Monday 31 October 2016

MacIntro II Recap - Stepping Up to the Buzzer

As teams unpack their buzzers and open up their brains, quizbowl season has begun once again. Early tournaments spring up and offer a fun and competitive environment for highschoolers to see what they have learned and maybe to compare themselves to the competition.

McMaster Introductory Tournament (MacIntro) II

The Scene

As teams slowly made their way up the stairs and onto the second floor of the McMaster University Student Centre, a sense of suspense and intrigue had seemed to permeate the hearts and minds of these quizbowlers that had ventured quite a bit to come here. MacIntro had become larger and appeared more important; the field had almost doubled (from 5 to 9) compared to the previous year, with older teams such as East Scarborough and Waterloo CI, as well newer teams such as Central Richmond Hill and White Oaks joining the fray (there was even a mysterious team from Upstate New York).

As the games started, most teams held their own, but soon a couple teams broke free from the rest. After six games and a bye, Westmount A led the field at 6-0, with Central RH A and East Scarborough nipping at their heels on 5-1 each.

East Scarborough, showing us all how scary they can really be.


Central RH and East Scarborough faced off in round 8, and it seemed like a close game before Scarborough's top player Fayaz got set back with a few negs. That helped CRH's players such as Sherry and Kelvin to capitalize and put the game well out of reach.

Central Richmond Hill won their next round to get up to 7-1. East Scarborough lost their last round to the masked Americans, falling to 5-3. Westmount A, led by star player Tim H., was undefeated at 8-0 and got to play an advantaged final against Central RH.

It seemed like a simple enough task, Westmount must have been thinking; simply win a match and win the tournament. But then in the first final, Sherry started off strong and got 7 tossups for Richmond Hill. Westmount were stunned, 380 to 100, and looked devastated. A second final would be winner-take-all for the tournament.

Central RH coming to support their A team.


The teams parried back and forth, with a few tossups going to either side. Tim got 8 tossups for Westmount, but Richmond Hill's team was consistent and had better bonus conversion. The game was essentially tied before the final tossup.

The question sounded mathematical, and Kelvin buzzed in early with an answer for Richmond Hill. The room went quiet for a moment as the moderator looked down. He then uttered a minus-five as Central RH looked on, despondent, before Westmount waited for the question to finish and answered correctly. After completing their bonuses, Westmount walked away as champions.

Westmount celebrating after winning a tournament.

An Overview

Overall, the teams had fun and people enjoyed the tournament. Except for a courageous C team, everyone averaged over 230 points-per-game and 17 points-per-bonus.

Despite their tough loss in the finals, CRH took it in stride -- Sherry, Kelvin, and Daniel had all played their hearts out and each had scored more than 25 points per game. Joel from White Oaks and Nathan from Waterloo CI were both newcomers who finished with high tossup scores. Fayaz led Scarborough to a comfortable third place position and with 57.5 PPG. While Tim from Westmount was the top scorer with over 70 points per game, their less experienced B team also did well, with Andy leading that team with 50 PPG. F Society played well on the Canadian question sets -- Vivek and Elliot both scored over 50 points per game while representing their New York school.

The scoring numbers at this site were quite strong, even compared to the mighty Lisgar teams at the Ottawa site. Here are the bonus conversions for all teams that played these questions:


Sunday 2 October 2016

Upcoming High School Quizbowl Schedule

Quizbowl is back for 2016-17 in Ottawa and south Ontario. These tournaments have been arranged and scheduled.

Date Tournament Location Contact
Oct 22, 2016 MacIntro II @ McMaster Hamilton, ON Peter Cordeiro
Oct 22, 2016 Lisgar Novice Ottawa, ON Ruth Crabtree
Dec 3, 2016 12th Ottawa QT Ottawa, ON Brendan McKendy
Dec 3, 2016 Toronto "Novice" Toronto, ON Meghan Torchia

All these tournaments will use Canadian editions of the question sets. The three novice tournaments should be wide-open fields for new or returning players. The OQT in December is likely to be won by Lisgar A but should see good matches between all other teams.

You may also want to see our list of upcoming university quizbowl tournaments in Ontario.

Upcoming University Quizbowl Schedule

ONQBA has a mandate to develop high-school quizbowl. This university schedule is posted purely for the sake of scope creep.

There is a pretty full calendar of university tournaments in Ontario this fall. Please attend these tournaments and win them so foreign schools like McGill don't bring us to shame.


Date Tournament Location Contact
Oct 15, 2016 EFT @ Ottawa Ottawa, ON Chris Johnston
Oct 16, 2016 Side Trash @ Carleton Ottawa, ON Joe Su
Oct 29, 2016 Penn Bowl @ Toronto Toronto, ON Meghan Torchia
Oct 30, 2016 CO Trash @ Toronto Toronto, ON Aaron Dos Remedios
Nov 5, 2016 ACF Fall @ Waterloo Waterloo, ON Isaac Thiessen
Nov 26, 2016 Terrapin @ McMaster Hamilton, ON Mac Quizbowl
Nov 27, 2016 Delta Burke @ McMaster Hamilton, ON Mac Quizbowl

The table above should list all upcoming university or open-level quizbowl tournaments in Ontario. You may also want to see our listing of upcoming high school quizbowl tournaments in Ontario and abroad.