Player Poll 2010: This is serious business

[Gautam]

I would like to announce the 2010 incarnation of the Post-National Individual player poll. The past three incarnations have been run by Andrew Hart, and the goal is mostly provided some amusement fuel for discussion while trying to rank quizbowlers.

For your ballot to be counted, all submissions must include a top 25 listing of players in order. Ppeople who played either or both of NAQT ICT and ACF Nationals are eligible, as is anyone who represented an academic institution in at least two academic tournaments. You may vote for Division II players, community college players, and current high schoolers. Please don't send me incomplete things, since I don't want to open my econometrics textbook to determine how to approach panel data with missing observations.

Please send your ballots to [email protected]. Polling will be open until Sunday, May 16.

I don't care what methodology you use while determining your ballot. I'll leave it up to the voters to decide if generalists are to be more valued than specialists are and where people who exclusively play NAQT (or ACF, for that matter) fit, and other finer aspects.

Past results: 2009, 2008, and 2007.

--Gautam

[Gautam]

Oh, to clarify, I will be submitting a ballot myself but I already have it ready.

[Gautam]

People were inquiring about this, so I wanted to clarify: you may vote for Ted Gioia and Shantanu Jha since they do fit the eligibility guidelines. If you choose not to, for whatever reason, that's a separate issue.

If people who've sent me ballots are affected by the above announcement and would like to resend the ballots, feel free to do so.

--Gautam

[Magister Ludi]

Hey folks, just wanted to say you shouldn't waste a vote on me because the purpose of the poll is to foster discussion about the best active players and unfortunately I'm out of quizbowl for the foreseeable future.

[Megalomaniacal Panda on Absinthe]

Hey folks, just wanted to say you shouldn't waste a vote on me because the purpose of the poll is to foster discussion about the best active players and unfortunately I'm out of quizbowl for the foreseeable future.

Since my future prospects of involvement with quizbowl seem increasingly opaque, I would like to echo Ted's sentiments with regards to myself.

[Cheynem]

In an attempt to stimulate discussion:

A PREVIEW OF MY BALLOT (each player is given an alias to conceal their identity)
1. birdofredum sawin
2. setht
3. grapesmoker
4. Captain Sinico
5. Strongside
6. The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus
7. DumbJaques
8. selene
9. theMoMA
10. dsimons
11. Ukonvasara
12. vcuEvan
13. cvdwightw
14. Ice Warrior
15. Morraine Man
16. Ike
17. gkandlikar
18. Pilgrim
19. kdroge
20. Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It
21. wd4gdz
22. Crazy Andy Watkins
23. Maximus
24. marnold
25. The Toad to Wigan Pier

[Whiter Hydra]

I'm going to assume Shantanu is "Crazy Andy Watkins"?

[bmcke]

If campaigning is discussion, then I think fourplustwo deserves a spot on that ballot. From playing tournaments and from crashing a bunch of practices this year, I would say that Sinan's usually about as good as the rest of Toronto put together. I know the ICT stats have Eric scoring a lot of the points, but Eric's territory is Trash/Current Events; Sinan gets most of the science and ACF stuff. I put him even with Kurtis; most tournament stats from this year should agree with this.

[Cheynem]

Yeah, a number of teams got the shaft because I don't see them a lot--South Carolina, Toronto, and Florida most notably. I had a hard time evaluating Toronto as independent members, still haven't seen Aaron Kashtan play so felt uncomfortable ranking him, and kind of flaked on Robert Harden.

[maxis7]

If campaigning is discussion, then I think fourplustwo deserves a spot on that ballot. From playing tournaments and from crashing a bunch of practices this year, I would say that Sinan's usually about as good as the rest of Toronto put together. I know the ICT stats have Eric scoring a lot of the points, but Eric's territory is Trash/Current Events; Sinan gets most of the science and ACF stuff. I put him even with Kurtis; most tournament stats from this year should agree with this.

I'd like to second this, especially the part in bold, which is the main reason for our ending up in the ICT top bracket. Excellent science player and good generalist overall. I think he deserves a top 25 rank.

[Kyle]

I'm surprised to find myself saying this, but I think you have Andy too low. I realize that you're interested in ACF as well as the ICT, but a quick glance at the ICT stats reveals a performance that one would think would elevate someone higher than 20th overall and 3rd on his own team — highest scorer on the winning team and second most powers in the prelims of anyone on any team (behind only Seth). Plus, in terms of intangibles, we're talking about a guy who swore at R. Robert Hentzel while correctly answering a tossup in the national championship game.

[Mechanical Beasts]

I'm surprised to find myself saying this, but I think you have Andy too low. I realize that you're interested in ACF as well as the ICT, but a quick glance at the ICT stats reveals a performance that one would think would elevate someone higher than 20th overall and 3rd on his own team — highest scorer on the winning team and second most powers in the prelims of anyone on any team (behind only Seth). Plus, in terms of intangibles, we're talking about a guy who swore at R. Robert Hentzel while correctly answering a tossup in the national championship game.

While I deeply appreciate the kudos, we've no evidence so far that that performance is repeatable. Frequently it seemed that I just got lucky and clues that I knew happened to be in power (sometimes they were the one thing I knew cold about the subject of the tossup). It's unlikely but possible that all my quizbowl good luck got concentrated in one tournament; I know personally that I was playing with more confidence at that ICT than I was able to muster for ACF, which is the only way that I managed to win some of the buzzer races I did. I'd appreciate a higher ranking if my ICT success is repeatable, and I plan to work very hard so that it is, but for now, I'm comfortable assuming that that was a tournament that just uniquely suited me.

[cvdwightw]

13. cvdwightw
14. Ice Warrior

Assuming these people are who I think they are, this can't be right. Auroni's scored more than me at every tournament we both attended and except for SCT his teammates scored more than mine, so it's not like I'm being hurt more than he is by the shadow effect.

[Cheynem]

I wasn't sure where to rank Andy and he was on the margin of getting in my Top 25 (rightly or wrongly) before ICT. Maybe this was him turning a corner and if this is true, he'll definitely shoot up the polls.

I kept Dwight over Auroni to reward Dwight's valiant ICT performance. Auroni is definitely one of the next great stars in quizbowl though, so he'll be in a top ten or two before his day is done.

[Frauny Von Smiley]

Auroni is definitely one of the next great stars in quizbowl though, so he'll be in a top ten or two before his day is done.

Does anybody else think a "Top [reasonable number] rising quizbowl stars/prospects/adjective indicating inexperience but high potential" list would be interesting?

[TheKingInYellow]

Seems like just mentioning individuals would be a lot easier

[Auroni]

I always suck at making these, because there is always a person or two that I overlook. Let me look at Mike's list and break it down as best I can.

In an attempt to stimulate discussion:

A PREVIEW OF MY BALLOT (each player is given an alias to conceal their identity)
1. birdofredum sawin
2. setht
3. grapesmoker
4. Captain Sinico
5. Strongside
6. The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus

This part of the top 25 is more or less accurate. I might put Eric over Brendan because he has a lockdown category in addition to his generalist ability (I can't evaluate which of the two is a better generalist, but probably Brendan).

7. DumbJaques
8. selene
9. theMoMA
10. dsimons
11. Ukonvasara
12. vcuEvan
13. cvdwightw
14. Ice Warrior
15. Morraine Man
16. Ike
17. gkandlikar

Here is where the bulk of my disagreements lie. First of all, let's analyze these people individually. Chris is the lead scorer on the team that took fourth at ACF Nationals, and he is great at history and has teammates that know deep things at high levels. Selene answers the bio and chem on the team that won ACF Nationals several times in the past few years. Andrew, Rob, and Gautam are the rest of Minnesota A, and all manage to answer a similar number of tossups and contribute greatly to the ppb of the taem. Dallas, Bruce, and Andy (not listed) all really know their subjects and combine to form a team that won ICT and that made the top bracket at ACF Nationals this year (albeit, without Bruce). Ike is a powerful second-string scorer on Illinois. Evan knows his literature and leads VCU, Dwight is a great NAQT player and science specialist who took a hit at this year's ICT, and I currently lead UCSD and serve as a generalist who knows various humanities to differing degrees.

I think that you would have to clump Rob, Andrew, and Gautam together since there isn't much of a difference in how much they contribute to Minnesota A. I believe that I should probably take the 10 or 11 spot in their stead because I have a better grasp of humanities when playing against these three individually or without Brendan, but definitely not against Brendan when he is around. Chris is fine where he is, Dallas and Ike should be around the same as the three Minnesotans, with Dallas having an edge over Ike because he forms more of his team's overall knowledge. Bruce might be behind Dallas and around where Andy is (I would put him in this portion of the top 25). I am not sure where Evan would fit in, but he is probably a little behind where Ike is. Although Dwight is a great player who plays NAQT well, I do not think he should be in the top 17, since he does not have as much of a command of non-science subjects as all of these listed players do, and he plays tournaments more and more infrequently to boot.

17. gkandlikar
18. Pilgrim
19. kdroge
20. Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It
21. wd4gdz
22. Crazy Andy Watkins
23. Maximus
24. marnold
25. The Toad to Wigan Pier

I discussed Gautam and Andy. I think that the logical first part of this bottom third of the top 25 is marnold, who is pretty severely underrated in his contribution to Chicago A and as a player on his own merits. This is also the place to put players like Billy (as mentioned) and Ahmad (although I am a little less familiar with him). Changes I would make include putting Dees over Kurtis (who has begun to show that he is formidable on harder college questions). This is also the place to put Kevin Koai, whose music and poetry and just general humanities knowledge should get him something like #18 or #19. I would also put Richard Mason here, although I would not know how to order him and the rest of the top 25.

[Gautam]

Reminder: If you took 3-4 minutes to make a top 25 list and email it to me instead of picking on Mike's list, this whole exercise would be more useful. We're always going to disagree over relative rankings, and sometimes forget to rank those who ought to be in the top 25.

--GK

[Cheynem]

My list is certainly imperfect--I posted it so as to get this sort of discussion rolling to help other people in their ballots (I forgot about Robert Harden, for example, and maybe this will inspire others to look up his stats more).

Also, HOW DID PEOPLE PIERCE MY ALIAS SYSTEM?!

[cvdwightw]

Also, HOW DID PEOPLE PIERCE MY ALIAS SYSTEM?!

You forgot to ROT-13.

[Sima Guang Hater]

I always suck at making these, because there is always a person or two that I overlook. Let me look at Mike's list and break it down as best I can.

In an attempt to stimulate discussion:

A PREVIEW OF MY BALLOT (each player is given an alias to conceal their identity)
1. birdofredum sawin
2. setht
3. grapesmoker
4. Captain Sinico
5. Strongside
6. The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus

This part of the top 25 is more or less accurate. I might put Eric over Brendan because he has a lockdown category in addition to his generalist ability (I can't evaluate which of the two is a better generalist, but probably Brendan).

The ranking in this area can be kind of tough, depending on what traits you value in a player. Its fairly obvious that Andrew wins outright after his performance at this year's ACF nationals (which he seemed to shred through like a lesser-ranked player would play ACF Regionals). Deciding between Seth and Jerry can be kind of tough since the two are pretty close in overall skill level. I would personally say Seth is a more consistent player who will invariably grind out his tossups against any opponent, and Jerry is a little more variable in how many more tossups he'll get in a given game depending on the packet. The upshot is this means when Jerry's on a run he's almost unstoppable, but when he regresses towards his personal mean he's less likely to win against stronger opponents or slip up - this especially showed at this year's ACF nationals, where Brown took a few losses that they frankly shouldn't have and took a close loss to Chicago. And its very rare that a Seth-led Chicago loses against teams that are ranked lower than them, though both Maryland and Penn at ACF nationals got within one question of beating them (the latter within 5 points, even).

A more interesting question is what to make of Mike, me, and Brendan. If you value the kind of pure amorphous generalism that Brendan provides, you obviously pick him over the other two. If you value the ability to lead a team and dense nuclei of real knowledge, you pick Mike or me over Brendan. The choice between the two of us is fairly obvious for most people due to Mike's veteran status, but I think our skill levels are closer now than most people realize - we completely flamed out against Illinois at ICT but managed to beat them at ACF nationals, with our personal stats fairly similar. Personally, I would rank Mike 4th, myself 5th, and Brendan 6th.

[Gautam]

We're up to 13 ballots now. 41 people in total have received votes, including 2 highschoolers.

There are some tight races being fought in the middle, and it's looking pretty exciting! Let's keep the ballots coming in.

--Gautam

[grapesmoker]

I am in no way being facetious when I say that the discussion in this thread drastically underrates Eric Mukherjee.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Yeah, that's the one thing that I most wanted to contribute. He's capable of playing so fast as to be untouchable on most questions--particularly so on NAQT, where it's most necessary. He has the best command of the full quizbowl science canon I've seen; against very few teams will that translate to fewer than three tossups. He has less generalist ability than older players who have heard more clues in their long days, but he's improving at a very fast rate. He has a ton of upside; depending on the packet he could easily beat any of the players ranked above him.

[Gautam]

Up to 18 ballots now!

Interesting statistics:
* Total number of people represented: 44.
* Number of people to be represented on more than one ballot: 34.
* Highest-ranked individual to not be represented on all 18 ballots is currently ranked #12.
* The largest point-divide between two ranks: 45 points separating #8 from #7.
* Largest range (Highest rank-lowest rank) is 16.
* The lowest # of votes needed to make it into top 25 is 6.
* There are ties for #15 and #24.
* The most highly represented person to not make it into the top 25 was named on 10 ballots.

[Gautam]

We have 21 ballots now. As a reminder, you have around 24 hours and a few minutes to send in your ballots, though I will most likely accept anything that reaches my inbox before I wake up on Monday morning.

--Gautam

[Gautam]

Reminder: you have a few hours to send in your ballots! Get working on them if you've procrastinated until now.

[Demonic Leftovers]

Like Mike I am providing a preview of my ballot. I have disguised the players' identity by posting the nicknames I have assigned them.
1. Deep Threat
2. Batman
3. Suit of Live Badgers
4. Chocolate Thunder
5. Something that Rhymes with Mukherjee
6. Robotrippin
7. The Closer
8. Dirty Dakkas
9. A Girl
10. Garfunkel
11. Sk8ter Boi
12. Iceman
13. Selphie Tilmitt
14. A-Train
15. O-Face
16. William Wirt
17. Southern Belle
18. Big Baby
19. Rachel Maddow
20. The Austrian-American Boss
21. Total Eclipse
22. Drift King
23. The Thrill
24. G-Unit
25. Seventh Kevin

[Gautam]

I have now woken up, and my inbox indicates that Davey Seal's ballot was the last one I received.

Thanks to all for submitting ballots. Results, with some commentary of mine, will be displayed later in the evening.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

I'm surprised to find myself saying this, but I think you have Andy too low. I realize that you're interested in ACF as well as the ICT, but a quick glance at the ICT stats reveals a performance that one would think would elevate someone higher than 20th overall and 3rd on his own team — highest scorer on the winning team and second most powers in the prelims of anyone on any team (behind only Seth). Plus, in terms of intangibles, we're talking about a guy who swore at R. Robert Hentzel while correctly answering a tossup in the national championship game.

My message to Andy Watkins is this: enjoy your PPG while you have it, because if current trends continue Dallas will soon come to take it away.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Yeah, I imagine that by Penn Bowl Dallas will have passed me up in physics; I still should have chemistry (only because he won't be learning it), at least.

[Gautam]

Hello all,

Here are the results for the 2010 Player Poll:

1. Andrew Yaphe
2. Seth Teitler
3. Jerry Vinokurov
4. Mike Sorice
5. Brendan Byrne
6. Eric Mukherjee
7. Chris Ray
8. Dallas Simons
9t. Rob Carson
9t. Evan Adams
11. Andrew Hart
12. Auroni Gupta
13. Selene Koo
14. Andy Watkins
15. Bruce Arthur
16. Ike Jose
17. Dwight Wynne
18. Trevor Davis
19. Kurtis Droge
20. Richard Mason
21. Gautam Kandlikar
22. Charlie Dees
23. Michael Arnold
24. Aaron Kashtan
25. Sinan Ulusoy

Honorable mentions (in order of votes received, followed by the first letter of first name) go to: Kevin Koai, Billy Beyer, Shantanu Jha, Robert Harden, Guy Tabachnick, Henry Gorman, Ted Gioia, Aaron Rosenberg, Aaron Cohen, Will Butler, Jeff Hoppes, Gordon Arsenoff, Ray Luo, Eric Smith, Mike Cheyne, Tommy Casalaspi, Ahmad Ragab, Justin Byrd, Paul Gauthier, Jake Sundberg, David Seal, Daichi Ueda, Will nediger, Matt Jackson, and Kyle Haddad-Fonda.

The Iron Range award for the highest range (difference between lowest rank and highest rank) goes to Trevor Davis, whose ranking ranged from #9 to #25. The Square Root of the Second Moment award goes to Aaron Kashtan, who had the highest standard deviation among the top 25 (of 4.51.)

All in all, 24 ballots were cast, including one by myself. To repeat some of the interesting stats I mentioned before, the minimum number of votes needed to make it into the 25 was 7 (Sinan), who narrowly edged out Kevin Koai. Kevin had the highest number of votes in the honorable mentions list, with 13 votes in total.

There were 7 people on the list this year who didn't make it last year: Sinan, Aaron, Michael, Richard, Kurtis, Andy, and Trevor. The highest point differential was between Eric and Chris (58 points), squeaking by the 57 point differential between Auroni and Selene. On the other hand, only 2 points separated #5 from #6, #9t from #11, and #16 from #17.

Dividing Total points by the number of votes received reveals some interesting info. #9-#13 had virtually identical numbers for this statistic. The only thing separating them, really, was the fact that not all received the same number of votes. Similarly, clustering was also observed elsewhere, though it wasn't as pronounced.

Tommy Casalaspi and Matt Jackson were the two highschoolers who received votes.

Some other observations: As usual, there was a tonne of regional bias that affected ballots. I really can't think of what would be a good way of overcoming that. I could have just returned the ballot, but most seemed reasonable wrt the top 15, so I decided to keep them. I think there ended up being decent geographic representation from all parts of the country, so the regional bias kind of evened out.

If the masses demand for knowing how everyone voted, please reply requesting as much; I will make the spreadsheet public.

Thanks to Mike Bentley, Mike Cheyne, Andrew Hart, Dallin Kelson, Andy Watkins, Dwight Wynne, Libo Zeng, Surya Sabhapathy, Zach Foster, Matt Weiner, Matt Bollinger, Ahmad Ragab, Eric Mukherjee, George Berry, Chris Chiego, Evan Adams, Susan Ferrari, Jake Sundberg, John Lawrence, Richard Mason, Daniel Pareja, Billy Beyer, and David Seal for submitting ballots.

[Strongside]

One other interesting thing that I noticed is that the top 6 from this year was identical to the top 6 from last year (in the same order too).

[Mike Bentley]

I don't remember how I ended up rating the top few players in my poll, but I'd be curious to hear other people's arguments for where they placed Jerry, Sorice, Brendan and Eric. Just looking at the results from the ICT and ACF Nationals this year, I think there's a strong argument to be made that Brendan could be placed ahead of Sorice and maybe even Jerry (for instance, he had comparable or better PPG on a team with two other players ranked near the Top 10 and one nearly in the Top 20), and maybe Eric's performance could warrant a rank up as well.

[Gautam]

Individual ballots may be viewed at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key= ... ETFE&hl=en

If you wish to identify yourself, please go ahead.

--Gauta

[wd4gdz]

I bet I know who ballot S belongs to.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

I bet I know who ballot S belongs to.

*Yo Billy: You do know that I do these things sometimes because I know you'll post, right? I mean, my stats aren't what they should be, granted, but I have tons of intangibles, such as ability to close matches and way above average buzzer speed, and those count for something. Even so, Billy, you think I'm your punching bag, which is false. Silly Billy. Intangibles and lockdown categories get you far in a game of quizbowl. You based my entire career on like 2 bad matches I had against FSU? Wow.

--

OK back to the more interesting part of the ballot. For the most part, the ballot turned out well, except that I think Henry Gorman's season was totally overlooked, most probably due to regional bias, but that's me being nitpicky.

Insightful comment: But of course, the current stats that we use don't tell everything so we can't get a true measure of intangibles by looking at the current stat sheets that we have. What I mean is that some people close the game better than others. Maybe we could have a stat that compares a player's contributions on the last X tossups, and compare in that way as well. In other words, track the last X tossups separately (you have the stat sheets) and then compare the players by total points in that way too. Of course we assume a uniform distribution of topics throughout the tournament over the last X tossups per packet.

That'll do it for Jake's controversial statement of the month -- I know the community hates me, but I like it that way.

[Mechanical Beasts]

And here I was thinking that that ballot was Henry Gorman's!

Man, Jake, you're crazy.

[cvdwightw]

Man, and to think that I could have totally moved up one spot in the poll by simply voting myself at #21 instead of not including myself on my ballot!

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

OK back to the more interesting part of the ballot. For the most part, the ballot turned out well, except that I think Henry Gorman's season was totally overlooked, most probably due to regional bias, but that's me being nitpicky.

He's definitely a very good player and no doubt one of the top freshmen, but I don't think regional bias has much to do with him (and some other players) not being in the top 25, which is serious business. The way to get into the top 25 is by having good showings in DI at ICT and/or (preferably and) ACF Nats.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

And here I was thinking that that ballot was Henry Gorman's!

Man, Jake, you're crazy.

In terms of this forum: sure, but maybe I know something.
In terms of quizbowl in general: haven't been able to put my heart into it much lately -- it's kinda hard when your next door neighbor, or his neighbor, or his neighbor...or his neighbor, doesn't play quizbowl.
In real life: I'm different, I guess, but not crazy. I like a lot of different things.

[Cheynem]

Henry's a fantastic young player and also my friend on Facebook, but I just didn't see him as Top 25...yet (actually with a number of top names retiring or perhaps taking a year away from actively playing, we could see MAJOR, MAJOR changes in this list next year).

[Mechanical Beasts]

Henry's a fantastic young player and also my friend on Facebook, but I just didn't see him as Top 25...yet (actually with a number of top names retiring or perhaps taking a year away from actively playing, we could see MAJOR, MAJOR changes in this list next year).

I'm only sure of six names on that list that are retiring. Who are you thinking of?

[Cheynem]

I can only think of six that are specifically retiring (with a few more question marks, like Marnold and Richard Mason), but those are pretty big six names--I mean, four of the top five, as far as I know, are off the radar next year. Next year will, I'm predicting, see folks like Guy or Gorman or whomever definitely appear on the Top 25.

[Mechanical Beasts]

I can only think of six that are specifically retiring (with a few more question marks, like Marnold and Richard Mason), but those are pretty big six names--I mean, four of the top five, as far as I know, are off the radar next year. Next year will, I'm predicting, see folks like Guy or Gorman or whomever definitely appear on the Top 25.

Yeah; I guess I didn't see that as resulting in much of a shakeup: rather, everyone will be shifted up a bit.

[Mike Bentley]

I can only think of six that are specifically retiring (with a few more question marks, like Marnold and Richard Mason), but those are pretty big six names--I mean, four of the top five, as far as I know, are off the radar next year. Next year will, I'm predicting, see folks like Guy or Gorman or whomever definitely appear on the Top 25.

Yeah; I guess I didn't see that as resulting in much of a shakeup: rather, everyone will be shifted up a bit.

I could have old information, but I thought that Jerry (at law school), Sorice (post-doc stuff?) and Brendan (more classes at Minnesota) were all still probably playing next year.

[Cheynem]

I know Sorice is still active. Last time I talked to Brendan, he didn't want to take any more classes, but perhaps this has changed.

[grapesmoker]

I could have old information, but I thought that Jerry (at law school), Sorice (post-doc stuff?) and Brendan (more classes at Minnesota) were all still probably playing next year.

Your information about my participation next year is inaccurate; in fact, I myself do not know what I'm doing next year. If or when I return as a law student, I will play, but right now when that will happen is unknown.

[No Rules Westbrook]

I've thrown this opinion out there before, but I really don't think there's a meaningful difference between players 2-5 in this list. They all can beat each other any given day, roughly half the time, depending on the packet and team composition. And that's the question I would ask. If stats or titles do it for you, fine, I get that - but those kinds of accomplishment-type things don't do a very good job of answering "which of these people has the most qb skill right now?".

Also, I've always thought it's kind of weird the way players "plateau" in this game - they kind of get to a certain level and stay there indefinitely. I wonder if it's that those players are reaching a natural ability limit (maybe asymptotically approaching a natural limit), or it's just that people tend to expend a certain amount of energy in this game and then they get satisfied and call the dogs off. But, it's a funny phenomenon - a player like Mukherjee or Magin or Brendan, for instance, ascends to whatever level they ascend to - and then they just kind of "take their place" at that level and float there.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

My placement of Henry was based on the fact that he led every tournament in the region in scoring this year as well as the fact that he was Penn Bowl's second-leading scorer at the main site, outscoring Evan and Chris, who are both in the top 10 while getting more scoring from teammates as well. While I know his number of appearances at national competitions is negligible at this point, I thought his performances were worthy of such a high rating.

I also ranked some of the other players in the Southeast in the top 25 just to show some love for the region (without getting out of line in terms of actual voting) -- and of course I gave myself a nod just because I deserve a few points for having the motivation to keep an organization going in the financial and geographical position I'm in (the university just decided to shut off the budget of what was left of my team during the semester) -- I highly doubt that a lot of people in my position would have had the will to even keep going. I'm more talented than you think - it's just that after a while you lack the motivation to stay fresh/improve. We'll be sure to make both national competitions so that you can see that I'm not bullshitting you.

Of course UA has a quizbowl budget more to my liking, so there's more incentive to play - namely the travel is easier, I know my teammates will show up for most tournaments, they're dedicated to winning, and participation. It's easier to keep yourself motivated in that way, obviously. They don't suck at science anymore, either. I don't know what to say, except that things are finally going the way I wanted them to in terms of quizbowl. Of course this makes me very happy. Just think about it for a second. Wouldn't it make you happy?