Championship Match

The participants in the Championship Match are the one player who won all seven preliminary matches (the Morning Champion), the seven players who won exactly six of their preliminary matches, and the (one) player who won the Desperation Shot, a difficult written test taken by all the players who won exactly five of their preliminary matches.

Unlike in the preliminary rounds, all incorrect answers result in a deduction of 1 point. This is true regardless of whether the incorrect answer interrupted the question; it is thus different from ordinary “negs”.

Each player starts with 3 points. A player whose score reaches 0 is immediately removed from the match.

If any player reaches a score of 10 during the first 20 tossups, they sit out until tossup 21.

The Morning Champion sits out for the first 20 tossups, and enters at tossup 21 with a score equal to that of the leader at that time. After tossup 40, the lowest-scoring players are removed until four remain; if necessary, tiebreaker tossups are used, but they do not count in the overall score of the championship match. After tossup 50, the lowest-scoring remaining players are eliminated until two remain; the tiebreaker procedure is the same as before. At the conclusion of the match, tiebreaker tossups are read if and as necessary.

Questions 1, 21, and 41 are handout questions. Each player can choose whether or not to count each handout. Players who choose to count the handout receive 1 point for a completely correct handout, and −1 point for a handout that is not completely correct.

  Calvin Quilty Michael Jiang Alex Cash Tony Cao Joe Ahmad Isa Domin Krystle Leung Ben Cohen Siva Sundaram Answer
  Bloomington Auburn (Rockford) Wheaton Warrenville South Carbondale Loyola Academy (Wilmette) Niles North (Skokie) Naperville Central New Trier (Winnetka) Auburn
Initial scores 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3    
1             −1     [Handout]
2                   Stewart’s theorem
3                   Wide Sargasso Sea
4               1   Dmitri Medvedev
5   −1               sarcoma
6             1     Vincenzo Bellini
7               1   Wilmot Proviso
8                   Computation: charged particle in cyclotron
9               −1   “nominal”
10                   Ptah
11                   Francisco Rodriguez
12                   Computation: area of shape given vertices’ coordinates
13 −1                 Plotinus
14       1           The Miller (Canterbury Tales)
15               1   Hokkaido
16     −1             Computation: solving an equation with radicals
17                   Paolo Uccello
18                   propanol
19       1           Edward Albee
20               −1   Battle of Crécy
Scores through 20 2 2 2 5 3 3 3 4    
  Siva Sundaram, as Morning Champion, entered the game with a score equal to that of the then-leader, Tony Cao: 5.
21         1         [Worksheet]
22                 1 Computation: complex numbers
23                 1 Mario Vargas Llosa
24               −1   Kirkuk
25                 −1 apoptosis
26                   Tomaso Albinoni
27                 1 Interstate Commerce Commission
28                   Compton effect
29         1         dactyl
30               1   Nestor
31               −1   George Bailey
32                 1 Computation: trigonometry in a cube
33                 1 George Berkeley
34       1           Oliver Goldsmith
35                 −1 albedo
36                   Computation: fitting a cubic equation to points
37 −1                 Jean Arp
38                   Jablonski diagram
39               1   Bret Harte
40           −1       Akbar
Scores through 40 1 2 2 6 5 2 3 4 8  
  The five players with the lowest scores were eliminated: Calvin Quilty, Michael Jiang, Alex Cash, Isa Domin, and Krystle Leung.
41                   [Worksheet]
42               −1   Computation: probabilities
43                 1 Dubliners
44               1   David Axelrod
45               −1   introns
46         1         The Art of Fugue
47       −1           Dartmouth v. Woodward
48                 1 Gauss’s law
49                 1 fallacies
50       1           Michael Servetus
Scores through 50 eliminated eliminated eliminated 6 6 eliminated eliminated 3 11  
  The two remaining players with the lowest scores were to be eliminated. Ben Cohen was therefore eliminated. As Tony Cao and Joe Ahmad were tied, a tiebreaker was held to determine which would remain in the game. The first tiebreaker (Amy Lowell) went dead. Joe answered the second one (Laocoön) correctly, so Ben was eliminated and Joe continued.
51                   Tapestry (Carole King album)
52                 −1 Computation: vector projection
53         1         Noam Chomsky
54                 −1 “Ode on Melancholy”
55                   “epoch” (astronomy and geology)
56                 1 Computation: solving an equation involving fractions
57                 1 Praxiteles
58                 −1 Hund’s rule
59                 −1 Daisy Miller
60                 1 Porfirio Díaz
Final scores eliminated eliminated eliminated eliminated 7 eliminated eliminated eliminated 10  

Siva Sundaram of Auburn High School in Rockford, Illinois is the champion of the 2008 Scobol Solo. He is the first player from Auburn to win the tournament.