Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

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Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Batsteve »

Hi everybody,

This is a preliminary announcement for The University of Maryland's Spring Classic High School Tournament 2010 at the University of Maryland, College Park. Currently, we are considering holding it on Sunday, May 9th or Saturday, May 22th, decision to be made subject to the preferences of our potential field. That means, if you're interested in coming one of those days, reply to this thread or email us with which date you prefer.

EDIT: We have decided to host the tournament Saturday the 22nd. Mark your calendars for this last chance to play quizbowl before all the big national tournaments!

The tournament will be housewritten, with 20/20 rounds and a standard ACF distribution. Our target difficulty is slightly harder than ACF Fall, but less difficult than last year's Maryland Spring Invitational. Round/bracket specifics will be decided once we have a better idea of the field.

The base cost for this tournament will be $70 per team and $60 for each subsequent team per school.

The following discounts are also available:
-$5/buzzer system
-$10/moderator

Rooms and meeting times are TBA once we reserve rooms.

EDIT: The tournament will be held at Jimenez Hall on campus at College Park, MD. Registration in room 0105 (basement level) will open at 8:30, and we will try to start rounds as soon after 9:00 as possible.

For more information or registration, please e-mail Jeremy Eaton at [email protected].

Registered:

Glenelg
Longfellow x 2
Caeser Rodney
Marshall
DeMatha x 2
Georgetown Day x 2
Wilmington Charter
Thomas Jefferson x 2
Blair
Gonzaga
St. Anselm's
Walt Whitman
Calvert Hall
Blake
Richard Montgomery x 2
Mercersburg x 2
Wilson
Quince Orchard



Thanks and we hope to see you in May,
SteveJon Guth
Maryland Academic Quiz Team
Last edited by Batsteve on Sat May 22, 2010 5:04 am, edited 29 times in total.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/9 or 5/22)

Post by Kouign Amann »

Hey Maryland people, I don't know if you're planning on discussing any question specifics for this event over email, but if you are, it's probably a good idea for you to unhook me and any other active high schoolers from the MAQT listserv until it's time for summer practices again. Despite how much I love learning all about you guys' travel planning, pizza ordering, board game playing, and general Armory shenanigans-ing every weekend, I wouldn't want to risk seeing anything I shouldn't.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/9 or 5/22)

Post by at your pleasure »

If you have the initial email, I think you reply to that with "delete me from the listserv", or something like that. It should have instructions.
EDIT: Also, Whitman would prefer the 22nd for obvious reasons. We can come if it's that date, but the 8th might be iffier.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/9 or 5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

I'm honestly not sure what dates we would prefer. While Sundays are annoying to have tournaments on (and that's right in the middle of APs too), i might prefer that to the week before Nationals when i'm sure i'll be busier with other things. I'll ask.

This also probably should have been announced earlier, but i guess i'm being picky.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/9 or 5/22)

Post by wilsonmathteacher »

Wilson HS would muchly prefer May 22, since we aren't going to be doing back to back tournaments in the middle of AP exams.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/9 or 5/22)

Post by Angry Babies in Love »

wilsonmathteacher wrote:Wilson HS would muchly prefer May 22, since we aren't going to be doing back to back tournaments in the middle of AP exams.
I concur.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/9 or 5/22)

Post by wexs883198215 »

My culture is big on actually preparing for AP exams, so I would prefer 5/22.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/9 or 5/22)

Post by Nine-Tenths Ideas »

Eh, whatever works. This is one of those tournaments I can probably go to alone regardless of whether Blake wants to come.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/9 or 5/22)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

Yeah, I'll vote for 5/22 as well.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/9 or 5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Sounds like we prefer the 22nd here as well.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/9 or 5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Any updates on this?

The 22nd sure makes a whole lot more sense, especially considering someone who shall remain nameless is also the head editor of PACE Nationals at the same time and might need a little more time for a little old housewritten set.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Batsteve »

Due to popular support, we will host the tournament on Saturday, 5/22. The main announcement should be updated to reflect this.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Awesome. Okay, count us as officially interested.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Ozymandias »

How long is the tournament going to be? Half our team is going to prom that evening.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Batsteve »

Ozymandias wrote:How long is the tournament going to be? Half our team is going to prom that evening.
Last year the tournament ended around five o'clock, with another half hour for finals. We plan to finish around the same time this year--the tournament over in the late afternoon, with finals immediately following.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Algeria »

TJ's sending at least one team to this, probably two or three.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by btressler »

Please add us to the list for 1 team, 1 buzzer, and 1 moderator.

I can bring more buzzers if you're short.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

GDS has registered 2 teams and up to three buzzer sets.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

I emailed Jeremy a couple days ago with our registration: 1 team, 1 buzzer so far.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Angry Babies in Love »

Hey so we're interested. If we can pull together the money we're coming.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

I'm not sure if our second team is coming. Interest from non-A Team members has disappeared recently from all the sports my kids do (i can count at least 12 that play some sort of sport at the moment and can almost never come to practice), so i'll ask more officially by Tuesday of next week to get you my final word. However, it's not looking good for that second team from CR.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Nine-Tenths Ideas »

I'm gonna ride the metro bus over and play this alone.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

Will this set be powermarked?
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Additionally, how is the set coming along?
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Batsteve »

The set will be powermarked.

Right now we're aiming for 10 rounds (the same number as last year) and we're approximately 85% done with the questions.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Nine-Tenths Ideas »

Slight edit to what I said: I'll probably have 1-2 teammates at this.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Our second team isn't going to happen. Sorry. But we'll be there with our one team, our buzzers, and me moderating.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Angry Babies in Love »

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:Our second team isn't going to happen. Sorry. But we'll be there with our one team, our buzzers, and me moderating.
Funny story, our second team is happening.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Wurzel-Flummery wrote:
Carangoides ciliarius wrote:Our second team isn't going to happen. Sorry. But we'll be there with our one team, our buzzers, and me moderating.
Funny story, our second team is happening.
In other news, Hell called and said "it's chilly." :twisted:

That's cool though, you guys have a really good B Team! They're going to upset a few schools on Saturday.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Angry Babies in Love »

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:
Wurzel-Flummery wrote:
Carangoides ciliarius wrote:Our second team isn't going to happen. Sorry. But we'll be there with our one team, our buzzers, and me moderating.
Funny story, our second team is happening.
In other news, Hell called and said "it's chilly." :twisted:

That's cool though, you guys have a really good B Team! They're going to upset a few schools on Saturday.
I sure hope so, thanks. Though I don't know how good they'll be; all of the seniors on our team have kinda bailed. And too bad about your B team not making it, this will be good practice for next year.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

This looks like a great field. We're really looking forward to this set (we're basically treating this like our PACE Nationals since we can't make that one). See everybody tomorrow.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

GDS and St. Anselm's both went undefeated in the playoff round robin until they faced each other in the last round. Due to packet constraints, it was decided that this last round would serve as a one-game final. Congrats to GDS for winning a closely-played match by...80 or 90 points, don't remember.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Tanay »

Is this set being mirrored anywhere? If not, I think a lot of teams (including ours) would love to practice on it before HSNCT.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

This was a good tournament with a lot of great teams. We had fun and played some good games.

I liked the questions and most of them were written well. They could have used some more editing, and there were a couple misplaced clues but overall this was a fine set that hit its difficulty just about right.

From what i can tell, the top 8 went like this:

GDS A
St. Anselm's
Charter
TJ A
CR A / RM A (i think we both went 5-5?)
Blair / Quince Orchard (not sure which?)

Whitman won the consolation bracket, Blake got second in it, and GDS B got third.

The rest... really have no idea.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Nine-Tenths Ideas »

I guess I'll be the dude to make the obligatory "any idea on a rough estimate on when stats will be posted?" post.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by mastaloo »

The set was enjoyable to play overall. Most of the tossups were good, except the difficulty fluctuated here and there. The bonuses were harder in general, but that's a good warmup for nationals. Overall, a job well done.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by at your pleasure »

I also recall two specific factucal errors. Who should I contact about them?
EDIT: There's no way another tournament is running this set with HSNCT and NSC in the next two weeks. The errors were that Alan Turing was american(he was in fact british) and that the Ognissanti Madonna is Giotto's only surviving panel painting(there are several others at least).
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

This was a really fun tournament to play, and by and large hit the NSCish level which was most useful to warm up for Nationals coming up these next two weeks.
I do think, however, that the set had many points where it was just too dang hard - a bonus part or two that would be really obscure, or a poor tossup answer choice would be unpowerable - and many of the hard parts took the form of really obtuse or unpullable stuff that just isn't worth asking any high school teams, no matter how gifted or quizbowl-savvy they are. A lot of bonuses avoided (thankfully) the "[10] have you been to a college tournament? ANSWER: _yes_ [do not accept "no"]" sort of answers that have been common recently (here's lookin at you, wolff-kishner reduction) - but instead had stuff that literally no team at the tournament had ever heard before, in quizbowl or out. I'll have a lot more to say when I'm awake and have the set in front of me, but it's definitely worth opening up a discussion about how to best write relevant, gettable material that's still hard without delving into obtuseness that experts still won't know.

Re: the set and the stats, word from the tournament about whether the set will be posted is "yep", and the stats will probably be up in a short while (a day or two or few) since the shortage of staff made it hard to input much during the tournament.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

RyuAqua wrote:This was a really fun tournament to play, and by and large hit the NSCish level which was most useful to warm up for Nationals coming up these next two weeks.
I do think, however, that the set had many points where it was just too dang hard - a bonus part or two that would be really obscure, or a poor tossup answer choice would be unpowerable - and many of the hard parts took the form of really obtuse or unpullable stuff that just isn't worth asking any high school teams, no matter how gifted or quizbowl-savvy they are. A lot of bonuses avoided (thankfully) the "[10] have you been to a college tournament? ANSWER: _yes_ [do not accept "no"]" sort of answers that have been common recently (here's lookin at you, wolff-kishner reduction) - but instead had stuff that literally no team at the tournament had ever heard before, in quizbowl or out. I'll have a lot more to say when I'm awake and have the set in front of me, but it's definitely worth opening up a discussion about how to best write relevant, gettable material that's still hard without delving into obtuseness that experts still won't know.

Re: the set and the stats, word from the tournament about whether the set will be posted is "yep", and the stats will probably be up in a short while (a day or two or few) since the shortage of staff made it hard to input much during the tournament.
Yeah, I'll agree with this. It was mostly frustrating when you got a bonus topic you knew a whole lot about, might even vaguely remember the third part, but couldn't pull the name. Like, I've read Crime and Punishment, and I couldn't pull Lebezhiatnikov--obscure character names tend to be easily forgotten, especially if their names are hard to remember. The same thing happened to us with Earthy Anecdote, A Respectable Woman, The Loveliest of Trees the Cherry Now, and some others. In retrospect, this might have been more endemic to the literature than other subjects; history and science had third parts that were too hard, but not Regionals leadin fodder.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

I do understand that the questions were supposed to be harder than "regular" difficulty, but i didn't like that the literature questions in particular purposefully chose to ignore the most noted work of authors and still have teams try to figure it out anyway.

For example, that AE Housman bonus Matt alluded to didn't mention the one thing that most people know about him, "To an Athlete Dying Young," which isn't just famous, it's downright great. Yet it made you come up with the collection of his works (a respectable hard part maybe) in A Shropshire Lad, then his name (without giving, again, his most notable poem), and then a hard poem that is never asked about that even i'd not have remembered even though i was in a poetry class in college with a professor obsessed with this guy.

Other literature tossups did this too, purposefully did not give the most important or famous work of an author, and it created some frustrated moments where players seems to exclaim "but it didn't say '[title],' the thing i know from that guy!"

I will say that i did like the history and science questions (though i'm not nearly as well-qualified to comment on science much), since they asked for hard things that weren't insane, and the fine arts and myth were quite good too.

Oh, yeah, there was an error in that "Kansas City" sports trash question, as it mentioned "this city that is home to the NBA's Kings" near the end which undoubtedly confused many players, including one on CR as well.

EDIT: Okay, one more thing, i did want to praise the director(s) for doing an excellent job with seeding/bracketing these teams. With 6 brackets and just 4 in each bracket, it could very easily have left a team or two "screwed" out of the playoffs, but everything worked out very well and it was fun to have so many playoff/consolation rounds and really good games after lunch. So, thanks for that.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by DumbJaques »

As some posters have alluded to, we had a rather freakish succession of staff flake outs both during and immediately before the tournament, so we ended up not being able to enter full stats during the day. I've got the prelims entered on my computer, but since that's just three games, I'm just going post the thing as one whole set. Specifically, someone will be doing that Thursday, because the sheets have to be driven to College Park from an undisclosed bunker in Chechnya. They should be up in the early evening - sorry for the brief delay, but things are complicated by the fact that campus is closed and pretty much nobody is local to CP right now as our school year has ended.


EDIT:

Oh, yeah, the tournament:

I was really impressed with the teams I saw Saturday. In particular, I got to see how far teams like Caesar Rodney and RM had come since I'd last seen them play at our Fall Invitational. The difference was nothing short of exemplary, and I'm very interested to see how those squads do at nationals. I was also really, really, really pleased to see that teams like Blair and Quince Orchard - who were pretty much off the map due to coaching turnover a few years ago - have rebounded and once again are featuring strong programs. GDS, of course, remains disgusting, and St. Anselm's has clearly shown itself to have moved up to the very top of the national field over the course of the year. These are teams capable of serious runs to the title at either HSNCT or NSC.

Most of the comments about the set are accurate - there were some instances of absurd hard parts, slightly misplaced leadins, and random absences of famous clues. The common reason for all of these things, I think, was just that this tournament was written almost entirely by first and second-year players. Given that these issues were relatively minor and the set was all in all pretty solid, I think SteveJon deserves an extraordinary amount of credit for his work as a first-time editor. I was not involved in the creation of this set at all, and my understanding is that Jeremy's role was limited to writing rather than editing (though someone correct me if I'm wrong). Editing a tournament is a herculean task, let alone for someone who first picked up a buzzer just a year and a half ago. Well done, dude.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Chris, can you explain what happened at the end of the day again in the CR/RM game with the finals packet you had to read? I didn't quite understand why that packet had to be read for that match... but the score that RM put up was just ridiculous on it.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Any idea about stats yet? It'd be nice to have them before the weekend.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by journterp »

DumbJaques wrote:As some posters have alluded to, we had a rather freakish succession of staff flake outs both during and immediately before the tournament, so we ended up not being able to enter full stats during the day. I've got the prelims entered on my computer, but since that's just three games, I'm just going post the thing as one whole set. Specifically, someone will be doing that Thursday, because the sheets have to be driven to College Park from an undisclosed bunker in Chechnya. They should be up in the early evening - sorry for the brief delay, but things are complicated by the fact that campus is closed and pretty much nobody is local to CP right now as our school year has ended.
Should be entered tonight.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

journterp wrote:
DumbJaques wrote:As some posters have alluded to, we had a rather freakish succession of staff flake outs both during and immediately before the tournament, so we ended up not being able to enter full stats during the day. I've got the prelims entered on my computer, but since that's just three games, I'm just going post the thing as one whole set. Specifically, someone will be doing that Thursday, because the sheets have to be driven to College Park from an undisclosed bunker in Chechnya. They should be up in the early evening - sorry for the brief delay, but things are complicated by the fact that campus is closed and pretty much nobody is local to CP right now as our school year has ended.
Should be entered tonight.
Mmhm, i read that before. Was just checking to see if the "schedule" was being adhered to. Looking forward to them.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by sir negsalot »

The "early evening" is now gone. :aaa: :aaa: :aaa: :aaa: :aaa:
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Angry Babies in Love »

sir negsalot wrote:The "early evening" is now gone. :aaa: :aaa: :aaa: :aaa: :aaa:
Patience is a virtue.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by sir negsalot »

Prompt stats are an equally important virtue.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by Matt Weiner »

As perplexed as I remain by people's inability to immediately post stats at the conclusion of their tournaments, since VCU has managed to do it for infinity tournaments with more staff stress than most, I also believe that the constant stream of "post stats now" and sarcastic reminders of what day it is that inevitably blather up every tournament discussion thread are pretty ineffective at making stats appear, and ought to become a passe trend very soon.
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Re: Maryland Spring Invitational (5/22)

Post by DumbJaques »

Stats are up at http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings.

I also generally think stats should be able to go up immediately, except in extreme cases. I think I kind of clearly explained how we had such a case, as we literally couldn't be entering stats during the event and, as school is out, weren't able to access the scoresheets until Thursday.

As for the stat-clamoring masses, I will only say that I look forward to seeing you at Penn Bowl, where I suspect that you will be filled with an intense, personal longing for five-day stat delays.

Chris, can you explain what happened at the end of the day again in the CR/RM game with the finals packet you had to read? I didn't quite understand why that packet had to be read for that match... but the score that RM put up was just ridiculous on it.
Sure Andrew - it's my fault. I read the wrong packet in round 9 (hooray, me!), and both teams in my room heard packet 10. Fortunately, we only had one round left to play and neither of the round 10 rooms involving those two teams involved St. Anselm's or GDS, the only two teams remaining in contention for the finals. So, we just switched the finals round with round 10 in both those rooms. The Finals round was certainly tougher, though all teams had that disadvantage (and round 10 was reasonably hard anyway, I believe). Both RM's effort and the combined score of that game (and, as the moderator, the slate of buzzes I saw from both teams) were most certainly impressive. Highlights have to include Arun just missing power on a question I had to wager Stevejon that anyone in the tournament was even going to know at all. It was on haldor laxness. That game in particular and the tournament on the whole definitely changed my perception of both RM and CR, and as I said before, I'm eager to see how you guys do at nationals.
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