April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by pblessman »

Excel Spreadsheet with all buzzpoints etc. is now posted at: http://pblessman.googlepages.com/RESULTS.xls. The teams are sorted left to right according to Goldfish score.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by Dresden_The_BIG_JERK »

Awesome!

A lot of interesting stuff in here. Things I quickly noted:

The first place team had more dead tossups than did teams two through four.

Disparity at the top: 1 and 2 are very close, biiiiiig gap, 3, biiiiiiig gap, everyone else in a trickle down.

Without knowing anything about the specific questions: Apparently TUs 1 and 2 were quite difficult. It makes me wonder if it doesn't throw everything else off a bit. I imagine it would affect a team's focus to miss the first two tossups without an opponent present.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by quizbowllee »

We missed 1 and 2... Then calmed down and played better.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by pblessman »

I agree with BJ on the oddness of having two difficult TUs to start... We were a bit rattled and then missed a relatively easy Hemingway novel question on TU3 just because getting things wrong felt right at that point (my interpretation). After that we settled down quite a bit.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by Stained Diviner »

Thanks for doing this, Phil. This is cool.

If my numbers are right, and they might not be, we lost to DCDS on the last question and beat everybody else head-to-head. Fortunately, we did well on the tossups corresponding to easy bonuses. It's surprising how few +10's we got against good teams: 0 against DCDS, 1 against DCC, and 2-3 against a few other elite teams.

We missed the Hemingway novel because that's how we do on Lit questions, unfortunately.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by Dresden_The_BIG_JERK »

Is the set open for discussion? I'm curious as to the content of the questions in questions.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by Stained Diviner »

The first three tossup answers were al-Bashir, Barnard (the surgeon), and A Farewell To Arms. I wouldn't normally think those particular questions were difficult, which just shows what I know.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

The first is current events which many (even very good) teams don't know/study, and the second was probably classified as lame "general knowledge" or almost like not-so-current events that, also, kids don't know at all. We naturally missed both questions as well, and i saw 4 pretty agitated and confused faces after those two TUs. We did not really do too well on this packet.

EDIT: Also, Bergen powered the last 6 TUs? Nice...
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by Matthew D »

I think my teams had the worst days that they have had in weeks on the Goldfish... just hope that they don't do this at the end of the month..
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by master15625 »

The Goldfish Championship definitely had interesting questions.

I noticed that the difficult was high for the first two questions, but then it started to wane, so we were okay.
The bonuses seemed to be of variable difficulty, yet they were good bonuses.

The math questions, as usual, were my favorite. But, I thought they seemed a little too easy.

I was also sort of depressed when there were lots of questions that occurred that we just missed power upon by 1 or 2 words. That is the nature of quizbowl.

Edit: I noticed something interesting in the stats, in that although New Trier may not have had over 600 points for their packet, but had they played us (if the same conditions had occurred in the game, which probably wouldn't have) the score would have been 390-375. So this comes to show that Powers play a huge importance in these games, and can make games exciting.

And Berger County A powering the last 6 is insane.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by AlphaQuizBowler »

The packet was pretty bad. I'll comment when I know its cleared. The first 24 had 2 CE, 2 Trash, 1 weird GK, and 2 mathcomp.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by ihavenoidea »

It's been cleared I'm pretty sure.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by jonpin »

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:EDIT: Also, Bergen powered the last 6 TUs? Nice...
Yeah, we joked that it was probably too little too late. Some of the powers were creepy-good, like [#30] on the [first] clue, the [#25] and [#27] powers were literally on the last word. I said afterwards that [the thought process I'd have on #28 was amusing]

Reading a competitive but still completely informal packet was fun and probably good practice to just have 4 people on the buzzers (rather than 15).

self-censoring to avoid problems...
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by AlphaQuizBowler »

Okay, well then I'll go ahead and say that Christiaan Barnard is a poor tossup choice. Yttrium was a really weak tossup; the stuff about phosphors made me think lanthanides more than anything. The Maya Angelou tossup was pretty bad, as it mentions only two works and has Stamps, Arkansas in the first line. Bonus 21 went Embargo/Non-Intercourse Act/Macon's Bill #2 while Bonus 19 had you identify who created Dupin, Sam Spade, and Philip Marlowe.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by pblessman »

I'm le tired and my Excel macro skills decline rapidly under these conditions... I think I can get this done tomorrow, but for now I have enough info to declare DCDS the overall Head-to-head winner as well! Congratulations! As Coach Reinstein already pointed out, New Trier was their closest match, with DCDS coming from behind on the last question to win the match 390-375 and clinch the Head-to-head Championship (I believe New Trier defeated everybody else head-to-head). Anyway, just as a teaser I have DCDS's results agains the next ten highest Goldfish teams... sorry, for more you have to wait until tomorrow! http://pblessman.googlepages.com/DCDS_T ... _Teams.xls
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by master15625 »

pblessman wrote:I'm le tired and my Excel macro skills decline rapidly under these conditions... I think I can get this done tomorrow, but for now I have enough info to declare DCDS the overall Head-to-head winner as well! Congratulations! As Coach Reinstein already pointed out, New Trier was their closest match, with DCDS coming from behind on the last question to win the match 390-375 and clinch the Head-to-head Championship (I believe New Trier defeated everybody else head-to-head). Anyway, just as a teaser I have DCDS's results agains the next ten highest Goldfish teams... sorry, for more you have to wait until tomorrow! http://pblessman.googlepages.com/DCDS_T ... _Teams.xls
Not that it matters, but New Trier would have gotten only one neg against us.

And New Trier having a score distribution of 10-0-1 is pretty amazing and would really scare anyone, as they would keep hearing power after power after power. Good job with powering 10 questions in the first 24.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

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Head-to-head results are finally posted at: http://pblessman.googlepages.com/2009_S ... ead_re.xls. So sorry about the delay! Summary of final standings also below:

Team Record (W-L)
1 DCDS 46-0
2 New Trier 45-1
3 DCC A 44-2
4 R.-Auburn IL 43-3
5 Walton 42-4
6 James Monroe 40-6
7 Brindlee Mountain 39-7
8t Culver 38-8
8t Hoover, AL 38-8
10t Kellenberg A 36-10
10t Rappahannock Cty 36-10
10t St. Anselm's 36-10
13 St. Joseph's A 34-12
14t Bergen County A 33-13
14t Kellenberg B 33-13
16 Troy 32-14
17 DCC C 30-16
18 Champlain V. A 29-17
19t Caesar Rodney 28-18
19t Northmont 28-18
21 St. Joseph's B 25-21
22 Saline A 24-22
23t Alpharetta 23-23
23t DCC B 23-23
25 Columbia Central 22-24
26 Buffalo Grove 21-25
27 DCC D 19-27
28 North White 18-28
29t Bergen County C 17-29
29t Champlain V. B 17-29
31 Hartland 17-29
32 MAST A 16-30
33 Sullivan 15-31
34 East Lansing 14-32
35 DCC E 12-34
36 Champlain V. C 11-35
37t Kellenberg C 10-36
37t New Trier C 10-36
39 Eastside 9-37
40 Bergen County B 7-39
41 R.-IL Auburn B 6-40
42 New Trier B 5-41
43 Auburn A 4-42
44 DCC F 3-43
45 DAR 2-44
46 Saline B 1-45
47 Auburn B 0-46
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by AlphaQuizBowler »

Just to be clear, Alpharetta was just me playing solo.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by quizbowllee »

It amazes me how much of a role that psychology plays in quiz bowl. After the raw scores came in, I was certain that Hoover High would crush us head-to-head (as they did every time we played them this year). However, when the final results came in, we had defeated Hoover. I took the raw data and used an NAQT score sheet to double-check it. It turns out that Hoover would've been up on us by nearly 200 points very early in the round. We would have taken the lead back at #19. Had this been a real match, I doubt we would have won. Once Hoover - or anyone for that matter - got so far ahead of us, we would likely shut down and be unable to stage such a comeback. But, against "Goldfish" - empty chairs - the team was very relaxed and carefree. They answered tossups when they should and didn't jump the gun with ridiculous negs in an attempt to bridge a seemingly insurmountable gap.

For the record, Hoover is a much better team that Brindlee Mountain this year. They have proven that time and again. I'm just really interested in the manner in which my players conducted themselves in a "stress free" match. I wish I could get them to play that way in real matches.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

quizbowllee wrote: I wish I could get them to play that way in real matches.

Horse blinders: actually work better than you think they would
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by Joshua Rutsky »

I was a little disappointed in our Goldfish performance, myself, but it certainly would have helped if we had had either of our math-capable players present for that round. Those two mathcomps didn't help us at all. Plus, I'm actually willing to give my kids karma points for not knowing who Ryan Gosling is.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by quizbowllee »

Joshua Rutsky wrote:I was a little disappointed in our Goldfish performance, myself, but it certainly would have helped if we had had either of our math-capable players present for that round. Those two mathcomps didn't help us at all. Plus, I'm actually willing to give my kids karma points for not knowing who Ryan Gosling is.
Yeah... Tiffany got Ryan Gosling off the first movie title. I believe that was the quickest in the entire Goldfish Field :oops:.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by at your pleasure »

Well, he is a pretty good actor.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

quizbowllee wrote:
Joshua Rutsky wrote:I was a little disappointed in our Goldfish performance, myself, but it certainly would have helped if we had had either of our math-capable players present for that round. Those two mathcomps didn't help us at all. Plus, I'm actually willing to give my kids karma points for not knowing who Ryan Gosling is.
Yeah... Tiffany got Ryan Gosling off the first movie title. I believe that was the quickest in the entire Goldfish Field :oops:.
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Re: April 29: Pre-Nationals Goldfish Championship

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quizbowllee wrote:
Joshua Rutsky wrote:I was a little disappointed in our Goldfish performance, myself, but it certainly would have helped if we had had either of our math-capable players present for that round. Those two mathcomps didn't help us at all. Plus, I'm actually willing to give my kids karma points for not knowing who Ryan Gosling is.
Yeah... Tiffany got Ryan Gosling off the first movie title. I believe that was the quickest in the entire Goldfish Field :oops:.
Me being bored, this inspired me to go through the file and find the first good buzz on each question. Here are some potentially interesting observations.
3 tossups were not powered at all: #2 (Barnard), #7 (taboo), #9 (yttrium)
4 tossups were powered by only one team: Sullivan powered #5 (Clinton), New Trier powered #8 (Lloyd George), and DCDS powered #12 (fourteen) and #19 (math-calc).
By contrast, #25 (Seneca Falls) was powered most often, by twenty teams.
#25 also included the fastest buzz of the tournament, off of just "Martha Wright, Elizabeth M'Clintock" by Brindlee.
I have to wonder (in jest) if Champlain Valley had just had a lesson on Pablo Picasso, as all three of their teams powered #24 at the same time, tied for fastest in the field.
These teams had the most first-buzzes: New Trier 5 (three of them tied), Bergen 4 (three in overtime), St. Joseph 3 (one tied), Walton 3 (one was not a power), Detroit Country Day 3 (one was not a power)

While I was there, I also did some rudimentary bonus analysis.
#17 (Federalist) was the easiest; teams averaged 24.8 with 60% of the teams thirtying the bonus and no one bageling.
Other relatively easy bonuses were #4 (Shakespeare) with 20.9ppb, 30% thirtying; #6 (statues) with 18.9ppb, 32% thirtying; and #7 (Vermont) with 18.5ppb, 35% thirtying. No one bageled #3 (part 3 was Darwin) or #8 (part 1 was St. Louis).
A special case was #12 (Biblical Marys). Almost everyone got 20, with no one thirtying and no one bageling.
The hardest bonus was #24 (strep) with more than half of the teams bageling and teams averaging 5.2.
Also difficult were #20 (flash memory) with teams averaging 8.4 and no one thirtying; and #13 (Ten Tragic Days) with teams averaging 7.1 and 46% bageling.
Special awards go to these teams, the only ones to thirty a specific bonus: #8 (the Saints) and #13 (Ten Tragic Days) by Hoover, #9 (Arago, light) by DCC, #18 (North African politics) by James Monroe, and #22 (mumbling characters) by Brindlee Mountain.
Bonus conversion overall was 15-34-33-18 (thirty-twenty-ten-bagel) for an average of 14.6ppb.
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