DWI - University of Delaware - 03/06/2010

[Bigfoot isn't the pr]

This thread is for the announcement and initial discussion of the Delaware Winter Invitational (DWI). This will be a tournament with a similar format to that of This Tournament Goes to Eleven hosted at the University of Delaware on March 6th. For those unfamiliar with the format, each round consists of two teams playing two packets in different rooms. The winner of each room scores their team a point while the team with the highest combined score between the two packets its given an additional point. Each round will have a trash packet and an academic packet. For the academic and the trash packets, most will be theme packets and a few will be subject. The format dictates that each "team" is twice the size of a normal team and should include 6+ players. This larger size per team is the reason for the increased base fee per team.

Pricing:
Base fee per team: $180
Discount for additional teams: -$10
Buzzer Discount: -$5 for each working buzzer system
Travel Discount: -$10 for each 200 miles traveled

Eligibility:
This tournament is open to all players interested. If you can only assemble half a team or plan on attending as a free agent, contact my (see below) and I will work something out. Our goal is to have the academic be more difficult than ACF Fall but not as difficult as ACF Regionals. Our goal for the trash is to have it on the same difficulty level as TRASH Regionals.

Location:
We plan to have this tournament in Purnell Hall (the usual spot for our tournaments) on the University of Delaware's Newark Campus. Registration will be from 8:30 am to 9:00 am and we hope to get started by 9:30.

Registration:
To register contact me at rpoirier at udel dot edu. When you contact me to register please indicate the number of teams you are bringing, buzzers you are bringing, and if you plan on taking advantage of the travel discount.

Hope you have a great New Year,
Rob Poirier
President, University of Delaware Academic Competition Club

[Frater Taciturnus]

If this is actually going to happen, is there any chance of just mirroring MUT for the academic packets?

[Self-incompatibility in plants]

If this date is free for us, Caesar Rodney would be very interested in attending this if the MUT set was mirrored.

[The King's Flight to the Scots]

Could you just make this a MUT mirror and do away with the confusing, expensive format? I think that would be accessible to a lot more teams.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Could you just make this a MUT mirror and do away with the confusing, expensive format? I think that would be accessible to a lot more teams.

Yeah, i'm sorry, i'm not paying $180 to come to this tournament when its format doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

[Frater Taciturnus]

Could you just make this a MUT mirror and do away with the confusing, expensive format? I think that would be accessible to a lot more teams.

I think part of the idea of doing this was because Delaware wanted to do something in this format. If they weren't attached to the format, I'll bet they could do the trash as an accompanying trash set that im sure other sites would want to mirror.

[dtaylor4]

While I think $180 is too high ($150 at most should be reasonable), the increase is somewhat justified: you're effectively bringing two teams as one.

[Mike Bentley]

From a historical perspective, this fee is similar to what TTGT11 in the past charged. However, I agree that it would probably help in bringing more teams (especially short handed teams) if the fee was reduced.

Assuming that you're actually able to produce the required number of packets (are they being house written or is this a submission tournament?), this seems like it would be a reasonably entertaining diversion.

[Papa's in the House]

I think part of the idea of doing this was because Delaware wanted to do something in this format. If they weren't attached to the format, I'll bet they could do the trash as an accompanying trash set that im sure other sites would want to mirror.

I'd actually be very interested if the trash set was put out as a mirror available set (heck, maybe some people would mirror the whole tournament). While the proposed tournament is interesting, it is too far away to justify the trip.

[DumbJaques]

I think it would be fun to play the format, but how many packets are you expecting? Who's writing the tournament, is it just the Delaware team? I understand there's some trash writing experience there, but to my knowledge there's a combined 0 hours of academic tournament editing on that squad. That's fine, and so it is with many college teams, but taking on even a modest number of house-written academic packets is no small feat, and you should really try to get some freelance stuff or bring some advisors/assistant editors on board. I'd have serious reservations about sending Maryland teams to an academic event written by first-time editors who only infrequently attend such events. Maybe you guys could try to address these concerns, because we'd certainly be up for playing the format otherwise.

Could you just make this a MUT mirror and do away with the confusing, expensive format? I think that would be accessible to a lot more teams.

CMU is hosting the Mid-Atlantic MUT mirror - I don't think it would be fair to run that set here. Actually, this is scheduled for the same weekend as MUT - this should be avoided by having either this event or MUT run a different day (at least in our region). Certainly it's better for everybody if people are free to attend both.

[Pilgrim]

CMU is hosting the Mid-Atlantic MUT mirror - I don't think it would be fair to run that set here. Actually, this is scheduled for the same weekend as MUT - this should be avoided by having either this event or MUT run a different day (at least in our region). Certainly it's better for everybody if people are free to attend both.

This won't be a problem, since the CMU MUT mirror will be happening March 20 (Yes I realize that this conflicts with HI, but I don't expect much overlap between prospective fields and it can't be avoided - expect an announcement soon).

[Bigfoot isn't the pr]

In regards to packet number and question quality,wWe hope to have an 11 or 12 round tournament with a packet or two in reserve incase of a snafu. We have half of the packets completed with the remaining packets ranging from 0 to 75% done. UD's break goes until about half-way through February so our team has more time to dedicate to question writing without worrying about conflicts with classes. While our team has far more experience writting trash than we do academic, there are a handful of us who have either written academic for submission packets, for NAQT, or just for the hell of writing questions. We have versed all our writters in the collected advice and standards to writing questions that can be found on these forums. Having said that, I will talk with my team about bringing in additional editors if we need them. I know that sports distribution will need an editor.

In regards to pricing, I have taken into account the feedback and will discuss with my club the possibility to making it closer to 150 or 160.

In regards to the format of the tournament, I doubt we will change it. While it is more work and a format that many do not like, our club has found it fun in the past and we are hoping to run this tournament so people will have fun and enjoy playing our packets.

In regards to mirroring, if someone is interested in mirroring the tournament or a portion of the tournament, contact me at the listed e-mail and we can work something out.

-Rob

[Bigfoot isn't the pr]

Heres the updated post regarding the tournament

On Saturday, March 6, the University of Delaware Academic Competition Club will be hosting the Delaware Winter Invitational. DWI is a new quiz bowl tournament we are writing in-house, intended for high school and college players.


Format:
This tournament will follow the "This Tournament Goes to Eleven" format. For those unfamiliar with the format, each team has twice as many players as usual (6-8 per team). When two teams play each other, they divide into half-teams, and play each other on two different packets in two different rooms simultaneously. The winner is the team that scores the most combined points.

DWI will be a hydrid tournament. Each round will consist of an academic packet and a trash packet. The schedule at the beginning of the day will list the packets to be played in each round.

So for example, when you get there at the beginning of the day, you will be given the schedule. The schedule might say that round one will be "Answers that start with the letter A" (academic) and "Answers that start with the letter B" (trash). You can then divide your 8 players into two teams based on who knows each of these better. Round 2 might consist of "Lemurs: The Packet" (academic) and "What is Henry Winkler doing now?" (trash) so you can re-divide your team along different lines based on who knows each of those subjects better. Note: None of those themes/subjects will appear in the actual tournament.


Difficulty:
Our goal is to produce a tournament that is accessible for high school students without being too easy for college students. As such, we are aiming for ACF fall for the academic questions and on par with trash regionals for the trash questions.

Pricing:
In this format, full teams have twice as many players as a normal quiz bowl tournament. As such, we are charging twice as much for the base fee. For schools that cannot field 6-8 players for a full team, you have the option of registering as a half-team (5 or fewer players).

Base fee per full team (6-10 players): $150
Base fee per half team (5 or fewer players): $75
Discount for additional teams: -$10
Buzzer Discount: -$5 for each working buzzer system
Travel Discount: -$10 for each 200 miles traveled
Free agent base fee: $20 (no discounts allowed)

At the tournament, we will (to the best of our ability) combine half-teams and free agents (players who come by themselves without any team) to form full teams.

Date and Location:
We plan to have this tournament on Saturday, March 6, 2009, in Purnell Hall (the usual spot for our tournaments) on the University of Delaware's Newark Campus. Registration will be from 8:30 am to 9:00 am and we will get started by 9:30 am.

Registration:
To register, please email Rob Poirier: [email protected]
In your emails, please indicate:
(1) The number of half teams and full teams you are bringing
(2) The number of players per team
(3) For half teams, please specify if they prefer academic, trash, or have no preference. (We will try to merge half-teams that prefer academic with half-teams that prefer trash).
(4) The number of buzzers you are bringing
(5) If you plan to take advantage of the travel discount (-$10 for each 200 miles traveled)

[mpellegrini]

I think it would be fun to play the format, but how many packets are you expecting?

26 packets - 13 academic and 13 trash. One or two of each will be kept in reserve during the tournament. As of this writing, 17 of them are finished (10 academic and 7 trash). Most of the remaining packets are somewhere between 10% and 50% done. I'd like to finish all of them by the end of the month, but the second or third week of February is probably a more realistic estimate.

Who's writing the tournament, is it just the Delaware team? I understand there's some trash writing experience there, but to my knowledge there's a combined 0 hours of academic tournament editing on that squad.

I wrote most of the academic packets, and I'm editing the entire packet set. And yes, I've written a tournament before, albeit a while ago - http://stanford.edu/group/CollegeBowl/a ... index.html

Maybe you guys could try to address these concerns, because we'd certainly be up for playing the format otherwise.

As long as you understand going in that this question set is intended for both high school and college use - that is to say, ACF fall level difficulty - I think you will enjoy yourselves. I know we had a great time on TTG11 at Maryland, which is why we decided to try the format ourselves.

Anyone interested in mirroring DWI (either in its entirety, or just the academic/trash part), please contact Rob.

[mpellegrini]

Yeah, i'm sorry, i'm not paying $180 to come to this tournament when its format doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Per discussion with Rob, we've reduced the full team fee (6-10 players) to $150. And that's about what you would pay if you brought two teams to any other tournament.

As for the format - what doesn't make sense to you?

[DumbJaques]

As long as you understand going in that this question set is intended for both high school and college use - that is to say, ACF fall level difficulty - I think you will enjoy yourselves. I know we had a great time on TTG11 at Maryland, which is why we decided to try the format ourselves.

Well, is it like ACF Fall this past year, or what ACF Fall has typically been? Because ACF Fall this year was easier than many high school events rather than being a novice collegiate event.

I guess we'll probably come, but I still encourage you to accept someone's offer to serve as an editing adviser or whatever for the academic packets. Editing 13 house-written packets with a team of minimally experienced writers backing you up is not something I'd want to be doing in a couple of months, and there's plenty of help out there if you're willing to seek it.

[mpellegrini]

Well, is it like ACF Fall this past year, or what ACF Fall has typically been? Because ACF Fall this year was easier than many high school events rather than being a novice collegiate event.

I think the best response to this question would be to quantify our difficulty. We've playtested 15 of the packets so far, and our team (which is so-so at academic and moderately good at trash) scored a combined 350-450 points on 12 of those packets. (Of the remaining three, one came in above this range, and two below.) I would expect a match between most high school teams to score somewhat less than this, and a match between two teams of Maryland's caliber to score somewhat more than this. But that range is the sweet spot we're aiming for.

I still encourage you to accept someone's offer to serve as an editing adviser or whatever for the academic packets.

Nobody has made any such offer, but if anyone does, I would be happy to take them up on it.

Editing 13 house-written packets with a team of minimally experienced writers backing you up is not something I'd want to be doing in a couple of months

Agreed- that's why we started planning and writing for this tournament at the beginning of November, but didn't announce until January. I didn't want to announce anything publicly until I was sure we could deliver on it.

[mpellegrini]

(Cross-posted to the trash and academic threads about this tournament)

We've finished the packet set, and playtested all but two of them. The final tally is 9 themed academic packets, 4 subject academic packets, 6 themed trash packets, 6 subject trash packets, and one generic academic and one generic trash packet.

We're stretched for moderators, so we've decided to limit the number of teams to 12, of which we currently have about 10 registered.

We're still looking for mirrors for this tournament. If you're interested in setting one up, please contact Rob Poirier ([email protected])

[DumbJaques]

Maryland will send a team (that's one team of 8, I guess?) to this event.

[Lapego1]

Here's a quick question (which may have been answered but I haven't read everything upthread)--will packets have same distribution round-to-round (I'm guessing "subject packets" means no?).

[mpellegrini]

Here's a quick question (which may have been answered but I haven't read everything upthread)--will packets have same distribution round-to-round (I'm guessing "subject packets" means no?).

The theme and generic packets use standard academic and trash distributions. The subject packets do not.

[Rothlover]

Would it be too much of a buzzkill to ask what the subject academic and trash packets are?

[Geringer]

Are you guys looking for any more packets? There's a theme trash packet I've been dying to write.

[Papa's in the House]

And here I was hoping there would be a Star Wars theme packet...

[mpellegrini]

Would it be too much of a buzzkill to ask what the subject academic and trash packets are?

Academic: Math/Computer science, military history, mythology, and literature.

Trash: Cartoons/Comics, Games, science fiction, sports, the Internet, and TV.

[mpellegrini]

Here's the field as it now stands:

UMD
U. Penn
Columbia
U. Pitt
Charter A
Charter B
C. Milton Wright
Penn Ridge
Eastern Lebanon
Penn Manor
McKean (1/2)
Aberdeen (1/2)

We have about half-a-team of free agents (4-5). We can handle one more full team (or half-team) registration, but even if nobody registers, we should still be able to get the field to 12 full strength teams.

Schedule-wise, we're thinking of breaking the teams into two brackets and doing a round robin (rounds 1-5). Then we rebracket into top and bottom halves, and do another round robin (rounds 6-10). Then we have an ACF advantaged final for rounds 11 and 12. (Round 12 may be optional depending on the outcome of round 11)

[mpellegrini]

Final standings:

1. U. Pennsylvania (31 points)
2. Colombia (24 points)
3. Maryland (24 points)
4. Charter A (22 points)
5. Aberdeen (21 points)
6. U. Pitt (17 points)
7. Charter B (8.5 points)
8. C. Milton Wright (6.5 points)
9. McKean (6 points)
10. Penn Manor (1 points)

Stats are available here - http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mpellegr/DWI ... dings.html (For the purpose of standing, we used Mike Bently's system of 3 points per matching, depending on who had the higher combined score, so the W/L record might not exactly match the above standing)

[Sima Guang Hater]

Is this set cleared for discussion? Cause man could it use some discussion.

[Mike Bentley]

In the event that Buzzerfest falls through this set might get mirrored in some capacity in the Pacific Northwest. Assuming Kunle confirms that some other teams did submit packets and are coming to the tournament we'll be able to confirm we're not using the set.

[Mike Bentley]

In the event that Buzzerfest falls through this set might get mirrored in some capacity in the Pacific Northwest. Assuming Kunle confirms that some other teams did submit packets and are coming to the tournament we'll be able to confirm we're not using the set.

Looks like Buzzerfest is going to happen so we don't have an outstanding mirror anymore. Not sure about other mirrors, though.

[btressler]

I'd like to thank the Delaware club for making this tournament happen. I personally enjoyed the tournament, and I think my students did as well.

Is this set cleared for discussion? Cause man could it use some discussion.

There were good questions and there were definitely some that could stand improvement. I think we knew that going in, starting with Chris' posts above. Keep in mind that this club is somewhat inexperienced in writing, so I would ask that the discussion be constructive. Don't just bash, encourage them to become better writers. When I wrote my dog packet for this two years ago, there were some transparency issues that I now understand. But when the bashing started on here I didn't appreciate the tone and got too mad about it to think about what the critics were saying.

Chris and I were saying that we like that Delaware resurrected the TTG11 format. I would love to see this become a regular feature of the year. To write 20+ packets is quite an undertaking, and if there were more areas interested in doing such a tournament the work could get divided up.

Thanks again for hosting this.

[glorious achievement]

Major kudos for running this. I had a blast and so did my team. Considering the sheer size of the thing both in terms of question-writing and the field, you all did a fantastic job. There were some question-writing issues and some logistical ones, but overall I really hope you guys keep doing this.

[Sima Guang Hater]

Is this set cleared for discussion? Cause man could it use some discussion.

There were good questions and there were definitely some that could stand improvement. I think we knew that going in, starting with Chris' posts above. Keep in mind that this club is somewhat inexperienced in writing, so I would ask that the discussion be constructive. Don't just bash, encourage them to become better writers. When I wrote my dog packet for this two years ago, there were some transparency issues that I now understand. But when the bashing started on here I didn't appreciate the tone and got too mad about it to think about what the critics were saying.

Fine, but harsh criticism is something people should get used to if they're writing tournaments. There are some basic tenants of question writing that were thrown out the window with this tournament and that should be articulated; I'll do my best to be kind about it.

Chris and I were saying that we like that Delaware resurrected the TTG11 format. I would love to see this become a regular feature of the year. To write 20+ packets is quite an undertaking, and if there were more areas interested in doing such a tournament the work could get divided up.

Thanks again for hosting this.

So to start off, I'd like to say I actually really enjoy the TTGT11 format, which I know isn't a universal opinion. I like the fact that I have a choice between academic and trash on a round-to-round basis, and its fun to go out of my element sometimes. That being said, there's one major changes I'd make to this format if I were going to run it: Eliminate theme packets. Subject packets at least [theoretically] reward knowledge of the subject being tested, but theme packets at this tournament often just devolved into guessing answers that fit the theme. A great example of this is the packet in which every answer started with the letter "A", which devolved very very quickly; I heard that the academic packet on animals had the same problem, as did the packet with the secret theme.

On to the packet-by-packet issues:

Round 1: 1890s. This academic packet suffered from some systematic issues that affected the academic packets at this tournament - namely, either the answer choices made for poor tossups or that early clues were very easy. A tossup on The Picture of Dorian Grey mentioned Sybil Vane in the first line, a tossup on Van Gogh mentioned The Potato Eaters in the second line, a tossup on Cooper pairs mentioned BCS in the first line (even Davisson-Germer would have been a better leadin) etc, etc, not to mention there were tossups on Tesla coils that don't really reward any knowledge of science whatsoever. Also no one really gets diptheria anymore, and its not even covered in a standard infectious disease class.

Round 2: Cartoons and Comics. This packet was a delight. My only complaints are the tossup on Galactus which mentioned that he recreated Zenn-La in the first line, which lead me to neg with the Silver Surfer (who's notably from Zenn-La and has helped rebuild it), and the tossup on Tarkovsky which could have stood to at least mention plot points of Samurai Jack or The Clone Wars before name-dropping them in the giveaway.

Round 3: Military history. Not great, but I'll leave it to someone who actually knows this subject to criticize it.

Round 4: Delaware. Dude, who's writing your science? Tossups on gunpowder and the Heimlich maneuver in the same packet as a tossup on SMP, none of which are that good of an idea to begin with? Also that tossup on "Prime Minister of Britain" would naturally have been much better as a tossup on a single prime minster, rather than name-dropping Robert Walpole in the middle.

Round 5: Mythology. What happened to the first half of these tossups? All of them began with a middle or late clue, which is why Mehdi and I raced on almost every leadin. If you looked at some recent tournaments with these answer choices you would have realized that there should be earlier clues.

Round 6: Science Fiction. This was a fun packet, and it seemed ok, except you should describe the plots of works before you drop the name (for example in the Phillip K Dick tossup). And the tossups on RUR and Battlefield Earth suffered from the same issues as all the literature at this tournament, namely it dropped a main character (Helena and Terl, respectively) in the first line. Also who's going to answer a tossup on Valen, noted obscure semi-mythical figure from the Babylon 5 universe?

Round 7, 9, 11: Suffered from the same bad answer selection (tossups on Chrysanthemums, Jade, Compasses, the Japanese Flag, the Yin-Yang symbol, Galen, etc, etc), not to mention lots of early clue-dropping and the fact that the themes let you figure out the answers really easily.

Round 8: Math. Wow. This packet was really not very good. If I wasn't honoring my above agreement with Bill Tressler I'd say something worse. A tossup on Hash Tables in which Hash wasn't acceptable, a tossup on Pascal with began with his conversion to Jansenism, history tossups on Zero and Infinity, a biography tossup on Turing (he sure did eat that cyanide apple), a history tossup on transistors which listed the inventors with William Shockley right after power, a history tossup on ENIAC, pseudo-math tossups on the Goldbach conjecture (which no one really talks about solving in any math class) and squaring the circle (some Greek dude tried to solve it on a jail cell you say), and the killer, a tossup on the fundamental theorem of calculus that neg-baited my teammate into saying the Mean Value Theorem. If you want to write a history of math/history of science packet, at least do us the favor of telling us up front that that's what it is. This wasn't a science packet and shouldn't have been advertised as such.

Round 10: TV. This packet was about reality TV. Reality TV is terrible.

[Important Bird Area]

Round 3: Military history. Not great, but I'll leave it to someone who actually knows this subject to criticize it.

I for one look forward to reading this when the packets are available.

[The Toad to Wigan Pier]

Also who's going to answer a tossup on Valen, noted obscure semi-mythical figure from the Babylon 5 universe?

Now I'm regretting not going to this.

[mpellegrini]

If Mike isn't going to use this set, it's no longer embargoed. I've posted the packets here: http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mpellegr/DWI/questions/

[Jamnman23]

I first want to say that I really did enjoy playing this tournament, unique format and all. Except for the Military History round, I played trash the whole day and was very entertained by the questions. That said, I'd like to point out some of the problems I witnessed in pyramidality and answer choice.

Round 1- I love the 90s
I actually thought this packet was pretty decent overall, but some things are worth mentioning. I am not quite sure that Mara Wilson is worthy of a tossup at this point, being that she hasn't made a movie in a while and her name recognition was never really that high to begin with. However, it was still amusing to buzz in on. Also, mentioning Zaire in the lead-in to a Dikembe Mutombo tossup was probably not the best idea. There really aren't many African-born NBA players, so saying something like that really narrows it down quite quickly. In the Titanic tossup, Gloria Stuart was mentioned in the lead-in. Her role in that movie is a fairly well-known fact from a really popular film that everybody saw, even if it was 12 years ago.

I will not comment on the Cartoons and Comics or Military History rounds. I will leave that to someone who has more expertise on those topics and can actually give useful feedback.

Round 4- Old School
Again, I enjoyed this packet a good deal, but I thought that Arnold's Jukebox was mentioned a bit too early in the Fonzi tossup. Also, I am not sure Ted McGinley should be a tossup answer at a regular difficulty tournament. In the Dominique Wilkins tossup, Paris was mentioned in the lead-in, which led to a teammate and I practically buzzer-racing very early in the question. This is an extremely uniquely identifying clue as far as distinguishing popular American athletes.

Round 5- Sports
I am not gonna lie. I was somewhat disappointed with this packet. The answer selection and distribution was kinda weird. There were lots of tossups that really involved no knowledge of popular sports. For example, tossups on Muggle Quidditch, Sports Bra, and Pod Racing? Also, on a more minor note, there was a pretty intense buzzer race on the Steve McNair tossup at "Alcorn State". That is just one of those clues that is 100% uniquely identifying. If one ever hears Alcorn State in a tossup, the answer will always be Steve McNair. But as I said, that was a relatively minor thing that I just thought to point out.

I will also be withholding comment on the Sci-Fi and Internet packets.

Round 7- East Asia
This packet wasn't bad, but I thought it was a good example of what Eric was talking about earlier. This was a theme packet where you could buzz in early a lot because you could really narrow down answers. For example, I was able to power tossups on Hideo Nomo and Hines Ward just because I was locking in on Asian athletes, and especially when you're talking NFL, you can narrow that down pretty quickly. However, other than that and the tossup on "Woo-Hoo", this packet was decent.

Round 9- Mystery
I liked the fact that this mystery packet was mystery themed. That was kinda cool. The one tossup that sticks out in my mind from this round was the tossup on GlenGarry Glen Ross. For that tossup, you can't drop David Mamet in the lead-in. I sat on that, because I told myself, "I should probably wait for some plot points first before I guess this". However, this packet altogether was decent.

Round 10- TV
Wow. There was a lot going on in this packet. As Eric mentioned above, there was an overwhelming amount of reality TV in this packet. Some questionable answer choices in this packet included The Stig, Sex Panther, Bob Crawley, and Surface. Also, the tossup on the Sopranos Series Finale mentioned Don't Stop Believing in the lead-in. I was taken aback and then wasn't sure if I needed the actual name of the episode or if I could just say "Sopranos Finale". Anyway, it was completely clear what that question was talking about from the beginning. A similar thing happened with the "Eye of the Beholder" tossup. I think that this was a fine tossup choice and I was eventually able to come up with the name of it, but as someone who has never seen that actual episode of Twilight Zone, I probably shouldn't know exactly what it's talking about from the beginning. Additionally, the tossup on "Match Game" mentioned Brett Somers and Betty White around the second clue. Those are the major players on that show. That is information that someone who knows very little about Match Game could know.

Round 11- Girly Stuff
This packet certainly delivered what it advertised, but there were some things that I found peculiar. I have never actually seen the movie Labyrinth, so I don't know if the character of Jereth is that memorable, but I had a gut feeling that it maybe was not such a good answer choice. Also, I am not so sure about "Being Erica". The Martha Stewart tossup fell off a cliff at "Insider Trading". The "Pat Summit" tossup was a bit transparent, and I wasn't really a big fan of the "Bikini Kill" tossup.

Round 12- Numb3rs
This was a packet where the shortcomings of theme rounds really showed. This particular packet really rewarded a lot of non-existent knowledge. For example, because of the theme, Mehdi was able to one-line a tossup on 8 simple rules when he had never watched the show. Similar things happened with Golden Eye 007 and other questions in this packet. This packet itself was actually fairly well-written, but the fact that it was a theme packet definitely compromised its quality. That's why I agree with Eric that for the purposes of good quizbowl, I don't think theme packets like this one can really work well.

Anyway, I hope this feedback helps. I know a lot of effort went into making this tournament happen, and I am very thankful that I was able to play it. This was a very different, but fun tournament to play, and I look forward to playing it again in the future.

[naturalistic phallacy]

I have never actually seen the movie Labyrinth, so I don't know if the character of Jereth is that memorable, but I had a gut feeling that it maybe was not such a good answer choice.

I have a feeling it was in that packet because of his giant package.

[Not That Kind of Christian!!]

I have never actually seen the movie Labyrinth, so I don't know if the character of Jereth is that memorable, but I had a gut feeling that it maybe was not such a good answer choice.

I have a feeling it was in that packet because of his giant package.

So true. And his finesse with balls (although I read somewhere that those aren't David Bowie's hands).

[btressler]

Also who's going to answer a tossup on Valen, noted obscure semi-mythical figure from the Babylon 5 universe?

This was answered on the first clue in my match. And not by me, who has seen all five seasons.

[Geringer]

Tossup on MASH

Favorite tossup I've read so far.

[Jamnman23]

Tossup on MASH

I have to admit, this was kinda embarrassing to get, even in the context of the girly stuff packet.

[mpellegrini]

We're going to do a postmortem on the question set tomorrow. So if anyone has any other feedback (particularly about the packets nobody has commented on yet - lit, military history, games, and the internet) I'd be interested in hearing your opinions.

[MicroEStudent]

We're going to do a postmortem on the question set tomorrow. So if anyone has any other feedback (particularly about the packets nobody has commented on yet - lit, military history, games, and the internet) I'd be interested in hearing your opinions.

I didn't play, but reading through the Internet packet I found a ton of tossups that could be easily converted on the first line.

Specifically, tossups such as:

hamster dance
xkcd
Snakes on a Plane
Rickroll
2 Girls 1 cup
The Lonely Island
The Pirate Bay

Also, the Rule 34 tossup could easily be a tossup where xkcd knowledge gets points twice in a round.

"The Lonely Island" tossup is a trainwreck:

16) This internet music group's members worked together on a 2007 film in collaboration
with producer Will Ferrell. This group got their start publishing music videos and songs
on the web such as Lazy Sunday, Dick in a Box and Jizz in My Pants, even collaborating with
T. Payne for their YouTube hit I'm On a Boat. The lead singer in this group is also the star of
their film Hot Rod. This is, for ten points, what internet sensation whose lead singer
is Saturday Night Live's Andy Sandberg?
ANSWER: The Lonely Island Boys

I wouldn't consider them to just be an internet music group, as they released an album on a major label. Also Lazy Sunday is in power? Really? The songs listed all had their video debut on SNL, not on the Internet. "T. Payne" should be T. Pain. Lead singer is mentioned in two consecutive sentences. The band's name is "The Lonely Island", not The Lonely Island Boys. This was just not very good.

For bonuses, not much in terms of problems. Maybe a bit easy. Two issues: One, mentioning "wikis" in the lead in to a bonus part on "Wikipedia" is like giving a team a free 10 points. Second, the Miss Teen USA answer probably could have been changed to Miss Teen South Carolina the way the rest of that bonus was written, but that may just be personal preference.

[Cody]

This sport, invented in 2006, has an annual World Cup which in 2009 was held at
Middlebury College. Each team has seven players on the field at once, and each of those
players must wear a cape. Lacrosse goggles are recommended to prevent eye injuries from
wayward broom handles. The match ends when a tennis ball in a sock is removed from a runner
dressed entirely in yellow. A volleyball represents the quaffle and dodgeballs are the bludgers in,
for ten points, what sport inspired by the Harry Potter universe?
ANSWER: Muggle Quidditch (prompt on Quidditch, accept “real-world quidditch”, or
equivalent)

a) Muggle Quidditch was invented in 2005. b) ???

[Golran]

I'm just reading through the games round, and am having some answer space issues, mainly with the common childhood games. Going backwards from the end of the packet,

[10] In this game one player waits in the deep end of a pool while all the other players jump in
and try to evade being tagged. If a player is tagged, next round they are the namesake predators
and play continues until all players have been tagged.
ANSWER: Sharks and Minnows (accept Sharks and Maidens)

I would have gotten this wrong with Sharks and Guppies, having often played this game as a younger child.

1) Name these classic Magic: The Gathering cards from clues, for ten points each.
[10] This powerful card is an artifact with a mana cost of 0 that grants 3 mana of any color.
ANSWER: Black Lotus
[10] This red dragon, first appearing in Alpha, is a 5/5 flying that, for 1 red mana, can gain +1/
+0.
ANSWER: Shivan Dragon
[10] This power nine blue card allows you to draw three cards at the cost of one blue mana.
ANSWER: Ancestral Recall

Why have a bonus with all answers being individual cards? I used to play Magic back in fifth grade, and would have zeroed this bonus, which to my knowledge lacks an easy part. Perhaps one part could have been mana as the answer or "artifact" noting that most of them take any color mana to summon?

7) Another game with this name has players standing in a circle passing a Frisbee between
them. A player must jump before catching the disc and release it before landing. Failure to
do so causes a player to be "out." A variant called "Blind Monkey" removes the audible
part and requires players to be as quiet as possible. The "Alligator Eyes" or "submarine"
variant allows a player to open their eyes but only for as long as they can hold their breath. The
"Duck-Duck Quack-Quack" version has whoever is "it" calling Duck-Duck and the other players
responding with "Quack-Quack." For ten points, name this version of tag played in a pool where
players yell the name of a famous Venetian merchant.
ANSWER: Marco Polo

I would have negged this early with the camp game Taps, which may have just been a local name for it, where the first line describes the game exactly, except we used a volleyball instead of a frisbee.

Basically, childhood games are really hard to ask about because of the variety of names they are known by, and it will almost be impossible to get every acceptable answer down on your answer line. Overall, I did like this packet, and am looking forward to reading the rest of the set.

[Cheynem]

The power marks on this set were oddly placed--some were way way too generous (Pat Summitt), some way way too hard (The Metamorphosis). Also, there were tossups featuring the dreaded "power mark is at the end of a sentence." Matt Weiner has had some great things to say about the proper placement of power marks, but I forget the link.

[Important Bird Area]

Also, there were tossups featuring the dreaded "power mark is at the end of a sentence." Matt Weiner has had some great things to say about the proper placement of power marks, but I forget the link.

Link

[Dresden_The_BIG_JERK]

Reading through these in the Bin and just wanted to say I'm really enjoying it. Well done.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Also, there were tossups featuring the dreaded "power mark is at the end of a sentence." Matt Weiner has had some great things to say about the proper placement of power marks, but I forget the link.

Link

During the Trash set that UD wrote for the annual Blue Hen trash round, this happened too.