JV tournament at Maggie Walker: April 26, 2008

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

the brackets will be named "Dabney" and "Carr"

I thought they were going to be "Dabney" and "Jefferson"... We are at least letting Quint name the brackets after himself. Anyway, as we stand now with 16 teams, we're looking to do a 7-round round robin within each bracket, with the winner of each bracket advancing to the finals. At this point round 8 will likely be optional for the teams other than the top 2; if you can find an opponent willing to scrimmage, we'll have a reader. however, if the people bringing buzzers wish to leave, we can't guarantee buzzers for scrimmages taking place during round 8.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

What happens if there are two teams in one bracket tied in record for the top spot (say, 2 teams go 6-1).

[TheCzarMan]

What happens if there are two teams in one bracket tied in record for the top spot (say, 2 teams go 6-1).

I assume H2H.

[jbarnes112358]

What happens if there are two teams in one bracket tied in record for the top spot (say, 2 teams go 6-1).

We plan to break ties with points per game, which we believe is better than H2H. Unfortunately, we do not have enough questions to playoff such ties.

[MLWMathStar]

Thank you to all teams for coming. From my angle the tournament seemed to run okay. Prelim results have been posted:

http://www.geocities.com/mlwgsbob/HAVOC ... dings.html

The one game finals was between bracket winners Collegiate A and Freeman. Freeman won the game and the tournament. I believe the score was 245-115.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

Thank you to everyone who came out and supported this tournament, as well as those teams who are buying questions who were unable to attend. Some of the teams in attendance had never gone to a tournament before, and I'm glad we were able to provide this experience for them as well as for the other inexperienced teams who came. Bonus conversion was lower than we expected, and we may or not have actually achieved the difficulty level we were shooting for, but hopefully teams were able to learn something, as we stuck to canonical information.

As for the teams who bought questions but didn't attend, we're going to try to send electronic copies as soon as possible; some of the files still need to be located/put together to reflect final changes. As a student, I am not authorized to deal with financial stuff, so you should email Dr. Barnes at jbarnes AT gsgis DOT k12 DOT va DOT us with any payment concerns.

Unimportant Edit: 200th post!

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

I dunno, looking at your stats the bonus conversion seems mostly ideal, with one team breaking 20 and the top teams hovering a little below that, and then the rest ranging down to below 10. Maybe you could have used some slightly easier parts, but when it's a tournament that these schools haven't been to and is geared towards inexperienced players, teams not knowing basic things is going to be par for the course.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

I dunno, looking at your stats the bonus conversion seems mostly ideal, with one team breaking 20 and the top teams hovering a little below that, and then the rest ranging down to below 10. Maybe you could have used some slightly easier parts, but when it's a tournament that these schools haven't been to and is geared towards inexperienced players, teams not knowing basic things is going to be par for the course.

The last bonus conversion stats I'd seen were evidently not current, as those final ones look a lot better. After the first 3 or 4 rounds a lot of the teams were in the 3-10 P/B range.

[intothenegs]

This was a very well-run tournament. Good job Sarah!

Distribution seemed to be slightly (or more than slightly) skewed towards fine arts and music (not that I minded). I don't know what the math/science distribution was, but it seemed a bit low. It also seemed that bonuses would be followed up with tossups on the same subject many times; a bonus about Hooke's Law was followed with a tossup on elasticity.

The brackets seemed a bit uneven; the bracket with Freeman and St. Christopher's seemed a bit more loaded. But still well run, the questions were for the most part really good.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

This was a very well-run tournament. Good job Sarah!

Distribution seemed to be slightly (or more than slightly) skewed towards fine arts and music (not that I minded). I don't know what the math/science distribution was, but it seemed a bit low. It also seemed that bonuses would be followed up with tossups on the same subject many times; a bonus about Hooke's Law was followed with a tossup on elasticity.

The brackets seemed a bit uneven; the bracket with Freeman and St. Christopher's seemed a bit more loaded. But still well run, the questions were for the most part really good.

I think the random sorting we use within each round may have contributed to this, as well as the fact that our distribution does not match NAQT's. This was run with roughly the same distribution as GSAC: 4/4 science, 4/4 lit, 4/4 history, 2/2 art, 1/1 pop culture, 1/1 math theory, 1/1 music, 1/1 government, 1/1 RMP, 1/1 geography, and 1/1 "other" which included some econ, current events, psychology, and architecture. NAQT lumps RMP (religion/mythology/philosophy) in with lit and generally has about 2 math per round, as well as very little music. Our team doesn't agree with this distribution, and so far as I know, has never practiced it. I probably should have made this clear in light of some of the teams coming having not attended GSAC. As far as the TU/B overlap goes, we had a lot of games (I don't know if this applies to your team specifically, but as a general observation), in which the reader would only reach bonus 13. This makes it impossible to guarantee that that kind of overlap doesn't happen. Nevertheless, sorry about that.

As for the brackets, we didn't know enough about a lot of the teams to completely balance them. Dr. Barnes had wanted to switch you with St. Gertrude, but Palmer (who made the schedules) was not aware of the reasoning behind that and thus decided no change was warranted. In light of both that and your team's stats, I strongly recommend applying for a wildcard bid at PACE NSC, especially since it will be in northern VA this year.

[jbarnes112358]

The brackets seemed a bit uneven; the bracket with Freeman and St. Christopher's seemed a bit more loaded. But still well run, the questions were for the most part really good.

As it turned out, the brackets were probably a bit uneven in that your bracket appeared to have the two best teams when you look at the stats. It was hard to predict how good teams were going to be ahead of time, as we knew some teams were not bringing their usual players and some of the teams we have not seen very much this year. We toyed with several possible brackets before determining that we had them even.

Ideally, if we had more time we could have written another round and had a four team playoff. We decided to use our format to give more teams more playing time.

James Monroe was statistically the strongest team in the field but was upset by a Freeman team that was playing well despite being short-handed. Kevin was superb on these questions. Freeman deserves congratulations for their undefeated championship. Chuhern of James Monroe's team was beastly with an average of 100 pts per game.

If James Monroe decides to apply for a wildcard berth at PACE NSC, I would recommend them as being worthy of consideration.

I hope all the teams had fun and found the experience helpful in developing their skills. Some of the teams were playing their first quizbowl ever. For example, one team just formed a couple of days ago. On the other hand some of the more seasoned teams made strong showings and proved that all their practicing and hard work are paying dividends.

Sarah and Cameron did an awesome job pulling this tournament together in a relatively short time. This was one of the smoothest run MLWGS tournament ever. The questions were nicely written with few errors. Nice job everyone.

Next year we should advertise our distribution so there will be no surprises.

[MLWMathStar]

As for the brackets, we didn't know enough about a lot of the teams to completely balance them. Dr. Barnes had wanted to switch you with St. Gertrude, but Palmer (who made the schedules) was not aware of the reasoning behind that and thus decided no change was warranted. In light of both that and your team's stats, I strongly recommend applying for a wildcard bid at PACE NSC, especially since it will be in northern VA this year.

It was actually me that suggested that switch, but then on reexamining the brackets that night I decided it wasn't a good idea. There were several teams whose strength I did not estimate correctly that led to this error. I apologize for loading that bracket.

[jbarnes112358]

The one game finals was between bracket winners Collegiate A and Freeman. Freeman won the game and the tournament. I believe the score was 245-115.

For those readers who are wondering why Collegiate A was competing since we closed the tournament to teams already qualified for nationals, let the record show that this was not Collegiate's real A team, but more like their usual B team.

I am not sure if Freeman had yet qualified for nationals, but this win qualifies them for PACE NSC. They, too, were not playing with their usual team, though their super soph Kevin was there. Both of these teams seem to have nuclei for strong teams for the next couple of years.

Chuhern of James Monroe is a junior.

[Sir Thopas]

Chuhern of James Monroe is a junior.

what

[jbarnes112358]

Chuhern of James Monroe is a junior.

what

Chuhern, the player mentioned in an earlier post, was the high scorer of our tournament, with an average of 100 points per game. He is a junior, and hence James Monroe will likely be good again next year.

[intothenegs]

Chuhern, the player mentioned in an earlier post, was the high scorer of our tournament, with an average of 100 points per game. He is a junior, and hence James Monroe will likely be good again next year.

Our entire team will be returning next year.

[Sir Thopas]

Chuhern of James Monroe is a junior.

what

Chuhern, the player mentioned in an earlier post, was the high scorer of our tournament, with an average of 100 points per game. He is a junior, and hence James Monroe will likely be good again next year.

No, I get that, but I thought that juniors in a JV tournament was frowned upon.

(EDIT: Never mind, I read the first post of the thread. My apologies.)

[jbarnes112358]

Chuhern, the player mentioned in an earlier post, was the high scorer of our tournament, with an average of 100 points per game. He is a junior, and hence James Monroe will likely be good again next year.

Our entire team will be returning next year.

All the better... I'm sure you are about that.

[jbarnes112358]

No, I get that, but I thought that juniors in a JV tournament was frowned upon.

(EDIT: Never mind, I read the first post of the thread. My apologies.)

Yeah. we were not really a JV tournament, per se. We were basically like our fall GSAC but without the proven national powers, and with slightly easier questions. The questions ended up having a difficulty somewhere between NAQT A and NAQT regular, but with a distribution more similar to PACE than NAQT.

I believe your team is planning on purchasing the questions. Your seasoned players will probably find most of them to be on the easy side. But, your developing players should find them sufficiently challenging. We would welcome your feedback once you read them.

EDIT: If anyone else wants to order the eight rounds of questions for $10, email me at jbarnes "at" gsgis "dot" k12 "dot" va "dot" us

[Sir Thopas]

I believe your team is planning on purchasing the questions. Your seasoned players will probably find most of them to be on the easy side. But, your developing players should find them sufficiently challenging. We would welcome your feedback once you read them.

Yeah, we will purchase the questions and use them for good development, thanks!

[jbarnes112358]

Yeah, we will purchase the questions and use them for good development, thanks!

Thanks. Send me an e-mail and I will e-mail the question files to you.

( note: I had a character wrong in my above e-mail address that I edited. So, the address should now be correct with the obvious translation into proper format.)