The Quizbowl Resource Center

This is the formal announcement for the Fernando Arrabal Tournament of the Absurd, a super-hard open written by myself with help from Miriam Nussbaum and Cody Voight. The tournament will have at least 10 rounds of 20/20 packets, and possibly more, depending on how ambitious I'm feeling and how well I'm keeping up with my other commitments. The tournament will use a standard ACF distribution, with the modification that there will be no pop culture or geography questions; they will be replaced by the ever-nebulous "other academic" category.

The subject matter of this tournament will be basically "whatever I find interesting." It will be very hard and questions will be written on more or less whatever I feel like writing. A fair portion of the questions may not be answerable by lots of people. The purpose of this tournament is to be a fun, crazy open for a bunch of good players; it's not intended as "prep" for any kind of national tournament or anything like that. I put all this up front just so there's no confusion later.

I don't have a location for this tournament yet, but I'm open to suggestions. Obviously the easiest thing for me to do would be to host it in Pittsburgh, but I'm not sure that's the optimal site. I'd love to get teams from both the East Coast and the Minnesota/Great Lakes regions to come, preferably to the same location, but I don't know if that's possible. I'm open to mirrors, even after the main date within reason, but you know, read that second paragraph and decide if that kind of thing would work for your potential audience. If you think the answer is yes, shoot me an email. I'll have a registration sheet up at some point, probably after the location is decided. If you have thoughts on that, please share them.

edit: now with sign up sheet on first page.

grapesmoker wrote:The tournament will use a standard ACF distribution, with the modification that there will be no pop culture or geography questions; they will be replaced by the ever-nebulous "other academic" category.

I can't tell you how excited I am about this in particular.

I don't have a location for this tournament yet, but I'm open to suggestions. Obviously the easiest thing for me to do would be to host it in Pittsburgh, but I'm not sure that's the optimal site. I'd love to get teams from both the East Coast and the Minnesota/Great Lakes regions to come, preferably to the same location, but I don't know if that's possible.

If you want to get both East Coast and Midwest teams to come, it seems like Pittsburgh is a reasonable site. I know East Coast teams tend to be distance-averse, but Pittsburgh seems like a fairly even split in distance between places like Richmond and New Haven, on the one side, and Chicago and Michigan on the other, and it's also not far from the major Ontario universities.

grapesmoker wrote:Obviously the easiest thing for me to do would be to host it in Pittsburgh...

If this happened, then you could probably get a team from Buffalo and team(s) from Canada. Pittsburgh is extremely driveable from up this way.

On a different note, if there's demand/time/room for it, I'd be glad to mirror SPACE during this weekend, either in lieu of or in addition to the DRAGOON-weekend (11/16-17) site in Buffalo.

I'd probably attend a Pittsburgh tournament.

I am only sad that the answer space for Fernando Arrabal has been occupied by the tournament's title. Nevertheless, I would definitely attend a tournament in Pittsburgh or practically anywhere else in the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast for such goodness.

Edit: Words do not work for me, I work for them

By the way, I'd like to host Eyes That Do Not See V at this event.

Mike Bentley wrote:By the way, I'd like to host Eyes That Do Not See V at this event.

I'm sure that would work.

I'd also appreciate a confirmed site ASAP so I can book cheap plane tickets and figure out Thanksgiving plans.

Are there any usual suspects that would not come if it's in Pittsburgh?

Is there any chance of a Minnesota Open 2012 type packet submission? Ten packets seems cutting it kind of close.

Sam wrote:Is there any chance of a Minnesota Open 2012 type packet submission? Ten packets seems cutting it kind of close.

I'll think about it and let you know before the summer is out.

grapesmoker wrote:

Mike Bentley wrote:By the way, I'd like to host Eyes That Do Not See V at this event.

I'm sure that would work.

What about Lederberg 2?

The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:

grapesmoker wrote:

Mike Bentley wrote:By the way, I'd like to host Eyes That Do Not See V at this event.

I'm sure that would work.

What about Lederberg 2?

Sure, why not? If we have time, I'm happy to run those things.

I love Pittsburgh as a site, for what it's worth.

But, I'd be willing to travel to most places for this kind of event.

Any word on whether it will actually be at Pittsburgh?

Mike Bentley wrote:Any word on whether it will actually be at Pittsburgh?

At the moment, the answer is yes, I will be running this in Pittsburgh. It seems like a satisfactory site for most people and minimizes logistic problems on my end.

Will you allow mirrors?

Cheynem wrote:Will you allow mirrors?

Yes, as long as they're not too close to the Pittsburgh site. I've spoken with Andrew Hart about a Minnesota mirror, which would be fine.

grapesmoker wrote:

Mike Bentley wrote:Any word on whether it will actually be at Pittsburgh?

At the moment, the answer is yes, I will be running this in Pittsburgh. It seems like a satisfactory site for most people and minimizes logistic problems on my end.

When do you think you'll have that confirmed?

Unless I get a more attractive offer before the end of the month, it will be in Pittsburgh.

It seems to me that the decision to have one vs. two sites for this tournament might affect its ethos. I think this will affect whether this tournament is going to be more like Minnesota Open, in which there are two sites, and the teams are a mix of regular season teams using it as Nats-practice and some open teams (some of them superteam-ish) playing it together; or whether it will be more like Chicago Open, a one-site event at which there are an abundance of superteams competing for glory. (And yes, I do believe the number of sites is a contributing factor to this, and not just the nature of the questions.) Jerry, which were you envisioning, in terms of purpose and audience? I'd also be curious to know which players would attend only if there were a Midwest mirror, or to get some sense of how such a decision would affect the fields.

I should also note that I'd be more willing to travel to a distant mirror if this becomes a normal-length tournament, as opposed to a small event with a maximum of 10 rounds of play. And the one-site approach might not work as well if there are not enough packets to ensure that all the interesting superteams get to play each other.

ThisIsMyUsername wrote:It seems to me that the decision to have one vs. two sites for this tournament might affect its ethos. I think this will affect whether this tournament is going to be more like Minnesota Open, in which there are two sites, and the teams are a mix of regular season teams using it as Nats-practice and some open teams (some of them superteam-ish) playing it together; or whether it will be more like Chicago Open, a one-site event at which there are an abundance of superteams competing for glory. (And yes, I do believe the number of sites is a contributing factor to this, and not just the nature of the questions.) Jerry, which were you envisioning, in terms of purpose and audience? I'd also be curious to know which players would attend only if there were a Midwest mirror, or to get some sense of how such a decision would affect the fields.

I should also note that I'd be more willing to travel to a distant mirror if this becomes a normal-length tournament, as opposed to a small event with a maximum of 10 rounds of play. And the one-site approach might not work as well if there are not enough packets to ensure that all the interesting superteams get to play each other.

Let me get a little more concrete here: this tournament looks to be the only hard one between now and Nationals, save the one John, the rest of Chicago/Dartmouth, and I are writing. I and Chicago institutionally are thus interested in having it as a rehearsal for Nationals (though that's not to constrain you, Jerry, from writing questions that wouldn't be appropriate to that venue). If there's one site (presumably in Pittsburgh) where all the good teams go, then Chicago would be interested in sending at least one team there to compete against the greats. If, on the other hand, it happens in Minneapolis and Pittsburgh, we would probably treat it the same way as the team has treated Minnesota Open in the past: we'll finance the trip for Chicago teams entering as such. However, if that's your model my advice would be not to get too crazy in the questions. If it's a ten-round vanity project, playing it against a thin field in Minneapolis is going to be less attractive than MO has been in the past and I'm not sure how many Chicago teams would enter.

If this affects anything, I wouldn't realistically expect most Northeast teams to drive all the way to Pittsburgh even if they had to, so the multi-site model may be the only workable one. There's been some internal talk about a smallish Northeast mirror.

The idea for this tournament is to be a sort of crazy pet tournament; my hope was to gather lots of good people in one place and have them play some crazy hard questions. I guess that's more along the lines of the Chicago Open model, but I'm hesitant to say things like that because it's a one-off sort of tournament the content of which isn't meant to actually reflect anything about Nationals.

I'm not wedded to the Pittsburgh site. What I really want is to get a bunch of good teams to throw down on these questions, wherever it might happen. I'm open to having a Northeast mirror, but the proposed site for that was Columbia, which would probably pull the entire mid-Atlantic in that direction and leave no one to come here. On the other hand, if Chicago wants to use its infinity money to go to Columbia, and no one else is coming from out west anyway, and Columbia will pull lots of other good teams, I don't have a problem with that and would do Columbia.

Hopefully this all makes it clear what I'm trying to do here.

I'd almost certainly play this if it's at Pittsburgh, for what it's worth, but it would be significantly less likely if it was at Columbia, for transportation reasons.

grapesmoker wrote:The idea for this tournament is to be a sort of crazy pet tournament; my hope was to gather lots of good people in one place and have them play some crazy hard questions. I guess that's more along the lines of the Chicago Open model, but I'm hesitant to say things like that because it's a one-off sort of tournament the content of which isn't meant to actually reflect anything about Nationals.

I'm not wedded to the Pittsburgh site. What I really want is to get a bunch of good teams to throw down on these questions, wherever it might happen. I'm open to having a Northeast mirror, but the proposed site for that was Columbia, which would probably pull the entire mid-Atlantic in that direction and leave no one to come here. On the other hand, if Chicago wants to use its infinity money to go to Columbia, and no one else is coming from out west anyway, and Columbia will pull lots of other good teams, I don't have a problem with that and would do Columbia.

Hopefully this all makes it clear what I'm trying to do here.

In that case, Jerry, my request would be not to have mirrors. Since it's within our budget to go to wherever is the one place with the best field, I personally don't care whether that's Columbia or Pittsburgh but it shouldn't be both. If you want to appeal to Midwestern (or Western) teams that do have binding budget constraints, I suggest Pittsburgh.

I'm not the intended audience for this, but I would prefer to have a mirror closer to the Midwest than Pittsburgh. On the other hand, you could have like a main site and then like some more informal smaller sites. It's not really my place to say, I suppose, I just think that there's some folks in the upper Midwest who enjoy playing hard questions but who would find it difficult to fly into either Columbia or Pittsburgh.

Cheynem wrote:I'm not the intended audience for this, but I would prefer to have a mirror closer to the Midwest than Pittsburgh. On the other hand, you could have like a main site and then like some more informal smaller sites. It's not really my place to say, I suppose, I just think that there's some folks in the upper Midwest who enjoy playing hard questions but who would find it difficult to fly into either Columbia or Pittsburgh.

How about requiring the mirrors be delayed then? I realize we're mediating the demands of those who like hard questions but can't travel (far), but Jerry said his goal was to have a throw-down on hard questions and mirrors really would get in the way of that.

I really don't care. Whatever's fine.

It's frankly unrealistic to assume that all the good players from the eastern half of the country are going to congregate in one place for anything but CO; most teams (eh, every team except Chicago) don't have infinite money to fly (or infinite patience to drive) well outside their area for things that aren't an actual national. More people would play the set period (and you, Jerry, would make more from it) if there were two or three spaced-out sites rather than one, and it seems like Michigan, Chicago, OSU, Laferbrook, etc. could still congregate to a Pittsburgh site to make quite a strong field if Minnesota and/or New York sites exist for other clumps of strong players. So I don't think Marshall is being reasonable here. That said, I don't plan to keep pushing that hard on this if more people in the expected audience besides Marshall would actually prefer that only one site exist (even if that means people far from that site don't play at all); I may not even be available on the 23rd in any case.

RyuAqua wrote:More people would play the set period (and you, Jerry, would make more from it) if there were two or three spaced-out sites rather than one...

That's undoubtedly true, but what Jerry said was that be wants the tournament to be a throw-down between the best players on "absurd" questions. That aim is in conflict with the aims of maximizing total players or revenue. Since the former is what Jerry said he wanted to do, the question then becomes which format best serves that aim, EVEN THOUGH the format that best serves that aim may score worse on the revenue or total field criteria. Figuring out which formats serve which aims and then choosing the format that best serves the aim you care most about is a process that one might even be so bold as to call "reason."

Look, I realize we're at the cheap talk stage when everyone declares they won't attend the tournament if it's not held in their backyard. And indeed, fewer total people will attend if there's only one site. It's up to Jerry to decide if be believes the usual posturing.

Since this is scheduled on the day of our high school tournament, UVA unfortunately won't be attending regardless of the location.

You should move this tournament one week earlier so that Alberta can come!

fourplustwo wrote:You should move this tournament one week earlier so that Alberta can come!

That weekend is already taken by DRAGOON...

For what it's worth, I like the 11/23 date over any other date.

Maybe I'm underestimating the famed distance-averseness of East Coast teams, but I doubt this tournament would draw a larger audience of elite players if it was in New York rather than Pittsburgh (assuming there's only one site). I don't know how many Midwestern players would be willing to come out to New York to play given that even Columbus, one of the closest Midwestern cities to the East Coast, is 8 1/2 hours from New York, while Boston, one of the farthest out New England cities that has quiz bowl, is only a bit farther from Pittsburgh (around 9 hrs.).

I don't know about this one-site/many-site debate, but maybe what needs to happen is to have a poll so that the intended audience of this tournament can indicate which site they would be more likely to attend. If Columbia really would be a bigger draw, I'd happily concede my point.

ThisIsMyUsername wrote:

fourplustwo wrote:You should move this tournament one week earlier so that Alberta can come!

That weekend is already taken by DRAGOON...

So what? If one tournament is going to be massively improved without compromising the quality of another, should it not be moved? Its quite obvious what Arrabal has to gain by moving it 1 week forward. Should one tournament suffer because someone else claimed a date first? DRAGOON isn't going to lose people by changing their date by 1 week.

Considering that there's talk of people in the Michigan area going to Arrabal, yeah, teams could not go to DRAGOON if you moved Arrabal, which is a bad thing.

fourplustwo wrote:

ThisIsMyUsername wrote:

fourplustwo wrote:You should move this tournament one week earlier so that Alberta can come!

That weekend is already taken by DRAGOON...

So what? If one tournament is going to be massively improved without compromising the quality of another, should it not be moved? Its quite obvious what Arrabal has to gain by moving it 1 week forward. Should one tournament suffer because someone else claimed a date first? DRAGOON isn't going to lose people by changing their date by 1 week.

I hope you're being sarcastic. Four sites have already planned to host a relatively large regular-difficulty tournament for their regions on the 16th (including the main site, at Illinois) and it's not always easy or even possible (or even thinkable) for those committed hosts to alter their plans by a week in either direction to accomodate what's essentially one team's desire to attend a super-hard vanity tournament.

As someone who would like to go to both tournaments, I would not like it if they were held on the same weekend.

(I'll note my preference for the Pittsburgh site here as well since it's much, much closer to us than New York - New York is about out limit in terms of driving, and it would be doubtful that we'd send a team in that case anyway).

I apologize for not keeping pace with the thread; I'm in the process of moving and unpacking my life into a different apartment, so that's slowed me down.

Anyway, first, the tournament is not moving to the 16th, because that would compromise an already-announced tournament that I was trying to avoid conflicts with in the first place. Sorry, Alberta.

Second, I don't really care about making the most money from this; rather, I'm interested in getting the best possible field. Here's what I think the field might look like for a Pittsburgh site:

Laferbrook
Michigan
Michigan State?
OSU
Chicago (1 team? 2 teams?)
Penn?
Seth + co. ?
Maryland?
Magin, Ahmad, Mike Bentley, other randoms?

If all those teams showed up (I have no idea if I'm committing Seth or Jonathan or Ahmad to something without justification here), I think that would be a pretty solid field. Looking at Columbia, I think we would lose Laferbrook, OSU, and the Michiganders; we'd possibly pick up Yale, maybe Harvard and/or Brown, but both of those seem dicy right now (also Columbia house team?). I don't know if VCU/Matt Weiner have any plans to come either way, but I think the trip is about equidistant for them if they decide to do so. I guess unless I hear something that convinces me the field is going to be improved substantially by a move to Columbia or some other Northeast location, I'm going to stick with Pittsburgh. It would be great if some Minnesota folks could make it out as well, but I realize that this is a haul for them, which is why I don't mind a UMN mirror. I guess I'm open to West Coast mirrors as well although I haven't heard any interest in that.

I've added a poll, so please vote if you intend to come to this tournament.

VCU won't be attending due to the conflict with UVA's HS tournament.

This is probably a mistake on my part to not include an "Either" option but: are the people voting "both" willing to come to either site?

Yeah, in fact my vote would definitely be "either" rather than any of the current options. I would prefer one field, not two (because I want as concentrated a field as possible), but I have no strong preferences as to where this one field is.

grapesmoker wrote:Looking at Columbia, I think we would lose Laferbrook, OSU, and the Michiganders; we'd possibly pick up Yale, maybe Harvard and/or Brown, but both of those seem dicy right now (also Columbia house team?).

You can almost certainly count us out since most if not all of us will be in New Haven for the football game, and I'd expect most of Yale would be there too. Seems like Pittsburgh is the best spot for this tournament.

gyre and gimble wrote:

grapesmoker wrote:Looking at Columbia, I think we would lose Laferbrook, OSU, and the Michiganders; we'd possibly pick up Yale, maybe Harvard and/or Brown, but both of those seem dicy right now (also Columbia house team?).

You can almost certainly count us out since most if not all of us will be in New Haven for the football game, and I'd expect most of Yale would be there too. Seems like Pittsburgh is the best spot for this tournament.

Ha, look at this guy, he thinks we go to our football games.

(But actually - not to speak for the rest of Yale, but it seems likely that some sort of contingent would go to a Columbia site if it existed. Personally, I might also go to a Pittsburgh site if it's the only one, seeing as it's on my way back to Cincinnati.)

Out of curiosity, if Chicago and Michigan are going to the Pitt site, who would actually go to the Minnesota site?

Cheynem wrote:Out of curiosity, if Chicago and Michigan are going to the Pitt site, who would actually go to the Minnesota site?

I had initially approached Jerry to write a portion of the tournament and possibly continue the MO tradition. But I think it's probably better for there to be a central site (either more central in the Midwest, with an east-coast site too, or just an east coast site) if there aren't going to be any Minnesota ties to the tournament.

Upon further reflection, I'm more excited for a potential trip to NYC or Pittsburgh, in any event.

For what it's worth, I would probably come to a Minnesota site if it's on the 23rd.

I haven't talked with my teammates yet, but I'd be willing to bet Illinois would be interested in coming to a Pittsburgh site.