Announced: November Novice in Hamilton and Ottawa

High school quizbowl is now beginning for the 2017-18 season!

MacIntro III

On November 11, McMaster is hosting their third MacIntro tournament. It's intended for new players and teams, but any high-schooler is eligible. The "king of quizzes" Peter Cordeiro will direct the event.

Last year's tournament went to the final tossup before ending with a victory by Westmount over Central Richmond Hill. Some of those players are back for this year's high-school season, so our "Intro" might have some powerful teams this time.

Lisgar Novice

On November 18, Lisgar Collegiate is hosting a novice tournament in Ottawa. They do have some eligibility restrictions, so it will be a gentler field, and top Lisgar players like Colin Veevers will be running the tournament instead of playing.

Last year's Lisgar Novice was dominated by Lisgar teams. Lisgar has a good novice class every year, but the other high schools in Ottawa have stayed strong at Reach and History Bowl. Some experienced players from other games could challenge for a quizbowl title.


MacIntro and Lisgar Novice will both be played on the SCOP Novice questions. (Kristin Strey and SCOP should get credit for writing a good tournament every year, keeping their question fees low, and always making a Canadian edition. For reference: last year's SCOP Novice questions.)

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.

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:

Announced: MacIntro II in Hamilton -- Oct. 22

The McMaster University Student Centre in Hamilton.

Re-posting Raymond's HSQB announcement:

McMaster is pleased to announce the return of our high school tournament MacIntro on Oct. 22, 2016.

Continuing the tradition of last year, this tournament is intended to be an introduction for new players and teams in the region to the format of Quizbowl. We will be using the SCOP Novice 7 set. We are hoping for at least 5 or 6 teams, obviously the more the merrier.

Logistics
Location: McMaster University Student Centre (MUSC)

Cost: The base fee for this tournament is set at $40 per team.

Discounts: To lower the costs of potentially cash-strapped teams and to encourage teams to invest in a buzzer system, we are offering a $10 discount per appropriate, working buzzer set (Note: This is a first come first serve discount. If we already have buzzers provided by other teams and do not use the one provided by your school, you are not eligible for the discount). We are also offering a $5 discount per shorthanded player (i.e. if you have a two player team, your team will pay only $30).

Timing: Please arrive at McMaster by 8:45am, we are hoping for a 9:15am start. Depending on the size of the field, the tournament should likely be done by 4pm.

Lunch: Please either pack your own lunch, or bring money to buy lunch on campus. There are numerous options available for food nearby which a McMaster quizbowl member will be happy to direct you towards.

For registration and additional information, please contact the TD, Peter Cordeiro (peterjamescordeiro@gmail.com), myself (raymond_chen_@hotmail.com), or the McMaster Quizbowl Club (macquizbowl@gmail.com). We hope to see you there!

Our note: This tournament will be played on a Canadian edition questions set created by the SCOP organization. This set will also be used at the SCOP Novice 7 mirror in Ottawa.