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.