The Quizbowl Resource Center

I am pleased to announce that Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL will be mirroring ACF Fall 2011 on Saturday, November 5th, 2011!

This is a packet submission tournament; therefore, as per the ACF submission rules, any team with at least one person on it who played a regular, collegiate, academic quizbowl tournament prior to September 1, 2010 is required to submit a packet in order to participate in an ACF tournament in 2011-2012. This includes ACF Fall. As of last year, high school players are now included in this definition and are subject to the same discounts and penalties as college teams. Teams required to submit packets who do not submit one by the final deadline will be dropped from the tournament.

Please submit packets to [email protected] and use “ACF Fall 2011: [Team Name]” in the subject line.

This year’s submission schedule is:
Packet submitted before 11:59 PM eastern time on:
September 11, 2011: -$50
September 25, 2011: -$25 (-$50 for teams not required to submit packets)
October 9, 2011: No penalty (-$25 for teams not required to submit packets)
October 16, 2011: +$25
October 23, 2011: +$50

Helpful links to rules and guidelines for packet writing/submission can be found in the first post of the general ACF Fall announcement thread here.

Entry fees are determined by the standard ACF fee schedule, listed below:
Base fee: $120/team (no discounts for B, C, etc. teams)
Adjustments to team fees:
Colleges:
New ACF teams: $25/team from a school that did not send a team to any ACF Fall, Regionals, or Nationals tournament between September 2009 and August 2011. If a team from a school qualifying for this discount includes players who played ACF Fall/Regionals/Nationals for another school during that time period, that team does not receive this discount (but other teams from the school can).
New quizbowl teams: $75/team from a school that did not send a team to any regular collegiate academic quizbowl tournament between September 2009 and August 2011. If a team from a school qualifying for this discount includes players who played collegiate quizbowl for another school during that time period, that team does not receive this discount (but other teams from the school can). The New ACF team/new quizbowl team discounts can stack to a total discount of $100/team.
Packet discounts/penalties: As described above.

Adjustments to a school's overall fee:
Buzzer discount: $5/working buzzer system (no limit on discounts)
Staffer discount: $10/staffer
Laptop discount: $5/laptop for reading questions (maximum one discount per team {not school})
Travel discount: $10 per 200 miles one-way driving distance, as determined by Google Maps (helpfully, typing "Northern Illinois University, DeKalb IL" will direct you to the exact parking lot for the tournament.)

The minimum total fee for a school is $0.

We currently have enough staff to cap the field at 28 teams; as teams register staffers and I get moderator confirmations, that cap will almost certainly rise. For now, we will restrict high schools to one team per school, though I expect this restriction will be lifted as we raise the cap; high school B, C, etc. teams will be waitlisted until that restriction is lifted.

The tournament will, like all NIU tournaments, almost certainly be held in DuSable Hall. Parking at NIU on Saturdays is free and there's no football in town that day; we suggest parking in Lot 20/C, accessible from Lucinda Ave. via Annie Glidden Rd., as shown on this map. There are numerous delivery and fast food-type options within walking distance on Lucinda Ave. and on Lincoln Highway just south of the tournament, so we won't need to provide food for teams.

To register, please email me, Brad Fischer, at [email protected] with the number of teams, buzzers, laptops, and staffers you plan on bringing. If you have any questions at all, please email me!

I'll probably be there. I'll email you once things are ironed out in a week or two.

Ohio State will probably come with 3 teams and some number of buzzers.

Illinois will be there with some number of teams greater than or equal to 2, some number of buzzers, and (likely) 0 moderators.

IMSA will be there with 1 team, 1 moderator, 2 buzzer systems, and as many minions as you want for scorekeepers/statspersons/runners/pawns.

Running field update:

Registered (29+):
Northwestern x3
UIC
UIUC x2
Michigan State x1
Lawrence x2
Kenyon x1+
Central Michigan x2
UChicago x4
Eureka x1
Notre Dame x2
Benedictine
Michigan x3
Miami (OH) x2
IMSA
Macomb
Loyola x2

Expressed interest:
Carbondale

High school teams: $50/team from any high school.

Wasn't this eliminated?

Cernel Joson wrote:

High school teams: $50/team from any high school.

Wasn't this eliminated?

I stole that from the ACF website, noted thing that is really out of date. Remind me with a link?

Michigan will probably be there with 2-3 teams and 3 buzzers. Probably won't bring any moderators.

Bone seeker wrote:

Cernel Joson wrote:

High school teams: $50/team from any high school.

Wasn't this eliminated?

I stole that from the ACF website, noted thing that is really out of date. Remind me with a link?

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10841&p=203066&

The lesson here is that ACF needs to update it's website.

Man, now ACFFall is within 5 hours.

Lawrence U will be sending 1-2 teams

Never mind. It'll only be 2 teams.

EDIT: Speaking of unforeseen events...

Kenyon College plans to send 1-2 teams.

Belvidere North will be there with possibly 2 buzzer systems.

Brad,

Out of curiosity are you still capping the field at 20 teams or have you extended it?

Right now, I have enough staff for 22 teams; that rises to 24 if Michigan attends and Bryan Berend (ACF Fall editor) staffs. Tomorrow morning I'm going to send out a second wave of emails to the people I haven't heard from yet, and we'll see where we stand on staff and another field cap raise then.

That said, right now, none of the "pluses" have spots in the field, and will go on a waitlist in the order that they were announced to me (which is the above order).

We've got staff for 24 teams, so we're thrilled to reach that cap. We still have more potential moderators to get answers from, so it may still rise.

We're up to 28 teams and 14 moderators; I'm still waiting to hear back from some additional moderators. If you know the status of your additional teams, please let me know!

Dunno if they've sent you an email, but Lawrence is at 2 for sure.

Field update?

dtaylor4 wrote:Field update?

The field post above remains correct as of now.

stephosity wrote:Kenyon College plans to send 1-2 teams.

Stephanie, could you please check the email address that is posted on your profile? Thank you!

OK, we're sitting at 28 teams unless Kenyon answers their email by late tonight.

Assuming 28 teams, we're going to do* 4 prelim pools of 7 (so 6 games in 7 rounds for everybody), followed by a rebracket into top 8/next 8/next 6/last 6, where the top 2 teams from each pool advance to the top bracket, 3rd and 4th to next 8, and then we'll seed the 5th/6th/7ths by (record then PPB) into a top 6 and bottom 6. The 6-team pools will play a 5 game round robin (11 games in 12 rounds for them), while the 8-team pools will play 6 games - carrying over the repeat match from the prelims, playing the other 6 teams (12 games in 13 rounds for them). Finals will then follow. We have 16 packets, of which only 3 are not-blind to our field, so they can get burned in the prelims and we'll have 1 packet left over for errors.

*this is pending my verification that the format follows ACF guidelines; the website currently doesn't have the document I need to refer to, so if I'm breaking a rule I'll fix it.

This format seems to be in accordance with ACF rules (which are now available on the Documents page of the website or right here).

Susan wrote:This format seems to be in accordance with ACF rules (which are now available on the Documents page of the website or right here).

Excellent -- thank you!

ACF Fallossus: it's official.

cornfused wrote:ACS Sallossus: it's official.

Fixed

Northwestern A won 2011 ACF Fall at NIU in the first game of an advantaged final over Michigan A; Northwestern A was therefore the top undergrad team*. IMSA took home top Division II and Top High School honors. Solo player Tristan Willey (Macomb HS) was the top individual scorer, bolstered by his 20/0 grail in Round 3.

Full stats/recap/thanks will be posted later tonight.

*Someone wrote down that Anant was a grad student and so we mistakenly gave the Undergrad trophy to IMSA; we'll get that trophy back to Northwestern on a future Saturday.

Bone seeker wrote:*Someone wrote down that Anant was a grad student and so we mistakenly gave the Undergrad trophy to IMSA; we'll get that trophy back to Northwestern on a future Saturday.

Not so fast. I'll need to see Anant's longform undergraduate certificate before I part with my hardware.

Thanks to NIU for hosting a great tournament. I had a really enjoyable time, and I think the rest of my team did too.

Bone seeker wrote:Solo player Tristan Willey (Macomb HS) was the top individual scorer, bolstered by his 20/0 grail in Round 3.

This seems like kind of a big deal. Has this ever happened at an ACF tournament before?

List of villages in West Virginia wrote:

Bone seeker wrote:Solo player Tristan Willey (Macomb HS) was the top individual scorer, bolstered by his 20/0 grail in Round 3.

This seems like kind of a big deal. Has this ever happened at an ACF tournament before?

Jerry Vinokurov did it at least once at ACF Nationals.

Congratulations to Northwestern A for winning the 2011 incarnation of ACF Fall in an excellent 400-255 match over Michigan A! Northwestern A, the top undergraduate team and the Andrew Hart champion (with 25.46 points per bonus), entered the final at 6-1 in the playoffs, while runner-up Michigan A was the lone 5-2 team ahead of a three-way tie for 3rd at 4-3 among Chicago A, Division II and High School champion IMSA, and Notre Dame A. After placing 3rd in a three-way prelim circle of death, Chicago B went undefeated in the second bracket to finish 11-1 in 9th place, a scenario for which there desperately needs to be a clever name a la "Andrew Hart champion."

I'd like to thank everyone who ran this tournament: Kristin Strey on co-tournament directing/stats/everything, Sam Bailey, Bryan Berend, Greg Dzuricsko, Tom Egan, Kelly Fisher, Matt Laird, Mike Laudermith, Matt Menard, Ali Nagib, Greg Peterson, Noah Prince, Jimmy Ready, and Tyler Smith for coming all the way out to DeKalb to moderate, Alekya, Alexa, Gina, and Rishi from IMSA for scorekeeping, and Kristin's mom for watching Jimmy today (apparently he woke up at 3 AM; these NIU tournaments literally DO NOT HAPPEN without both of our parents' amazing help babysitting).

I'd also like to thank everyone who came out for a great day of quizbowl. Six colleges made their first trips to NIU; we hope that you enjoyed "scenic" DeKalb and that we'll see you again the next time we host a college event, whenever that may be. We certainly enjoyed hosting for everyone, even setting aside minor mishaps like the trophy errors (that's the last time I try spelling inscription requests over the phone).

Stats are posted in the HSQB database; links are below. The Combined file has the packet names, while the Prelim and Playoff files do not.

Combined
Prelims
Playoffs

Thanks again, and good luck the rest of the year!
Brad Fischer
TD, ACF Fall at NIU

Ukonvasara wrote:

List of villages in West Virginia wrote:

Bone seeker wrote:Solo player Tristan Willey (Macomb HS) was the top individual scorer, bolstered by his 20/0 grail in Round 3.

This seems like kind of a big deal. Has this ever happened at an ACF tournament before?

Jerry Vinokurov did it at least once at ACF Nationals.

Still, this is a junior in high school, grailing on a college set. Major props.

Bone seeker wrote:Solo player Tristan Willey (Macomb HS) was the top individual scorer, bolstered by his 20/0 grail in Round 3.

I was definitely impressed by how good of a player Tristan is.