2008 QU NAC: B. T. Washington (OK) wins!

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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by evilmonkey »

Deesy Does It wrote:Playoff doesn't mean top tier. I don't disagree that they probably would make the playoffs as well, but I do disagree that they could beat any of the, say, top 10 teams.
Alright, I retract my statement about playoff teams. It seems that BTW would need to be at least a top 25 team to have a shot at beating Charter on a pyramidal packet. Give the 3 point shift down, unless the results at Tulsa were not indicative of BTW's actual goodness of play, I'd say that they'd have fit somewhere around 60th at HSNCT.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by cdcarter »

DumbJaques wrote:
Lets assume for a second that BTW could average 16 PPB at HSNCT.
Well, I'm not sure why you'd do that. Top tier teams were averaging anywhere from 24 to 28 ppb on that IS set, and they were hitting around what, 18-22 ppb at nationals? I'm not sure why BTW, who clearly practices much less on nationals levels questions and clearly has much less deep knowledge (see: lack of powers), would see a bonus conversion reduction at a rate about 300% better than the the teams who specifically gear up for that kind of competition and display excellent depth of knowledge. Or, in short, why in the world does it matter if they would do ok or bad or great at NAQT? They still should play NAQT/PACE, still are nowhere near as good as Charter, and still need to stop playing chip because chip is the devil.
Chris, based on a pretty quick regression, on average I estimate that each team loses about 3-5 points on their bonus conversion when moving from IS sets to HSNCT sets. That's where that assumption came from
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by btressler »

In a minor note:

The coaches were being polled for their preferences on next year's dates.

It will either start around 5/23 or 5/30 next year as I recall. And the three phases are New Orleans, D.C., and Chicago.

I wish one of the other nationals would go to New Orleans. I really liked it there the two years we went.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

cdcarter wrote:
DumbJaques wrote:
Lets assume for a second that BTW could average 16 PPB at HSNCT.
Well, I'm not sure why you'd do that. Top tier teams were averaging anywhere from 24 to 28 ppb on that IS set, and they were hitting around what, 18-22 ppb at nationals? I'm not sure why BTW, who clearly practices much less on nationals levels questions and clearly has much less deep knowledge (see: lack of powers), would see a bonus conversion reduction at a rate about 300% better than the the teams who specifically gear up for that kind of competition and display excellent depth of knowledge. Or, in short, why in the world does it matter if they would do ok or bad or great at NAQT? They still should play NAQT/PACE, still are nowhere near as good as Charter, and still need to stop playing chip because chip is the devil.
Chris, based on a pretty quick regression, on average I estimate that each team loses about 3-5 points on their bonus conversion when moving from IS sets to HSNCT sets. That's where that assumption came from
And I'd say, Chris, that the best teams could very well drop more from IS sets to nationals than second or third tier teams. (There's a spot above where they are, of course, where your ppb would approach being the same on both again--I'm pretty sure that the best college teams would be pretty close to 30 on both sets, obviously.)

IS sets have a pretty limited canon, so if elite teams learned nearly all the clues that come up, eventually, I wouldn't be surprised--I'd love to see how TJ '05 did on IS sets, for example. But the nationals canon might just be big enough that teams that had absolutely mastered the IS set canon don't get every third bonus part (or get nearly every bonus part, but zero the HSNCT's trash, which I think is a lot harder than IS trash).
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Matt Weiner »

At 43rd in the computer rankings and likely unranked in the poll if the voters have any sense, we have now seen the most illegitimate winner of a "national tournament" in the history of high school quizbowl. Chip always finds a way to top himself in terms of the total lack of value in his event...

And yes, if Booker played Charter on halfway decent questions, Charter would win 10 times out of 10. I'd bet on it if i could.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Byko »

Matt Weiner wrote:At 43rd in the computer rankings and likely unranked in the poll if the voters have any sense, we have now seen the most illegitimate winner of a "national tournament" in the history of high school quizbowl. Chip always finds a way to top himself in terms of the total lack of value in his event...

And yes, if Booker played Charter on halfway decent questions, Charter would win 10 times out of 10. I'd bet on it if i could.
Brace yourself. Once the updated results go in, they'll move even higher up. Sorry.

Also, I'm sure there are other teams in the early years that are probably much less legitimate.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Matt Weiner »

Byko wrote:Brace yourself. Once the updated results go in, they'll move even higher up. Sorry.

Also, I'm sure there are other teams in the early years that are probably much less legitimate.
I can't speak to what sort of field the tournament drew in 1984, but at least when it was the biggest game in town you had more than 1 first-tier team showing up each year. The questions were always awful but there's something to be said for decent competition when calculating legitimacy. Now you have exactly 1 national top-tier team playing the event, and they still can't win because of the combination of questions so bad as to make match results a roll of the dice, and the suspicious 0% success rate at NAC of teams who have publicly criticized NAC.

Are Maggie or Brick reading this? Can I ask you whether you felt at all guilty awarding the "national championship" trophy to Booker T. Washington? You guys do know that they are clearly not even one of the best 30 teams in the country, right? Aside from the general moral quandary of being involved in Chip at all, what were your specific feelings on the farcical result of just that particular game?
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by jbarnes112358 »

Byko wrote:
Brace yourself. Once the updated results go in, they'll move even higher up. Sorry.
Well, if you give them a win over Charter, then I suppose they would move up. But, it seems to be something of a problem with your algorithm if you weight all wins the same, no matter the format of the game played. You are not really comparing apples to apples. Which should have more weight in comparing teams, a win in NAC format or a win in, say, PACE format? I could ask the same question regarding strange formats like VHSL, which has an odd distribution and format of bonusless questions with frequent buzzer races and directed rounds where the two teams get different questions.

I am not saying that a team should get no credit for winning games in different formats, but outcomes of some formats and questions styles are much more prone to situations where the inferior team wins. In fact, NAQT sets also can give odd results for reasons previously discussed in other threads. I am not saying you should rewrite your program, just that some of the results should be taken with a grain of salt.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Nuclear Densometer Test »

Matt Weiner wrote: And yes, if Booker played Charter on halfway decent questions, Charter would win 10 times out of 10. I'd bet on it if i could.
I think that is fairly accurate considering Charter's constant 400, 500+ scores at NAC. Booker is not bad though...
It would probably depend on the question set, since at NAQT Charter also placed 2nd.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by AKKOLADE »

Southside_amit wrote:I think that is fairly accurate considering Charter's constant 400, 500+ scores at NAC. Booker is not bad though...
It would probably depend on the question set, since at NAQT Charter also placed 2nd.
Agreed with the first statement, but using Charter's NAQT second place finish as an argument against them when comparing them against Booker T Washington is probably not a good comparison.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Nuclear Densometer Test »

leftsaidfred wrote:
Southside_amit wrote:I think that is fairly accurate considering Charter's constant 400, 500+ scores at NAC. Booker is not bad though...
It would probably depend on the question set, since at NAQT Charter also placed 2nd.
Agreed with the first statement, but using Charter's NAQT second place finish as an argument against them when comparing them against Booker T Washington is probably not a good comparison.

well, maybe not a good comparison directly to Booker, but it is a good comparison overall. Since, any team who can go 2nd at NAC and NAQT has to be one of the nation's best.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Blackboard Monitor Vimes »

jbarnes112358 wrote:[
I am not saying that a team should get no credit for winning games in different formats, but outcomes of some formats and questions styles are much more prone to situations where the inferior team wins. In fact, NAQT sets also can give odd results for reasons previously discussed in other threads. I am not saying you should rewrite your program, just that some of the results should be taken with a grain of salt.
At last season's tournament at Ocean Lakes, on an IS set, Maggie Walker A lost to Freeman A who then lost to Maggie Walker C. That same day, MW C lost to Freeman and MW A beat Freeman. Anything can happen. Weighting different formats would be an interesting idea, but it would have to be fairly complicated to avoid being overly subjective. Even weighting NAQT and PACE one way and everything else another could be viewed as biased. I'll admit that I don't know a lot about statistics (I'm taking VCU stats next year but thus far only have basic information from last year), but it doesn't like it would be easy to do this in an objective fashion. I personally think the more practical move is to look at the tournaments teams played in (information easily available on the Byko rankings) when viewing them for the purposes of comparison and then take that into account when making comparisons, which is in most cases already at least a somewhat subjective process. It's an interesting thought, though.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Nuclear Densometer Test »

MLWGS-Gir wrote:
At last season's tournament at Ocean Lakes, on an IS set, Maggie Walker A lost to Freeman A who then lost to Maggie Walker C. That same day, MW C lost to Freeman and MW A beat Freeman. Anything can happen.
wow.
how did that happen?
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Blackboard Monitor Vimes »

Southside_amit wrote:
MLWGS-Gir wrote:
At last season's tournament at Ocean Lakes, on an IS set, Maggie Walker A lost to Freeman A who then lost to Maggie Walker C. That same day, MW C lost to Freeman and MW A beat Freeman. Anything can happen.
wow.
how did that happen?
In one game Freeman A managed to get more questions and presumably play better than MW A (I notably did not witness this game), and in another my game the C Team played better and got more questions than Freeman (I can attest to this as I was on that C Team). In a lot of cases, matches depend on what questions come up. I find that a lot of people tend to disagree with me on that, but no matter how good you are, how well you do depends on knowing the questions that come up in a particular round. Especially with NAQT's tournament rather than round-based distribution, this allows unexpected things to happen.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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MLWGS-Gir wrote:
In one game Freeman A managed to get more questions and presumably play better than MW A (I notably did not witness this game), and in another my game the C Team played better and got more questions than Freeman (I can attest to this as I was on that C Team). In a lot of cases, matches depend on what questions come up. I find that a lot of people tend to disagree with me on that, but no matter how good you are, how well you do depends on knowing the questions that come up in a particular round. Especially with NAQT's tournament rather than round-based distribution, this allows unexpected things to happen.[/quote]


yeah.
most people only take into consideration the teams that are playing, but the questions that come up are also of equal importance. Everyone was very surprised when Southside beat James Island (First seed at NAC D.C.) in the finals at NAQT SC States. Both teams are very good, but James Island probably had the upper hand.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by jbarnes112358 »

MLWGS-Gir wrote: At last season's tournament at Ocean Lakes, on an IS set, Maggie Walker A lost to Freeman A who then lost to Maggie Walker C. That same day, MW C lost to Freeman and MW A beat Freeman. Anything can happen. Weighting different formats would be an interesting idea, but it would have to be fairly complicated to avoid being overly subjective. Even weighting NAQT and PACE one way and everything else another could be viewed as biased. I'll admit that I don't know a lot about statistics (I'm taking VCU stats next year but thus far only have basic information from last year), but it doesn't like it would be easy to do this in an objective fashion. I personally think the more practical move is to look at the tournaments teams played in (information easily available on the Byko rankings) when viewing them for the purposes of comparison and then take that into account when making comparisons, which is in most cases already at least a somewhat subjective process. It's an interesting thought, though.
I agree it would be impractical and biased to try to weight results based on format. I suppose you could do a ranking based only on a single format assuming you had sufficient data for such a ranking to be meaningful. I believe NAQT has some kind of ranking for teams based on results from their tournaments, though I have not actually seen it.

Byko had that Freeman upset of Maggie Walker as the biggest upset of the year in 2006-07. You are right that upsets can happen, which is the reason we play the games. On the other hand, some formats are structured to favor the better team winning with upsets by clearly inferior teams being much more unusual.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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Matt Weiner wrote: Are Maggie or Brick reading this? Can I ask you whether you felt at all guilty awarding the "national championship" trophy to Booker T. Washington? You guys do know that they are clearly not even one of the best 30 teams in the country, right? Aside from the general moral quandary of being involved in Chip at all, what were your specific feelings on the farcical result of just that particular game?
Yes, I'm still reading. To answer your question, I felt INCREDIBLY guilty giving my alma mater the trophy. They went into that game cold and still beat Wilmington, who only scored those 400s and up because the other teams gave up after the bonus round. I'm not belittling the Wilmington team, who is good despite their coach, but paired against a team of equal stature, they are not the absolute powerhouses that these 550-180ish scores portray them to be.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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lasercats wrote:Yes, I'm still reading. To answer your question, I felt INCREDIBLY guilty giving my alma mater the trophy. They went into that game cold and still beat Wilmington, who only scored those 400s and up because the other teams gave up after the bonus round. I'm not belittling the Wilmington team, who is good despite their coach, but paired against a team of equal stature, they are not the absolute powerhouses that these 550-180ish scores portray them to be.
I'm having trouble making sense of what you are trying to say here. "Despite their coach?" "Equal stature?" What is this code language you are using?
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Nuclear Densometer Test »

me too.

are you saying you didn't "deserve" the win?
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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Matt Weiner wrote:
lasercats wrote:Yes, I'm still reading. To answer your question, I felt INCREDIBLY guilty giving my alma mater the trophy. They went into that game cold and still beat Wilmington, who only scored those 400s and up because the other teams gave up after the bonus round. I'm not belittling the Wilmington team, who is good despite their coach, but paired against a team of equal stature, they are not the absolute powerhouses that these 550-180ish scores portray them to be.
I'm having trouble making sense of what you are trying to say here. "Despite their coach?" "Equal stature?" What is this code language you are using?
Despite their coach=I don't like the way the coach treats the team and/or anyone else.
Equal Stature=Teams who are equally skilled to them, with members who each specialize in things rather than a team with one dream child.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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Southside_amit wrote:me too.

are you saying you didn't "deserve" the win?
sarcasm...
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by SHP Pirate »

Maggie,

I do not know what to say to your comments about Charter. If you take the time to really examine their extensive statistics from the course of the year, I am sure that you will change your opinion. Henry is a phenomenal player, but, having witnessed most of their games, there were not a one-man team. As we did not stick around to watch the finals but, I would love for Charter to give their opinion about the final match.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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lasercats wrote: Despite their coach=I don't like the way the coach treats the team and/or anyone else.
Equal Stature=Teams who are equally skilled to them, with members who each specialize in things rather than a team with one dream child.
ok, so what teams do you consider "equal" to Charter then?

and, yeah, their coach is a little rude.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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lasercats wrote:Despite their coach=I don't like the way the coach treats the team and/or anyone else.
Oh, I see the problem here: You are unintelligent and dishonest.

I have never seen Bill treat his team or any other team improperly. I have an extremely low tolerance for football-coach type behavior and I don't let coaches yell at their players or intimidate other teams at any tournament I'm a part of. I've been at several events where Charter was present and I haven't seen even a hint of a problem from Bill or anyone else involved with that team. Smearing the reputation of your critics is a pretty great Chip Beall business practice, though--at this rate maybe he will choose you when Tanya hits his 10-year limit on wives next year!
Equal Stature=Teams who are equally skilled to them, with members who each specialize in things rather than a team with one dream child.
Charter fought some good games with such teams (TJ at NAQT, Whitman at PACE, etc) this year. You wouldn't know, since you weren't at any tournaments where teams equally skilled as Charter were present, and in fact it doesn't appear that you attended any real quizbowl tournaments at all this year.

What Booker T. Washington specializes in is having someone who still considers herself part of the team read them games at the tournament, being a loyal customer to Chip, avoiding any remotely real competition or questions, and shamelessly accepting "national champion" trophies while being a third-tier team. Those are the skills needed to succeed at your fake tournament, and we know who has them in spades.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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SHP Pirate wrote:Maggie,

I do not know what to say to your comments about Charter. If you take the time to really examine their extensive statistics from the course of the year, I am sure that you will change your opinion. Henry is a phenomenal player, but, having witnessed most of their games, there were not a one-man team. As we did not stick around to watch the finals but, I would love for Charter to give their opinion about the final match.

I wasn't saying that they were a one-player team. I was saying that there was a discernable difference between their games against one-player teams like Chaska and specialized (for lack of a better term) teams like Booker T., or even your team. I think your boys got too intimidated (which may be part of their strategy) and gave up during the 60 second round.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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Matt Weiner wrote: Oh, I see the problem here: You are unintelligent and dishonest.
Oh! That must be it.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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lasercats wrote:I wasn't saying that they were a one-player team. I was saying that there was a discernable difference between their games against one-player teams like Chaska and specialized (for lack of a better term) teams like Booker T., or even your team. I think your boys got too intimidated (which may be part of their strategy) and gave up during the 60 second round.
what? SHP was an amazing team, who may i remind you went 6-0 in playoffs. they certainly did not "give up" in the match, they were just outmatched.

As great as Booker T may be, it is not a very good example for a specialized team. that would like Dorman A, or Dunbar.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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Southside_amit wrote:
lasercats wrote:I wasn't saying that they were a one-player team. I was saying that there was a discernable difference between their games against one-player teams like Chaska and specialized (for lack of a better term) teams like Booker T., or even your team. I think your boys got too intimidated (which may be part of their strategy) and gave up during the 60 second round.
what? SHP was an amazing team, who may i remind you went 6-0 in playoffs. they certainly did not "give up" in the match, they were just outmatched.

As great as Booker T may be, it is not a very good example for a specialized team. that would like Dorman A, or Dunbar.

My statement wasn't that they were a bad team. In fact, I think they were one of, if not the best team at the competition. I do think that they allowed Wilmington to intimidate them, and they gave up in the final round. They just kind of sat there, and it didn't seem to me like they kept up the fight. The score reflects that. I loved the way they played in the other rounds I saw. I just think that they were tired and intimidated by the semifinals.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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lasercats wrote:My statement wasn't that they were a bad team. In fact, I think they were one of, if not the best team at the competition. I do think that they allowed Wilmington to intimidate them, and they gave up in the final round. They just kind of sat there, and it didn't seem to me like they kept up the fight. The score reflects that. I loved the way they played in the other rounds I saw. I just think that they were tired and intimidated by the semifinals.
FYI: real quizbowl is about who knows more. Your tournament is about "intimidating" people and psychological gamesmanship, because the questions are eight words long and about sewing machine parts, so knowledge is rendered useless or outright punished.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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Matt Weiner wrote: FYI: real quizbowl is about who knows more. Your tournament is about "intimidating" people and psychological gamesmanship, because the questions are eight words long and about sewing machine parts, so knowledge is rendered useless or outright punished.
agreed, if you don't know, you don't buzz in, simple as that.
Wilmington just knew more.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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Every statement I make is completely misconstrued. I'm done. You won, I hope you're happy.
For all your efforts, the flag:
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

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waaaaaaah i'm taking my ball and going home, the mean quizbowl people won't take my pretend tournament seriously
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

lasercats wrote:I wasn't saying that they were a one-player team. I was saying that there was a discernable difference between their games against one-player teams like Chaska and specialized (for lack of a better term) teams like Booker T., or even your team. I think your boys got too intimidated (which may be part of their strategy) and gave up during the 60 second round.
I think every quiz bowl team everywhere seeks to intimidate their opponents if they can do that by pummeling them until they don't feel like fighting. This is what Charter does to bad teams, like those at the NAC. Apparently Booker T. didn't give up, or maybe they weren't pummeled in the initial rounds because the questions are pathetic, or maybe it became relevant that Charter publicly criticized the NAC. Who knows! One way or another, what that means is that Booker wasn't such a bad team that they gave up once they found themselves in the same room as a real team. Woo hoo!

This doesn't mean "equal stature," though. If Booker took second at PACE, and Charter kept its second at NAQT, they'd certainly have comparable stature; depending on your opinion of the two tournaments, Booker might have greater stature. But this did not happen. Booker played one legitimate opponent this year of which I'm aware, and it was Charter, and they pulled out a hardly gigantic win on bad questions.

Also, perhaps you can explain to us what Bill Tressler did to you, so that we can understand why a man we find perfectly affable--and I'm saying this even though my junior year he lodged a ridiculous protest, but one I can't begrudge anyone considering that it could have been a 90-point swing and we ended up winning by ten--is actually slime, whereas you, who seem to think that vaguely sniping at anyone who criticizes Booker's support of a bad organization is great fun, are a class act.

When I say "bad organization," I don't mean "an organization I think is bad;" I mean an organization that by most people's morals ("sexism is bad? fraud is bad? lying is bad? being an asshole is bad?") is bad. Please refer to the wiki.

As to the statements we've misconstrued--please explain them. I didn't know that I've been misconstruing things, and I should probably look back over the last few dozen papers I've written to make sure that I didn't misconstrue any historians, either. Their feelings might be hurt.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by SHP Pirate »

So Andrew ... my team (SHP) is a "bad team"? Why?
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by lasercats »

everyday847 wrote: Also, perhaps you can explain to us what Bill Tressler did to you, so that we can understand why a man we find perfectly affable--and I'm saying this even though my junior year he lodged a ridiculous protest, but one I can't begrudge anyone considering that it could have been a 90-point swing and we ended up winning by ten--is actually slime, whereas you, who seem to think that vaguely sniping at anyone who criticizes Booker's support of a bad organization is great fun, are a class act
He lodged a ridiculous protest against Ernie and Me this weekend because we would not accept "Jonathan" for Jonathan Livingston. He proceeded to wave his hands erratically and raise his voice in toddler fashion, telling us that we were completely wrong and don't know what we're doing. They beat the other team by more than 100 points, so it wasn't a points matter. He then felt it necessary to complain about it here as well (can be found on page three).
After every other game of theirs that I saw he did not throw fits or protest any other rulings, but he did always seem very cold and angry, even after victories.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by The Time Keeper »

SHP Pirate wrote:So Andrew ... my team (SHP) is a "bad team"? Why?
Not to speak for Andrew (but here's where I speak for Andrew), but I think instead of actually bad (which would probably accurately describe most of Charter's other opponents at the NAC) he meant something along the lines of "significantly worse than Charter" which, considering Charter this year, could be used to describe many an otherwise good team.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

lasercats wrote:
everyday847 wrote: Also, perhaps you can explain to us what Bill Tressler did to you, so that we can understand why a man we find perfectly affable--and I'm saying this even though my junior year he lodged a ridiculous protest, but one I can't begrudge anyone considering that it could have been a 90-point swing and we ended up winning by ten--is actually slime, whereas you, who seem to think that vaguely sniping at anyone who criticizes Booker's support of a bad organization is great fun, are a class act
He lodged a ridiculous protest against Ernie and Me this weekend because we would not accept "Jonathan" for Jonathan Livingston. He proceeded to wave his hands erratically and raise his voice in toddler fashion, telling us that we were completely wrong and don't know what we're doing. They beat the other team by more than 100 points, so it wasn't a points matter. He then felt it necessary to complain about it here as well (can be found on page three).
After every other game of theirs that I saw he did not throw fits or protest any other rulings, but he did always seem very cold and angry, even after victories.
(a) Not a ridiculous protest; in every form of legitimate quizbowl, either the first or last name is acceptible (or at least promptable) for literary characters
(b) You are completely wrong, and it sounds like you don't know what you're doing

EDIT: clarified
Last edited by Auks Ran Ova on Wed Jun 11, 2008 9:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Matt Weiner »

lasercats wrote:He lodged a ridiculous protest against Ernie and Me this weekend because we would not accept "Jonathan" for Jonathan Livingston. He proceeded to wave his hands erratically and raise his voice in toddler fashion, telling us that we were completely wrong and don't know what we're doing. They beat the other team by more than 100 points, so it wasn't a points matter. He then felt it necessary to complain about it here as well (can be found on page three).
After every other game of theirs that I saw he did not throw fits or protest any other rulings, but he did always seem very cold and angry, even after victories.
Ah, so you alleged that he mistreated high school students, but what you actually meant was, he unfortunately thought that standard quizbowl practice on acceptable answers should apply to your farcical non-quizbowl tournament, and you took offense at someone questioning your stupid ruling. Being of low intellectual capacity and unfamiliar with good quizbowl, your only possible reaction was to go on the Internet and call him a brat, rather than to give his team points for a correct answer.

What happened to your white flag?
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by The Time Keeper »

lasercats wrote:
He lodged a ridiculous protest against Ernie and Me this weekend because we would not accept "Jonathan" for Jonathan Livingston. He proceeded to wave his hands erratically and raise his voice in toddler fashion, telling us that we were completely wrong and don't know what we're doing. They beat the other team by more than 100 points, so it wasn't a points matter. He then felt it necessary to complain about it here as well (can be found on page three).
After every other game of theirs that I saw he did not throw fits or protest any other rulings, but he did always seem very cold and angry, even after victories.
Seems like that should have at least been a prompt, and everyone who had to be at the NAC has a right to be cold and angry.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by jbarnes112358 »

lasercats wrote:Every statement I make is completely misconstrued. I'm done. You won, I hope you're happy.
For all your efforts, the flag:
[/img]
Sorry, Maggie, But, you must realize by now that any posts that try to legitimize :chip: 's tournament here will be severely rebuked.


I am sure your former team is a solid quizbowl team as evidenced by their performance at a couple of NAQT tournaments this year. It is hard to know how they stack up with little data. But, Their stats at those tournaments are probably consistent with a team in the top 30 to 50. The problem in trying to compare them with Charter based on :chip: is that a team ranked 40th can probably beat a team ranked 4th (which is about where Charter would be ranked) about as often as the other way around on :chip: 's questions using :chip: 's format.

I believe much of the apparent frustration here is that we would love to see Booker T. Washington come to some better tournaments. I would love to see them play. I'm sure they would perform quite well and would do you proud. I hate to say it, but winning NAC simply carries very little prestige any more, since the overwhelming majority of good quizbowl teams no longer attend it, and with the questions and other issues as they are, it is hard for the best team, even a team as good as Charter, and even with NAC's limited field, to actually win it.

Edit: grammatical
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by lasercats »

I guess I need to clarify even more things about myself, mostly for my dear friend Matt:

*QU is not nor will it ever be "my tournament". I did not create it, do not write the questions, did not make up the rules, and do not agree with it 100%.
*Because I happened to work for them this year does not mean that I shun the "good" kinds of quizbowl. Just the opposite. I am making an effort to learn as much as possible about NAQT, PACE, and others so that I can work for them in the future. This weekend in Chicago I was asked to come back next year, but I don't think I will. I'm going to try to volunteer with NAQT so that I can go to quizbowl heaven.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by lasercats »

jbarnes112358 wrote: I believe much of the apparent frustration here is that we would love to see Booker T. Washington come to some better tournaments. I would love to see them play. I'm sure they would perform quite well and would do you proud. I hate to say it, but winning NAC simply carries very little prestige any more, since the overwhelming majority of good quizbowl teams no longer attend it, and the with the questions and other issues as they are, it is hard for the best team, even a team as good as Charter, and even in their limited field to actually win.
I would too, and I will continue to encourage them to attend other tournaments so that they can prove their talent.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

lasercats wrote:I guess I need to clarify even more things about myself, mostly for my dear friend Matt:

*QU is not nor will it ever be "my tournament". I did not create it, do not write the questions, did not make up the rules, and do not agree with it 100%.
*Because I happened to work for them this year does not mean that I shun the "good" kinds of quizbowl. Just the opposite. I am making an effort to learn as much as possible about NAQT, PACE, and others so that I can work for them in the future. This weekend in Chicago I was asked to come back next year, but I don't think I will. I'm going to try to volunteer with NAQT so that I can go to quizbowl heaven.
I mean, this makes me very happy, except these are the same sentiments you expressed the last time you found yourself on the losing side of an argument about the quality of Chip's tripe.

Just before having said your first point, you insulted a quiz bowl coach no one else seems to find objectionable, and did so because they dared to adhere to the rules every legitimate quiz bowl tournament accepts, and those which any reasonable tournament would approve of. You might not make up the NAC rules, but you seem quite content to enforce them even when they're ridiculous, and moreover--since it's not entirely ludicrous to enforce rules when there are lots of Chip sycophants in the room who might overrule you--attack coaches for disagreeing with them. Granted, thank you for letting us know that you didn't create it. We're such brats that we were getting confused.

As to your second point, it does mean that you did choose to shun good quiz bowl this year. It's a minor point. Once you work for NAQT or PACE, and sever all ties with Chip, you might "go to quizbowl heaven." Say ten Hail Vinokurovs and five Our Teitlers.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by AKKOLADE »

Once again Maggie, I encourage you to logically defend the tournament NAC runs against those done by NAQT and PACE as being a better national, or even just a good national. I have never seen such an argument presented and would love to hear one from its supporter so I can edify myself on their beliefs.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by wowitsquinthaha »

Dr. Barnes wrote:Their stats at those tournaments are probably consistent with a team in the top 30 to 50.
Uh...? :shock:
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by jbarnes112358 »

wowitsquinthaha wrote:
Dr. Barnes wrote:Their stats at those tournaments are probably consistent with a team in the top 30 to 50.
Uh...? :shock:
If there is a question here, please ask it. Otherwise, you sound like a caveman. :smile:
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Blackboard Monitor Vimes »

jbarnes112358 wrote:
wowitsquinthaha wrote:
Dr. Barnes wrote:Their stats at those tournaments are probably consistent with a team in the top 30 to 50.
Uh...? :shock:
If there is a question here, please ask it. Otherwise, you sound like a caveman. :smile:
I believe Quint is surprised by your evaluation of BTW's stats and would like an explanation, as evidenced by the :shock: .
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by lasercats »

leftsaidfred wrote:Once again Maggie, I encourage you to logically defend the tournament NAC runs against those done by NAQT and PACE as being a better national, or even just a good national. I have never seen such an argument presented and would love to hear one from its supporter so I can edify myself on their beliefs.
Until I attend an NAQT or PACE tournament I will not be able to do this. Even at that time, I anticipate liking them better than NAC.
I have found significant problems with NAC since my job behind the scenes, and think that if Chip would delegate things to other people and loosen his control over the tournament, that it could perhaps be of the same caliber as what I think NAQT and PACE might be.
At this point, all I can offer you is what I do like about NAC. I like the variety of having a bonus, 60 second and "stump the experts" round. I also like that it is not completely comprised of pyramidal questions. Finally, I like the heavy emphasis on the arts and humanities.
I also have big problems with it. It is too expensive, and rules for judgement are not given. Similarly, the questions need more thought to eliminate other possible answers. In every game I had at least a couple of questions which had acceptable answers other than that which was given. This is not entirely Chip's fault, as he is not the only writer of questions. Nevertheless, it needs to be addressed.
Last edited by lasercats on Wed Jun 11, 2008 9:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by wowitsquinthaha »

Dr. B wrote:If there is a question here, please ask it. Otherwise, you sound like a caveman.
Ug, Ug, OOg, Ug-Oog

EDIT: I just really don't think we should be placing a ranking on a team who has only played 13 non QU games, and won all of them...
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Re: 2008 QU NAC discussion and comment

Post by Matt Weiner »

lasercats wrote: I also like that it is not completely comprised of pyramidal questions.
Yes, you like bad quizbowl, that's been established.
Finally, I like the heavy emphasis on the arts and humanities.
I charted the distribution of an NAC round and found about 3 pop culture questions and 3 math calculation questions for every arts question. I guess that's a "heavy emphasis" compared to some hypothetical tournament that has no arts at all, but it's ass-backwards compared to actual quizbowl.
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