Princeton HS Tournament (10/20/07) at Princeton, NJ

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Princeton HS Tournament (10/20/07) at Princeton, NJ

Post by EricCohen »

Princeton College Bowl is glad to announce its 15th annual High School Academic Tournament. It will be held on Saturday, October 20th, 2007 at Princeton University.

We will be using NAQT Invitational Series questions in untimed NAQT format (20 tossups and bonuses). The preliminary rounds will be bracketed round robin, with a split into double-elimination playoffs with the top 4 teams from each bracket.

We are accepting the first 56 teams to register, with a 3 team per school limit. Any school wishing to register more than 4 teams will have any team after the third placed on a waiting list. If there is enough demand, we will expand the tournament field to 64 teams.

Fees will be:
$100 for the first team from a school.
$80 for each additional team
-$10 Discount per Buzzer System

There is a maximum discount of $50 per school. Any travel discounts can be discussed with me.

For additional questions or registration, please contact me at [email protected].

Hope to see you in October!

Eric Cohen, Treasurer of Princeton College Bowl
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Post by gonzagaeagleahy »

Do you know which set will be used?
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Post by EricCohen »

NAQT has tentatively assigned the Princeton HS Tournament set IS-70.
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Post by EricCohen »

Just an update...

NAQT has confirmed that we will be using IS-70. Also, the playoff rounds will most likely be single elimination, rather than double elimination.
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Post by EricCohen »

If you would like to reserve a spot in the tournament, please send me an email ([email protected]), telling me how many teams and buzzers your school wants to bring. Official registration forms will be sent out shortly.
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Post by Jackson_Raj »

Are there any spots left in the tournament? I think my team would be pretty interested in going, since it's relatively close (going to a prep school in NJ now)
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Post by EricCohen »

There are still plenty of spots left in the tournament, but please register soon if you would like to come to the tournament.

If you or anybody else needs a registration form, please email me at [email protected].
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Post by EricCohen »

Hello Everyone-

I just wanted to send everyone another message as a reminder that the Princeton high school tournament is only about 3 weeks away. The tournament is on October 20, on the Princeton University Campus. There is still plenty of space left in the tournament, but please let us know as soon as you can if you plan to come to the tournament. I am setting a registration deadline of Saturday, October 13 (one week before the tournament). Teams registering after 10/13 will be charged a $30 late fee due to the extreme inconvenience of adjusting all the schedules to accommodate the new teams.

Some new information to keep in mind: We would like teams to arrive at around 8:00 AM so we can hopefully start before 9 AM. The tournament will be held in McCosh, Frist, and Jones (connected to Frist), but until we get the complete list of teams I can't assign a meeting place in the morning for sure, but it will most likely be in McCosh 10.

Here is a list of the schools who have reserved slots, or have registered so far:
Millburn
East Hampton
State College
Bloomfield
Woodbridge
Seton Hall Prep
Charter
Rutgers Prep
Delbarton
Stuyvesant
Colonia
Kellenberg
St. Peter's Prep
Bergen Academy
Gonzaga
High Technology
M.A.S.T.


Hopefully, we will get an additional 10-15 schools to register before tournament day. If you know of schools that have interest in coming to the tournament, but are not on this list, please forward this email to them. Also, if you should be on this list (you've registered or reserved a spot) and you don't see your school, please contact me immediately at [email protected].

If you would like to register, but do not have a form, just send me an email with your school name, coach's name, a contact phone number, a contact email address, the number of teams you would like to bring, and the number of buzzers you can bring ($10 discount per buzzer system). That is sufficient, and I can just fill out a registration form for you with the information sent to me.


Thanks,

Eric Cohen
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Post by EricCohen »

Just wanted to give everyone another update. We still have space left in the tournament! The registration deadline is October 13, in one week. Please email me ([email protected]) with your information to register.
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Post by The Atom Strikes! »

Just curious- is Whitman coming to this tournament?
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Post by Gonzagapuma1 »

SwissBoy wrote:Just curious- is Whitman coming to this tournament?
I think so.
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Post by Stat Boy »

We'll be sending two teams.
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Post by Sir Thopas »

nvm, delete
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Post by EricCohen »

sorry, ignore this (the site is sporadically going offline)
Last edited by EricCohen on Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by EricCohen »

I just wanted to give everyone an update of the field. If there are any errors, please let me know. We're still waiting on a few schools to get back to us regarding the number of teams they are bringing, but this is what we have so far.

Millburn x2
East Hampton x2
State College x2
Bloomfield
Woodbridge
Seton Hall Prep
Charter x6
Rutgers Prep
Delbarton
Stuyvesant x3
Colonia
Kellenberg x2
St. Peter's Prep x2
Bergen Academy x2
East Brunswick
Gonzaga
High Tech x2
MAST x2
Walt Whitman x2
Moravian Academy
Pennsbury
JP Stevens x2
Livingston x2
Archbishop Spalding x2
Hunter College
Pingry

We still have quite a few spots left (that adds up to 45), and we're going to keep accepting teams until the registration deadline has passed (after Oct. 13), or until we hit 64 teams.

Thanks,

Eric
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Post by TheCzarMan »

The day has come. Hopefully we show up and place repectfully using only 2 A teamers and 2 freshman (Promptly curses out band and PSAT's).
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Post by TheCzarMan »

Oh dear god that was horrendous. I am never going with 2 freshman again on A team. Having to have me and my math guy carry the team sucked.

Charter A was steamrolling people (Beat us 680-40) and were #1 in the playoffs before we left, Stuyvesant 2, State College 3, Walt Whitman 4.
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Post by Sir Thopas »

Final results:

Whitman
Gonzaga
Stuy
Charter A

God, these questions were . . . yeah. There were literally 5 or 6 buzzer races ON THE LEAD-IN during the quarterfinals between us and Stuy. Similar in the finals. Once someone refused to accept the extra 5 points for moral reasons. Easy lead-ins, crazy long powers. Not a good combination.
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Post by The Atom Strikes! »

I agree that the questions were somewhat sub-standard for NAQT. However, I think that today Whitman won by being the best team in the field. They played against us magnificently in the semifinals. Also, of the two Princeton tournaments that I've been too, this was definitely the better-run one. The moderation was all in good comprehensibility, and the playoffs were determined in a reasonable amount of time without any errors in seeding- it was generally well-run.
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Post by STPickrell »

Is it the questions being substandard, or the players just being that good? Seriously, these questions have to be answerable all across the country so they might seem a bit easier for some of the top 25-30 teams in the country.

All this is more argument for NAQT to create "C" series matches for high-powered tournaments. On the other hand, I'm not sure if the weaker MoCo and Northern VA teams would enjoy those ...
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Post by Sir Thopas »

STPickrell wrote:Is it the questions being substandard, or the players just being that good? Seriously, these questions have to be answerable all across the country so they might seem a bit easier for some of the top 25-30 teams in the country.

All this is more argument for NAQT to create "C" series matches for high-powered tournaments. On the other hand, I'm not sure if the weaker MoCo and Northern VA teams would enjoy those ...
If only I were at liberty to discuss, your mind would be blown by some of the stuff worth fifteen points. And other questions in general.
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Post by btressler »

Full playoff bracket with scores that I had (and if it's wrong blame the person that told me):

(1) Charter A 420 over (16) Pingry A 100
(8) State College B 235 over (9) Charter E 100
(5) Seton Hall over (12) Livingston A
(4) Whitman A 380 over (13) Kellenberg A 150
(3) State College A 250 over (14) Whitman B 210
(6) Gonzaga 335 over (11) Charter C 180
(7) Hunter over (10) East Brunswick
(2) Stuyvesant 535 over (15) Charter B 85

Quarters:
(1) Charter A 485 over (8) State College B 135
(4) Whitman A 585 over (5) Seton Hall 70
(6) Gonzaga over (3) State College A
(2) Stuyvesant 515 over (7) Hunter 180

Semis:
(4) Whitman A 495 over (1) Charter A 155
(6) Gonzaga 365 over (2) Stuyvesant A 205

Third Place:
(2) Stuyvesant 400 over (1) Charter A 275

Final:
(4) Whitman A over (6) Gonzaga


On balance, this tournament was an IMMENSE improvement over other years. I'm at home at 9:30. There were other years where the tournament was still going at 9:30.

My only quibble was the brackets were not of equal strength. Let me preempt this now: Charter E went 6-1 because that group was weak, not because I moved a stronger team into that spot, or switched my players, or bribed the moderators, or did anything else. If I had to guess, Princeton thought they were seeding Livingston as the 2nd best after Whitman. By comparison, Charter B had a group that included Kellenberg, Pingry, and Gonzaga. Father Meehan and I both thought that was too many decent teams in one group.

I do agree that when it got down to quarters, we are talking about teams that could probably handle harder questions. But for the rest of the field, I thought difficulty was just fine.

Congrats to Whitman.
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Post by btressler »

Oh, and I will mention that the repeats in this set were annoying.

The round where every second question was about <a certain area> comes to mind.

EDIT: fine. But I didn't really give away any answers.
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Post by The Atom Strikes! »

Stat74 wrote:Oh, and I will mention that the repeats in this set were annoying.

The round where every second question was about ------ comes to mind.
Y'know, you're not supposed to talk about a set's questions before all the tournaments running on that set are over.
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Post by gonzagaeagleahy »

Stat74 wrote:Oh, and I will mention that the repeats in this set were annoying.

The round where every second question was about <a certain area> comes to mind.

EDIT: fine. But I didn't really give away any answers.
I really didn't see a problem with repeats. Maybe only once but it wasn't really a problem cuz it was of a different context.

It seemed to me a bunch of the questions in the first few games of the prelims were harder than normal naqt level and the difficulty slimmed as the packets went further.
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Post by Megalomaniacal Panda on Absinthe »

metsfan001 wrote:Once someone refused to accept the extra 5 points for moral reasons. Easy lead-ins, crazy long powers.
If only I could tell everyone what it was I was objecting to, because, as Guy says, your mind would be blown. I think I powered six questions in that final round, at least two of which I was somewhat ashamed of. It wasn't an isolated incident. There were questions with absurdly long power marks and extremely transparent lead ins in every packet. The former isn't all that much of a problem; five points here or there is pretty unlikely to make a quantitative difference, though the contribution that powering a tossup makes to morale certainly isn't negligible. But what makes NAQT so terrible at demarcating between good teams is that not only are there frequently transparent lead ins and long power marks, or that there are lots of repeats (this is probably true of EFT 2, as well, and that doesn't make it any less of a quality set) but that the subject distribution is ridiculous, and that the answer selection often displays a bewildering lack of discretion.

And Swissboy, thanks for the praise, you're being far more gracious in defeat than my teammates were last weekend at TJ. I think that, even were we the best team there, or the best team at TJ (both propositions I think are not easily defensible) or any other tournament, NAQT would be an abysmal method of arbitration. The fact that you thoroughly beat us last weekend indicates how random these sets can be, how completely out of touch with (or indifferent towards) higher level high school teams NAQT is. When both victory and defeat are leaving an acrid taste in my mouth, I suspect the question vendor. As I said after our match, I would love to play you guys on ACF questions (or something that is pyramidal and is not NAQT), because I think we're pretty evenly matched teams and that such a competition would probably be more satisfactory to both sides.

All that said, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Say what I may about NAQT, I got to answer a solid bonus about my favorite poet and his works, power a tossup on one of my favorite composers, etc, etc, and this is generally a pretty big improvement over local speed formats. The Princeton staff did a really excellent job. I liked all of my moderators, the tournament was efficient and orderly, I got home by a pretty reasonable hour, all things considered, and generally had a good time. Props to Eric Cohen and crew.
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Post by btressler »

Having thought about this some more, I think you've persuaded me.

Keep in mind we are talking about the very top teams in the nation. NAQT is marketing to several thousand. Certainly I find the level A's appropriate for most Delaware teams, and the level 2's appropriate for teams similar to Charter B and Charter C.

Perhaps it's time for us to consider having tournaments during the year where a bracket (or even the tournament) is invitation only. Imagine a Clash of the Titans where we put together 10 or 12 of the best on an ACFish mirror that we collectively agree not to see beforehand. Keeping it to 10 or 12 would allow a round robin.

I'm talking about something even more selective than a bracket for "teams that have qualified to nationals".

I bet finding a date would be a nightmare, see Chris' efforts for his tournament. But it's just a thought.
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Post by First Chairman »

I have split Evan's response to Theory so we can keep this thread on the Princeton tournament as a topic.
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Post by The Atom Strikes! »

gonzagaeagleahy wrote:
Stat74 wrote:Oh, and I will mention that the repeats in this set were annoying.

The round where every second question was about <a certain area> comes to mind.

EDIT: fine. But I didn't really give away any answers.
I really didn't see a problem with repeats. Maybe only once but it wasn't really a problem cuz it was of a different context.

It seemed to me a bunch of the questions in the first few games of the prelims were harder than normal naqt level and the difficulty slimmed as the packets went further.
I noticed the same. We also played worse as the day went on, but that may have more to do with post-caffination crash and tougher opponents.
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Post by First Chairman »

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