How I spent my Saturday
So today was the first major quizbowl tournament of the fall that I actually participated in (unlike WIT, two weekends ago, where I merely staffed). Now, the Berkeley team has been thriving lately; overall, we fielded five teams, each with a full complement of 4 team members. This was good! Of course, this also meant that we thus comprised 5/8 of the teams and 20/29 of the people, so a lot of the matches were intra-Berkeley matches. Still, it's a good way for the newbies to get tournament experience.

We figured if we concentrated all of the good players, then the newbie teams would just spend all of their time getting whomped; given that this tournament was 14 rounds and, total, took over 7 hours, this is not exactly a fun way to spend your day. So, instead, we spread the strength around -- with the exception of the Bastard Team, which had the two people not currently enrolled (Juliana and Ray), Nick, and David Farris (who just decided to play at the last minute). This had the very beneficial effect of making the overall field very even -- no team had fewer than 3 losses, and only one team (with 2 wins) had fewer than 5 wins. So, I certainly hope much fun was had by all.

Overall, my team was 5-9. That looks worse than it is, I think; we had three rounds which were decided on the last tossup, and we lost them all. I definitely was very streaky; there were some rounds where I did excellently, and there are some rounds (and some particular buzzes within those rounds) where I did poorly. The newbies on my team also acquitted themselves well, so that was definitely a good sign, especially since at Technophobia (next weekend) we are tossing them onto teams by themselves, since we figure it'll have to happen sooner or later and it'll be as good a tournament as any to start with.

Anyway, after a marathon like that, I think I could use some sleep.