Ottawa QT XII Recap

Powerful building full of ringers.

We got six teams yesterday, all from Lisgar and Colonel By, so it was a field full of sharks. Every player got a power in this tournament (even the ones who missed some rounds), and 5 of the 6 teams scored over 20 points-per-bonus.

Sheena and Colin were the Lisgar A team and went 7-0. They were also the top two scorers in the field. Together they got 51 powers and only one neg -- which might have been Sheena buzzing early on Asian history.

The other top-bracket teams were two more Lisgar teams. Gareth, Patrick, and Gabriel went 0-2 against the champions but 5-0 against every other team. Their job got easier when Nadia arrived at noon to answer some science for them.

The Lisgar B team was William, Matija, Felipe, and Jon. They easily led the field in negs and in talking over the questions, but they also got 25 powers in seven rounds. They scraped into top bracket by having 5 more PPG than Colonel By A. Once they were in top bracket, they lost more games, but the great singer Josh showed up and got them some history buzzes.

The Colonel By teams were great at competing with their teammates and at arriving on time for the tournament. Captain Jonathan led them with 41 tossups, and senior player Adam helped out with 4 negs and some basketball knowledge. Both Kevin Lees got a lot of questions. The Colonel By players also snuck onto a uOttawa computer to play ProtoBowl.

The Lisgar junior team ended at 3-4, but were one question away from making top bracket. They tied one of their senior teams in the morning, 365-365, and then they lost the three-question tiebreaker on the final question. Thomas got 10 powers for that team, and Olive actually knew some lit questions yesterday, which most other players didn't.

People seemed to like the questions, even though they weren't trash. My Canada questions all played well, especially a bonus about Christmas, but except for a hose where a Joe Clark tossup sounded like a Kim Campbell tossup. The America questions we left in the tournament all played pretty well. Colonel By players seemed to know American history from the news, and Lisgar players all seemed to know it from Hamilton.

This tournament was bailed out by coach Ruth Crabtree and scorekeeper Audrey, who emerged at the last minute when it became clear I needed more staff. The tournament was also carried by volunteer legend Ben Smith, who heroically read well past his bedtime without any scorekeeper.

Here are round robin stats and final stats from Ottawa Quizbowl Tournament yesterday. Here are the Canada questions I swapped in for anything that seemed "too American."

Leftover prizes. Prize-winners picked the Koran, Master and
Margarita, and Brief History of Time over these.

ONQBA Awards for 2014-15

These awards are for the 2014-15 season -- most of our winners have now graduated out of the categories they won for. We voted on all these a long time ago. Ted and I wrote the blurbs.

A Lisgar player accepting some sort of award.

Best Player -- Cameron Amini (Colonel By)

Cameron was the strongest high school player in Canada for at least two years. He went from being the history player on a great team to being a player who could power questions on any subject. Other players got stronger in 2014-15 because they had to compete with Cameron.

Most Improved Player -- Nicholas Sunderland (Lisgar)

Nicholas won Canadian History Bowl and almost won Ontario Provincials with Lisgar. He was the second-leading scorer on his Lisgar team at HSNCT. Lisgar A improved massively through the year, breaking into the HSQBRank top 100.

Best Junior -- Sheena Li (Lisgar) 

Sheena was the top scorer on Lisgar B at HSNCT. She played Ottawa History Bowl with seniors on the Lisgar A team, and she nearly won the JV section of Canada History Bee.

Best Junior -- Jonathan Liu (Colonel By)

Jonathan was a threat to score on almost any category. He got 47 PPG at the Ottawa Quizbowl Tournament -- a commendable achievement for a player who was just starting quizbowl.

Community Leader -- Ruth Crabtree (Lisgar)

Ms. Crabtree has led and supported countless quizbowl projects over the last 15 years. Her work as a coach, organizer, trip supervisor, and mentor has made her a cornerstone of good tournaments in Ottawa and beyond, both during her teaching career and in her retirement. We are lucky for every year of Ms. Crabtree's leadership.

Recap: Lisgar Novice (October 2015)

Lisgar Novice was the first tournament of the 2015-16 season. Aidan Ryan directed, and a lot of (ineligible) senior players showed up to staff. I went so I could insist that the staff all wear nametags, and I did some coverage -- here is what I saw from every team.

Merivale C was Daniel, Claire, and Hao Hao when I saw them. They took a bad loss to Colin (Lisgar C), but they still got a nice power on an opera clue.

Lisgar B enjoying themselves.

Lisgar B was Nadia, Olive, Katriona, and Patrick. They went 5-3 with strong stats. Nadia seemed very strong on lit questions, and Patrick got some nice buzzes on history. Olive had an early buzz on my Cape Breton tossup, and she caught that it was asking "Cape Breton" instead of just "Nova Scotia."

Merivale A was Amiya, Zarak, and Ivan when I saw them. They seemed very good at at science (with a power and a 30), and they 20'ed a tricky bonus on U.S. sports.

Lisgar A was Justin, Kieran, Matthew, and Felipe. They went 6-2 and led the tournament in PPB. Felipe was the second-highest scorer in the tournament, and I saw him power two science questions. I was also impressed with Justin powering current events.

Colonel By B was Kevin, Victor, and David. They seemed very good at lit and classics. I saw them lose a close, high-scoring match, largely because they got -5 on a scrambly pop music tossup.

Colonel By C was Sam, Kevin, Conor, and Farid. They looked like a team of senior students, and they were definitely the rowdiest team in the tournament -- they cracked a lot of jokes. Conor knew some lit and Farid knew some U.S. politics. At one point they buzzed "Edmonton" for a city in Manitoba, but they still won their round when Kevin got a chemistry tossup at the end.

Merivale B was Alan, Megharaj, and Wahaj. I saw them lose to a strong team, but they seemed to know current events, and they 30'ed a physics bonus. They made a heartbreaking bad buzz by naming a book title on a tossup that asked for the author.

Colonel By A with important moderators.

Colonel By A was Denis, Jon, Emily, and Kevin. They came second in the tournament, going 1-2 against Colin and 7-0 against all other teams. They led the field in powers -- Emily got a lot of lit, and Kevin got a lot of history.

Lisgar C was one player -- Colin -- and he won the tournament! He swept 8-0 in the round robin, and then he split the finals 1-1 with Colonel By A, which clinched first place.

Lisgar C (artist's rendering).

The finals was Lisgar Colin (8-0) against Colonel By A (7-1). Colin had a one-game advantage, so he would take the tournament with a win. If Colonel By won the finals, it would just force a second game of the finals.

Finals game 1 was very close -- Colonel By got more powers, but it looked like Colin would win 280-225.

However, there was a protest to resolve. In mid-game, Denis had buzzed a tossup and changed his guess mid-word. Moderator Ben had called -5, but after the game, we checked the rules and it turned out that Dennis's buzz was allowed. That caused a 60-point swing and changed the game to a win for Colonel By.

Finals game 2 was less close. Colin beat the Colonel By team 13-7 on tossups. The one-player team, Lisgar C, won the tournament, 390-235.

A grade 10 Lisgar student won today's tournament playing solo. A surprise start to the Ottawa season.

— Ben Smith (@smith_ben) 17 Octobre 2015

Throughout the day, Colin had scored early buzzes and 30s on a ton of history, geography, and art questions. He seemed generally to just be a curious learner and to be aware of the world. In an early round, he had a funny exchange with a moderator over pronouncing a weird European name.

Here's my category breakdown for the two finals games:

Colonel By D was four more Kevins. They were unable to compete in this tournament.

Other things:
- Complete stats
- Canada questions (early draft)
- Tournament thread on HSQB
- Facebook album