DC/Metro area 2006-07

Dormant threads from the high school sections are preserved here.
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DumbJaques
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Post by DumbJaques »

Why did the packet contain only 18 questions?

Also, I'm curious as to the playoff difficulty this year. The last two years, it's been a little absurd and resulted in some kind of screwy games (not that they weren't good questions, just not really so good for a high school tournament. My favorite giveaways included "name this magnum opus of a certain Brazilian composer" and "identify this Mexican astronomer").
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btressler
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Post by btressler »

In my opinion, similar issues were present. For example, several of the rooms only converted 11-13 of the 20 tossups in the Round of 16. At the half in our semi the two teams had a combined 75 points.

I would encourage the question writers to read Matt Weiner's discussion about desired answerability in Penn Bowl. While you had a very high-powered field, even those teams were missing tossups and bageling bonuses. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Having said that, TJ is to be commended for running a great tournament. Most questions (though hard to get) were well-structured and well-written, and we are looking forward to using them in practice. The tournament was kept moving so that we finished just after 5. Overall, it was a worthwhile trip.
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Lapego1
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Post by Lapego1 »

Regardless of why the packet contained only 18 questions, it ought to have been resolved right then and there by replacing with some questions from the finals (and then either writing new ones or replacing the finals ones with extras). I would have been pretty disappointed if we had lost that game knowing that there were two tossups that might have saved it for us. The playoff/finals answer choices weren't extremely difficult as in years past. Scores (at least in our games) were not too far below those in playoffs at any other tournament we've played this year.

As to actual comparisons, I have to say that Richard Montgomery has developed quite well. We lost to their B-team in a game, and, though there were many buzzer races, they did impress me with their knowledge and low neg count (though they seemed to have lost some of their edge in the playoffs). I watched their A-team in the prelims against Gonzaga, dismantling the excellent team as though they were hardly excellent at all. I take nothing away from Gonzaga because I know from personal experience that they are very good. It's just that RM held the momentum throughout that whole game. RM A also had a solid prelim win against State College A (why they, Gonzaga, and State College were in the same bracket is another story), another excellent team that has been playing strong this year. Looking at that bracket, I knew that the one who came out undefeated would be the team to beat, and in the end that was RM A.

We played a very tight quarterfinal with Gonzaga, who struck me as impressive that round. If not for that protest, we would have likely lost but ended up winning by 20 in the end. Against RM A in the semis, as Dr. Barnes mentioned, we were down for almost the entire match, never taking a strong lead, while they held onto the lead until pretty late in the match. Then, down 185-210, we managed to secure the final tossup and 30 the bonus to win by 15. The nationals scene is very close this year. Somehow, we managed to get through 9 matches without once playing or seeing any of the Wilmington Charter teams, so I'm not sure how good they are beyond a win against State College (which alone is quite a strong feat). A fourth place finish with this field was pretty solid.
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The Toad to Wigan Pier
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Post by The Toad to Wigan Pier »

Stat74 wrote:In my opinion, similar issues were present. For example, several of the rooms only converted 11-13 of the 20 tossups in the Round of 16. At the half in our semi the two teams had a combined 75 points.
I actually liked the answer choices for the round of 16 the best out of all of the rounds. However the problem that I did have with some of the harder questions was that if you knew the answer, you were almost guaranteed to get it off of the first clue. Take for example the tossup on the Taung Child.(I am not sure, but I think this one was in the round of 16) If you know what the Taung Child is, you are mostly likely to get it off of the first clue which referred to Raymond Dart. The other problem I had was the insane amount of Computer Science questions. Overall, I really enjoyed the questions for this tournament and I think this tournament reaffirmed how close some of the top teams in the area are in abilities.
Magister Ludi
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Post by Magister Ludi »

Overall I thought the tournament had good questions and was well run, but my one problem was putting us, RM, and State College in the same prelim bracket. That had an impact on the playoff seedings andf I think possibly skewed the final results.
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Zip Zap Rap Pants
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Post by Zip Zap Rap Pants »

Magister Ludi wrote:Overall I thought the tournament had good questions and was well run, but my one problem was putting us, RM, and State College in the same prelim bracket. That had an impact on the playoff seedings andf I think possibly skewed the final results.
Well, you gotta put the Charters and MLW somewhere too, right? In any case there are going to be 3 strong teams in each bracket. Anyway, Swiss pairing with only 5 prelims per team is often going to lead to slightly skewered results going into the playoffs. That's why the Col. Ebirt is probably either going to be real-time Swiss or carded HSNCT style Swiss, 7 rounds with no byes! Before I get off on shameless self-promotion though... was there only one round that was short on tossups? That's sort of worse than having an entire tournament with only 18 tossups per round, because it changes the game dynamics in an inconsistent manner.
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Post by BuzzerZen »

We had 1 math theory or computer science per round; I don't know if that's massive. If Gov's tournament can have 1/1 economics a round, we can have 1/1 CS :-P

Re the brackets, I was trying to keep things balanced, and apparently Gov and the Charters did not quite balance out Zaga, RM, and SC. As for the 18-question round, I was trying to keep things moving along; transporting questions from the finals simply did not occur to me. Chalk it up to lessons learned.

I do feel like I should point out that the '05 JIAT still probably holds the record for Lowest Combined Score in the Finals at around 200, so we seem to have been a little more accessible this time.

Anyway, thanks for the compliments and criticism. Like I said at the tournament, it's been a blast being TD for the last two years, and I hope that I've made a positive contribution to the circuit.

For the sake of being on-topic, I agree with those who have said that the top 8 could've been shuffled around. Close games often come down to what the questions are about, and there were a bunch of close games. I think this year we may never really have a clear dominating presence in the region.
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Post by jbarnes112358 »

BuzzerZen wrote:
Anyway, thanks for the compliments and criticism. Like I said at the tournament, it's been a blast being TD for the last two years, and I hope that I've made a positive contribution to the circuit.
No question about it: You and your comrades have definitely provided a valuable service by bringing quality tournaments to the heart of what is arguably the strongest quiz bowl region in the nation.

All the above criticisms are relatively minor and do not overshadow the high quality of the tournament overall.

As to the 18 question issue, I believe this is no big deal at all. You did announce ahead of time the nature of the round, so everyone knew when the game would end. This is better than the NAQT timed rounds where one really has no idea how many questions will be read. 20 questions may be better than 18, and 22 may be better than 20. The law of large numbers would imply that the more questions that are heard the more likely the better team will win. But with teams as closely matched as MW and RM seem to be, it really comes down to the luck of the draw most of the time, regardless of the number of questions.

By the way, Evan, when do you project that you will be posting stats and full results?
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Post by dschafer »

jbarnes112358: Based on my experiences with stats last year, the neccessary files are on a school computer, so with the three-day weekend, it might be difficult to access them today.

As the moderator for that Gonzaga-Gov A game, I must say that it was one of the finest matches I've ever seen. Both teams played phenominally, and my only regret about the game was that it came down to a protest. Given how close so many matches at this tournament were, I think it should be a very exciting spring and nationals season.
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midnightracoon
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Post by midnightracoon »

dschafer wrote:jbarnes112358: Based on my experiences with stats last year, the neccessary files are on a school computer, so with the three-day weekend, it might be difficult to access them today.

As the moderator for that Gonzaga-Gov A game, I must say that it was one of the finest matches I've ever seen. Both teams played phenominally, and my only regret about the game was that it came down to a protest. Given how close so many matches at this tournament were, I think it should be a very exciting spring and nationals season.
I second that.
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aestheteboy
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Post by aestheteboy »

Maybe some more discussion could go on on this thread . . .

I think Whitman may become a darkhorse for the nationals. Although they haven't finished too strongly at tournaments, I don't doubt that they are the second best team in MD. They've beaten RM more than once on speed questions, and they aren't much worse on pyramidals. They have no senior starter so they should be really good next year.

Also . . . I really wish Gonzaga would post up its results. Those stats would help a lot in discussing the region. Don't be lazy Ted :smile:
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Gautam
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Stats

Post by Gautam »

Hello:

I was wondering if stats from DC region competitions (format doesn't matter) are available for me to peruse through. Can someone please pm with links, if they are available on the web?

Thanks
Gautam - ACF
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