2017 ICT bids

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2017 ICT bids

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

...are up, but, uh, what in the world is going on? How does, for example, Virginia get two DI bids despite playing no DI teams (leaving a very good team like Duke on the bubble)?
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Tejas »

I am also curious as to how Yale got two DI bids. I assume one is for hosting and one is for Jacob and Stephen editing SCT, I'm not clear as to why they get two for this though.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by touchpack »

It's definitely clear that NAQT is giving out WAY too many bids (for UG, hosting, guest editing, etc.) Only FOUR teams (out of 32) qualified on the strength of their D-value. The team with the 13th best D-value (Duke) got bubbled!
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Important Bird Area »

naqt.com wrote:NAQT is pleased to announce that Stephen Eltinge and Jacob Reed will be serving as guest editors of NAQT’s 2017 Division I Sectional Championship Tournament set. ...

In exchange for their services, Yale University will receive two editorial autobids to the Division I ICT. Unlike hosting autobids, these editorial autobids cannot be dissolved (though, of course, they need not be accepted). Yale will also host a Sectional Championship Tournament, but it will not receive an additional hosting autobid.

Virginia asked for and received an additional hosting bid due to the large field size at the Mid-Atlantic SCT.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

bird bird bird bird bird wrote:Virginia asked for and received an additional hosting bid due to the large field size at the Mid-Atlantic SCT.
This seems...let's go with "silly".
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Unicolored Jay »

Wouldn't the increased number of autobids handed out be more justifiable if the ICT field were larger?
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

bird bird bird bird bird wrote:
naqt.com wrote:NAQT is pleased to announce that Stephen Eltinge and Jacob Reed will be serving as guest editors of NAQT’s 2017 Division I Sectional Championship Tournament set. ...

In exchange for their services, Yale University will receive two editorial autobids to the Division I ICT. Unlike hosting autobids, these editorial autobids cannot be dissolved (though, of course, they need not be accepted). Yale will also host a Sectional Championship Tournament, but it will not receive an additional hosting autobid.

Virginia asked for and received an additional hosting bid due to the large field size at the Mid-Atlantic SCT.
Image

You literally had to perform at least as well D-Value wise as Chicago A to qualify for this tournament unless you got an automatic bid. This is not good!
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Bensonfan23 »

I'm sorry, I don't usually post on here, but there is absolutely no way whatsoever that we should not be in the field for D1. Our D-value was 13th, if those stats don't make it into the field something is fundamentally broken.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by heterodyne »

It appears that Virginia has fielded a B team at exactly one tournament this year, and that team got ~10ppb. What gives?
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Ike »

You literally had to perform at least as well D-Value wise as Chicago A to qualify for this tournament unless you got an automatic bid. This is not good!
Is there any chance the Chicago A D-value is a mistake? It would be REALLY FUNNY if it were actually a miscalculation, and like, they didn't get to go to ICT.

(More seriously, this does feel messed up too - it seems that the best way to guarantee your spot is through hosting, and not playing if you're an on the fence team.)
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by touchpack »

Here are some stats from recent ICTs:

2016: The top 25 teams (by D-value) all qualified for ICT
2015: top 27
2014: top 19
2013: top 23
2012: top 25

Average: 23.8

This year: top 12


???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Bensonfan23 »

I'm sorry, but this qualifying procedure is laughably ridiculous. Under no circumstances should bids be given out this easily to the point that it makes qualifying based on statistics so difficult. If its a field expansion or being more strict on host bids that's necessary, then fine, but there is still a fundamental flaw here. When I first saw the email only inviting our D2 team, I honestly thought it was a simple oversight. Clearly we should have flown to Colorado like Columbia instead of playing several quality games in the Mid-Atlantic and even winning a game against Maryland A... (Edit: just to be clear, I'm aware this wasn't Maryland A at its best, but they still had Jordan and were good enough to win the site, so hopefully my point still stands)
Last edited by Bensonfan23 on Tue Feb 14, 2017 3:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Beevor Feevor »

ohlordthisiscrazy.

So on behalf of the Virginia team, I'd like to share our side of the story and explain what happened so that other people can figure out the consequences. I actually don't really have a dog in this fight, as will become apparent, so hopefully this helps shed some light on what happened.

The Virginia team originally planned to host ACF Regionals, but was unable to because Cody Voight got priority as an editor (which we failed to recognize and which wasn't brought up to us by the ACF crew until I contacted Andrew Hart personally about a few days before the announcements were made). Because we typically rely on hosting Regs to bring us funding to attend both nationals, I thought that we needed to get another tournament to balance out our budget. However, because we figured that SCT was already locked down on hosts, and because other teams in the area with more experience hosting SCT typically do so, I decided to hold off on sending in an emergency bid.

Shortly thereafter, the mid-Atlantic circuit was emailed by Jeff Hoppes asking for an emergency SCT host; apparently nobody had submitted anything in the region, so the tournament was up for grabs far after the sites were supposed to have been determined. While slightly disconcerting to me (since I had assumed that such a major site would have been up long ago), I thought of it as a great opportunity to keep the club in the black and also gain experience hosting SCT/helping out the circuit. I quickly emailed Jeff back saying that we could host, and the mirror was set up.

Initially, we were planning on having a house, B-team that would try to compete in Division-I for a bid to ICT. Our B-team (which hasn't played all year) and which includes two 4th year students, had never played D-I ICT, and I thought that it would be a good experience for them to try and qualify in their final year, so that we could make a trip up to Chicago as a team. However, because of the size of the field, as well as difficulties that we and NAQT had finding adequate numbers of staff to host the tournament, we were forced to scrap the B-team and utilize all hands on deck. While the B-team didn't necessarily complain, I thought that it would be worth a shot to ask NAQT if we could obtain an autobid for our B-team at ICT. From our perspective, it couldn't hurt, since NAQT did spring an SCT mirror on us with pretty little time to prepare, and because I did want our experienced members to have the experience of going to ICT.

Obviously, the rest is history, as seen in this thread. Hopefully it's equally obvious that we never had any nefarious scheme to screw many well-deserving teams out of D-I bids for ICT; as Billy pointed out, this has generally never been a huge problem at ICT, and I felt like we were completely in our right to at least request another autobid from NAQT in the hopes of rewarding our experienced players. I don't really know where to go from here while preserving some sort of justice with everyone involved, but I hope that NAQT can weigh in soon and right this pretty obvious wrong. My sincerest apologies to any teams that were hurt by this unfortunate series of events; it certainly was not intentional on our behalf.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Once again, the solution seems to be to expand the ICT field.

I suspect we need not worry, though. After all, NAQT is going to have "internal discussions" again this summer!
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Ike »

Obviously, the rest is history, as seen in this thread. Hopefully it's equally obvious that we never had any nefarious scheme to screw many well-deserving teams out of D-I bids for ICT; as Billy pointed out, this has generally never been a huge problem at ICT, and I felt like we were completely in our right to at least request another autobid from NAQT in the hopes of rewarding our experienced players. I don't really know where to go from here while preserving some sort of justice with everyone involved, but I hope that NAQT can weigh in soon and right this pretty obvious wrong. My sincerest apologies to any teams that were hurt by this unfortunate series of events; it certainly was not intentional on our behalf.
Yeah, I don't think anyone is blaming Virginia here for what transpired. I probably would ask too if I were in your shoes too Eric. I think the issue that many people are having is that such criteria as used by NAQT appear to be relatively ad-hoc. If I were on the 2012 Illinois team, I'd probably elect to host SCT if given such information that so many bids were reserved for guest-editorships, UG, and the like. None of this was public, no? Very Unfair!

Edit: Whoops! I was wrong, Mewtwo55555 does care, citation below. Sorry about that Eric!
Last edited by Ike on Tue Feb 14, 2017 2:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

And I thought 16th was safe...should have gone to Upstate NY!
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Bensonfan23 »

And I thought 16th was safe...should have gone to Upstate NY!
Yeah, who needs teams like Duke, McGill, Berkeley B, Chicago B, Penn, Harvard, Brown, Mizzou, and Princeton at their nationals? Want to split a flight to Colorado next Spring?

Edit: Just to be clear, I (and Duke's team) have no ill will whatsoever toward anyone who submitted a host bid, such as UVA, since they were just doing what was in their team's best interest. That's perfectly reasonable. This problem just highlights that NAQT needs to be (much) more selective in who they give their bids to, so as to not damage the reputation of their premier championship tournament, and further discourage quality teams from playing challenging games at their local sites because those teams now feel pressured to travel to the middle of nowhere just to get to their bid to nationals (which runs entirely against the purpose of granting a host bid to these less-developed circuits in the first place). Nonetheless, all of these issues also seem to be easily fixable by also increasing your ICT field size, as several others have suggested in this both thread and in the Rocky Mountain SCT thread.
Last edited by Bensonfan23 on Tue Feb 14, 2017 4:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Ike wrote:Yeah, I don't think anyone is blaming Virginia here for what transpired. I probably would ask too if I were in your shoes too Eric. I think the issue that many people are having is that such criteria as used by NAQT appear to be relatively ad-hoc. If I were on the 2012 Illinois team, I'd probably elect to host SCT if given such information that so many bids were reserved for guest-editorships, UG, and the like. None of this was public, no? Very Unfair!
No-Good NAQT denying spots to deserving teams in the ICT field. Sad!
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

No more lame Trump jokes please.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Mewto55555 »

Eric Xu, you're a well-meaning dude, I'm sure, but your B-teamers who haven't played anything all season just took a spot at ICT from a Duke team that is objectively better than even your A team.

Luckily, you realized this, and when NAQT gave you the bid you asked for, you rightfully...oh wait, you've already accepted it. Nice.

EDIT: Apparently UVA A and Duke A are approximately equally as good (one won their games, one was ranked higher in the poll).
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Taking bets on how many sites Chicago sends teams to next year.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Panayot Hitov »

Bensonfan23 wrote:
And I thought 16th was safe...should have gone to Upstate NY!
Yeah, who needs teams like Duke, McGill, Chicago B, Penn, Harvard, Brown, and Princeton at their nationals? Want to split a flight to Colorado next Spring?
guess you gotta draw the line somewhere

EDIT: Anyway, I'm really pissed about this. What's the point of trying to qualify when all the cool teams get free passes?
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Ironically, the argument from the Rocky Mountain SCT thread that Columbia playing simply produced a DI bid out of nowhere rather than locking out a Rocky Mountain team, since no DI team would have otherwise qualified from the combined field, seems to have suffered the old reversal of fortune, as that manufactured autobid is now contributing to the bottleneck effect that's keeping out D-value qualifiers. Whoops!

Quizbowl tourism is awesome, but direct qualifiers to national tournaments are probably not the best place to be doing it.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Cody »

Lol NAQT
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

e - x - p - a - n - d -- t - h - e -- f - i - e - l - d
Next year, if you must! It is for the greater good! I fear that the 2017 D2 champion will not qualify for the 2018 D1 ICT at this rate.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Sigurd »

The Ununtiable Twine wrote:e - x - p - a - n - d -- t - h - e -- f - i - e - l - d
Next year, if you must! It is for the greater good! I fear that the 2017 D2 champion will not qualify for the 2018 D1 ICT at this rate.
Expanding the field won't do *that* much if some of these truly ridiculous bids keep getting handed out. Especially when the alternative is to just stop handing out said ridiculous bids.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

Auks Ran Ova wrote:Ironically, the argument from the Rocky Mountain SCT thread that Columbia playing simply produced a DI bid out of nowhere rather than locking out a Rocky Mountain team, since no DI team would have otherwise qualified from the combined field, seems to have suffered the old reversal of fortune, as that manufactured autobid is now contributing to the bottleneck effect that's keeping out D-value qualifiers. Whoops!

Quizbowl tourism is awesome, but direct qualifiers to national tournaments are probably not the best place to be doing it.
It would be unfortunate if the results of this year's sectionals leads to an increased prevalence of ICT qualification tourism in the future.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Cody »

More seriously: what the fuck, NAQT? Every year, the determination of hosts is ridiculously delayed for no damn reason (JUST ANNOUNCE PARTIAL SITES!) & now we're looking at 10 hosting + editor bids in D1? I'm sure some of this is a result of teams choosing D1 bids rather than D2 bids, but c'mon.

Last year, I was contacted on September 23 about hosting SCT, and told that NAQT was "adopting a slightly different model for SCT hosting this year in that we are reaching out to people to ask them to host (rather than waiting for bids)." What happened to that? This year, the mid-Atlantic site wasn't determined until an "emergency" e-mailing on December 19th. This is 3 months later than I was contacted last year - and I wasn't the first to be contacted last year - and less than 7 weeks to the tournament. The e-mail also came an hour and ten minutes after this post by Victor in the SCT thread, which I assume is no coincidence.... This despite the fact that the mid-Atlantic SCT is always one of the largest sites (tied for largest this year, with New England). Maybe contacting the best tournament director in the region - someone who did a superb job last year and didn't generate a host bid - should be on your list of things to do well in advance?! At the very least, said person might be able to direct you to the right place.

Last year, I was told "It would be your responsibility to market the event to existing teams and to staff the tournament. Host sites will NOT, as a matter of course, be expected to staff the tournament (and they will not be earning a host bid as a matter of course). NAQT is open to the idea that it may be necessary to "trade a host bid for staff" at some SCTs, but we'd like to make that the exception (rather than the rule)." What happened to that? This guideline was certainly nowhere to be found in the e-mail sent out December 19th. It's great that you're willing to work with hosts (I certainly appreciated the possibility last year), but it really doesn't seem like anyone even tried this year.

Also, VCU should certainly get a host bid given that we provided 3 solo readers (~25%) for the Mid-Atlantic SCT (without which it wouldn't have been able to run)*.

*obviously we were happy to provide them and don't actually want a host bid, but hey if NAQT is just slinging host bids around...why not?
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

raffi_-_c-a-n-a-d-a.mp3 wrote:
Auks Ran Ova wrote:Ironically, the argument from the Rocky Mountain SCT thread that Columbia playing simply produced a DI bid out of nowhere rather than locking out a Rocky Mountain team, since no DI team would have otherwise qualified from the combined field, seems to have suffered the old reversal of fortune, as that manufactured autobid is now contributing to the bottleneck effect that's keeping out D-value qualifiers. Whoops!

Quizbowl tourism is awesome, but direct qualifiers to national tournaments are probably not the best place to be doing it.
It would be unfortunate if the results of this year's sectionals leads to an increased prevalence of ICT qualification tourism in the future.
I'd be shocked if it didn't. You think Duke is going to the Mid-Atlantic site instead of the Georgia one next year? What's a few hours' extra driving in exchange for a guaranteed bid? Heck, right now I'm wishing I had just flown out to Southern California last year to play SCT for Dartmouth, since we had plenty in the bank.

The worst part is that this setup actively discourages teams from seeking good competition of similar skill levels to themselves, and instead incentivizes beating up on weaker fields.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by CaseyB »

I have to agree that reform to how automatic bids are issued and expansion of the field at ICT are both needed. There is no way that the 14th highest D-value should justifiably be left out of the field at ICT. I'd also like to point out something that I don't think has been brought up before, probably because it may not have caused an issue in the past. It seems to me that when you account for overall winners, undergrad champs, and host bids, there are theoretically more automatic bids available (15 x 3 = 45) than there are spots in the tournament (32). Obviously because not every site names an undergrad champ, some sites have combined fields, and host bids aren't awarded at every site, this isn't typically an issue. But I think this year's list of ICT invitations makes this a relevant point.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Sima Guang Hater »

This sucks, end of post.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by heterodyne »

The Ununtiable Twine wrote: Next year, if you must! It is for the greater good! I fear that the 2017 D2 champion will not qualify for the 2018 D1 ICT at this rate.
Like how the 2016 D2 champion did not qualify for the 2017 D1 ICT?

yes I understand that the d2 team from last year was split etc etc the point is we're already there
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Cheynem »

There are a bunch of small, obvious fixes that would clear up most of the problems and not require convoluted things such as regulating teams traveling to play or expanding the field.

*Teams that host must apply for a bid (separately for DI and DII if necessary, or even two DI bids, etc.). The team would simply cite past tournament performance, placement in the polls, etc. The challenge I could see here is if probably a "bubble D-value team" hosts, but I think allowing some fudgery here is better than simply giving everyone, even very inactive teams, an auto-bid.

*The UG auto-bid is only given out if there are a certain number of UG teams present and if a minimum D-value performance is reached. I also wonder if you accept an UG auto-bid, there should be a stricter requirement that your ICT team must be UG.

*Bids given out for editing cannot stack on hosting bids without further application. The application process will be reasonably transparent--I don't expect a liveblog of the judging process but a simple list of who has applied and a brief explanation of the decision ("NAQT has turned down the Carleton team's application for an autobid").
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by vinteuil »

Cheynem wrote:*Bids given out for editing cannot stack on hosting bids without further application. The application process will be reasonably transparent--I don't expect a liveblog of the judging process but a simple list of who has applied and a brief explanation of the decision ("NAQT has turned down the Carleton team's application for an autobid").
I agree with this—but didn't this happen this year? Yale got two guest editor bids (which might be too many), but no hosting bids (even thought we qualified—not that I'm complaining).
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Cheynem »

I just meant in general; I don't know if that's actually codified.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Victor Prieto »

Can NAQT respond to any of this? I realize that the invitations were released very recently and it hasn't been that long, but it would be encouraging to see something along the lines of "we are aware of this issue" rather than silence. I really hope that NAQT believes it is a problem when over 50% of the invitations went out to teams who fell below the 32 mark in D-value or didn't even play SCT at all. Billy's post captures that problem in empirical form pretty well, although it should be noted those numbers are from the final field and doesn't take into account declined invitations (somewhere between 2 and 5 teams decline DI invitations each year). It's likely that the final number will end up somewhere in the top 14-16 region, which is still absurd.
Cheynem wrote:There are a bunch of small, obvious fixes that would clear up most of the problems and not require convoluted things such as regulating teams traveling to play or expanding the field.
None of your proposed fixes don't help at all for 2017... I'm assuming the invitations are set in stone, but I haven't seen NAQT state any reasons for why the ICT field can't be expanded, which might be the only way to help correct this mishap.
Last edited by Victor Prieto on Thu May 25, 2017 9:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Important Bird Area »

We're definitely aware of the issues involved and closely reading this thread.

The 2017 ICT will remain at 32 teams in each division for both financial and logistical reasons.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Cheynem »

I agree that there's no way to fix this for 2017. I remain unconvinced that expansion of the ICT field in general is impossible, but again, I think some bid reform steps would help to solve the issue.

My issue to some extent is the same with the clock; these are not new complaints. We talked about the hiccups in the bidding process when I was an active player and presumably before that (who can forget a drunken Michael Arnold pissed that Columbia ended up on the waitlist?). People have made these complaints before, and not much happened...and in fact, it feels like this year, the pendulum shifted to even further auto-bids! I wish we will get a definitive "this is what we're going to do" response this time.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Important Bird Area »

bird bird bird bird bird wrote:We're definitely aware of the issues involved and closely reading this thread.

The 2017 ICT will remain at 32 teams in each division for both financial and logistical reasons.
Note in particular that there is not sufficient room space in the hotel to expand the field at this time. (We have ruled out using converted standard guest rooms for tournament play; when we did that in past years, we received a number of security complaints about the potential for teams to see the questions on the moderator's desk.)
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Susan »

I'd really love to hear more about NAQT's general rationale behind its bid allocation, as well as how it decides what size the ICT field should remain. I'm sympathetic to the pressures NAQT is under--getting people to bid to host the February tournaments (Regionals and SCT) has gotten markedly harder over the past 5-10 years. We discussed this on the boards about four years ago and really didn't come to any satisfactory solutions, and my sense is that it hasn't gotten easier since then (and may have gotten worse). Similarly, I know that it's hard to line up good writers and editors for SCT, particularly if you're looking for younger writers/editors with more connections to the current college circuit; I assume that NAQT feels it needs to make generous bid allocations here to make that happen.

Here are some of the particular questions I have in mind:
-Autobids for writing/editing have been around for a while (did they start in the mid- to late-oughts?), but it sounds like there were more this year than perhaps there have been in the past--is this accurate? Does NAQT plan to keep awarding writing/editing autobids at this rate? Are there other ways to incentivize people to do this work (extra $$??)?
-Does NAQT feel like it's getting harder to recruit writers, editors, and hosts for the SCT? If so, do you have any sense of why?
-Is there anything the circuit could do to alleviate some of the pressures driving the autobid situation? In the past, we've talked about things like having something like a national registry of potential moderators (which would make it easier to staff big tournaments), or having regional circuits rotate who hosts Regionals and SCT (which might help make strong teams more likely to take a turn hosting). Would these solve anything? Are there other solutions?
-What would hosting a larger ICT look like? What are the financial and logistical pressures keeping it at 32 teams/division?
-How does NAQT assess what value it gets out of its autobids? I'm thinking particularly of autobids for DI Undergrad winners, or autobids for sectionals where there were 4 or more teams in a division, but those teams only hailed from a couple of schools. There are plausible arguments you can make for eliminating either of these types of autobids; what's NAQT's argument for keeping them?
-What would make NAQT look at the list of D-values and say, "Hey, there's a problem here?" For me, seeing that the top half of the DI field (by D-value) didn't all get into the tournament. I'm sympathetic to the notion that the DI ICT field need not be the teams with the top 32 D-values--that there are some arguments to be made for geographic diversity, and that any ranking of, say, teams 21-32 is probably going to be pretty dicey. But it seems really off for the teams that are 14-16 by D-value to not be in the field.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by ryanrosenberg »

I also think reform to prevent team-splitting at SCT should be explored. Team-splitting dilutes the quality of the ICT field, denies bids to strong teams, and makes it harder to judge just how good the top teams are.

For example, this year, the Maryland B team that put up 11.64 PPB on WAO has a higher D-Value than a very good McGill team that doesn't happen to attend the same school as Jordan Brownstein. Michigan B hasn't played a tournament together this year, but last year's Michigan B qualified via team-splitting at SCT en route to a bottom-bracket finish. That situation appears set to repeat itself (although Saul Hankin might be able to carry them to a third-bracket finish at ICT this year). As pointed out upthread, ICT bids are not infinite; Michigan B and Columbia B and potentially Maryland B are going to deny better teams qualification.

The solution to team-splitting is simple: NAQT should require teams to bring the same roster to ICT that they did to SCT, and have a special application to cover unavoidable player absences.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by CPiGuy »

Cheynem wrote: *The UG auto-bid is only given out if there are a certain number of UG teams present and if a minimum D-value performance is reached. I also wonder if you accept an UG auto-bid, there should be a stricter requirement that your ICT team must be UG.
I think this is already the case; there has to be at least 4 (? maybe 6?) UG teams present in order to give out a separate UG auto-bid.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Cody »

bird bird bird bird bird wrote:
bird bird bird bird bird wrote:We're definitely aware of the issues involved and closely reading this thread.

The 2017 ICT will remain at 32 teams in each division for both financial and logistical reasons.
Note in particular that there is not sufficient room space in the hotel to expand the field at this time. (We have ruled out using converted standard guest rooms for tournament play; when we did that in past years, we received a number of security complaints about the potential for teams to see the questions on the moderator's desk.)
I understand that the field probably can't be expanded this year for a myriad of reasons but is this really what you're posting? Converted guest rooms (standard or otherwise) have been used with fine results at any number of paper tournaments. It's not great for many reasons, but security issues aren't one of them - it's not that hard to hold a packet vertical or tell moderators to do so.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by CaseyB »

CPiGuy wrote:
Cheynem wrote: *The UG auto-bid is only given out if there are a certain number of UG teams present and if a minimum D-value performance is reached. I also wonder if you accept an UG auto-bid, there should be a stricter requirement that your ICT team must be UG.
I think this is already the case; there has to be at least 4 (? maybe 6?) UG teams present in order to give out a separate UG auto-bid.
There must be at least 4 UG teams at a DI SCT to award a separate UG autobid. There is no minimum D-value required and such a team does not have to be UG-eligible at ICT.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by naturalistic phallacy »

Hotel Sales & Catering Manager here. While I cannot speak to the specifics of NAQT's budgetary constraints nor the specifics of their contracts, I can tell you that NAQT is not exaggerating the increased costs of a larger ICT.

Hotels strive to capture business that optimizes revenue capture from hotel rooms, meeting space rental, and catering. Quizbowl tournaments, however spartan the room setups, take up lots of meeting space compared to the hotel rooms they bring to a hotel. They also do not provide the hotel with catering revenue that other groups with meeting space can bring. HSNCT is able to secure more conference space because more hotel rooms are used by the attendees (for a variety of reasons, including larger team size, increased funding, and spectator involvement), thus making the group more attractive to hotels.

EDIT: Using converted guest rooms isn't any cheaper; hotels will charge the nightly rate in addition to the meeting space service fee and a storage fee for the removed furniture.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

naturalistic phallacy wrote:(for a variety of reasons, including larger team size, increased funding, and spectator involvement)
Additionally, tournaments like HSNCT don't require one game room for every two teams in attendance due to the bye-heavy scheduling, so the amount of team room revenue per game room space is much higher.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock »

Would it be worth considering moving the ICT out of being held at a hotel then? It seems that it would be more cost-economical for NAQT, because they'd have to pay less for facilities and could potentially accommodate more teams, which seems to be something that most people are in favor of.

Also just generally adding my voice to the chorus that changes need to be made for how bids are awarded. I agree with Mike that switching to a model more akin to that used by ACF could be a worthwhile change.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by naturalistic phallacy »

gettysburg11 wrote:Would it be worth considering moving the ICT out of being held at a hotel then? It seems that it would be more cost-economical for NAQT, because they'd have to pay less for facilities and could potentially accommodate more teams, which seems to be something that most people are in favor of.

Also just generally adding my voice to the chorus that changes need to be made for how bids are awarded. I agree with Mike that switching to a model more akin to that used by ACF could be a worthwhile change.
Hotels provide meeting planning support that no free space can ever replicate.
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Re: 2017 ICT bids

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

Susan wrote: -What would hosting a larger ICT look like? What are the financial and logistical pressures keeping it at 32 teams/division?
How much would it cost to increase the total field size to about 80 and run it over two days, like early SSNCTs?
Cheynem wrote: My issue to some extent is the same with the clock; these are not new complaints.
New teams are getting screwed over as time goes on, so complaints continue, and rightfully so, until they are fixed.
Granny Soberer wrote:I also think reform to prevent team-splitting at SCT should be explored. Team-splitting dilutes the quality of the ICT field, denies bids to strong teams, and makes it harder to judge just how good the top teams are.
I'm sure Berkeley regrets not splitting up their A team! I didn't think much originally about Maryland and Michigan splitting teams, as invites usually go down to the mid 20s and for example Michigan B is definitely a third bracket contender. However, once the dust settles, split B teams might make up 25% or more of the D-value invites.
Cody wrote: I understand that the field probably can't be expanded this year for a myriad of reasons but is this really what you're posting? Converted guest rooms (standard or otherwise) have been used with fine results at any number of paper tournaments. It's not great for many reasons, but security issues aren't one of them - it's not that hard to hold a packet vertical or tell moderators to do so.
naturalistic phallacy wrote: Hotels strive to capture business that optimizes revenue capture from hotel rooms, meeting space rental, and catering. Quizbowl tournaments, however spartan the room setups, take up lots of meeting space compared to the hotel rooms they bring to a hotel. They also do not provide the hotel with catering revenue that other groups with meeting space can bring. HSNCT is able to secure more conference space because more hotel rooms are used by the attendees (for a variety of reasons, including larger team size, increased funding, and spectator involvement), thus making the group more attractive to hotels.
I would gladly pay extra registration fee to pay for hotel rooms. Maybe it's also time for the ICT to get out of hotels.
Susan wrote: I'm sympathetic to the notion that the DI ICT field need not be the teams with the top 32 D-values--that there are some arguments to be made for geographic diversity, and that any ranking of, say, teams 21-32 is probably going to be pretty dicey. But it seems really off for the teams that are 14-16 by D-value to not be in the field.
I agree with this. Teams in contention for second bracket should not be screwed over! NAQT should mandate that top X teams by D-value automatically qualify (I think around 24).
Victor Prieto wrote:which is now even more magnified because only four teams were initially invited off of D-value alone.

A small contribution from little things (bad host teams, bad site/UG winners, split A teams) adds up, and all of a sudden, that's 16 teams.

I would be okay if the quality of a "bubble team" got stronger year after year because the overall SCT field got stronger, but that's clearly not what's happening this year. If Chicago B ends up being the 33rd team again, it won't be because they didn't keep up with the rest of the field!
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