GSAC XVI: December 6, 2008

[wowitsquinthaha]

We have already started preliminary planning for the 16th installment of the Governor's School Academic WordbeginningwithC (GSAC). This year the questions will be house written packet submission by A and B team members like such as the Iraq and Quint and Cameron A. No, seriously. This is a real announcement, and this year we are hoping to have at least 64 teams. SIGN UP NOW AND MAYBE QUINT WILL BE YOUR MODERATOR HURRY SIGN UP NOW

Quint, Cameron, Sarah, Tommy, et al. (Matt)
No, seriously, this wasn't just Quint.
I promise.
Cameron.

[aestheteboy]

No, seriously, this wasn't just Quint.
I promise.
Cameron.

I refuse to believe.

[wowitsquinthaha]

No, seriously. And Daichi you are now signed up. Congrats.

Field:
Walter Johnson

[sunh]

Is this going to be JV or Varsity?
What is the question format?
Thanks

[MLWGS-Gir]

Is this going to be JV or Varsity?
What is the question format?
Thanks

This will be open to all high school teams. It's 20/20 TU/B, just like last year. The number of rounds has yet to be determined. And Daichi, I was present when the announcement was written. It is real.

[wowitsquinthaha]

Is this going to be JV or Varsity?
What is the question format?
Thanks

We aren't exactly sure yet. GSAC has a reputation for having at least fairly high quality questions and attracting some of the best teams in the country. As for question format, it is the standard untimed 20 tossup/20 bonus format with no powers. This year we are trying to do a quasi-packet submission style with most of the players on Maggie Walker A and B writing 2 to 3 packets.

Although "JV" teams are encouraged to attend (and many smaller teams from around the Richmond area do attend), this is a "varsity" tournament. The questions are pyramidal, so many teams should be able to get them at the end, but there will be teams there who are "freakin' sweet". In the past, there have been some complaints about question dificulty/teams not getting enough rounds or questions. Cameron and I are discussing a way to fix this and please everyone, small teams and powerhouses alike. We might try to make the prelims questions easier and have the quality jump up for playoffs, and we might offer teams who just want to stay for prelims and not even come back for playoffs a discounted rate. We really haven't decided many of the specifics relating to that, though.

PS. Sarah just answered this but I am not deleting this whole post

[RountreeCHS]

Sarah, Quint, et al - When will y'all be sure this is the date y'all want to use. Chattahoochee held our tournament on the same date as y'all last year, and the year before that we went to the GSAC and had our tournament in the spring. This year we are hosting our tournament either on December 6th or the 13th. We would like to avoid conflicting our tournament with your tournament if at all possible.

Thanks for letting me know,
ELR - Chattahoochee Head Coach

[MLWGS-Gir]

The first Saturday in December is our traditional date. We just need to run it by the school and confirm that we can use the building that day. Unfortunately, we probably won't be able to do that until school starts, but I'll make sure we get right on it in September.

Edit: Another factor that may influence our decision is Cave Spring's tournament. We've attended it with several teams for both years of its existence and will likely do so again this year. However, they had some weather issues last year and might change their traditional date (the weekend after ours) because of it. If this is the case, we'd probably cooperate with them and switch dates, as snow really doesn't affect us. Some input from Mr. Powers would definitely be appreciated.

[Crazy Andy Watkins]

Quint, I remember I volunteered to edit science for this, and my offer still stands. If you want my help, it's available, and I guess you could mention that in the announcement if you want (as if that would, like, increase the stock of the questions any). I think Eric had mentioned something on the subject too; I remember we were thinking we might be co-editing; though I can't speak for him, being able to attach his name to just about anything makes it better--so you might want to hunt him down on the subject.

[cdcarter]

Quint, I remember I volunteered to edit science for this, and my offer still stands. If you want my help, it's available, and I guess you could mention that in the announcement if you want (as if that would, like, increase the stock of the questions any). I think Eric had mentioned something on the subject too; I remember we were thinking we might be co-editing; though I can't speak for him, being able to attach his name to just about anything makes it better--so you might want to hunt him down on the subject.

Andy. Stop signing up to do things. Love Chris.

[wowitsquinthaha]

Andy, I will talk to you about it at VCU Open but I don't know if Dr. Barnes, Ph.D will go for that because he likes us to edit our own tournaments...

[Crazy Andy Watkins]

I have no, like, burning desire to do it. I just thought that I might have volunteered for it and not been turned down in the past, so I figured it was right to renew my offer (even if I'd probably be overloading myself, and it's cool that you'd be editing the event).

[Magister Ludi]

Andy, I thought you had offered to co-edit the science for gonzaga'a tournament with Eric. I don't know if you signed up to help write GSAC as well though.

[Crazy Andy Watkins]

Andy, I thought you had offered to co-edit the science for gonzaga'a tournament with Eric. I don't know if you signed up to help write GSAC as well though.

Ted, thanks for helping me out in my desperate things-that-start-with-G confusion.

That makes a whole lot more sense.

[kamikaze]

Just chiming in about the tournament date. I was able to confirm December 13th for the CSI this year. I just haven't gotten around to posting the announcement on hsquizbowl just yet. However, I wouldn't want to step on your team's toes since your tournament obviously has a bigger draw of teams and talent. If you want to move your tourney to the 13th, please let me know. I may be able to move our tournament to some time in the spring since our date is not necessarily in stone.

[MLWGS-Gir]

Just chiming in about the tournament date. I was able to confirm December 13th for the CSI this year. I just haven't gotten around to posting the announcement on hsquizbowl just yet. However, I wouldn't want to step on your team's toes since your tournament obviously has a bigger draw of teams and talent. If you want to move your tourney to the 13th, please let me know. I may be able to move our tournament to some time in the spring since our date is not necessarily in stone.

We'd probably only consider the 13th to avoid conflicting with you guys, since snow never affects our tournament. We'll stick with the 6th so long as the school is fine with it. Thanks for confirming your date.

[MLWGS-Gir]

As of today, the building if officially reserved for December 6.

We've still got some leadership stuff to be worked out, but once that's done more updates will commence.

[MLWGS-Gir]

Some updates, since I said at some point that I'd post the distribution soon...

The writing is coming along fairly well, especially since Cameron is contributing his questions despite having dropped out of our school. I may have mentioned my concern about that to some of you at RM last weekend, so I wanted to make it clear that that has been resolved.

The original plan for this year was to have all of our A and B team members write 2 packets of 25/25. That didn't quite happen, but it worked to the point where we'll certainly have enough for our usual 10 rounds and potentially an extra round should our field size require one for a fair schedule. Those packets were written with this distribution:
5/5 Science, Math: Bio, Chem, Phys, Astro, Earth, Theory, no Comp
4/4 Literature: World, US, British/Euro
2/2 Religion, Myth, Philosophy
1/1 Economics & Psychology (The "Social Sciences")
4/4 History: US, Euro, World
1/1 Gov, Politics, Law
1/1 Current Events (Post-Apr 2008)
1/1 Popular Culture
3/3 Fine Arts:  Classical Music, Painting/Sculpture, Performance Arts/Other
1/1 Geography: US, World
2/2 Choice: CANNOT be in same category, use these to adjust flaws you see in this distribution
25/25 Total: Try to balance sub-category approximately evenly

Some people had issues with HAVOC's distribution; now there are no surprises. Obviously, the questions actually used per round won't follow this exactly due to the need for extras, but we'll make every effort to balance the distribution of tiebreaker TUs, with the exception that trash will not be used in the tiebreakers.

More updates will follow eventually as we get logistical stuff worked out. As of right now, we're looking for this tournament to be huge and don't have an established field cap. When we get rolling and registrations come in, we may cap the field to keep a workable number as we get close to 12/6. This will then determine our schedule in terms of number of prelim rounds, number of brackets, etc. Hopefully a real, somewhat complete announcement will be coming your way in the next two weeks or so.

[closesesame]

I heart this distribution.

[aestheteboy]

So the social sciences is only econ and psych, or does it also have cool things likes sociology and anthropology? I also like the distribution, although I would prefer more than 16% lit and history.

[closesesame]

Dude, anthropology questions would totally answer why our presidential candidates act like apes.

I would look favorably upon anthro questions, but as you can probably see, I'm rather bitter about how useless the debate was.

[MLWGS-Gir]

So the social sciences is only econ and psych, or does it also have cool things likes sociology and anthropology? I also like the distribution, although I would prefer more than 16% lit and history.

Cameron wrote this distribution; I don't really know what he was planning for exactly there. I threw sociology and anthropology into my "choice" questions, and I'm willing to bet Tommy did as well. Also, the only reason science is larger than lit and history is because we threw math theory in there, and as most of the small categories are humanities, I think it's pretty fair. You know me, Daichi, I'm always in favor of more lit, but I think this is pretty reasonable.

[MLWGS-Gir]

We are finally ready for a real, somewhat complete announcement.

GSAC XVI will take place on December 6, 2008 at Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies in Richmond, VA. We are now officially PACE affiliated. The difficulty level will most likely be somewhere near what we've had in the past, and there we be no math computation in this tournament. In preparing for the tournament we have been writing with the following distribution, although the actual one may be slightly different due to rounds being 20/20 rather than 25/25:
5/5 Science, Math: Bio, Chem, Phys, Astro, Earth, Theory, no Comp
4/4 Literature: World, US, British/Euro
2/2 Religion, Myth, Philosophy
1/1 Economics & Psychology (The "Social Sciences")
4/4 History: US, Euro, World
1/1 Gov, Politics, Law
1/1 Current Events (Post-Apr 2008)
1/1 Popular Culture
3/3 Fine Arts:  Classical Music, Painting/Sculpture, Performance Arts/Other
1/1 Geography: US, World
2/2 Choice: CANNOT be in same category, use these to adjust flaws you see in this distribution
25/25 Total: Try to balance sub-category approximately evenly

Please note that while science may appear larger than history or lit, that's only because we arbitrarily threw math theory in there.

There will be negs but no powers. Assuming we reach 48 teams, we'll run 6 round-robin brackets of 8 with the top 8 teams making the play-offs, which will be single-elim. We'll be working on some sort of consolation system to keep people playing, so if you know your team absolutely wouldn't want to stay for that, please let us know that when you register. We're tentatively capping the field at 48. However, we will keep a waiting list, and pending that reaching 6-7 teams (enough for us to have another bracket with minimum byes) and us being able to get enough rooms, we'll take those teams.

THIS IS A CHANGE: Please register here. If you have any questions/comments/concerns, either post in this thread or email me at SeaAngel147 AT aol DOT com. Our school's address and directions can be found here.

Fees:
First team: $60
Additional teams: $50
Working Buzzers: -$10
Travel Discount: (200+ mi one way): -$10
Our questions will be available online sometime after the tournament (probably the following week), but if you would like a printed copy add $5.

As of right now, Quint Carr, Greg Tito, and I are editors and I'm the TD. We didn't have as much success as I'd hoped with the Google Groups; I'll continue playing around with that.

Expressed Interest:
Godwin


Confirmed Field:
Blessed Sacrament Huguenot (2)
Caesar Rodney HS (1)
Charlottesville (1)
Clover Hill (2)
Collegiate (1)
Cosby (1)
Covenant (1)
Dorman (2)
Freeman (1)
Georgetown Day School (2)
Walter Johnson (1)
James Monroe HS (1)
James W. Robinson, Jr. Secondary School (1)
King George (1)
Meadowbrook (2)
New Kent (3)
Ocean Lakes (1)
State College (2)
TJ Sci Tech (4)
Whitman (1)

Buzzers:
Blessed Sacrament Huguenot
Caesar Rodney
Clover Hill
Cosby
Dorman (2)
GDS
Walter Johnson
Freeman
James Monroe
King George
Ocean Lakes
Robinson
State College
TJ (2)
Whitman (2)

[Lapego1]

Our previous TD graduated with the password to our gsacdirector email account, so we'll be creating a new one soon.

Assuming it hasn't changed over the last couple of years, I've e-mailed you this info.

[MLWGS-Gir]

Our previous TD graduated with the password to our gsacdirector email account, so we'll be creating a new one soon.

Assuming it hasn't changed over the last couple of years, I've e-mailed you this info.

It has not changed. Now I just need to figure out how to make Google Groups, and we should be ready to send out an email soon.

[MLWGS-Gir]

If Tricia or one of the other mods could un-tentative us when they have a chance, that would be awesome.

[Carangoides ciliarius]

Caesar Rodney will be making the long drive and attending with one (1) team.

[MLWGS-Gir]

Caesar Rodney will be making the long drive and attending with one (1) team.

MapQuest puts you guys 197.82 miles away, which is definitely close enough to 200. So, for one team, that puts you at $50. If you either post an email address or email one to me, I can add you to our mailing list for further info later.

Also, thanks to whichever mod fixed the title.

[MLWGS-Gir]

It has been brought to my attention that December 6 is an SAT date. Is this going to affect anyone? From my limited experience it's seemed like not many people take the SAT in December, but I figured I'd ask...

[ieppler]

We will probably come to this with a few teams.

[aestheteboy]

There will be negs but no powers. Assuming we reach 48 teams, we'll run 6 round-robin brackets of 8 with the top 8 teams making the play-offs, which will be single-elim. We'll be working on some sort of consolation system to keep people playing, so if you know your team absolutely wouldn't want to stay for that, please let us know that when you register. We're tentatively capping the field at 48. However, we will keep a waiting list, and pending that reaching 6-7 teams (enough for us to have another bracket with minimum byes) and us being able to get enough rooms, we'll take those teams.

I'd like to kindly ask if there's a possibility of doing something other than single-elimination playoffs. I prefer round-robins, not really because it's a better way to determine the best team, but simply because you get the most number of games to the most number of teams that way. Perhaps what you could do is play a single match between 1 and 8, 2 and 7, . . ., and then put the winners in the championship RR and the losers in a consolation RR. That would require at least 2 more rounds, but I'm sure you can work it out . . .

[MLWGS-Gir]

There will be negs but no powers. Assuming we reach 48 teams, we'll run 6 round-robin brackets of 8 with the top 8 teams making the play-offs, which will be single-elim. We'll be working on some sort of consolation system to keep people playing, so if you know your team absolutely wouldn't want to stay for that, please let us know that when you register. We're tentatively capping the field at 48. However, we will keep a waiting list, and pending that reaching 6-7 teams (enough for us to have another bracket with minimum byes) and us being able to get enough rooms, we'll take those teams.

I'd like to kindly ask if there's a possibility of doing something other than single-elimination playoffs. I prefer round-robins, not really because it's a better way to determine the best team, but simply because you get the most number of games to the most number of teams that way. Perhaps what you could do is play a single match between 1 and 8, 2 and 7, . . ., and then put the winners in the championship RR and the losers in a consolation RR. That would require at least 2 more rounds, but I'm sure you can work it out . . .

We can't get 2 more rounds, is the problem. Our team size has halved and we're going to be pressed to get 10 quality rounds. If anyone has a suggestion that doesn't involve more rounds, though, I'm certainly listening. In terms of number of games, I'm going to try to work something out that drops the teams eliminated from the play-offs into consolation so people get to keep playing. I will gladly take suggestions on that as well.

[intothenegs]

James Monroe will be coming with one set of buzzers and at least one team.

[MLWGS-Gir]

James Monroe will be coming with one set of buzzers and at least one team.

We very much need buzzers, as our set is getting close to breaking.

[Lapego1]

I'd like to kindly ask if there's a possibility of doing something other than single-elimination playoffs. I prefer round-robins, not really because it's a better way to determine the best team, but simply because you get the most number of games to the most number of teams that way. Perhaps what you could do is play a single match between 1 and 8, 2 and 7, . . ., and then put the winners in the championship RR and the losers in a consolation RR. That would require at least 2 more rounds, but I'm sure you can work it out . . .

With the way it's traditionally been done (at least while I was there), the top 16 teams make an upper bracket playoffs, and then those remaining after the first round (8 teams) play until the end to determine rankings. This way top teams are rewarded by getting to play more games anyway. Meanwhile, a single-elim consolation bracket for the remaining teams is run.

Any way you look at running 10 packets with 32+ teams, a round robin playoff will leave some good team's fate up to (un)fairness in bracketing/packets in prelims and thus somebody good will be left out of contention for the title. A single-elim playoff gives teams that lost a prelim game on a fluke a second chance to bounce back.

[MLWGS-Gir]

With the way it's traditionally been done (at least while I was there), the top 16 teams make an upper bracket playoffs, and then those remaining after the first round (8 teams) play until the end to determine rankings. This way top teams are rewarded by getting to play more games anyway. Meanwhile, a single-elim consolation bracket for the remaining teams is run.

Any way you look at running 10 packets with 32+ teams, a round robin playoff will leave some good team's fate up to (un)fairness in bracketing/packets in prelims and thus somebody good will be left out of contention for the title. A single-elim playoff gives teams that lost a prelim game on a fluke a second chance to bounce back.

I think that's probably the way it was run last year...I wasn't on the war room staff, and the people who know about scheduling are gone. This is probably what we will actually do...

[MLWGS-Gir]

Dr. Barnes has now set up a survey for registrations. If Caesar Rodney and James Monroe could take a moment to fill that out as well so we have everything in one place, that would be awesome. I'll be editing the survey link into my main tournament-info post as well.

[MLWGS-Gir]

Massive post above has been updated to reflect PACE affiliation. I will hopefully type up a draft of an email to teams for Dr. B.'s approval today and then send that out this week, along with the option to join one of two Google Groups, one for teams and one for our assorted volunteers. This is of course pending my ability to create said Google Groups, but it doesn't look too hard and will allow us to keep our mailing list current and manageable.

[MLWGS-Gir]

Field update has been updated to reflect Robinson. I'd also like to remind James Monroe to fill out the registration survey when someone from there gets a chance; Dr. B. said they had not yet filled it out. I notably do not have access to this survey, so if you've registered through it but not posted here, you won't be in the field update until Dr. B. remembers to tell me. Also, I've written the email invitation and sent it off to Dr. B. for approval, so that should hopefully be sent out along with our shiny new Google Groups tomorrow night.

[intothenegs]

We have a few things to work out before we register. Sorry for the delay.

[MLWGS-Gir]

We have a few things to work out before we register. Sorry for the delay.

No problem. I just wanted to make sure that you guys were aware of the survey and that it hadn't broken or something.

[Robbie Ram]

Confirmed Field:
Caesar Rodney HS (1)
James Monroe HS (1)
James W. Robinson, Jr. Secondary School (1)

Buzzers:
Caesar Rodney
James Monroe
Robinson (2)

That should be 2 *teams* & 1 *buzzer system* for Robinson— not vice-versa.

[MLWGS-Gir]

Confirmed Field:
Caesar Rodney HS (1)
James Monroe HS (1)
James W. Robinson, Jr. Secondary School (1)

Buzzers:
Caesar Rodney
James Monroe
Robinson (2)

That should be 2 *teams* & 1 *buzzer system* for Robinson— not vice-versa.

OK. I'll have to make sure Dr. B. knows about that... I don't have access to the survey, so I don't know if something glitched or it's just Dr. B. being absent-minded. It will be fixed.

Also, field update is now updated with Dorman.

[MLWGS-Gir]

Our invitation email has now been sent out. I always created the two Google Groups and sent those invitations, but due to the huge number of people they have been delayed 1-2 days for review...

[MLWGS-Gir]

Ok, the Google Group invites just got approved.

[MLWGS-Gir]

Field updated once again. Dr. B. couldn't remember how many teams these schools are bringing, though... (thus the ?s).

[MLWGS-Gir]

Field updated once again.

[MLWGS-Gir]

Small field update, possibly to be further enlarged on Monday.

Also, I don't have access to our registration survey, so if State College hasn't done that yet and could do so soon that would be awesome.

[MLWGS-Gir]

Field update updated once again. Yay!

[Tower Monarch]

It's just my opinion, but I think Cosby deserves a moderator discount and free question set in return for my services. (which, in case I haven't been clear can include reading, scorekeeping, moderating, protest-managing etc plus those two packets I wrote.)
P.S. Once I finish sending in questions, I can help you guys throw together another round or two collaboratively to ease the playoff situation.