Chicago Open 2017 - July 22nd
Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2017 8:07 pm
This is the official announcement for Chicago Open 2017, which will be held at the University of Chicago at some later date. The main tournament will be held on Saturday, July 22nd, with auxiliary events on Sunday, July 23rd.
The tournament will be edited by a team comprised of science speicalist Billy Busse, musty historian Ryan Westbrook, music specialist Jason Thompson, and myself as the head editor.
Chicago Open is a packet-submission tournament; all teams must submit a packet to play or pay the usurious fee of $600. Our target difficulty is similar to recent incarnations. We encourage teams to submit quality and adventurous questions: Chicago Open is the ground to ask about difficult and interesting topics, but it is not the place to fill your packets with 13-line tossups and/or insanely hard topics that punish the field. A further note about tossup length: we are instituting a hard cap of 8 lines on edited tossups. Teams are welcome to submit longer tossups.
DISTRIBUTION - Chicago Open this year will follow a very special distribution! Please read below: The submitted number of questions will total to 24/20.
5/4 Literature
1/1 American Literature
1/1 British Literature
1/1 European Literature
1/1 World Literature
1 tossup on Miscellaneous Literature - Genre stuff, criticism, more of American, British, European, (but not World) Literatures.
5/4 History
1/1 American History
1/1 World History
3/2 European, Canadian, and Australian history. Feel free to replace one of the five questions with historiography, the academic study of history, etc.
5/4 Science
1/1 Biology
1/1 Chemistry
1/1 Physics
1/1 Other science - Computer Science, Math, Astronomy, Earth Science - do not write on the same two categories for this.
1 Any Science - can be more of the Big 3, or one of the Other Science categories you did not write on, or other science questions that don't neatly fit into the distribution (say engineering!)
2/2 RMP
1/0 or 0/1 Mythology
1/0 or 0/1 Religion
1/1 Philosophy
Please see below as to where the 1/1 freed space went.
3/3 Arts
1/1 Painting and Sculpture
1/1 Classical Music and Opera
0/1 or 1/0 Other Visual Arts
0/1 or 1/0 Other Auditory Arts
1/1 Social Science - psychology, law, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, etc. One question at most can focus on "great theorists." Try to write applied questions in these topics.
3/2 Other
1/0 - Geography or Current Events
1/1 Other Academic OR Mythology / Religion: You may use this space to write the 1/1 religion and mythology that got cut out of the RMP section. I want to put this here since I think relaxing the requirements that mythology or religion be "pure" might lead to some interesting questions. Given the recent discussion about the exhaustion of the myth canon, perhaps the best way to keep this category fresh is to instead draw on a variety of academic and cultural sources (sparingly or exuberantly). As an example of this, I once wrote a tossup on Ixion that clued Rued Langgaard's symphonies, and Matt Jackson wrote the Jung mythography TU last year. The former wasn't a particularly great clue, but the point is writers should think outside the normal framework to write their second myth and religion questions if they so desire. Writing more other academic instead of either religion or mythology is OK as well. (That is, it is OKAY to write 0/0, 1/1, 0/1, or 1/0 R and M in this category.)
1/1 Other Academic part 2: One of these questions can be on something "trashy" that has cultural or academic merit. Feel free to leave a footnote to make your argument if you feel the question's merit may be mystifying to editors. High culture submissions such as food go here. Or you can just write on more academic topics that QB doesn't normally cover.
Follow the ACF Guidelines about subdistributions if they are not noted here.
FEES - At the suggestion of last year's editors, we are increasing the base fee. This year, we will be instituting two new innovations: an incentive to produce quality submissions and a simplified packet schedule system.
BASE FEE: $200
QUALITY SUBMISSION DISCOUNTS:
- Great Submission: -$100
- Good Submission -$60
- Usable Submission -$20
Judgments on which packets get what discounts will be based solely on the discretion of the editors.
To talk about this for a bit: this fee structure is not meant to punish any teams, just incentivize quality submissions. The editors will evaluate packets on a holistic basis: this includes taking into account the "strength of the team's previous writing". An elite team crapping out a packet will not necessarily get the great "submission" discount. On the other hand, a team who surprises us with several inspired ideas and / or a handful of solid questions might very well get the great submission discount. In any case, I expect that every team will get at least the Usable Submission discount if they follow the distribution and make a good-faith attempt with every question. I have no problem theoretically giving every team the Great Submission discount; this portion of the fees is meant to be purely "carrot" and no "stick."
SUBMISSION DEADLINES:
Penalty schedule:
Before:
May 21st: $0
June 4th: +$40
June 11th: +$80
June 18th: +$120
After June 18th: +$20 additional per day
After June 25th: Dropped from the tournament automatically or pay the editors $600 to play.
All packet submission windows close at 12 AM Pacific Time. All teams will be given an automatic one day extension at the cost of a +$20 penalty if they need it. After that, you're automatically in the bracket for the next deadline. (So if you submit on June 5th, it'll be plus +$80) This portion of the schedule is meant to be entirely "stick" and no "carrot." This deadline is based on the July 22nd tournament date, it may get adjusted accordingly!
LOGISTICS and PAYMENT - to be handled later, possibly by someone else.
The tournament will be edited by a team comprised of science speicalist Billy Busse, musty historian Ryan Westbrook, music specialist Jason Thompson, and myself as the head editor.
Chicago Open is a packet-submission tournament; all teams must submit a packet to play or pay the usurious fee of $600. Our target difficulty is similar to recent incarnations. We encourage teams to submit quality and adventurous questions: Chicago Open is the ground to ask about difficult and interesting topics, but it is not the place to fill your packets with 13-line tossups and/or insanely hard topics that punish the field. A further note about tossup length: we are instituting a hard cap of 8 lines on edited tossups. Teams are welcome to submit longer tossups.
DISTRIBUTION - Chicago Open this year will follow a very special distribution! Please read below: The submitted number of questions will total to 24/20.
5/4 Literature
1/1 American Literature
1/1 British Literature
1/1 European Literature
1/1 World Literature
1 tossup on Miscellaneous Literature - Genre stuff, criticism, more of American, British, European, (but not World) Literatures.
5/4 History
1/1 American History
1/1 World History
3/2 European, Canadian, and Australian history. Feel free to replace one of the five questions with historiography, the academic study of history, etc.
5/4 Science
1/1 Biology
1/1 Chemistry
1/1 Physics
1/1 Other science - Computer Science, Math, Astronomy, Earth Science - do not write on the same two categories for this.
1 Any Science - can be more of the Big 3, or one of the Other Science categories you did not write on, or other science questions that don't neatly fit into the distribution (say engineering!)
2/2 RMP
1/0 or 0/1 Mythology
1/0 or 0/1 Religion
1/1 Philosophy
Please see below as to where the 1/1 freed space went.
3/3 Arts
1/1 Painting and Sculpture
1/1 Classical Music and Opera
0/1 or 1/0 Other Visual Arts
0/1 or 1/0 Other Auditory Arts
1/1 Social Science - psychology, law, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, etc. One question at most can focus on "great theorists." Try to write applied questions in these topics.
3/2 Other
1/0 - Geography or Current Events
1/1 Other Academic OR Mythology / Religion: You may use this space to write the 1/1 religion and mythology that got cut out of the RMP section. I want to put this here since I think relaxing the requirements that mythology or religion be "pure" might lead to some interesting questions. Given the recent discussion about the exhaustion of the myth canon, perhaps the best way to keep this category fresh is to instead draw on a variety of academic and cultural sources (sparingly or exuberantly). As an example of this, I once wrote a tossup on Ixion that clued Rued Langgaard's symphonies, and Matt Jackson wrote the Jung mythography TU last year. The former wasn't a particularly great clue, but the point is writers should think outside the normal framework to write their second myth and religion questions if they so desire. Writing more other academic instead of either religion or mythology is OK as well. (That is, it is OKAY to write 0/0, 1/1, 0/1, or 1/0 R and M in this category.)
1/1 Other Academic part 2: One of these questions can be on something "trashy" that has cultural or academic merit. Feel free to leave a footnote to make your argument if you feel the question's merit may be mystifying to editors. High culture submissions such as food go here. Or you can just write on more academic topics that QB doesn't normally cover.
Follow the ACF Guidelines about subdistributions if they are not noted here.
FEES - At the suggestion of last year's editors, we are increasing the base fee. This year, we will be instituting two new innovations: an incentive to produce quality submissions and a simplified packet schedule system.
BASE FEE: $200
QUALITY SUBMISSION DISCOUNTS:
- Great Submission: -$100
- Good Submission -$60
- Usable Submission -$20
Judgments on which packets get what discounts will be based solely on the discretion of the editors.
To talk about this for a bit: this fee structure is not meant to punish any teams, just incentivize quality submissions. The editors will evaluate packets on a holistic basis: this includes taking into account the "strength of the team's previous writing". An elite team crapping out a packet will not necessarily get the great "submission" discount. On the other hand, a team who surprises us with several inspired ideas and / or a handful of solid questions might very well get the great submission discount. In any case, I expect that every team will get at least the Usable Submission discount if they follow the distribution and make a good-faith attempt with every question. I have no problem theoretically giving every team the Great Submission discount; this portion of the fees is meant to be purely "carrot" and no "stick."
SUBMISSION DEADLINES:
Penalty schedule:
Before:
May 21st: $0
June 4th: +$40
June 11th: +$80
June 18th: +$120
After June 18th: +$20 additional per day
After June 25th: Dropped from the tournament automatically or pay the editors $600 to play.
All packet submission windows close at 12 AM Pacific Time. All teams will be given an automatic one day extension at the cost of a +$20 penalty if they need it. After that, you're automatically in the bracket for the next deadline. (So if you submit on June 5th, it'll be plus +$80) This portion of the schedule is meant to be entirely "stick" and no "carrot." This deadline is based on the July 22nd tournament date, it may get adjusted accordingly!
LOGISTICS and PAYMENT - to be handled later, possibly by someone else.