Patrick Liao

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Patrick Liao
Patrickqb.jpeg
Noted subjects History (esp. Canadian and First World War), Classics, Geography, Current Events
Current college Toronto (2016-Present)
Past colleges University of Pennsylvania (2012-2015)
High school Lisgar (2008-2011)
Stats HDWhite • NAQT

Patrick Liao is a Canadian quizbowler who plays for Toronto. He formerly played for the University of Pennsylvania and Lisgar. In high school he was the alternate on the 2008 Reach for the Top championship winning team, and captained Lisgar to a 3rd place finish in the 2011 Reach for the Top nationals. Later, he was part of the 2015 ACF Nationals championship team along with Eric Mukherjee, Saajid Moyen, and Chris Chiego, and was the first Canadian to win the ACF Division I title.

Career

High School

Reach for the Top

Patrick began playing Reach for the Top at Lisgar in grade 9, where after the Edmontago crisis he went to Reach for the Top Nationals as a spare on a powerful team that defeated UTS to be national champion. The following year saw him be on the A-team as a regular, as Lisgar tied for first at regionals and came in the top 10 at provincials. In Patrick's grade 11 year, he captained a Lisgar team consisting of three other grade 11s and a grade 10 to first in Ottawa regionals. However, that year Lisgar's long streak of playoff appearances at the Ontario Reach provincials was ended when Lisgar was seeded in a tough pool in which it went 5-2.

In his senior year, Lisgar swept the Ottawa regionals, and was seeded 2nd going into the playoffs. Patrick's Lisgar team was eliminated in a semifinal game against UTS, which led to Patrick jubilantly exclaiming that he never had to play Reach again. (Un)fortunately, Patrick's successful protest (resolved post-tournament) that "de la Salle" should have been accepted for "René-Robert Cavalier" and a team from another province dropping meant that Lisgar made the national finals. At nationals, Patrick captained the team to a third-place finish when Lisgar lost to Centennial Collegiate Vocational Institute (CCVI), that year's Ontario champions, in the semi-finals.

Quizbowl

Patrick's first quizbowl tournament was the 2007 Ottawa Quizbowl tournament, in which he was the second-top scorer and his Lisgar C team came third. Patrick played on the Lisgar team that made HSNCT in 2009, 2010, 2011, although he only went to the first two because he went to PACE NSC in 2011. He also captained a team that won the 2010 Ontario Provincial NAQT championships. Patrick is infamous for answering "Daniel Carter" for "Jimmy Carter" at a tournament. Daniel was the captain of Lisgar's rivals, Centennial Collegiate Vocational Institute.

College

At Penn, Patrick instead became notorious for writing about Canada inordinately for submissions and for helping the team to several high finishes at ACF Nationals and ICT during his four-year tenure. His depth of knowledge in history, classics and Canadiana made him an integral part of Penn A.

Patrick helped the team win the 2015 ACF Nationals as a senior, making him the first Canadian player to win ACF Nationals. The shining pinnacle of Patrick's quizbowl career was tossup 20 of the final against Chicago; Patrick achieved a spectacular buzz on the On-to-Ottawa trek, thus bringing his UG career full circle, it having started with him writing a near-impossible question on the same topic (directed to do so by Eric Mukherjee) as a freshman.

Patrick began law school at the University of Toronto in 2015, where he still plays occasionally.

Writing and editing

Notable Tournaments

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