ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

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ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by VandyQB »

Vanderbilt University will be hosting the South mirror of ACF Fall 2012 on November 3rd, 2012.

Registration

E-mail us at [email protected] AND fill out this form to register for the tournament.

Teams (as of 11/1)
Alabama (3)
Auburn (3)
Centre College (3)
Chipola College
Georgia Tech (2)
Harding
Kentucky (2)
North Greenville
Southeat Missouri State
Western Kentucky (2)
Vandy

Packet Submission

As per the ACF submission rules, any team with at least one person on it who played a regular, collegiate, academic quizbowl tournament prior to September 1, 2011 is required to submit a packet in order to participate in an ACF tournament in 2012-2013. This includes ACF Fall. As of a recent rule change, high school players are now included in this definition and are subject to the same discounts and penalties as college teams. Teams required to submit packets who do not submit one by the final deadline will be dropped from the tournament.

Please submit packets to [email protected] and use “ACF Fall 2012: [Team Name]” in the subject line.

Fees:

Base fee: $120 for one team from a school, $240 for two teams from a school, etc.
Buzzer systems: -$5 each No discount for broken buzzers; no maximum.
Staffers: -$10 each No maximum.
Laptop: -$5 each Maximum 1 per team.
Travel: -$10 per 200 miles traveled one way
International: -$20
For teams representing schools located in a different country than the tournament host.
New ACF teams: -$25
For schools who did not send a team to ACF Fall, Regionals, or Nationals between September 2010 and August 2012, and have no one on the team(s) claiming this discount who played those tournaments for another school.
New quizbowl teams: -$75
For schools who did not send a team to any regular collegiate academic tournament since September 2010, and have no one on the team(s) claiming this discount who played those tournaments for another school. May be combined with new ACF team discount for a total new-team discount of $100.

This year’s submission schedule is:

Packet submitted before 11:59 PM eastern time on:
September 9, 2012: -$50
September 23, 2012: -$25 (-$50 for teams not required to submit packets)
October 7, 2012: No penalty (-$25 for teams not required to submit packets)
October 14, 2012: +$25
October 21, 2012: +$50
After Oct. 21, 2012: The editors may grant one or more 24-hour extensions at an additional penalty of $10 per day.

Packet Penalties
Teams will incur penalties for the following offenses:
*Incorrect formatting: Please take a moment to review the ACF Packet Guidelines on formatting to make sure you format your packet correctly.
*Plagiarism: Please do not attempt to plagiarize. It is often very easy to catch. People caught plagiarizing will be subject to large fines and public shaming.
*Writing specific types of forbidden questions: Types of questions prohibited at ACF events include spelling questions, binary matching bonuses, and 5-10-15 bonuses.
Please see the additional packet penalties section for more info.

Friendly Reminders

Please refer to the ACF Packet Guidelines document for more detailed explanations of packet submission and fee-related information.

If you are sending multiple packet writing teams, PLEASE make sure you don’t collaborate on your packets or talk about their contents.

The difficulty level of ACF Fall 2012 is the same as it has been for the past four years, such as can be seen in ACF Fall 2009 and ACF Fall 2010. These tournaments can be found on collegiate.quizbowlpackets.com. Remember above all that the tournament is supposed to be accessible to new teams who have never played quizbowl before, in both your answerlines and your selection of clues. If you suspect one of your answer choices may be too hard, it probably is.

Questions?

General ACF questions can be directed to Matt Bollinger at [email protected]

Tournament specific questions can be directed to us at [email protected]
Last edited by VandyQB on Thu Nov 01, 2012 3:52 pm, edited 10 times in total.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by jmannor2 »

Auburn will definitely be at this with at least 1 team. There is probably a 90% chance of at least two teams from us.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

A large group from Alabama is likely to attend. I don't know how large yet.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

WKU will be at this but I don't yet know how many teams we're going to have.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by AKKOLADE »

The University of Kentucky is interested in sending a team(s).
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Kwang the Ninja »

We'll be there but only because you asked so nicely
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by sychipola »

Chipola plans on bringing one team.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Golran »

Duke should be sending at least 1 team.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by AKKOLADE »

What's the entry fee setup?
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Susan »

Fred wrote:What's the entry fee setup?
The entry fee is $120/team--full information on discounts can be found here.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Rahul0774 »

Who can I email concerning questions about applicable discounts?
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Susan »

Rahul0774 wrote:Who can I email concerning questions about applicable discounts?
Hi, Rahul--you can email me at [email protected] .
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Rahul0774 »

Does anyone know of any affordable lodging at or around the university? Any information would be greatly appreciated.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by VandyQB »

Hotel availability increases and price decreases the further from the university you get.

We recommend looking at hotels near the airport or in neighboring Brentwood for the best deals.

Remember to e-mail us at [email protected] as well as filling out the ACF form to register.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by VandyQB »

If you have to confirm how many teams you will be bringing, please let us know as soon as possible for scheduling purposes.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by AKKOLADE »

Could you put a field list in the first post when you get a chance?
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

We are going to have either 1 or 2 teams, but I can't submit the registration form until I know for sure.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by eldermaas »

North Greenville University is sending one team.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Rahul0774 »

You can officially put Kentucky down for two teams.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

We've registered for two teams.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Vespuzius »

Centre is bringing two teams and a buzzer.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by jmannor2 »

Auburn has registered 3 teams for this.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

What time is this tournament going to start? Also, what building will it be in?
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Fond du lac operon »

I am coming with Alabama with the expectation of serving as a moderator, by the way, in case you need to know how many moderators people are bringing. (I will also happily play if you have sufficiently many experienced moderators.)
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by jmannor2 »

We need to know what time the tournament is starting and what building it is going to be in.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by VandyQB »

For those of you whose e-mail we do not have and missed the e-mail sent out earlier this week, the first match will begin at 9:00. There will be a brief orientation at 8:30.

Matches will occur in Buttrick Hall, and the orientation and closing will be held in the Stevenson Lecture hall (marked SC LECTURE on the provided map).

Campus map: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/map/

If we don't have your e-mail, that means you haven't e-mailed us ( [email protected]). Please do so!
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by AKKOLADE »

Will stats be available for the prelims?
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

Many interesting things happened at this event. Congratulations to Adam Silverman (Tech "B") for going 12-0 and winning. The top bracket was rounded out by Tech A, WKU, Auburn A, Alabama A, Centre A, and Chipola, all who decided to beat up on each other in the afternoon. Tech A did manage to win a match on the last tossup against Dargan and I to go 4-2 in the playoffs and get 2nd, I believe.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

There are a few stat errors that will probably be amended soon as I sent to Vandy to correct, notably we lost to Tech A in our first match against them, as well as the second.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Fond du lac operon »

So I was hoping someone else would do this, but since no one's stepped up, I'd like to provide some (hopefully constructive) criticism of Vandy's hosting practices. I'll start by saying that I know from experience that running a tournament is hard, and shit happens, and that Vanderbilt being active in the circuit > Vanderbilt not being active in the circuit. Nevertheless, there were some problems that I'd very much like to see fixed before I'll be excited about attending another tournament at Vandy. In no particular order:
  • The stats are kind of abysmal. On the DB, there are no prelim/playoff splits, the teams are listed in order of record without regard for what bracket they were in in the second half, two matches seem to have disappeared altogether (Alabama A - Tech A and Centre B - North Greenville), and at least one match is listed as having the wrong winner. In particular the last two of these could well have affected things like the winner of the tournament, had Adam not gone 12-0. The first two are more just annoying.
  • There was, from what I heard, quite a bit of variation in the quality of the readers at this tournament. This is going to happen at virtually every tournament (except ICT and probably Nationals, although I've never played the latter), but Vanderbilt turned down at least one qualified and experienced reader from Alabama for the prelims. (Said person ended up reading in the playoffs, and worked quite fast, he thinks). Since some of their host-provided readers apparently were slow and/or chatty enough to slow down the pace of the tournament, I don't think this ended up being a great idea.
  • Related to the previous point: The scheduling of this tournament seemed pretty sub-optimal. Alabama A had exactly one reader all day, and all three Bama teams were in one room (each) throughout the prelims. I also think I read for Chipola at least four times in the playoff round. If you're lucky enough to get a good reader for the four, five, or twelve rounds you play in a room, that's good, but if you end up with an abysmal reader (which fortunately Bama A didn't) it can adversely affect the experience -- I've had readers that made me want to gouge my eyes out Oedipus-style after just one round with them, and I can't imagine what'd it be like if I had to sit in their room all day long.
  • The end of the tournament wound up as kind of a clusterfuck. It seemed like everyone had different instructions on where to go after the final round was played -- originally the awards were to be held in a different building, and as a reader I was told to tell my teams to go there, but afterwards I heard that the prizes would be given out in the atrium of the building we played in. What ended up happening was that a bunch of teams ended up milling around outside the classrooms the games were held in, and Georgia Tech received their prizes in the atrium with, as far as I know, basically no one else there.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

Fond du lac operon wrote:
[*]The stats are kind of abysmal. On the DB, there are no prelim/playoff splits, the teams are listed in order of record without regard for what bracket they were in in the second half, two matches seem to have disappeared altogether (Alabama A - Tech A and Centre B - North Greenville), and at least one match is listed as having the wrong winner. In particular the last two of these could well have affected things like the winner of the tournament, had Adam not gone 12-0. The first two are more just annoying.
I'd like to add to this that either scorekeepers or whoever was doing stats seem to have mixed mine and Matthew's stats up in a couple rounds. This notably would raise Matthew's PPG about 10 points, which would move him up a lot in the individual rankings, and something like that could have made a difference if he had been in contention for an individual scoring prize. At the very least, Vandy put up stats much quicker than they told me they were going to, so that's one positive.
Fond du lac operon wrote: [*]There was, from what I heard, quite a bit of variation in the quality of the readers at this tournament. This is going to happen at virtually every tournament (except ICT and probably Nationals, although I've never played the latter), but Vanderbilt turned down at least one qualified and experienced reader from Alabama for the prelims. (Said person ended up reading in the playoffs, and worked quite fast, he thinks). Since some of their host-provided readers apparently were slow and/or chatty enough to slow down the pace of the tournament, I don't think this ended up being a great idea.
This is something I didn't have too much of an issue with. We had six readers throughout the day and they were all at least average. Maybe we had the good luck to avoid the bad rooms, but the tournament finished less than hour behind schedule, and some of the delay came because every team (including mine) didn't budget enough extra time for the inevitable wrong turns in Nashville. I noticed that they finished 14 rounds in about the same amount of time that Alabama finished 10 rounds of QUARK. I had problems with the fact the event took 14 rounds, although I was told that ACF suggested this format. If that's true, I find it a bit odd considering Virginia ran a 12 round event with the same number of teams. The fatigue that sit in after about Round 11 seemed to really hurt our team and probably others.
Fond du lac operon wrote: [*]Related to the previous point: The scheduling of this tournament seemed pretty sub-optimal. Alabama A had exactly one reader all day, and all three Bama teams were in one room (each) throughout the prelims. I also think I read for Chipola at least four times in the playoff round. If you're lucky enough to get a good reader for the four, five, or twelve rounds you play in a room, that's good, but if you end up with an abysmal reader (which fortunately Bama A didn't) it can adversely affect the experience -- I've had readers that made me want to gouge my eyes out Oedipus-style after just one round with them, and I can't imagine what'd it be like if I had to sit in their room all day long.
I'm not so much concerned with teams staying in one place as I am with the fact that three of the best four teams in the tournament were in the same preliminary pool. I understand they may not have expected Paul Kelson to be playing for Chipola, but putting Tech A and Alabama A in the same pool should have been avoided.
Fond du lac operon wrote: [*]The end of the tournament wound up as kind of a clusterfuck. It seemed like everyone had different instructions on where to go after the final round was played -- originally the awards were to be held in a different building, and as a reader I was told to tell my teams to go there, but afterwards I heard that the prizes would be given out in the atrium of the building we played in. What ended up happening was that a bunch of teams ended up milling around outside the classrooms the games were held in, and Georgia Tech received their prizes in the atrium with, as far as I know, basically no one else there.[/list]
This is unfortunate, but teams tend to leave before awards ceremonies at all tournaments, and this is a relatively minor problem.

Overall, there were a lot of minor issues (keeping stats, improving a few moderators, balancing preliminary pools better, etc.) that are not uncommon in collegiate quizbowl and did not outweigh the fun we had playing this tournament. I think Vanderbilt should be commended for at least hosting the event, and definitely encouraged to host more often. 21 teams is way more than have shown up to any recent tournament in the region, and an active Vanderbilt team can help sustain the circuit in multiple ways. There are a few things that need to be improved, as at any school, but overall I was pleased with my experience.

Although I seriously would like to find out why this tournament lasted 14 rounds. A superbly-run tournament still wouldn't get that done before 5 or 6 PM, and most hosts wouldn't be able to finish much faster than Vanderbilt did. I don't normally ever get tired of playing quizbowl, but I was glad when this tournament had no more games left to play.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by An Intergalactic Puzzlepalooza »

I'd like to add to this that either scorekeepers or whoever was doing stats seem to have mixed mine and Matthew's stats up in a couple rounds. This notably would raise Matthew's PPG about 10 points, which would move him up a lot in the individual rankings, and something like that could have made a difference if he had been in contention for an individual scoring prize.
Not only this, but there seemed to be a lot of places where the final was off by like 10-15 points from the scores both teams got. Both of our matches with Georgia Tech teams, for example.
This is something I didn't have too much of an issue with. We had six readers throughout the day and they were all at least average. Maybe we had the good luck to avoid the bad rooms, but the tournament finished less than hour behind schedule, and some of the delay came because every team (including mine) didn't budget enough extra time for the inevitable wrong turns in Nashville.
My understanding is that the reader who created major delays read to the pool that Auburn C was in for prelims, but my understanding is that Vanderbilt was fully aware he was creating delays. 3 of your 6 moderators, though, were external moderators, which probably contributed to your perception of average. That said, there was one moderator who we had -- the Vanderbilt moderator from the prelim rounds, who had to be informed of basic things like not matching to bonuses, what constitutes a neg, etc. While there wasn't anyone slow or unclear among those we had, there was him, and then the girl who we had in playoffs who created some temporary confusion by reading a bonus, waiting ~2 seconds, saying "Prompt," while we were discussing the answer, causing us to just look at her and go "what?" That entire exchange was poorly done, and was something that wouldn't happen with an experienced moderator. Out of the 3 Vandy moderators that we had(Or at least, I think they were all from Vandy. Technically I'm not positive of that fact), 1 was good, 1 was below average, but only slightly, and the third was poor.

Auburn C, though, had one moderator who insisted on talking between questions, read very slowly, and apparently was the problem slowing us down. They also had another moderator who cost them a game because he didn't do anything when he failed to accept their very obviously correct answer and was protested, who apparently also was allowing teams to talk during tossups as well. I'm not sure if that was the same guy.
I'm not so much concerned with teams staying in one place as I am with the fact that three of the best four teams in the tournament were in the same preliminary pool. I understand they may not have expected Paul Kelson to be playing for Chipola, but putting Tech A and Alabama A in the same pool should have been avoided.
So long as the 7 best teams made it to the upper bracket, I'd say the prelim pools accomplished their goal sufficiently. Since the 8th place team came from the perceptibly weakest pool (Ours), I'd say the pools were sufficient. Basically, if a max of 3 teams can make it out of any one pool, then 3 high quality teams in one bracket is okay, but 4 is not. While it's obviously not ideal that those 3 teams took 3 losses before lunch, it wouldn't have any impact in the final results of the tournament regardless assuming prelims are only used as a tiebreaker.

The other thing that hasn't been touched on:

Get more information to the forums, and sooner. We had no idea where we were supposed to be and when until something like Thursday? Things like that should be posted on the forum as soon as they are finalized.

But yeah, it was a really fun event, there's just a lot of things that need to be fixed.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Fond du lac operon »

I do want to stress that it was a fun event, both as a player and as a reader, and I've seen everything I listed as problems done way worse. But my impression was that Vanderbilt hadn't had much experience hosting tournaments and I'd like to help them improve as much as possible.

I would also like to know if it was Vanderbilt's or ACF's idea to have a 14-round tournament with 2 byes a team -- I don't think Alabama or Tech or Florida would have managed to finish before 8:00 either, given that format, so I didn't mention it in my previous post, but it seemed that everyone wanted to just get it over with by like round 11 or 12.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by grapesmoker »

Allow me to explain something about the schedule. I was notified a few days before the tournament that Vandy was planning to run a single-elim playoff. I emailed Eric and let him know that ACF rules do not allow elimination playoffs of this kind (except in the case of matches that break a tie for bracket placement or finals placement). I advised Eric to retool his schedule; for some reason I thought they had 21 teams rather than the 20 they ended up actually having (I may have been erroneously counting Florida, which had dropped a few days before the tournament), so I suggested 3 brackets of 7, which would have given you 12 rounds with one bye in each bracket, for 14 rounds total.

So I guess you can blame me for this. My proposal did not strike me as particularly unreasonable, given that I have played tournaments that ran this sort of schedule in the past.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by AKKOLADE »

I'm not sure how a 14 round tournament became eleven hours, to be frank.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

Taking out the hour that was allocated to lunch, the rounds averaged something like 40-45 minutes. This is not far from the norm in the southeast region, and while I wish it had been faster, it was exactly what I expected before the tournament.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

grapesmoker wrote:Allow me to explain something about the schedule. I was notified a few days before the tournament that Vandy was planning to run a single-elim playoff. I emailed Eric and let him know that ACF rules do not allow elimination playoffs of this kind (except in the case of matches that break a tie for bracket placement or finals placement). I advised Eric to retool his schedule; for some reason I thought they had 21 teams rather than the 20 they ended up actually having (I may have been erroneously counting Florida, which had dropped a few days before the tournament), so I suggested 3 brackets of 7, which would have given you 12 rounds with one bye in each bracket, for 14 rounds total.

So I guess you can blame me for this. My proposal did not strike me as particularly unreasonable, given that I have played tournaments that ran this sort of schedule in the past.
21 teams participated at this event. Here are the stats: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... all_games/

I would be happy to go modify the stats if I can get access to the file if teams would like a more accurate depiction of what went on throughout the day. Also, the last match between Tech A and our team went 340-280 in favor of them and the first match went 300-275 in favor of them as well. The last match made them 5-1 in the prelims so they would have had to play a final with Adam (which they told me they would decline playing since it was getting a little late).

So, here's how the top bracket actually finished up: (playoff numbers in parentheses)
1. Adam 12-0 (6-0 playoffs)
2. Tech A 10-2 (5-1 playoffs)
3. Chipola 9-3 (3-3 playoffs)
T4. Centre A 6-6 (2-4 playoffs, 21.4 ppb, 255.8 ppg, margin -74.2)
T4. Alabama A 6-6 (2-4 playoffs, 21.38 ppb, 296.7 ppg, margin 2.5)
T4. Auburn 7-5 (2-4 playoffs, 19.02 ppb, 239.2 ppg, margin -115.0)
7. Western Kentucky 7-5 (1-5 playoffs)

There were so many little 10-15 point errors by the scorekeepers that I don't actually endorse using a PPB tiebreaker for positioning here as we don't know what the actual PPBs were (to within hundredths).

I have one question: why was Centre advanced to the top bracket over Alabama B? According to the current stats Centre was 4-2 and Alabama B was 5-1. This is not a good thing to have happen! I know the team did not do that great after Harrison "Heisham" Brown went to read but that is quite irrelevant. Congratulations to Centre on doing well in the top bracket despite the error but that error should not happen, ever.
Last edited by The Ununtiable Twine on Mon Nov 05, 2012 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

Sulawesi Myzomela wrote:I noticed that they finished 14 rounds in about the same amount of time that Alabama finished 10 rounds of QUARK.
Well, many things to consider here:

1. QUARK questions were considerably longer and there were far fewer quick buzzes by all teams.
2. The bonuses were very easy compared to QUARK's and so teams most definitely didn't take as much time to read them.
3. We gave a little longer for lunch at QUARK, I do believe (maybe 15 minutes? I usually give 75 minutes for lunch).
4. We finished at around 7:00 as my stuff got locked up in the room around that time. Trust me, I know.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by Fond du lac operon »

The Ununtiable Twine wrote:I have one question: why was Centre advanced to the top bracket over Alabama B? According to the current stats Centre was 4-2 and Alabama B was 5-1. This is not a good thing to have happen! I know the team did not do that great after Harrison "Heisham" Brown went to read but that is quite irrelevant. Congratulations to Centre on doing well in the top bracket despite the error but that error should not happen, ever.
That's Harrison "Haishan 'Heisham Boc' Bao" Brown to you!

And yeah, we beat Centre, and since Adam went 12-0 they would have been at best 4-2 in the prelims. I don't care terribly much about this (and it would have been kind of dickish to put the remainder of that team in the top bracket and have them get just totally destroyed by some very good teams) but it wasn't really how it should have worked.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by jmannor2 »

There were rounds that were just starting when a lot were already finished. It was pretty ridiculous.
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Re: ACF Fall South at Vanderbilt University 11/3/12

Post by lpauley »

I feel like a lot of these 'flaws' are being taken to seriously -- the tournament was fun and overall Vandy did a pretty good job hosting. There were some pretty poor moderators, yeah, but it happens.

Shout out to Justin for being a chill bro inc. and playing along with my -- and others' -- antics.

If stats are open to change at some point, can it be posted here? There are few incorrect things I noticed
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