Harvard Mirror in GA (11-15-08)

[Gunnells]

Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School would like to invite any interested teams from the Atlanta-South Carolina-Tennessee circuit and beyond to attend our Harvard Mirror held in conjunction with the third annual Harvard Fall Tournament on Saturday, November 15, 2008.

We are a PACE affiliated qualifier.

Rabun Gap is within a two hour drive of Gwinnett County, GA; Greenville, SC; Athens, GA; and Asheville, NC. We are a new program, and we would love to welcome teams from throughout the area to our campus for our inaugural tournament, including NE Georgia teams and "B" squads from programs attending the actual Harvard event.

The registration fee is $60.

We are likely to follow a traditional (for the Southeast) format of informally seeded pool play, followed by a single elimination seeded playoff.

If you are interested or have further questions, please email cgunnells at rabun gap D O T org

[CSQuizJags]

Chad, we may just be able to bring a team (or two or three) as we didnt get the bid for TRASH Regionals. I have to find a parent willing to drive the team and I up there for the day. I can read if need be.

[NorcrossA]

Is there a limit to the number of teams each school can send?

[RountreeCHS]

Chattahoochee will likely send 2+ teams. Thanks for hosting this Gunnells; I look forward to seeing your new stomping grounds.

[Gunnells]

There is no limit to the number of teams per school. If we approach a point where we need to cap the field, I'll let everyone know.

[Silly Child]

Why have I never hear of this school?

[Gunnells]

Update: There are tentative plans to run two divisions for this event. There will be a National field composed of teams that either qualified for national events in 2007-2008 or are likely to qualify in 2008-2009, and an Open field for everyone else. Each division will have entirely different preliminary pools and playoff brackets. The winners of each field will receive trophies. The only difference is the National field will use the more difficult version of the Harvard questions for the playoffs.

In order to have a National field, we'd prefer at least eight teams. Teams that have already expressed interest and would likely play in the National field include:

Chattahoochee A and B
Central Gwinnett A
Norcross A
Walton

Teams that would play in the Open Division:
Cedar Shoals (1 or 2)
Central Gwinnett B
Norcross B
St. Pius (2)
Rabun Gap Nacoochee School (host)

Undertermined:
Alpharetta

I will update the field as confirmations arrive.

[mwfree]

St. Pius X would love to enter 2 teams.
Marsha Free

[Gunnells]

Field updated

Alpharetta
Chattahoochee A and B
Central Gwinnett A
Norcross A
Walton


Teams that would play in the Open Division:
Athens Academy (2)
Baconton Charter (2)
Cedar Shoals
Central Gwinnett B
Norcross B
St. Pius (2)
Wesleyan
Rabun Gap Nacoochee School (2, host)

[Gunnells]

Still time to get into this Harvard Mirror.

[Andrew's a Freshman]

Norcross may end up with only one team. We'll keep you posted.

[mwfree]

St. Pius X will bring 2 teams.

[RountreeCHS]

Chad, is Walton still attending your tournament? Gazi Rashid (of Walton) posted on the GA thread that they were not. Please confirm or deny. Thanks! We look forward to seeing you next weekend.

[Gunnells]

Walton has confirmed their participation.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

Mr. Gunnells,
I'm not sure if you got my email, but I was just wondering if you could tell us when the tournament will start and about when it will end.

[Gunnells]

Registration begins at 8:00 am with the first round scheduled for 9:00 am.

[Gunnells]

Final field update

The National Division will play a round robin followed by seeded* double elimination playoffs with the more challenging Harvard playoff questions. They will also use the Championship level questions for the final round(s). Each team will thus get a minimum of seven potentially competitive matches with a theoretical maximum of eleven.

National Division
Alpharetta
Central Gwinnett
Chattahoochee A
Chattahoochee B
Norcross
Walton


The Open Division will play five round robin matches, followed by a seeded* single elimination tournament. The playoffs will be seeded so that, should seeds hold, Green #1 will meet White #1 in the finals. All rounds will use regulation difficulty level Harvard questions. Each team is guaranteed a minimum of six rounds with a potential maximum of nine.

Green
Athens Academy B
Baconton Charter B
Central Gwinnett (b)
Norcross (b)
St. Pius A
Rabun Gap A

White
Athens Academy A
Baconton Charter A
Cedar Shoals
St. Pius B
Wesleyan
Rabun Gap B


* If necessary and practical, the lower seeded team from multiple entry schools will be moved down one slot in the seedings to avoid playing the other squad for as long as possible.

[RountreeCHS]

This sounds great! Our team is looking forward to playing several rounds of good questions against some top notch competition on Saturday. I think 7 guaranteed matches is awesome, especially considering the size of the National Division. (That is 1-2 more rounds than most tournaments in our region guarantee us.) Thanks again Chad for putting this together. We'll see you soon!

[phuynh99]

Is Walton going to Harvard Mirror?

[grashid]

Is Walton going to Harvard Mirror?

I hope you don't mind if I answer, Mr.Gunnells, but yes, we are.

[CSQuizJags]

Not sure of the outcomes yet (I know in the Open Div the final match was Athens Academy A vs. Central Gwinnett, not sure of National), but I wanted to tell Chad that my team really enjoyed the day in the mountains. The questions in our division were pretty good (I'll leave the critique to the seasoned vets) and we had some close matches (especially the playoff match that bumped us out- it ranks right up there with the "coin toss" match at Brookwood in 2006). Yeah there were some glitches, but Chad and the RGNS people did a lot to make sure things went OK, and I really hope this event takes off. We will make every effort to be back the next go around.

Plus....going to the Dillard House afterward rocked! :)

Thanks for a good tournament.

[Gunnells]

Thanks Robin. Hosting for the first time was quite a learning experience. We learned quite a bit to apply next time (particularly to stagger the lunch release).

Results:

National
1. Chattahoochee
2. Walton
3. Chattahoochee B
4. Alpharetta
5. Central Gwinnett

Open:
1. Central Gwinnett (b)
2. Athens Academy

Semifinalists:
Wesleyan
St. Pius A


We should get the match scores and full results posted in the next couple of days.

[RountreeCHS]

I'm not sure how the final standings were calculated, but CHS B knocked Alpharetta out of the playoffs and thus made it a round further than they did. I assumed that meant CHS B would have finished 3rd and Alpharetta 4th, but perhaps I am missing something?

The tournament ran fine I thought, particularly for their first time hosting. The scenery around campus was beautiful and the drive up was very pleasant. I thought the questions were very good (other than the few bonus repeats). Thanks again Chad for hosting this event. We look forward to next year.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

Thank you Mr. Gunnells for hosting this. It was great to have an opportunity to hear the Harvard questions in competition without having to travel to Boston. I did think that we would place 4th after being eliminated by Chatt B, but I don't know how you determined final rankings. My only complaint was that the logistical problems precluded us from doing the double round robin and advantaged finals, which I would have preferred to the double elim. I am wondering why we delayed the tournament for the late team, and why the campus grill's capacity to serve wasn't known beforehand. All in all, though, we still got to play 7 rounds of high-quality questions against great teams, so I was satisfied. I look forward to future RGNS tournaments.

[Gunnells]

The uneven number of teams due to the late withdrawal of Norcross made for uneven brackets that would have forced 10 rounds to get a double round robin. At lunch, it became apparent that was not a practical option and we switched to the double elimination following the first round robin.

[Ronnie the Bear]

Do we have stats for this?

[grashid]

Do we have stats for this?

No.

[Ronnie the Bear]

Do we have stats for this?

No.

Is this a "stats were not kept" response or a "stats have yet to be posted" response?

[grashid]

Sorry about the vagueness. At least in the upper division, stats were not kept for us.

[grashid]

Could the tournament director please post team stats for this tournament? I think PACE needs them for the top teams to qualify for nationals.