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Gautam

Round reports are now visible, but only for the prelim+playoff stats.

Gautam

Gautam

Seth, I think your concern about the individuals/teams which take on too much responsibility to produce tournaments and question sets in a narrow time range is valid. Not only can the tournament quality be diminished, but it can also hurt the individuals who do not budget in adequate amounts of time...

Gautam

One thing to keep in mind when writing novice tournaments is that novice players, compared to expert players, know some bio, chem, and history, a little about lit, fine arts, and physics, and very little about philosophy and social science. Huh? Some of the incoming freshmen I've seen at the Minnes...

Gautam

Prelim Stats

Playoff Stats.

Congratulations to Chaska for winning the tournament. It was good to see all the teams back in action again.

Gautam

1. Minnesota B (Hart/Carson/Spencer) 2. Minnesota A (Byrne+3) 3. Chicago A (Shantanu, Marnold, et al.) 4. Missouri (DEES+1) 5. Lawrence (Peterson+0) 6. Indiana (Carlo/Nick, John Brown, et al.) 7-22. Other people (I don't remember) 23. DePauw A 24. DePauw B What has this accomplished other than bein...

Gautam

TIT 2008 was a good "regular difficulty" tournament as were 2007 Titanomachy and 2008 ACF Regionals.

Gautam

It's unfortunate that this has happened. Given that my brother is on that team and has high aspirations for this year (and he's getting to be a good player too), I think it is a major setback to that team. I don't think it is appropriate to be talking about legitimacy of tournaments not run by R; R ...

Gautam

Nicolaus Notabene wrote: Granted, a player isn't going through Modern Decathalon, but I find that more than 12-15 rounds will result in mental fatigue,

Clearly you haven't played quizbowl yet.

Gautam

I loooooove the title!

Gautam

ClemsonQB wrote: I'm not fully aware of your definition of "middle America"

It's that giant wasteland in our backyard

Gautam

Giant post requiring us to outline SPECIFIC EXAMPLES of how terrible rules have affected people and asks whether the situation is THAT SERIOUS Look, man, in the rest of this country there are several high-schoolers who like to participate in summer tournaments and collegiate tournaments. People als...

Gautam

You are correct. I completely read that the opposite way (that the tossup was on the book and implying it was a character was said a few times.) Also, I should probably clarify that one can listen to the first pronoun (he/she/it/them) and be reasonably sure that the answer is going to fit the pronou...

Gautam

Another possibility: suppose that, during a tossup on the character Huck Finn, a player buzzes in with "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" before it specifically asks for the character. The pronoun "he" rather than "it" has been used a few times. Would you count it co...

Gautam

Yeah the rule changes are great, and they will definitely make for better games.

Thank you.

Gautam

It works from this UMN

Gautam

everyday847 wrote:If all goes well, you'll get three or four Harvard packets by that early deadline.

Please make sure that happens, or you shall face my wrath in the Watkins' personal history packet I am writing.

Gautam

Oh dear.

Gautam

That said, I could see a reasonable "novice circuit" develop that allows new players to get experience on easier questions. EFT in September/October, ACF Fall in November, NAQT D2 Sectionals in February, MCMNT in March. If we make the Summer Novice Tournament an annual event, that's five,...

Gautam

Probably the best way to learn science is to do science itself; take a class, especially ones with labs. Labs really help keep the laws in perspective, and tell you lot of things that what the laws imply, or exceptions to rules, and things like that. That kind of stuff helps you get questions early,...

Gautam

Ah, so apparently you have not yet been awarded points on a Casimir effect tossup that discusses it in the context of the chiral bag model of the nucleon. Since that has come up at least 3 times that I can think of (once written, twice answered by me), I think it's a fine opening clue for a novice ...

Gautam

The set was good. Just like others said, it was kinda hard. I had a hilarious neg on the chlorophyll tossup with DNA (I buzzed in on "it has an A form and B form" clue) and some others like that. I was happy about the tossups I got. I want to point out one issue with the science. A similar...

Gautam

First Chairman wrote: sorting algorithm

There are sorting algorithms involed, now? I thought it was some bored guy arbitrarily placing stuff.

Gautam

DumbJaques wrote:the personal history of Andy Watkins

I can try to contribute a theme packet on this topic, if I don't go crazy by the 2nd week of Nov writing questions...

Gautam

Gautam

I also think they're getting some beasts from TJ and Dallas from MLK, which should certainly make solid additions. Beasts from TJ would be (welcome) news to me. I NEED NAMES. I'm pretty sure none of the TJ '08 people who were active this past year are going to Harvard, actually. Nevermind then, I w...

Gautam

Duke's quirky habit of never playing NAQT Sectionals or ACF Regionals may or may not continue; I know that Igor Luzhansky from Eden Prairie is heading over there, and intends to do some real quiz bowl. I don't exactly feel him being a great leader for the years to come, but he can probably take the...

Gautam

Awesome.

Gautam

I am in total agreement with you, Jonathan. From what I remember from Gaddis, I didn't write a lot of non-science stuff; but, I remember putting down a few ideas like The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin, and Morgan Tsvangirai, which were converted into cool tossups. Some of the clues I would have used fo...

Gautam

Expect more tossups on the finer aspects of Daler Mehndi music videos and bonuses on movies of Shah Rukh Khan in this tournament.

Gautam

Gautam

Oh hey, I'll staff.

Gautam

So, I heard this latest podcast, and it got me thinking. I *somewhat* understand what he means about the local groups being irrelavant on this big board. I mean, looking at the Minnesota threads, it's about 10 people from the top tier of teams chatting among themselves, and I don't think the quality...

Gautam

Can the Social Sci/Philo tournament that was slated for CO happen at MO?

Gautam

I practiced some "canon expansion" last year when I wrote tossups on things like "finding the root of a polynomial" and "pi" but I realized that other than a couple of math aficionados, none were able to get those tossups until it got to the giveaway. This is ridiculou...

Gautam

canon needs some serious expansion Can we please stop calling for "serious expansions" of the canon? I don't remember whether I've argued for hardcore canon expansion of math theory in hs quiz bowl, but if I have, assume that I have nullified those arguments, and that I'm starting afresh ...

Gautam

Since Katy wants to play, we should definitely have her play for a break.

I will be happy to moderate if need be.

Gautam

Gautam

In full support of reviving this tournament, and expressing interest in writing, if need be.

Gautam

I'll actually agree with Eric's chemistry sentiments. Aryl halides and metallocenes were two submitted tossups that I thought were a bit over the line, but Ryan wanted to leave submitted answers for the most part, so figured I may as well keep them. I wrote the furans tu as a replacement for a not-...

Gautam

A great set overall. I got points where I deserved, and the converse was also mostly true. Though some of the packets were significantly difficult than others, not having a "difficulty rating" declared before the round didn't deter me from answering tossups on topics that don't always fit ...

Gautam

Mr Ruhmann was a jolly fellow. He will be missed on the MN circuit.

Gautam

To some extent, Rob is right about my assessment, but he misses something that isn't just a QB problem but a problem at large. Rob's suggestion for people to write questions to gain experience writing is very good for people whose only problem is with writing questions. It certainly helps players l...

Gautam

Lapego1 wrote:
David Riley wrote:they will cut themselves if they find the activiity isn't for them.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh

Gautam

IS 76: Tossup on Entomologists which mentioned Vladmir Nabokov early. Tossup on Helium, with no buzzable clues until "exhibits superfluidity" or something of the sort Tossup on "language families" which I remember being somewhat questionable - I think this listed some of the more...

Gautam

I have been hearing that a lot of people did not like IS-76 because of bad questions, I played with my team on this packet and I just wanted to know what you guys thought the problems with the questions were? I can tell you for sure that one packet I played on contained really terrible clue placeme...

Gautam

I am now playing with Arnav Moudgil, as Shantanu, unfortunately, will not be able to attend CO.

Gautam

Gautam

Yeah I'm writing for this too.

Gautam

I am playing with Shantanu.

Gautam

Given that a billion things have happened since a list was last posted. Charlie Dees Greg Peterson Trevor Davis and Gautam Kandlikar Ryan Westbrook and Matt Lafer Andrew Hart and Ray Luo (?) Brendan Byrne Trygve Meade and Matt Weiner Rob Carson Rom Masrour Ted Gioia Mike Sorice Billy Beyer and Chris...

Gautam

Charlie Dees Greg Peterson Trevor Davis Ryan Westbrook Andrew Hart Brendan Byrne Trygve Meade Rob Carson Rom Masrour Ted Gioia Mike Sorice Billy Beyer and Chris Borglum Chris Ray Eric Kwartler Eric Mukherjee Jerry Vinokurov Chris Carter Guy Tabachnick Carsten Gehring Matt Lafer Nick Clusserath and ...

Gautam

The only way we found that this was doable was basically a 30-20-10: Make your tossup a list of problems (of decreasing obscurity of method rather than difficulty, so someone who knows HOW to do #1 beats someone who knows HOW to do #2... in other words, don't follow up "The fourth root of 1024...

Gautam

Hey, Stop comparing quiz bowl to tennis, aops, or amc/aime/usamo/whathaveyou. You can surely do both, but it is impossible to write a single "good" question that can be used in a math competition which can also be used in a quiz bowl competition. I have been a regular visitor of aops for a...

Gautam

Stuff Jason, I appreciate the comments on the questions. I am sorry I didn't see them earlier. I wrote the Cytochrome p-450, the cyclins, and the glycosylation tossup, and I think a couple more for the biology in this set. To be honest, I had never heard of cytochrome p-450 prior to writing that qu...

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