The Quizbowl Resource Center

I would enjoy even a smaller, more informal Minnesota mirror if we could at least get interested locals to show up, but if everyone's more interested in going to Pittsburgh I might as well try to figure out travel there myself.

It looks like Pittsburgh is pretty much the favorite site, which works well for me. I've created a sign-up spreadsheet that you can access here. If you're planning on coming, put your name/team information in there.

Pending work coming up, I announce my free agency for this tournament. Shoot me an email if interested.

For what it's worth (as this seems to be the meme):
There is one thing people haven't mentioned yet, which is what people who aren't the best of the best should do. Speaking as a player nowhere near as good as the pantheon posted above, I don't want to gum up the works of a super-serial tournament of champions in Pittsburgh but neither do I want to wait until the packets come out and then read them, alone, in my room ("I could have gotten that! Neg! Oh well, we'll just pretend that the other team negged first...).

It seems like the option for people like me (of whom I presume there will be several, if not many) is to open this up to (delayed) mirrors. $$$, participation, and accessibility have a lot to be said for them (assuming this doesn't do violence to the goal of Quiz-superbowl in Pitt).

I really don't want to devote more time to planning and coordinating mirrors than necessary. If another club wants to try and run an informal mirror of this at some point (as at least one club is already planning to do), I'm happy to send you the questions. I have no interest in embargoing them or anything like that, so I'm not going to put any barriers in your way provided whatever you want doesn't hamper the main site.

Hey, are there any updates regarding the status of this tournament available? It's getting close to the latest I'd like to have to book a plane ticket and I'd like some assurance that there's an extant field beyond my own team and some nebulous free agents.

I am actually no longer going to be able to attend, but Eyes will still be available to run.

Can we mirror Eyes at other locations?

I recently bought plane tickets to moderate this in Pittsburgh after Jerry privately assured me that it will happen.

Bruce, I don't think anyone's worried about stuff on Jerry's end. Rather, given that there was all sorts of interest expressed in this tournament, the fact that no field has materialized yet is what is surprising/concerning. What happened to the 20+ other people who voted in the location poll?

ThisIsMyUsername wrote:What happened to the 20+ other people who voted in the location poll?

Your superteam scared them off!

I would definitely like to play, so interested parties should message me. (It has also been suggested that I form a superteam to try to challenge the ridiculously stacked team that has already formed.)

I can't go, but I have some advice. I think the best thing the superteam can do to save this tournament and make it enjoyable for them is to split into two teams.

There's a decent contingent of people from Ohio State who are interested in playing (I, for one), but we haven't really discussed team arrangement at all, so I haven't put my name down since I haven't formed/joined a team at this point.

Cheynem wrote:Can we mirror Eyes at other locations?

Yes

Mike Bentley wrote:I am actually no longer going to be able to attend, but Eyes will still be available to run.

What would you say is the probability you finish writing Eyes by the week before? (I think you mentioned this as a possibility a while back.) I think New England teams might be interested in playing this at Yale's DRAGOON mirror, and that way we won't have to push Eyes back to February.

gyre and gimble wrote:

Mike Bentley wrote:I am actually no longer going to be able to attend, but Eyes will still be available to run.

What would you say is the probability you finish writing Eyes by the week before? (I think you mentioned this as a possibility a while back.) I think New England teams might be interested in playing this at Yale's DRAGOON mirror, and that way we won't have to push Eyes back to February.

I should be able to have it done by then.

WILL NO ONE MEET OUR CHALLENGE? HAVE NONE OF YOU PATHETIC EARTHLINGS GAME?

Tees-Exe Line wrote:

ThisIsMyUsername wrote:What happened to the 20+ other people who voted in the location poll?

Your superteam scared them off!

women, fire and dangerous things wrote:(It has also been suggested that I form a superteam to try to challenge the ridiculously stacked team that has already formed.)

vcuEvan wrote:I can't go, but I have some advice. I think the best thing the superteam can do to save this tournament and make it enjoyable for them is to split into two teams.

I must say, I'm very surprised by all this. That is, given both Jerry's original announcement and the back-and-forth that happened in this thread in August, I expected this tournament to have a pretty stacked field with multiple superteams vying for victory. Our team is not unlike what one would find at CO, a tournament whose difficulty and ethos I was led to believe Arrabal would share.

If indeed the field is going to be such that our superteam will engage in uncompetitive slaughter, then I am open to the possibility of splitting up for the good of the tournament. However, I am utterly unsympathetic to the suggestion that the mere existence of our team is precluding others from attending, and/or that we should disband just in order to make this tournament happen.

Look, could we do this: Could all the people who have interest in attending this tournament come out of the woodwork, and openly state their intentions to do so (in this thread and/or the spreadsheet)? Then, once we know who's planning on coming, we can address the question of competitive team composition. Does this sound reasonable?

ThisIsMyUsername wrote:Look, could we do this: Could all the people who have interest in attending this tournament come out of the woodwork, and openly state their intentions to do so (in this thread and/or the spreadsheet)? Then, once we know who's planning on coming, we can address the question of competitive team composition. Does this sound reasonable?

I'm interested but I'm not yet sure I can go, so I hadn't added myself to the spreadsheet. But no more! Now I'm there with a question mark.

Looking at the spreadsheet, it's hard to imagine assembling the current pool of free agents into teams that are not superteams. I'm less worried about competitive balance with the one signed-up team, and more worried about the number of teams. If Kimbo Slice can't bring all the quizbowlers to the tournament, I'm not sure what can.

-Seth

P.S. Is Eyes the only side event for this?

So there are lots of free agents registered but very few of them have actually formed teams. It would be awesome if people could figure out for themselves what teams they would like to play on, but if you would like for me to put some teams together, I could do that too and try to balance them.

Also, I guess it's hilarious to put fake names into the doc? Just tell me who you are.

Imaginary Landscape 2 is ramping up production as we speak; would people attending be interested in playing it here?

magin wrote:Imaginary Landscape 2 is ramping up production as we speak; would people attending be interested in playing it here?

I'd definitely want to play this.

magin wrote:Imaginary Landscape 2 is ramping up production as we speak; would people attending be interested in playing it here?

You know it.

A brief update: this tournament now has rooms reserved. It will take place on the Carnegie Mellon campus (consult the map [pdf] for exact location; Scaife is #23, in the lower-left corner of this map). If you're driving, you can pay to park on Frew Street, which is directly adjacent to the tournament building, but it tends to be somewhat more expensive ($2/hr, I think); alternately, you can park on Margaret Morrison Drive (which is located on the right side of the map near the football field), which costs $0.50/hour. Don't park in the Phipps Botanical Gardens parking lot though.

There are 6 rooms plus a control room in the building, so I'm going to set a cap of 12 teams at this time. I don't imagine we'll exceed it; if we do, we'll solve that problem when it comes up. If people want to start sorting themselves into teams, that would be great; otherwise, anyone who is still not on a team, say, two weeks before the tournament will just end up getting put on some team by me. I'd like an even number of teams to prevent double-byes.

grapesmoker wrote:A brief update: this tournament now has rooms reserved. It will take place on the Carnegie Mellon campus (consult the map [pdf] for exact location; Scaife is #23, in the lower-left corner of this map). If you're driving, you can pay to park on Frew Street, which is directly adjacent to the tournament building, but it tends to be somewhat more expensive ($2/hr, I think); alternately, you can park on Margaret Morrison Drive (which is located on the right side of the map near the football field), which costs $0.50/hour. Don't park in the Phipps Botanical Gardens parking lot though.

Unless they have changed things recently, you can park in the Morewood parking lot (P12 on the map) for free on weekends.

Pilgrim wrote: Unless they have changed things recently, you can park in the Morewood parking lot (P12 on the map) for free on weekends.

Yes, parking there is free Friday evening through Sunday. That is where we generally tell teams to park for tournaments. Ongoing construction is currently blocking the most direct route from the Morewood lot to Scaife, but even so, it's not much farther than Margaret Morrison St.

Yes, good point, I totally forgot about the free garage parking. By all means, do that.

We're trying to figure out travel plans. It appears that there might be two side events: Eyes That Do Not See and Imaginary Landscape. Are those happening for sure, and where/when will they take place if so?

theMoMA wrote:We're trying to figure out travel plans. It appears that there might be two side events: Eyes That Do Not See and Imaginary Landscape. Are those happening for sure, and where/when will they take place if so?

Assuming those events are ready and can be email to me, we can run them after the tournament. I'm familiar with the format for Eyes, but not for Imaginary Landscape, but as I understand it, they both require just a single reader to run the slides/audio clips, right?

I have no explanation as to why I'm up there on the signup sheet, other than that the same person who has been registering accounts on the dating website "BBWDesire" is misusing my identity further. That or some idiot thinks it's hilarious to sign people up to tournaments they aren't going to (because...why? How on earth is that remotely hilarious and worth the payoff? If you're going to pull pranks involving me, at least make it something more inconveniencing or at least actually funny than this. You must really have no life).

Horned Screamer wrote:I have no explanation as to why I'm up there on the signup sheet, other than that the same person who has been registering accounts on the dating website "BBWDesire" is misusing my identity further. That or some idiot thinks it's hilarious to sign people up to tournaments they aren't going to (because...why? How on earth is that remotely hilarious and worth the payoff? If you're going to pull pranks involving me, at least make it something more inconveniencing or at least actually funny than this. You must really have no life).

Another mystery solved! And here I thought you were going to come visit me after all...

Which, actually, raises the question of how many of those registrations are real. Because while I believe that, say, Kurtis or Ahmad are coming, I didn't quite expect Tanay to fly in from the West Coast or Chris Romero from Texas. I mean, if they're coming, awesome! But it's a haul for those folks, so maybe if they could confirm their attendance somehow that would be nice.

Ok, I now have confirmation that Chris Romero is not actually coming to play this tournament. To which I'd like to say:

What's wrong with you people? Just stop fucking around and putting fake names and people who aren't playing and whatever the fuck else you think is so goddamn clever into the spreadsheet. Would you sign a fake team up for an ACF tournament, or some other regular-season quizbowl event? No, you would not, because that's a dick move and you're basically causing people problems down the line when we're wondering why half the field doesn't exist on the day of. This is about as humorous as calling a bar and asking for Hugh Jazz, so just knock it off, you comedic geniuses.

magin wrote:Imaginary Landscape 2 is ramping up production as we speak; would people attending be interested in playing it here?

Unfortunately, there's not enough time to both finish and polish Imaginary Landscape by Arrabal, so it's being postponed for a later date. I'll have an update on it early next year.

magin wrote:

magin wrote:Imaginary Landscape 2 is ramping up production as we speak; would people attending be interested in playing it here?

Unfortunately, there's not enough time to both finish and polish Imaginary Landscape by Arrabal, so it's being postponed for a later date. I'll have an update on it early next year.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Hey, it would be super cool if whoever is playing this tournament and is not on a team would form one. I'm looking at you, random Maryland people, and you too, free agents. Please sort yourselves out by the end of this weekend so I can figure out a plausible schedule.

Who will be running the Eyes mirror?

Is a 6th team going to materialize? If not, can we dematerialize a team, possibly by allowing 5-player teams? It seems silly to have byes.

-Seth

Mike Bentley wrote:Who will be running the Eyes mirror?

I don't want to volunteer Bruce, but he might be the most sensible choice, seeing as how I don't imagine he'd be interested in playing.

setht wrote:Is a 6th team going to materialize? If not, can we dematerialize a team, possibly by allowing 5-player teams? It seems silly to have byes.

-Seth

I'm not at all opposed to this happening. I heard some vague rumblings that an OSU contingent might make the trip, which would add team #6, so if that happens, I think we'd be in good shape. If not, I leave it a the discretion of the teams to decide what path they'd like to take (byes or redistribution).

No one from Ohio State seems to have mentioned this for some reason, but three or four of us do plan on attending this.

powerplant wrote:No one from Ohio State seems to have mentioned this for some reason, but three or four of us do plan on attending this.

That's great to hear. If you guys could put your names in the spreadsheet to confirm, I'd appreciate it.

Hey, if there are any free agents around, we need a fourth player, so message me, Jarret, or Joe if interested!

When should people show up on the morning of?

Excelsior (smack) wrote:When should people show up on the morning of?

I sent around an email with logistics, ask one of your teammates to forward it to you. Short answer: between 8:30 and 9 at Scaife Hall.

My assumption is no, but out of curiosity, are these puppies going to be powermarked?

They are but nobody will get any.

Inkana7 wrote:My assumption is no, but out of curiosity, are these puppies going to be powermarked?

If I have time to power mark them, I will.

This tournament was won by "Trauma Ride on Energized Obliques" (Sam Baily, Selene Koo, Will Nediger, Seth Teitler), who cleared the field by two games.

Stats may be found here.