The Quizbowl Resource Center

Auburn High School (Rockford, IL) will be co-hosting the second iteration of the Loyburn Classic with Loyola Academy (Wilmette, IL) on January 30th. As you may remember, the first Loyburn was held at Loyola and featured the now-defunct PACE format. This year's event will be at Auburn and will be played on HSAPQ set 10. I'm not sure about powers and negs, but the tournament will employ some incarnation of the ACF format with 5 players to a team, so this will count towards the 18-date limit as dictated by IHSA.

I will update this post shortly with a field update. I know for certain that this tournament will feature the vast majority (if not all) of Illinois heavyweights. Should be fun.

I'm not sure about open space, but to get on any sort of list, you'll have to email Auburn coach Linda Greene ([email protected]) or Loyola coach David Riley ([email protected]).

MODS: Can we move this to a better place? Gracias.

It's unfortunate this formal posting was made so late, as Latin (as a team) may have experienced its last good quiz bowl of the year. Still, on the off chance that something can be put together at the last minute, what kind of cost would be associated with attending?

Oliver Ellsworth wrote:MODS: Can we move this to a better place? Gracias.

FYI, you can report your own post and keep threads a post shorter. Electron conservation!

FredMorlan wrote:

Oliver Ellsworth wrote:MODS: Can we move this to a better place? Gracias.

FYI, you can report your own post and keep threads a post shorter. Electron conservation!

Robert Volgman wrote:Things

Yeah, sorry Fred. But if you had PM'd me, this thread would have been another post shorter.

And Robert, I'm really sorry you weren't invited (or were you?). I'll make sure the players have more involvement in getting the field together, as coaches often forget people. This bigger issue was actually staffing, since a lot of people who would moderate are going to be at Pennbowl. This forced us to cap our field. I hate that we keep having to have smaller fields...

Oliver Ellsworth wrote:Yeah, sorry Fred. But if you had PM'd me, this thread would have been another post shorter.

I posted publicly, not to call you out, but to inform everyone. But now this conversation has caused at least two more posts than minimally needed to discuss this! The wasted time, effort and electricity! Several 40s will be poured out in remembrance.

Oliver Ellsworth wrote: And Robert, I'm really sorry you weren't invited (or were you?). I'll make sure the players have more involvement in getting the field together, as coaches often forget people. This bigger issue was actually staffing, since a lot of people who would moderate are going to be at Pennbowl. This forced us to cap our field. I hate that we keep having to have smaller fields...

It seems possible that I was just not told about the tournament and our coaches decided not to go. Oh well, I guess I'll see you at NASAT tryouts.

We just checked into our hotel in Rockford. Looking forward to a good competition tomorrow!

Since Auburn seems to stay away from their own tournament thread, here are things I have heard from two members of their team.

Tentatively, game format is powers but no negs.

The field is comprised of the following teams for sure, although others are coming:
Auburn x 2
Loyola x 2
St. Ignatius
Keith CD
Carbondale
Stevenson x some #

As of a week ago:
Auburn 2
Carbondale
Fenton
Keith Country Day School 2
Loyola Academy 2
Moline
New Trier
Niles North
St. Ignatius
Stevenson
Wheaton-Warrenville South

Should be great! Looking forward to moderating.

We are going into a Stevenson-Auburn A final, with Auburn A having the advantage. Third was St. Ignatius; fourth, Loyola A; fifth, Carbondale.

jonah wrote:We are going into a Stevenson-Auburn A final, with Auburn A having the advantage. Third was St. Ignatius; fourth, Loyola A; fifth, Carbondale.

Word from Jonah is Auburn won the first game.

Any news on 6th place?

Auburn B was sixth.
Jonas has a file of the stats, and will be putting them up fairly soon.
Thanks to all of the teams who came to play, to our moderators (Riley, Laudermith, Stankevitz, Laird, Greenthal, Houlding, and Weber) who kept things moving along on schedule, to our stats people (J. Wasserstrass and A. Salberg), and to the parents, frosh-soph players, and NHS members who helped.
Team records for the day for those in the championship bracket are: Auburn A 11-0, Stevenson 9-2 (both losses to Auburn), St. Ignatius 8-2 (lost to Aubun and Stevenson), Loyola A 6-3, Carbondale 6-3, and Auburn B 5-5.
ATT players (in order) were Andrew Deveau, Kevin Mallis, Lloyd Sy, Ben Chametsky, Quinn Rosenthal, Steve Server, Nolan WInkler, Marcel Youkhna, and Isa Domin. Zach Blumenfeld and Zahed Haseeb were the next two - honorable mention, if we were to give that recognition.

Coach G wrote:Auburn B was sixth.
Jonas has a file of the stats, and will be putting them up fairly soon.
Thanks to all of the teams who came to play, to our moderators (Riley, Laudermith, Stankevitz, Laird, Greenthal, Houlding, and Weber) who kept things moving along on schedule, to our stats people (J. Wasserstrass and A. Salberg), and to the parents, frosh-soph players, and NHS members who helped.
Team records for the day for those in the championship bracket are: Auburn A 11-0, Stevenson 9-2 (both losses to Auburn), St. Ignatius 8-2 (lost to Aubun and Stevenson), Loyola A 7-3, Carbondale 6-4, and Auburn B 5-5.
ATT players (in order) were Andrew Deveau, Kevin Mallis, Lloyd Sy, Ben Chametsky, Quinn Rosenthal, Steve Server, Nolan WInkler, Marcel Youkhna, and Isa Domin. Zach Blumenfeld and Zahed Haseeb were the next two - honorable mention, if we were to give that recognition.

Fixed.

Extinction threshold wrote:

Coach G wrote:Auburn B was sixth.
Jonas has a file of the stats, and will be putting them up fairly soon.
Thanks to all of the teams who came to play, to our moderators (Riley, Laudermith, Stankevitz, Laird, Greenthal, Houlding, and Weber) who kept things moving along on schedule, to our stats people (J. Wasserstrass and A. Salberg), and to the parents, frosh-soph players, and NHS members who helped.
Team records for the day for those in the championship bracket are: Auburn A 11-0, Stevenson 9-2 (both losses to Auburn), St. Ignatius 8-2 (lost to Aubun and Stevenson), Loyola A 7-3, Carbondale 6-4, and Auburn B 5-5.
ATT players (in order) were Andrew Deveau, Kevin Mallis, Lloyd Sy, Ben Chametsky, Quinn Rosenthal, Steve Server, Nolan WInkler, Marcel Youkhna, and Isa Domin. Zach Blumenfeld and Zahed Haseeb were the next two - honorable mention, if we were to give that recognition.

Fixed.

Yeah, The error caused me to award Loyola 4th place, strip them of that position, award it to Carbondale, strip them of that position, then reinstate Loyola.

To everyone who came out and made it a good tournament: Thanks.

Thank you to Coach Greene and everyone else who made this tournament so successful. Also of course congratulations to Auburn A, who were, as always, very impressive. We had a lot of fun, though I lament the fact I didn't get to the book bin fast enough to get a copy of Raptor Red.

Chametz wrote:Thank you to Coach Greene and everyone else who made this tournament so successful. Also of course congratulations to Auburn A, who were, as always, very impressive. We had a lot of fun, though I lament the fact I didn't get to the book bin fast enough to get a copy of Raptor Red.

Did somebody say "canon expansion"?

Also, Carbondale looked rock solid yesterday. This was the first time I saw New Carbondale at full strength, and I was duly impressed. I also thought Stevenson's improvement was pretty great.

EDIT: Pertinence.

jonah wrote:Stats

The highest PPB was at 25ppb? Very nice. I suspect the questions were accessible?

But yeah, that's a really fine performance by some Illinois teams. Good job everyone.

E: For re-accuracy.

Sedma wrote:E: you are a sneaky one Mr. Chrzanowski!

But yeah, that's a really fine performance by some Illinois teams. Good job everyone.

Yeah i quickly realized my mistake and changed my post. That's a lot of ppb over 20, a good sign considering people say that Illinois dropped off a little in overall talent this year that the set is good and accessible.

I saw the P/BB and thought that was P/B too, and was confused. But yeah wow 5 teams over 20, solid

This set was far from excellent, in many ways and a lot of the bonuses were free 20-30 pts, hence the really high PPBs. Granted, there were also some hard difficulty outliers, but they were far outweighed by the really easy ones. I'm sure we will have lots of criticism sent to HSAPQ on ways to fix this set soon.

I personally disagree with such strong criticisms of the set. There were definitely issues, and I've already contacted Matt Weiner about those. Yes, there were inconsistencies, but the fact that so many bonuses were easy is a simple result of people getting better at quizbowl. These stats are consistent with the previous performances by teams, with some improvement factored in. Let me ask you this question, Nolan: You don't think the best five teams in Illinois should all average at least 20 PPB on a regular difficulty high school set?

Edit: Is there any reason why Round 2 bonuses seem to be harder than the rest? By a cursory look at top teams, it seems to be an outlier, judging strictly on PPB.

Oliver Ellsworth wrote:Is there any reason why Round 2 bonuses seem to be harder than the rest? By a cursory look at top teams, it seems to be an outlier, judging strictly on PPB.

At a glance, it looks just like normal variation--round report seems to indicate that Round 2 wasn't noticeably harder in terms of PPB or PPBB and your observation really only seems to hold for the top two or three teams (as opposed to, say, all of the teams in the top bracket). Of course, that's just my personal opinion.

Extinction threshold wrote:This set was far from excellent, in many ways and a lot of the bonuses were free 20-30 pts, hence the really high PPBs. Granted, there were also some hard difficulty outliers, but they were far outweighed by the really easy ones. I'm sure we will have lots of criticism sent to HSAPQ on ways to fix this set soon.

Having looked over the set for its use at our tournament, I can say that I disagree. There were a few recurring problems (vague clues, lack of proofreading, etc.), but none of these were crippling issues; those issues that I found, I pointed out to one of the editors, who should be doing one last round of editing before ZIGZAG. I suspect that the set's poor reception is due to two factors, both of which, IMO, are actually good things:

1. This set is groundbreaking for high school quizbowl. In a number of creative ways, it strives to give meaningful matches to top teams without screwing over the bottom teams. Naturally, it's a bit jarring to hear some of the different writing styles employed in making this set; however, I'm convinced that this set helps set a good course for the future of high school quizbowl.

2. The classic "I know it, so it's easy" fallacy. From what I've seen, almost all bonuses have a clear easy/middle/hard structure. HSAPQ has just chosen to increase conversion by making the bonuses generally easier. If that means that generally competent teams get a lot of 20's and 30's, so be it. However, there are 8 teams at 15 ppb or below: I doubt there were that many "free 20's or 30's."

Cantaloupe (disambiguation) wrote:

Extinction threshold wrote:This set was far from excellent, in many ways and a lot of the bonuses were free 20-30 pts, hence the really high PPBs. Granted, there were also some hard difficulty outliers, but they were far outweighed by the really easy ones. I'm sure we will have lots of criticism sent to HSAPQ on ways to fix this set soon.

Having looked over the set for its use at our tournament, I can say that I disagree. There were a few recurring problems (vague clues, lack of proofreading, etc.), but none of these were crippling issues; those issues that I found, I pointed out to one of the editors, who should be doing one last round of editing before ZIGZAG. I suspect that the set's poor reception is due to two factors, both of which, IMO, are actually good things:

1. This set is groundbreaking for high school quizbowl. In a number of creative ways, it strives to give meaningful matches to top teams without screwing over the bottom teams. Naturally, it's a bit jarring to hear some of the different writing styles employed in making this set; however, I'm convinced that this set helps set a good course for the future of high school quizbowl.

2. The classic "I know it, so it's easy" fallacy. From what I've seen, almost all bonuses have a clear easy/middle/hard structure. HSAPQ has just chosen to increase conversion by making the bonuses generally easier. If that means that generally competent teams get a lot of 20's and 30's, so be it. However, there are 8 teams at 15 ppb or below: I doubt there were that many "free 20's or 30's."

This is all awesome, and once again reinforces my belief that no regular difficult tournament can be "too easy" as long as the questions are written well. I'm really looking forward to this.

I concur with Matt on this. I'd say there were as many hard middle parts as there were easy middle parts, and yes, perhaps overall bonus conversion was higher, but I would contend that this is a result of easy- and medium- difficulty bonuses. That is, middle and lower teams' conversion is increased, while the PPB stats for top teams remains pretty accurate, as their PPB ultimately becomes a question of how many hard parts they can answer. This follows the same premise as tossups: pretty much every team can answer a question at the end, while many (and almost all of the good teams) can answer them by middle clues, and only the best knowledge will get you the question within the early clues.

Oliver Ellsworth wrote:I concur with Matt on this. I'd say there were as many hard middle parts as there were easy middle parts, and yes, perhaps overall bonus conversion was higher, but I would contend that this is a result of easy- and medium- difficulty bonuses. That is, middle and lower teams' conversion is increased, while the PPB stats for top teams remains pretty accurate, as their PPB ultimately becomes a question of how many hard parts they can answer. This follows the same premise as tossups: pretty much every team can answer a question at the end, while many (and almost all of the good teams) can answer them by middle clues, and only the best knowledge will get you the question within the early clues.

Well that's what a good quizbowl packet is supposed to do! If this is actually true and actually written in this correct way, this might be one of the best written sets there's ever been.

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:

Oliver Ellsworth wrote:I concur with Matt on this. I'd say there were as many hard middle parts as there were easy middle parts, and yes, perhaps overall bonus conversion was higher, but I would contend that this is a result of easy- and medium- difficulty bonuses. That is, middle and lower teams' conversion is increased, while the PPB stats for top teams remains pretty accurate, as their PPB ultimately becomes a question of how many hard parts they can answer. This follows the same premise as tossups: pretty much every team can answer a question at the end, while many (and almost all of the good teams) can answer them by middle clues, and only the best knowledge will get you the question within the early clues.

Well that's what a good quizbowl packet is supposed to do! If this is actually true and actually written in this correct way, this might be one of the best written sets there's ever been.

I wouldn't go as far as that. But yes, I've gotten used to this level of quality from HSAPQ. They've improved with each set, too. I've played 8, 9, and now 10. Isn't Wildcat at Northwestern using 11? I can't wait.

I think I need to clear up what seems to be a bit of a misconception about Illinois quiz bowl. Teams like Auburn, St. Ignatius, and Loyola play almost strictly pyramidal schedules. We only really engage in less-than-great on a sparing basis, notable at things like conference events and the state series. And even those are generally pyramidal, though they have sone stupid format features and math computation. We are by no means starved; we're surrounded by famine. No, a hunger strike...

Oliver Ellsworth wrote:We are by no means starved; we're surrounded by famine. No, a hunger strike...

Perhaps the most poignant statement about Illinois quizbowl ever.

Re Matt's comment that 8 teams had 15 or lower pts. per bonus, perhaps he misread something in the stats. Of the 14 teams playing, 8 had 18+, four had below 15, and two were between 15 and 16 (15.90 and 15.75), for a total of 10 above 15 and 4 below. It is worth noting that two of the teams under 15 are from a school that just started a quiz bowl team this year, and this was only their second varsity tournament. Also, one of the two teams that got between 15 and 16 has just started to go to tourneys with pyramid-style questions; this may been that team's first Saturday invitational playing on good questions in that style. I am happy to see these teams seeking out good quizbowl and am sure that, with more experience, they will do much better.

Coach G wrote:Re Matt's comment that 8 teams had 15 or lower pts. per bonus, perhaps he misread something in the stats. Of the 14 teams playing, 8 had 18+, four had below 15, and two were between 15 and 16 (15.90 and 15.75), for a total of 10 above 15 and 4 below. It is worth noting that two of the teams under 15 are from a school that just started a quiz bowl team this year, and this was only their second varsity tournament. Also, one of the two teams that got between 15 and 16 has just started to go to tourneys with pyramid-style questions; this may been that team's first Saturday invitational playing on good questions in that style. I am happy to see these teams seeking out good quizbowl and am sure that, with more experience, they will do much better.

Yeah, sorry, I counted wrong. To be exact, 6, not 8, teams were at 15(.9) or below. I merely pointed that out to show that teams didn't "automatically" get 20 or 30 points on every bonus.

Carangoides ciliarius wrote: This is all awesome, and once again reinforces my belief that no regular difficult tournament can be "too easy" as long as the questions are written well. I'm really looking forward to this.

I have to disagree with this. In this set, easiness translated into a lot of guessable answer lines, ones where an aggressive player would be like, "Eh. It's probably ___," buzz, and get points not for knowledge as much as for aggression. I powered at least one TU like this, and it was grossly unfair.

adeveau wrote:

Carangoides ciliarius wrote: This is all awesome, and once again reinforces my belief that no regular difficult tournament can be "too easy" as long as the questions are written well. I'm really looking forward to this.

I have to disagree with this. In this set, easiness translated into a lot of guessable answer lines, ones where an aggressive player would be like, "Eh. It's probably ___," buzz, and get points not for knowledge as much as for aggression. I powered at least one TU like this, and it was grossly unfair.

Guessable answer lines: not usually so guessable for 90% of HSAPQ's target audience. Given that where you might end up resulted in as much conversation in the Illinois thread as Brett Favre's un-retirement did on ESPN, I'm going to wager--despite never having seen you play in person--that you're part of the 10% that isn't HSAPQ's primary audience. If you powered all twenty tossups most games, then, well, maybe there's something going wrong. But you're describing an experience had by any elite playet on high school questions. Solution: play harder sets sometimes. It doesn't mean that the set didn't accomplish its purpose, which was not to challenge one of the best two or three solo players in Illinois with its leadins.

Crazy Andy Watkins wrote:

adeveau wrote:

Carangoides ciliarius wrote: This is all awesome, and once again reinforces my belief that no regular difficult tournament can be "too easy" as long as the questions are written well. I'm really looking forward to this.

I have to disagree with this. In this set, easiness translated into a lot of guessable answer lines, ones where an aggressive player would be like, "Eh. It's probably ___," buzz, and get points not for knowledge as much as for aggression. I powered at least one TU like this, and it was grossly unfair.

Guessable answer lines: not usually so guessable for 90% of HSAPQ's target audience. Given that where you might end up resulted in as much conversation in the Illinois thread as Brett Favre's un-retirement did on ESPN, I'm going to wager--despite never having seen you play in person--that you're part of the 10% that isn't HSAPQ's primary audience. If you powered all twenty tossups most games, then, well, maybe there's something going wrong. But you're describing an experience had by any elite playet on high school questions. Solution: play harder sets sometimes. It doesn't mean that the set didn't accomplish its purpose, which was not to challenge one of the best two or three solo players in Illinois with its leadins.

Andy, you make a good point, but there was more transparency than usual in this set. I can't name specifics here, but I did give a few examples to Weiner. I see Andrew's point, but again, I don't think it was as egregious as he's saying it is.

Cantaloupe (disambiguation) wrote:From what I've seen, almost all bonuses have a clear easy/middle/hard structure.

I think this was actually much more of an issue than what I initially said after re-reading through the set (at least the parts we played on). There really didn't seem to be a well-defined structure like that throughout a lot of the bonuses, not so much that there were "free" 20s/30s but some bonuses would have an easy-easy-pretty dang hard structure while others would seem to be medium-medium-medium, or things like that.

HSAPQ has just chosen to increase conversion by making the bonuses generally easier. If that means that generally competent teams get a lot of 20's and 30's, so be it.

This could very well be, and it would make sense as to why our (this site's) PPB is where it is, and if that's what HSAPQ is trying to do, that is certainly a reasonable thing to do as a company, and it would help spread good quizbowl more (and make CHRZ happy ). I was under the impression that it would be more on par with sets 8&9, in which case it certainly was not and there was a perceivably higher amount of races/clues creeping up too early.