Search found 112 matches

by cwasims
Sun Feb 04, 2024 7:25 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2024 ACF Regionals: General Thanks
Replies: 5
Views: 1753

Re: 2024 ACF Regionals: General Thanks

Thanks from my end are due to many people; Eve, for doing an admirable job of keeping everyone on track to avoid a last-minute rush and providing great feedback; the other subject editors, for their helpful thoughts and suggestions, aided greatly by the nifty new playtesting Discord app developed by...
by cwasims
Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:14 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2024 ACF Regionals Discussion
Replies: 54
Views: 7061

Re: 2024 ACF Regionals Discussion

A few thoughts on my categories based on the detailed stats: I was overall quite happy with how both of my categories played, with pretty reasonable get rates (both at 87%), buzzpoints, and bonus conversion. Neg rates varied pretty widely from memory with a 0% neg rate to a fairly-surprising 47% neg...
by cwasims
Thu Feb 01, 2024 4:34 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2024 ACF Regionals Discussion
Replies: 54
Views: 7061

Re: 2024 ACF Regionals Discussion

I do have one particular gripe on the "utility" toss-up in Packet O, being that I buzzed part-way through the question (but prior to "the greatest expected value of this quantity" with "expected value" and was negged (with the protest ultimately not mattering and being...
by cwasims
Wed Jan 31, 2024 12:55 am
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2024 ACF Regionals Discussion
Replies: 54
Views: 7061

Re: 2024 ACF Regionals Discussion

On another note, I gather that some people were confused by or disliked the macroeconomics tossup - I realize that the answer space for "subfield" is somewhat less well-defined but I had hoped all the clues would be pretty clearly pointing to the answer. I would be interested in hearing w...
by cwasims
Mon Jan 29, 2024 5:22 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2024 ACF Regionals Discussion
Replies: 54
Views: 7061

Re: 2024 ACF Regionals Discussion

Packet H: the leadin to the "common law" tossup, which as I recall was that F. A. Hayek liked it and saw it as indicative of a good society, didn't seem especially unique. I'll look back at it when the set is posted. Packet P: What answers were acceptable for the tossup on which I answere...
by cwasims
Mon Dec 04, 2023 1:42 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2023 ACF Winter Discussion
Replies: 23
Views: 7086

Re: 2023 ACF Winter Discussion

Also quite late (apologies) but I had a few thoughts on the social science in this set. Although Winter is of course a lower-difficulty tournament, I think the tossups could have used a bit of a broader conception of the fields in question, especially for economics. The tossup answer lines were, as ...
by cwasims
Thu Apr 27, 2023 10:43 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2023 ACF Nationals Favorite Buzzes and Moments
Replies: 8
Views: 4223

Re: 2023 ACF Nationals Favorite Buzzes and Moments

I would just like to express my appreciation to the editors for having written no less than 5 science tossups I could get despite not being a science player and playing on what I imagine was one of the best science teams at the tournament. Although getting the cardinality and estimators tossups was ...
by cwasims
Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:03 am
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2023 BHSU: General discussion
Replies: 35
Views: 14529

Re: 2023 BHSU: General discussion

I enjoyed this tournament a lot - thanks very much to the editors and writers for putting together a polished and distinctive set. I'll echo what Mike said earlier and praise the Other Academic as being particularly well-done. The Social Science also had a lot of well-executed ideas. One minor comme...
by cwasims
Tue Jan 31, 2023 9:20 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2023 ACF Regionals Discussion
Replies: 27
Views: 8103

Re: 2023 ACF Regionals Discussion

My sincere apologies about this - looking at the scores again, I see exactly how I made these two mistakes - I hope no one was dissuaded from buzzing based on the misspellings. I should have followed my own previous suggestion about looking at the piano transcription (if it exists) as well as the fu...
by cwasims
Mon Jan 30, 2023 1:00 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2023 ACF Regionals at Northwestern (01/28/2022)
Replies: 1
Views: 1490

Re: 2023 ACF Regionals at Northwestern (01/28/2022)

Thanks to everyone for coming to Northwestern for ACF Regionals on Saturday! Chicago A cleared the field to claim victory, and Illinois A beat Chicago C in the first game of an advantaged undergrad final. Stats are here , subject to the proviso that I will fix the standings in the combined stats som...
by cwasims
Tue Nov 08, 2022 2:09 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: Can we cool it a bit with the "note-spelling"?
Replies: 27
Views: 7837

Re: Can we cool it a bit with the "note-spelling"?

In recent years, it seems as though the term "score clue" has undergone semantic narrowing to the point that it almost always means "transcribed string of notes", and that kind of clue ("in this piece, the trumpet melody goes D-E-F-F-etc.") has also become significantl...
by cwasims
Tue Apr 12, 2022 5:15 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: ACF Nationals 2022 Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 30
Views: 11975

Re: ACF Nationals 2022 Thanks and General Discussion

Thanks very much to all the editors and writers for a great tournament - I'm pretty confident in saying this is the best ACF Nationals I've played: the questions were excellent and well-subdistributed and the logistics were extremely smooth given the high number of rounds and teams. I agree with a f...
by cwasims
Wed Feb 23, 2022 8:24 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2022 WORKSHOP: Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 19
Views: 5535

Re: 2022 WORKSHOP: Thanks and General Discussion

I edited European and World History, Geo/CE/Other, and Economics for this set (which is easily the most I've ever edited for a set, so thanks to the other editors for letting me try my hand at some more categories). I always think I have nothing to say in these posts, but lo and behold some walls of...
by cwasims
Wed Feb 09, 2022 6:19 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2022 ACF Regionals - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 53
Views: 25770

Re: 2022 ACF Regionals - Specific Question Discussion

Thanks to Alex and John for the comments on my post – I think it’s useful to try and figure out the best ways to ask about music theory. To be clear, I don’t think this tossup is too “unthemed”: drawing all the clues from music theory certainly makes it thematically coherent (unlike if, say, it deci...
by cwasims
Mon Jan 31, 2022 10:45 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2022 ACF Regionals - General Discussion and Thanks
Replies: 10
Views: 4973

Re: 2022 ACF Regionals - General Discussion and Thanks

This tournament was fun overall and I think served its purpose as a national qualifier well. That being said, a few things didn't go quite as well from my point of view. More generally, I thought some of the bonus easy parts were extremely easy for this difficulty. There seemed to be a lot of parts ...
by cwasims
Mon Jan 31, 2022 12:47 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2022 ACF Regionals at Chicago (01/29/2022)
Replies: 3
Views: 2249

Re: 2022 ACF Regionals at Chicago (01/29/2022)

Would it be possible to clarify what exactly the finish order of teams at this tournament was? I'm not sure the order on SQBS is accurate since (I imagine) only the games among common opponents should be counted for win-loss record within a single bracket. I apologize for the tournament's delays, es...
by cwasims
Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:43 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2021 ACF Winter - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 17
Views: 6296

Re: 2021 ACF Winter - Specific Question Discussion

12. A paper on this concept featured implausible data like an almost-uniform distribution of car miles driven over several years, according to an August 2021 exposé. For 10 points each: [10h] Name this concept, which is the subject of a 2012 paper co-authored by Dan Ariely that was recently retract...
by cwasims
Tue Nov 09, 2021 1:53 am
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2021 ACF Winter - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 17
Views: 6296

Re: 2021 ACF Winter - Specific Question Discussion

Continuing from Steven, here's my non-exhaustive list of questions I appreciated in my categories, starting with the ones that got used (and there were others that provided some inspiration for questions that ultimately looked fairly different): MIT A's tossup on kidney exchange, which was turned in...
by cwasims
Mon Nov 08, 2021 1:47 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Winter - Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 10
Views: 4217

Re: 2021 ACF Winter - Thanks and General Discussion

This was my second time editing ACF Winter, and I enjoyed it just as much as I did last time, so thanks to all the editors for creating such a collegial environment. Thanks especially to Tim, our head editor, for doing a fantastic job of looking over all the questions and providing encouragement, Ni...
by cwasims
Sun Oct 31, 2021 7:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 41
Views: 4844

Re: 2021 Penn Bowl Specific Question Discussion

This set was quite good overall - a nice return to a regular-season QB tournament for me. A few tossups that I think weren't ideal: It might have just been first-tossup-of-the-day syndrome, but I thought the species tossup was confusing - I negged early (with "animals and humans") but the ...
by cwasims
Sun Oct 10, 2021 6:43 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: ARCADIA General Discussion
Replies: 12
Views: 3326

Re: ARCADIA General Discussion

Thanks to the writers and editors for putting on a great tournament! It was a very nice break from a pretty busy start to the quarter for me. One more general comment (and certainly not something I would expect to be fixed for this tournament): I think it makes a lot more sense to group classical mu...
by cwasims
Sat Sep 04, 2021 6:18 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Chicago Open: Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 14
Views: 1300

Re: Thanks and General Discussion

It was obviously quite a different experience playing the CO tossups in the ladder format today than the usual in-person tournament, but I really enjoyed playing these questions. I'd especially like to commend the science editors for writing questions that I, who have not taken a non-math non-stats ...
by cwasims
Wed Aug 11, 2021 2:28 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Nationals: Thank Yous and Discussion
Replies: 26
Views: 9683

Re: 2021 ACF Nationals: Thank Yous and Discussion

Thanks to all the editors and writers for a great tournament! I was very glad I made the trek from Canada (where I've been living over the summer) to play it. It has been interesting to see the discussion on the history writing philosophy but I would say that I noticed relatively little difference b...
by cwasims
Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:40 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 WORKSHOP Open Mirror - 4/24/2021
Replies: 2
Views: 2427

Re: 2021 WORKSHOP Open Mirror - 4/24/2021 - CANCELLED

Unfortunately, this tournament has been cancelled due to lack of interest. My apologies to everyone who was hoping to play this - I don't think there will be any future mirrors besides one for high school students.
by cwasims
Sun Apr 04, 2021 12:36 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 WORKSHOP Open Mirror - 4/24/2021
Replies: 2
Views: 2427

Re: 2021 WORKSHOP Open Mirror - 4/24/2021

Reminder that this is scheduled to happen in three weeks! If we don't get a few more sign-ups, we may have to cancel the tournament for lack of interest.
by cwasims
Wed Mar 31, 2021 1:05 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 WORKSHOP: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 43
Views: 4991

Re: 2021 WORKSHOP: Specific Question Discussion

Thanks for the kind words about some of my questions! I have two questions on prompts. The first is a genuine question, the second is more rhetorical (whining). For the question on the Métis people, I see it says to not prompt on "First Nations" or "Native Americans" but to accep...
by cwasims
Tue Mar 09, 2021 8:55 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 WORKSHOP: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 43
Views: 4991

Re: 2021 WORKSHOP: Specific Question Discussion

7 "British Expeditionary Force" seemed like a very hard answerline I will note that although the BEF is the primary answer line (because it's the most correct), just "British army" is acceptable, which I definitely don't think is too difficult. R1: Vietnam War tossup felt potent...
by cwasims
Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:33 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 WORKSHOP Open Mirror - 4/24/2021
Replies: 2
Views: 2427

2021 WORKSHOP Open Mirror - 4/24/2021

I am pleased to announce that the WORKSHOP team will be hosting an online open mirror of 2021 WORKSHOP on April 24, 2021 on Discord. You can find more information about the set here . I, Chris Sims, will be the tournament director. Eligibility All players, including those in school and not in school...
by cwasims
Tue Feb 23, 2021 1:26 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Winter - General Discussion and Thanks
Replies: 38
Views: 11719

Re: 2020 ACF Winter - General Discussion and Thanks

In light of some recent discussion about positive feedback from editors, I realize I really should've taken the time to acknowledge some of the excellent submissions I was able to receive and use for Winter (if a few months late). I will focus on the categories I edited because I remember them best,...
by cwasims
Tue Feb 16, 2021 3:37 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Regionals - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 39
Views: 15745

Re: 2021 ACF Regionals - Specific Question Discussion

A few thoughts based on reading some more packets in practice as well as some critiques I had during the tournament: In pack A, the tossup on "Jews" erroneously claims that Handel's Judas Maccabaeus is an opera as opposed to an oratorio (and also includes an earlier clue about it in a toss...
by cwasims
Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:11 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 WORKSHOP: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 43
Views: 4991

Re: 2021 WORKSHOP: Specific Question Discussion

Thanks to Taylor, Annabelle, and Grant for the great feedback on some of my questions! Just to comment on a few of the concerns: I realize the "deusu" clue might be a bit fraudable in the Jesuits tossup but I think it's pretty necessary to complete the clue and I'm not really all that aver...
by cwasims
Sat Feb 06, 2021 8:33 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 WORKSHOP: Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 18
Views: 1954

Re: 2021 WORKSHOP: Thanks and General Discussion

Despite the roughness around the edges, I hope people enjoyed the European and Other history questions today! Many thanks are in order to the writers, who did an exceptionable job. My first thanks has to go to Kevin Thomas, who wrote an astounding 9/9 in these two categories, including almost the en...
by cwasims
Sun Dec 06, 2020 7:27 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 IKEA - General Set Discussion
Replies: 25
Views: 5333

Re: General Set Discussion

The comment about the lack of symphony content in tossups is well-taken. I generally classify music as "orchestral, chamber, solo piano, opera" etc. when distributing a tournament, but this approach led me to not clue enough from symphonies in this tournament. I think we could have used s...
by cwasims
Sun Dec 06, 2020 3:57 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 IKEA - General Set Discussion
Replies: 25
Views: 5333

Re: General Set Discussion

Thanks to Columbia and GT for writing a great tournament! I agree with the earlier posters that the set had a lot of interesting and fresh answer lines, and I particularly enjoyed some of the social science, especially on Ibn Khaldun, as well as being able to buzz early on the utility functions toss...
by cwasims
Wed Nov 11, 2020 5:14 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Winter - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 42
Views: 11500

Re: 2020 ACF Winter - Specific Question Discussion

-The "space" phil TU dropped Kant + relational/absolute kind of early, the later clues feel harder to me than connecting those ideas. -Loved the "7" in music TU. Future writers should look to this question as an exemplary music theory TU, which we should have more of. I didn't l...
by cwasims
Mon Nov 09, 2020 4:19 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Winter - General Discussion and Thanks
Replies: 38
Views: 11719

Re: 2020 ACF Winter - General Discussion and Thanks

For the "space" tossup, I probably should have figured out that because the question was in the philosophy distribution - answers like "reference frame" wouldn't really make sense and "relative position / location" was probably not likely to be what it was going for. S...
by cwasims
Mon Nov 09, 2020 2:43 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Winter - General Discussion and Thanks
Replies: 38
Views: 11719

Re: 2020 ACF Winter - General Discussion and Thanks

Much like Chandler, I had a great experience editing this tournament - William was a wonderful head editor, and I will echo Chandler's comments amount Nick's immense contributions to the set. This was one of my first times editing, and my first time at a level higher than novice difficulty, so this ...
by cwasims
Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:15 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Winter - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 42
Views: 11500

Re: 2020 ACF Winter - Specific Question Discussion

Could I see the tossup on virtue in packet J? thanks! After the “life of growth” and “life of perception” are ruled out in one text, this concept is discussed as a possible function for man. A book titled for this concept claims that the “state of grave disorder” of its author’s field is due to a f...
by cwasims
Sun Nov 08, 2020 11:56 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Winter - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 42
Views: 11500

Re: 2020 ACF Winter - Specific Question Discussion

Could I see the tossup on virtue in packet J? thanks! After the “life of growth” and “life of perception” are ruled out in one text, this concept is discussed as a possible function for man. A book titled for this concept claims that the “state of grave disorder” of its author’s field is due to a f...
by cwasims
Fri Oct 23, 2020 12:28 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Packet Submission discussion
Replies: 28
Views: 10338

Re: Packet Submission discussion

Additionally, packet submission has the unfortunate side effect of often creating duplicate questions especially at lower difficulties. There isn't a large surplus of physics answerlines at ACF Fall and I imagine many of the submissions had the same flavor (pardon the pun) even if the answerline va...
by cwasims
Fri Sep 25, 2020 12:01 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Longhorn Invitational Tournament Errata
Replies: 21
Views: 3135

Re: Longhorn Invitational Tournament Errata

I'll post this here since I think it's basically a mistake: the bonus on Portugal in pack 10 claims that King John of England has the regnal name "John I" which I do not believe is correct: certainly Wikipedia does not list the name "John I" anywhere in the article on King John a...
by cwasims
Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:52 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Longhorn Invitational Tournament Individual Questions
Replies: 54
Views: 10359

Re: Longhorn Invitational Tournament Individual Questions

I quite enjoyed this tournament! Thanks to the writers and editors. I'll echo what some of the earlier commenters said about some of the bonuses having very easy medium parts - in addition to the Poirot part, Pangloss, drum (from the Korean music bonus), whatever the medium part in the Yuan Shikai b...
by cwasims
Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:24 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Longhorn Invitational Tournament Errata
Replies: 21
Views: 3135

Re: Longhorn Invitational Tournament Errata

"Z-statistic" should be accepted for the "z-score" question - that term also appears on several reputable websites that discuss the concept (and anecdotally I have heard it referred to that way).
by cwasims
Fri Aug 14, 2020 2:31 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Why are there negs in QB?
Replies: 17
Views: 4986

Re: Why are there negs in QB?

Thanks for the discussion so far! I would be interested in hearing more about whether people have observed that negs might have a greater impact on female player's playing style - if that's indeed the case, then I think that alone would provide a good reason for experimenting with no-neg formats. I ...
by cwasims
Thu Aug 13, 2020 3:15 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Why are there negs in QB?
Replies: 17
Views: 4986

Why are there negs in QB?

After some occasional and maybe not especially rigorous thought about the gameplay purpose of negs in QB, I will confess that I’m not really convinced of the overall benefit of having them in the game. I think the gameplay benefit is very situational and that they usually end up penalizing actions t...
by cwasims
Tue Aug 04, 2020 1:25 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: MARCATo (Summer 2020)
Replies: 48
Views: 19773

Re: MARCATo (Summer 2020)

Another clarification: it seems right now that a team's first buzz if both players answer at the end of the question is determined by how quickly they type and submit their answer. This seems fairly unideal to me since you can't coordinate between your teammate online and usually one player will be ...
by cwasims
Thu Jun 18, 2020 3:51 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Paired Tossups and Bonuses
Replies: 52
Views: 28722

Re: Paired Tossups and Bonuses

One thing I'll add to this discussion: although PPB is a pretty reliable indicator of a team's skill across an entire tournament, the ~10 bonuses a team hears in a close game have a high variance associated with them that can only imperfectly advantage the team truly better at bonuses as opposed to ...
by cwasims
Tue May 12, 2020 7:33 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 Canadian Circuit Player Poll
Replies: 21
Views: 10150

Re: 2020 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

The results are now in from the trash ballot. There were four ballots from Isaac Renert, Milan Fernández, Henry Atkins, and Simone Valade. 1. Aaron Dos Remedios (96, median 2, max 1, min 3) 2. Christine Irwin (91, median 3, max 2, min 5) 3. Derek So (83, median 5.5, max 3, min 7) Tied-4. Simone Vala...
by cwasims
Sun May 10, 2020 6:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 Canadian Circuit Player Poll
Replies: 21
Views: 10150

Re: 2020 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Sorry for the delay in getting the results out, but voting is now over for (most of) these polls. We didn't have enough trash or open ballots for me to feel comfortable reporting them officially, so I guess those can just stay open and if people want to submit they can. Main Poll We had 10 ballots f...
by cwasims
Sat May 02, 2020 7:44 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 Canadian Circuit Player Poll
Replies: 21
Views: 10150

Re: 2020 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

People have expressed to me that they would like an extension on the various polls. I'll give everyone another week, so please send in your ballots by midnight Pacific time on May 9. At this point, the open and trash polls may not happen due to lack of interest - I won't be publishing the results if...