Southern California 08-09

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Southern California 08-09

Post by ihavenoidea »

Well I believe SoCal deserves a thread too.

My rankings (copied from other thread)

1. RB
T2. Edison
T2. Arcadia
T4. TP
T4. SaMo

Put November 15th on your calenders for NNT mirror at Rancho Bernardo!
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Auroni »

I wouldn't quickly rank SaMo at the bottom -- they have to replace some pretty strong players, but their B team is still fairly good.

Whereas TP's B team to pyramidal tournaments pretty much consists of whoever else wants to go, but we'll probably see Stephen, Vivek, and the like play on the A team.

I'm not sure about Edison's dynamic, but I think Derek is remaining from Arcadia so I would flip those two.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by jready »

I would agree that RB looks like the team to beat next year, with Zhao and Anurag returning.
Santa Monica always finds a way to be good, so even with losing some strong players, I would anticipate them near the top next year.

In the next tier, I think La Jolla deserves to be considered along with TP, Edison, and Arcadia. We'll only be losing me (the captain), and while I was responsible for the bulk of the scoring early in the year, by the time nationals came around the rest of the team was contributing a lot also. If the underclassmen start doing some studying, La Jolla should be better next year then we were this year.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ntan »

SaMo will likely lose a step after graduating 3? seniors, but yes, still should be good. Torrey has Vivek, and if he plays as well regularly as he did against us at the UCI tournament, TP will be quite formidable. Edison seems to me to be a little streaky, and if they dont get off to too slow a start (like this year) they should be doing very well. And i really havent seen much of La Jolla after playing them at TWAIN which was...in Oct 07? so i dont feel too confident evaluating their relative strengths. As for random dark horses, i dont really have any in mind. and on a random note, whatever happened to San Dieguto? they were pretty good 2-3 years ago.

RB seems to be consensus team to beat, and rightfully so. their P/B from HSNCT seemed a little lower than I expected, but once they fix that, I'd imagine seeing them be a lock for a playoff berth at hsnct 09
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ihavenoidea »

The thing is though, both next year's Arcadia A and next year's Edison have beaten Anurag, Oleg, and I combined. We also have not played as one team except for Academic League, which is far from pyramidal questions. This doesn't bode well for RB next year.

I agree with Neiman about SaMo. Once again I'd like to cite their low PPB at state champs (17.65, lower than Edison, 18.61, who was pretty much playing with underclassmen) I really don't know how much Marino was shadowed by Ilan, Evan, and Aaron. Though by the unevenness of their ppg, I don't think he was shadowed that much.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ak47 »

Sort of like no one could pick against Federer at Wimbledon until Nadal finally beat him in the final, I think it would be unfair to Santa Monica to say they will not fare as well as last year just because they lost some awesome senior players. Their coaching is awesome, and they have some good prospects. They will continue to roll through the SoCal circuit until a team steps up and proves otherwise.

After returning three juniors from their A team, Arcadia, led by the awesome and cool Derek Sun, will also be a force to contend with. At the tournaments I've been to, Edison hasn't had a single stud player, but they've been very solid and dangerous when they get together as a team at full strength. La Jolla is also returning three of their Team A members, so they will strong as well.

RB will attempt to be a contender, but as Zhao and I would notably tell you: We suck at quizbowl.

I guess all this will be decided at CBCT. Also be sure to come to RB's NNT mirror on November 15th, 2008. Contact either me ([email protected]) or Zhao ([email protected]) for more info.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ihavenoidea »

Well, turns out that Anurag can't go to TWAIN because of Jeopardy taping, and the entire A team can't go to CBCT because of homecoming. So expect our freshmen to neg a lot! Who here is going to TWAIN/CBCT?
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Auroni »

hey, i'm going to act as an interloper for the moment and urge everyone to consider attending the saturday TWAIN tournament, a mirror of EFT. More SoCal teams should play mACF stuff, it's a great preparation for PACE (for those of you that want to go there), and a great complement to the usual NAQT fare of activities. No packet writing is necessary, but expect the canon to be wider.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ihavenoidea »

The Structure of SoCal Action wrote:hey, i'm going to act as an interloper for the moment and urge everyone to consider attending the saturday TWAIN tournament, a mirror of EFT. More SoCal teams should play mACF stuff, it's a great preparation for PACE (for those of you that want to go there), and a great complement to the usual NAQT fare of activities. No packet writing is necessary, but expect the canon to be wider.
Not to rain on your parade, but Oct. 4th is a big test day for SATs. In addition to that, I doubt many teams (RB not included of course) would enjoy playing EFT on Saturday and NAQT on Sunday.

EDIT: Come to the NNT mirror at RB on Nov. 22nd!
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by cvdwightw »

Way back when (until 2003 at least), UCLA ran TWAIN as a combined HS/college field on IS questions. When we switched to EFT, or a couple years before that, UCLA switched to a two-day format due to potential staffing issues.

College has "traditionally" been Saturday because realistically, no HS is driving 6+ hours back, whereas some of the colleges are. The SAT date is a mere coincidence.

That said, Southern California is a pretty isolated place, and the only really "better" competition within reasonable distances are the college teams, so if some of the top teams have the budget (from what I understand, this applies to just about no one) they should look into some of the easier college tournaments.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ihavenoidea »

So next week is TWAIN. How is the field shaping up? How many teams is everyone sending? It's nice to see San Dieguito back in the mix.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Kaisuopai »

Is it just me, or did everyone play very inconsistently at TWAIN? I couldn't gauge the relative strengths of any of the teams because the wins and losses seemed so...random. La Jolla was beaten by TP A and RB B, but both of them ended up in the second bracket, and RB B even lost to LJ B. (As a member of LJ A, I'm somewhat ashamed of myself. D:) And then there's San Dieguito, who was in the Chi bracket and fielded one of the top-scoring players, but stayed at -5 for half of LJ A's match against them...I dunno.

I'm not sure if I should even try to rank teams, since TWAIN was a pretty bad indicator, but here goes.

1. Arcadia A / Rancho Bernardo A
2. Santa Monica
3. La Jolla A
4. Arcadia C / Torrey Pines A
5. Rancho Bernardo B
6. Edison

Also...who played Laguna Beach B? What happened to both their A and C teams? o_o;

-Kai
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ihavenoidea »

What we learned from TWAIN:

1. Derek Sun is godlike.
2. La Jolla is going to be really good.
3. I can't answer bonuses and tossups on board games, geography, current events, and pop culture.

These new rankings exclude RB because of our volatility when it comes to having everyone attend tournaments. They are also long term predictions.

1. Arcadia A
2. La Jolla A
3. Arcadia B
4. Santa Monica
5. Torrey Pines A
6. San Dieguito
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ntan »

although it's safer to reserve judgement till later, I'm still rather inclined to believe that RB A might have an edge over Arcadia A because of the beast Anurag is at social sci as evidenced at the zotbowl in the summer. Zhao, Kevin, Oleg? (who i'd imagine are also on team A?) should be able to cover the rest of the high school canon well. That said, I haven't attended any arcadia qb practices for an eternity, so I have yet to confirm the validity of statement 1 above as much as I would like to. I'm surprised TP is ranked quite that low. VIvek was impressive last year at CBCT
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by tracyleeahs »

Wow, you guys are awesomely nerdy. And Zhao is responsible for almost half of the posts on this forum. What dedication.

The way teams are shaping up this year, I kind of wonder what's going to happen with SaMo and La Jolla. While SaMo seems to have lost a bit of its bite, La Jolla on the other hand is beginning to make waves. Whoa, disruption of the SoCal QB order? [Macbeth and Elizabethan lit are beginning to kill me by way of Great Chain of Being.]

I'd also probably agree with the non-RB rankings with the exception of SaMo's place. They've lost some of their mojo...but not that much. I still think they'd beat La Jolla based on our [Arcadia C's] games with each.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ihavenoidea »

Tracy, those predictions are what I see happening around April/May. I do think Santa Monica is better right now, but I think La Jolla and Arcadia's willingness to improve will eventually lead them to be very good teams.

And if only the other SoCal members can be more active...I wouldn't have to post as much!

Neiman, you are right that Anurag is beastly at social science, but NAQT has a 1/1 social science distribution. Rest assured that he will make an impact with regards to lit, music, art, RMP, and pretty much everything except SCIENCE! and battle history.

Our four starters are Anurag, Oleg, Alex, and me.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ntan »

right, i keep forgetting that NAQT is rather social sci shy.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Auroni »

another plug = ACF Fall is essentially free for high schoolers that want to play on real academic questions of a difficulty closer to HSNCT. November 8th at UC Irvine!
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by cvdwightw »

ihavenoidea wrote:Neiman, you are right that Anurag is beastly at social science, but NAQT has a 1/1 social science distribution. Rest assured that he will make an impact with regards to lit, music, art, RMP, and pretty much everything except SCIENCE! and battle history.
Social science is 1/1 per packet in just about every tossup-bonus format.

Also, remember that one-man teams have an extreme variance in performance, because they're so dependent on that one player. If a "bad packet" shows up, that team is going to lose to any reasonably competent opponent. If a "good packet" shows up, that team can blow out an otherwise good opponent.

RB, Arcadia, and maybe Torrey Pines have #1 players whose skills on academic stuff will probably translate well at the next level; RB has a good supporting cast and Arcadia and TP have the ability to develop one. Edison is probably a year away from a breakout year but could surprise everyone if their young players put in the time to get better, and we can't count out perennial favorite SaMo or feisty (relative) newcomer La Jolla. My question is: who is on these teams that can reliably grab the geography/math calculation/PC/CE that typically decides the match when two good teams split the academic stuff?

I see NAQT as roughly:
1/3 humanities (lit, art, RMP)
1/3 social/natural science (history, social science, science)
1/3 other (geography, pop culture, current events, math calculation)

I think the team that can control the "other" distribution is going to be the team to beat in SoCal this year, because that allows a team to pull ahead of a team that they're closely matched with (or slightly behind) in academic strength, and the team won't get victimized if the luck of the bonuses sends a disproportionate amount of "other" its way.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ihavenoidea »

Dwight is absolutely correct. Who ever can nail tossups on factoring polynomials or the latest SNL skit will definitely win SoCal. There is only so far a team can progress on the academic portion of NAQT.

I would hesitate greatly to call RB a "one man team" (or I am gravely misinterpreting Dwight's tone). Anurag does get the most points, but in the past years, he has not gotten the majority of the points. We will see what happens at Caltech. But I predict La Jolla putting up an even better PPB (adjusted for A set inflation).
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by cvdwightw »

The "one man team" comments were in response to a comment about San Dieguito's hit-or-miss play at TWAIN.

Anurag is clearly the #1 player on Rancho Bernardo. That said, Zhao, Oleg, and Alex are a well-rounded supporting cast that will be devastating if they focus on Anurag's weaker areas - note that I said "RB has a good supporting cast". I'm not sure who's scoring points on Arcadia/TP right now other than Derek/Vivek. A good supporting cast allows teams to weather bad performances by the #1 player. A poor or nonexistent supporting cast puts that much more pressure on the #1 player to score points.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Kaisuopai »

ihavenoidea wrote: I would hesitate greatly to call RB a "one man team" (or I am gravely misinterpreting Dwight's tone). Anurag does get the most points, but in the past years, he has not gotten the majority of the points. We will see what happens at Caltech. But I predict La Jolla putting up an even better PPB (adjusted for A set inflation).
One problem with that prediction is that it looks as if both our science and math buffs are off on a Science Team trip that weekend. I have players on B team who I think would fit the ticket, but they are still relatively inexperienced. We'll see what we can do in three weeks to get them ready, though.

I think, given the proper incentive and a willingness to practice and prepare beyond what we've been used to (since Del Rio left), La Jolla can definitely compete on an even footing with Santa Monica. But those are pretty hefty "given"s for a school which is only recently regaining interest in competitive quizbowl beyond Academic League, so I'll have to start trying to kick the team into shape by example...D:

-Kai
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ihavenoidea »

I know relatively few teams that are attending CBCT, so I'll target discussion for Caltech. I'm glad to say that RB will have three of its four A team starters. With Kevin Gong in the mix to provide us pop culture knowledge, we should do relatively ok if we're not too hindered by the excess of board game tossups. But who knows...

Oh BTW, you guys should all watch Teen Jeopardy from Nov 10th to Nov. 22nd! Look for Anurag!

PS Dwight has asked in the TWAIN thread for schools who pay for tournaments out of pocket to let him know. It'll be a step in trying to lower the cost of quizbowl in California.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Alvin6226 »

I believe we are sending 3 teams. Hope to see you guys there :grin: .
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Julie RS »

Results from UCI's CBCT

Edison A 9 1
San Dieguito HS 8 2
Torrey Pines A 7 3
Rancho Alamitos A 6 4
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by cvdwightw »

Quick results from CBCT:

1. Edison A (9-1)
2. San Dieguito (8-2)
3. Torrey Pines A (7-3)
4. University (4-6)

5. Rancho Alamitos A (6-4)
T6. Torrey Pines B (3-7)
T6. Edison B (3-7)
8. Rancho Alamitos B (0-10)

Torrey Pines is definitely a more rounded team than I gave them credit for earlier, but they still have a few holes (notably, fine arts). In two of their losses they blew leads after tossup 17 and lose on the last question. Edison is probably this year's "grinder" team - they're not going to go off on a power binge, but they're not going to neg themselves out of games and they'll win enough buzzer races and convert enough bonus points to stay in any game. San Dieguito looked impressive in their victories over TP and Edison, but looked downright awful in a game they probably should have lost to Edison B.

University looked like it might be a better team in the future - it sounded like they don't even practice. Rancho Alamitos has some knowledge but no speed; they need a second player to grab tossups consistently and some more depth to consistently grab a power or two a game and the medium part of the bonus.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Kaisuopai »

Rancho Alamitos A's ranking on that list is a little surprising. At UCLA, I distinctly remember their coach congratulating them on breaking 100 points in the fifth game of the day.

...then again, SaMo, Arcadia, and RB were all absent from CBCT, so the overall field would have been much weaker. And where is the University school from? We have a University City Heights school in San Diego, but that's all I know.

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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Alvin6226 »

http://www.naqt.com/stats/tournament-te ... nt_id=2698

Looks live Irvine, CA. CBCT got the stats up awfully fast...
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ak47 »

University is the school right across from Irvine I believe.
Last edited by ak47 on Tue Oct 21, 2008 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ntan »

unive
Kaisuopai wrote:where is the University school from? We have a University City Heights school in San Diego, but that's all I know.

-Kai
University High is from Irvine. anyway, am I correct in assuming that most, if not all the top teams from around here are attending Caltech's tournament?
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by tracyclee »

Yeah, I think we're sending 3 teams to Caltech but 2-3 of our highest scorers are out. The possible third possibly because of apps. -_- SLACKER!

What's the field like for NNT anyway?
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by warpoet »

ihavenoidea wrote:What we learned from TWAIN:

1. Derek Sun is godlike.
2. La Jolla is going to be really good.
3. I can't answer bonuses and tossups on board games, geography, current events, and pop culture.

These new rankings exclude RB because of our volatility when it comes to having everyone attend tournaments. They are also long term predictions.

1. Arcadia A
2. La Jolla A
3. Arcadia B
4. Santa Monica
5. Torrey Pines A
6. San Dieguito
Yes, this is an off year for SAMO Quiz Bowl (we're even less belligerent than usual), but don't be too quick to knock us down too far. We weren't even expecting to take 2nd, but we ended up being disappointed by it. We've sewn up a few loose ends and still intend to do wreak some havoc down the line. However, I do think that Rancho Bernardo would roll if you guys ever put a real A team together (and if Zhao starts watching (...) :wink: )

User received a one-day ban for this post because it contained an answer from an uncleared set. - MaS
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by cvdwightw »

Just checking in to make sure that the pop culture reference above has some meaning that I'm missing rather than referring to a late tossup in a close game between SaMo and RB, because the NAQT database shows that a question on that topic was in IS-77 (I don't have further permission to view where).

I don't know if it's so much an off year for SaMo rather than the rest of the top of the field catching up. Right now there are five teams that I think have the ability to win a tournament here - Arcadia, Edison, Rancho Bernardo, Santa Monica, and Torrey Pines; I'll be more sold on La Jolla as a sixth once I see the TWAIN stats. San Dieguito looks like a speed team with erratic knowledge holes. University has a decent core, but I don't think they practice and their inability to grab questions via osmosis shows. I have no idea about B/C teams, but the usual suspects (Arcadia, RB, Sa Mo) are a fair bet. Edison and Torrey Pines brought sophomore teams to CBCT; I wasn't particularly impressed with either based on their stats (the only game I saw of either of them was a TPA-TPB game that ended in the expected blowout).

EDIT: Hmm, yeah, I hope this isn't backseat modding, but just about anything I write with "please check that reference" that includes "this was indeed an answer in IS-77" probably means that the reference needs to be deleted regardless.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ihavenoidea »

warpoet wrote: Yes, this is an off year for SAMO Quiz Bowl (we're even less belligerent than usual), but don't be too quick to knock us down too far. We weren't even expecting to take 2nd, but we ended up being disappointed by it. We've sewn up a few loose ends and still intend to do wreak some havoc down the line. However, I do think that Rancho Bernardo would roll if you guys ever put a real A team together (and if Zhao starts watching (...) :wink: )
Hey Max, welcome to the boards and continueing the proud SaMo tradition of being banned after the first post! Just kidding.

CALTECH will be the closest we get to our real A team. Hopefully we'll see how everything is after that tournament. Anurag and I are expecting good games against La Jolla, Arcadia, and SaMo.

Tracy, Arcadia B surprised me a lot at TWAIN. You guys won't have a problem unless Derek is absent (btw, thanks for posting on the UCLA TWAIN thread :wink:)

Dwight, as evidenced by their antics at TWAIN, I do not think Edison has any real chance of winning a tournament whose field actually represent the SoCal circuit.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by cvdwightw »

Wait, this tournament is featuring a nearly-full RB team, a La Jolla team that surprised people at TWAIN, a rebuilding SaMo team that's nearly closer to reloading, a slightly weakened but still formidable Arcadia contingent, and some amount of speed-based Academic League teams, and the tournament's on an IS-A set?

Waiting now to see which is the first game to see 10+ powers, and which team is the first to 50 powers.
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"It's a competition, but it's not a sport. On a scale, if football is a 10, then rowing would be a two. One would be Quiz Bowl." --Matt Birk on rowing, SI On Campus, 10/21/03

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Captain Sinico
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Captain Sinico »

cvdwightw wrote:EDIT: Hmm, yeah, I hope this isn't backseat modding, but just about anything I write with "please check that reference" that includes "this was indeed an answer in IS-77" probably means that the reference needs to be deleted regardless.
For clarification, this is not backseat modding. Everyone should feel feel to continue to point out instances of answers from uncleared sets if anyone spots any. For further clarification, it's better to handle this issue by sending an e-mail to an administrator or the moderator of the forum you're in, so that the revealed answer is not necessarily spoiled for everyone who notices the post before it gets fixed and so that the appearance of backseat modding is avoided.

MaS
Mike Sorice
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Chico the Rainmaker
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Chico the Rainmaker »

ihavenoidea wrote: Hey Max, welcome to the boards and continueing the proud SaMo tradition of being banned after the first post! Just kidding.
I never got banned! :cool: Though in my first post I did mention an uncleared answer, so maybe there is something to that...
James(NotI)
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tracyclee
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by tracyclee »

Hahaha first post ban. >_> Welcome, Max!

OH MAN. OUR A TEAM IS A B TEAM THIS TIME! If things don't work out, we'll end up being the baby seals, sitting for the clubbing. >_> Dang those slackers...! Dang FBLA! Dang band!

And you're very welcome, Zhao. You know how we roll...firing up them marshmallows.
Tracy Lee
Arcadia High School '09
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Joe Romersa
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Joe Romersa »

1/3 other (geography, pop culture, current events, math calculation)
lucky for me, other's the closest thing i have to a specialty
cvdwightw wrote:I don't know if it's so much an off year for SaMo rather than the rest of the top of the field catching up. Right now there are five teams that I think have the ability to win a tournament here - Arcadia, Edison, Rancho Bernardo, Santa Monica, and Torrey Pines; I'll be more sold on La Jolla as a sixth once I see the TWAIN stats. San Dieguito looks like a speed team with erratic knowledge holes. University has a decent core, but I don't think they practice and their inability to grab questions via osmosis shows. I have no idea about B/C teams, but the usual suspects (Arcadia, RB, Sa Mo) are a fair bet. Edison and Torrey Pines brought sophomore teams to CBCT; I wasn't particularly impressed with either based on their stats (the only game I saw of either of them was a TPA-TPB game that ended in the expected blowout).
i think san dieguito and la jolla have a good chance to win a tournament. from what i saw at TWAIN, theyre good.

what other tournaments does uni go to, other than UCI?

and sophomore teams probably need a while to develop. after a few tournaments, they should turn up better numbers.




if CBCT stats are out, wheres TWAIN's?
Alex Wang
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Kaisuopai
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Kaisuopai »

Yeah. Ah...La Jolla will be bringing two teams, one with three players who've never played in their lives, and one with a mix of UCLA's team A and B. This is because our school's Science Team managed to grab everyone else for a rock-climbing expedition. Then again, our Team B at UCLA had never played NAQT before either, and they did well...so we'll see.

I don't expect to be able to get anywhere close to RB A this time, though. D:

-Kai
-redacted-
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warpoet
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by warpoet »

cvdwightw wrote:I don't know if it's so much an off year for SaMo rather than the rest of the top of the field catching up. Right now there are five teams that I think have the ability to win a tournament here - Arcadia, Edison, Rancho Bernardo, Santa Monica, and Torrey Pines; I'll be more sold on La Jolla as a sixth once I see the TWAIN stats. San Dieguito looks like a speed team with erratic knowledge holes. University has a decent core, but I don't think they practice and their inability to grab questions via osmosis shows. I have no idea about B/C teams, but the usual suspects (Arcadia, RB, Sa Mo) are a fair bet. Edison and Torrey Pines brought sophomore teams to CBCT; I wasn't particularly impressed with either based on their stats (the only game I saw of either of them was a TPA-TPB game that ended in the expected blowout).
First off, a quick note to self: READ THINGS!

Secondly, Dwight, I meant no disrespect to other schools, nor to downplay their achievements. What I believe is that both of us are correct, it is an off year for SAMO, AND that everyone else is doing well
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by cvdwightw »

warpoet wrote:Secondly, Dwight, I meant no disrespect to other schools, nor to downplay their achievements. What I believe is that both of us are correct, it is an off year for SAMO, AND that everyone else is doing well
That's entirely possible; it's early in the year with a team whose returners didn't have the depth of the past few years, and since Santa Monica grew dominant they've been able to reload consistently, so I'm guessing there's some kind of program that develops motivated players fairly well (BTW all interested teams should sign up for the Harvard Fall Tournament mirror at UCSD on Nov 15, the No Name Tournament mirror at RB on Nov 22, and if you still have money after registering for those and are interested in playing on three straight weekends, ACF Fall at UCI on Nov 8; I believe teams can play in all of these tournaments this year for less than $80/team). However, I think Zhao is the only player to have beaten Sa Mo A twice last year (or maybe he had a couple of B team teammates that helped him out at TWAIN/State Champs), and Anurag is much more beastly than he was at this time last year, so I'd guess that a full RB team would win most of the matchups against Sa Mo A this year even if you get as good as last year's team.
Dwight Wynne
socalquizbowl.org
UC Irvine 2008-2013; UCLA 2004-2007; Capistrano Valley High School 2000-2003

"It's a competition, but it's not a sport. On a scale, if football is a 10, then rowing would be a two. One would be Quiz Bowl." --Matt Birk on rowing, SI On Campus, 10/21/03

"If you were my teammate, I would have tossed your ass out the door so fast you'd be emitting Cerenkov radiation, but I'm not classy like Dwight." --Jerry
ihavenoidea
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by ihavenoidea »

cvdwightw wrote:That's entirely possible; it's early in the year with a team whose returners didn't have the depth of the past few years, and since Santa Monica grew dominant they've been able to reload consistently, so I'm guessing there's some kind of program that develops motivated players fairly well (BTW all interested teams should sign up for the Harvard Fall Tournament mirror at UCSD on Nov 15, the No Name Tournament mirror at RB on Nov 22, and if you still have money after registering for those and are interested in playing on three straight weekends, ACF Fall at UCI on Nov 8; I believe teams can play in all of these tournaments this year for less than $80/team). However, I think Zhao is the only player to have beaten Sa Mo A twice last year (or maybe he had a couple of B team teammates that helped him out at TWAIN/State Champs), and Anurag is much more beastly than he was at this time last year, so I'd guess that a full RB team would win most of the matchups against Sa Mo A this year even if you get as good as last year's team.
Yes I would advise all the high school teams to play ACF Fall. I guess my list of priorities is completely different from Dwights, but I think teams should attend ACF Fall over NNT or HFT mirrors. This may cause my tournament's field to dwindle, but people should definitely be exposed to what HSNCT questions should look like. I would definitely recommend attending the above three tournaments over any IS or IS A set. I believe once the majority of SoCal is exposed to good quizbowl, they'll prefer it over some of the stuff NAQT produces.

Dwight, I only managed to beat SaMo A once at State Champs. I didn't get to play them at TWAIN, and my win was a fluke off of a terribly written NAQT packet where I powered 5 questions (my total powers through 10 rounds was 11....oh hey evidence for the above argument!) It was not a victory in any admirable sense, because I was able to lateral a bunch of TUs (oh USSR, in the later half of 20th century, oh hey they just said Andropov, I should buzz) or buzz of off terrible clue placement (Navier Stokes lead in for fluid dynamics? Really?) I would have loved to play the previous year's SaMo (and this year's) on an ACF set. In fact, I would love to play La Jolla, Edison, Arcadia, Torrey, and San Dieguito as well because that would be a much more accurate indicator of true quizbowl strength.

I will now relay my experience playing the above teams at TWAIN:
1) La Jolla - I think Kai and I can both agree that we did not have anywhere near an average game. The score ended up being somewhere around 165 - 160. I seem to recall that the majority of that round was questions on current events or sports. I may be perfectly disillusioned however. Because of the meager score, I do not feel as if I have enough evidence to say anything about our teams. But from practice, I can tell you that Kai is good on Asian History, Music, Asian Lit, noted underrepresented categories in NAQT.

2) Edison - I'm going to refrain from saying anything because anything I say will be offensive and caustic. They're decent.

3) Arcadia - Jacqueline is good at Lit, Derek is good at a lot of stuff, Sean is good at math comp. I felt like I was losing three or four buzzer races to Derek, but that's no excuse for the 400-160 score. They're good and will continue to be good seeing as how their team leaders are very dedicated.

4) Torrey - I didn't feel they were impressive at all, but that may be due to another fluke packet where I powered 4 questions in a row. Vivek got 2 powers nonetheless, and he's definitely going to be good. Once that team has Stephen, SoCal ought to watch out. He performed well on IS 79 next to Vivek. Anyone from CBCT (other than Dwight) can comment?

5) San Dieguito - Good at what NAQT likes, not so good at other things. Once again, my match with them felt like current events/geography/math. They are good at Academic League, for all that's worth.

6) SaMo - Marino is good. Max is good. They're notably more well behaved than other years. I obviously underestimated Marino's knowledge in my first post. They definitely are better than Edison, Torrey, San Dieguito, La Jolla.

Maybe this is a little early, but I don't see anyone from SoCal pulling a 9 - 1 prelim at HSNCT anytime soon.
Zhao Zhang
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by warpoet »

Oh what I wouldn't give for a sports-heavy packet... a guy can dream, right?
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Joe Romersa »

we're wishing against a sports heavy packet...our sports guy got cut from our team...
now all we have is...me...
fail.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by warpoet »

oh, and as for our behavior, just give us time... :twisted:
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Julie RS »

ihavenoidea wrote:
2) Edison - I'm going to refrain from saying anything because anything I say will be offensive and caustic. They're decent.

Edison won't be at Caltech because of conflicts with an MUN conference. Also one of the A team members just had a bone marrow transplant.
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Joe Romersa »

from what i saw at TWAIN, samo's behavior's a lot better. im more of a douche than any of you xD

and oh man, that sucks for edison...
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

warpoet wrote:oh, and as for our behavior, just give us time... :twisted:
Please don't, or I may have to ask you to produce the middle schoolers that you are posturing to look cool for.
Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
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Re: Southern California 08-09

Post by warpoet »

I can't speak for the rest of my team, but as for myself, I don't posture. I don't think I'm the asshole type though, I just swear a lot. The coach of TP REALLY doesn't like me for that...
Max Stivers
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