The 18th annual Vancouver Estival Trivia Open (VETO) was held on Saturday, August 6, 2016, at the University of British Columbia.

This was a guerrilla-style tournament, meaning that all questions were written by members of the participating teams, and there was no central editing. Or that was the intent, anyway: only one team came with a packet of questions, and the other teams were made up of people who wanted to play VETO but didn't find the time to write any questions. Fortunately, we had enough question packets from the mirror tournament (VETO's Eastern Trivia Open: full stats available) being held the same day at the University of Toronto.

Thanks to Mischa for getting us space at UBC. We ended up needing only one room. The whole tournament took place in Buchanan D221.

We had three teams:

• [F] FARSIDE — Peter
• [M] Master and Charmander — Philip, Amy, Jo
• [T] Taming of the Sandshrew — Mike, Carlos, Hanson

In VETO's 18-year history in Vancouver, this year we set several records:

• fewest players (7);
• fewest teams (3);
• fewest players at their first VETO (0);
• fewest players under the age of 30 (0);
• fewest teams contributing question packets (1);
• fewest games played by each team (4);
• fewest games played overall (6).

Round-Robin Results

Results of first round-robin:

• Master and Charmander 235, Taming of the Sandshrew 120.
• FARSIDE 295, Master and Charmander 30.
• Taming of the Sandshrew 285, FARSIDE 115.

Things were going so slowly at this point that we decided that we wouldn't have time to do a triple round-robin, but would instead end the tournament after a second round-robin.

Results of second round-robin:

• Taming of the Sandshrew 210, Master and Charmander 150.
• Master and Charmander 200, FARSIDE 100.
• ...

The last game (and hence the tournament) was decided on the last bonus, as Taming of the Sandshrew's correct answer to the last tossup put it just 5 points behind FARSIDE. The entire FARSIDE team walked out of the room because they couldn't handle the tension. However, Taming of the Sandshrew failed to get any points on the bonus, so the result was:

• FARSIDE 195, Taming of the Sandshrew 190.

Here are the standings for the double round-robin (full SQBS tables are available).

Rank	Team	W	L	T	Pct	PPG	PAPG	Mrg	10	-5	TUH	PPTH	G/N	BHrd	BPts	P/B
1	[T] Taming of the Sandshrew	2	2	0	0.500	201.2	173.8	27.5	33	6	80	10.06	5.50	33	505	15.30
1	[F] FARSIDE	2	2	0	0.500	176.2	176.2	0.0	33	2	80	8.81	16.50	33	385	11.67
1	[M] Master and Charmander	2	2	0	0.500	153.8	181.2	-27.5	32	8	80	7.69	4.00	32	335	10.47

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	'10	'11	'12	'13	'14	'15
1	Peter	[F]	4.0	33	2	80	4.00	16.50	320	80.00	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
2	Philip	[M]	4.0	27	6	80	3.00	4.50	240	60.00	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y	Y	-	Y	Y	Y	-	-
3	Mike	[T]	3.0	13	5	60	1.75	2.60	105	35.00	-	-	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
4	Carlos	[T]	4.0	10	0	80	1.25	inf	100	25.00	-	-	M	Y	Y	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	-	-	-	Y
5	Hanson	[T]	4.0	10	1	80	1.19	10.00	95	23.75	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	-	Y	-
6	Amy	[M]	4.0	4	0	80	0.50	inf	40	10.00	-	-	Y	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	-	-
7	Jo	[M]	2.8	1	2	55	0.00	0.50	0	0.00	-	-	-	-	Y	Y	Y	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	Prize	Reason	Sponsor
West Coast Dominatrix of Relevant Knowledge		Peter of FARSIDE	handcuffs	averaging 80 points per game	Peter of FARSIDE
Most incorrect interrupts		Philip of Master and Charmander	Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates And What You Can Do About It, by noted Vancouver physician Gabor Maté	having 6 incorrect interrupts	Peter of FARSIDE
Answering the most current current-events question		Carlos of Taming of the Sandshrew	an extra-large Twitter T-shirt	answering a bonus about the Rio Olympics	Hanson of Taming of the Sandshrew
Worst repeat		Philip of Master and Charmander	a broken record	forgetting to remove a bonus question about certain Canadian national parks from the packet he was reading, after some of the same clues with the same answers had come up in an earlier packet	Peter of FARSIDE

General observations and lessons learned

• This tournament almost didn't happen. Weeks before the tournament date, a number of people said they might be interested in playing, but wouldn't be able to write questions. Only one team did write a packet of questions, and the other two teams were allowed to play without having written anything. This is obviously an undesirable situation. We played the questions written by the Toronto teams, but this wasn't really fair to Toronto to send them only one packet in return.
• We set the start time to 10 a.m., an hour later than usual, because we figured that with each round being played in only one room, we should be able to get through 9 packets relatively quickly. However, most of the readers were pretty slow because they were out of practice, and averaged almost an hour per game.
• The players were also out of practice, and it showed. Processing the information heard in a quizbowl tossup is not always easy, and maybe it gets harder as you get older.
• None of the players were currently students at any institution that could have a quiz bowl team. Some current undergraduates at UBC and the University of Victoria were interested in playing VETO, but were unable to make it on this date. But they are interested in restarting quiz bowl in B.C. in the coming year!

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

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