good (mohit was the best), the indiv prizes were enjoyable (there were several), and I had fun. So thanks for hosting.

Bugsy · Post by **Bugsy** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 8:47 pm

Questions were hard, especially bonuses towards the end. To be expected from TJ II, but still...

Having 32 teams make playoffs was an odd decision when 44 teams were supposed to show up, and an even odder decision when only 40 made it.

Card system was somewhat effective. It was odd that we played Whitman twice in the prelims, but it was okay.

I understand there were issues with getting enough buzzer systems, but this tournament started far later than it should have. On the other hand, the readers read well, and so at least it ended not too much after 6 PM.

Good tournament, but not quite as good as in previous years, in my view.

segregold · Post by **segregold** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 9:07 pm

I think that TJ always runs the best house-written tournaments. They're notoriously inefficient and always last past 5 or 6, which is ridiculous, but the questions are probably the best I see at a non-NAQT/PACE high school tournament. This year I felt was no exception. Questions were difficult, heavier on the science than I like (but that's TJ), and well-written, no glaring grammar mistakes or anything like that.

My only serious problem was with the bonuses, which were of extremely varying difficulty. Generally with a bonus, tournaments go with one easy answer, one medium answer and one hard answer; this tournament seemed to just have hard answer after hard answer. I remember a "barbarian invaders of Roman Empire" bonus that seemed to pick the three most obscure invading tribes and then give vague clues on them. That issue definitely needs to be fixed for next year, but aside from that I thought that TJ II gave excellent value for the money (as always).

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) · Sat Jan 12, 2008 9:22 pm

Who won?

Diet Chuck · Post by **Diet Chuck** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 9:35 pm

I believe the top 4 were:

1. Whitman A
2. Wilmington Charter A
3. State College A
4. Hunter

Someone else can post the rest of the top 8, and maybe playoff stats, because I don't know / have them.

Sorry about the bonus difficulty variation; certain people decided to write lots of impossible military history questions lol

Dachspmg · Post by **Dachspmg** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:35 pm

segregold wrote:I remember a "barbarian invaders of Roman Empire" bonus that seemed to pick the three most obscure invading tribes and then give vague clues on them.

That was me feeling evil. Actually, so was the Diadochi bonus...in fact, a lot of the hard bonuses, especially in history, can be traced to me experiencing a brief flash of vitriol. Though some of them (War of Spanish Succession battles - wtf?) are the result of me forgetting to take the joke questions out out.

fzhang · Post by **fzhang** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:41 pm

nice joke questions phil

There was a bunch stuff that was left behind at TJ, which has been collected and is now lying on my desk upstairs. I'll send an email out tomorrow to a mailing list of teams who came, describing what I've got. From what I remember, there's some Bio notes, a thermos, part of a barely-held-together buzzer system, and a big binder.

Silberman, make more calendars.

EDIT: We also apologize for our assistant TD reading off ONLY the names of teams who DIDN'T make the playoffs.

--That guy who kept score for Mohit

Blackboard Monitor Vimes · Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:52 pm

I don't know what 5 and 6 were, but Maggie Walker A was 7 and B was 8. I found the card system interesting, but the bonus fluctuation was maddening. It was a well-run tournament, though, and playing a seven-round prelim was definitely much better than the Swiss Pairing system.

Whiter Hydra · Post by **Whiter Hydra** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:55 pm

Does anybody know what happened with teams switching seeds in the playoffs? Because that was weird and not supposed to happen.

Also, I'm glad to hear that the card system worked out well. Sorry about having teams play each other twice, but that's probably going to happen near the top, as there are few 6-0 and 5-1 teams as opposed to, say, 3-3 teams.

--That guy who did all the actual work that the Assistant TD was supposed to do.

Edit: Woodson A was 6th and RM A was 5th, I believe. That can't help for Byko.

The Atom Strikes! · Post by **The Atom Strikes!** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 11:05 pm

I thought that the tournament was well-run and well-written overall, and the card system worked excellently (the teams that we played in the preliminary rounds were of appropriate skill, unlike in the fall tournament). The questions themselves were fairly well written, except for a few things:

-Difficulty was pretty much all over the place, especially during bonuses. They went from easily 30able (like a certain enlightenment thinkers bonus where the part c was "Kant"), to incredibly difficult (successors to Alexander the Great, none of whom was Antiochus, Antigonus, or Ptolemy). I also thought that the questions weren't as evenly distributed as they should be, and slanted on the whole a bit much towards military history (I think that Phil Graves has something to do with this...). However, overall, the tournament went fairly well.

Arian Fathieh · Post by **Arian Fathieh** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 11:23 pm

hwhite wrote:Does anybody know what happened with teams switching seeds in the playoffs? Because that was weird and not supposed to happen.

I am still not particularly sure, even though I was part of the whole ordeal. From my understanding: Langley A was supposed to face Maggie Walker C first round of the bracket. RM B switched spots with Maggie Walker C and played Langley A. I think it is because they were facing another RM team. Langley A had faced RM B in the last round of the playoffs, losing by one question. History repeated itself and we (Langley) barely lost again in a maddeningly close game. Afterwards, RM told the TJ people outside the war room what had happened, and the bracket was changed.

I am not sure though, and I would like some clarification myself. Regardless, it was a great tournament; I had a blast. Great readers, a smart card system, and good competition. I concur with some of the sentiments about the bonuses (the T-rex bonus was rather...hard) but overall I was very impressed with how good the writing, especially for student written questions.

segregold · Post by **segregold** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 12:31 am

Langley A was supposed to face Maggie Walker C first round of the bracket. RM B switched spots with Maggie Walker C and played Langley A.

Yeah, RM B was supposed to be playing RM A in the round of 16. We switched because we very, very frequently wind up playing our B team early in the playoffs and it starts to become boring when it happens at every tournament. Sorry for the mix-up.

Post by **DumbJaques** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:05 am

Difficulty was pretty much all over the place, especially during bonuses. They went from easily 30able (like a certain enlightenment thinkers bonus where the part c was "Kant"), to incredibly difficult (successors to Alexander the Great, none of whom was Antiochus, Antigonus, or Ptolemy).

Yeah, this is a pretty big problem. If tossup difficulty is all over the place it's somewhat problematic, but at least it affects everyone (mostly) equally. This is something I've noticed for the last five years at TJ tournaments and I really, really hope you guys start taking this to heart. Lesson number one needs to be that you cannot use "I would 30 this" as a means for evaluating a bonus. A bonus which named Alexander's successors but not Antiochus, Antigonus, or Ptolemy in there would not cut it at almost any college level. I would think an ACF nationals questions would at least have one of them or Diaodachi as an answer. That's pretty unacceptable, and having most of the questions in a category be in a certain subcategory is also pretty problematic. Using subdistributions is a good way to deal with that.

Yeah, RM B was supposed to be playing RM A in the round of 16. We switched because we very, very frequently wind up playing our B team early in the playoffs and it starts to become boring when it happens at every tournament. Sorry for the mix-up.

Dude, please tell me you asked permission from the TD or something before doing this? I'm hoping I'm misunderstanding and that this wasn't some kind of unilateral decision, but that's a pretty big no-no. Could someone explain exactly what happened here?

jbarnes112358 · Post by **jbarnes112358** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 6:52 am

DumbJaques wrote:

Yeah, RM B was supposed to be playing RM A in the round of 16. We switched because we very, very frequently wind up playing our B team early in the playoffs and it starts to become boring when it happens at every tournament. Sorry for the mix-up.
Dude, please tell me you asked permission from the TD or something before doing this? I'm hoping I'm misunderstanding and that this wasn't some kind of unilateral decision, but that's a pretty big no-no. Could someone explain exactly what happened here?

Had I been in the room I would have tried to prevent this. I only found out later. I think our players (MW C) who voted 3 -1 to consent to the switch were just trying to be nice to the requesting team, as they didn't particularly care who they played. I don't believe they were considering the ways that it might affect other teams in the tournament. I agree that doing something like this is wrong. If you happen to meet one of your school's teams in the playoffs, then so be it. One team is going to win, and one team is going to be eliminated. It frequently happens to us as well. To switch off opponents to try to advance both your teams, or to avoid the boredom of playing each other again, or for whatever reason, is definitely inappropriate. I don't know whether the TD gave permission, or not.

btressler · Post by **btressler** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 9:36 am

Here is your trusty statistics guy reporting. The accuracy of this is subject to my ability to copy well, the accuracy of the wall posting, and anything related to the above discussion. Sorry for any misspellings.

Round of 32:

(1) Whitman A def (32) Fairfax A
(17) RM B def (16) Langley A
(9) St Anselm's A def (24) Centennial A
(8) Gov B def (25) Blake
(5) Walter Johnson def (28) Centennial C
(21) Woodson A def (12) Whitman B
(20) Gonzaga def (13) Collegiate A
(4) Hunter def (29) Robinson B
(3) RM A def (30) Paul VI
(19) Woodson B def (14) Gov C
(11) State College B def (22) Charter C
(6) State College A def (27) Wakefield A
(7) Gov A def (26) Centennial B
(23) Charter B def (10) Charter D
(15) Robinson A def (18) St Stephens
(2) Charter A def (31) St Anselms B

Octos

(1) Whitman A def (17) RM B
(8) Gov B def (9) St Anselms A
(21) Woodson A def (5) Walter Johnson (is this right?, my notes are sketchy)
(4) Hunter def (20) Gonzaga
(3) RM A def (19) Woodson B
(6) State College A def (11) State College B
(7) Gov A def (23) Charter B
(2) Charter A def (15) Robinson A

Quarters

(1) Whitman A def (8) Gov B
(4) Hunter def (21) Woodson A
(6) State College A def (3) RM A
(2) Charter A def (7) Gov A

Semis

(1) Whitman A def (4) Hunter A
(2) Charter A def (6) State College A

Final

(1) Whitman A def (2) Charter A

btressler · Post by **btressler** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 9:43 am

On balance, I thought this was the best TJ tournament I've attended.

The card system was good, certainly an improvement over the fall. I like the idea of letting most of the teams into the round of 32. But then is it really necessary to have 7 prelims, if most teams are getting another round anyway? (Not that we got home ridiculously late, 9:30 is good for us this year.)

Save above comments, I thought the questions were well-written. At the time I thought difficulty was too hard, like in a round where I watched two teams that ended in the top 10 seeds only convert 12 tossups in a round. But it looks like the PPG of most teams is reasonable.

It was no accident that Charter B beat Charter D even though the sophomores had had a much better day. There were like eight lit questions. Having all the history in the quarters be military history doesn't fall in my definition of 'balanced packet'. But overall I thought this was a good set. Fix the things people are telling you, and have been saying for years.

But at least, in the semi this year the score wasn't 50-20 at the half. That by itself is a step in the right direction.

jkohn · Post by **jkohn** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 10:57 am

Congratulations to all teams who attended. I know the Playoff round of 32 was kind of pointless, but I'd planned on having a lot more than 40 teams, and I didn't want to let all those questions go to waste.

There was also an issue with the initial playoff bracket assignments, as many of you found out. I take full credit for the huge mistake in allowing teams to switch their assignments with others so they didn't have to play their own school's A team. It caused a great deal of confusion because teams did not let me know who they had switched with, and wasn't fair to the other teams involved.
My thinking at the time was that if both teams were consenting to the switch, it would be simple--but I did not take into account the fact that their opponents might then be put at a disadvantage. Yeah, I was stupid. :/
So, in the future, the TD will not be switching teams just because they don't want to "waste" their teams by playing a round between two of their own teams. Everyone has to do it at some point, and if that's the way it works out, one has to accept that.

The number of buzzers was also a big problem, so we had to resort to slap bowl for one or two rooms. We had been desperately trying to avoid that by pleading with teams to bring their buzzers, but we ended up with a shortage, partly because some teams' buzzer systems didn't work or weren't brought to the tournament. Finding enough buzzers for 20 rooms was difficult. I know slap bowl must have been annoying...comments?

While I'm on the subject of buzzers, a buzzer system was left at the tournament. It belongs to BLAKE. Could someone please contact me ([email protected]) to arrange to pick them up, or get them at a later tournament?

Two teams, Blake and Walter Johnson, did not pick up the questions they bought. If you can email me your mailing address, we can send them to you.

Other than that, I think the tournament went relatively smoothly. It would have been nice to have had more teams, though, to ensure no repeats. Sounds like the card system worked out.

Arian Fathieh · Post by **Arian Fathieh** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 11:12 am

jkohn wrote: There was also an issue with the initial playoff bracket assignments, as many of you found out. I take full credit for the huge mistake in allowing teams to switch their assignments with others so they didn't have to play their own school's A team. It caused a great deal of confusion because teams did not let me know who they had switched with, and wasn't fair to the other teams involved.
My thinking at the time was that if both teams were consenting to the switch, it would be simple--but I did not take into account the fact that their opponents might then be put at a disadvantage. Yeah, I was stupid. :/
So, in the future, the TD will not be switching teams just because they don't want to "waste" their teams by playing a round between two of their own teams. Everyone has to do it at some point, and if that's the way it works out, one has to accept that.

Oh, so they told you they were going to switch but not who they were going to switch with? Well, I am not bitter over it, especially since we would have faced Whitman next round regardless. I had great fun, and you guys should be proud of yourself for running this tournament so well, and finally mastering the card system.

I wouldn't be surprised if Woodson beat WJ either. Woodson beat TJ A in VHSL Districts just last week; they have been getting better and better.

MLWMathStar · Post by **MLWMathStar** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 11:44 am

On a more positive note about the questions: The absence of math calculation was much appreciated. Please let TJ and GSAC not be the only house written tournaments to make this change.

btressler · Post by **btressler** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 11:48 am

We want to thank TJ for saving our film project in next week's middle school tournament. Charter Challenge IV: Charter Challenge and the Kingdom of the Student Skull will now be able to film the scenes set in India because Raja's agent has agreed to our casting of Raja's stunt double.

http://www.charterschool.org/clubs/acad ... jatwin.jpg

jbarnes112358 · Post by **jbarnes112358** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 12:17 pm

I concur with most of the comments regarding the tournament. The card system was much, much better than having teams sitting out half the rounds. There were a few minor problems with it, as it required teams to face the same opponent twice, as in MW A having to face Whitman A twice. By having everyone playing all the time, of course, more moderators and more buzzer systems are needed. I believed they covered the moderators well. All the moderators I saw seemed adequate to excellent, at least as good, and maybe better than usual. The buzzer situation was unfortunate. We also had to scramble at our tournament for working buzzers. My team did not help by bringing four teams and no buzzers, but we simply do not have a working set to bring. I believe the general buzzer condition out there is not good. We have bumped up our discount for bringing buzzers. That extra incentive might bring in a few more. By the way, having a common lunch time is also more convenient for schools bringing multiple teams. Thanks for that!

As to the questions, they were mostly well-written with nice pyramidal structure. The answers were quite variable in difficulty, with some answers being a little over the top in obscurity for high school. Bonuses were variable in difficulty. Checking the bonus conversion stats and PPG for these teams will prove the point. The bonus conversion stats are normally much higher for teams of this caliber. On the other hand, I suppose one could argue that most tournaments are too easy for teams of this caliber.

By the way, can anyone solve the mystery of the missing Blake team. We appreciate the forfeit win and all, but we would have preferred to play the game.

jbarnes112358 · Post by **jbarnes112358** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 12:25 pm

MLWMathStar wrote:On a more positive note about the questions: The absence of math calculation was much appreciated. Please let TJ and GSAC not be the only house written tournaments to make this change.

Note that this comment is from a player who has a big advantage on computational questions because he is so good at them.

I agree with Palmer. However, a few of the mathematics questions were way out there in difficulty.

Blackboard Monitor Vimes · Sun Jan 13, 2008 12:32 pm

jbarnes112358 wrote:
By the way, can anyone solve the mystery of the missing Blake team. We appreciate the forfeit win and all, but we would have preferred to play the game.

Um...Dr. B....we played some of those questions once we had firmly established that Blake had disappeared and there wasn't much that we knew and quite possibly less that we knew better than Blake. The rest of the questions may have been more our style, but the general consensus on Gov B was that we were okay with not playing that game. This also brings me to the issue of distribution as there were at least two questions relating to Christianity in that round, which would have been painful on a team consisting of an atheist, an agnostic, a Hindu, and whatever Matt is... Most of the Bible knowledge we have comes from English class... In most other rounds the RMP seemed reasonably balanced, although I've never encountered Chinese mythology in a tournament before. I found the military history to other history ratio a little extreme, though. Any other issues I noticed with distribution/difficulty have been brought before, except for the utter lack of sports questions until the final TU. I can understand why you wanted that question to end your tournament, but some more sports sprinkled in would have been nice.

aestheteboy · Post by **aestheteboy** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 1:21 pm

jkohn wrote:Two teams, Blake and Walter Johnson, did not pick up the questions they bought. If you can email me your mailing address, we can send them to you.

If you are willing to give electronic copies, please send one to izumickk @ hotmail.com. If not, we can wait till the next tournament we meet (Gonzaga?).

jbarnes112358 · Post by **jbarnes112358** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 1:53 pm

MLWGS-Gir wrote:
jbarnes112358 wrote:
By the way, can anyone solve the mystery of the missing Blake team. We appreciate the forfeit win and all, but we would have preferred to play the game.
Um...Dr. B....we played some of those questions once we had firmly established that Blake had disappeared and there wasn't much that we knew and quite possibly less that we knew better than Blake. The rest of the questions may have been more our style, but the general consensus on Gov B was that we were okay with not playing that game.

Okay then, I used the wrong pronoun. "I" would have preferred that you played the game. That way we all would know for sure whether or not you knew more than Blake on those questions, and which team really deserved to advance. In winning your next round you proved worthy of the top 8, but some might see how your path was made easier by the forfeit win, which might taint your accomplishment a bit.

dschafer · Post by **dschafer** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:19 pm

Is there any chance that the spreadsheet used for the card system could be posted? I am very interested to see how the pairings worked, especially in the later rounds.

Blackboard Monitor Vimes · Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:20 pm

jbarnes112358 wrote:
MLWGS-Gir wrote:
jbarnes112358 wrote:
By the way, can anyone solve the mystery of the missing Blake team. We appreciate the forfeit win and all, but we would have preferred to play the game.
Um...Dr. B....we played some of those questions once we had firmly established that Blake had disappeared and there wasn't much that we knew and quite possibly less that we knew better than Blake. The rest of the questions may have been more our style, but the general consensus on Gov B was that we were okay with not playing that game.
Okay then, I used the wrong pronoun. "I" would have preferred that you played the game. That way we all would know for sure whether or not you knew more than Blake on those questions, and which team really deserved to advance. In winning your next round you proved worthy of the top 8, but some might see how your path was made easier by the forfeit win, which might taint your accomplishment a bit.

Highly supportive, Dr. B. We've beaten Blake before...hopefully we would have done so again. We only read the first six questions or so before we had to go play. For all we know we might have known the remaining 14.

The Atom Strikes! · Post by **The Atom Strikes!** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 4:53 pm

Another thing: In the individual stats, my real name is listed as "Harry Gorman." I usually go by "Henry."

Whiter Hydra · Post by **Whiter Hydra** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 4:59 pm

dschafer wrote:Is there any chance that the spreadsheet used for the card system could be posted? I am very interested to see how the pairings worked, especially in the later rounds.

Yes there is.

During the fiasco of teams dropping out at the last minute, I also have a card system set up for 42, 44, and 48 teams if you're interested.

dschafer · Post by **dschafer** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 5:22 pm

hwhite wrote:
dschafer wrote:Is there any chance that the spreadsheet used for the card system could be posted? I am very interested to see how the pairings worked, especially in the later rounds.
Yes there is.

During the fiasco of teams dropping out at the last minute, I also have a card system set up for 42, 44, and 48 teams if you're interested.

How do you generate the pairings after the straight Swiss Pair in the first 3 rounds?

Whiter Hydra · Post by **Whiter Hydra** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 5:28 pm

Basically I looked at how many wins (on average) each card would have and then I paired teams with equal (or as equal as possible) records. I recalculated the number of wins teach team would have, and then repeated until round 7.

SwmmrManShen · Post by **SwmmrManShen** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 8:38 pm

a few points from a mid level player

-The questions, while great for alot of the top players, for the rest of the field were pretty lame, especially in the earlier rounds. They were excessively misdirected, or were so obscure people who read wikipedia like they were shooting up heroin would know (i.e. soft serve and thatcher) or the dr. zoidberg question that only a hardcore futurama fan would know

-a lack of sports questions. this is more a personal pet peeve than anything else, but most tournaments have a few scattered throughout, and add some fun to what is generally a grueling 10 hour academic marathon

-the card system was nifty, but we (woodson A) had to play a pretty absurd prelim round, and are pretty lucky we neve made playoffs. off the top of my head we played State College A, SC B TWICE, and Gonzaga A.

good shit to everyone we played.

btressler · Post by **btressler** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 9:02 pm

hwhite wrote:During the fiasco of teams dropping out at the last minute, I also have a card system set up for 42, 44, and 48 teams if you're interested.

Yes, actually I would like those numbers and would be glad to credit the source if given permission to post them.

Please send to [email protected]

Blackboard Monitor Vimes · Sun Jan 13, 2008 9:55 pm

SwmmrManShen wrote:They were excessively misdirected, or were so obscure people who read wikipedia like they were shooting up heroin would know (i.e. soft serve and thatcher) or the dr. zoidberg question that only a hardcore futurama fan would know

Really? I agree that a lot of things were obscure, but my team was scared to buzz on the Thatcher question because it seemed obvious to us...although I can't remember if it was only the pronouns that distinguished the answer as female or whether PM was mentioned or merely alluded to. If that was the case, I can see how you would easily miss that. We've also had Thatcher at practice recently. Good point, could have been a better example. The game we lost to you guys was also a non-buzz situation like that (Tale of Genji; that was you guys, right?) as was the Atlas Mountains. The variable difficulty level made some of the questions really scary. I missed the soft serve question; that most have been in the round we didn't play. As for Futurama, it's come up at most of the housewritten tournaments I've gone to. There doesn't seem to be any getting around it. I'm fortunate enougn to have a Futurama fan on my team. Pop culture's like that, though. I also agree that there could have been more sports...

BuzzerZen · Post by **BuzzerZen** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 10:02 pm

TJ has had a 1/1 sports per tournament distribution for years. Apparently I somehow managed to impress the importance of this policy on my successors.

Nine-Tenths Ideas · Post by **Nine-Tenths Ideas** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 10:38 pm

Okay, a few last comments...

1) I had no idea we made the playoffs. We just sorta left after going 3-4. A mistake on my part, but not the worst...

2) Mr. Caulfield had to go to a taping in the middle of the tournament. It was on MY HEAD to pick up both the buzzers and the questions, and I blew it on both counts. Obviously, I have some 'splaining to do to my coach. I'm not sure how we will retrieve the buzzers until after I talk to him. As for questions and the buzzers, you probably should email Mr. Caulfield at [email protected]

Either way, this will probably be the last tournament I go to for a while.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 11:00 pm

BuzzerZen wrote:TJ has had a 1/1 sports per tournament distribution for years. Apparently I somehow managed to impress the importance of this policy on my successors.

They said that the sports questions were written... just that they might have been a bit too crazy writing the sports questions.

Of course they may have interpreted things to mean 1/1 for THE ENTIRE TOURNAMENT.

bterrill · Post by **bterrill** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 11:11 pm

Anyone who got the Xanatos tossup is a hero.