HFT liveblog

[AlphaQuizBowler]

10:16--Round 1 completed. Waiting for Dorman to get to my room to start round 2.

[Madagascar Serpent Eagle]

From my view at out mirror, wow these questions were not proofread at all.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

There seems to be a few typos, but less than average, from what I've seen so far. In other news, the main site has finished round 5 and is heading to lunch.

[Cheynem]

This liveblog leaves something to be desired. You've announced the tournament started and that you're at lunch. Needs more sex and violence.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

This liveblog leaves something to be desired. You've announced the tournament started and that you're at lunch. Needs more sex and violence.

Agreed. This is even worse than the LADUE liveblog.

[Broad-tailed Grassbird]

MSU mirrror: I think my high school somehow made the top bracket. 2012 may actually be our last year.

[Broad-tailed Grassbird]

Typos yuck.

[Broad-tailed Grassbird]

So I tweeted and posted in another thread earlier, about how I was going to come to the tournament in a shirt and tie. That was a total fail as I couldn't find my belt for whatever reason. Interestingly, the tree just outside my window has most of it's leaves. I'll take a picture after a later round.

[Madagascar Serpent Eagle]

There seems to be a few typos, but less than average, from what I've seen so far.

This is not true at all. Commas, articles, and possessives (and, incidentally, alternate answers) are all useful things to have and literally over half the questions do not. I'm not dissing the tournament, the questions are good, I'm just saying that it's had way more typos and grammatical errors than I've come to expect from a typical set.

[Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr.]

There seems to be a few typos, but less than average, from what I've seen so far.

This is not true at all. Commas, articles, and possessives (and, incidentally, alternate answers) are all useful things to have and literally over half the questions do not. I'm not dissing the tournament, the questions are good, I'm just saying that it's had way more typos and grammatical errors than I've come to expect from a typical set.

You clearly don't know what to expect from a typical set.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

Nothing that exciting happened in my bracket in the morning, so I apologize for the lameness of this liveblog. Also, my fellow staffers told me they would be updating as well, but that never happened.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

Exciting update: I just walked all the way across campus to end up at the wrong location. Heading to the Barker Center now.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

This liveblog leaves something to be desired. You've announced the tournament started and that you're at lunch. Needs more sex and violence.

Agreed. This is even worse than the LADUE liveblog.

Lol at the obligatory LADUE joke. Why are they not at this tournament?

[AlphaQuizBowler]

Arrived at the Barker Center. Apparently there is a shortage of readers. Also I honestly have no idea what's going on in terms of stats (sorry CHRZ).

[AlphaQuizBowler]

Also my sources in Georgia tell me that Centennial is stomping the field there (not that anyone's surprised), and are averaging between 26 and 27 ppb.

[Grams's Go-Go Boots]

I guess Ladue's non-presence is because the only thing that Massachusetts and Missouri are close to each other in is the alphabet?

[AlphaQuizBowler]

Also, I'm not in the same building as the top brackets anymore, so unfortunately this liveblog doesn't look like it's going to improve.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

My favorite sets of State College pseudonyms so far: Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup, and Mojo Jojo; and Graham, Christoph, Monica, and David.

[gyre and gimble]

Hey I'm sorry about the typos. I'm not sure why I didn't catch these because I read through all of the questions last night. There were also a bunch of formatting things that I'm sure I'd fixed but didn't show up in these documents. I would guess that it had something to do with Google Documents, but it could just be that I was tired and I wasn't as attentive as I could have been. I did try to focus more on the content than technical details when I was editing, but obviously I should have left myself enough time to do both. Hopefully moderators were able to figure out weird phrasings and teams weren't confused too much, and hopefully the content was good enough to make this tournament a positive experience for teams playing.

[centralhs]

Also my sources in Georgia tell me that Centennial is stomping the field there (not that anyone's surprised), and are averaging between 26 and 27 ppb.

Centennial did indeed stomp the field at the Georgia mirror and no one was the least bit surprised. I think they averaged 660 PPG in the preliminary rounds.

[Matt Weiner]

Lol at the obligatory LADUE joke. Why are they not at this tournament?

This would be an idiotic comment even if it wasn't coming from someone who hasn't played any tournaments this year.

[Magister Ludi]

Yeah, there were some typos in this set that will be fixed for future mirrors. But they may have added some extra flavor such as my favorite typo, "This is largest country in Portugal."

[Distance model]

Yeah, there were some typos in this set that will be fixed for future mirrors. But they may have added some extra flavor such as my favorite typo, "This is largest country in Portugal."

I had trouble keeping a straight face while reading that question…another was the tossup on a noted Shakespeare play with a middle clue referring to "this novel".

[AlphaQuizBowler]

I guess I must've missed the "largest country in Portugal" clue.

[gyre and gimble]

Yeah, there were some typos in this set that will be fixed for future mirrors. But they may have added some extra flavor such as my favorite typo, "This is largest country in Portugal."

I had trouble keeping a straight face while reading that question…another was the tossup on a noted Shakespeare play with a middle clue referring to "this novel".

Graham Moyer doesn't get Shakespeare.

[Disappointment Islands]

Did it seem like many of these questions seemed to be rewritten versions of last years? We practiced on last years this past week and heard many of the same clues....

[Edward Powers]

Was there a mirror of HFT VI yesterday that Norcross attended? If so, can you share some of the "violent and sexy details" from it?

[BlueDevil95]

Was there a mirror of HFT VI yesterday that Norcross attended? If so, can you share some of the "violent and sexy details" from it?

Collins Hill High School hosted a mirror of HFT VI yesterday, with Centennial coming in first by a very, very wide margin. Second was Brookwood, and third was Alpharetta. Mr. Powers, I can post stats here if you like when Mr. Kim (the coach at Collins Hill) gets around to them.

[Edward Powers]

Posting stats when you can would be great. In the meantime, can you elaborate on the play of Centennial, and, perhaps, on the play some of its best opponents, a kind of "non-live" blog to compete, if only a little, with this Harvard "liveblog'?

[gyre and gimble]

Did it seem like many of these questions seemed to be rewritten versions of last years? We practiced on last years this past week and heard many of the same clues....

I'll ask you to elaborate once all mirrors are over. I'm not sure what you're implying here, but I can assure you that we're not lazy enough just to rip stuff from last year's set.

[Smuttynose Island]

Did it seem like many of these questions seemed to be rewritten versions of last years? We practiced on last years this past week and heard many of the same clues....

No matter what tournament you go to you are going to hear a lot of the same clues as a lot of the middle and, especially, late clues for answers tend to be fairly static. Additionally, the reason that you practice on the set from last year is because question writers tend to produce similar questions on similar subject matters as it is what they know. This doesn't mean that they just rewrote the questions from last year though as a lot of what seems to be "copying" is done unknowingly.

[Blau Space]

The typos were pretty significant at some points. At least once or twice a round, I would hear a reader say "There's something really wrong with this tossup/bonus, but I'm going to read it anyways..." For the most part, the experienced readers could add in whatever word(s) were missing or streamline the question a little, but the inexperienced readers had a lot of trouble with the typos at times (to the point where it would occasionally take a few minutes to work it out). A bonus read in an earlier round was also slotted into the bonus selection for a later round, as I remember. We had to read a replacement bonus, which was fine.

But, otherwise, the set (especially the clues/content of the questions) was great! We had an awesome time playing the Georgia mirror at Collins Hill.

[Magister Ludi]

This set was basically written by all new writers this year, except for Dallas. Last year I didn't even write questions for HFT, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of my tossup choices for social science were similar to what were questions last year because there are very limited options when you are writing 16/16 social science and are trying to keep it accessible.

This set always has this inherent tension where a lot of people complain saying its too hard, yet other people at the Georgia mirror complain they got questions too early because the questions had basic canonical clues that have appeared in previous HFTs.

[centralhs]

This set always has this inherent tension where a lot of people complain saying its too hard, yet other people at the Georgia mirror complain they got questions too early because the questions had basic canonical clues that have appeared in previous HFTs.

I didn't see any Georgia players "complaining" on this forum that they got questions too early and I didn't hear anyone complain about that (or anything else) at the tournament yesterday either. I did hear one or two people comment in passing yesterday, as Hernan did in his post, that a few of the questions seemed very similar to questions from last year's set. However, if any of this year's questions were similar to questions from last year, I am sure that it was not intentional.

[Disappointment Islands]

Overall the set was great. I understand that it is difficult to find first and second line clues that are relevant to Quiz Bowl that could be included.
And I also saw very little complaining about the easiness of the questions. There were a lot of early buzzes from some of the upper tier players, myself not one of them . But most of those players tend to be the kind who are Adam Silverman or people who went to ACE camp or have written question sets and really know there stuff.
I look forward to next years' set. Hopefully I will have improved by then.

[centralhs]

Here are the final standings for the Georgia HFT Mirror.

http://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/webpages/rr ... dings.html

Harvard Fall Tournament Team Standings

Gold
Rank Team W L T Pct PPG PAPG Mrg 10 TUH PPTH BHrd BPts P/B
1 Centennial 10 0 0 1.000 603.0 89.0 514.0 164 200 30.15 164 4390 26.77
2 Brookwood A 9 1 0 0.900 396.0 175.0 221.0 125 200 19.80 125 2710 21.68
3 Athens Academy 7 3 0 0.700 339.0 231.0 108.0 112 201 16.87 112 2270 20.27
4 Alpharetta 7 3 0 0.700 285.0 261.0 24.0 105 200 14.25 105 1800 17.14
5 Bainbridge 5 5 0 0.500 256.0 255.0 1.0 98 200 12.80 98 1580 16.12
6 Chattahoochee A 4 6 0 0.400 258.0 287.0 -29.0 85 201 12.84 85 1730 20.35

Silver
Rank Team W L T Pct PPG PAPG Mrg 10 TUH PPTH BHrd BPts P/B
1 Norcross 8 2 0 0.800 401.0 148.0 253.0 128 200 20.05 128 2730 21.33
2 Marist A 7 3 0 0.700 276.0 169.0 107.0 105 200 13.80 105 1710 16.29
3 Brookwood B 5 5 0 0.500 188.0 245.0 -57.0 83 200 9.40 83 1050 12.65
4 Marist B 4 6 0 0.400 131.0 268.0 -137.0 65 200 6.55 65 660 10.15
5 Chattahoochee B 3 7 0 0.300 174.0 237.0 -63.0 70 200 8.70 70 1040 14.86
6 Rabun Gap A 3 7 0 0.300 149.0 257.0 -108.0 68 200 7.45 68 810 11.91

Bronze
Rank Team W L T Pct PPG PAPG Mrg 10 TUH PPTH BHrd BPts P/B
1 Paideia 5 4 0 0.556 166.7 216.7 -50.0 61 181 8.29 60 890 14.83
2 Etowah A 4 5 0 0.444 107.8 260.0 -152.2 51 180 5.39 51 460 9.02
3 Rabun Gap B 2 7 0 0.222 72.2 260.0 -187.8 34 180 3.61 34 310 9.12
4 Etowah B 2 7 0 0.222 65.6 251.1 -185.6 35 180 3.28 35 240 6.86
5 Woodward Academy 0 5 0 0.000 118.0 322.0 -204.0 26 101 5.84 26 330 12.69
6 Jasper County 0 9 0 0.000 24.4 262.2 -237.8 16 180 1.22 16 60 3.75

[KunalNaik]

Just for the record, Alpharetta had a 3-2 record in the top bracket with a win over Athens Academy, leading to us being 3rd and them being 4th. Not that its that important seeing as our 17ppb is god awful for any future ranking purposes, but just putting it out there.

[Broad-tailed Grassbird]

There seems to be a few typos, but less than average, from what I've seen so far.

This is not true at all. Commas, articles, and possessives (and, incidentally, alternate answers) are all useful things to have and literally over half the questions do not. I'm not dissing the tournament, the questions are good, I'm just saying that it's had way more typos and grammatical errors than I've come to expect from a typical set.

You clearly don't know what to expect from a typical set.

I haven't played a lot of "typical sets."