Rein Otsason

[everdiso]

I am heartbroken to announce the passing of Rein Otsason at the age of 29 in an accident this Christmas.

As many of you know, Rein was a central member of the Canadian trivia community for many years, participating in all sorts of formats, including quizbowl. Though he never bragged about it (and never voted in player polls because he felt uncomfortable ranking himself against others), Rein was clearly proud of his quizbowl ability, and he should've been. For my entire time in the game, he was universally considered the best science player in the country and one of the top players overall. Rein was extremely passionate about math, physics, philosophy and many other interests, and quizbowl was a perfect avenue for him to enjoy these passions. His understanding of those topics was legendary, and we all saw him half-line many difficult tossups and then mutter some remark to himself about how he would describe the complex scientific process in question slightly differently from the scientist being quoted. His sometimes-overeager buzzing and frequent negging was also legendary, yet he was a great sport about constantly being made fun of for it. (He was a great sport about everything his friends poked fun at him for, come to think of it.)

Besides his excellent playing, Rein was also a frequent staffer, and was often thought of as the best reader on the circuit, with his clear voice, steady pace, and full knowledge of the rules. Rein was a very generous person who often staffed events that he would have liked to play in order to help make sure they could run. He continued to do this right up until recent months, staffing several local trivia tournaments for us this fall.

Having played many of my tournaments with him, I can recall that Rein was one of my favourite ever teammates. He put a great deal of pressure on himself but not on the rest of his team, and playing with him was a pleasure every time I got to do it, whether in massive academic tournaments or local pop culture side events. I am very grateful that I finally got to play a Chicago Open with him last summer (and very thankful to him for bailing our team out after our train home got cancelled by driving us home, including making a long detour to St. Catharines for two of our group!), but it is very sad to think that I will never get to play anything with him again. My memories of goofing around with him at practices are far too numerous to post, but suffice it to say that he was an absolutely central member of the trivia community in our generation, and became close friends away from the game with me and many other members. We miss him very badly and life will not be the same without him in it.

I know Rein didn't play in America very often, but if anyone has memories of him i would encourage them to post them here. All in all, he was probably the most remarkable person I've ever known, and we don't want that to be forgotten.

[Dantooine is Big!]

This is heartbreaking. My condolences to his loved ones. I hadn't had a ton of experiences talking to Rein, but I have a very distinct memory of the times I saw him around, which was probably when I'm guessing most others in the US quizbowl community met him: at Chicago Open, which is when I saw him around from 2016-18 as well as this past year. Back in the '16-18 years, I associated him closely with the Jay Misuk/Joe Su/Derek So/Aayush crowd of Canadians. I won't pretend to have known him well at all, and I don't even think I ever really had any sort of involved conversation with him. I do remember interacting in bits through the tournament setting (I was staffing for most of this) and seeing him with the Canadians, being all goofy and such. Even then, he had a strong impression on me, and it felt like he was a big part of Canadian quizbowl being a real community that cared about each other. He seemed like a good guy, and I think it was good to have had him around.

[Cheynem]

I didn't know Rein very well, but this is obviously very devastating. I always thought he was an underrated science (and all-around) player--he played the last CO and put up fine numbers. He was a high neg player, which in the games I played him, always led to amusement as to what his buzzes would be.

My condolences to his friends and family.

[bmcke]

Rein was always a fun guy to talk to. A random memory, he buzzed a question about chiropractors and I asked him what was that about. He gave a very funny explanation of what chiropractic actually is and why the department of Veterans Affairs has to pay for it. It was a really nice quick lesson, friendly and interesting and a little cynical.

I'm going to miss having him around, and my thoughts are with all the Toronto people who knew him best. Thanks to Paul for sharing the news.