Rochester Pack-Sub Academic March 25th

[Jeremy Gibbs Sampling]

The University of Rochester Thelion Society is pleased to announce we will be hosting our first annual packet-submission academic tournament, tentatively titled Thelion Big Intercollegiate Trivia Challenge (TheBITCh), on Saturday, the 25th of March, on the lovely River Campus in perhaps less lovely Rochester, NY. I, Gordon Arsenoff, will serve as tournament director and editor-in-chief.

We intend for this tournament to serve both as a regular regional competition and a tune-up event for ACF Nationals and the NAQT ICT. We will play without power marks, but rounds will be (generously) timed, as much in order to make sure that the tournament moves along with alacrity. Difficulty should be somewhere in the vicinity of ACF Regionals or NAQT ICT Division 1.

Rochester is conveniently located six or seven hours from many major cities and college towns, including Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Montreal, Washington, and Ann Arbor. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Ithaca, and most of the known university sites in Ontario are even closer. Lodging is available at modest rates just a few blocks to our south in Henrietta, among other places.

Equipment and volunteer staff will be much appreciated. We also welcome packets of freelance questions; for a complete, usable packet we will send you the full, edited tournament at no cost.

Tournament fees will be as follows:
First team: US $100
Add'l teams: $80 each
Buzzer discount: -$5 per set, up to 3 or 1 per team, whichever is greater
Clock discount: -$5 per timer, as with buzzers
Staff discount: -$10 per volunteer
Travel discount: -$1 per school per 10 km over 550 km (6.2 / 341.75 mi) up to 200 km
Also played FDIC discount: -$10 per school
Packet submitted and accepted by 12:01 am, February 18th, 2006: -$40
Per week or part thereof thereafter: $+20
Last packet deadline: 12:01 am, March 18th, 2006 ($+40)
Best packet discount: -$10 (as adjudged by the editors)
Minimum fee: $50 per first team, $40 per add'l team

Canadian dollars will be accepted at par, but only from Canadian teams.

Packet specifics:

5/5 Lit, including North American, British, European, and World
5/5 Science, including Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, and Computer Science
5/5 History, including North American, European, World, and Ancient
3/3 Social Sciences, such as Economics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Geography, etc.
3/3 Arts, including fine arts, performing arts, and music
3/3 Religion, Mythology, and Philosophy (including all three)
1/1 Current Events, Trash, or your choice of the above

Sub-distribution requirements are flexible, but please:
do include all the fields listed (except in Social Sciences);
do not submit more than 2/2 in any one sub-field of a 5/5 field or more than 1/2 or 2/1 in any one sub-field of a 3/3 field; and
do not submit than 1/2 or 2/1 in any two 5/5 sub-fields or more than 1/1 in any two 3/3 sub-fields, not including the your-choice question.

As regards writing, I see no reason to re-write the Michigan Memorandum or the SZCZicago Manual of Style, which you can read at http://www.umich.edu/%7Euac/mac/rules.html if you desire guidance, or the ACF guidelines. The only things to note:

Please fact-check your questions well. We the editors will work hard on them, but we aren't superstar players and may not be able to track down every error, especially in questions we ourselves wouldn't buzz.

Questions should be full of content, but concise. Think pyramid, not obelisk. Nine-line tossups and three-and-a-half-line bonus parts are too long for our purposes. We suggest tossups of about 540 characters, roughly four sentences with two clauses each plus an FTP clause, and bonus parts of not more than 240 characters. If we have to cut questions, we'll cut from the lead-ins rather than the endings.

Virtually all academic bonus formats will be acceptable, and indeed, I encourage variety, but the bulk of bonuses should be 10-10-10, 5-10-15, or 5-5-10-10 types. bonuses requiring more than four answers should be kept even shorter than mentioned above.

Please e-mail me at ga001m [at] mail [dot] rochester [dot] edu to register or submit any questions or comments. We look forward to seeing you at TheBITCh!