Prison Bowl III at Hunter HS (NYC) - 2/27/10

[Frater Taciturnus]

a problem with the stats program

An inherent problem with taft, that is; not a malfunction. Finish your programs, Evan Silberman.

S-Q-B-S

clap clap clapclapclap

[Sir Thopas]

LASA is a game up on St. Anselm's going into the advantaged final.

[lchen]

Will the scoreboard page continue to update?

It will but it won't be accurate. Standings up to round 10:

SHARONA championship bracket
LASA (6/0)
Dorman (5/1)
St. Anselms (5/1)
St. Joseph A (3/3)
Bergen A (2/4)
St. Joseph B (2/4)
Trinity (1/5)
Bergen B (0/6)

BILLIE JEAN consolation bracket
Hybrid (5/0)
HHHW A (4/1)
St. Joseph C (3/2)
Bergen C (2/3)
HHHW B (1/4)
Preston/House team (0/5)

[lchen]

LASA is a game up on St. Anselm's going into the advantaged final.

Championship bracket standings after playoffs:
LASA 7/0
St. Anselm's 6/1
Dorman 5/2
St. Joseph A 4/3
Bergen A 3/4
St. Joseph B 2/5
Trinity 1/6
Bergen B 0/7

We're just waiting on the consolation bracket to finish playing so we can give out the individual prizes and start finals.

[lchen]

LASA beats St. Anselm 475-235 in the first game of the finals, wins.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Wow, St. Anselm's beat Dorman? Nice job guys.

And congrats to LASA who appears to be ever-solidifying their "really awesome team" status.

[New York Undercover]

It's a shame that teams had to drop out. It would have been awesome to see how LASA compared to Charter, State College, etc.

[lchen]

I'll work on reconstructing the stats with SQBS over the next couple of days, but for now...

Final results:
1. LASA
2. St. Anselm's
3. Dorman
4. St. Joseph A
5. Bergen A
6. St. Joseph B
7. Trinity
8. Bergen B
9. (scab team consisting of Aaron from LASA)
10. HHHW A
11-12. St. Joseph C and Bergen C
13-14. HHHW B and (Preston HS up to round 6 and Hunter house team from round 7 on)

Individuals:
Aaron from LASA (hybrid team)
Matt Bollinger (St. Anselm's)
Benji Nguyen (LASA)
Aaron Knowlson (St. Joseph A)
Mariya Mohammed (Dorman)
Amber-Lamps (Bergen A)
Gregory Peacock (Dorman)
Jason Golfinos (Trinity)
Thomas Littrell (LASA)
Eric M (Hunter house team)

Thank you to all the teams who came today! We hope you enjoyed the tournament. If you have any feedback about the question set, please email me at [email protected].

Special thanks go to Coach Powers of St. Joseph's for moderating today. I'd also like to thank Hunter alumni Guy Tabachnick, Maggie Tse, and Tony Cheng for helping to edit and moderate. Thanks are also due to George Berry, Ben Cohen, Charlie Dees, Ian Eppler, and Auroni Gupta, who helped finish editing this set at the last minute. Thanks so much, guys!

[Edward Powers]

Just returned from Prison Bowl---my kids had a great time and we enjoyed meeting all the teams, but especially those who came from so far away, LASA, Dorman & Saint Anselm's. I had the pleasure of reading for LASA and Dorman and both schools should be very proud---you have truly great teams. In addition, although I did not get a chance to read for Saint Anselm's, my kids have given rave reviews of your squad's performances today too---so thanks to all three for adding national lustre to this wonderful tournament, and we hope you have an excellent time during the rest of your stay in NYC.

And thanks of course to all at Hunter for the fine work they put in, especially to Lily for making sure that this tournament actually took place. And thanks finally to all the local teams who came and played---good luck with the rest of your seasons---maybe we'll see each other again down the road.

[Rufous-capped Thornbill]

Fantastic effort, LASA. State College and Gov might not be lead pipe locks for the finals at Nationals...

[Duncan Idaho]

LASA 5 0 0 1.00 500.00 172.00 328.00 67 10 100 25.00 500.00 67 1880 28.06

Wow.

Is it the opinion of the editors that this set is significantly easier than last year's set?

EDIT: grammar

[wexs883198215]

LASA 5 0 0 1.00 500.00 172.00 328.00 67 10 100 25.00 500.00 67 1880 28.06

Wow.

Is it the opinion of the editors that this set significantly easier than last year's set?

I remember teams like Charter posting up pretty ridiculous numbers last year too. Also, this is the same LASA team that has managed to beat teams like the Gorman-led Rice at college tournaments, so maybe they are just that good.

[lchen]

Would anyone happen to have kept score for the finals round? Would you please email me the individual stats at [email protected]? Thanks.

[lchen]

LASA 5 0 0 1.00 500.00 172.00 328.00 67 10 100 25.00 500.00 67 1880 28.06

Wow.

Is it the opinion of the editors that this set significantly easier than last year's set?

Well, yes, we did try to make it easier than last year's set. We were trying to write a regular difficulty set, since last year's was too difficult for many of the teams in our field.

[Unicolored Jay]

It did seem easier than the last two when we ran a mirror of it. It seems to be a trend that Prison Bowl sets are getting progressively easier, but that's just my opinion.

[lchen]

Sorry for the delay; here are the correct stats. Please let me know if you find any errors.

Prelim Stats
Playoff Stats
Combined Stats

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

It did seem easier than the last two when we ran a mirror of it. It seems to be a trend that Prison Bowl sets are getting progressively easier, but that's just my opinion.

Well, i mean, there's only been three of them. The first was widely-regarded (by a fair amount of people) as too difficult, last year's was tougher than normal but nothing outrageous.

[Rufous-capped Thornbill]

It did seem easier than the last two when we ran a mirror of it. It seems to be a trend that Prison Bowl sets are getting progressively easier, but that's just my opinion.

Well, i mean, there's only been three of them. The first was widely-regarded (by a fair amount of people) as too difficult, last year's was tougher than normal but nothing outrageous.

The first may have been a tad bit more difficult, but it was easily the worst grammatically. Last year's was a phenomenal High School set, though, and I really look forward to playing this year's set in practice once it's released.

[Nick]

I can't really comment on previous sets, but this year's Prison Bowl was one of the best and most appropriate high school sets I've ever heard. I'll go out on a limb and say that (not considering the 1/1 trash), it was as close to perfect (as I would define it) as a regular high school set can realistically/possibly be. Just my opinion- great job, guys!

[Rufous-capped Thornbill]

LASA 5 0 0 1.00 500.00 172.00 328.00 67 10 100 25.00 500.00 67 1880 28.06

Wow.

Is it the opinion of the editors that this set significantly easier than last year's set?

I remember teams like Charter posting up pretty ridiculous numbers last year too. Also, this is the same LASA team that has managed to beat teams like the Gorman-led Rice at college tournaments, so maybe they are just that good.

What's even scarier is that LASA's 5th player won the scoring prize playing solo.

[Kouign Amann]

So, after being on various trains for four hours, I am now home and feeling coherent enough to say that this tournament was pretty cool. It's a shame so many great teams had to drop because of snow, but even without them this field was solid. Thanks to Hunter for running this thing. LASA is beastly; end of discussion on that point. Dorman is also really good, but they negged six times in their game with us and five in their game with LASA. If that had been different, who knows what could have happened.

Not that this is a complaint, but yes, the set kinda did seem on the easy side, especially on bonuses. It seems that a lot of bonuses lacked a clear easy-medium-hard structure, often opting for easy-easy-medium/hard.This will be easier to elucidate when the set is clear somewhere close to the end of time. Or April. Whatever.

[abnormal abdomen]

Question: In what year of high school are each of LASA's current starters?

[Huang]

Question: In what year of high school are each of LASA's current starters?

Benji and Thomas are juniors. I'm positive that Shen is a senior.

[New York Undercover]

Aaron and daniel are juniors as well

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Not that this is a complaint, but yes, the set kinda did seem on the easy side, especially on bonuses. It seems that a lot of bonuses lacked a clear easy-medium-hard structure, often opting for easy-easy-medium/hard.This will be easier to elucidate when the set is clear somewhere close to the end of time. Or April. Whatever.

You're a really awesome player. A lot of bonuses are going to look "easy-easy-medium/hard" to you... lit for example, describing a book ("oh wow that's easy, duh"), describing its author ("oh jesus, how can you not 20 this?"), describing another book by that author ("huh, pretty sure i know this, that's not hard at all").

I'm sure the set was of appropriate difficulty.

[The King's Flight to the Scots]

Not that this is a complaint, but yes, the set kinda did seem on the easy side, especially on bonuses. It seems that a lot of bonuses lacked a clear easy-medium-hard structure, often opting for easy-easy-medium/hard.This will be easier to elucidate when the set is clear somewhere close to the end of time. Or April. Whatever.

You're a really awesome player. A lot of bonuses are going to look "easy-easy-medium/hard" to you... lit for example, describing a book ("oh wow that's easy, duh"), describing its author ("oh jesus, how can you not 20 this?"), describing another book by that author ("huh, pretty sure i know this, that's not hard at all").

I'm sure the set was of appropriate difficulty.

I mean, it's not the easiness he's talking about, per se. It was just hard, sometimes, to see which part was easy, which was middle, and which was hard: like, sometimes all three bonus parts would be about the same difficulty, other times they would all be hard to different degrees.

Anyway, congrats to Hunter on a fun, solid set, and to LASA for their awesomeness and dominating presence in the final.

[Cassian]

I would like to echo everyone in thanking Hunter (and Lily in particular) for putting this together. It's a shame so many teams had to drop, but we certainly enjoyed getting out of Texas and playing some different teams. Dorman and St. Anselm's came as advertised - our games with both could easily have turned on a couple of tossups.

As to the set itself, we enjoyed playing it tremendously. It was canonical and seemed of regular high school difficulty (but without the randomness of an NAQT IS set). I didn't think the bonuses were too easy - in fact if anything the stats indicate that the set produced a good variability on bonus conversion. I think Dorman, St. Anselm's and LASA were just conditioned from having played ACF Winter and Regionals in recent weeks. I would fully expect a team that put up 15 or 16 ppb at Winter to put up 25+ on an academic high school set.

Hopefully next year the weather won't be so bad - we certainly plan to make a return trip to Prison Bowl if at all possible.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Not that this is a complaint, but yes, the set kinda did seem on the easy side, especially on bonuses. It seems that a lot of bonuses lacked a clear easy-medium-hard structure, often opting for easy-easy-medium/hard.This will be easier to elucidate when the set is clear somewhere close to the end of time. Or April. Whatever.

You're a really awesome player. A lot of bonuses are going to look "easy-easy-medium/hard" to you... lit for example, describing a book ("oh wow that's easy, duh"), describing its author ("oh jesus, how can you not 20 this?"), describing another book by that author ("huh, pretty sure i know this, that's not hard at all").

I'm sure the set was of appropriate difficulty.

I mean, it's not the easiness he's talking about, per se. It was just hard, sometimes, to see which part was easy, which was middle, and which was hard: like, sometimes all three bonus parts would be about the same difficulty, other times they would all be hard to different degrees.

Well--though I'm not discounting your observation in itself; you could be right, and the effect I'm describing does not necessarily affect specific observations you might make--the former perception can also derive from being very good.

It's rather strange to see Andrew sure that this set was of appropriate difficulty without seeing it when the last time he evaluated a high school set without seeing it it was surely far too hard. Alas, it's hard to be consistent in evaluations made without data.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Not that this is a complaint, but yes, the set kinda did seem on the easy side, especially on bonuses. It seems that a lot of bonuses lacked a clear easy-medium-hard structure, often opting for easy-easy-medium/hard.This will be easier to elucidate when the set is clear somewhere close to the end of time. Or April. Whatever.

You're a really awesome player. A lot of bonuses are going to look "easy-easy-medium/hard" to you... lit for example, describing a book ("oh wow that's easy, duh"), describing its author ("oh jesus, how can you not 20 this?"), describing another book by that author ("huh, pretty sure i know this, that's not hard at all").

I'm sure the set was of appropriate difficulty.

I mean, it's not the easiness he's talking about, per se. It was just hard, sometimes, to see which part was easy, which was middle, and which was hard: like, sometimes all three bonus parts would be about the same difficulty, other times they would all be hard to different degrees.

Well--though I'm not discounting your observation in itself; you could be right, and the effect I'm describing does not necessarily affect specific observations you might make--the former perception can also derive from being very good.

It's rather strange to see Andrew sure that this set was of appropriate difficulty without seeing it when the last time he evaluated a high school set without seeing it it was surely far too hard. Alas, it's hard to be consistent in evaluations made without data.

Let's just say that i trust the editors of this set tremendously, moreso than in the past. If there any any bonus fluctuations in difficulty, though, i hope those are altered/fixed before its subsequent mirrors.

[Kouign Amann]

Not that this is a complaint, but yes, the set kinda did seem on the easy side, especially on bonuses. It seems that a lot of bonuses lacked a clear easy-medium-hard structure, often opting for easy-easy-medium/hard.This will be easier to elucidate when the set is clear somewhere close to the end of time. Or April. Whatever.

You're a really awesome player. A lot of bonuses are going to look "easy-easy-medium/hard" to you... lit for example, describing a book ("oh wow that's easy, duh"), describing its author ("oh jesus, how can you not 20 this?"), describing another book by that author ("huh, pretty sure i know this, that's not hard at all").

I'm sure the set was of appropriate difficulty.

Well, I mean, look at the stats. Here and in Illinois, don't bonus conversion numbers seem a little higher than usual across the board? Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing; it may be a good thing and indicative that Hunter did a better job than vendors/other housewrites at making their set accessible. I was simply saying that this set seemed easier than what I usually encounter. A slight difficulty drop is not a bad thing.

[Rufous-capped Thornbill]

Not that this is a complaint, but yes, the set kinda did seem on the easy side, especially on bonuses. It seems that a lot of bonuses lacked a clear easy-medium-hard structure, often opting for easy-easy-medium/hard.This will be easier to elucidate when the set is clear somewhere close to the end of time. Or April. Whatever.

You're a really awesome player. A lot of bonuses are going to look "easy-easy-medium/hard" to you... lit for example, describing a book ("oh wow that's easy, duh"), describing its author ("oh jesus, how can you not 20 this?"), describing another book by that author ("huh, pretty sure i know this, that's not hard at all").

I'm sure the set was of appropriate difficulty.

Well, I mean, look at the stats. Here and in Illinois, don't bonus conversion numbers seem a little higher than usual across the board? Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing; it may be a good thing and indicative that Hunter did a better job than vendors/other housewrites at making their set accessible. I was simply saying that this set seemed easier than what I usually encounter. A slight difficulty drop is not a bad thing.

You, Dorman and LASA(As well as the many good teams who played this set in Illinois) are all National Championship contenders. LASA just won ACF Regionals Texas and you got 2nd in the Mid-Atlantic. I'd be disappointed if you didn't have ppb numbers that made me green with envy.

This set was billed as Regular Difficulty for High School. I'd expect the very elite to have 24+ppb on that. When it was played in Ohio, teams had ppbs around what they had when they played HSAPQ #8 at Ohio State.

You're good, brah. Revel in it.

[Edward Powers]

Some questions for the Saint Anselm's players.

It just occurred to me that Saint Anselm's played State College head to head twice at Penn's QuAC earlier this year in the Championship bracket there, and just this weekend you played LASA twice in the Hunter tournament. This seems to place you in a fairly unique position in terms of being able to assess the qualities that each of these very gifted teams seems to possess. So, care to discuss your perceptions of the relative strengths of each team, at least as you perceived them in your two matches in Championship level play with each? And, to discuss weaknesses with such talented teams seems silly, perhaps, but you are gifted players as well, so perhaps you do have some assessment of possible weaknesses as well? I know earlier this year Matt attempted to assess the merits of the top teams in the nation, and now that he's seen two of the best up close and personal, would he care to comment some more based on his experience with both teams? Would Aidan? Or Jacob---would you care to comment? And, how might each stack up against some of the other great teams with which each of you is familiar?

It's my guess that others around the country who enjoy quizbowl might find your informed judgments, assuming you would be willing to give them, to be both interesting and illuminating. So---care to share?

[The King's Flight to the Scots]

Some questions for the Saint Anselm's players.

It just occurred to me that Saint Anselm's played State College head to head twice at Penn's QuAC earlier this year in the Championship bracket there, and just this weekend you played LASA twice in the Hunter tournament. This seems to place you in a fairly unique position in terms of being able to assess the qualities that each of these very gifted teams seems to possess. So, care to discuss your perceptions of the relative strengths of each team, at least as you perceived them in your two matches in Championship level play with each? And, to discuss weaknesses with such talented teams seems silly, perhaps, but you are gifted players as well, so perhaps you do have some assessment of possible weaknesses as well? I know earlier this year Matt attempted to assess the merits of the top teams in the nation, and now that he's seen two of the best up close and personal, would he care to comment some more based on his experience with both teams? Would Aidan? Or Jacob---would you care to comment? And, how might each stack up against some of the other great teams with which each of you is familiar?

It's my guess that others around the country who enjoy quizbowl might find your informed judgments, assuming you would be willing to give them, to be both interesting and illuminating. So---care to share?

Sorry, I just saw this. Yeah, I have some thoughts on LASA, and I'll edit this post to write them down.

EDIT:

OK. From what I've seen, LASA is very capable of early buzzes on all categories. They might not steal your strongest lock-downs, but they'll definitely annoy you by taking the categories you're used to getting. They play lit, RMP, and music as well as any team, and Shen gets some crazy buzzes on the visual arts. However, the categories where they really shine are history and science. It's not so much that they're buzzing earlier on history than they are on other questions: it's that they'll often buzz in the first half of questions that most teams wouldn't get until much later. As for science...all of them, especially Benji, can buzz on advanced scientific descriptions that most high school teams can't understand. If you have good knowledge of a subject, you can wrest questions away from them, but knowing the words "GHK equation" will not save you in this match. Their only weakness seems to be that they don't have the buzzer instincts or quizbowl "savoir-faire" I've seen in other competitors on the Mid-Atlantic circuit.

Regarding a LASA/State College comparison: I honestly have to rank State College ahead on nearly every category, with the possible exception of history. Additionally, looking at stats from ACF Regionals, I'd say that for now, a full Gov team would probably beat LASA. However, that's not a sure thing by any means: LASA strikes me as far better on science, so with a lot of work and a favorable packet, LASA has an OK shot at pulling off that upset.

[Edward Powers]

Thank you Matt. Your analysis portrays LASA as an extremely formidable opponent, virtually across the board. Further, the very precision of your analysis intrigues, for if LASA plays Lit, RMP & Music as well as anyone, while Shen adds great strength in the visual arts---and then we learn that these are not even LASA's greatest strengths!!!!---history and science are, if you are correct---then the question becomes where, in fact, are they weak at all?

Nevertheless, as you well point out, your analysis leaves room for the assessment that there still might be a few teams even stronger still in all or at least most of these categories---teams like State & MWGS---but you certainly paint a picture that leaves one with the impression that perhaps LASA's only true weakness vis-a-vis the two great opponents you mentioned in your analysis is their lack of "buzzer instincts" or "quizbowl savoir faire". Still, you suggest that LASA could upset MWGS with the right packet--and this in itself is high praise indeed. But your notion of "buzzer instincts/ qb savoir faire" is both fascinating and somewhat cryptic---care to elaborate on what you mean by these depictions?

And thanks again for such a rigorous assessment of LASA. I read once for them at Hunter and I was extremely impressed with their speed, their accuracy, their confidence, their teamwork and their balance, but because I had the responsibility of reading I did not have a chance to completely digest & assess the specific areas of mastery they seemed to possess as rigorously or as precisely as you have done here---so thank you for your contribution.

Do your teammates share your assessments?

EDITED : For accuracy re: buzzer instincts etc...

[The King's Flight to the Scots]

Thank you Matt. Your analysis portrays LASA as an extremely formidable opponent, virtually across the board. Further, the very precision of your analysis intrigues, for if LASA plays Lit, RMP & Music as well as anyone, while Shen adds great strength in the visual arts---and then we learn that these are not even LASA's greatest strengths!!!!---history and science are, if you are correct---then the question becomes where, in fact, are they weak at all?

Nevertheless, as you well point out, your analysis leaves room for the assessment that there still might be a few teams even stronger still in all or at least most of these categories---teams like State & MWGS---but you certainly paint a picture that leaves one with the impression that perhaps LASA's only true weakness vis-a-vis the two great opponents you mentioned in your analysis is their lack of "buzzer instincts" or "quizbowl savoir faire". Still, you suggest that LASA could upset MWGS with the right packet--and this in itself is high praise indeed. But your notion of "buzzer instincts/ qb savoir faire" is both fascinating and somewhat cryptic---care to elaborate on what you mean by these depictions?

And thanks again for such a rigorous assessment of LASA. I read once for them at Hunter and I was extremely impressed with their speed, their accuracy, their confidence, their teamwork and their balance, but because I had the responsibility of reading I did not have a chance to completely digest & assess the specific areas of mastery they seemed to possess as rigorously or as precisely as you have done here---so thank you for your contribution.

Do your teammates share your assessments?

EDITED : For accuracy re: buzzer instincts etc...

I mean that sometimes they'd know an answer but not buzz, or say the wrong thing on a bonus prompt, or lose buzzer races because they couldn't see where the question was going and got beaten out by someone who could. You know, gameplay stuff.

[Edward Powers]

I get it. Thanks.