2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcement

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2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcement

Post by RexSueciae »

I am pleased to announce that the Eisenhower Memorial Tournament, a regular-minus undergraduate question set, will be ready to run in Spring 2017, starting from the approximate date of March 25. This tournament's writing staff, at present, includes the following brave souls: Alex Damisch, Ryan Humphrey, Gabe Guedes, Charles Hang, Jacob O'Rourke, Alex Dzurick, and Vasa Clarke. We are still seeking writers, particularly those interested in contributing Music or Other Science, and would welcome support in other subjects as well.

Eligibility: Only undergraduate and high school students can play this tournament. If you are a grad student, you generally may not play. "Undergraduate" in this case does not follow the traditional ACF definition--fifth-year (or greater) undergraduates with no bachelor's-level degree are still eligible to play. (This is identical to the eligibility rules of last year's MUT.) Exceptions may be granted based on my discretion, depending on the state of the local circuit.

Difficulty: Like previous iterations of MUT or this year's successful resurrection of EFT, the difficulty of this question set is planned to hit "regular-minus" in a modern sense of the term. As such, you can expect that the set as a whole will feel more rigorous than ACF Fall but less so than ACF Regionals. There is no strict percentage quota being used for the difficulty of answerlines, but you can expect that about half of them would be very appropriate at Fall.

Tossups will be powermarked, and will not generally exceed a length of 7 lines in 10-pt Times New Roman. There will be 15 rounds, which will adhere to the following subject distribution:

4/4 Literature (1/1 each American, British, European, and world/ancient/other)
4/4 History (1/1 each American, European, world, and other)
4/4 Science (1/1 each biology, chemistry, physics, and other)
3/3 Fine Arts (1/1 each painting and music, 1 other auditory, 1 other visual)
2/2 Religion / Mythology (1/1 each)
1/1 Philosophy / Social Science
1/1 Geography / Current Events
1/1 Pop Culture / Other

Mirrors: We'd like to have them, and in many places. Schools which hosted MUT last year, have a member currently writing for this tournament, or which otherwise are committed to quality hosting and outreach to local teams are encouraged to contact me (at my email account registered to these forums) as soon as their plans coalesce. Mirror fees will be $40 per team, not including house teams; I would like to request that mirror hosts provide moderator and buzzer discounts of at least $5 and a travel discount of at least $10 for teams traveling over 200 miles. If I don't respond to your email in a couple days, your message probably got caught by the spam filter, try again.

New England:
Northeast: Princeton University (April 15)
Mid-Atlantic: Virginia Commonwealth University (April 15)
Southeast: University of Georgia (April 1)
Florida: Valencia College (May 20)
Kentucky:
Texas:
North: University of Minnesota (April 15)
Great Lakes: Ohio State University (April 2)
Upper Midwest: University of Chicago (May 13)
Lower Midwest: Washington University in St. Louis (March 25)
Northern California: UC Berkeley (April 29)
Southwest: UCLA (May 6)
Canada: University of Waterloo (April 1)
United Kingdom: Cambridge University (May 6)
Pacific Northwest: University of Washington (April 1)
Rockies: Brigham Young University (April 1)

Online: Eisenhower Memorial Skype Tournament (March 18)
High school: Texas Invitational (April 8)

Why is it called the Eisenhower Memorial Tournament?
Because Dwight D. Eisenhower died on March 28, 1969.

Can teams with players from multiple high schools / two-year colleges / four-year colleges compete?
Sure, but not in this tournament. The exception is if mirror hosts throw together a discounted scab team to round out the numbers following a last-minute drop, but even then I should like to be notified. Also, in such an exigency, players making up such a hypothetical team should be already eligible for play. (No grad students.)

May I use these questions for purposes other than a normal tournament, e.g. tryouts for NASAT?
Contact me and we'll work something out.

I have a question that's not answered here.
Message me or post in this thread!
Last edited by RexSueciae on Wed Apr 26, 2017 8:34 am, edited 45 times in total.
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by Wynaut »

Is the lack of Current Events intentional?
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by RexSueciae »

Wynaut wrote:Is the lack of Current Events intentional?
Good point, the distribution should've said "Geography / Current Events" and "Popular Culture / Other." I've amended this. (Current Events will indeed make an appearance.)

EDIT: Also, Alex Dzurick has joined us, and will be writing questions in Other Science.
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by RexSueciae »

Writing on this continues apace, and we've already got a bunch of mirror sites. If you'd like for this set to be played in your region, sign up to host a mirror! The list of regional mirrors are listed in the main post, of course, but we're still seeking college hosts in several very active quizbowl regions.

As a point of clarification, yes, high schools are eligible to play this event, just as with MUT, and can either attend an exclusive high school mirror or their local college mirror. They are considered "undergraduate" for eligibility purposes. We're also available for smaller events, for pre-nationals events or NASAT tryouts, assuming that they take place on or after March 25. Contact us if you're interested, or if there's an error in the list of mirrors.
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by RexSueciae »

Updating as another month rolls by, and our first mirrors are nearly upon us! Well, in a couple weeks. If you have questions about a specific mirror site, feel free to contact the hosting team or myself for more details. Thanks to everybody looking to host or play, by the way, you guys are swell.

We're still open to mirrors in the following regions: Texas (and the Gulf Coast / South in general), Southwest (Southern California etc.), and possibly New England (assuming there's a viable field that is not currently planning on travelling to Princeton and won't siphon off teams from that site). If anybody from those regions would like to see this question set played, drop me a line and we'll add you to the list. We're also still available for more casual events, high school nats tryouts, summer tournaments, whatever floats your metaphorical boat.
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by RexSueciae »

Mini-update to the above, we are now also looking for a Kentucky mirror (or thereabouts) for teams wishing to play this set in that region. (Alternately, Kentucky teams can travel the couple hundred miles to our sites at OSU or WUSTL.)
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by Bensonfan23 »

Quick reminder that non-Skype mirrors of this tournament are beginning this weekend! Teams should definitely sign-up for their local EMT mirrors, if they haven't yet! This set is one of the final chances to play a regular-minus tournament this semester, and being similar to previous years' MUT's in difficulty, it's definitely accessible to a wide range of teams!

Also, please note that we are also still actively looking for mirrors in the following regions: Northeast, Southwest/Southern California, and Texas/Louisiana. If you're interested in hosting in one of these regions (particularly the Northeast or Southwest!), please contact either myself or Vasa about doing so.
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock »

Bensonfan23 wrote:Quick reminder that non-Skype mirrors of this tournament are beginning this weekend! Teams should definitely sign-up for their local EMT mirrors, if they haven't yet! This set is one of the final chances to play a regular-minus tournament this semester, and being similar to previous years' MUT's in difficulty, it's definitely accessible to a wide range of teams!

Also, please note that we are also still actively looking for mirrors in the following regions: Northeast, Southwest/Southern California, and Texas/Louisiana. If you're interested in hosting in one of these regions (particularly the Northeast or Southwest!), please contact either myself or Vasa about doing so.
Princeton is still listed as the northeast site. Just for planning purposes, is that officially no longer the site? Especially as the thread about that site does not exist anymore.
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

gettysburg11 wrote:
Bensonfan23 wrote:Quick reminder that non-Skype mirrors of this tournament are beginning this weekend! Teams should definitely sign-up for their local EMT mirrors, if they haven't yet! This set is one of the final chances to play a regular-minus tournament this semester, and being similar to previous years' MUT's in difficulty, it's definitely accessible to a wide range of teams!

Also, please note that we are also still actively looking for mirrors in the following regions: Northeast, Southwest/Southern California, and Texas/Louisiana. If you're interested in hosting in one of these regions (particularly the Northeast or Southwest!), please contact either myself or Vasa about doing so.
Princeton is still listed as the northeast site. Just for planning purposes, is that officially no longer the site? Especially as the thread about that site does not exist anymore.
Thread's back--it's an issue with people with fewer than seven posts (so they're still on the moderating queue) editing the OP of a thread, which causes the whole thread to go back into the queue.
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock »

Auks Ran Ova wrote:
gettysburg11 wrote:
Bensonfan23 wrote:Quick reminder that non-Skype mirrors of this tournament are beginning this weekend! Teams should definitely sign-up for their local EMT mirrors, if they haven't yet! This set is one of the final chances to play a regular-minus tournament this semester, and being similar to previous years' MUT's in difficulty, it's definitely accessible to a wide range of teams!

Also, please note that we are also still actively looking for mirrors in the following regions: Northeast, Southwest/Southern California, and Texas/Louisiana. If you're interested in hosting in one of these regions (particularly the Northeast or Southwest!), please contact either myself or Vasa about doing so.
Princeton is still listed as the northeast site. Just for planning purposes, is that officially no longer the site? Especially as the thread about that site does not exist anymore.
Thread's back--it's an issue with people with fewer than seven posts (so they're still on the moderating queue) editing the OP of a thread, which causes the whole thread to go back into the queue.
Great, thanks for clarifying.
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by jaredlockwood »

Auks Ran Ova wrote:
gettysburg11 wrote:
Bensonfan23 wrote:Quick reminder that non-Skype mirrors of this tournament are beginning this weekend! Teams should definitely sign-up for their local EMT mirrors, if they haven't yet! This set is one of the final chances to play a regular-minus tournament this semester, and being similar to previous years' MUT's in difficulty, it's definitely accessible to a wide range of teams!

Also, please note that we are also still actively looking for mirrors in the following regions: Northeast, Southwest/Southern California, and Texas/Louisiana. If you're interested in hosting in one of these regions (particularly the Northeast or Southwest!), please contact either myself or Vasa about doing so.
Princeton is still listed as the northeast site. Just for planning purposes, is that officially no longer the site? Especially as the thread about that site does not exist anymore.
Thread's back--it's an issue with people with fewer than seven posts (so they're still on the moderating queue) editing the OP of a thread, which causes the whole thread to go back into the queue.
Yeah, that's my fault. I apologize for that; I learned my lesson a bit too late--new posters should include the field in a separate post from the OP, so the entire thing doesn't go down when you update it!
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by RexSueciae »

As the weeks keep barreling along, we are still open to additional mirrors whenever in any of the still-unclaimed regions (although yeah, I get that a lot of people are busy and some circuits are just at a low ebb this year). If we get through our last mirror and there is no further interest, the packets will go online, so if you're waiting on announcing a summer mirror now might be a good time to get in touch.

Mirror sites of UGA, OSU, UWaterloo, UWashington, BYU, and Texas Invitational should expect to receive packets sometime in the next 24 hours. Actually, now that I think about it, if any future mirrors will need their packets sooner than a couple days prior (e.g. they're running a paper tournament for whatever reason and need time to download and print out all the packets) (save the forests, please) they should probably let me know ahead of time.

[EDIT: a bit more than 24 hours later, all packets are sent out -- I had an interesting day, got locked out of my apartment, all sorts of fun stuff]
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by RexSueciae »

Hey, starting Wednesday, I'm going to get in touch with recent hosts about specifics with mirror fees and all that business -- forgot to mention this before, let me know if you'd like an invoice.

Also, if you've played EMT, there's a discussion forum for that that you can totally join.
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by RexSueciae »

RexSueciae wrote:starting Wednesday, I'm going to get in touch with recent hosts about specifics with mirror fees
Update on this, I sat down and blasted out emails to everybody who has so far hosted an EMT mirror. Let me know if there's a discrepancy or to discuss payment and so forth.

Mirror hosts for the 15th should receive their questions tonight!
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Re: 2017 Eisenhower Memorial Tournament - Global Announcemen

Post by RexSueciae »

As of this past weekend, we've gone through every mirror that was planned. Unless somebody really really wants to mirror this set in the summer (in which case you should've asked me before, and anyways you could probably just mirror NASAT or a UK-written set or something else), the Eisenhower Memorial Tournament is getting its questions posted on the packet archive tonight. (Perfect timing for high school nationals practice! Or whatever you want to do with them, they'll be free.)

I'm currently talking with some mirror hosts about payment and I'm going to reach out again to some who haven't paid or I don't remember contacting me. A number of hosts have paid, which is nice. I've learnt a few things about organizing things, planning things, and keeping a reasonable sleep schedule.

I would like to thank every one of my co-writers, who put in tremendous work and without whom this project would never have been possible. I'd also like to thank everybody who mirrored or played EMT at some point over the past few months. Couldn't have done this without you guys.

Anyhow, expect the questions to get uploaded whenever I stop procrastinating.
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