2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Old college threads.
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

naqt.com wrote:National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC is pleased to provide logistical information about its 19th Intercollegiate Championship Tournament.

Date:

March 27–28, 2015 (Friday/Saturday; the actual competition will take place entirely on Saturday)

Location:

The Hilton Atlanta hotel in Atlanta, Georgia.
Full details
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

naqt.com wrote:NAQT will accept wildcard applications for both divisions of its 2015 Intercollegiate Championship Tournament using similar terms to those used for its Community College Championship Tournament. NAQT does not anticipate awarding them to any school for which the closest SCT is not an all-day trip, and NAQT anticipates that in most years zero wildcard bids will be awarded.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

naqt.com wrote:The last day to request a wildcard bid to the 2015 NAQT Intercollegiate Championship Tournament is Monday, February 9.
Interested teams should apply for a wildcard here.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
Adventure Temple Trail
Auron
Posts: 2754
Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:52 pm

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

I have seen some objections raised (some publicly, some less so) against the ICT schedule format used for the past few years. In particular, the issue is that all of a team's win-loss record from the prelims is factored into the order of finish at the end of the tournament. Standard practice would be to carry over only the one prelim game between the two teams in a given prelim bracket which make it into the playoffs, then rank each team within its bracket by how well it does in the games against teams in their playoff bracket alone. As written, the typical ICT schedule format unduly penalizes teams who make it into the playoffs on a tiebreaker after going 5-2 in the prelims (or 6-1 dropping a game to a team that doesn't advance), and violates the usual good-quizbowl scheduling principle that order of finish should be determined by win-loss record against a common set of opponents (in this case, the eight teams which make it into the playoffs, assuming a 32-team schedule is used once again). Are there plans to make this small correction to the format this year? I can explain more if the above wasn't clear.

I am also curious if there are steps being taken to ensure more accurate seeding this year such that one bracket isn't predictably likely to contain the eventual 3rd, 4th, 9th, and 10th place finishers at the tournament, and would be glad to help in whatever capacity NAQT deems suitable for that purpose.
Matt Jackson
University of Chicago '24
Yale '14, Georgetown Day School '10
member emeritus, ACF
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

Matthew Jackson wrote:I have seen some objections raised (some publicly, some less so) against the ICT schedule format used for the past few years. In particular, the issue is that all of a team's win-loss record from the prelims is factored into the order of finish at the end of the tournament. Standard practice would be to carry over only the one prelim game between the two teams in a given prelim bracket which make it into the playoffs, then rank each team within its bracket by how well it does in the games against teams in their playoff bracket alone. As written, the typical ICT schedule format unduly penalizes teams who make it into the playoffs on a tiebreaker after going 5-2 in the prelims (or 6-1 dropping a game to a team that doesn't advance), and violates the usual good-quizbowl scheduling principle that order of finish should be determined by win-loss record against a common set of opponents (in this case, the eight teams which make it into the playoffs, assuming a 32-team schedule is used once again). Are there plans to make this small correction to the format this year? I can explain more if the above wasn't clear.
We have noted this concern and will consider changes for the 2016 ICT.
I am also curious if there are steps being taken to ensure more accurate seeding this year such that one bracket isn't predictably likely to contain the eventual 3rd, 4th, 9th, and 10th place finishers at the tournament, and would be glad to help in whatever capacity NAQT deems suitable for that purpose.
We will definitely plan to have more community involvement in ICT seeding, effective immediately. This will probably take the form of "selected recently-retired players will be asked to review draft ICT brackets for potential imbalance."
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

NAQT expects that invitations to the 2015 ICT will be issued on Friday morning.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
Adventure Temple Trail
Auron
Posts: 2754
Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:52 pm

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

bird bird bird bird bird wrote:
Matthew Jackson wrote:I have seen some objections raised (some publicly, some less so) against the ICT schedule format used for the past few years. In particular, the issue is that all of a team's win-loss record from the prelims is factored into the order of finish at the end of the tournament. Standard practice would be to carry over only the one prelim game between the two teams in a given prelim bracket which make it into the playoffs, then rank each team within its bracket by how well it does in the games against teams in their playoff bracket alone. As written, the typical ICT schedule format unduly penalizes teams who make it into the playoffs on a tiebreaker after going 5-2 in the prelims (or 6-1 dropping a game to a team that doesn't advance), and violates the usual good-quizbowl scheduling principle that order of finish should be determined by win-loss record against a common set of opponents (in this case, the eight teams which make it into the playoffs, assuming a 32-team schedule is used once again). Are there plans to make this small correction to the format this year? I can explain more if the above wasn't clear.
We have noted this concern and will consider changes for the 2016 ICT.
Was the exact same concern noted last year as well, and if so, did NAQT make a conscious decision to keep the schedule as-is? Given that (at least according to what's publicly available) the schedule format for this year has yet to be determined, I suggest making the proper changes for this year, which will not cost anybody anything and requires only one or two sentences to change from the materials NAQT has given out in past years.
Matt Jackson
University of Chicago '24
Yale '14, Georgetown Day School '10
member emeritus, ACF
gyre and gimble
Yuna
Posts: 765
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2009 2:45 am

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by gyre and gimble »

bird bird bird bird bird wrote:We will definitely plan to have more community involvement in ICT seeding, effective immediately. This will probably take the form of "selected recently-retired players will be asked to review draft ICT brackets for potential imbalance."
I know that Mike Cheyne's polls are sensitive to who votes from what region of the country, but they're still less subjective than "selected individuals" and certainly less so than what NAQT did last year for seeding purposes. Might I suggest that, this year and going forward, NAQT look at a pre-Nationals poll, if there is one, or even the midseason poll that's already happened?

Obviously, D-values will give generally accurate information but there are also various factors that aren't accounted for in those numbers. Key missing players (Virginia, Chicago, Stanford, Harvard), split teams (Maryland), hosts (Columbia), are all important things NAQT has got to look out for, and it needs to look outside of SCT to make the necessary projections/corrections.
Stephen Liu
Torrey Pines '10
Harvard '14
Stanford '17
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

The poll is helpful (and we certainly have looked at it in years past). That being said, it also has a number of data problems (notably re: ranked players who are not attending ICT and ranked players who are playing Division II).
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

Matthew Jackson wrote:Was the exact same concern noted last year as well, and if so, did NAQT make a conscious decision to keep the schedule as-is?
Yes, we are aware of this issue and have decided to keep the schedule as-is. NAQT's official policy is that all of the prelim games are real measures of team strength and should count toward the final standings. (We want to avoid some anomalies that arise from dropping the prelim games: with two 6-1 teams, the one that lost to a lower-bracket team thereby gains an advantage; it's possible for 5-2 team to gain an advantage over a 6-1 team.)
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
Auks Ran Ova
Forums Staff: Chief Administrator
Posts: 4295
Joined: Sun Apr 30, 2006 10:28 pm
Location: Minneapolis
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

bird bird bird bird bird wrote:
Matthew Jackson wrote:Was the exact same concern noted last year as well, and if so, did NAQT make a conscious decision to keep the schedule as-is?
Yes, we are aware of this issue and have decided to keep the schedule as-is. NAQT's official policy is that all of the prelim games are real measures of team strength and should count toward the final standings. (We want to avoid some anomalies that arise from dropping the prelim games: with two 6-1 teams, the one that lost to a lower-bracket team thereby gains an advantage; it's possible for 5-2 team to gain an advantage over a 6-1 team.)
Is that really worse than the purely hypothetical situation where, say, two teams prove themselves equal against a set of common opponents by finishing with the same 4-2 playoff record, but a carried-over prelim loss against a non-common opponent forces a two-game final rather than the one-game final that every other tournament would've used?
Rob Carson
University of Minnesota '11, MCTC '??, BHSU forever
Member, ACF
Member emeritus, PACE
Writer and Editor, NAQT
User avatar
minusfive
Rikku
Posts: 426
Joined: Sun Jul 11, 2010 11:35 pm
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by minusfive »

Ukonvasara wrote:Is that really worse than the purely hypothetical situation where, say, two teams prove themselves equal against a set of common opponents by finishing with the same 4-2 playoff record, but a carried-over prelim loss against a non-common opponent forces a two-game final rather than the one-game final that every other tournament would've used?
It's not generally good to start a comment with "maybe I just don't get it," but...
Maybe I just don't get it, but why is this such a big deal? It's true that in the quoted scenario one team has to work harder to win, but well, that team lost 1 more game. The fact that it isn't a common opponent doesn't mean that their record isn't worse (cf. other collegiate rankings, including for sports, where almost never are the opponents common). Plus, that "disadvantaged" team had all the opportunities to finish 6-0 against common opponents, and they didn't: it's not like they necessarily deserve anything.
Jordan Palmer, Nick Penner's Hero.

Pass by, and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.
User avatar
Auks Ran Ova
Forums Staff: Chief Administrator
Posts: 4295
Joined: Sun Apr 30, 2006 10:28 pm
Location: Minneapolis
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Well, imagine that in this situation it resulted in a team with a 2-1 record against another team finishing behind that other team, which is a pretty unusual and suboptimal situation that could've been avoided, in this case, by simply doing the thing that every other tournament does and only counting records against common opponents in final rankings. Luckily, such a thing has never happened...in this timeline.
Rob Carson
University of Minnesota '11, MCTC '??, BHSU forever
Member, ACF
Member emeritus, PACE
Writer and Editor, NAQT
User avatar
Cody
2008-09 Male Athlete of the Year
Posts: 2891
Joined: Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:57 am

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Cody »

minusfive wrote:The fact that it isn't a common opponent doesn't mean that their record isn't worse (cf. other collegiate rankings, including for sports, where almost never are the opponents common).
This has no relevance to the bracket prelim/playoff format used in quizbowl. None, zip, zero. The reason it's unfair is extremely obvious, so don't be purposefully dense. If non-common opponents are included, the quality of teams played is different. For example Virginia A's loss to UCSD, among plenty of other examples. Using such games to determine a team's W-L in the final rankings is extremely unfair and goes against pretty much every other tournament format in use in quizbowl.

NAQT should really stop bumbling around and just change this.
minusfive wrote:Plus, that "disadvantaged" team had all the opportunities to finish 6-0 against common opponents, and they didn't: it's not like they necessarily deserve anything.
How many years have you been in quizbowl again? Jesus.
Cody Voight, VCU ’14.
User avatar
minusfive
Rikku
Posts: 426
Joined: Sun Jul 11, 2010 11:35 pm
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by minusfive »

Cody wrote:How many years have you been in quizbowl again? Jesus.
Is the right answer "since before it was cool?" Anyway, I'm not denying both are viable formats, but it seems to me that one is neither purposefully nor purposely nor client-centeredly dense if they think that no matter how many times A beats B (to use Rob's second example), if they can't beat C there's a problem with just ignoring that.

Having said that, since this issue seems to have been addressed and at least this year will not change (unless there's a love in/sit in planned), could we please address whether any wildcards were awarded, and when a specific qualifications website will go up?
Jordan Palmer, Nick Penner's Hero.

Pass by, and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.
User avatar
Cody
2008-09 Male Athlete of the Year
Posts: 2891
Joined: Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:57 am

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Cody »

minusfive wrote:Is the right answer "since before it was cool?" Anyway, I'm not denying both are viable formats, but it seems to me that one is neither purposefully nor purposely nor client-centeredly dense if they think that no matter how many times A beats B (to use Rob's second example), if they can't beat C there's a problem with just ignoring that.
Except B has never played C, so A losing to C tells you nothing at all about how the teams should be ranked. C could even be better than B in this situation -- look at the loaded teams in 2012 (Michigan, UCSD) that appear in the 2nd bracket in 2012. There isn't a problem with "just ignoring it" because that's the fair thing to do -- the alternative is potentially screwing a team who had a much tougher prelim bracket.
Cody Voight, VCU ’14.
User avatar
Harpie's Feather Duster
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 1117
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2011 11:45 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

odin_envy_me wrote:
Cody wrote:This has no relevance to the bracket prelim/playoff format used in quizbowl. None, zip, zero. The reason it's unfair is extremely obvious, so don't be purposefully dense. If non-common opponents are included, the quality of teams played is different. For example Virginia A's loss to UCSD, among plenty of other examples. Using such games to determine a team's W-L in the final rankings is extremely unfair and goes against pretty much every other tournament format in use in quizbowl.

NAQT should really stop bumbling around and just change this.

How many years have you been in quizbowl again? Jesus.
Not as long as you've been an asshole, is my guess.

Also, *purposely dense.

Hey everyone: don't post like this. Expect a trip to the FZ in your near future.
Dylan Minarik

Hamburger University 'XX
Northwestern '17
Belvidere North High School '13

Member Emeritus, PACE

JRPG Champion, BACK TO BACK Robot Slayer
User avatar
setht
Auron
Posts: 1205
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:41 pm
Location: Columbus, Ohio

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by setht »

I took some time this morning to go through ICT results (DI, top bracket only) for 2009-2014 and examine what would have changed if only the one prelim game against a fellow top-bracket team carried over. For 2010-2014, the changes seem mostly cosmetic (e.g. a team switches from 7th to being tied for 6th); the semi-non-cosmetic changes are that in 2012 Maryland would have been t3rd instead of 4th, and in 2011 Illinois would have been t3rd instead of 5th (this ignores any possible tiebreaker matches that would have resulted).

The big change (as in "could affect the championship") comes in 2009, in which Minnesota would have been t2nd with Illinois instead of 3rd. Presumably this would have triggered a tiebreaker game to get into the finals. On paper, Minnesota looks slightly stronger than Illinois; in their one match in the playoffs, Illinois did beat Minnesota pretty convincingly.

Would someone else be willing to go through ACF Nationals results of the last few years and figure out (and post) how things would change if all prelim matches carried over? I imagine we should skip 2011 since it had an unusual format, but I'd be interested in seeing results for the years with standard "prelim brackets into playoff brackets" set-ups.

Thanks,
-Seth
Seth Teitler
Formerly UC Berkeley and U. Chicago
President of NAQT
Emeritus member of ACF
User avatar
Adventure Temple Trail
Auron
Posts: 2754
Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:52 pm

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

setht wrote: that in 2012 Maryland would have been t3rd instead of 4th
This isn't actually a change, from what I can tell -- Maryland and Yale both went 7-0 in the prelims, then each lost three playoff games; as such, Maryland was T-3rd in reality until Yale won a full-game tiebreaker to determine final standing. Or does something about who each team won and lost to affect something about the overall standing such that Maryland would have guaranteed itself 3rd and bumped Yale to 4th?

In either case, I suspect that "this hasn't actually been a big deal in the past" isn't a great argument when the main gist of Cody's and my objection is that it leaves open possibilities for unfair results in the future, which could be removed by following standard round-robin scheduling practices.
Matt Jackson
University of Chicago '24
Yale '14, Georgetown Day School '10
member emeritus, ACF
User avatar
setht
Auron
Posts: 1205
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:41 pm
Location: Columbus, Ohio

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by setht »

Matthew Jackson wrote:
setht wrote: that in 2012 Maryland would have been t3rd instead of 4th
This isn't actually a change, from what I can tell -- Maryland and Yale both went 7-0 in the prelims, then each lost three playoff games; as such, Maryland was T-3rd in reality until Yale won a full-game tiebreaker to determine final standing. Or does something about who each team won and lost to affect something about the overall standing such that Maryland would have guaranteed itself 3rd and bumped Yale to 4th?
No, you're right about this—I haven't done a good job of checking cases where a tie at the end of the playoffs was broken. If anything, this will slightly reduce the number of cosmetic changes in the results.
Matthew Jackson wrote:In either case, I suspect that "this hasn't actually been a big deal in the past" isn't a great argument when the main gist of Cody's and my objection is that it leaves open possibilities for unfair results in the future, which could be reduced greatly by following standard round-robin scheduling practices.
To be clear, I am not saying "my review shows this hasn't been a big deal for 6 years, therefore there can be no conceivable issue with our format." I do think the 2009 results could be a big deal—the question is whether penalizing Minnesota A for taking a close prelim loss to Harvard B (in a game where Harvard B catches fire and puts up 1/3 of their powers for the full prelims) is worse than throwing out information. I take it that the circuit standard format is predicated on the belief that the loss in throwing out 6 prelim games' worth of information is outweighed by the gain in using only the 7 games played against one's playoff bracket cohort; the NAQT format is predicated on the opposite belief.

I assume we all agree that playing a round-robin with a fixed pool of teams gives better results than playing the same number of matches against non-common pools of opponents. I assume we also all agree that more match data is better than less match data. So the question is, when there's a tension between those two—as there is here—which consideration is more important? If one of the two formats is clearly more prone to bad results (as various people are suggesting), we should be able to see that by looking through old results and comparing the two formats. (Or if someone wants to run a fancy simulation that would also be useful.) I understand that many people are already convinced that the former consideration outweighs the latter one when it comes to choosing whether to throw out 6 prelim games, and perhaps to those people my requests for empirical verification seem like a foolish waste of time. But I hope you'll humor me.

-Seth

p.s. I asked about ACF Nationals results, but we don't even need to confine ourselves to Nationals—if someone wants to look through Regionals or various other events that might also be helpful. But Nationals is probably the best fit since we want tournaments with prelim brackets, higher probabilities of upsets in the prelims, etc.

p.p.s. We'll need to come up with some way of deciding when results under one format look better/fairer than results under another. Presumably the way to do this is by comparing order of finish under format with order of finish by some statistical measure. Perhaps the A-value would work well for (m)ACF tournaments?
Seth Teitler
Formerly UC Berkeley and U. Chicago
President of NAQT
Emeritus member of ACF
User avatar
setht
Auron
Posts: 1205
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:41 pm
Location: Columbus, Ohio

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by setht »

Actually, it occurs to me that it might be useful to go back further.

ACF Nationals 2008 used a format in which all prelim matches—including the match against the other team that made it into the same playoff bracket!—were wiped out. I think we all agree now that that is an overreaction to the "sometimes a wacky upset happens in the prelims, and we don't want that to derail a possible contender" concern. Had there been particularly wacky prelim upsets that year or in the few years prior to 2008 that spurred that format tweak?

-Seth
Seth Teitler
Formerly UC Berkeley and U. Chicago
President of NAQT
Emeritus member of ACF
User avatar
Cody
2008-09 Male Athlete of the Year
Posts: 2891
Joined: Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:57 am

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Cody »

The most infamous example off the top of my head is ACF Nationals 2012. If you keep prelim records, Yale wins outright (no final) and Virginia/Michigan/Penn are tied for 3rd.

And that's with ACF Nationals (a) being way less prone to upsets than NAQT (b) generally having approximately infinity better seeding.

As a side note, the seeding thing is also a big reason to fix the format. Even small errors in seeding get magnified when you carry over non-common prelim games. Given NAQT's horrendous track record with seeding (i.e. "small" is not the adjective for error we're looking for here), it's of critical importance that ICT uses a fairer ranking scheme that doesn't fuck a team for losing to a team that easily makes the top bracket in a different prelim bracket.
Last edited by Cody on Fri Feb 13, 2015 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Cody Voight, VCU ’14.
User avatar
Birdofredum Sawin
Rikku
Posts: 400
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:25 pm
Location: Mountain View

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Birdofredum Sawin »

I didn't want to wade into this, but here goes anyway:

As I understand it, the objection to NAQT's system is that it "unfairly penalizes" teams that dropped one or more games in the prelims to teams that did not do well enough to make the top bracket. However, there is a parallel objection to the "circuit-preferred' system--i.e., that it "unfairly rewards" teams that dropped such games by allowing them to "wipe the slate clean" despite having dropped the ball against such teams. Or, to put it another way, it could be argued that the latter system "unfairly penalizes" teams that didn't "drop the ball" in their prelim brackets.

To my mind, at least, it isn't a priori obvious that one of these systems is more or less "fair" than the other. In the absence of any such apodictic certainty--and in spite of Cody's vitriolic bluster--it seems to me that it does make sense to look for some a posteriori evidence of the superiority of one or the other system. I take it that Seth's post suggests that we look for such evidence by contrasting two counterfactual scenarios (ICT results if we had employed the "circuit-preferred" system; ACF nats if it had employed the NAQT system), which seems reasonable to me.
Andrew

Ex-Virginia, Ex-Chicago, Ex-Stanford
User avatar
Cody
2008-09 Male Athlete of the Year
Posts: 2891
Joined: Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:57 am

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Cody »

Birdofredum Sawin wrote:As I understand it, the objection to NAQT's system is that it "unfairly penalizes" teams that dropped one or more games in the prelims to teams that did not do well enough to make the top bracket. However, there is a parallel objection to the "circuit-preferred' system--i.e., that it "unfairly rewards" teams that dropped such games by allowing them to "wipe the slate clean" despite having dropped the ball against such teams. Or, to put it another way, it could be argued that the latter system "unfairly penalizes" teams that didn't "drop the ball" in their prelim brackets.
It's not about dropping the ball, though. Only carrying over common opponents is the fair way to resolve the fact that playing different teams means you played teams of different strength. All prelim losses & wins are not created equal because prelim brackets aren't equal.
Cody Voight, VCU ’14.
User avatar
Ndg
Rikku
Posts: 387
Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:24 pm
Location: Wisconsin

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Ndg »

From ACF Nationals 2009-2014, the only change I noticed (other than Viginia in 2012, which Cody mentioned) from carrying over all prelim games was in 2009: Instead of Brown, Chicago, and Stanford finishing in a tie for first, Brown and Stanford, each having lost to Chicago B, would finish a game and a half behind Chicago (because of the uneven prelim brackets).

2010, 2013, and 2014 stay the same save for some small changes around 8th place that don't affect UG/DII titles.
Andrew Nadig

Mannhiem Mannheim Manheim Township, 2005-11
Carnegie Mellon University, 2011-15
User avatar
Birdofredum Sawin
Rikku
Posts: 400
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:25 pm
Location: Mountain View

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Birdofredum Sawin »

Much as I enjoy Cody's "argument by emphatic assertion," I don't see how you can just say that "it's not about dropping the ball" as if that's something that never happens. To take the example alluded to just now, my Stanford team did exactly that at ACF nats in 2009--i.e., we lost to a Chicago B team that (no offense to David Seal!) was pretty clearly inferior to ours, but were absolved of our screw-up by a system that washed away our crappy play in that game.

You might want to argue that the fairness-related positives of the "circuit-preferred" system outweigh the fairness-related negatives of that system--but you should be clearer that you are presenting a cost-benefit argument, not an incontrovertibly correct deduction from first principles.
Andrew

Ex-Virginia, Ex-Chicago, Ex-Stanford
User avatar
setht
Auron
Posts: 1205
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:41 pm
Location: Columbus, Ohio

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by setht »

Ndg wrote:From ACF Nationals 2009-2014, the only change I noticed (other than Viginia in 2012, which Cody mentioned) from carrying over all prelim games was in 2009: Instead of Brown, Chicago, and Stanford finishing in a tie for first, Brown and Stanford, each having lost to Chicago B, would finish a game and a half behind Chicago (because of the uneven prelim brackets).
The half-game is from after the playoff round-robin, right? I think we'd want to ignore that for the format comparison. So does that mean that at the end of the playoff round-robin we have:
Circuit Format: Brown, Chicago, Stanford tied for first
NAQT format: Brown and Stanford tied for second, one game behind Chicago

What do the A-values for Brown, Stanford, and Chicago look like (preferably just using prelim/playoff round-robin matches)?

-Seth
Seth Teitler
Formerly UC Berkeley and U. Chicago
President of NAQT
Emeritus member of ACF
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

naqt.com wrote:NAQT believes it has resolved all reported issues with the statistics from its Sectional Championship Tournaments and plans on issuing formal invitations to the Intercollegiate Championship Tournament around 3:30 p.m. CT on Saturday, February 14. Division I and Division II teams should review their records, order of finish, and statistics and notify NAQT at [email protected] if there are any discrepancies.
preliminary Division I D-values

preliminary Division II D-values
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

naqt.com wrote:NAQT is now accepting standby teams for its Intercollegiate Championship Tournament. Schools registering standby teams that later earn invitations to the tournament will have the option to retain the standby team (presumably with different players) or to be dropped from the list (with no penalty).
sign up standby teams: Division I, Division II

current standby list for the 2015 ICT
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

minusfive wrote:could we please address whether any wildcards were awarded, and when a specific qualifications website will go up?
No wildcard bids were awarded for the 2015 ICT. What did you have in mind for a "specific qualifications" page? We expect invitations to be issued tomorrow (Saturday).
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
minusfive
Rikku
Posts: 426
Joined: Sun Jul 11, 2010 11:35 pm
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by minusfive »

bird bird bird bird bird wrote:What did you have in mind for a "specific qualifications" page? We expect invitations to be issued tomorrow (Saturday).
Well, in past years, there has been a webpage with a list of teams invited, with acceptances in green and declining teams in red. I understand this may be being treated as part-and-parcel with invitations going out, but it's technically different since it shows teams when they're "on deck."
Jordan Palmer, Nick Penner's Hero.

Pass by, and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

minusfive wrote:
bird bird bird bird bird wrote:What did you have in mind for a "specific qualifications" page? We expect invitations to be issued tomorrow (Saturday).
Well, in past years, there has been a webpage with a list of teams invited, with acceptances in green and declining teams in red. I understand this may be being treated as part-and-parcel with invitations going out, but it's technically different since it shows teams when they're "on deck."
That's the actual invitation page, which we hope will be available later today. (We don't think it would be very helpful to publish an advance version of that with "here's a list of SCT champions plus [number] of spots to be determined.")
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
minusfive
Rikku
Posts: 426
Joined: Sun Jul 11, 2010 11:35 pm
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by minusfive »

From the NAQT website:
"The issuance of ICT invitations will be delayed due to the discovery that stats for one game were very wrong; despite being only one game, it may affect qualification by D-values. NAQT has contacted the host and will post corrected stats and official invitations as soon as possible (hopefully on Sunday, February 15)."

If it comes to that, the published stats for the Cdn SCT at NAQT.com don't completely jive with the posted stats on hsqb's SQBS page. But surely the vast majority of invites (at least those automatically qualifying) can go out?
Jordan Palmer, Nick Penner's Hero.

Pass by, and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.
User avatar
minusfive
Rikku
Posts: 426
Joined: Sun Jul 11, 2010 11:35 pm
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by minusfive »

minusfive wrote:If it comes to that, the published stats for the Cdn SCT at NAQT.com don't completely jive with the posted stats on hsqb's SQBS page.
My bad; wasn't comparing statistical apples to statistical apples. No mistake in the stats.
Jordan Palmer, Nick Penner's Hero.

Pass by, and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

The statistical error mentioned above has been corrected; we expect to issue invitations in the near future.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
jonpin
Auron
Posts: 2266
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2004 6:45 pm
Location: BCA NJ / WUSTL MO / Hackensack NJ

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by jonpin »

The matter of carrying over non-common games has been an issue since at least 2005, when it directly affected the result of the D-II ICT.
My post-tournament recap of the 2005 ICT wrote:

Code: Select all

Results     C-O H C Wi T M Wa Y S Final RRR Sd
Michigan    6-0 W W W  W X L  W W 12-1  6-1 3
Chicago     6-0 L X W  W L W  W L 10-3  4-3 x
Harding     5-1 X W W  W L L  W W 10-3  5-2 1
Wash U StL  5-1 W L L  L W X  W W  9-4  4-3 6
Swarthmore  4-2 L W W  W L L  W X  8-5  4-3 4
Williams    6-0 L L X  L L W  W L  8-5  2-5 x
Yale        6-0 L L L  W L L  X L  7-6  1-6 5
Tulsa       5-1 L L W  X L W  L L  7-6  2-5 7
C-O is Carryover record, the 6 games against the teams that finished 3-8 in the original bracket. They counted. I don't think they should. Bolded games were played during preliminaries. Final is the total record that mattered. RRR, or Round Robin Record is the 7-game record against other top-bracket teams. This would've had Harding advancing to a final against Michigan, and a playoff for 3rd place, Chicago vs Swat; winner plays us for the trophy. Seed is the pre-tournament seed, as told to me by a winged monkey, though I pretty much guessed them from the schedule anyway.
Chicago beat down Harding to advance to the final, where they unexpectedly upset Michigan twice to win the title. Michigan got its revenge when they beat Chicago for the D1 title.
Jon Pinyan
Coach, Bergen County Academies (NJ); former player for BCA (2000-03) and WUSTL (2003-07)
HSQB forum mod, PACE member
Stat director for: NSC '13-'15, '17; ACF '14, '17, '19; NHBB '13-'15; NASAT '11

"A [...] wizard who controls the weather" - Jerry Vinokurov
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

naqt.com wrote:NAQT has released the first batch of invitations for its 2015 Intercollegiate Championship Tournament. Invited teams have until the end of Friday, February 20, to accept, decline, or extend their invitation.
Invitations

Current ICT field
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
setht
Auron
Posts: 1205
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:41 pm
Location: Columbus, Ohio

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by setht »

jonpin wrote:The matter of carrying over non-common games has been an issue since at least 2005, when it directly affected the result of the D-II ICT.
My post-tournament recap of the 2005 ICT wrote:

Code: Select all

Results     C-O H C Wi T M Wa Y S Final RRR Sd
Michigan    6-0 W W W  W X L  W W 12-1  6-1 3
Chicago     6-0 L X W  W L W  W L 10-3  4-3 x
Harding     5-1 X W W  W L L  W W 10-3  5-2 1
Wash U StL  5-1 W L L  L W X  W W  9-4  4-3 6
Swarthmore  4-2 L W W  W L L  W X  8-5  4-3 4
Williams    6-0 L L X  L L W  W L  8-5  2-5 x
Yale        6-0 L L L  W L L  X L  7-6  1-6 5
Tulsa       5-1 L L W  X L W  L L  7-6  2-5 7
C-O is Carryover record, the 6 games against the teams that finished 3-8 in the original bracket. They counted. I don't think they should. Bolded games were played during preliminaries. Final is the total record that mattered. RRR, or Round Robin Record is the 7-game record against other top-bracket teams. This would've had Harding advancing to a final against Michigan, and a playoff for 3rd place, Chicago vs Swat; winner plays us for the trophy. Seed is the pre-tournament seed, as told to me by a winged monkey, though I pretty much guessed them from the schedule anyway.
Chicago beat down Harding to advance to the final, where they unexpectedly upset Michigan twice to win the title. Michigan got its revenge when they beat Chicago for the D1 title.
Thanks for sharing this, Jon.

I have to say that on the face of it, this example does not seem to lend support to the idea that the best format is to use only RRR rather than prelims + playoffs record. In the case where RRR is used to decide finals match-ups, Chicago doesn't get a crack at the finals. In the case where prelims + playoffs is used, Chicago gets a crack at the finals, but has to beat Harding once and Michigan twice—and they did, when the matches were actually played. That doesn't "prove" that prelims + playoffs is better/more fair than RRR, but this example certainly seems to point more in that direction (favoring the NAQT format) than the reverse (favoring the circuit standard format). You say that Chicago "unexpectedly upset" Michigan (twice); was Chicago clearly the (statistically) weakest team of the Chicago/Harding/Michigan group?

Now that I think of it, it seems like the post-playoff round robin match results from 2009 ACF Nationals also point more toward the NAQT format than the circuit standard format, in the sense that the NAQT format would have favored Chicago over Brown and Stanford, and when matches were actually played, Chicago won out.

I haven't looked at the 2012 ACF Nationals results to see whether what happened in matches played after the playoff round robin lines up better with one format or the other. I also haven't looked at statistical measures for any of these years; perhaps those will line up more with the circuit standard format than the NAQT format. I hope someone else will take a crack at that.

-Seth
Seth Teitler
Formerly UC Berkeley and U. Chicago
President of NAQT
Emeritus member of ACF
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

setht wrote:You say that Chicago "unexpectedly upset" Michigan (twice); was Chicago clearly the (statistically) weakest team of the Chicago/Harding/Michigan group?
Chicago: 6/114/39, 13.58 ppb
Harding: 5/126/11, 13.17 ppb
Michigan: 14/128/40, 15.42 ppb
(stats)
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
jonpin
Auron
Posts: 2266
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2004 6:45 pm
Location: BCA NJ / WUSTL MO / Hackensack NJ

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by jonpin »

bird bird bird bird bird wrote:
setht wrote:You say that Chicago "unexpectedly upset" Michigan (twice); was Chicago clearly the (statistically) weakest team of the Chicago/Harding/Michigan group?
Chicago: 6/114/39, 13.58 ppb
Harding: 5/126/11, 13.17 ppb
Michigan: 14/128/40, 15.42 ppb
(stats)
Yeah, it was more so that Michigan was clearly the statistically strongest of the three teams. The only loss Michigan had suffered in the first 13 rounds of the tournament was to us in a game that I summarized in part as:
Andrew [Brantley] provides info from the stat sheet that Michigan negs a lot. This is true. They neg #2, #3 and #6 while we get six of the first seven with solid bonus conversion to make it 175-(-15). They salvage a brief stay in positive-land by getting Winnie Mandela, but then neg themselves right back out of the game again. Seven negs, five in the first half. The second half sees them getting four straight tossups, but bageling a sports bonus (what is it with these people who don't know sports?), so they never come close.
The game was 210-(-5) at the half and ended 255-115. Stats for the final games aren't on NAQT so I don't know if they negged themselves out of either final game.
Jon Pinyan
Coach, Bergen County Academies (NJ); former player for BCA (2000-03) and WUSTL (2003-07)
HSQB forum mod, PACE member
Stat director for: NSC '13-'15, '17; ACF '14, '17, '19; NHBB '13-'15; NASAT '11

"A [...] wizard who controls the weather" - Jerry Vinokurov
bg0296
Lulu
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:41 pm
Location: Madisonville, TN

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by bg0296 »

I will be attending as a spectator. Does anyone know of a match schedule so that I can know which teams are playing when, or will that be provided at the hotel?
Brad Gandy
Tellico Plains High School (Tellico Plains, TN), Class of 2014
Hiwassee College (Madisonville, TN), Class of 2016
User avatar
Harpie's Feather Duster
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 1117
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2011 11:45 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

bg0296 wrote:I will be attending as a spectator. Does anyone know of a match schedule so that I can know which teams are playing when, or will that be provided at the hotel?
You'll almost certainly be able to either receive one at the hotel or get to take a peek at one belonging to an attending team.
Dylan Minarik

Hamburger University 'XX
Northwestern '17
Belvidere North High School '13

Member Emeritus, PACE

JRPG Champion, BACK TO BACK Robot Slayer
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by jonah »

bg0296 wrote:I will be attending as a spectator. Does anyone know of a match schedule so that I can know which teams are playing when, or will that be provided at the hotel?
I'll post the schedules once team check-in begins on Friday. Shoot me an email at [email protected] if I forget (entirely possible).
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
Ras superfamily
Wakka
Posts: 187
Joined: Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:21 pm

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Ras superfamily »

jonah wrote:I'll post the schedules once team check-in begins on Friday.
That would be nice. I'm curious why this doesn't happen regularly for ACF Nats and ICT. Is it because there isn't much of an at-home following? It seems like high school nationals do get schedules and live results posted.
Saajid Moyen
Penn '15
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by jonah »

Ras superfamily wrote:
jonah wrote:I'll post the schedules once team check-in begins on Friday.
That would be nice. I'm curious why this doesn't happen regularly for ACF Nats and ICT. Is it because there isn't much of an at-home following? It seems like high school nationals do get schedules and live results posted.
(Not speaking for NAQT, but I only have insight into ICT, not ACF Nats.)

Probably some combination of comparatively low interest, not thinking about it, having tons of things to do, exhaustion from completing the set, etc. Not excuses, just explanations.

I think at least one division of ICT will have stats posted throughout the day, but I'm not completely certain.
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
User avatar
grapesmoker
Sin
Posts: 6345
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 5:23 pm
Location: NYC
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by grapesmoker »

Ras superfamily wrote:
jonah wrote:I'll post the schedules once team check-in begins on Friday.
That would be nice. I'm curious why this doesn't happen regularly for ACF Nats and ICT. Is it because there isn't much of an at-home following? It seems like high school nationals do get schedules and live results posted.
Speaking for ACF, it's just not something we're really going to invest time in because there's a bunch of other stuff that demands our attention. You'll get the schedule in the morning, and the folks following along at home, whoever those are, will just have to wait for the results.
Jerry Vinokurov
ex-LJHS, ex-Berkeley, ex-Brown, sorta-ex-CMU
presently: John Jay College Economics
code ape, loud voice, general nuissance
User avatar
Galadedrid Damodred
Wakka
Posts: 157
Joined: Sat May 25, 2013 4:58 pm

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Galadedrid Damodred »

In the course of studying for ICT, I wrote a packet of super-hard (but by no means impossible) history questions that I can read to people in the hotel on Saturday night or Sunday morning if there is enough interest. The packet consists of 21 seven-line tossups without powermarks that follow the distribution of this year's upcoming CO History, although on average I would say they exceed the target difficulty of that tournament (primarily due to my selection of "creative"/"canon-busting" answerlines). Given the nature of the packet, I think a large in-person audience of people who are looking to fill the History Bowl-shaped void in their hearts would result in the most enjoyable experience for everyone. However, I am also open to just reading it on the IRC sometime (which I will probably do regardless).

Apologies to the mods if this post is in the wrong place. I felt it made more sense here than in the Random Packet Announcements thread of the Trash subforum.
Austin Brownlow
Louisville '14, Stanford '16
Rococo A Go Go
Auron
Posts: 2248
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:08 am
Location: Kentucky

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

Galadedrid Damodred wrote:In the course of studying for ICT, I wrote a packet of super-hard (but by no means impossible) history questions that I can read to people in the hotel on Saturday night or Sunday morning if there is enough interest. The packet consists of 21 seven-line tossups without powermarks that follow the distribution of this year's upcoming CO History, although on average I would say they exceed the target difficulty of that tournament (primarily due to my selection of "creative"/"canon-busting" answerlines). Given the nature of the packet, I think a large in-person audience of people who are looking to fill the History Bowl-shaped void in their hearts would result in the most enjoyable experience for everyone. However, I am also open to just reading it on the IRC sometime (which I will probably do regardless).

Apologies to the mods if this post is in the wrong place. I felt it made more sense here than in the Random Packet Announcements thread of the Trash subforum.
This sounds fun, and I'm definitely interested in playing this.
Nicholas C
KQBA member
User avatar
Emperor Pupienus
Wakka
Posts: 100
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 1:53 pm

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Emperor Pupienus »

Galadedrid Damodred wrote:In the course of studying for ICT, I wrote a packet of super-hard (but by no means impossible) history questions that I can read to people in the hotel on Saturday night or Sunday morning if there is enough interest. The packet consists of 21 seven-line tossups without powermarks that follow the distribution of this year's upcoming CO History, although on average I would say they exceed the target difficulty of that tournament (primarily due to my selection of "creative"/"canon-busting" answerlines). Given the nature of the packet, I think a large in-person audience of people who are looking to fill the History Bowl-shaped void in their hearts would result in the most enjoyable experience for everyone. However, I am also open to just reading it on the IRC sometime (which I will probably do regardless).

Apologies to the mods if this post is in the wrong place. I felt it made more sense here than in the Random Packet Announcements thread of the Trash subforum.
I would play this!
Jason Z.
Nichols School '14
University of Chicago '18

Food or not food?
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2015 NAQT ICT: March 28, Atlanta

Post by Important Bird Area »

Please note that MARTA is conducting track renovation this weekend. Train service will be less frequent than the usual schedule.

Details here
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
Locked