During the warm summer months, a small population of MOPpers blooms in Lincoln, Nebraska. To the casual observer, they are indistinguishable—but this guide will let you determine the type of any MOPper you run into. Be careful: when these creatures are threatened, they ping chess pieces at predators and play repetitive piano songs. Good luck MOPper-watching!
Note: Because MOPpers are so hard to observe, some facts about them in this guide may be incorrect. Blame Canadia.
Thanks to George Lee for preparing this guide and to Steve Haas for assisting in its distribution.
#1If this person went to MOP, go to step 2. If not, go to Elbonia.
#2If this person is a girl, go to step 101. If this person is a guy, go to step 101. Otherwise, go to step 2.
#3If he knew your MOP ordinality but wouldn’t tell you until the end of MOP, go to 10. If he didn’t know your MOP ordinality, go to 98.
#4Don’t be ridiculous. Go to infinity.
#5If you’ve been to this step before, go to 89. Otherwise go to 76.
#6If you are a penguin, go to a psychiatrist. Otherwise, head to 43.
#7If he created the happy red beverage, changed the clocks in his room to trick Yuran, wrote the Pennsylvania version of “The Onion,” fenced with vacuums, gloated about winning “Biggest Ego,” and served as game master for several role-playing games, then he’s MIKE CHURCH!
#8If this person played an RPG, watch out for dead bodies’ electric fields and go to step 59. If not, but this person played Bughouse or Blind Chess, go to step 95. Otherwise go to step 30.
#9If he has an alarm clock that sounds like a time bomb, if he changes in his closet, has earthquakes in his test solutions, sat by Paul’s bed for ten minutes making sure he woke up, tells people to “cut it out,” fixes chairs during student lectures, is vaguely vague, wore other people’s hats backward and forward and sideways, thinks every word in Charades is “nose,” has a reflection named Ribby, helped Theseus escape the Minotaur, is a candy “rapper,” plays half of piano pieces, and passes juggling balls on the count of six, then he’s RICKY LIU! “And will you succeed? Yes you will indeed! 98¾% guaranteed!”
#10If he can spin one juggling ball and make two, go to 86. If he can juggle antiballs, go to 26.
#11If he shouts out “MURK!”, go to 16.
#12If you are a psychiatrist, go to a penguin. Otherwise, head to 43.
#13If he has the best and worst hair at MOP, misses his Canadian roommate Dave “Zed” Arthur, lived in the real Oaz’s old room (by himself, like Oaz), presents hyper proofs during team contests, truly understands meta-metasarcasm and hyper-hypercubes, can’t say “CH’I!” because it’s Andrew’s last name, sings songs about “bananas” and “three,” can turn DOH into GOD, wages wars of words between his two personalities Arcos and Carlyle, makes people get shot out of cannons, walks backwards down the hall at night, puts shoes on while fleeing policemen, tries to escape from Dupont Circle, and drew the multi-faceted MOP logo, then he’s LAWRENCE DETLOR—that’s the way it always was, and that’s the way it always will be.
#14If this person’s name starts with Z, go to 56. Otherwise, go to 32.
#15If he can invert with respect to parallel lines, wants to sneak on a plane to Romania, wears black shorts and a black Darth Maul T-shirt, had a temptation to take a large black marker and correct his name on the door, eats large amounts of applesauce, tortures his TI-89, steals frisbees from Dexter, hides Yuran’s belongings in trash cans, in bathrooms, and on top of doorways, and is a health hazard in “Ghost in the Graveyard” and ultimate frisbee, then he’s STEVE HAAS! And yes, he still finds “roots” of polynomials that rhyme with “foots.”
#16If he used to shout out “CH’I!”, go to 93.
#17If this person’s name rhymes with “throw the frisbee in the trash can” go to 54. Otherwise, go to 45.
#18If he has more than two nicknames, go to 90. Otherwise go to step 103.
#19If this person participated in an improv activity, go to step 8. Otherwise, go to 14.
#20Okay, if he skipped out on all his final exams, helped proctor the ELMO but took lots of time picking his team, found the Euler line for orthocentric polytopes, played solitaire every minute of MOP, doesn’t play the piano but still knows a lot about music, and asks questions about sequences that go off into the infinite air, then he’s JAMES MERRYFIELD! Blunk.
#21If he gave millions of lectures on geometry, wrote USAMO #6, stuffed pigeons into holes, could identify Yuran as Mafia the first time he
played, doesn’t understand the point of “Johnny Whoops,” knows what cards Po is holding in “You Wanna Bet?”, and wants to know if you want to go to a boarding school, then he’s ZUMING FENG!
If he wears red Wisconsin shirts, go to 67. If he wears blue Wisconsin shirts, go to 94. If he lived in Wisconsin once but now wears a “Sweet Home - Chicago” shirt, go to 60.
#23If this person picked up other people’s laundry at odd hours of the night, go to 64. If he woke up way too early in the morning, also go to 64. Otherwise, go to 77.
#24If he keeps Lawrence inside Dupont Circle, signs his name with a bear, inducts on curfew with a smile, solves quadratics in 5, appears on the MOP shirt three times (once as an animal, twice in writing), has a newborn child, shows emotions like an alien, is visiting his home country this summer, and is the least intimidated by Titu, then he *is* the one and only TITU ANDREESCU and “it is time.”
#25If he thinks American geometry is treeeevial to Romanian seventh graders, go to 24. If she makes really cool geometry pictures and sends them into 3-space, go to 87. If he gives lectures about abstract stuff like polka-dotted bananas, go to 34. If he ends lectures on abstract algebra by drawing grassy fields and sunny rings, go to 99.
#26If he has an out-of-sync biological clock, has extremely poofy hair, plays music on an awesome boombox, taught MOP juggling notation, insists he can eat infinite pasta, was never a third-grader but writes like one, draws imitation end-of-proof symbols, wakes up during MOP tests with bright pink eyes, has very expensive thoughts, won a draw for the New York Knicks, can’t spell “MATH” on a Rubik’s cube, thinks half-dead cats in boxes are ridiculous, spins tennis rackets and salt and pepper shakers, eats apples while he juggles, walks backwards and waits casually for you, and is the last remaining Danosaur on earth, then he’s DAN STRONGER and “I did not say I!”
#27If he has an end-of-proof symbol, go to 5. Otherwise, make one up and go to 88.
#28If he shouts out “D’OH” go to 11. If he shouts out “Aaaah!” and “Blunk!” go to 63. Otherwise, go to 93.
#29Really, Latvia? (Start Over.)
#30If this person participated in an “I have that song!” competition this year, go to 44. If this person spends way more money on music than you do, go to 57. Otherwise, go to 40.
#31Sure, and I roomed with Walter. Try again.
#32If this person has soda overflowing out of his room, ride the wave to 35. Otherwise, quench your thirst at 18.
#33If he overslept once, snooze over to 89. If his roommate overslept once, go to 93. If he only looks tired all the time, stumble to 27.
#34If he should have a quote section for his big mouth, understands the mathematics of stuff, has come to MOP for 10 years, multiplies out and bunches, makes a deadly G’luck team with Andrei, won the M.I.T. Mystery Hunt with Dan, and reversed Stable Marriage gender roles, then he’s KIRAN KEDLAYA and he’ll look like Ben Kingsley in 6 years!
#35If he has more soda, gloat and go to 12. If he has less soda, pout and go to 6.
#36If he got lost in the park on July 4, go to 85. If everybody had disappeared when he went back to the frisbee field, go to 70. If a lightning bug sat on his hand and lit up, go to 55.
#37If he thinks a brothel full of cows is paradise, introduces himself as crazy, invented his Crazy Theorem, is the Supreme Ruler of the universe, admits he’s the Mafia (even when he’s innocent), presses the piano pedals from underneath the piano, and is a perfect match for his roommate, then he’s YURAN LU. “Bloop!”
#38If she throws juggling balls to identify mafia, throws juggling balls back into Paul’s patterns, and throws juggling balls across the room past flying frisbees; double-arrows to the moon, borrowed Andrei’s sock on her last day of MOP, is an expert at glaring with her hands on her hips, knows two false facts about quadrilaterals, names powers Special, can make a line intersect a circle three times, didn’t turn in a whole congruence class modulo two of MOP tests, stole Lawrence’s room, makes amazing ice cream cones, was thrilled by the “Les Miserables” imitation in South Park, sings “Hey now, you’re an all-star!”, invented the ELMO, writes rookie contest problems that ring with maniacal laughter (“Bwahahahaha!”) and involve Christmas-colored scalene triangles, and dances to “Heart and Soul,” then she’s MELANIE WOOD—“no point for you!”
#39A giant dustbowl plops you back down at one. Start over.
#40If this person participated in laughing contests, go to 84. If not, go to 3.
#41If he attended both vet and rookie lectures, is probably the only MOPper who listens to rap and plays basketball, downplays his perfect AHSME score, took his math final at MOP, and eats a plate of potato chips at meals, then he’s ABHIRAM VIJAY. Hope you’re doing well, Abi!
#42If he’s one of the most competitive MOPpers, go to 27. Otherwise go to 28.
#43If he has a soda can pyramid more than nine layers high in his room and was voted “Most Similar” with his roommate…if he teaches MOPpers about bridge, had an AP Bio teacher who is not God, loved South Park enough to see it twice and recite jokes from it over and over, and is known as “Mermin Mermin Mermin”…if he makes silverware nongames obvious, does celebrity Jeopardy and Simpsons impressions, thinks any movie with Satan making love with Saddam Hussein is great, invented hallway bowling, and is known as “Mr. Me,” “Mr. You,” “Mr. Poophead,” and even “Mr. Dictator”…then he’s either DAVID MERMIN or ANDY NIEDERMAIER, and they’re too alike for me to tell you which is which!
#44If he goes to sleep late, go to 3. If he goes to sleep early, go to 93. If she goes to sleep during Mafia, go to 61.
#45If he took a 36-hour bus ride to get to Nebraska, go to 97. If he took a plane from Washington, go to 84.
#46If he loves inversion, has four MOP shirts that look like new, was an evil point-stingy Elbonian, made many rookie problems and TeXed the ELMO, throws sequences into the garbage and then sorts them, knows how to keep dry while surrounded by lunatics, was Mafia thousands of times in a row, loses too easily in laughing contests but imitates large french fries well, revived “You Wanna Bet?”, voted for himself for “Best Music,” plays Etudes remarkably well, and created interlocking rings out of straws on the first day of MOP, then he’s REID BARTON!
#47If he owns a leaky, blue tubular toy, wakes up just in time for five minutes’ worth of breakfast, has two personalities while playing Silent Football, hurt his knee badly in Ghost in the Graveyard, tried to teach Dan to play advanced piano pieces while trying to kill him in three-person Mafia, pretends Melanie is the most evil MOPper, knows all about the Busy Beaver function, refuses to run across the street, should read Geometry Revisited, pretends it’s not raining, owns an awesome Calvin and Hobbes shirt, is a pro juggler, has a juggling end-of-proof symbol, wrote a one-line solution to his ELMO problem, and has a very cool accent (“Wow.”; “Hey ----, how’s life?”; “Wait, what?”), then he’s PAUL VALIANT!
#48If this person played Indian Mafia and knocked on bedroom walls late at night, go to 33. If not, go to 42.
#49If this person was in the duck problem, go to 82. If not, go to 106.
#50If this person invented “brutal force”—either the term or the technique—go to 5. Otherwise, go to 17.
#51If this person is older than him/herself, go to 65. Otherwise, go to 50.
#52If this person played the violin or piano (decently) while at MOP, go to step 74. If not, go to 58.
#53If this person is going to Latvia this summer, go to step 29. If this person is going to Romania this summer, go to step 66. If this person only took an exciting vacation in Nebraska, go to step 50.
#54If this person got very wet during the last weekend of MOP while fully clothed, go to 30. If not, go to 40.
#55If this person would compete against himself if he could, has the best view from his room window (to the lonely Coke machine), wears a jacket in roasting hot weather, sabotages the rookie room thermostat, is a “Future Engineer,” is a banana-eating monkey, can play ping-pong with his left hand, is taller than his older brother, says “Kazoom” while playing Bughouse, tries to force open locked fire doors, and plays cool little piano pieces, then he’s PO-RU LOH!
#56If this person solves geometry problems by constructing random points, go to 78. If by trig, go to 25.
#57If he was the Coolest Rookie of the Year, interpreted fireworks while in Nebraska, can play “Brick” on the piano, got mauled by a vacuum but wouldn’t deny the premise, has a MOP ’99 quote even though he didn’t come this year, and is still probably terrified by AM-GAM, the he’s The DAN KATZ!
#58If this person has the same first three letters as another MOPper, go to 19. Otherwise, go to 73.
#59If there were refrigerators on this person’s side of the hall, go to 106. If there were toilets, go to 30.
#60If he has Bughouse tournaments in his room, makes terrible puns, waves from his window, is one of the fastest at cutting in frisbee, “sees Kai’s eye” but should wash his mouth out with soap, and got disqualified from ELMO for going to the bathroom out of his seat, then he’s HOWARD LIU!
#61If this person knows mostly true facts, go to 38. If this person knows mostly hyperdimensional facts, go to 13.
#62If he has a little brother who ate spiked ice cream, if he allegedly views people in the hall as coefficients of a polynomial, uses funny voices during laughing contests, has a Moving Radon Co. that motivates random constructions, has a cowlick in pasteurized papaya juice AHSME result book, doesn’t understand how the psychosis helps, invented his own shorthand “Gastropodese,” created the Evolutionary Etude and “The Ostrich,” has a glass at the center of his tray that commutes with everything, needs crack, claims that he has never performed more than five homotheties in a single problem, climbs up the walls in the hall for Po’s picture but never looks at the camera in MOP pictures, gets 0.9 style despite his handwriting, wrote extremely long Bulgaria solutions, and dyed his shirts pink, then he’s GABRIEL CARROLL, “Gastropod!”
#62.5If he was the “previous Titu,” makes plugs for IMO 2001, is one of two people you can’t reach in the Field Guide, and still has lots of pull, then he’s the unbeatable WALTER MIENTKA!
#63If this person ever roomed with a Canadian MOPper, go to 61. With an Oakland MOPper, 69. If not, 36.
#64If this person qualified for USACO camp, go to 51. If this person qualified for the chemistry olympiad camp, go to 14. If this person qualified for MOP, go to 95.
#65You may be older than yourself, but the MOPper you’re looking for isn’t. Sorry, try again!
#66If this person has written a program involving cows, go to step 64. If this person has written a program involving gastropods and Danosaurs, go to step 100. Otherwise, go to step 49.
#67If he plays the blues with pizazz, will prove the Riemann hypothesis if it’s false, has one of the few chess clocks at MOP, looks like Paul, goes by the name “Mr. Pi” but talks too much in Silent Football, ponders cylindrical chess, and is lifted above large water fountains, then he’s DANI KANE!
#68If this person discussed metasarcasm while eating infinite pasta, go to 54. Otherwise, go to 25.
#69If this person is very, very tall, go to 107. Otherwise go to 93.
#70If he was a winner in an Iowa talent search, feels stupid when he plays Color-Country and other nongames, has a National Geographic blue backpack, plays piano in the normal hours of the day, and plays bridge in the wee hours of the morning, then he’s DAVID GAEBLER!
#71If he’s dangerous, go to 33. If just his test solutions are dangerous, go to 91. Otherwise, flee to safety at 14.
#72If this person went to ARML this year, go to step 19. If not, go to step 59.
#73If this person uses “YCT” on test problems, go to 23. Otherwise, if this person will attack you with coordinates or perpendicular bisectors, descend to step 5. Otherwise, go to 23.
#74If this person was from Tasmania or Atlantis, swim to 81. Otherwise, go to 8.
#75If he has long red hair, was Paul’s first roommate, and spent most of his time here watching videos this year, then he’s JOSH NICHOLS-BARRER!
#76If this person played Mafia for the first time this year, go to 71. If he played Mafia before, go to 40.
#77If this person shares a last name with another MOPper, go to 22. Otherwise, go to 25.
#78If he wrote a problem where Mr. Fat hopped around on a magical grasshopper looking for a candy bar, go to 21. If Mr. Fat inspired him to write a problem for the ELMO, go to 47.
#79If he plays “Fiddler on the Roof” with a violin, knows the three parts of Sonata form, planned a “GOOD LUCK” banner for the IMO team, went down to the AMC office to turn in his evaluation on time, didn’t get his luggage in the airport on the first day of MOP, and photocopies all his papers for safekeeping, then he’s ANDREW CHI!
#80If this person fell asleep on Dan’s bed, go to 68. If this person fell asleep near Dan’s bed, go to 54.
#81If this mister played Silent Football, shrug to 48. Otherwise, receive a penalty point and go to 82.
#82If this person roomed by him/herself, go to 68. If his/her roommate wore a Mathematica robe, go to 91. If his/her roommate came from Ohio, go to 44.
#83If he checkmated Steve with two knights and a king twice, was amazed to receive points on the ELMO, played Bughouse many times, and stayed up past two o’clock, then he’s KAI SUNG (“as opposed to”…)!
#84If he was nominated in the category for “Worst Hair,” go to 42. If he has really cool poofy hair, go to 46 “or” 46. If he has really spiky hair after it rains, go to 618. If he just has hair, go to 78.
#85If he writes his proofs in cursive, gets killed by Andy in Mafia, eagerly grabs empty swings in the park, has comics written about his alter ego “Mr. Ick,” teaches about music and math, and draws a tornado after his proofs, then he’s IAN LE!
#86If he gave the only “student” lectures (on quantum computing and “e”), would have tied for best ultimate player if he had voted for himself but instead did not win any Hall of Fame categories, juggles frisbees as well, steals juggling balls like a hawk, wants to know whether she died, filled MOP test #10 with “Let A,” knows the MOPpers’ names in alphabetical order, thinks about MOPpers in terms of their test solutions, wears his hair in a ponytail, came to MOP late because of graduation, and climbed a tree to rescue a frisbee, then he’s ANDREI GNEPP!
#87If she analyzes affine varieties and symmetric tetrahedra, has cut down on her wing-eating, plays piano songs like “The March of the Dogs” (“Cats”?), was immediately killed in her first game of Mafia, has a wide straw hat, doesn’t want you to slam doors at night, guessed “brick” in Association, and has a last name so long it takes up most of her signature, then she’s ZVEZDELINA STANKOVA-FRENKEL!
#88If he says random words late at night (even if he doesn’t remember it), go to 90. If his brother is completely random, go to 36.
#89If this person is an ideal carrot stick, go to 62. If this person is a large french fry, go to 92. If this person is a human being, go to 4.
#90If he recites sonnets and poems about evil rookie team contest problems, go to 96. If he recites Dr. Seuss with gusto, go to 9.
#91If he lives in a room at 90 degrees, go to 77. If he lives in a room with a huge walk-in closet, go to 93.
#92If he constantly wore a hat backwards, got four bags of crack from Po, played “Heart and Soul” (a lot), ate veggie sausage and veggie bacon, learned to juggle, got dragged out of other people’s rooms, became possessed at night, drew faces on the board while Melanie and “Dan” did math, ordered thousands of buffalo wings and ate every one he got, swapped name tags in the airport, got confused between “Mr. Mike” and “Mr. Michael” and “Mr. Michelangelo,” grabbed breakfast to go, and drew smushed faces after proofs, then he’s GEORGE LEE!
#93If he played tennis at MOP, go to 103. If he played solitaire all the time, go to 20. If he just plays Y2K (in other words, not tennis or solitaire), go to 63.
#94A Wisconsin shirt that’s not red?! Sorry, can’t help you there.
#95If this person is amazingly good at juggling, 3-1-4-1-6 to 80. If this person can juggle fairly well, 3-3-3 to 48. Otherwise, infinity to infinity.
#96If he is an expert at nothing, gets points for team contests that he didn’t participate in, aims to right more sonnets than Petrach, wrote an impossible math tournament for his school and plans to write an evil geometry tournament next year, constantly bickers with Steve, dispenses laundry detergent to those in need, and carries his binder in his arms, then he’s MIKE Oaz Dexter Waldo CARR!
#97If his IMO team learned to love the word “BIG”, go to 102. If one of his IMO teams visited Canadia, go to 75.
#98If this person spends test time mooing in the hallways and playing with rolling chairs, go to 107. If this person spends time pacing in the hallways thinking, go to 22. If this person helps put together the tests, go to 25.
#99If he wears sandals, was the first person to finish the ELMO, puzzled over Euclid’s fifth postulate during the Marathon, has tall narrow slanted handwriting, and is one of the few people who understand lectures on algebraic numbers, then he’s BILLY HILLEGASS!
#100Once I took a path that diverged in the woods. I went the way less traveled where gigantic gastropods and Danosaurs slimed and poofy-haired me to death for taking the wrong way. Start over!
#101If this person has a MOP shirt with a frisbee player logo, head to step 53. Otherwise, go to 105 if this person has a MOP shirt with an impossible cube on it. If this person only has a MOP shirt with a furry forest animal on it, go to 52. If this person doesn’t have any MOP shirts, go to step 41.
#102If he spotted the Mafia within a few minutes last year, but instead watched videos all night long this year, he’s KEVIN LACKER!
#103If he take pictures of everything and everybody, go to 79. If he’s terrified of people taking pictures of him but the AHSME result book has one anyway, go to 83.
#104If he beats people in chess with one-fifth the time, plays a very long version of spooky “Heart and Soul,” puts equations into projective space, is one of two people you can’t reach in the Field Guide, and is composing music for IMO 2001, then he’s NOAM ELKIES!
#105If this person is from the West Coast, go to step 72. If this person is from the East Coast, go to step 72. If this person is from the Midwest, go to step 39.
#106If this person talked about or used a microwave, go to 54. Otherwise, go to 107.
#107If this person steals people’s shoes and watches, go to 15. If this person hits his roommate in Dalmuti, go to 7. If this person is the victim of these crimes, go to 37.
#618If he bounces up and down a lot (sometimes out of phase) because he likes “shroom” and crack so much, makes offerings to the cafeteria and holds food upside down, gets shot while eating, Desargueses and Pascals every geometry problem to death, creates problems about footballs, paints infinite sidewalks and deforms n-gons, went to Latvia with Reid, laughs at himself while saying 4-word sentences, plays a cool version of “Heart and Soul,” has a birthday that’s an AIME answer and his Field Guide number and part of the golden ratio and part of his 5000 email addresses, wonders where AM-GAM went this year, computers after each meal, writes in blue pen, organized wing orders, shows people how to start email and AIM accounts, and is overall one random person, then he’s PO-SHEN LOH. We’ll miss you, Po!
#elboniaIf he won two write-in categories and two meta-categories, stayed out of sight for most of MOP, and knows what evil lurks inside the hearts of men, then he’s WORST CATEGORY!
#infinityYou can’t go to infinity in a finite amount of time. Try going to 5 instead.
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