2010 Gopher Invitational at UMN

[eliza.grames]

This is a preliminary announcement for the University of Minnesota's traditional winter tournament, the Gopher Invitational, to be held on Saturday, December 4, 2010. Like last year, GINVIT will be held in Blegen Hall on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus. Blegen hall is located at 269 19th Ave S, Minneapolis 55455.

Registration begins at 8:00 AM, with games starting as close to 8:45 AM as possible.

We will be using NAQT Invitational Series #96. Depending on the size of the field, we will try to guarantee 6-7 prelim games. This number may be revised upward depending on the size of the field and the format, but it will certainly not be revised downward.

This is a PACE-affiliated event.

Base fee: $80 per team
Working buzzer discount: -$5 per working buzzer system (no limit to the number of buzzers you can bring; only applicable to quizbowl buzzers and not knowledge bowl strips)
Qualified moderator discount: -$10 per qualified moderator provided (please email us at quizbowl@umn.edu by Dec. 1, 2010 if you want to avail this discount)
New to Quizbowl discount: -$10 (If your school has only played Knowledge Bowl and never played Quizbowl, we are offering you a $10 discount; this discount is only applicable once per school.)
New to GINVIT discount*: -$10 (If your school hasn't played a tournament hosted by the Quizbowl at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, you get a $10 discount; this discount is only applicable once per school.)
Travel discount: -$10 (If your team travels over 100 miles to the tournament.)

*The New to GINVIT discount can be combined with the New to Quizbowl discount for a $20 discount.

To register for the tournament, please contact me at quizbowl@umn.edu. In your email, please feel free to email me if you have any other questions as well, (eg. suggestions for food, tournament logistics, etc.)

Playing field:
Mounds Park Academy 4
Armstrong 3
Hudson 1
Roseville 1
Chanhassen 2
St Paul Central 1
St Thomas Academy 1
Chaska 5
Wayzata 3
Mpls South 2
Minnetonka 2
Eden Prairie 2
St Paul Academy 2

For information about parking, please consult the handy-dandy Minneapolis Campus Interactive Map provided by the UMN Parking and Transportation Services. The 19th Avenue Ramp and the 21st Avenue Ramp on the West Bank are the closest locations.

This thread will be periodically updated with pertinent information.

[mtimmons]

What format is this going to be?

[gaurav.kandlikar]

What format is this going to be?

The exact format will depend on the number of teams, but this has historically had two bracketed round robins (one for prelims, one for playoffs), and that'll probably be the case this year.

[mtimmons]

What format is this going to be?

The exact format will depend on the number of teams, but this has historically had two bracketed round robins (one for prelims, one for playoffs), and that'll probably be the case this year.

I don't know if this is possible but I think it might be nice if after the second brackted round robin if there would be cross-over matches between the top two teams from each playoff bracket followed by ACF-style finals so that no team would be eliminated from championship contention with just one loss.

[Cody]

What format is this going to be?

The exact format will depend on the number of teams, but this has historically had two bracketed round robins (one for prelims, one for playoffs), and that'll probably be the case this year.

I don't know if this is possible but I think it might be nice if after the second brackted round robin if there would be cross-over matches between the top two teams from each playoff bracket followed by ACF-style finals so that no team would be eliminated from championship contention with just one loss.

There's no reason that would happen. For example, if you had 12 teams and split them into 2 brackets of 6 for the prelims and playoffs, the top 3 from each prelim bracket would go to the top playoff bracket and the bottom 3 from each prelim bracket would go to the bottom playoff bracket. Having crossover matches for playoff brackets doesn't make any sense in such a case.

[mtimmons]

What format is this going to be?

The exact format will depend on the number of teams, but this has historically had two bracketed round robins (one for prelims, one for playoffs), and that'll probably be the case this year.

I don't know if this is possible but I think it might be nice if after the second brackted round robin if there would be cross-over matches between the top two teams from each playoff bracket followed by ACF-style finals so that no team would be eliminated from championship contention with just one loss.

There's no reason that would happen. For example, if you had 12 teams and split them into 2 brackets of 6 for the prelims and playoffs, the top 3 from each prelim bracket would go to the top playoff bracket and the bottom 3 from each prelim bracket would go to the bottom playoff bracket. Having crossover matches for playoff brackets doesn't make any sense in such a case.

I will clarify that my intention was only the top two teams from the championship playoff brackets would play cross-over games not the consolation brackets. For example the last two years GINVIt has had around 36 teams seeded into 6 prelims brackets. Then the top 2 teams from each bracket are put into 2 playoff brackets of 6 with 4 other consolation brackets of 6. Instead of having the top team from each playoff bracket play each other in a 1-game final my suggestion would be take the the 2 teams from each of the 2 playoff brackets and have them play cross-over games. Obviously this is not needed if there is only 1 bracket of teams in championship contention but if there are 2 playoff brackets with teams in championship contention this would allow teams to lose a game and remain in championship contention. I hope this makes more sense.

[mtimmons]

I think some of the confusion stems from there being two top at GINVIT, which I think is fairly unusual. Another option would be to only take 1 team from each prelim bracket into the top bracket and only have 1 top bracket. But given that last year all of the top 4 teams came from 2 prelim brackets I'm not sure that's a good idea.

[eliza.grames]

I'm going to try to set up the brackets so that there is an even distribution of top teams in the different brackets by looking at team records and results from last year so that hopefully this doesn't happen again.

[Gautam]

In case coaches/players check this thread before they check their emails, I'd just like to remind folks that this tournament is still on.

--Gautam

[eliza.grames]

I want to thank all the teams for coming to play GINVIT 2010; I hope all the teams had a good time at the tournament. It went on despite the snow, and everyone made it to the tournament. We felt that it ran smoothly, however if you have any concerns about how the tournament was run please let me know so that we can fix these issues in the future. It is our goal to host tournaments that are enjoyable for all the players and run fairly.

St. Paul Central won the tournament after playing Chanhassen A in the finals. Stats for the tournament can be found here: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~kand0028/quiz_bo ... nvit_2010/

St Paul Central, Chanhassen A, Wayzata A, Chaska A, and Eden Prairie A all qualified for the nationals; congratulations!

Thank you,
Eliza

[mtimmons]

This tournament went really well and the moderation was quite good too as rounds averaged between 25-30 minutes the entire day.

Stats for the tournament can be found here: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~kand0028/quiz_bo ... nvit_2010/

It seems Central's bonus conversion needs some serious improvement.