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:

• UBC Pseudo (BARD on schedule) — Brendan, Angus, Richard, Daniel
• SFU Junta (SFUJ on schedule) — Hanson, Mike, Carlos, Shaun
• B2B — Brock, Bruce, Victoria, Zhan
• FARSIDE (FrSd on schedule) — Peter
• Jumper (JMPR on schedule) — Joanne, Mischa, Paulman, Ross
• University of British Columbia (UBC. on schedule) — Fred, Mike, Paul
• BGTJ — Brittany, Geoff, Tariq, Jason

Round-Robin Results

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

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

Finals

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!

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

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

• Things came together rather slowly this year. As of July 1, only four teams were registered, and only two of them had committed to writing packets. Eventually we got seven teams and six packets, the same number as the Toronto site.
• The packet swap between Vancouver and Toronto players proceeded smoothly. Daniel's father printed out the playoff packets from Toronto and put them in sealed envelopes.
• We had working buzzer systems from SFU, UBC, and Templeton, and all worked reasonably well. Templeton's buzzer system had very faint lights, so in order to see them better, we turned off the room lights. We didn't use the Templeton buzzer system after round 3.
• SFU provided us with only one tape player, but we needed two for the FARSIDE team's packets. (No other packets had audio questions.) Luckily, FARSIDE had brought a small player and used that.
• We may have started a bit too early. Nobody liked to have to get in at 8 a.m. Toronto told us it wouldn't be ready for the Trans-Canada Championship until 5:30 p.m., but we finished two rounds of finals by 4:20. But on the bright side, we never felt rushed, and we had time to play the last packet from Toronto for fun. (Everyone who remained in the room played against Paulman with his Internet connection. It was pretty close.) Next year, if we have the same schedule, we shouldn't start any earlier than 8:30 a.m.
• Daniel pointed out that according to VETO's automatic invitation criteria, future VETOs will have five teams with automatic invitations: his team, FARSIDE, UBC, SFU Junta, and B2B. Therefore there would not be much space left for other teams. But some of us figure that these are the teams that have earned invitations anyway. So far, VETO champions have returned every year after they've won.
• This chart shows the relative performance of previous VETO champion teams — FARSIDE, B2B, SFU Junta, and UBC — in terms of average percentage of points earned in games played in the round-robin each year. (For example, if the score in one game was FARSIDE 300, B2B 100, then FARSIDE got 75% of the points in that game, and B2B got 25% of the points. For each team, average these percentages over all round-robin games the team played.) The chart shows by how much each tournament has been dominated by the top teams. This year's champion, UBC Pseudo, is not shown on the chart but earned 65% of the points in the games it played.

  

  None of the four previous VETO champion teams has had the exact same members over the years. FARSIDE has always included Peter, B2B has always included Brock and Bruce, but SFU Junta has had only Hanson as a constant member. "UBC" as shown on the chart is actually whichever self-labelled UBC (non-Pseudo) team performed better if there was more than one, and there's actually not one person who has been a consistent member of this team. This year, FARSIDE, B2B, SFU Junta, and UBC all averaged between 52% and 57% of the points in their round-robin games, but it was SFU Junta that made the finals against UBC Pseudo. SFU Junta averaged 54% in the round-robin, more than double its average last year when it finished 7th of 7, but actually less than B2B with its 57%. As stated above, UBC Pseudo averaged 65%.

• We hope to host another VETO at Harbour Centre next year.

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

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