The eleventh annual Vancouver Estival Trivia Open (VETO) was held on Saturday, July 18, 2009, at the Harbour Centre Campus of Simon Fraser University in downtown Vancouver, B.C.

This year, most of the question packets were edited by a team of volunteers led by Jerry Vinokurov. The original packets were written by teams playing in Vancouver as well as by teams playing at mirrors in Ottawa and Hamilton, Ontario. We also played on three additional unedited packets written by teams participating in Vancouver.

All staff were drawn from the participating teams during their bye rounds. We are grateful to Tara, Geoff, Brittany and the rest of the newly reconstituted SFU quiz bowl club for getting us space at Harbour Centre, to the Washington team and Rajon for providing laptops, and of course to the writers in Ontario and to Jerry and the other editors for providing questions. The Washington team and the SFU quiz bowl club provided buzzers.

We had six teams, with a total of 19 players. These included former members of the quiz bowl teams of SFU, the University of British Columbia, the University of Oregon, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Maryland, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Team rosters:

• [FrSd] FARSIDE — Peter
• [BAD.] Battery Acid Digesters (SFU alumni) — Geoff, Brittany, Rajon, Ross
• [YLdp] Yay Ladyparts (SFU Junta) — Hanson, Carlos, Mike, Joanne
• [Oreg] Oregon — Phil, Amy, Sean, Daniel
• [Wash] Washington — Mike, Chris, Matt
• [B2B.] B2B — Brock, Mischa, Shaun

Results

First we played a single round-robin, with the following schedule. Parentheses in the "packet" column indicate that the team(s) read a packet originally written by VETO players at a mirror in Ontario.

 time   room 2280   room 2520     packet   other staff
 ----   ---------   ---------     ------   -----------
 9:00   YLdp-BAD.              |  (FrSd)   B2B. Oreg Wash
 9:30   YLdp-FrSd   Oreg-BAD.  |  B2B.     Wash
10:00   Wash-YLdp   B2B.-BAD.  |  FrSd     Oreg
10:30   Oreg-YLdp   FrSd-BAD.  |  Wash     B2B.
11:00   Oreg-FrSd   Wash-B2B.  |  YLdp + BAD.
11:30   Wash-BAD.   B2B.-YLdp  |  Oreg     FrSd
-------------------------------------------------------
Lunch downstairs at the food court
-------------------------------------------------------
 1:00   FrSd-B2B.   Oreg-Wash  |  (YLdp + BAD.)
 1:30   Oreg-B2B.   FrSd-Wash  |  (YLdp + BAD.)

Teams were ranked by win-loss record, with the following tie-breaking criteria:

• ties between two teams to be broken by head-to-head record;
• ties among three or more teams to be broken by average points per game.

Rank	Team	Wins	Losses	Total points	Notes
1	FARSIDE	4	1	1070	beat Washington (by 20), lost to Oregon (by 15)
2	Washington	4	1	1035	beat Oregon (by 15), lost to FARSIDE (by 20)
3	Oregon	4	1	1035	beat FARSIDE (by 15), lost to Washington (by 15)
4	Battery Acid Digesters	2	3	620
5	B2B	1	4	430
6	Yay Ladyparts	0	5	440

Then we played a split-pool round-robin. The top three teams went to room 2520 to play against each other, and the bottom three teams went to room 2280 to play against each other.

Lower-pool schedule:

1. #4 (Battery Acid Digesters) vs. #6 (Yay Ladyparts);
2. #5 (B2B) vs. #6 (Yay Ladyparts);
3. #4 (Battery Acid Digesters) vs. #5 (B2B).

Upper-pool schedule:

1. #2 (Washington) vs. #3 (Oregon);
2. #1 (FARSIDE) vs. loser of game 1 (Washington); — listen to this game (MP3) on Quizbowl Cast
3. #1 (FARSIDE) vs. winner of game 1 (Oregon). — listen to this game (MP3) on Quizbowl Cast

Here are the final results including both the full round-robin and the split-pool round-robin.
SQBS tables are available.

Rank	Team	W	L	T	Pct	PPG	PAPG	Mrg	10	-5	TUH	PPTH	BHrd	BPts	P/B
1	Oregon	6	1	0	0.857	212.1	155.7	56.4	59	15	140	10.61	59	970	16.44
2	Washington	5	2	0	0.714	232.9	152.9	80.0	69	23	140	11.64	69	1055	15.29
3	FARSIDE	4	3	0	0.571	195.0	166.4	28.6	60	4	140	9.75	60	785	13.08
4	Battery Acid Digesters	4	3	0	0.571	123.6	125.7	-2.1	48	15	140	6.18	48	460	9.58
5	Yay Ladyparts	1	6	0	0.143	94.3	152.9	-58.6	39	3	140	4.71	39	285	7.31
6	B2B	1	6	0	0.143	82.1	186.4	-104.3	38	18	140	4.11	38	285	7.50

Since Oregon had a strictly greater win-loss record than any other team, it was declared the champion.

The Oregon-FARSIDE game was the last one played, and was not decided until the last bonus question. If FARSIDE had won that game, we'd have had another circle of death among the top three teams, which we'd have to break by playing two additional games.

Individual Statistics

Rank	Player	Team	Pl	GP	10	-5	TUH	P/TU	Pts	PPG	'99	'00	'01	'02	'03	'04	'05	'06	'07	'08
1	Peter	FARSIDE	U	7.0	60	4	140	4.14	580	82.86	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
2	Chris	Washington	U	7.0	37	7	140	2.39	335	47.86	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3	Phil	Oregon	U	7.0	36	10	140	2.21	310	44.29	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
4	Brock	B2B	L	7.0	25	8	140	1.50	210	30.00	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	M	Y
5	Carlos	YL	L	7.0	19	0	140	1.36	190	27.14	-	-	M	Y	Y	-	-	Y	Y	Y
6	Brittany	BAD	L	7.0	17	1	140	1.18	165	23.57	-	-	-	-	-	Y	-	Y	-	Y
7	Mike	Washington	U	7.0	22	15	140	1.04	145	20.71	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
8	Geoff	BAD	L	7.0	19	11	140	0.96	135	19.29	-	-	-	-	-	Y	Y	Y	-	Y
9	Sean	Oregon	U	7.0	12	2	140	0.79	110	15.71	-	-	Y	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
10	Hanson	YL	L	7.0	11	3	140	0.68	95	13.57	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
11	Matt	Washington	U	7.0	10	1	140	0.68	95	13.57	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
12	Ross	BAD	L	7.0	10	2	140	0.64	90	12.86	-	-	-	Y	Y	M	Y	Y	Y	Y
13	Shaun	B2B	L	7.0	10	4	140	0.57	80	11.43	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	-	-
14	Daniel	Oregon	U	7.0	9	2	140	0.57	80	11.43	-	-	-	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
15	Mike	YL	L	7.0	7	0	140	0.50	70	10.00	-	-	-	Y	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y
16	Joanne	YL	L	2.0	2	0	40	0.50	20	10.00	-	-	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	-
17	Rajon	BAD	L	6.0	2	1	120	0.12	15	2.50	-	-	-	-	-	Y	-	-	-	Y
18	Amy	Oregon	U	7.0	2	1	140	0.11	15	2.14	-	-	Y	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
19	Mischa	B2B	L	7.0	3	6	140	0.00	0	0.00	-	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y

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

Prizes

Honour	Honouree	Reason	Prize	Sponsor
West Coast Dominatrix of Relevant Knowledge	Peter	scoring 82.86 points per game	handcuffs	Peter, but selection determined by stats alone
Awesomest trash question	Mike of Washington	tossup on Tropic Thunder	Bubblegum: The History of Plastic Pop	Hanson
Worst repeat	Peter	?	a broken record	Peter, but selection by crowd at the end
Worst neg	Brock	answered "Slobodan Milosevic" for Omar Bongo	a bag of marbles	Sean
Best finance/economics question	Peter	tossup on Brent crude	transfer pricing advice	Ross
Best multicultural question	Peter	bonus on East Asian ethnic groups	Menu and coupon for Lucky's Chinese Restaurant	Ross
Greatest distance travelled from outside Canada	Amy	coming all the way from San Diego, Calif.	Wacky Canada: Fun Facts and Activities	Peter

General observations and lessons learned

• Playing on centrally edited questions was a big change from previous VETOs. Players' opinions on this change were mixed. Generally, people who like ACF tournaments liked the change, and those who don't like ACF did not like the change. However, detractors did agree that the edited questions were superior to other VETO questions in factual accuracy and substantial information; and supporters of the change agreed that the tossups were longer than they would have preferred.
• As suggested by Mike of Washington, we used laptops instead of printing out packets. There were no problems with the equipment. Using laptops was easier than distributing packets to local teams for printing the night before the tournament or at the computer lab at Harbour Centre.
• The schedule worked well. In each round after the first, there were two teams with byes.
• It was good to be back at the convenient downtown location of Harbour Centre.

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

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