Maryland Fall Invitational (9/28/08) - Now an HSAPQ Event!

[DumbJaques]

Announcing the new and improved Maryland Fall Invitational, to take place on SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2008. The tournament will be taking place on SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2008. The tournament will be using the inaugural HSAPQ set (rounds will consist of twenty tossups and twenty bonuses). Please note that this a departure from our usual format - see below for some details on that.

REGISTRATION:

To register, please contact TD Jeremy Eaton at jay5006@aol.com.

PRICING:

Base team fee: $60
Additional teams: -$10
Buzzer system: -$5/system
Dedicated staffer/moderator: -$10
Minimum fee per team: $45


Hope to see you there,

-Chris, MAQT

Format Change:

MAQT has decided that, for the first time in possibly forever, we will not be running this tournament on house-written It's Academic format questions. Instead, we will be using the first HSAPQ set of the year, which is a tossup/bonus format. I invite any HSAPQ people who want to share more about the set to do so here, if desired. The reasons we've made this change can be summarized by the following:

1. The tournament was not at all a reflection of good quizbowl, and it always ended up with hopelessly unbalanced directed rounds. It was a relatively useless as an actual measure of the competing teams.
2. Although the tournament was intended to prepare teams for the television show, it really didn't do that either as it could not approximate the real length, style, and pace of the show, which is much more important in practicing for the show than actual question material. There was not a lot of point in constructing another set that tried to be both good quizbowl and good prep for the show and accomplished neither.
3. The first HSAPQ set promises to be extremely accessible, even to teams with absolutely no experience with pyramidal questions (or with quizbowl at all). From what I've seen of it, it's considerably more accessible than previous incarnations of this tournament. In this way, the HSAPQ set will be an even better way to introduce younger players to the game and start the year off than anything we would have produced.

I sincerely hope this does not cause anyone to avoid this event - I can think of no way in which switching sets is not a vast improvement upon what we usually do.

[BroNi]

This is great news! We were hoping that someone relatively close to the NY/NJ area would use one of the HSAPQ sets! It looks like we will bring 2, if not 3, teams down to Blake early Sat. morning, compete, go to Mass (church not the state!!), then stay overnight in Baltimore for your tournament. Could you recommend any local hotels? We will bring 3 working buzzers and 1 experienced moderator (if needed).

[DumbJaques]

This is great news! We were hoping that someone relatively close to the NY/NJ area would use one of the HSAPQ sets! It looks like we will bring 2, if not 3, teams down to Blake early Sat. morning, compete, go to Mass (church not the state!!), then stay overnight in Baltimore for your tournament. Could you recommend any local hotels? We will bring 3 working buzzers and 1 experienced moderator (if needed).

Great to hear! I'm hopeful that several out of town teams will similarly come in for both tournaments. I'm happy to help you with any hotel or logistics stuff you might have questions about - feel free to email me at volkov3000@yahoo.com.

[Gonzagapuma1]

Nice work Chris. Gonzaga will be there with 2-3 teams.

[Carangoides ciliarius]

Caesar Rodney will be making the trip from Delaware with 3 teams, likely. I'll do my best to confirm/solidify that number within a week or two's time.

[Salt Lake Dream]

Whitman will be sending one team with one buzzer.

[DumbJaques]

I'm glad to see all the interest in this thread, and certainly welcome anyone else to post here regarding their plans to attend (or boycott). Just make sure you also email Jeremy at the address in the first post, though, as that's how actual registration will occur.

[intothenegs]

I heard that Cavalier Classic will also be using a HSAPQ set; do you know if you will be using the same set as UVA, or if they are using another HSAPQ set?

[BroNi]

I heard that Cavalier Classic will also be using a HSAPQ set; do you know if you will be using the same set as UVA, or if they are using another HSAPQ set?

http://hsapq.com/events.html

[Carangoides ciliarius]

What are the times when this will begin and end? And the specific location at UMd? I've e-mailed on Friday and i needed a response by today, i don't know why it's taken so long.

[Carangoides ciliarius]

Thank you for getting back to me. We'll be there a little after 8am.

[Carangoides ciliarius]

Triple post.

Three questions.

1) In what building(s) will this event be located? I need to notify our driver since we're planning on hitching a bus.

2) I hope there's interest in this tournament, there doesn't appear to be a lot of discussion here... how many other teams have registered? Can you please post a field update?

3) Or just post something? Anything?

EDIT: As far as we know, we'll be bringing 4 teams from CR.

[DumbJaques]

1) In what building(s) will this event be located? I need to notify our driver since we're planning on hitching a bus.

2) I hope there's interest in this tournament, there doesn't appear to be a lot of discussion here... how many other teams have registered? Can you please post a field update?

3) Or just post something? Anything?

Sorry for the lack of discussion - I'm not actually overseeing this event, and I think I miscommunicated to Jeremy about posting here vs. emailing you. Anything I say is subject to Jeremy's correction, but I think I've confirmed the following details:

The tournament is occurring in the mathematics building. We will be having our registration/meeting in the Physics building (specifically, the physics lecture hall, either 1412 or 1410, which are right next to each other anyway). The buildings are also next to each other - please see this map. I recommend entering campus via the main entrance off of Route 1 and parking either in the lot immediately to your right or by the armory, which can be reached by taking a left at the giant 'M.' The buildings themselves will be on your right, nearby said giant 'M.'

Registration for this event will begin at 8:00 AM. We'll have a brief meeting at 9:00 AM, followed shortly by round 1. The exact format is subject to our final field count, but we'll likely be done by 4-5. We're interested in using as many of the assuredly exemplary HSAPQ packets as possible, within reason. We'll update with the round format sometime soon.

FIELD UPDATE (as of 9/19/08):

Kellenberg A
Kellenberg B
Gonzaga
Whitman
Centennial A
Centennial B
Centennial C
Caesar Rodney A
Caesar Rodney B
Caesar Rodney C
Caesar Rodney D
GDS A
GDS B
Walter Johnson
TJ A
TJ B
TJ C
TJ D
Charter A
Charter B
Charter C
Charter D
Charter E
Charter F
Charter G
Charter H (yeah, that's right dude, Charter H)
Hunter
Blake A
RM A
Gonzaga B

EDIT: We're locked at 30 teams.

[Carangoides ciliarius]

Awesome. :) Thanks. And hey, i'm not upset about the Charter horde, i'm looking forward to seeing Bill and his kids this early in the year since usually we don't see them until December. I have a group of freshmen who are going to be very excited to know they'll have this opportunity.

Shouldn't have any problem getting to the buildings. My brother is a MAQT alum, so he could give advice, but i was just on campus a couple weeks ago to see the UD/UMd football game and we went right past this.

[Bad Boy Bill]

If you need a team to fill out the field (e.g. someone drops that morning), there is a non-zero chance we will be able to do Charter I.

Don't worry Andrew. The new players aren't too scary (yet).

[Ronnie the Bear]

Charter fields first, best all-derelict quiz bowl team.

[MLWGS-Gir]

I'm fairly certain Gov has ruled out coming to this. I don't remember exactly why, though...

[The Atom Strikes!]

I'm fairly certain Gov has ruled out coming to this. I don't remember exactly why, though...

It's no longer conflicting with the UVA set, if that's what you were thinking.

[Isaacbh]

Blake has expressed interest, but is still determining if we can bring 1 or 2 teams.

[MLWGS-Gir]

I'm fairly certain Gov has ruled out coming to this. I don't remember exactly why, though...

It's no longer conflicting with the UVA set, if that's what you were thinking.

This was not the issue. I believe getting people for a Sunday tournament and budgetary concerns played a role, IIRC. I'm pretty sure we start the year with some amount of money from the school and the academic boosters. Barring random donations, we don't get more money until GSAC. We generally get additional funds from our school's silent auction in February. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is: our budget is tighter in the fall than the rest of the season, and so we can't necessarily get to every fall tournament in the area.

[The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio]

Y'know, I've always wondered what would happen if Charter runs out of letters for team designations...

[Crazy Andy Watkins]

The day a (legitimate, committed to playing good tournaments) program keeps 105 kids on its roster is the day I break down in tears, unable to express how happy I am that quizbowl has become so ubiquitous.

[President Gas]

The day a (legitimate, committed to playing good tournaments) program keeps 105 kids on its roster is the day I break down in tears, unable to express how happy I am that quizbowl has become so ubiquitous.

If that ever happens, I shall join you.

[jbarnes112358]

Y'know, I've always wondered what would happen if Charter runs out of letters for team designations...

After the letter Z they could start with the Greek letters. That's what is done with hurricanes.

[MLWGS-Gir]

Confirming that Gov can't come to this as Dr. B. will be out of town, at least one of our players can't make it, and no one's left that's currently authorized to take us places without Dr. B. So it goes.

[DumbJaques]

I can confirm that we'll begin registration at 8:00 am in lecture hall 1410 within the Physics building. Please let us know ASAP if you want to add to the field.

EDIT: It appears we'll be capping the field at 30 (it's at 29 right now), so there's one more spot left. We're going to run bracketed round robins for the prelims, and then run 2 playoff brackets of 6 teams each, using the new and improved PACE NSC Sunday format to decide the winner (that is, teams must win their playoff bracket in an ACF-style 2 out of 3 situation, with the winners playing each other in a final).

[closesesame]

Who should we write the check to?

[Bad Boy Bill]

Who should we write the check to?

This could be wrong, but I had mine cut to "Maryland Academic Quiz Team".

[Carangoides ciliarius]

Twenty 10 pt. TUs and 30 pt. Bs, right? I'm just assuming at this point.

These will also be timed rounds, correct? And the amount of time is... what, again?

Any other official rules to be spelled out at this point, just to clarify?

[Bad Boy Bill]

EDIT: It appears we'll be capping the field at 30 (it's at 29 right now), so there's one more spot left. We're going to run bracketed round robins for the prelims, and then run 2 playoff brackets of 6 teams each, using the new and improved PACE NSC Sunday format to decide the winner (that is, teams must win their playoff bracket in an ACF-style 2 out of 3 situation, with the winners playing each other in a final).

I think I missed something. Can someone point to me where the explanation of this format is located?

Also, will there be consolation brackets for other teams?

Andrew: only "official rules" NAQT is timed. The mACF format is untimed 20/20.

[Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It]

Twenty 10 pt. TUs and 30 pt. Bs, right? I'm just assuming at this point.

These will also be timed rounds, correct? And the amount of time is... what, again?

Any other official rules to be spelled out at this point, just to clarify?

The games are ACF format, which means you are correct that there are 20 tossups and bonuses. However, HSAPQ policy does not have timed matches.

[DumbJaques]

HSAPQ rules are based on ACF rules; that means, as has been noted, 20/20 untimed. If people have specific questions about what that entails, I recommend checking out the ACF rules, the HSAPQ website when they get the rules up, or just bringing it up at the rule meeting.

Checks should indeed be made out to "Maryland Academic Quiz Team."


I'll try to run through the round format here, although we'll go over all of this at the rules meeting, and anyone who's curious can email me. We currently plan to have 5 brackets of 6 teams each for prelims. Teams will play a full round robin. After the prelims, each winner and second place team from each bracket (based on record, then ppg) will be placed into one of two 6-team playoff brackets. The final two spots will be filled with wild cards based on record then ppg, with the provision that any team that finished ranked third but with the same record as the team that won their bracket (that is, circle of death records of 4-1, in this case) will be admitted over other wild-card teams.

After the prelims, the slate will be wiped clean and teams will play a round robin within their playoff bracket, where the winner will need to clear under ACF-style, best two out of three rules. That is, if one team is 5-0 and the second team is 4-1, they will play off for hte final spot with team A needing to win one round and team B needing to win two rounds to advance to the final.

I am very interested in doing consolation playoffs - I want any team wanting to play games to have the chance to do so. I am, however, somewhat reluctant to pre-commit to some plan, due to my experience with consolation teams demonstrating a disappointing lack of interest at Weekend of Quizbowl. Perhaps what we can do is ask coaches to commit their teams to 5 rounds of consolation play after prelims, and set up some sort of schedule accordingly? I assume that all non-playoff charter teams, at the least, will have to end up sticking around, so we should be able to do something.

[DumbJaques]

Hey, we currently have 29 teams and are searching for one more to fill out the field. If the "maybe" teams (Charter I and Blake B) could confirm their availability, there's a spot and we'd love for you to fill it.

[Bad Boy Bill]

Hey, we currently have 29 teams and are searching for one more to fill out the field. If the "maybe" teams (Charter I and Blake B) could confirm their availability, there's a spot and we'd love for you to fill it.

I'm not totally confident I have 36 coming along, so I yield the spot to the gentleman from Silver Spring if he can use it.

[DumbJaques]

I'm not totally confident I have 36 coming along, so I yield the spot to the gentleman from Silver Spring if he can use it.

Blake seems not very confident at all about being able to scrape together a B team, and coach Caulfield indicated to me that I should look for another option. If you can't find a full four, maybe some kind of Blake B - Charter I hybrid could be formed.

[Gonzagapuma1]

Father should've e-mailed you yesterday, but we want to bring a B team.

[closesesame]

So it seems our literature guy will not be coming Sunday...because it's Sunday.

[DumbJaques]

Father should've e-mailed you yesterday, but we want to bring a B team.

OK, as I'm reading this as a definite confirmation, I guess Gonzaga B will be magic team #30. Cool.

[aestheteboy]

So it seems our literature guy will not be coming Sunday...because it's Sunday.

Hey, that's not so bad. There is a good chance that I will be playing with one teammate (if not solo).
EDIT: btw, do we have powers?

[Carangoides ciliarius]

Well if it's ACF rules, then... no?

[DumbJaques]

Due to the registrations of four teams not being passed on to me until just now, and one team dropping out a few minutes ago, we're issuing an absurdly last minute request for extra teams to fill out the field (there are, at the moment, up to 4 slots available). I'm in particular trying to get in touch with Gonzaga B and Eleanor Roosevelt, who expressed interest - if anyone has contact info beyond email for ER, I'd love to have it. Even if you can only bring another person or two, we can try to form scab teams for free.

[Bad Boy Bill]

If everyone shows, Charter I can make its debut.

[DumbJaques]

If everyone shows, Charter I can make its debut.

Word.

[aestheteboy]

I hear Charter beat GDS in the finals match. Hunter beat WJ in the third place match, and Gonzaga beat TJ in the 5th place match.

EDIT (to actually add content): I enjoyed the tournament a lot. UMD folks and other moderators did a fine job. I thought the questions were very good, although that's not to say that there weren't some silly ones. I thought that the common-link tossups were a little excessive, but I guess it's a matter of personal preference. At first, I thought the bonuses were too easy, but after playing 12 rounds, it didn't seem so bad. It may be just the right difficulty, given that this set is used nation wide. Many times, I was confused what the question (especially the bonus) wanted; I'm not sure if it's actually the questions' being confusing, or if it was simply my being tired and the readers' reading fairly fast.

Now something more controversial: I'm sure I'll be accused of being elitist, but I think that the disparity between the knowledge level of the top teams and the lower teams has become too big to not have separate divisions (if you do bracketed prelims). Lop-sided games are simply not fun, and with the prelim system used in this tournament, it was almost guaranteed that four of the first five games would be just that. I have to say I was rather frustrated after the prelims, especially because one of the teams we played kept on yawning during tossups and had this why-are-we-here aura.

[closesesame]

Congrats to Charter. In my opinion, this was a good tournament overall. I wish we had our lit guy Josh Hahm along, which would have undoubtedly helped us. Anyway, can't stop a man for his religious beliefs.

The tossups were pretty good, but I agree with everyone else that I spoke with (like Daichi) that the bonuses were rather easy and some even seemed to repeat in multiple rounds (sometimes even verbatim). For the first effort of HSAPQ, though, these were good questions, and kudos to Maryland for running a good tournament.

[ieppler]

I hear Charter beat GDS in the finals match.

"Beat" isn't a strong enough word to describe it.

[RyuAqua]

My full congratulations to Charter; you guys played greatly in the finals, and before that of course.

Though obviously I shouldn't discuss HSAPQ specifics yet, overall I was happy with the questions. A few complaints: the difficulty seemed to vary between categories (maybe I'm used to SCIENCE! in another notable format, but the science tossups seemed much harder than lit or history), bonuses seemed easy overall, and there was often a feeling of "Wait, really it's this?" when it got down to giveaways. Some bonus parts in different rounds seemed dangerously close to being (if they weren't) repeats. On the whole, though, good job with this set; I look forward to more!

Daichi's point seems valid for a more general discussion. I'm not sure what my opinion is on the matter of divisions, though.

[Carangoides ciliarius]

Awesome job everybody and thanks a lot to UMCP for running a really nice tournament. Congrats to Charter for another well-deserved win.

It was great to see some of those powerhouse teams for ourselves early in the year so we know what to shoot for. My freshmen were in awe.

It was an interesting first competition for us. We got to see what we're like without our most aggressive and arguably best player (who left to go to Exeter Academy) and our top Lit/Art player (who was in D.C. for the weekend), but we ended up alright. While we grumbled for a moment thinking that we didn't even want to play 5 consolation games in the afternoon (after our A team was very disappointed in our prelim record), it turned out great as we played much better after lunch (something that's happened in tournaments in the past) and finally enjoyed ourselves. So, thank you for that opportunity to continue playing.

All in all, it really was a well-run and successful day. So, thanks for everyone involved. It was good to get off on a nice foot to start the year.

[Isaacbh]

Yeah, great tournament. All the readers were very good, it was well-run, and my teammate really liked the World History questions. Another good opportunity to find out all the thing we don't know.

[Carangoides ciliarius]

Yeah, great tournament. All the readers were very good....

I forgot to specifically make this point too, thanks for bringing it up Isaac (additionally, great job today). The readers were indeed excellent, some of the best we've ever had in competition. That deserves specific praise. They all did just a wonderful job and made the experience all the more enjoyable, professional, and efficient.