2017 Early Fall Tournament (EFT)
Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2017 12:29 pm
I am pleased to announce that the Early Fall Tournament will be produced again for this fall, this time with the assistance of a narrowly-defined set of Virginians and others. I will be head-editing, with subject editing assistance from Richard Yu and James Lasker. This year's writing team will consist of these editors, plus Alex Fregeau (formerly of Illinois) and Vasa Clarke, Eric Xu, and Jack Mehr (all of the University of Virginia). The set will be available for mirrors starting in late September or early October.
This year's EFT set will be written with the same philosophy as last year's set, and will target the same difficulty - roughly in between ACF Fall and ACF Regionals, leaning ever so slightly towards the latter. This tournament will be appropriate for strong collegiate novices, experienced high school players, while aiming to provide a meaningful experience to experienced collegiate players through fresh clues on core academic topics.
For college teams, all in-person United States sites of this tournament will be completely closed. High schoolers may play, and can play on chimera teams with permission, but permission will only be granted if they are unable to play with their school team (teammate unwillingness to attend is a fine reason). Exceptions to these rules may be granted with the permission of the head editor. Non-US sites are free to set their own policies for tournament attendance, and we are open to this set being used for independent open mirrors.
The distribution of this year's tournament will be slightly altered from last year's distribution:
4/4 Literature
-1/1 Long Fiction
-1/1 Poetry
-1/1 Drama + Long Fiction (targeting a 66-33 or 75-25 split in favor of the former)
-1/1 Short Fiction and Other'
4/4 History
-1/1 United States
-1/1 Continental Europe
-1/1 Non-European, Non-Commonwealth ("World")
-1/1 Classics, Commonwealth, and Other
4/4 Science
-1/1 Biology
-1/1 Chemistry
-1/1 Physics
-1/1 Other Science
3/3 Fine Arts
-1/1 Painting
-1/1 Other Arts
-1/1 Classical Music
2/2 Beliefs
-1/1 Myth and Legends
-1/1 Religion
3/3 Thought and Other
-1/1 Social Science
-1/1 Philosophy, Criticism, and "Other Thought" (with a reduced emphasis on "pure philosophy")
-1/1 Geography, Current Events, and Other Academic (split like last year's EFT)
In response to low conversion numbers on, due partly to writers and partly to the audience's knowledge level, the amount of pure philosophy will be reduced in favor of a more "thought" style approach, ala This Tournament Is A Crime. Also similarly to TTIAC, this tournament will be using a genre-based literature distribution.
This tournament will consist of 15 packets - 13 main packets and two set aside for finals. Like last year, the final packets will be somewhat harder than the main tournament packets.
The mirror fee for this tournament will be a flat $40 for each team. There will be no field-size discounts for hosts this year. Hosts are free to set the main tournament fee as they please, but are required to provide buzzer discounts of at least $5 and travel discounts of at least $10 for teams traveling 200 or more miles.
--- List of Sites ---
Northern California: Stanford
Southern California: UCSD
Minnesota: University of Minnesota
Upper Midwest: University of Michigan
Lower Midwest: Washington University in St. Louis
Florida: New College
Southeast: ?
Mid-Atlantic: University of Virginia
Northeast: Yale
Pacific Northwest: Boise State
Canada: Toronto
Britain: Oxford (Open Mirror 10/7; Closed Mirror 10/21)
This year's EFT set will be written with the same philosophy as last year's set, and will target the same difficulty - roughly in between ACF Fall and ACF Regionals, leaning ever so slightly towards the latter. This tournament will be appropriate for strong collegiate novices, experienced high school players, while aiming to provide a meaningful experience to experienced collegiate players through fresh clues on core academic topics.
For college teams, all in-person United States sites of this tournament will be completely closed. High schoolers may play, and can play on chimera teams with permission, but permission will only be granted if they are unable to play with their school team (teammate unwillingness to attend is a fine reason). Exceptions to these rules may be granted with the permission of the head editor. Non-US sites are free to set their own policies for tournament attendance, and we are open to this set being used for independent open mirrors.
The distribution of this year's tournament will be slightly altered from last year's distribution:
4/4 Literature
-1/1 Long Fiction
-1/1 Poetry
-1/1 Drama + Long Fiction (targeting a 66-33 or 75-25 split in favor of the former)
-1/1 Short Fiction and Other'
4/4 History
-1/1 United States
-1/1 Continental Europe
-1/1 Non-European, Non-Commonwealth ("World")
-1/1 Classics, Commonwealth, and Other
4/4 Science
-1/1 Biology
-1/1 Chemistry
-1/1 Physics
-1/1 Other Science
3/3 Fine Arts
-1/1 Painting
-1/1 Other Arts
-1/1 Classical Music
2/2 Beliefs
-1/1 Myth and Legends
-1/1 Religion
3/3 Thought and Other
-1/1 Social Science
-1/1 Philosophy, Criticism, and "Other Thought" (with a reduced emphasis on "pure philosophy")
-1/1 Geography, Current Events, and Other Academic (split like last year's EFT)
In response to low conversion numbers on, due partly to writers and partly to the audience's knowledge level, the amount of pure philosophy will be reduced in favor of a more "thought" style approach, ala This Tournament Is A Crime. Also similarly to TTIAC, this tournament will be using a genre-based literature distribution.
This tournament will consist of 15 packets - 13 main packets and two set aside for finals. Like last year, the final packets will be somewhat harder than the main tournament packets.
The mirror fee for this tournament will be a flat $40 for each team. There will be no field-size discounts for hosts this year. Hosts are free to set the main tournament fee as they please, but are required to provide buzzer discounts of at least $5 and travel discounts of at least $10 for teams traveling 200 or more miles.
--- List of Sites ---
Northern California: Stanford
Southern California: UCSD
Minnesota: University of Minnesota
Upper Midwest: University of Michigan
Lower Midwest: Washington University in St. Louis
Florida: New College
Southeast: ?
Mid-Atlantic: University of Virginia
Northeast: Yale
Pacific Northwest: Boise State
Canada: Toronto
Britain: Oxford (Open Mirror 10/7; Closed Mirror 10/21)