The Quizbowl Resource Center

UVA will be hosting the Mid-Atlantic ACF Fall site on November 6th.
More details to follow tonight. I apologize for the late announcement.

Field 25:
VCU 2
The Early College at Guilford
Richard Montgomery
St. Anselm's
Seven Lakes 2
George Mason 2
State College
Liberty 2
Maryland 3
TJ
Penn
W&M 2
NC Wesleyan
Rutgers-Camden
Dorman
Delaware
NCSU 2

yessssssssssssssssssssss

DETAILS!
To register email me at [email protected]

Packet Submission: See this thread

Fees as per the ACF Website:
Base fee $120 per team $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 -$10 for travelling over 200 miles (one way), -$20 for travelling over 400 miles, etc.
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 2007 and August 2009, 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 2007, 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.
High school teams -$50 All high school teams automatically receive a $50 discount on all ACF entry fees. High school teams may still submit packets for further discounts. High school teams are not eligible for the "new quizbowl teams" or "new to ACF" discounts.

Plus or minus any applicable packet discounts/penalties as described in the above table.
Buzzer, staffer, laptop, travel, and international discounts apply to your school's total fee, not to each individual team's fee. The minimum total fee for a school is $0.

Location and Time: The Tournament will be in New Cabell Hall, location of opening meeting is in 337. Registration will be from 8:30-9:00 a.m. Games will begin shortly after. Parking on Saturday is free in most lots near the football stadium, but you must check to see if the particular lot/zone you are parking in doesn't have special Saturday restrictions. A map of the campus can be found here. Parking is in the H section.

We are up to 6-7 teams. With the rooms we have reserved we can have ~20-22 teams. It would also be nice if this event didn't turn into VCU vs high schoolers.

The Toad to Wigan Pier wrote:Seven Lakes 2

As we are getting close to our cap, I'm going to stop accepting high school registrations for now. If it turns out that no other college teams want to come and we still have space, I will let more high school teams enter the field.

What's the field cap? It really seems to be a shame that ACF Fall mid-atlantic, which evidently has the potential to be the best-attended regular season college event of the year (perhaps ever?), has to be turning teams away. Perhaps that's simply me speaking as a failed ACF fall bidder for the region - obviously it's not what UVA or ACF would ideally like. Will, is this a room reservation thing, or are you limited by staff? If the latter, I'm sure teams would be much more willing to bring staffers in order to ensure a registration or whatnot, and I'd be very willing to try and organize some extra staff from our area if it would help in that regard.

I concur with Chris. If it is a staffing problem, I would volunteer to help. It would be a shame if a program with the proud tradition of Dorman were closed out due to a staffing problem. Of course, if it is a room problem, that is a different issue.

Here you go, Chris:

The Toad to Wigan Pier wrote:We are up to 6-7 teams. With the rooms we have reserved we can have ~20-22 teams. It would also be nice if this event didn't turn into VCU vs high schoolers.

I'll come up and help staff or play, depending on which is more convenient for you guys.

DumbJaques wrote:What's the field cap? It really seems to be a shame that ACF Fall mid-atlantic, which evidently has the potential to be the best-attended regular season college event of the year (perhaps ever?), has to be turning teams away. Perhaps that's simply me speaking as a failed ACF fall bidder for the region - obviously it's not what UVA or ACF would ideally like. Will, is this a room reservation thing, or are you limited by staff? If the latter, I'm sure teams would be much more willing to bring staffers in order to ensure a registration or whatnot, and I'd be very willing to try and organize some extra staff from our area if it would help in that regard.

It's because the university decided to change the room reservation policies out of the blue without informing anybody(it's not even on the room reservation policies page) in late September. I'm trying to get more rooms, but it's not a sure thing.

It's because the university decided to change the room reservation policies out of the blue without informing anybody(it's not even on the room reservation policies page) in late September. I'm trying to get more rooms, but it's not a sure thing.

Oops, sorry. Have you explored today's exciting opportunities in the field of squatting? We've had lots of success with that in the past.*

*Seriously, I find it can be worth it to dispatch a team volunteer to scout out the building in question for a couple Saturdays prior to the event - you can usually determine what kind of traffic you can expect that way. Obviously this isn't ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but as I player I'd generally prefer risking some shuffling around to teams not being able to attend.

DumbJaques wrote:

It's because the university decided to change the room reservation policies out of the blue without informing anybody(it's not even on the room reservation policies page) in late September. I'm trying to get more rooms, but it's not a sure thing.

Oops, sorry. Have you explored today's exciting opportunities in the field of squatting? We've had lots of success with that in the past.*

*Seriously, I find it can be worth it to dispatch a team volunteer to scout out the building in question for a couple Saturdays prior to the event - you can usually determine what kind of traffic you can expect that way. Obviously this isn't ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but as I player I'd generally prefer risking some shuffling around to teams not being able to attend.

Most of the classrooms are locked on the weekends, so unless you reserve a room you can't count on being able to get in. Also as ACF Fall coincides with UVA's family weekend, the patterns of room usage and traffic will be different than normal.

May I ask how many rooms you do currently have and/or think you will have?

Delaware will be bringing one team. (Possibly a second, but that's exceedingly unlikely)

mpellegrini wrote:Delaware will be bringing one team. (Possibly a second, but that's exceedingly unlikely)

I received a registration from Rutgers-Camden before you posted. That means you are currently on the wait list.

So there is a good possibility now that we will get a few more rooms(enough to take the people on the waitlist and maybe a few more), but it's not a sure thing yet. There is a fallback option of having games in one of the hallways or in the building's courtyard. If teams are willing to possibly endure these situations, I can go ahead and expand the field by 2, but I would like to hear what people think first.

I think outdoor quizbowl would be a pleasant experience.

Will,

The key issue in the hallway or the courtyard would be the acoustics, would it not? If questions, buzzes & responses can be heard, who could really complain, especially if these locales were shared throughout the tournament, so no one team had to play too often, perhaps even only once, in these unconventional circumstances----unless the U of Delaware just volunteered to play outdoors throughout.

And the addition of two more teams, if it were one HS & one College, would make for 8 HS & 16 College teams, would it not---allowing for 3 possible RR brackets of 8, with HS & College teams separated in order to fulfill the underlying goals of ACF Fall for inexperienced collegiate teams, while at the same time offering HS teams the opportunity to play the high quality opposition they had probably hoped for? This at least is my 2 cents about adding 2 teams.

And, as an aside, I trust you understood the reasons concerning sportsmanship and fair play, at least as I understood these things, which I delineated to you earlier today? I ask because you never indicated that you did understand; the last comment I received from you was an interrogative inquiring why I did make the offer I had made to you. So, I trust you at least have a keener understanding of why I did what I did, whether or not you personally agree with it, although, naturally, I hoped you would agree with it once I had explained it.

Be this as it may, am I at least correct in assuming that now at least you do have this more precise understanding? I hope that you do, and I also hope that you understand that never once have I blamed you for decisions made by administrators that were clearly beyond your control. My underlying assumption throughout has always been that you were trying to do the best you could with an unfortunate set of decisions made by UVA officials while also trying to handle the novel situation of so many registrants, especially high school registrants, in such a brief window of time. I understood throughout that you were trying to protect the underlying collegiate purposes of ACF Fall---so my offer to Dorman was actually made to you and through you, allowing you the freedom to accept my offer and offer the spot to a team that actually wrote a packet, satisfying my sense of sportsmanship while relieving you of the need to bar Dorman's participation after it had in fact written a packet, something we had not done.

EDIT: I might have miscounted---if the one HS and one College on the wait-list are actually added to the field, would this not make for 9 HS teams and 15 College teams, or is 8 & 16 of each, respectively, actually an accurate count?

Edward Powers wrote: And the addition of two more teams, if it were one HS & one College, would make for 8 HS & 16 College teams, would it not---allowing for 3 possible RR brackets of 8, with HS & College teams separated in order to fulfill the underlying goals of ACF Fall for inexperienced collegiate teams, while at the same time offering HS teams the opportunity to play the high quality opposition they had probably hoped for? This at least is my 2 cents about adding 2 teams.

I can't really see how that would be possible with the number of rooms we have.

Edward Powers wrote: And, as an aside, I trust you understood the reasons concerning sportsmanship and fair play, at least as I understood these things, which I delineated to you earlier today? I ask because you never indicated that you did understand; the last comment I received from you was an interrogative inquiring why I did make the offer I had made to you. So, I trust you at least have a keener understanding of why I did what I did, whether or not you personally agree with it, although, naturally, i hoped you would agree with it once I had explained it.

Yes, I understand. I asked simply curious as to why you made the offer, which I now comprehend.

mastaloo wrote:I think outdoor quizbowl would be a pleasant experience.

YOUR ARE WRONG

I say that as someone who has actually moderated an outdoor "room" before. Then again, perhaps you will not have a bus come by once a game, nor helicopters overhead causing variable unplanned delays, nor unseasonably cold temperatures that cause teams to focus more on staying warm than playing quizbowl. On the other hand, speaking as someone who has moderated in a hallway before, you get an equal noise problem and the players probably have to sit on the floor in order to make it work. Obviously, as I have moderated a full tournament in both places, I condone the use of either place as a plausible "game room" but do not recommend it unless all other options are exhausted.

The Toad to Wigan Pier wrote:So there is a good possibility now that we will get a few more rooms(enough to take the people on the waitlist and maybe a few more), but it's not a sure thing yet. There is a fallback option of having games in one of the hallways or in the building's courtyard. If teams are willing to possibly endure these situations, I can go ahead and expand the field by 2, but I would like to hear what people think first.

I'm confused---my "2 cents" was based upon this post from around 4:30 PM today that you had a good possibility of getting A FEW MORE ROOMS and thus might have the ability to add the wait-listed teams and possibly a few more.!!! Then you even added a fall-back position that STILL might allow the addition of a couple of teams.

So, my idea of possibly having 1 eight team bracket of high schoolers and two eight team brackets of collegians was based upon this post.

But now you suggest the opposite notion that you do not have enough rooms for the ideas inherent in my "2Cents" notion. Hence my confusion.

Edward Powers wrote:

The Toad to Wigan Pier wrote:So there is a good possibility now that we will get a few more rooms(enough to take the people on the waitlist and maybe a few more), but it's not a sure thing yet. There is a fallback option of having games in one of the hallways or in the building's courtyard. If teams are willing to possibly endure these situations, I can go ahead and expand the field by 2, but I would like to hear what people think first.

I'm confused---my "2 cents" was based upon this post from around 4:30 PM today that you had a good possibility of getting A FEW MORE ROOMS and thus might have the ability to add the wait-listed teams and possibly a few more.!!! Then you even added a fall-back position that STILL might allow the addition of a couple of teams.

So, my idea of possibly having 1 eight team bracket of high schoolers and two eight team brackets of collegians was based upon this post.

But now you suggest the opposite notion that you do not have enough rooms for the ideas inherent in my "2Cents" notion. Hence my confusion.

If we get the extra rooms, then yes we could do something like what you propose. However, I think it would be best if we delayed debating brackets until we know for sure what we are doing.

cvdwightw wrote:

mastaloo wrote:I think outdoor quizbowl would be a pleasant experience.

YOUR ARE WRONG

Well there goes that theory.

Apologies. My discussion of brackets was merely my thinking out loud in response to your request for opinions about the addition of the currently wait-listed teams because, as you had stated, it seemed you would probably come up with either additional rooms or, a fall-back plan, as you called it. Since the extra rooms and the fall-back plan are clearly still up in the air, my discussion of possible brackets designed to protect the integrity of the purposes of ACF Fall as those purposes were so painstakingly explained to me earlier in the day was clearly premature, and further, it might have even seemed presumptuous on my part, but this was never my intention.

You asked for opinions, I offered mine, clearly labeling it as my 2 cents and nothing more. In fact, I've expressed many opinions today, all in good spirit and well intentioned, I trust, but it is time for me to simply be quiet and to allow events to unfold as others in positions of authority wish them to. So, good luck with your planning.

Edward Powers wrote:

The Toad to Wigan Pier wrote:So there is a good possibility now that we will get a few more rooms(enough to take the people on the waitlist and maybe a few more), but it's not a sure thing yet. There is a fallback option of having games in one of the hallways or in the building's courtyard. If teams are willing to possibly endure these situations, I can go ahead and expand the field by 2, but I would like to hear what people think first.

I'm confused---my "2 cents" was based upon this post from around 4:30 PM today that you had a good possibility of getting A FEW MORE ROOMS and thus might have the ability to add the wait-listed teams and possibly a few more.!!! Then you even added a fall-back position that STILL might allow the addition of a couple of teams.

So, my idea of possibly having 1 eight team bracket of high schoolers and two eight team brackets of collegians was based upon this post.

But now you suggest the opposite notion that you do not have enough rooms for the ideas inherent in my "2Cents" notion. Hence my confusion.

Also, teams need byes for their packets to be read, so ~24 teams probably would mean less than 12 rooms, and some odd number of teams per bracket.

(See how short and sweet that was? )

We have received extra rooms! Dorman and Delaware are now in the field. With the rooms we now have, we can fit a few more teams and we have enough moderators at the moment to handle the field as it now stands. However, if we get any more teams, I will need a few more moderators, so volunteers will be appreciated.

Is this extra rooms in the same place, or are we moving to a different part of campus?

We are moving the entire tournament to another part of the campus, New Cabell Hall. The room where we are having the opening meeting is still TBD as we cannot reserve the large auditorium in the adjoined building. One possibility, though somewhat undesirable, is to still have the opening meeting in Thornton E316(large enough for such a meeting) and then walk over to New Cabell. The walk longer is longer than I would like, but I imagine most teams will be forced to park by Thornton anyway, so most people will be making the walk regardless.

Will,

Since things have stabilized, do you care to share your ideas on bracketing options? Or is this still premature, or, perhaps, off-limits?

Will,

For reasons I delineated in an email last week, St. Joe's hereby withdraws from ACF Fall at UVA; we will attend Brandeis instead. Good luck to you and all of the teams attending your beautiful site.

Due to an unforeseeable circumstance (a death in my family, and a funeral on the same day as this tournament) I personally won't be able to attend. Since I was driving the team down in my car, we're looking into alternate transportation.

Hooray! Seems like a pretty good field. Should be a fun tournament.

The Toad to Wigan Pier wrote:Seven Lakes 2

Is this the same Seven Lakes that's in the Alabama thread? The only one I can find is in Texas.

Seven Lakes is attending the UVA site. I am guessing there was a misunderstanding on the Alabama side. I expressed interest in the Alabama site and asked about the potential field but we never registered.

Romero

The question mark can be removed for Delaware: transportation has been procured.

Do we have a confirmed location for the opening meeting?

So just to clarify, since we will only have two people, the undermanned discount and the high school discount both apply, right?

(edit: spacing fail)

Teams should check-in at New Cabell 337.

After a few delays, the tournament is well underway. Stats so far are posted:
http://student.virginia.edu/~quizbowl/f ... dings.html

State College went 14-0 to win this tournament.
Penn and Dorman tied for second.
EDIT: Playoff stats are coming sometime in the next day.

This field was everything it promised to be and this tournament went really well.

Thanks to U.VA for continuing the tradition of excellently run mid-atlantic ACF Fall mirrors.

Agreed, NCSU had a great time, and the tournament was very professionally run.

Besides a few delays, I really enjoyed this tournament (and after reading the thread of a certain other ACF site, I don't really mind the delays anymore). The set inconsistencies can be expected from a packet submission tournament and don't fault anyone for that. I must, say, however, that I don't like leaving tournaments at 8, though that's probably me being bitter about missing obligations at school than anything else.

We State High folks thank all the kind folks who organized and moderated. Quality was high and though I was sleepy on the way home, the trip is worth it when you can play @ 14 full rounds of ACF fare! thanks and ever thanks. julie

The discussion of pseudonyms has been split into a new thread.

Prelim stats have been up for almost a week. Will playoff stats be up soon? I know you need time, and I do not wish to seem a pest, but you had such a great field in attendance with such excellent preliminary performances that curiosity about the playoffs is simply natural. And almost a week has passed. Of course, post them when you can. Just curious.

Edward Powers wrote:Prelim stats have been up for almost a week. Will playoff stats be up soon? I know you need time, and I do not wish to seem a pest, but you had such a great field in attendance with such excellent preliminary performances that curiosity about the playoffs is simply natural. And almost a week has passed. Of course, post them when you can. Just curious.

Will's keys got locked in his car along with the scoresheets, so there will be a bit of a delay.

Sarah,

Thanks for the update. And, if you do not mind, how do you like being a "Cavalier"? I was hoping to get back there last weekend, but could not. Anyway, I hope you love UVA as much as I did when I was a grad student there many many years ago.

Edward Powers wrote:Sarah,

Thanks for the update. And, if you do not mind, how do you like being a "Cavalier"? I was hoping to get back there last weekend, but could not. Anyway, I hope you love UVA as much as I did when I was a grad student there many many years ago.

I'm enjoying it very much, Mr. Powers, thank you. Hopefully we'll be able to see St. Joe's down here at some point in the future.