[CAQL]

Eighth Annual
Vancouver Estival Trivia Open
July 15, 2006

The eighth annual Vancouver Estival Trivia Open (VETO) was held on Saturday, July 15, 2006. For the sixth year in a row, it was at the Harbour Centre Campus of Simon Fraser University in downtown Vancouver, B.C. Some of us found it interesting that in an adjacent room there was a workshop on Parenting Your Child with Asperger's Syndrome, but as far as I know there was no relationship between anyone attending that event and anyone attending VETO.

Most of the question packets are available for free download! (saved on the Stanford Packet Archive)

A separate web page lists all answers (only) to the questions in the eight publicly available packets for this tournament.

This was a guerrilla-style tournament, meaning that all questions were written by members of the participating teams, and there was no central editing. Question packets were shared with a mirror tournament (VETO's Eastern Trivia Open) being held the same day in Toronto. All staff were drawn from the participating teams during their bye rounds.

Thanks to Tara for reserving the rooms, to the SFU Quiz Bowl Club for signing for them, to Germán Pareja for printing out the finals packets, and to everyone who helped while not playing.

We had seven teams, with a total of 24 players. Teams were:

Round-Robin Results

First we played a single round-robin. Rounds were untimed, with 20 tossups in each. Power tossups were not used.

Every team except Jumper and BGTJ wrote a packet. FARSIDE wrote two packets. Jumper, BGTJ, and UBC Pseudo each brought one packet from Toronto. Here is the schedule we used for the round-robin:

    room 1500  room 1520  room 1525   bringing packet  other staff
    ---------  ---------  ---------   ---------------  -----------
1.  FrSd-JMPR  UBC.-BARD  BGTJ-SFUJ | B2B. (authors)   none
2.  FrSd-BGTJ  UBC.-B2B.  BARD-JMPR | SFUJ (authors)   none
3.  BGTJ-UBC.  SFUJ-B2B.  FrSd-BARD | JMPR (Toronto)   none
4.  UBC.-JMPR  BARD-SFUJ            | FrSd (authors)   BGTJ  B2B.
5.  BGTJ-JMPR  UBC.-SFUJ            | BARD (authors)   FrSd  B2B.
6.  BGTJ-B2B.  SFUJ-JMPR            | FrSd (authors)   UBC.  BARD
7.  FrSd-B2B.  BGTJ-BARD            | UBC. (authors)   SFUJ  JMPR
8.  FrSd-UBC.  BARD-B2B.            | BGTJ (Toronto)   SFUJ  JMPR
9.  FrSd-SFUJ  JMPR-B2B.            | BARD (Toronto)   BGTJ  UBC.

We could have shortened the round-robin by one round, by having two of the teams UBC, UBC Pseudo (BARD), or BGTJ each staff three game rooms at a time, the way B2B, SFU Junta, and Jumper did in the first three rounds.

Here are the standings for the games in the round-robin (SQBS tables available). Teams are ranked primarily by win-loss record, secondarily by average normalized points per game. The normalized score in a particular game is the game score divided by the average score of all teams that played on the same packet. A team's average normalized points per game is the average of the normalized score over all the games it played. We chose to break ties by average normalized points per game in an attempt to reduce the skew arising from the variation in difficulty levels of packets.

Team W L T Pct PPG PAPG Mrg 10 -5 TUH PPTH BHrd BPts P/B
UBC Pseudo 6 0 0 1.000 234.2 125.0 109.2 57 2 123 11.42 55 845 15.36
SFU Junta 4 2 0 0.667 145.8 133.3 12.5 43 10 123 7.11 43 495 11.51
B2B 3 3 0 0.500 166.7 137.5 29.2 44 14 120 8.33 44 630 14.32
FARSIDE 3 3 0 0.500 160.0 140.0 20.0 45 8 120 8.00 45 550 12.22
Jumper 3 3 0 0.500 115.0 172.5 -57.5 34 14 120 5.75 34 420 12.35
UBC 2 4 0 0.333 172.5 145.8 26.7 46 10 120 8.62 46 625 13.59
BGTJ 0 6 0 0.000 75.0 215.0 -140.0 24 7 120 3.75 24 245 10.21

Individual Statistics

The last seven columns indicate in which of the seven previous VETOs the person had played (Y if yes, or M if in the mirror in Ontario).

Player Team GP 10 -5 TUH P/TU Pts PPG '99 '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 '05
Peter FARSIDE 6.0 45 8 120 3.42 410 68.33 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Brendan UBC Pseudo 6.0 30 2 123 2.36 290 48.33 - - - - - - Y
Fred UBC 5.0 25 5 100 2.25 225 45.00 - - - - - Y Y
Bruce B2B 6.0 26 5 120 1.96 235 39.17 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Carlos SFU Junta 6.0 22 4 123 1.63 200 33.33 - - M Y Y - -
Daniel UBC Pseudo 6.0 16 0 123 1.30 160 26.67 - - - - - Y Y
Ross Jumper 6.0 18 6 120 1.25 150 25.00 - - - Y Y M Y
Mike UBC 6.0 16 4 120 1.17 140 23.33 - - - - Y Y Y
Angus UBC Pseudo 5.0 11 0 103 1.07 110 22.00 - - - - - - -
Brock B2B 6.0 15 7 120 0.96 115 19.17 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Geoff BGTJ 6.0 11 2 120 0.83 100 16.67 - - - - - Y Y
Hanson SFU Junta 5.0 9 2 103 0.78 80 16.00 - - Y Y Y Y Y
Mischa Jumper 6.0 9 3 120 0.62 75 12.50 - - - Y Y Y Y
Tariq BGTJ 6.0 9 5 120 0.54 65 10.83 - Y Y - - - -
Shaun SFU Junta 6.0 8 4 123 0.49 60 10.00 - - Y Y Y Y Y
Paul UBC 6.0 5 1 120 0.38 45 7.50 - - - - - - -
Mike SFU Junta 6.0 4 0 123 0.33 40 6.67 - - - Y - - Y
Brittany BGTJ 6.0 3 0 120 0.25 30 5.00 - - - - - Y -
Paulman Jumper 6.0 4 3 120 0.21 25 4.17 - - Y Y - Y -
Joanne Jumper 6.0 3 2 120 0.17 20 3.33 - - - - Y Y Y
Zhan B2B 6.0 3 2 120 0.17 20 3.33 Y M M Y M M M
Jason BGTJ 5.0 1 0 100 0.10 10 2.00 - - - - - - -
Richard UBC Pseudo 6.0 0 0 123 0.00 0 0.00 - - - - - - -
Victoria B2B 6.0 0 0 120 0.00 0 0.00 - Y - Y Y Y -

For leading in the individual stats, Peter retains the title of West Coast Dominatrix of Relevant Knowledge.

Statistics for Rounds

Round PPG/Team TUPts/TUH BPts/BHrd
1 (B2B) 145.00 5.92 12.56
2 (SFU Junta) 214.17 8.17 15.00
3 (Humboldt's Wooly Monkey, in Toronto) 185.83 7.50 14.46
4 (FARSIDE first packet) 182.50 6.51 14.52
5 (UBC Pseudo) 122.50 6.12 9.07
6 (FARSIDE second packet) 120.00 5.25 11.25
7 (UBC) 117.50 5.88 9.04
8 (McMaster, in Toronto) 161.25 5.88 15.77
9 (Athenian Tragedies, in Toronto) 82.50 2.62 13.24

Finals

The top two teams from the round-robin, UBC Pseudo and SFU Junta, faced off in a best-of-three series, in which the round-robin game counted retroactively as the first game in the series. Since UBC Pseudo had won that first game, SFU Junta would have to win two more games, but UBC Pseudo would have to win only one. Audio recordings of these games are saved on the Internet Archive. Results:

First round of finals on packet by UBC In Exile:   text and visuals available in PDF format
Listen to this match (duration 25:50) in format: 128Kbps MP3, Ogg Vorbis, 64Kbps MP3

SFU Junta 190, UBC Pseudo 80
UBC Pseudo: Daniel 2 0 20, Brendan 3 1 25, Richard 0 0 0
SFU Junta: Carlos 0 0 0, Hanson 2 0 20, Mike 3 0 30, Shaun 4 1 35
Bonuses: UBC Pseudo 5 35 7.00, SFU Junta 9 105 11.67

Second round of finals on packet by UOTT Are We?:   text and visuals available in PDF format
Listen to this match (duration 25:12) in format: 128Kbps MP3, Ogg Vorbis, 64Kbps MP3

UBC Pseudo 230, SFU Junta 125
UBC Pseudo: Daniel 2 0 20, Brendan 6 1 55, Richard 0 0 0
SFU Junta: Hanson 5 0 50, Mike 1 1 5, Shaun 1 0 10
Bonuses: UBC Pseudo 8 155 19.38, SFU Junta 7 60 8.57

Congratulations to UBC Pseudo for winning the eighth Vancouver Estival Trivia Open!

[Picture of 2006 VETO finals]
On the left, SFU Junta: Shaun, Mike, Hanson.
On the right, champions UBC Pseudo: Daniel, Brendan, Richard.
Mischa ("dress rehearsal") keeps score beside the moderator, Brock, who co-founded SFU's quiz bowl team, the first in Western Canada. Bruce, at the blackboard, is the co-founder of Queen's University's quiz bowl team, the first in Canada, and also defending champion on Jeopardy!. Both Bruce and Brock have played in every VETO since its inception in 1999.

UBC Pseudo went on to play in the Trans-Canada Championship Match against the winning team in Toronto.

Prizes

Some players received prizes. Unless otherwise indicated, honourees were selected by the sponsor of each prize. There were more prizes than the ones listed below. Let me know which ones are missing.

Honour honouree reason prize sponsor
West Coast Dominatrix of Relevant Knowledge Peter scoring 68.33 points per game handcuffs Peter
Door prizes Tariq, Paul, and Brendan random draw among all participants copies of the 3rd edition of An Incomplete Education, published in 2006 Bruce
Worst repeat Paulman "Giffen good" question in round 3, after it came up in round 2 a broken record Peter
Worst science question Peter bonus about titration curve Ig Nobel Prizes book Hanson
Best question on food from non-animal sources Brock tossup about Long Island Iced Tea a gluten-free, fat-free, GMO-free, vegan ReBAR 100% organic energy bar, made in B.C. Peter
Greatest Canadian question Peter tossup about Kokanee Glacier National Post article about "THE DARK SIDE of medicare's champion" Ross
Fewest negs, with ties broken by highest score Daniel got 16 tossups correct and no negs a copy of Secrets of the Jeopardy Champions Bruce

Paulman displays a broken record he received for the worst repeat that he forgot to remove from the packet he brought. Ross presents Peter with a National Post article about "THE DARK SIDE of medicare's champion" for writing the greatest Canadian question of the tournament. Brock shows off a ReBAR he was awarded for having written the best food question.

General observations and lessons learned

"Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!" — famous last words

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