Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

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Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by josephchung »

The Okemos High School Quizbowl Team is excited to announce the first annual Okemos Spring Invitational! We will be mirroring the RMBAT 2019 housewrite packet.

The tournament will be at Okemos High School (2800 Jolly Road, Okemos, MI, 48864) in the lower A and B halls. Registration will commence at 8:15 am, and a players and coaches info session will be at 8:45 am, and the tournament will start at 9 am and is projected to have 9-10 rounds.

The field cap is 20 teams, but based on interest, we can expand up to 24 teams. Teams can register using the link below. Two teams will be placed on the field initially and additional teams will be placed on a wait list. Currently, we are going to face a shortage with mods, so if you are interested, please indicate that in the registration form below.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... sp=sf_link

The costs are going to be the following:
$85 per team,
-$20 First tournament (or haven't played in a tournament in 2 years)
-$10 Mod Discount (max 1)
-$5 WORKING Buzzer discount (max 2, we will revoke the discount if the buzzer does not work)
-$10 Distance Discount (100 miles or more, determined by google maps)
Minimum per team: $35

Team Player Cap: The cap of players per team will be 6 players on a single team. This allows for staff to run the games at an optimum efficiency. We will give teams an invoice within a day or two after the form is submitted, and another one on the day of the tournament. If paying after the tournament, please let us know.

If there are additional questions and concerns, you can also contact us at [email protected]


UPDATE- The Field Right Now (# of teams/working buzzers/mods)

DCD- 2/1/0
Cabrini - 1/0/0
Ottawa Hills (Toronto Valleys) - 1/0/0

Waitlist-

Okemos (we will add a team to even out the field)
Joseph Chung
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by tksaleija »

Bumping this because I really want teams to attend and help expand the MI circuit. Also, good job at states today, Okemos!
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by josephchung »

Thanks so much, Aleija! You guys were great as well!
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by EulerAlert »

Also bumping this because 1) Having played it I can confirm that RMBAT is a good set and you should play it and 2) It appears that Michigan will be lacking in late-season tournaments this year and if you'd like to attend something to ensure you aren't rusty this would be a good way to do that.
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by josephchung »

Field UPDATE

DCD- 2/1/0
Cabrini - 1/0/0
Ottawa Hills - 1/0/0
MCMC- 1/0/0
Troy- 1/1/0
Okemos- 1/3/4
Roeper- 1/0/0
New Boston Huron- 1/0/0

Waitlist-
Joseph Chung
Okemos High School '19
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by josephchung »

We will close registration on 4/13/19 at 10:00 PM eastern. Thanks!
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by josephchung »

Registration is now officially closed (forgot to update the forum about the extension, whoops!)
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by A Dim-Witted Saboteur »

I'm told that Joseph Chung had access to the packets from this set beforehand, put up this statline https://stats.neg5.org/t/Q_hAp-noJ/okem ... 3877ab411f, which is not comparable to anything he's done before, and offered the excuse to the set's editors that the questions simply aligned very well with Okemos' curriculum. My teammates and others who went to the same high school as he did confirm that Okemos' curriculum does not differ meaningfully from other schools that did not see similar effects on this set's questions. This seems like a very cut-and-dried case of cheating to me, and let me just say I'm kind of disappointed that someone like Joseph (who's been uniformly kind and pleasant to read for in all my encounters with him) would do this
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by Sarod Nori »

As someone who would very much like to get to the bottom of this, I think that the best option here is to see if Joseph's stats hold up at HSNCT (which I believe is the next tournament that Okemos will be playing). I don't think this is as cut and dry as Jakob said, but it's hard to prove or disprove anything at this point, so I think we should wait and see.

EDIT: I should add that I was the TD of this tournament from Saturday morning through the end of the tournament. I wasn't involved in anything before Saturday afternoon (other than a few tidbits on improving the schedule). I should also add that I've known Joseph for a while now but that my posts on this forum are purely on the basis of wanting to know what exactly went on at this tournament.
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by Whiter Hydra »

Sarod Nori wrote: Sun Apr 21, 2019 2:05 pm As someone who would very much like to get to the bottom of this, I think that the best option here is to see if Joseph's stats hold up at HSNCT (which I believe is the next tournament that Okemos will be playing). I don't think this is as cut and dry as Jakob said, but it's hard to prove or disprove anything at this point, so I think we should wait and see.
I would hope he wouldn't be allowed to compete at HSNCT. People normally don't go from 3 to 44 powers within the span of a month.
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by CPiGuy »

Fuddle Duddle wrote: Sun Apr 21, 2019 11:26 am I'm told that Joseph Chung had access to the packets from this set beforehand
This alone should have disqualified him from playing. As someone who has directed multiple tournaments in which I also played, if you're going to do this, you need to make sure that the packets are sent to a specific personal email belonging to a person who is not you, not a club email to which you have access! Between this and Joseph's reported bad justification of "it fit our curriculum well", I find it extremely hard to believe he was not cheating, which is extremely disappointing to me as well, having previously thought quite highly of him, both as a person and a quizbowl player. If I were one of the other teams attending this tournament, I would be quite angry about this, potentially to the point of refusing to pay for the tournament or demanding a refund.

I agree with Harry that he should not play HSNCT, though I'm not sure if NAQT is willing to make that determination themselves, seeing as they didn't produce this set. If they don't, the Okemos coach should.

another note: what the :capybara: were Okemos doing fielding exactly one house team in a field of nine? They should either have dropped it altogether or split into two teams to avoid teams having byes.
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by Abdon Ubidia »

For completeness, I'd like to post what I know about this situation.
Fuddle Duddle wrote: Sun Apr 21, 2019 11:26 am I'm told that Joseph Chung had access to the packets from this set beforehand
This is from me. On Tuesday, Joseph sent me the following forums PM:
Joseph in PMs wrote: Hey Anson,

Would it be okay if we got the packets tomorrow or Thursday so that the readers could practice reading and pronouncing some of the names and such? We'll make sure that the house team does not see this before the tournament.

Thanks,
Joseph
at which point I sent the packets to [email protected]. Joseph PMed me saying that "I have received word that [the packets] came." From our exchange, I did not expect Joseph to play on the house team.

Joseph then later PMed me (after the tournament) assuring that he did not have access to the email between when I sent the questions and when he played them. He also PMed my teammate Shawn a long explanation of his performance (which I excerpted below) that broadly claimed that he was confused about the anomalous success as well and that it came from the question content heavily aligning with the Okemos curriculum.
Joseph in PMs wrote: Overall, the mods and I had the same consensus that this packet set was the best "fit" for us Okemos kids, meaning that the tossups were of the strengths that the usual Okemos student would have if taken the classes at the school, and such classes would have allowed Okemos students to power more frequently.
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by vinteuil »

ansonberns wrote: Sun Apr 21, 2019 5:24 pm
Joseph in PMs wrote:so that the readers could practice reading and pronouncing some of the names and such
real amit bilgi hours
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by 34 + P.J. Dozier »

ansonberns wrote: Sun Apr 21, 2019 5:24 pm Joseph then later PMed me (after the tournament) assuring that he did not have access to the email between when I sent the questions and when he played them. He also PMed my teammate Shawn a long explanation of his performance (which I excerpted below) that broadly claimed that he was confused about the anomalous success as well and that it came from the question content heavily aligning with the Okemos curriculum.
Joseph in PMs wrote: Overall, the mods and I had the same consensus that this packet set was the best "fit" for us Okemos kids, meaning that the tossups were of the strengths that the usual Okemos student would have if taken the classes at the school, and such classes would have allowed Okemos students to power more frequently.
I wonder why his teammates, who I assume are also Okemos students and are, no doubt, blessed with the same Okemos education that allowed Joseph to perform so well on the tossups, performed less optimally?
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by CPiGuy »

Joseph in PMs wrote: Overall, the mods and I had the same consensus that this packet set was the best "fit" for us Okemos kids, meaning that the tossups were of the strengths that the usual Okemos student would have if taken the classes at the school, and such classes would have allowed Okemos students to power more frequently.
This is what people say when they have cheated, because it allows them to explain themselves when they inevitably fail to repeat their performance on future sets. I see no way that high school curricular variance could explain a greater than 50% power rate. This is obviously crap.

[Edit: criticism of the coach that, following discussion about the structure of the Okemos club, is ill-advised, has been deleted]
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by Pedro/HCHS »

Overall, the mods and I had the same consensus that this packet set was the best "fit" for us Okemos kids, meaning that the tossups were of the strengths that the usual Okemos student would have if taken the classes at the school, and such classes would have allowed Okemos students to power more frequently.
Didn't Steven Hines claim a similar thing?
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by karstenontheshore »

Also, I'm just wondering how you only had 5 negs despite having 44 powers on a hard set. If you had double (!) the powers of the individual that won the tournament, wouldn't you be playing more aggressively? A 9/6/0 round on a set like RMBAT seems strange considering that if you were aggressive enough to get 9 powers in one game, it would stand to reason that you'd average at least one neg per game. Also, if the curriculum of your school was so conducive to powering, how'd it happen that your teammates combined for one power? At least have the decency to admit to it.
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by vinteuil »

For everybody who is trying to dispute Joseph's specific claims, please consider that, having lied and been exposed so publicly, it doesn't seem particularly likely that Joseph would cave upon being presented with yet another piece of evidence.

That is: piling on won't do anything here, since it's transparently, painfully (especially to the set's editors and all who played the tournament!) obvious that Joseph cheated.
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by Sarod Nori »

Joseph Chung's conduct at this tournament is being investigated. Once this investigation has concluded, an official response will be made detailing our findings. Any questions about this investigation should be directed to me. Thank you.

EDIT: I have no formal links with the Okemos club; my involvement in this investigation is due to my role as TD of this tournament. Once the investigation is finished, I will leave it to the Okemos club to decide what consequences may or may not be warranted.
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by CPiGuy »

For what it's worth, I've reported this to NAQT and they've indicated that they're looking into it.
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by febreezioman »

As many of you already know, there was a conspicuous scoring irregularity involving a house team player during a tournament hosted by Okemos High School this past Saturday. A security protocol had been in place to prevent any of the participating Okemos players from having access to the question packets prior to the competition. Unfortunately, the protocol was not followed appropriately, leading to a loophole that could have been exploited. We are absolutely certain that this lapse in packet security occurred out of an over-abundance of trust in teammates and was not an intentional attempt to compromise the integrity of the packet.

Despite compelling evidence to the contrary, the player in question insists upon his innocence. An investigation into whether an email account (where the packets were being housed) had been improperly accessed yielded an inconclusive result. Regardless, said player has withdrawn from the Okemos Quiz Bowl program and will not be participating in any further quiz bowl activities, including the HSNCT.

Being a program that has always prided itself on playing fairly and honestly, we are extremely embarrassed and sorry for what transpired. All stats for the Okemos house team have been nullified and the participating schools will be offered a 50% refund on their entry fee.

This happened to be our first attempt at hosting a tournament and we appreciate the constructive feedback the quiz bowl community has offered us. Rest assured, appropriate measures will be taken to prevent any recurrence of Saturday’s fiasco.

Again, our sincere apologies,

The Okemos High School Quiz Bowl Program
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Re: Okemos Spring Invitational, April 20th 2019

Post by A Dim-Witted Saboteur »

febreezioman wrote: Wed Apr 24, 2019 6:43 pm As many of you already know, there was a conspicuous scoring irregularity involving a house team player during a tournament hosted by Okemos High School this past Saturday. A security protocol had been in place to prevent any of the participating Okemos players from having access to the question packets prior to the competition. Unfortunately, the protocol was not followed appropriately, leading to a loophole that could have been exploited. We are absolutely certain that this lapse in packet security occurred out of an over-abundance of trust in teammates and was not an intentional attempt to compromise the integrity of the packet.

Despite compelling evidence to the contrary, the player in question insists upon his innocence. An investigation into whether an email account (where the packets were being housed) had been improperly accessed yielded an inconclusive result. Regardless, said player has withdrawn from the Okemos Quiz Bowl program and will not be participating in any further quiz bowl activities, including the HSNCT.

Being a program that has always prided itself on playing fairly and honestly, we are extremely embarrassed and sorry for what transpired. All stats for the Okemos house team have been nullified and the participating schools will be offered a 50% refund on their entry fee.

This happened to be our first attempt at hosting a tournament and we appreciate the constructive feedback the quiz bowl community has offered us. Rest assured, appropriate measures will be taken to prevent any recurrence of Saturday’s fiasco.

Again, our sincere apologies,

The Okemos High School Quiz Bowl Program
I'd like to commend the Okemos team for their prompt and professional handling of this situation, as well as the integrity they displayed in offering a refund. I understand that this was a non-ideal situation, but it seems like you guys have largely dealt well with it. I look forward to seeing Okemos host things again next year!
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