RAVE @ Rockford Auburn, 2/4/12

[abnormal abdomen]

This is a formal announcement for RAVE: Rockford Auburn’s Varsity Event, a high school quiz bowl tournament which will take place at Rockford Auburn High School in Rockford, IL, on February 4th, 2011. Lloyd and I will be serving as head editors of this set. Between the two of us, we've written questions for Fall Novice, ACF Novice, NAQT, SCOP Novice, and the Jean-Baptiste Lully Memorial at the 2010 Chicago Open, as well as other tournaments. We will be employing the services of Saad Sheikh and Jordan Hoffmann for help with science writing and editing, and will also likely employ the services of other Auburn students, current or graduated.

Difficulty and Aims: We will be writing a set that will feature answer lines which are typically accessible for the “average” high school quiz bowl team, but our tossups will feature lead-ins which are geared towards nationally competitive teams. Similarly, our bonuses will feature very accessible easy parts, but will also feature hard parts which will look to challenge nationally competitive teams. Thus, we will look to strike a nice balance and produce a set which is not only accessible and whose playoff rounds will still feature competitive matches between beginning and middling teams, but also a set which will be legitimately challenging for top teams. In order to be very clear, though, we’ll explicitly say that, on the whole, this tournament will be harder than “regular difficulty,” but not to the point that developing quiz bowl teams should shy away from this tournament. On the other hand, we do not recommend this tournament to be the first varsity tournament a quiz bowl team attends. We will look to maintain a consistent difficulty throughout the set.

Format: Our tossups will be capped at 6 lines in length (in size 10 Times New Roman font) before powers are marked, and individual bonus parts will be capped at 2 lines. We will employ powers and negs. We aim to produce 10 rounds + 2 finals packets + tiebreakers.

Distribution: Our distribution will be as follows:

4/4 Literature (1/1 American, 1/1 European, 1/1 British, 1/1 World and Ancient)
4/4 History (1/1 American, 1/1 European, 1/1 World, 1/1 British/Ancient)
4/4 Science (1/1 Biology, 1/1 Physics, 1/1 Chemistry, 1/1 Other, consisting of Noncomputational Math, Earth Science, Astronomy, Computer Science, General)
3/3 Fine Arts (1/1 Painting, 1/1 Compositional Music, 1/1 Sculpture, Opera, Architecture, Ballet, Jazz, Photography, or Other)
2/2 RM (1/1 Religion, 1/1 Mythology)
.5/.5 Social Science
.5/.5 Philosophy
.5/.5 Geography
.5/.5 Current Events
1/1 Trash

Pricing: Our base price for this will be $60/team. Coaches and teams are encouraged to consult us about possible legitimate financial constraints which will possibly prevent them from coming to this, so that we may work something out.

Staff: We will obviously be in need of staff. I understand that SCT is on the same date as this tournament, so we might be short some staffers. We hope to compensate for this due to the fact that we will have several Auburn players moderating, but we will obviously still need more.

Mirrors: Anyone interested in mirroring this set should contact me at ahaseeb618[AT]gmail[DOT]com.

Actually, if you have any questions whatsoever, email me. Teams can register by sending me an email with subject line "RAVE Registration for (Your Team Here)."

We look forward to seeing many of you in February.

[abnormal abdomen]

Just as an update, this tournament is currently gold certified by PACE, which means that the top 20% of teams will qualify for the NSC.

The set is nearing completion and we should be done within the next week or so, at which point we'll be looking to playtest and make more revisions. If you're at all interested in attending or mirroring, please contact me.

[abnormal abdomen]

Field (10):

IMSA (2)
Loyola (2)
Macomb (1)
Rolling Meadows (1)
New Trier (1)
Naperville North (1)
Guilford (1)
Mystery Team (1)


Expressed Interest (2):

"Lincolnshire Academy"
Bufalo Grove

[abnormal abdomen]

Minor field update has been made. Obviously, we're going to need more teams if this is going to actually happen. If you're interested, let us know!

[Boeing X-20, Please!]

Minor field update has been made. Obviously, we're going to need more teams if this is going to actually happen. If you're interested, let us know!

Oh hey, I don't know why this hasn't been said already. Some Loyola or "non-Loyola" contingency will be there.

[Dominator]

I'm not sure yet if I have enough people available to make a team that day. I'll try to have you a definite number by the end of the week.

[abnormal abdomen]

Update's been made. Loyola's in, while Carbondale and Fenton are unable to attend.

[abnormal abdomen]

IMSA and New trier have joined the field.

On another note, I dunno how necessary it'll be, considering that we'll have at least, like, 6 competent moderators just from Auburn's players, but if you're interested in graciously staffing for us, contact me. This will especially be the case if the field takes a big jump in the next few weeks.

[Wilberbeast]

Expressing interest on behalf of BG

[abnormal abdomen]

Minor field update's been made. We're hoping to get a few more teams; if you're interested or have any questions, let us know.

[abnormal abdomen]

Field (10):

IMSA (2)
Loyola (2)
Macomb (1)
Rolling Meadows (1)
New Trier (1)
Naperville North (1)
Guilford (1)
Mystery Team (1)


Expressed Interest (2):

"Lincolnshire Academy"
Bufalo Grove

As it stands, the above field is updated.

If neither of the "expressed interest" teams are able to play, then we'll just do a full RR with the 10 teams, which will be 9 games, plus up to two more games for an advantaged final, if necessary. On that note, if you've expressed interest, please let me know if you will be able to come ASAP.

I imagine that, pending Ms. Greene's confirmation, if both of said teams join the field, we'll break into two pools of 6, which will each RR, then the top three from each pool will play the top three from the other pool (and same with the bottom three), with the prelim matches for teams within the same afternoon pool carrying over. That makes 8 matches, plus up to two more for an advantaged final. We will break record ties by using ppg.

If only one of said teams joins the field, I'll probably consult Ms. Greene about forming a house team of Auburn underclassmen (only juniors and seniors have seen questions from the set) to fill out the field.

If anyone has any objection to any of this, do voice your concerns.

[in on these shenanigans]

That all sounds pretty good; what's your staff situation look like right now?

[abnormal abdomen]

At this point, we have, as readers, at least four competent Auburn readers (Lloyd, Mike Kikta, Samantha George, and myself, plus perhaps Jacob Balogh and one or two others). In addition, we have Tom Egan and Paul Gutowski. If we need her to do so, Ms. Greene can also read, though as of now she'll be helping Mrs. Saulberg (sp? she's the one who usually does it if Donald isn't there) with stats. In short, I think we're pretty good staff, assuming we don't get some unexpected spike. We'll use some underclassmen for scorekeeping.

[mlaird]

Loyola will be bringing enough people to split our B team into two teams of three (which they would probably prefer), if that makes things easier. If not, then they can just sub.

[abnormal abdomen]

Okay, so "Lincolnshire Academy" and New Trier are out, and though BG hasn't yet officially entered, I'm told that there is a very high chance that they will. That will leave us with:

IMSA A
IMSA B
Loyola A
Loyola B
Buffalo Grove
Guilford
Naperville North
Macomb
Rolling Meadows
Mystery Team

That makes 10 teams. If nothing else changes, we'll just run a full RR, which guarantees all teams 9 games. We will follow this with an advantaged final, if necessary.

If any of these teams drop out, or Buffalo Grove can't play, we can just add in the Auburn House team, or split Loyola B (thanks for offering, by the way, Mr. Laird).

Any objections?

[sssssssskkkk]

It'd be more appropriate to label the IMSA teams "IMSA B" (since 0 IMSA A players are playing this tournament and Anton/Sabrina are on that team) and "IMSA C."

[abnormal abdomen]

Oh, right, I am indeed aware of that. I just kinda listed it the way I did because I figured they'd be named A&B at the actual tournament, but then again, I could entirely be wrong.

[abnormal abdomen]

So I guess there's a possibility that New Trier will show up. That would cause us to have to add in the Loyola C team (if that's what they would like; otherwise, I'm guessing we'd just go with the Auburn scab team), giving us 12 teams.

So basically, we might have 12 packets and 12 teams for RAVE.

As of now, I see two options:

(a) Start with 2 pools of 6, and RR those off. That's 5 games. Then, you take the top 4 from each pool to make a championship pool of 8 teams; the 4 teams from one pool will play the 4 from the other pool, guaranteeing 9 games + advantaged finals. Prelim matches against other playoff teams from your prelim pool carry over. The bottom 2 from each prelim pool form a consolation bracket, and they RR, with the previous game not carrying over, guaranteeing a total of 8 games for them. The problem with this method is that I feel there really aren't enough guaranteed games.

(b) Start with 2 pools of 6, and RR those off. That's 5 games. Then, you take the top 3 from each pool to make a championship pool of 6 teams, and a consolation pool of the remaining 6. Then you RR those off, with no prelim games carrying over. That guarantees 10 games, but the no prelim games carrying over seems kind of annoying. Carrying them over also causes a discrepancy, though.

Option (a) seems more fair and gives teams the exact same set of playoff matches, but guarantees fewer games. Option (b) guarantees more games (and would give us platinum certification from PACE), but seems a little wonky.

Please give me your input on what seems more logical here.

Also, the set is done and we've been working on proofreading and so forth, in case you are wondering.

EDIT: clarity and stuff

[abnormal abdomen]

As a third option, we could do 2 pools of 6 for prelims, and then break into 4/4/4/. The top two from each pool would make the top bracket, next two from each pool would make the middle bracket, and the last two from each bracket would make the lower bracket. Record ties for advancement would be broken on PPG.

For the afternoon, then, teams would start by playing 2 games against the 2 teams in their bracket that they haven't yet played, then would play everyone in their pool again, making 10 guaranteed games, +2 more for finals, if needed. This would guarantee teams 10 games and would give all teams in the same playoff pool the same schedule. I am beginning to lean toward this option, but am open to criticisms/suggestions.

[abnormal abdomen]

Well, this is embarrassing. I guess we'll just have the 10. Sorry.

[Wilberbeast]

Problem solved! Looking forward to the tournament.

[Martha Dreyer]

New Trier's going to this. Does this mean we're going to end up using a 12 team format?

[abnormal abdomen]

Yes, indeed. This means that we have to confirm what format we're using. As of now, I'm leaning towards the third option I posted above, which is:

RR off the 2 pools of 6, then break into 4/4/4. By taking top two of each pool, then next two, then then two, to form championship/middle/lower afternoon pools. The prelim match with the team that ended up in your same afternoon pool carries over, and then you play the other two opponents you haven't played yet, and then you play all three teams again. This is probably a bit of an oddball format, but it guarantees 10 games, and makes sure that all teams in the same playoff pool have identical schedules.

If no one disputes this between now and tomorrow, I'm thinking we'll go ahead with that format. Input is encouraged.

[in on these shenanigans]

I like this format.

[abnormal abdomen]

So after prelims, Loyola A and IMSA B went undefeated in their respective pools. The other championship bracket teams are Buffalo Grove and New Trier, and AMSA (mystery team) and Macomb made the middle bracket, along with Loyola B and Naperville North.

[abnormal abdomen]

Loyola A finished one game ahead of New Trier in the playoffs. New Troer declined to play an advantaged final, so Loyola A won this thing.

I'll follow with a lengthier post commenting on various things a little later.

[Wilberbeast]

I'm blown away by how well the set was written. Well done Auburn!

[in on these shenanigans]

This tournament was great - great logistics, great field, and most of all RAVE was a great set. I hope you guys continue writing great HS-level questions in the future for whatever.

If you're currently scheduled to run RM/TP/Bellarmine, do yourself a favor and switch to RAVE. Now.

[abnormal abdomen]

All right. So, I'll probably have more analysis and things to say following the posting of stats and whatnot, but after being somewhat worried about the way that people would respond to this set, I think I can say that I am reasonably satisfied with the way this set turned out. First of all, I believe (and some people agreed, I'm sure some might disagree) that we did a fairly good job of meeting the announced difficulty. I do not feel that this tournament was back-breakingly hard at all. To put this into perspective, in the prelim rounds, 11 of the 12 teams broke 12 PPB, and the top PPB was Loyola with about 25. This seems roughly correct, but I'm sure the overall statistics will give us a better picture. The easy parts of our bonuses were usually consistently easy, I think, and the hard parts were often challenging for top teams. This is what I wanted. There also wasn't a boatload of first-line powers, expect in cases wherein players really earned it by having deep knowledge. Again, this was about what I wanted. There were, of course, plenty of powers, though; I feel like Loyola averaged around 7-8 per game in the morning.

Of course, this set, like almost every other high school set, was not perfect. There were some fraudable tossups here and there; we will look to rectify this as best as possible. There were also a few bonuses that did not have the distinctly-easy easy part, which I will look to go back and also rectify. I thought the copy-editing was decent; the set was very readable, though there are some typos and awkward wordings here and there that I will also look to go back and fix. Oh, and another thing: A decent amount of tossups in this set are somewhat long. I don't think any were a full 7 lines, but there were several that were 6.5-ish. I guess this isn't a huge deal considering that there were powermarks and whatnot, which slightly inflate the length, but, again, not entirely ideal.

On the whole, though, I'm proud of the product we put out today. There are lots of people to thank for this, of course. First and foremost, I have to thank Lloyd, who wrote tons of questions for this set with incredible efficiency and compiled the packets with equally incredible efficiency. Next, I dunno how many people are aware of this, but the work of Saad Sheikh (Auburn Class of 2011) and Jordan (Auburn Class of 2012) was absolutely critical for this set. Saad wrote almost all of the biology and chemistry, and Jordan wrote all of the math, from what I know. Additionally, though, Jordan took a lot of time out of his (presumably) busy schedule in the last week or two and went through all of Saad's questions with me and looked to tighten up difficulty properly: He made a lot of the "easy" bonus parts easier, and made some of the very-hard bonus parts hard. Whenever I needed something done or edited, Jordan was there to help. Other contributions to this set include Alex Pandya's work on various science topics, and Jacob Balogh and Mike Kikta also submitted questions for this set. Ms. Greene did a lot of useful proofreading as well. Thanks, guys.

As for today itself, I had a really good time. I was quite sick for the last few days, but I was able to read today and have a good time moderating. It helped, of course, that things went smoothly. I'd like to thank Lloyd Sy, Mike Kikta, Samantha George, Paul Gutowski, Jacob Balogh, and Ms. Greene for moderating, and I'd like to thank Will Rupprecht, Alex Pandya, Filip Milovanovic, Mr. Knuth, and Mr. Hargrove for scorekeeping. You guys are all great.

On one more note, it's appropriate that I thank Brad Fischer, Jonah Greenthal, and Donald Taylor for taking the time to hear about/advise me on various logistical things for this tournament.

I've love to hear feedback on the set, of course. If you were at this tournament and want to talk to me about things that we should change/look into fixing, email me at ahaseeeb618 [at] gmail [dot] com.

[abnormal abdomen]

Oh, and for individual categories:

Lloyd wrote all of the literature, geography, the vast majority of the RM, nearly all of the music, and a little more than half of the history.
I wrote all of the social science, philosophy, current events, visual arts, opera, physics, some "other" science, and a little less than half of the history.
Jordan Hoffmann wrote all of the math, as well as other various science questions.
Saad Sheikh wrote almost all of the biology and chemistry.
Alex Pandya wrote some "other" science.
Mike Kikta wrote some music.
Jacob Balogh wrote some American History.

Oh, and Lloyd and I wrote all the trash, heh.

edit: wrong thing

[jonah]

Stats: prelims playoffs overall

[Cubfan125]

Just out of curiosity, who was AMSA?

[Charles Martel]

[The identity of the school's name was removed on request--mgt.]