Difference between revisions of "Lafer number"

Revision as of 12:25, 27 May 2025

The degree of separation is a way of representing how connected Quiz Bowl players are, similar to Bacon numbers in film or Erdos numbers in publishing. To qualify as a degree of separation, two players need to play on the same team together (whether middle school, high school, college, or open) in a Quiz Bowl tournament, particularly if statistics from that tournament can be found in the HDWhite Database.

How to calculate

Currently, there is no specialized graph database that can be used to easily calculate degrees of separation. Instead, degrees must be found manually through looking at the databases on HDWhite, NAQT, and College Quiz Bowl Stats. The list of players with a Lafer number of one (seen below) can be used as a centerpiece for calculations.

Lafer Number

One method of measuring centrality in Quiz Bowl is the Lafer number, calculating how many degrees of separation a player is from Matt Lafer (a longtime Quiz Bowl player who has played in many open tournaments). The following is an example of how a Lafer number is calculated:

#	Name/Played With
0	Matt Lafer
	Played Cambridge Open UIUC 2018 With
1	Halle Friedman
	Played NASAT @ Columbia 2024 With
2	Noah Chen
	Played 2025 ACF Regionals With
3	Olin Bose

Lafer numbers can potentially be used as a centerpiece to connect a pair of different players. Matt Lafer is the only player with a Lafer Number of 0, and anyone who is disconnected from him entirely in databases (such as Ken Jennings, who has statistics for only one tournament and his teammates did not play any others), has a Lafer number of infinity. Other suggested centers include Mike Bentley and Matt Bollinger, both of whom have a Lafer number of one. The following list is of all players who have a Lafer number of one, as of May 27, 2025.

Players with a Lafer Number of 1

Ezequiel Berdichevsky

Other Lafer Numbers

2

Jeff Hoppes (played with Selene Koo, Andrew Hart, and Seth Teitler at 2011 Chicago Open)
Andrew Yaphe (played with Selene Koo and Seth Teitler at Chicago at 2005 ICT and others)

Theory

"Pockets"

While most college and open players frequently have low separation from each other, or Lafer numbers, the Lafer numbers can become a lot higher in high school and middle school levels. While the fact that there is (usually) continuity between players over the years as older players play with younger ones, the only way they get Lafer numbers is by those players that either choose to play at NASAT or open tournaments, or choose to continue doing Quiz Bowl in college.
For example, Mountain Lakes High School (and its middle school counterpart Briarcliff) have had a Quiz Bowl program running since 2011 and has had over 100 players over the years. However, only five of them (Ted Rappleye Princeton 2013-15, Lucy Horowitz Chicago 2021, Ronald Mucci Rutgers 2017-19, Phoebe Duke-Mosier Hamilton 2016, and Olin Bose Columbia 2024-pres) have gone on to play in college.

#	Name/Played With
0	Matt Lafer
	Played ACRONYM 2017 With
1	Eric Mukherjee
	Played 2024 NASAT Online Open With
2	Jason Golfinos
	Played 2014 ACF Regionals With
3	Ted Rappleye

#	Name/Played With
0	Matt Lafer
	Played Scattergories 5 (2021) With
1	Anderson Wang
	Played 2024 Chicago Open With
2	Emmett Laurie
	Played 2018 ACF Regionals With
3	Ron Mucci

@@ Line 24: / Line 24: @@
 |-
 |
-|Played [[ACF Regionals 2025]] With
+|Played [[2025 ACF Regionals]] With
 |-
 |3
@@ Line 175: / Line 175: @@
 *[[Jeff Hoppes]] (played with [[Selene Koo]], [[Andrew Hart]], and [[Seth Teitler]] at [[2011 Chicago Open]])
 *[[Andrew Yaphe]] (played with [[Selene Koo]] and [[Seth Teitler]] at Chicago at [[2005 ICT]] and others)
+==Theory==
+==="Pockets"===
+While most college and open players frequently have low separation from each other, or Lafer numbers, the Lafer numbers can become a lot higher in high school and middle school levels. While the fact that there is (usually) continuity between players over the years as older players play with younger ones, the only way they get Lafer numbers is by those players that either choose to play at NASAT or open tournaments, or choose to continue doing Quiz Bowl in college.
+<br> For example, Mountain Lakes High School (and its middle school counterpart Briarcliff) have had a Quiz Bowl program running since 2011 and has had over 100 players over the years. However, only five of them (Ted Rappleye [[Princeton]] 2013-15, Lucy Horowitz [[Chicago]] 2021, Ronald Mucci [[Rutgers]] 2017-19, Phoebe Duke-Mosier [[Hamilton]] 2016, and Olin Bose [[Columbia]] 2024-pres) have gone on to play in college.
+{| border="1" cellspacing="1"
+|#
+|Name/Played With
+|-
+|0
+|[[Matt Lafer]]
+|-
+|
+|Played [[ACRONYM 2017]] With
+|-
+|1
+|[[Eric Mukherjee]]
+|-
+|
+|Played 2024 NASAT Online Open With
+|-
+|2
+|[[Jason Golfinos]]
+|-
+|
+|Played [[2014 ACF Regionals]] With
+|-
+|3
+|[[Ted Rappleye]]
+|}
+{| border="1" cellspacing="1"
+|#
+|Name/Played With
+|-
+|0
+|[[Matt Lafer]]
+|-
+|
+|Played [[Scattergories]] 5 (2021) With
+|-
+|1
+|[[Anderson Wang]]
+|-
+|
+|Played [[2024 Chicago Open]] With
+|-
+|2
+|[[Emmett Laurie]]
+|-
+|
+|Played [[2018 ACF Regionals]] With
+|-
+|3
+|[[Ron Mucci]]
+|}
 [[Category:Quizbowl lingo]]