The twelfth annual Vancouver Estival Trivia Open (VETO) was held on Saturday, July 17, 2010, at the Harbour Centre Campus of Simon Fraser University in downtown Vancouver, B.C.

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 at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

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

We were able to run a full round-robin with only one bye in each round, thanks to full-time moderators Alex and Deskin, who came to VETO all the way from Seattle. Thanks also to the SFU Quiz Bowl Club and especially the Zenger family for reserving the rooms. Also thanks to Danica for reading a couple of rounds when we were short-staffed, even though she was new to quiz bowl.

We had nine teams, with a total of 30 players. They came specifically for VETO to Vancouver from three Canadian provinces, four American states, and one country in Europe. Players in the tournament this year included former members of the quiz bowl teams of both SFU and the cross-town University of British Columbia, as well as the University of Victoria, the University of Toronto, Queen's University, the University of Washington, Bellevue College, the University of Oregon, Boise State University, the University of Maryland, Princeton University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and probably also additional institutions that I am not aware of, since I didn't get a chance to ask everyone where they'd played quiz bowl before.

Team rosters were as follows. If a team is named after an institution of higher education, it does not necessarily mean that all of its members are affiliated with that institution.

• [FrSd] FARSIDE — Peter
• [Oreg] University of Oregon — Amy, Erin, Shaun
• [UBCB] UBC Brendan — Brendan, Mike, Jennie
• [Blvu] Bellevue College — Mike, Chris, Alejandro, Colin
• [B2B.] B2B — Bruce, Brock, Victoria, Matthew
• [Jnta] SFU Junta — Carlos, Hanson, Mike, Joanne
• [Wash] University of Washington — Brittany, Steven, Nate, Andre
• [UBCZ] UBC Zarya — Zarya, Fred, Becca, Quin
• [SFQB] SFU Quiz Bowl Club — Geoff, Ross, Brittany

Round-Robin Results

We used the schedule below. Each round was played on the packet written by the "bye" team, except for the second round, which was played on a packet written by "MTW - Team Jacob" from the mirror site in Ontario. We made this substitution because the two people who were going to write most of the Oregon team's packet had to cancel a few days before the tournament.

 time  room 2520  room 2540  room 2945  room 2280  bye
----------------------------------------------------------
 9:30  B2B.-Jnta  Blvu-Wash  UBCB-UBCZ  Oreg-SFQB  FrSd
10:00  Jnta-Wash  B2B.-UBCZ  Blvu-SFQB  FrSd-UBCB  Oreg
10:30  Wash-UBCZ  Jnta-SFQB  FrSd-B2B.  Oreg-Blvu  UBCB
11:00  UBCZ-SFQB  FrSd-Wash  Oreg-Jnta  UBCB-B2B.  Blvu
----------------------------------------------------------
       Lunch downstairs at the food court
----------------------------------------------------------
 1:00  FrSd-SFQB  Oreg-UBCZ  UBCB-Wash  Blvu-Jnta  B2B.
 1:30  FrSd-Oreg  UBCB-SFQB  Blvu-UBCZ  B2B.-Wash  Jnta
 2:00  Oreg-UBCB  FrSd-Blvu  B2B.-SFQB  Jnta-UBCZ  Wash
 2:30  UBCB-Blvu  Oreg-B2B.  FrSd-Jnta  Wash-SFQB  UBCZ
 3:00  Blvu-B2B.  UBCB-Jnta  Oreg-Wash  FrSd-UBCZ  SFQB

Here are the standings for the round-robin (full SQBS tables are available).
Teams were ranked by win-loss record, with the following tie-breaking criteria:

1. total points;
2. bonus conversion rate.

Individual Statistics

Rank	Player	Team	GP	10	-5	TUH	P/TU	G/N	Pts	PPG	'99	'00	'01	'02	'03	'04	'05	'06	'07	'08	'09
1	Peter	FARSIDE	8.0	70	11	160	4.03	6.36	645	80.62	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
2	Carlos	SFU Junta	8.0	32	2	160	1.94	16.00	310	38.75	-	-	M	Y	Y	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y
3	Mike	UBC Brendan	8.0	35	9	160	1.91	3.89	305	38.12	-	-	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	-
4	Brendan	UBC Brendan	8.0	33	5	160	1.91	6.60	305	38.12	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	-
5	Bruce	B2B	8.0	32	10	160	1.69	3.20	270	33.75	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	M	Y	-
6	Zarya	UBC Zarya	8.0	31	9	160	1.66	3.44	265	33.12	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y	M	Y	Y	-
7	Fred	UBC Zarya	8.0	33	14	160	1.62	2.36	260	32.50	-	-	-	-	-	Y	Y	Y	-	-	-
8	Mike	Bellevue	8.0	30	11	160	1.53	2.73	245	30.62	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
9	Chris	Bellevue	8.0	23	4	160	1.31	5.75	210	26.25	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
10	Ross	SFU QB	8.0	22	2	160	1.31	11.00	210	26.25	-	-	-	Y	Y	M	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
11	Geoff	SFU QB	8.0	21	3	160	1.22	7.00	195	24.38	-	-	-	-	-	Y	Y	Y	-	Y	Y
12	Brittany	Washington	8.0	19	0	160	1.19	inf	190	23.75	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
13	Steven	Washington	8.0	23	9	160	1.16	2.56	185	23.12	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
14	Shaun	Oregon	8.0	22	7	160	1.16	3.14	185	23.12	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	-	-	Y
15	Brock	B2B	8.0	19	6	160	1.00	3.17	160	20.00	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	M	Y	Y
16	Hanson	SFU Junta	8.0	11	1	160	0.66	11.00	105	13.12	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
17	Alejandro	Bellevue	8.0	14	8	160	0.62	1.75	100	12.50	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
18	Quin	UBC Zarya	8.0	11	2	160	0.62	5.50	100	12.50	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
19	Mike	SFU Junta	8.0	10	0	160	0.62	inf	100	12.50	-	-	-	Y	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
20	Brittany	SFU QB	8.0	11	3	160	0.59	3.67	95	11.88	-	-	-	-	-	Y	-	Y	-	Y	Y
21	Nate	Washington	8.0	9	1	160	0.53	9.00	85	10.62	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
22	Andre	Washington	8.0	7	0	160	0.44	inf	70	8.75	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
23	Amy	Oregon	8.0	7	2	160	0.38	3.50	60	7.50	-	-	Y	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y	Y
24	Matthew	B2B	7.0	5	1	140	0.32	5.00	45	6.43	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
25	Becca	UBC Zarya	8.0	6	2	160	0.31	3.00	50	6.25	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y	-	-
26	Victoria	B2B	8.0	4	0	160	0.25	inf	40	5.00	-	Y	-	Y	Y	Y	-	Y	-	-	-
27	Joanne	SFU Junta	8.0	5	3	160	0.22	1.67	35	4.38	-	-	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	-	Y
28	Colin	Bellevue	8.0	6	6	160	0.19	1.00	30	3.75	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
29	Erin	Oregon	8.0	2	2	160	0.06	1.00	10	1.25	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
30	Jennie	UBC Brendan	8.0	1	1	160	0.03	1.00	5	0.62	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

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

Finals

winning team	score	score	losing team	question authors
UBC Zarya	290	180	Bellevue College	Rochester Institute of Technology

Congratulations to UBC Zarya for winning the twelfth Vancouver Estival Trivia Open!

Here are individual tossup results (+10/-5) and team bonus averages for the final round.
UBC Zarya: Fred 6/1 (55 PPG), Zarya 3/1 (25 PPG), Quin 1/1 (5 PPG), Becca 0/0 (0 PPG); Bonus average 20.5.
Bentley College: Mike 5/1 (45 PPG), Alejandro 2/2 (10 PPG), Chris 1/1 (5 PPG), Colin 0/0 (0 PPG); Bonus average 15.0.

Prizes

Mike of Bellevue with the broken record his team was awarded for the worst repeat that they forgot to remove from their packet.		Alejandro of Bellevue with the toy pistol he won for having the fastest trigger finger.		Peter of FARSIDE with the turtle book he was awarded for having written the best science question.		Zarya with the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack she won for having written the best music question.

Honour	Honouree	Reason	Prize	Sponsor
West Coast Dominatrix of Relevant Knowledge	Peter	scoring 80.62 points per game	handcuffs	Peter, but selection determined by stats alone
Best music question	Zarya	bonus on the Polaris Prize	Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack	Mike of Bellevue
Best science question	Peter	tossup on floating point	book, The Proper Care of Turtles	Mike of Bellevue
Worst repeat	Bellevue team	tossup on Charlottetown that referred to the 1864 conference, two rounds after another packet that had a tossup about that conference	a broken record	Peter
Fastest trigger finger	Alejandro	gave correct answer of "Heart of Darkness" after hearing only "Criticized by Chinua Achebe"	toy pistol	Peter
Highest individual score in a game on the Junta's packet	Peter, Mike of UBC Brendan, Mike of Bellevue, and Bruce	getting 130, 80, 45, and 40 points, respectively	a polar bear magnet (Peter), mini compasses (Mike, Mike, and Bruce)	the Junta team

General observations and lessons learned

• As was the VETO custom before 2009, all of the question packets were brought by participating teams, without any central editing. The players who had complained about the editing last year were pleased with this return to the traditional style. Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to chat after the tournament with people on the other side of the issue, namely those who liked last year's editing.
• People were awfully late to form teams, but in the end, we really did get nine teams, the most at a VETO since 2002, and all but one of those teams wrote a full packet (the one exception being a team that had its two main writers being forced to cancel).
• There was a smaller turnout this year at the mirror in Ontario. Until a couple of days before the tournament, we weren't sure if we could count on more than one packet from Ontario, but eventually we got three. We used two of them.
• It was a huge help to us that Deskin and Alex got up early, made the long drive to Vancouver, and ran game rooms by themselves for nine rounds. They made it possible for us to have only one team with a bye in each round.
• We actually did start playing at 9:30, but didn't finish the first four rounds until 12:30, an hour later than scheduled. Returning from lunch at 1:15 instead of 1:00, we were able to play the remaining rounds and finals, ending our prize ceremonies just in time for the building's closure at 6 p.m.
• It was also helpful that we had enough laptops for rounds read off the computer. Interestingly, some game rooms already had computers in them that we were able to use without any special password.

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

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