Academic Competition Newsletter Volume IX issue 6 editor in chief: Gaius Stern 6 April 2003 Hello to all subscribers. This may be something of a short issue, but it has tons of items to cover. In all likelihood there will be another issue (9.7) in late April to get to whatever I fail to cover here. I am not really sure what number issue this is, so I need to figure that out and one day send a brief update on which issue ran each month. At the end of the year the Berkeley webpage might put them all up with their correct numbering. Alos in this issue I had planned to insert some ACF regionals information, but did not get this done. Next time. The May issue should be the last of the year. If you are currently not getting this newsletter and wish to - or conversely do not want it any longer - just drop me a line. There were requests last month and I hope I took care of them. If not just mail me again and I will handle it this time. On to the contents. This issue contains: NAQT Nationals report results from Mich. Auspicious Incident BAAL creates west coast HS quizbowl season New Tournament Format New Buzzers ------------------------------------ CHICAGO WINS ITS FOURTH ICT TITLE at NAQT Subash M. led teammates Matt R, Peter O, and Susan F to victory over CAL_Berkeley in the 7th NAQT ICT, this year held at UCLA. The Berkeley A of Jeff H, David F, Nick M, and Jon P emerged from the preliminaries with a one game disadvantage in the 2/3 championship series which ended when Chicago won the rematch, 605-225. This is Chicago's 4th such ICT victory. Given the great size of the event, NAQT ran a very successful tournament. Eric Hillemann said that this was the first year NAQT had been able to provide a moderator and scorekeeper in every room. The few problems with late starting matches were generally the fault of sleepy participants, not NAQT. Problems were kept to a minimum, although there was a bit of confusion between Selma and Patty Bouvier (Simpsons). The determination of the finalists was a delicate matter, handled with professionalism by all participants. A protest in the very close match between Berkeley A and Michigan A remained unresolved for some time. At length it was decided not to replay merely a tiebreaker, but a whole new game. Berkeley won this match and faced Chicago. Harvard won the Undergraduate title by knocking off Cal-Berkeley B 335-180 while the Division II title went to Cal-Berkeley, who defeated Valencia Community College 350-250 in the final. Valencia CC did capture their second consecutive Community College championship. Full results and statistics will be available soon. Finally there was some discussion over the new ranking system devised, whereby MD topped Mich. for the #3 position although the two teams did not play (Michigan had a harder schedule in the play-offs). NAQT explained the new ranking system before the contest, so no one disputed its employment. The top teams (from Matt Bruce): 1. Chicago (undefeated) 6. Michigan B 2. Berkeley A 7. *Harvard * = undergrad 3. Maryland 8. Berkeley C 4. Michigan A 9. Stanford A 5. Yale A 10. Cornell 17. UCLA, 20. Texas A&M 22. *Stanford B 24. *Caltech 27. Wisconsin 28. *Missouri 30. *DePauw 31. *Simon Fraser WEST COAST WINS MICHIGAN AUSPICIOUS INCIDENT A hybrid team from Stanford and Berkeley of Joon P, Rag B, Seth T, and Jeff H participated in the U-Mich ACF-style event at Ann Arbor and defeated the field to win the glory. Participants were Michigan (+an Illinois player), Chicago, Kentucky, Iowa State + Wesley M, Yale, and Michigan B. In preparation for ACF Nats, the questions were made to challenge players. Seth T. describes them as well written and more difficult than most, but fair and challenging. He also says the contest was a very friendly event at which teams mixed for lunch. After losing to the West Coast at this contest, Chicago exerted itself mightily for Nationals. The pay-off can be witnessed at NAQT. BAAL CREATES San Fran HS QUIZBOWL SEASON Can you run HS quizbowl on a weeknight? BAAL (Bay Area Academic League) says yes. BAAL is now running the first season of year-long quizbowl which runs from October to May with weekly matches for the participating 24 teams. Each week four of the teams compete in three matches. Points are awarded for net standing, so BAAL points matte more than points earned in each match. The next week four new teams arrive and play, untilt he entire field of 24 have played. Then pittings are rearranged and start anew for three full cycles. This first year 28 teams expressed an interest, but four cancelled out. There was a great deal of difficulty persuading some coaches that they only attend once every 6 weeks. Many thought they were expected every week and refused to participate at first, but later once they understood, rejoined. When cycle 3 ended, BAAL advanced the top 12 teams. Six of them will pass to the semi-finals, and the top 3 will play for the championship. Obviously this takes a long time to work out with one match every week - 24 weeks in all not counting vacations. The effect is a full years season for the activity. One hopes this will soon life quizbowl to become a locally recognized sport for HS students. USE SEMI-SWISS PAIRING TOURNAMENT to AVOID ROUTS In March, BAAL ran a 14 team HS event with two innovations designed to reduce the frequency of 400-50 landslides where a stronger team crushes a newer one and discourages (new) players from returning. The tournament ran in concert with Charlie Steinhice's U-Tenn-Chat event in the question consortium. The Semi-Swiss format ran as follows. BAAL divided the 14 participating teams into two pools of 7 which played within for four matches before lunch. It is the local consensus that 7-8 rounds is proper for a HS contest. During lunch, BAAL scheduled the remaining four matches between like-record teams avoiding re-plays as often as possible. For the final match it was understood that 4 teams might be repitted at the last moment. When it became clear who were the top two teams at the end of Round 7, they advanced to a 2/3 final counting their earlier match-up as first in the series. Everyone else played round 8 (unless they wanted to watch). This new format had two virtues. First, no team could advance to the finals by playing an easier bracket. Secondly, since teams continually played other teams of equal ability, it made the contest very exciting with many close games and fewer landslides. Of 14 teams, the winner was 8-0, two were 6-2, and a very large number were 5-3. 4-4 and 3-5 with a very good bell curve. There were far fewer discouraging routs for the newer, weaker teams. The size of the tournament may have been perfect for this format. It would have taken considerably longer to schedule a 20 team tournament over lunchtime. BAAL included one other mechanism to keep scores lower. After observing that weak teams did not score a lot of bonus points (which is where strong teams rack up the score), BAAL decided to employ part of an old format used at the 1991 and 1992 Emory Juniorbird. Teams must score 2 TUs in a row to earn a bonus. This meant a far greater ratio of points per game came from TUs. It also kept scores closer, even allowing a number of games of 130-95 where the teams traded TUS back and forth. These closer matches were more exciting for participants, and also reduced the great point swings that a single question can inflict. BAAL invites other quizbowl organizations with divinely inspired acronyms to copy its policies or visit its website at www.geocities.com/quizbaal NEW BUZZERS The ACN takes as part of its mission the sharing of information about buzzer systems. In recent months I have come over what I think are two new systems. The first may have once received coverage in the ACN in a former issue. I was not sure, so I included it here. The system is called Scholar Master and it is built by Jennings Inc in Clay Center, KS. Their flier says this machine fits 10 players. When a player pushed their hand held buzzers button, their individual light (and a sound) goes on, locking out the other team. The bonus option allows the moderator to turn on the lights of the entire team during a bonus which shows the audience who has received the bonus (and locks out any over eager opponent who wants to buzz illegally on the bonus). It is available in a suitcase carrying case. The unit costs $399. There might be a shipping charge. Their phone is 1-800-247-7698. Steve Kirkman is now designing a new buzzer system for up to 20 players with individual lights in front of each player. This system will have team and individual mode and tell who signalled 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. More details on this system in the next issue. ----------------