The Quizbowl Resource Center

Cheynem

I should also further flesh out the description here. There are 7 all-tossup packets. The main subject matter is the second half of the 20th century (1950-2000), although obviously there is some spillover into pre and post these eras. There isn't a set distribution, but I tried to vary answerlines a...

Cheynem

In case Paul hasn't seen this, this will be run at the July VCU Open and the August Minnesota Open. But probably online at some point too. Or if anywhere else wants to run this.

Cheynem

That's too bad--I wanted this to feel old and strange.

Cheynem

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will.

Cheynem

Very cool to see announcements for a number of these events.

Is there any location in the Midwest that could run a July open of some sort? I'd be happy to take on some of the logistical aspects if needed, but it would be cool for somewhere in Michigan/Ohio/Indiana/Illinois to run such an event.

Cheynem

If people are interested, my set on 20th century baseball will be ready by this time.

Cheynem

Do you expect to use a similar format as last tournament?

Cheynem

I am not sure if there is room, but I wouldn't mind seeing the Gorilla Film or Jordan's Wikipedia set here. However, I also do not know if people in the area plan on playing these events elsewhere (and I'm told at least some of them will have online mirrors). I'm looking for teams for these events. ...

Cheynem

I don't have the tossup, but I believe it was simply just an error that no prompt was in the answerline.

Cheynem

I had time to kill at the airport, so it's now 30 tossups (although five of them are transportation in TV shows as well). I also went back and slightly tweaked some of the original tossups, which, uh, were pretty rough since they were written after staffing HSNCT all Saturday! I plan to read this pa...

Cheynem

June 24 is the birthday of quizbowl champions.

Cheynem

Looking for teammates for this, preferably people who know art, computers, or computer art.

Cheynem

I have a hastily assembled film transportation packet of about 15 tossups entirely written while waiting for Planes, Trains, and Automobiles to start at HSNCT that I didn't get a chance to read last night because I was tired and wanted to see the Heat win. The rating has increased to "R" f...

Cheynem

Hey, if there's any interest, I could read an incomplete packet of "transportation in film" tossups I've written.

Rated PG-13.

Cheynem

A lot of your options are during HSNCT weekend, for what it's worth.

Cheynem

Moses was unable to reach the Promised Land.

Perhaps a quizbowler named Joshua can help.

Or Caleb Kendrick.

Cheynem

How would you create a fake question?

Cheynem

My general feeling is that cheating at asynchronous tournaments is one of those deals where you accept it as a price of doing business. I love asynchronous tournaments for the flexible, easy vibe and wouldn't want them to be changed to make them less convenient to stop cheating (I would, of course, ...

Cheynem

I want as many packets as possible!

In seriousness, you could run this with at least 6 or so packets pretty easily on the QBlitz system that stuff like PAVEMENT and Dede Allen have run on. (If you want to do online format, which I assume you would).

Cheynem

I think as long as there's a section indicating that this is "vanity/not intended as serious" packets that were used for nothing more than in-club shootouts or whatever, that's fine. Just give people a heads-up so that they know what they're getting into.

Cheynem

I'm not especially versed in high school quizbowl, but from what I've seen around me-- I think Ben is more or less correct. The top, active, stable programs remain top, active, and stable. High school quizbowl as a general whole is okay. However, many programs that were burgeoning, rising, or strugg...

Cheynem

This isn't adding names to this list, but merely noting that when I ranked the 70 Greatest (Recent) College Players, large swaths of them, including many at the very top, did not play in high school or barely or had undistinguished HS careers (sometimes only in "bad" formats), including Jo...

Cheynem

I largely think your assessments are correct--I don't aesthetically like the 1810s as an answerline, but that's just me (the clues are very good). I am perhaps most interested in your opinion on the Pakistan tossup. I think you are correct, but I also wonder what would be the best/optimal answerline...

Cheynem

I would like to applaud Ganon's post here. I think the creation of HS Regs+ sets is based entirely out of good intentions, but I suspect a lot of their creators really do not understand just how difficult and inaccessible such sets can be for a ton of regions, circuits, and teams.

Cheynem

So, like MSNCT does much easier prelims than playoffs, but in that case, the explanation is that playoffs have to be harder to gradate the best of the best playing for a national championship (also, it's a clear gradation between prelim and playoff difficulty). I'm somewhat skeptical that a regular ...

Cheynem

I know there used to be a side event weekend in Michigan before the pandemic – is there any chance of it returning this summer? I would really love to see this (although, I should point out even pre-pandemic, this was somewhat touch and go due to being unable to reserve rooms and running into locke...

Cheynem

I loved that tournament, Cody!

Cheynem

You're correct that it isn't linear and it is also somewhat dependent on the difficulty you're shooting for. I think (personally) at regular difficulty and below tournaments, straight tossups on the films in category 3 are perfectly appropriate, whereas at higher difficulty tournaments, I would be b...

Cheynem

This is sort of what Andrew is getting at, but I tend to look at potential film questions on a sliding scale: 1--Films with little or strained academic/artistic engagement that almost everyone has general knowledge of. Your latest MCU film, most Disney films, any movie starring The Rock, etc. 2--Fil...

Cheynem

Are there plans for any non-CO summer opens this year? I can not attend CO weekend, so I'm interested in traveling somewhere, and there's also a host of interesting potential side events/summer tournaments I hope get mirrored (presumably they all can't run at CO). Furthermore, I'd like to run my bas...

Cheynem

Is the format just doubles?

Cheynem

I don't particularly have specific thoughts about film in the distribution, but I did have some thoughts on a couple points related to what Tim said (very good and interesting post, by the way). First, I would also say that for the *most part* writing film questions is a reasonably easy task. Puttin...

Cheynem

As someone who has negged questions on the 1967 Detroit Riot by saying the "1968 Detroit Riot," I'm sympathetic to, as what Bugs Bunny says, "year trouble," but that's a fine question. The giveaway perhaps makes it sound cheaper because it was undoubtedly added to boost conversio...

Cheynem

Don't worry, nobody has read Faust Part II.

Cheynem

I think this probably also depends on the size/type of set. For a small number of packets and an easy tournament, I don't really see much of a point, especially because some of the clue and giveaways are probably going to overlap. For a large tournament that has many packets and is more difficult (a...

Cheynem

This is a good guide. What comes to mind at times when thinking about this is that Seinfeld bit where he makes a rental car reservation and is told they ran out of cars. Seinfeld notes "You know how to *take* the reservation, but not *hold* the reservation. That's really the most important part...

Cheynem

I thought that Hawthorne tossup was really good--it's a well excerpted thing from a well read novel, but it's also something that doesn't get asked or clued about in-depth as much as the novel. The Faulkner one did seem to drop the clue about the teeth quickly, which is why I paused before buzzing, ...

Cheynem

I think Arya and others make some good points, but I really disagree on the second "cuteness" factor they and others are critiquing. I do not think it is "too cute" that someone like Lydia Tar's fictionalness is concealed for a lot of the question. One of the things I like about ...

Cheynem

I liked having a bonus on my favorite wrestler, Jacques Ranciere.

Cheynem

I don't know if this means anything, but the bonuses on modern TV (NCIS/FBI/La Brea) and the aforementioned Astros bonus are questions I would literally expect to see in an IS set in NAQT. That may speak more to how hard NAQT questions can be in pop culture than if they were actually too easy or not.

Cheynem

Qblitz events do not really have times; you play the rounds asynchronously over a series of several days (like other types of quiz events, like Learned League). So basically each day you get a round to play that you do whenever you want (you buzz in on the questions and your buzztime is compared to ...

Cheynem

Historically, even when I was doing polls, the "pre-Nats" poll garnered the least amount of interest probably because people just assumed there wasn't much point until the nationals season was over. This also ensured that the poll would really be driven by the personal opinions of perhaps ...

Cheynem

If this is the Jeff King from the "trivia" world, he had at least played several trash tournaments (I played him at a CO Trash) before that, which certainly doesn't take away from a very successful "academic" debut.

Cheynem

For the record, "Flores Man" is an acceptable answer to that question. I can get the question being too hard for that level, though.

I'm not sure I understand your second complaint--should question writers/editors have to anticipate incorrect, offensive guesses?

Cheynem

I was extremely awful at the first Pavement, but I'm going to try again. I do have some knowledge of older pop/rock music.

Cheynem

Do we have an idea of where this will be run at? That would prompt me to write something for this (besides my 10 questions on gorilla-themed films).

Cheynem

The post still says "all tossup set" before listing things like 5/5 Comedy and 3/3 Movies.

Are you like the Kenny Bania of tournament announcements?

Cheynem

I recently heard some discussion over how to use this warning and how players interpret it that I found interesting (the specific example is not clear, unfortunately, so I'll use a hypothetical). Let's say there is a tossup on the character "Mola Ram" from Indiana Jones and the Temple of D...

Cheynem

I'm eagerly anticipating the tossup on Freddy Got Fingered!

Cheynem

I think buzzer faking is kind of obvious, but one strategy I tried once: In a tossup where I knew nothing that was going on, I waited a few lines and then after what seemed like a buzzword, I suddenly jumped to life in my chair and leaned real in, like I was waiting for another clue of confirmation....

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