The seventh annual Vancouver Estival Trivia Open (VETO) was held on Saturday, July 16, 2005. For the fifth year in a row, it was at the Harbour Centre Campus of Simon Fraser University in downtown Vancouver, B.C.

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

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.

We had seven teams, one fewer than last year, with a total of 23 players. Teams were:

• FARSIDE — Peter
• B2B — Brock, Bruce, Joanne, Meghan, Alexis
• SFU Junta — Hanson, Mike, Dean
• University of British Columbia A — Fred, Luka, Zarya
• University of British Columbia B — Brendan, James, Mike
• Brad Rutter Fan Club — Andrew, Jack, Adam, Daniel
• Foreign Legionnaires' Disease — Geoff, Ross, Mischa, Shaun

Round-Robin Results

We worked out the schedule beforehand, assuming eight teams. But then one player called in saying that he would be unable to attend; that player's remaining teammate didn't want to play solo, so he joined one of the other teams. Using the old 8-team round-robin schedule that had eight rounds with three games and two rounds with two games, Daniel worked out a new 7-team round-robin schedule having nine rounds with two games and one round with three games.

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	P/N	BHrd	BPts	P/B
UBC A	5	1	0	0.833	280.8	117.5	163.3	62	6	120	14.04	0.00	62	1095	17.66
B2B	5	1	0	0.833	185.8	141.7	44.2	52	10	120	9.29	0.00	52	645	12.40
UBC B	4	2	0	0.667	180.0	178.3	1.7	53	16	123	8.78	0.00	50	630	12.60
FARSIDE	2	4	0	0.333	178.3	181.7	-3.3	51	13	120	8.92	0.00	51	625	12.25
Foreign Legionnaires' Disease	2	4	0	0.333	157.5	187.5	-30.0	41	12	120	7.88	0.00	41	595	14.51
Brad Rutter Fan Club	2	4	0	0.333	152.5	187.5	-35.0	43	6	123	7.44	0.00	43	515	11.98
SFU Junta	1	5	0	0.167	65.8	206.7	-140.8	22	7	120	3.29	0.00	22	210	9.55

The only game that went into overtime was in round 6. In an overtime period of 3 tossups and no bonuses, UBC B beat BRFC.

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

The Round Report shows the stats for rounds. These packets were used:

1. B2B
2. FARSIDE (first packet)
3. Foreign Legionnaires' Disease
4. UBC
5. Brad Rutter Fan Club
6. FARSIDE (second packet)
7. Teddy Bears of the Apocalypse (second packet) + Dean
8. Djibouti Call
9. UWO alumni
10. Teddy Bears of the Apocalypse (first packet)

Finals

winning team	score	score	losing team	question authors
B2B	225	145	UBC A	University of Toronto
UBC A	245	110	B2B	Shauna, Phil, and Tamara from Ottawa

Congratulations to UBC A for winning the seventh Vancouver Estival Trivia Open!

Here are individual tossup results (+10/-5) and team bonus averages for the final two games.
UBC A: Luka 7/0 (35.0 PPG), Fred 7/1 (32.5 PPG), Zarya 4/1 (17.5 PPG); Bonus average 10.9.
B2B: Brock 8/0 (40.0 PPG), Bruce 8/3 (32.5 PPG), Alexis 1/1 (2.5 PPG), Joanne 0/0 (0.0 PPG), Meghan 0/0 (0.0 PPG); Bonus average 12.2.

UBC A went on to play in the Trans-Canada Championship Match against the winning team in Toronto.

Packet statistics

We show two lines of stats for each packet: The first line gives results in Vancouver, and the second line gives results on the same packet in Toronto. For completeness, the end of the table shows stats for an additional packet that was used in Toronto but not in Vancouver. As you might guess from glancing at the table, the packets were played in a completely different order in Toronto.

Round		Total points			TUs answered			-5's			Bonus average
#	Games	min	med	max	min	med	max	min	med	max	min	med	max	Packet authors
1	2	400	425	450	16	17	18	2	3	4	12.8	16.1	19.4	B2B
	2	320	403	485	12	14.5	17	6	6	6	19.2	19.7	20.3
2	2	370	408	445	18	18.5	19	0	0.5	1	10.6	12.1	13.7	FARSIDE (pack A)
	1	380			16			4			15.0
3	2	235	253	270	10	11.5	13	1	3	5	11.2	13.6	16.0	FLD
	0	not used in Toronto
4	2	225	248	270	12	12	12	1	1.5	2	9.2	11.3	13.3	UBC
	0	not used in Toronto
5	2	230	278	325	12	12	12	3	4	5	10.4	14.8	19.2	BRFC
	3	245	260	335	12	13	15	3	4	10	12.1	13.3	13.8
6	2	340*	360	380	17	18	19*	3	3.5	4*	10.6	12.1	13.5	FARSIDE (pack B)
	2	200	263	325	13	14.5	16	2	2.5	3	6.2	8.7	11.3
7	2	420	425	430	19	19	19	3	3.5	4	13.2	13.3	13.4	Teddy Bears (pack B)
	3	370	375	590	17	17	20	0	4	9	12.9	14.7	19.5
8	2	310	335	360	16	17	18	5	7	9	11.4	11.8	12.2	Djibouti Call
	3	305	340	455	15	17	19	4	5	6	11.7	11.8	15.3
9	2	235	343	450	11	14	17	1	3.5	6	14.1	15.4	16.8	UWO alumni
	3	325	350	425	13	15	15	2	3	4	14.3	16.5	19.0
10	3	335	340	385	14	15	17	2	3	5	13.5	14.0	15.0	Teddy Bears (pack A)
	3	285	395	425	17	17	17	1	2	5	8.2	13.8	15.3
F1	1	370			19			3			10.3			U of Toronto
	3	215	350	405	13	16	18	3	4	4	8.1	12.8	13.6
F2	1	355			16			3			13.1			Ottawa
	3	335	380	460	16	16	17	1	3	8	12.6	13.4	19.7
-	0	not used in Vancouver												Ben
	3	335*	415	470	15	16*	18	2	4*	5	14.0	17.5	18.3
TCCM	1	305			17			4			9.1			Gabe D.

* Numbers marked with asterisks are for games that went into overtime, when 3 extra tossups were read.

Prizes

Honour	honouree	reason	prize	sponsor
West Coast Dominatrix of Relevant Knowledge	Peter	scoring 74.2 points per game	handcuffs	Peter
Worst repeat	Hanson	James Wolfensohn question in round 8, after it came up in round 6	a broken record	Peter
Most deserved criticism of the organizer	Daniel	parts of the web page were unreadable with some web browsers, a list of teams he sent out had a repeat, etc.	a giant blue star	Peter
Best question on food from non-animal sources	James	visual bonus in the UBC packet with different types of food	a gluten-free, fat-free, GMO-free, vegan ReBAR 100% organic energy bar, made in B.C.	Peter
Best audio question	Ross	audio bonus with speeches in French	a CD of FARSIDE team's audio questions	Peter
Most imaginative question	James	UBC packet with every bonus a visual	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Adult Edition)	Daniel
Player most protective of his or her teammates	Meghan	protecting Bruce, Joanne, and Alexis from Brock	a VHS copy of The Bodyguard	Peter
Most ill-mannered player	withheld?	nobody deserved it?	Simon Cowell book	Brock
Worst answer to a bonus when your teammates knew the answer	?	?	Treason book	Brock
Best history question	Peter	bonus on Third Reich retreats	Dates from Hell book	Bruce
Best science question	James	a visual bonus with a diagram labelled in Korean	Ig Nobel Prizes book	Bruce

General observations and lessons learned

• Planning for VETO (after the July 1 notification deadline) was more chaotic this year, because eight days before the tournament, one team withdrew, and another realized it didn't have time to write questions. There was also the matter of two teams merging on the day of the tournament because a player cancelled. We should have expected that this might happen and had a backup schedule for 7 teams. But it didn't really matter because Daniel was able to write up a new schedule quickly.
• I don't know why we didn't hear from two separate groups of people who have been regular VETO participants in previous years.
• For the first time, the teams in Vancouver wrote fewer packets than the teams in Ontario. We made good use of the Toronto packets; all of them were read except for the one by Ben from Ottawa.
• The packet swap between Vancouver and Toronto players proceeded smoothly. We had been planning to get someone who wouldn't be playing in VETO to print out playoff packets from Toronto and put them in sealed envelopes, but we couldn't find anyone to do that. Instead, we got the packets to be e-mailed to one of us, who printed them out in the computer room when they were needed.
• We had working buzzer systems from SFU, UBC, St. George's, and Templeton, but needed only two of them (except in the last round, when three were required).
• Brock brought three tape players, which all worked, except that one of them had a weak maximum volume. It was replaced with another, since we needed only two players.
• The schedule was just right for eight teams. We started at 8 a.m. If we had started at 9 a.m., we would have run out of time. We finished the finals late, at about 5:30 p.m., before the Trans-Canada Championship. The building was set to close at 6 p.m.
• We're getting better and better at eliminating questions with clues that are repeated from earlier rounds. These are an inevitable problem of any guerrilla tournament. In round 6, one tossup had been tossed out as a repeat, and one game in this round went into an overtime period of 3 tossups — so there were no spare tossups in the packet of 24. Fortunately none were needed. Perhaps this shows that more than 24 tossups should be required in a packet. But then again, it's highly unlikely that any tossup past number 24 would be read, so probably it's best if we risk having an overtime period of fewer than 3 tossups.
• The teams were reasonably well matched. Note the following circle:
  • UBC A beat B2B by 210
  • B2B beat SFU Junta by 100
  • SFU Junta beat BRFC by 15
  • BRFC beat FLD by 80
  • FLD beat FARSIDE by 155
  • FARSIDE beat UBC B by 80
  • UBC B beat UBC A by 25
• We hope to host another VETO at Harbour Centre next year.

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

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