Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

Aldo Montoya wrote:
Also, Blake will consist of a C-teamer, someone who has never played before, an inanimate object, and me.
Hey you never know when having a can of mountain dew for a teammate will save you on a clutch bonus
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Self-incompatibility in plants wrote:
Aldo Montoya wrote:
Prof.Whoopie wrote:For bracketology purposes:

St. Anselm's is going to be severely undermanned at this tournament. I am going to be the only regular A-teamer in attendance, playing with 3 B-teamers so that means we're going to be missing a little more than 60% of our normal scoring. Make of it what you will.
Also, Blake will consist of a C-teamer, someone who has never played before, an inanimate object, and me.
Yea, CR will be undermanned too. We will be without our Science player, so we will have close to zero science knowledge. The Battle of the Handicapped Teams should be interesting.
Don't make a lot of this, Chris Ray/Maryland people. We'll actually have a much better team than last tournament... we probably only got about 12 science questions that whole day anyway, and now we have 3/4ths of our real A Team at this one.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Self-incompatibility in plants »

Dr. Isaac Yankem, DDS wrote:
Self-incompatibility in plants wrote:
Aldo Montoya wrote:
Prof.Whoopie wrote:For bracketology purposes:

St. Anselm's is going to be severely undermanned at this tournament. I am going to be the only regular A-teamer in attendance, playing with 3 B-teamers so that means we're going to be missing a little more than 60% of our normal scoring. Make of it what you will.
Also, Blake will consist of a C-teamer, someone who has never played before, an inanimate object, and me.
Yea, CR will be undermanned too. We will be without our Science player, so we will have close to zero science knowledge. The Battle of the Handicapped Teams should be interesting.
Don't make a lot of this, Chris Ray/Maryland people. We'll actually have a much better team than last tournament... we probably only got about 12 science questions that whole day anyway, and now we have 3/4ths of our real A Team at this one.
It's the bonuses that he is really helpful with that I'm worried about, but yea, for tossups, it shouldn't be a major hit.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Whiter Hydra »

PN News wrote:
Aldo Montoya wrote:
Also, Blake will consist of a C-teamer, someone who has never played before, an inanimate object, and me.
Hey you never know when having a can of mountain dew for a teammate will save you on a clutch bonus
I'm not sure about Mountain Dew, but I once 30rd a bonus about the nutrition facts of a coke can because I happened to be drinking it at the time.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by DumbJaques »

I assume registration will be in the Reckford Armory on the College Park Campus? Or will it be in the Math Buillding across the street? And, can school buses park on campus?
It's in Armory - will get back to you on the actual room. As for whether or not school buses can park on campus - well, I've never tried it, but I wouldn't have thought you could install giant Kool-Aid Guy replicas overnight in damaged sections of our main gate wall, and boy, can you ever. I wouldn't try parking right outside Armory, it can get kind of narrow, but there would certainly be plenty of space in lot 4 (although it's a bit of a walk). I would recommend calling the Maryland Department of Transportation Services (DOTS) and asking them. There are probably some bus spaces that I've been mistaking for designated tailgating areas.
Also, Blake will consist of a C-teamer, someone who has never played before, an inanimate object, and me.
I predict Stapler from Blake high school will somehow end up on top of the individual standings Saturday.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

Georgetown Day School will bring three (3) teams and zero (0) buzzer sets.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by DumbJaques »

Field Update IV:

Caesar Rodney
Thomas Jefferson 2
Centennial 2
GDS 2
St. Anselm's
Whitman
Wilson
"Brake High School"
SJHS 2
Kellenberg
Howard
Gonzaga
Hammond 1-2
Glenelg
Richard Montgomery
Owings Mills
Calvert Hall
Eleanor Roosevelt
Severna Park 2

This puts us at 26 teams, after numerous drops and adds. Hey Hammond, you got a final team count for me?
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

Scratch that, make it two (2) teams. Apologies for any confusion.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by DumbJaques »

Registration will be held in Armory 0126 beginning at 8:30.

The field still technically sits at 26, but I REALLY need to hear from centennial and Hammond about their final contingent size.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

DumbJaques wrote:Registration will be held in Armory 0126 beginning at 8:30.
Is that the same room (or near the same room) as the Spring/May tournament meeting was held in too?

I'll moderate or scorekeep if you wish... but, well, i'll be good this time.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by flylikeaneagle »

I'm really sorry about the delay, but Centennial WILL be attending with two teams and two buzzer sets.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by BroNi »

With regret, Kellenberg will be bringing only one team Saturday. Still 3 buzzers and one mod.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by t-bar »

Is there an estimated end time for the tournament?
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by DumbJaques »

We usually try to wrap up around 4:30, but it can be hard to predict.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Kouign Amann »

Have you decided whether we're going to be using the power marks or not?
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Prof.Whoopie wrote:Have you decided whether we're going to be using the power marks or not?
I hope so.

Wonder what these brackets are going to look like. See everybody tomorrow... hopefully i'll be moderating again but i might just be tagging along with the kids this time. Up to Chris and crew.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by DumbJaques »

hopefully i'll be moderating again but i might just be tagging along with the kids this time.
Oh, you will be!


Have you decided whether we're going to be using the power marks or not?
Oh you just don't know me at all, do you.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

DumbJaques wrote:
Have you decided whether we're going to be using the power marks or not?
Oh you just don't know me at all, do you.
So, that's a no?
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by DumbJaques »

So, that's a no?
RARGH
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by AKKOLADE »

PN News wrote:
DumbJaques wrote:
Have you decided whether we're going to be using the power marks or not?
Oh you just don't know me at all, do you.
So, that's a no?
Fifteeeeeeeeeeeee wait
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Nine-Tenths Ideas »

Just got back from this tournament, but don't know who won. Judging from the way things were shaping up, I'm going to say...
1. GDS
2. TJ A
3. Kellenberg?

edit: BTW power marks were indeed used
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by at your pleasure »

I think GDS and RM were playing for the top spot and TJ and St. Anslem's for third, but that could be wrong.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

Doink the Clown wrote:I think GDS and RM were playing for the top spot and TJ and St. Anslem's for third, but that could be wrong.
:party:
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

No time for comments right now... just wanted to say that questions (while horribly edited and with many typos) were largely great, RM played amazing, Matt Jackson is unbelievable, i hate the Circle of Death (you'll see), and this was a really good tournament.

Gotta run.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Dr. Isaac Yankem, DDS wrote:questions (while horribly edited and with many typos) were largely great
What in the world does this mean?
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Self-incompatibility in plants »

Ukonvasara wrote:
Dr. Isaac Yankem, DDS wrote:questions (while horribly edited and with many typos) were largely great
What in the world does this mean?
That there were many typos, and more specifically, a ton of repeats in the bonuses.

Edit: let me add though, that I still really liked this set, and thought that the quality was great of the questions was great.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Kouign Amann »

This tournament was quite enjoyable. It was very well run, and only one reader we had was not perfectly satisfactory. I played like a fricking manic-depressive, but I still had fun, even without the rest of the A-team. Thanks to everyone at UMD for a good time.

Questions: Meh. I have heard that this set was largely unfinished as recently as Monday, and it showed. Repeats were numerous. Powers seemed extremely easy to come by. Other than that, the set was pretty well done, as I have come to expect from HSAPQ.

Congrats to Matt Jackson and co. for once again beating the pants off everyone, a trend I expect to largely continue until Gov and SC start showing up in the DC area. This dude had more fifteens than tens over the course of the tournament. Sweet.

RM: You all rock. I don't know what you were doing all of last year, but apparently it involved getting really good. I played like crap, but, anyway you spin it, you soundly defeated us, something I was not expecting, but kinda pleasantly surprised by. I hope you guys can keep it up. Should be fun.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Cheynem »

People always say that powers are easy to come by until they start saying that powers were really stingy. Without meaning to be rude, I find that an overused statement, as good teams and players (of which you are one) will always rack up powers at high school events.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Algeria »

This tournament was a lot of fun (it started on time, which was great). The questions were of high quality as expected, although I'll agree with everyone about the editing. There were several factual errors in questions and a few unduly hard bonus parts, as well as a few misplaced powers. Two parts of one bonus were actually repeated from an earlier round. By and large, though, everything was fine with the tournament and the set, and TJ enjoyed both.

Also dude what Aidan said re: RM
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Twelve Doors of Mali »

Yeah, there were a lot of repeat clues among bonuses, but other than that, the questions were really varied and good.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

Prof.Whoopie wrote:.
Powers seemed extremely easy to come by.
Aidan,

I know this may be hard to deal with, and you may not believe me, but the facts of the matter are clear. You are, without question, a very good player on a very good, possibly among the best in the country, team. Playing on a regular difficulty high school set, powersshould be easy for you to come by. Your team is in the top 1% of all high school teams and you are probably also in that percentage among high school players. Sets like this are power marked to distinguish between teams that are of the middle of the field type. I'm not sure what you are expecting out of regular difficulty regular season high school tournaments.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Kouign Amann »

PN News wrote:
Prof.Whoopie wrote:.
Powers seemed extremely easy to come by.
Aidan,

I know this may be hard to deal with, and you may not believe me, but the facts of the matter are clear. You are, without question, a very good player on a very good, possibly among the best in the country, team. Playing on a regular difficulty high school set, powersshould be easy for you to come by. Your team is in the top 1% of all high school teams and you are probably also in that percentage among high school players. Sets like this are power marked to distinguish between teams that are of the middle of the field type. I'm not sure what you are expecting out of regular difficulty regular season high school tournaments.
Yeah, I've had about three people mention this to me in the last half hour, so I guess I seem to have contracted Neil Gurram Syndrome today. Sorry everybody. I will think before posting unfounded set criticism in the future.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Twelve Doors of Mali »

Also, because it hasn't seem to have been clarified, the results were

1. GDS A
2. RM
3. TJ A
4. St. Anselm's
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by at your pleasure »

Well, there were two or three questions that had rather easy lead-ins(no specifics, obviously), but the leadins weren't giveaways by any means-they would have been fine early middle-clues at this level, just not lead-ins. Also, there was one question that I think may have been inaccurate, so if someone knows who to contact about that, that would be great.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

Doink the Clown wrote:Well, there were two or three questions that had rather easy lead-ins(no specifics, obviously), but the leadins weren't giveaways by any means-they would have been fine early middle-clues at this level, just not lead-ins. Also, there was one question that I think may have been inaccurate, so if someone knows who to contact about that, that would be great.
Ted Gioia at HSAPQ dot com
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by at your pleasure »

Journey to the Planets wrote:
Doink the Clown wrote:Well, there were two or three questions that had rather easy lead-ins(no specifics, obviously), but the leadins weren't giveaways by any means-they would have been fine early middle-clues at this level, just not lead-ins. Also, there was one question that I think may have been inaccurate, so if someone knows who to contact about that, that would be great.
Ted Gioia at HSAPQ dot com
This adress bounced.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Angry Babies in Love »

All in all it was a great tournament. Well-run, the questions were good (I have to agree with Aidan that there were some ridiculously late powers and/or early easy clues, and the repeats bugged me), and I really had a great time.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by wilsonmathteacher »

Thanks to Maryland for what was for us a well run tournament. We never had more then a 3 minute wait for a round to start and the readers that we had were all pretty good. I agree with the comments about the questions (and I do think that there were some misplaced powers, even Wilson got some :grin: ). My kids had a blast and that's really the point of the exercise (especially when you don't do as well as you would like).

EDITED TO ATTACH SIG which I must have unclicked
Last edited by wilsonmathteacher on Sat Sep 26, 2009 11:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by AlphaQuizBowler »

Having played the same set at UTC, I would say that it was poorly edited. There were more than a few repeats, factually inaccuracies, and wildly fluctuating bonuses. Also, it might just be that the last tournament I played was NAQT, but did the set have a lot of literature (as in, more than 4/4)?
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by at your pleasure »

There might have been randomization issues; I remember two rounds that had two arts questions in the first two.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Nuclear Densometer Test »

AlphaQuizBowler wrote:Having played the same set at UTC, I would say that it was poorly edited. There were more than a few repeats, factually inaccuracies, and wildly fluctuating bonuses. Also, it might just be that the last tournament I played was NAQT, but did the set have a lot of literature (as in, more than 4/4)?
We played the same set at UNC.
I just looked through my stats and pretty much every round had 4/4 lit. As for the bonus fluctuations, which in particular were you talking about?
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Edward Powers »

Just returned to Jersey from this tournament. Thanks to all involved---to Chris and all the readers, and to all of our opponents---my kids had a blast and enjoyed the competition.

Trey---it was nice to have met you and your team, and we appreciated the quality of our matches, which could have gone either way in both cases. See you at your tournament in April, and until then have a great year.

Oh yes---and Rutgers upended Chris' Terps!!!!---sorry Chris, but we just couldn't let this slip by without comment. :grin:
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

Congrats to Maryland for competently running a successful tournament across two buildings, dealing with losing almost half the field over lunch on the way. RM and TJ are both extremely good at quizbowl, and remind me of great teams that those schools have fielded in the past. Doug and Aidan are both awesome; though I only got to play Doug here, I'll let their stats speak for themselves. I speak for myself and the rest of the playoff bracket again in saying that we eagerly await getting our temporarily-inflated egos crushed by Maggie Walker as soon as is possible - where were you guys?

This HSAPQ set showed what happens to a large crowd of knowledgeable writers when they create a large crowd of questions with no time to edit. Much like IS-79 was last year at TJ, this set was allegedly completed the day before and received in the early AM hours by Maryland, and it definitely showed. Editing across categories occurred only on a scattershot basis, repeat answers and clues absolutely covered the latter rounds, there were several factual inaccuracies, balls-hard 1st or 2nd parts (usually followed by obvious artificial easy parts), odd common links that could easily have been reformatted into tossups on proper nouns, and it seemed like subcategory distribution didn't happen (say, two physics questions on aerodynamics or three tossups on US states in the same round). Overall, both this set and IS-86 were examples of good vendor-company sets, but this set was overall far worse in terms of editing than IS-86. I'll be sending a list of correctable mistakes to Ted Gioia, so he should look out for that in the next few days.

The set did get some things right, though. I disagree entirely with Aidan's earlier posts about powers - the powers were accessible to good players without being too stingy or nonresponsive to good buzzes (as they seemed to be in ACF-3 last year), and the difficulty was, aforementioned balls-hard bonus parts notwithstanding, uniformly accessible, both to the DC area (which, by the way, seems to have more of a standard, bell curve-like distribution of team strength than the lopsidedly powerful groupings of last year or the year before) and to other strong and weak areas of the nation.

Will stats be up soon?
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Kouign Amann »

RyuAqua wrote:Doug and Aidan are both awesome; though I only got to play Doug here, I'll let their stats speak for themselves.
We definitely played each other. It wasn't pretty, but it happened.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by DumbJaques »

24 teams descended on Maryland's Armory to participate in this year's Fall Tournament. We played prelim brackets of 6, with a round robin prelims, and then intended to break the field into brackets of eight (two teams from each bracket) and play crossover games for final playoff/consolation placement. However, a rather surprising amount of teams decided they wanted to take off after just five rounds of play, so we were only able to run a double round-robing among two groups of four to rank the consolation teams.

I don't have final stats on me (they'll be uploaded ASAP, presumably by Jeremy), but here's how I believe things stood:

1. GDS: 7-0 playoffs (12-0 overall). Defeated RM in the first game of an advantaged final on the strength of Matt's 7-4-3 performance.*
2. Richard Montgomery: 6-1 playoffs (9-3 overall) with sole playoff loss coming to GDS.
3. TJ A: 5-2 playoffs, 9-2 overall. Elected to play a 3rd/4th advantaged final with St. Anselm's, which they won.
4. St. Anselm's: 4-3 playoffs, 8-3 overall.
5. Walt Whitman: 3-4 playoffs, 7-4 overall.
6. Kellenberg: 2-5 playoffs, 6-5 overall.
7. Blake: 1-6 playoffs, 5-6 overall.
8. Gonzaga 0-7 playoffs, 4-7 overall.


Rankings were determined by losses to other playoff teams - RM lost in the prelims to Caesar Rodney but also beat TJ A, who in turn beat Caesar Rodney to create Chrz's alluded-to circle of death. Since RM beat Caesar Rodney in a tiebreaker game to join TJ A in the top bracket, RM's victory over TJ carried over, while their loss to Caesar Rodney did not.

Again, I lack stats, so do let me know if I'm mistaken. I don't have any of the results from consolation rounds, but they'll be up ASAP. I'm glad to hear that some people here found the tournament to be enjoyable and well-run - please don't hesitate to contact me with queries or feedback, which is always appreciated. We were all very impressed with the teams we saw, and hope to get a chance to see you progress and represent our region more than amply throughout the year.

EDIT: Ok I moved my question discussion content to a new thread in the discussion forum.



*also not unimpressive was Matt's 11-5-1 stat line in a late-round playoff match.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

I wanted to comment on something that i heard yesterday that i'm not sure if i've ever heard a team say before.

I read to Eleanor Roosevelt HS at least 5-6 teams during this tournament. They really were pretty decent, for being a team that we don't see too often at these competitions. By the end of the day, they were pretty tired. It's clear they weren't used to playing 11 rounds in a day for something like 7-8 hours.

But what struck me was a comment made in a conversation i had with their captain (and in turn, other players). These were extremely funny, bright, and enthusiastic kids about playing in this tournament. And i pretty much asked them straight up, "why on earth do you guys not come to more tournaments?" They were putting up 300+ points against bad teams, 200+ points on average teams, and not being shut out against great teams. To me, that's pretty good! Maybe from me being a teacher and always working hard to encourage the positive is the reason why i feel this way, but it is what it is.

Anyway the team answered, "well, we don't really get invited to tournaments, so we don't go."

::blink::

It made me realize how many tournaments that CR knows/hears about SOLELY because myself and Trey visit this site so much. We get very very few e-mail invites, and many of those are from tournaments we don't even go to.

I really think, while there are certainly plenty of teams that come here, hsquizbowl.org needs to be promoted heavily at every single tournament that is using quality questions. Every single one. We just assume that everybody knows about it, but it's clearly not true. When i explained to the ER kids that "you don't have to be 'invited' to go to tournaments in your area!" it was like i was telling them that the sky was neon green. They had never even fathomed this before.

So, think of how many more teams can come to quality tournaments if we explain just what hsquizbowl.org is? Don't even emphasize that it's a "forum" or anything like that, but that it's a place to get great information about "good quizbowl" and high quality tournaments. I think this could really increase that participation of these "border" teams (you know, the ones you know are kinda good but only come to 3-4 things a year) and then make the college/high school more money when they run the tournament!
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by DumbJaques »

I can't think of a team in the entire state that has a more tenured coach than Eleanor Roosevelt; that the kids don't know basic things like tournaments exist and you can go to them is absolutely independent of the promotion of this site. I usually try to talk to all non-circuit regular squads at some point and encourage them to check out the site and quizbowlpackets.com, etc., but frankly some teams are coached by people who just aren't interested in having their kids explore beyond a very narrow backyard.

Yesterday after reading a round, I overheard two teammates on a team that I know doesn't really go to many tournaments (if any, really) discussing how unexpectedly long and hard the questions were. I mentioned the quizbowlpackets.com site to them, that they could access tons of free questions that were more like this if they were interested. It was the softest sell you could possibly imagine, yet their coach somehow took issue with it, informing me that "Oh, we know about that, but we're not on that path." This was particularly egregious because it was rather clear that the coach had no idea about quizbowlpackets.com (which was all I was referring to), but rather was simply dismissing "any kind of resource to help the kids improve if they want to" as bad. When one of the kids expressed a desire to get the information anyway, the coach said "well, I guess you can give it to him," and I was able to convey the site address before the team was ushered away.

I don't know that there's anything we can say before a tournament that would really make a difference - the best thing to do is to try to talk to people one on one when you communicate with a team that you know is unplugged from the circuit, encourage them and let them know how practically useful the resources here are, and offer a helping hand if they'd like one. But some people are going to say no in ways that, as an educator, are going to repulse you - I don't know anyway around this problem except to try to inspire the kids directly, which is a hard thing to do in 30 second windows of contact.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

I will say that the kids from Glenelg were very frustrated yesterday... not at the questions, just at how bad their own team was. I told them that they could read every single set that this company made online last year FOR FREE on hsapq.com and they were absolutely dumbfounded. They also told me that they "mostly" practiced on lightning rounds and speed check questions. I didn't withhold my criticism and pretty much said "no, those suck, stop doing that." They seemed to realize that i was serious, and when they averaged about 30 points a game, also realized that i was genuinely trying to help. Hopefully they follow through.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Huang »

Dr. Isaac Yankem, DDS wrote: When i explained to the ER kids that "you don't have to be 'invited' to go to tournaments in your area!" it was like i was telling them that the sky was neon green.
Some school districts require proof, such as an "invitation," if a club/team wishes to attend a tournament of any kind. Probably doesn't apply here since ER is located within a morning's drive of College Park.
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Re: Maryland Fall Tournament (9/26/09)

Post by Edward Powers »

Will official stats for both the prelims & playoffs be posted soon?
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