The Quizbowl Resource Center

OK, so since the previous individual ranking thread got derailed by flaming (which, I assume, is why Dr. Chuck locked it), just as people were starting to post rankings, I'll revive the thread by doing mine.

Below is a rough "top 20 players" list based on what came off the top of my head right now. One thing worth noting is that a lot of the players seem to fall into visible tiers where one can assume that a player in tier X will consistently perform better than a player in tier X+1. Conversely, I think that, say, Jerry and Romero could go either way depending on lots of other random circumstances (like the packet) and that there's mainly just intuition causing me to put the former over the latter. When relevant, I've added dashes between rankings to seperate the tiers as they exist in my mind. My basis for rankings is not so much who would win in a 1 on 1, but whom I would most want as a backbone of my team were I doing something akin to the old team captains choosing teams for a grade school recess game.

Maybe I'll edit these with annotations later, but here's what came to mind right now. I'm sure I'm probably forgetting some people, but I don't really care.

1. Andrew Yaphe
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2. Subash Maddipoti
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3. Zeke Berdichevsky
4. Adam Kemezis
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5. Matt Weiner
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6. Matt Lafer
7. Mike Sorice
8. Jeff Hoppes
9. Seth Teitler
10. Jerry Vinokurov
11. Chris Romero
12. Chris Frankel
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13. Mike Wehrman
999999999. Leo Wolpert (OK, I'd actually put him closer to #14, but he's still horrible at QB)
15. Seth Kendall
16. Robert Beard
17. Dan Suzman
18. Fred Bush
19. Micha Elsner
20. Sudheer Potru

Based on my limited experience, I agree with most of the selections here and I particularly like the idea of placing players in tiers. The obvious mitigating factor is the format being played. More than that, you'd have to decide whether or not to put an equal weight on "depth" (knowing a lot about a certain number of things) and "breadth" (knowing a decent amount about a lot of things) of knowledge. Zeke and Lafer might represent the ends of this spectrum, though this is not to say that Zeke doesn't have broad knowledge - just ridiculously deep humanities knowledge. This ties into the question of format and whether it's possible to compare people across formats. Whether it is or not, certainly few people could argue with at least the top half of your list.

Since Andrew Yaphe is generally acknowledged as the best player, it would be interesting to see how you would rerank 2-20 if the criteria were changed to who would make the best two-person team with #1 against a national collegiate field.

QuizbowlPostmodernist wrote:Since Andrew Yaphe is generally acknowledged as the best player, it would be interesting to see how you would rerank 2-20 if the criteria were changed to who would make the best two-person team with #1 against a national collegiate field.

I nominate Seth Teitler or Jeff Hoppes for that post. They have some excellent specific knowledge that results in very little overlap with most of the people they play against. I guess if I had to pick who would be on my team, I'd pick Jeff, since Seth and I have too much science overlap, but against a national field, Seth may be slightly better due to both his science coverage and his other knowledge (lit, myth, some music), whereas Jeff is more of a strictly history/geography guy.

Jerry

Kevin Roth has won the scoring title at every tournament he's been to. While he doesn't go to many tournaments, that should get him some consideration for the top 20.

PRStoetzer wrote:Kevin Roth has won the scoring title at every tournament he's been to.

That's not even true.

MaS

I apologize, he was fifth at this year's Michigan MLK. I realized that shortly after I posted that. It has been a rather large percentage though.

Also

MLK 2003 (10th place)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/quizbowl/message/11175
CBI Regionals 2002 (3rd place)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/quizbowl/message/8938
MLK 2005 (6th place)
http://www.collegequizbowl.org/MLK2005/ ... duals.html
Penn Bowl 12 (27th place)
http://pennbowl.tripod.com/PB12_individuals.html
NAQT Sectionals (2nd place) http://www.naqt.com/Results/2003-sct-results-indiv.html

That percentage seems to be dropping precipitously, considering how few tournaments he played. And considering how little support he's had, it certainly isn't enough to give him consideration for the top 20.

Dominant high school player, yes. Anything more than a competent college player? No.

Following his high school approach of "skipping tournaments that the teams who could beat him went to" with doing the same thing in college doesn't make him a good player, it makes him amusing and pathetic.

I'll be the first to say that Kevin Roth is/was at least a pretty good player, having probably split matches with him while in high school and, through the misfortunes of CBI, having an overall losing record to him while in college.

However, there are several points to note. Have Kevin Roth's collegiate teams ever placed in the top half of any national tournament? Better question: why have Kevin Roth's teams only played in ONE national tournament, which was CBI Nationals this year, and how did said team manage to finish in the bottom half of the field (of a tournament in which many of the players on this list are crippled, empirically) if he's such a great player and could score so many points?

Probably the best mark of a so-called "great" player is one who performs consistently well and helps his team place high, which means playing well in clutch situations. What's important to see here is that Kevin Roth hasn't BEEN in any clutch situations yet (or at most one, in which his team performed poorly), and the highest his team has ever placed at a non-national, non-CBI tournament is second, as far as I can see.

Oh, and I think that process of skipping tournaments that he can't win is just a throwback to his former high school coach, Ruth Tharp...the first time I ever played Kevin Roth was my sophomore year of HS at a JV tournament, where he essentially just clubbed a whole lot of baby seals. I guess the mentality sticks.

QuizbowlPostmodernist wrote:Since Andrew Yaphe is generally acknowledged as the best player, it would be interesting to see how you would rerank 2-20 if the criteria were changed to who would make the best two-person team with #1 against a national collegiate field.

I agree with Jerry that Seth Teitler or Jeff Hoppes would be high on this list because of their knowledge sets, which complement Andrew's. I think that there's less overlap between Andrew and Seth (science and myth) than there is between Andrew and Jeff (history and geography). Andrew himself has a substantial amount of history knowledge.

The format and packet would be a factor in making a decision like this. On NAQT, with its dearth of real science questions and emphasis on geography, I think Jeff would make a better complement, while on ACF-style questions I think that Seth's deep science knowledge would make a more complete team.

Given this, Mike Sorice would also have to be high on the list, as would Jerry himself, though he's obviously too modest to say so. I'd rank both of them above Jeff on this list.

Additionally, I think Subash and Zeke would be high on this list in spite of the amount of overlap. Subash's past life as a biochemistry student gives him considerable science coverage, and he and Zeke are both players who, like Andrew, have simply heard, read, and written so many questions that they can go in with educated canonical guesses on things that aren't their specialties and have a reasonable shot at getting points.

2. Seth Teitler
3. Mike Sorice
4. Jerry Vinokurov
5. Jeff Hoppes
6. Subash Maddipoti
7. Adam Kemezis
8. Zeke Berdichevsky

Chris Frankel wrote: I'm sure I'm probably forgetting some people, but I don't really care.

I'm curious where you'd put Nathan Freeburg.

suds1000 wrote:Oh, and I think that process of skipping tournaments that he can't win is just a throwback to his former high school coach, Ruth Tharp...the first time I ever played Kevin Roth was my sophomore year of HS at a JV tournament, where he essentially just clubbed a whole lot of baby seals. I guess the mentality sticks.

The only thing less fun than going 1-13, 3-9 or 0-8 at a tournament, or losing by 400+ points, is not playing at all.

At least IMO.

Also there are people whose talent falls off (or rises) significantly with increasing difficulty.