Welcome to the Official Blog of the 2013 HSNCT

Hello once again! I am Harry White and along with Ryan Liu, we will be bringing you complete coverage of the 2013 HSNCT.

For those of you who have followed this blog in the past, you should be familiar with the format by now. If you’re here for the first time, welcome! Over the next week, we will be providing you with previews of many of the attending teams, as well as a few other odds and ends. During the tournament itself, we will be providing you guys with a liveblog all day Saturday and Sunday, with hopefully two matches being covered each round.

As usual, we are always looking for suggestions on how to improve the blog and the liveblog. Let us know if you have any feedback.

Sunday Liveblog

Today’s liveblog is up!

Totally Serious Predictions for Sunday

• Santa Monica misreads the schedule and assume they’re supposed to play Centennial instead of playing in the Centennial Ballroom. Unfortunately for them, Centennial doesn’t have to arrive until Round 18, so Santa Monica ends up forefitting their first two playoff rounds waiting for them to arrive.
• Thomas Jefferson (VA) arrive at their Round 17 game, only to find Thomas Jefferson (MO) there. NAQT, realising that they didn’t actually specify which TJ was supposed to make the playoffs, settles the issue with one sudden-death tossup, which Missouri’s team win thanks to their inexplicable knowledge of the lyman alpha forest.
• High Tech and Ladue play in an intense game where all but one question is either powered or power-vulched the entire game. Moderator Rob Carson sets a new record when he manages to finish all 24 tossups right as time expires for the first half.
• Nikhil’s flight to Atlanta gets cancelled, but he is able to get permission to play via Skype. Bellarmine are down 10 to DCC with one tossup to go, when Nikhil makes an extremely early buzz. Unfortunately his power goes out right as he’s about to get the correct answer, costing them the game.
• Kealing become a surprise entrant in the small school playoffs after it is noted that as they are a middle school, they most certainly have less than 500 students enrolled in grades 10-12.
• After teams come back from lunch, it is discovered that NAQT forgot to reserve the rooms for Sunday afternoon, and so all the game rooms are instead being used for a forensics tournament. All remaining games are moved to the food court.
• In the finals, State College becomes the first team since 2005 to successfully defend their title and the first 6-4 team to ever win HSNCT, thanks to the efforts of their previously unknown substitute player, Scram Scroyer.

And now you know why I shouldn’t post anything at 12:30 AM.

Saturday Recap and Sunday Preview

Well, that was was an exciting and unexpected day of Quizbowl. Here’s a sampling of what we learned:

• As someone said, “there are 50 top 25 teams this year.” There were so many strong teams this year. You needed to get over 70 PPG in order to make the all-star game this year, and 66 people got 50 PPG or more. Powers were flying left and right. Expect more of the same tomorrow.
• Dorman did not fade away after their 10-0 run last year. They started today 9-0, only losing to High Tech by 20 points in Round 14. They’ll be hoping to do better than 1-2 in the playoffs this time.
• And speaking of High Tech, who expected them to do this well? Grace Liu is the real deal, finishing third individually with 96 PPG. Not bad for a team attending the HSNCT for the first time.
• Hunter, Bellarmine, IMSA, and Ladue all met their expectations. We all knew they would be excellent teams, and they proved it. Special props to Bellarmine for finishing 8-2 despite missing one of the star players for the day.
• Many, many teams came out of virtually nowhere to make a statement in the Saturday rounds. Norcross and Oakland Mills were not expected to finish 8-2, and yet here they are. Hanover came within 50 points from beating Bellarmine. It will be interesting to see if they can continue their success tomorrow.
• Just because you’re a B team doesn’t mean you can’t be better than your A team. Maggie Walker B is in the winner’s bracket, while their A team is in the loser’s bracket. Wilmington Charter’s lone playoff representative is their B team.
• No one is safe. Everyone lost at least once, and even the 9-1 teams all had close calls. There is no clear favorite in the double-elimination bracket.

And now, some interesting matchups for tomorrow:

• Carbondale and Loyola will play each other to see who will play IMSA A in a battle of the Illinois schools.
• In fact, that whole section is a bracket of death. In that quarter of the bracket, there are DCC, Bellarmine, IMSA, Auburn, Richard Montgomery, and Loyola. Lots of good teams will be prematurely sent into the loser’s bracket.
• If High Tech and Ladue each win their Round 18 games, they will face each other in a battle of the number 3 scorer versus the number 8 scorer. It will be an interesting match to say the least.
• Thomas Jefferson and Georgetown Day have a good chance of meeting each other in a battle of the DC-area titans.
• Kealing will see how far they can go as a middle school in their round 16 match against E.O. Smith.
• And of course, the best of the best will duke it out to see which team is the national champion!

Sunday Playoff Brackets

Here they are! They will be updated throughout the day tomorrow.

Streaming the HSNCT

Like last year, iHigh will be streaming matches all day today and tomorrow, which you can find here.

Saturday Liveblog

Good morning everyone! How about a liveblog?

Guest Post: Saturday’s Format

For this post, David Reinstein gives us an overview of how the card system will work tomorrow.

On Saturday, HSNCT will feature 1200 matches: 240 teams each playing 10 matches, and 80 rooms each hosting 15 rounds. Each team will play in two of the first three rounds, two of the next three rounds, etc. There will be a lunch break after six rounds, when each team has played four matches. There are 44 conference rooms and 36 suites used by the tournament.

The tournament uses a card system. There are 240 cards which have schedules on them. At the beginning of each match, the teams give their cards to the moderator. At the end of the match, the moderator gives the winning team the card with a number closer to 1 and the losing team with a number closer to 240. There is some randomness in the card assignments, so teams should not assume that the best team starts the day with Card 1 and the worst team starts with Card 240, because that is not what happens. There is also some seeding in the assignments, so teams that have demonstrated during the year that they are among the top few in the nation will not play each other in the first few matches.

As much as possible, teams will play opponents with identical records. This will work out perfectly in the morning, after which there will be 15 4-0 teams, 60 3-1 teams, 90 2-2 teams, 60 1-3 teams, and 15 0-4 teams. Because there are odd numbers, there will be some matches in the afternoon that feature teams with unequal records. All such matches will feature teams with records that differ by one win. To do this, one 4-0 team will play a 3-1 team, one 3-1 team will play a 2-2 team, etc.

By the end of the day, here are the numbers of teams there will be with each record:
10-0: 0 or 1 team
9-1: 0 to 4 teams
8-2: 6 to 14 teams
7-3: 23 to 34 teams
6-4: 43 to 56 teams
5-5: 52 to 66 teams
4-6: 43 to 56 teams
3-7: 23 to 34 teams
2-8: 6 to 14 teams
1-9: 0 to 4 teams
0-10: 0 or 1 team

Here are the numbers of teams with each record or better:

10-0 or better: 0 or 1 team
9-1 or better: 1 to 4 teams
8-2 or better: 10 to 15 teams
7-3 or better: 38 to 44 teams
6-4 or better: 87 to 94 teams
5-5 or better: 146 to 153 teams
4-6 or better: 196 to 202 teams
3-7 or better: 225 to 230 teams
2-8 or better: 236 to 239 teams
1-9 or better: 239 or 240 teams

The most likely scenario has 41 teams in the top bracket (7-3 or better) and 50 teams in the bottom bracket (6-4) starting on Sunday, but don’t be surprised when the actual numbers are slightly different. On Sunday, teams in the top bracket get knocked down to the bottom bracket when they lose, and teams in the bottom bracket get eliminated when they lose.

Friday Scrimmage Liveblog

This is mainly just me testing out the system, so don’t be surprised if there’s a hiccup or two.

 The liveblog!

HSNCT Gameplan

In a few hours, I will be leaving for Atlanta. Once there, I will be covering a couple scrimmage matches, mainly to test the system out. I might also get a couple interviews with players and coaches in. Saturday, Chris will be arriving in Atlanta and he will be reading matches for most of the day, while I will most likely alternate between liveblogging games and posting interesting results from the statroom.  On Sunday, we will both be covering the playoffs, and we should have a bracket similar to last year up and running.

I will be paying close attention to the Twitter hashtag #hsnct, so please use it to post scores, records, or other amusing anecdotes. I will be giving updates on @goldenkumquat throughout the tournament, in addition to the liveblog.

And with that, safe travels to all of you!