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Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 12:47 pm
by Lagotto Romagnolo
This is the official announcement for Chicago Open, which will be held the weekend of July 23-24 at the University of Chicago. The main tournament will be held on Saturday, with Trash on Sunday.

The tournament will be edited by a team comprised of John Lawrence, Matt Jackson, Mike Cheyne, Mike Bentley, Adam Silverman, Ewan MacAulay, Shan Kothari, Jake Sundberg, and myself. I will also be serving as tournament director.

Chicago Open is a packet-submission tournament; all teams must submit a packet in order to play. Our targeted difficulty is similar to recent incarnations. We encourage teams to submit quality, adventurous questions, but quality is more valuable. Chicago Open is a ground to ask about difficult and interesting topics. It is not the place to fill your packets with 13-line tossups and/or insanely hard topics designed solely to punish the field. To quote last year's announcement: take care that your bonus parts reasonably distinguish between tiers of knowledge and also allow for the legitimate possibility of 30 points. Some of the editors will follow up with their own posts about what they would like to see from submissions.

A further note about tossup length: we are instituting a soft cap of 8 lines on edited tossups, with a hard cap of 9 or 10. Teams are welcome to submit slightly longer tossups, but please keep this in mind.

DISTRIBUTION

CO will follow the standard ACF distribution, with 2 exceptions:
- There will be no trash
- Geography and current events (along with the space normally occupied by trash) will be rolled into a 2/2 "other academic" distribution. This can include geography and current events, or additional "thought", but also interdisciplinary questions and topics that don't really fit anywhere else. We are especially interested in the latter two, but would still like to see at least one substantive geo or CE question. Please vary the topics in this category. Do not write both tossups on geography or French postmodern criticism. All other categories should follow the ACF subdistribution. The total distribution is therefore:

5/5 Literature
5/5 History
5/5 Science
3/3 RMP
3/3 Fine Arts
1/1 Social Science
2/2 Other Academic

If you have any questions about a topic, answer line, or clue, please email us! We're happy to help.

PACKET SCHEDULE AND FEE STRUCTURE

Packets should be submitted to the tournament's official email address: [email protected]. The base fee is $120, with the following packet discount / penalty schedule:

On or Before May 8: -$60
May 9 - May 22: -$30
May 23 - June 5: $0
June 6 - June 19: +$30
June 20 - July 3: +$60
After July 3: +$10 additional per day with the possibility of being dropped from the tournament at the editors' discretion
After July 10: Dropped from the tournament automatically

All packet submission windows close at 12 AM Central Time. Please submit your packets promptly! We would much rather have more time to edit than collect heavy late fees.

REGISTRATION

The field is capped at 20 teams. Teams should register at this link, but are not guaranteed a spot in the 20 until they have submitted a packet. Teams will receive an additional discount of $10 for every functional buzzer system (that means 2 teams of 4 should be able to use it without slapbowl).

SIDE EVENTS
Trash

LOGISTICS

The tournament will be held in Cobb Hall. Registration will open at 8:10, and Round 1 will begin at 8:45. All prospective staff should email me at cursednine AT gmail DOT com.

We look forward to seeing everyone in Chicago and hope you enjoy the tournament!

EDIT: I will also keep a running list of the field here.

FIELD: 20 registered
Make America Jolly Good Again (Joey Goldman, Will Alston, Andrew Wang, Richard Yu)
Pottermore Sorted Me Into House Khnum (JinAh Kim, Jamie Carlson, Paul Lee, Max Smiley)
Angelica, tell my wife Evan Adams doesn't have a real job anyway (Evan Adams, Naveed Chowdhury, Chris Manners, Cody Voight)
Japanese Vagina Artist Found Guilty of Obscenity (Foster Hughes, Athena Kern, Daniel Hothem, Ophir)
You can write your tossups from the Library of Babel, but you can NEVER! STRIKE! GOD!!! (Chris Ray, Auroni Gupta, Brian McPeak, Ike Jose)
Just what is it that makes today’s Illinois players so different, so appealing? (Jason Asher, Adam Fine, Matthew Lehmann, Mike Etzkorn)
Unfortunately my car also smells like our new team name (Sam Braunfeld, Joelle Smart, Cory Haala, Carsten Gehring)
I Write Science Not Tragedies (Matt Lafer, James Lasker, Greg Peterson, Ryan Westbrook)
Young Mukherstein (Jordan Brownstein, Jacob Reed, Will Nediger, Eric Mukherjee)
Not Even Really a Work of Philosophy (Ryan Rosenberg, Eric Douglass, Bryn Douglass, Ryan Humphrey)
"I Like Taxes," Pikachu, the Liberal, screamed (Chris Borglum, Billy Beyer, Dylan Minarik, Kenji Golimlim)
Golgari Glenn Ross (Kurtis Droge, Sid Dogra, Jason Zhou, Kai Smith)
The Montel Williams School of Pseudonymity (Ben Zhang, Rafael Krichevsky, Brian Stack, Jason Golfinos)
You Were Making Out During Schindler Lit?! (Max Schindler, Stephen Liu, Sam Bailey, Trevor Davis)
God of / Small Things / True Care / Truth Brings (Rob Carson, Andrew Hart, Tejas Raje, Billy Busse)
A "Revenge of the Nerds"-meets-Ayn Rand Meritocracy (Seth Ebner, Charles Hang, Will Mason, Patrick Butenhoff)
The Kazakhstan Department of Health and Human Services (Mike Sorice, Jerry Vinokurov, Matt Bollinger, Tommy Casalaspi)
Brexit, Pursued by a Bear Market (Mark Grant, Ian Bayley, Gautam Kandlikar, Tamara Vardomskaya)
How Much Canada Can A Canada Can Can If A Canada Can Can Can Canada? (Jay Misuk, Huma Zafar, Joe Su, Rein Otsason)
If You Can Dodge A Wrench, You've Ruined This Game Of Clue (Dan Passner, Chinmay Kansara, Charles Martin

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 12:57 pm
by Cheynem
I can't speak for the other editors, but I would gently say to some extent, in a tournament like this, you're going to get the tournament you submit. That doesn't mean I won't work hard or do the best I can, but not exactly being flushed with experience or time, it would be great to rely on decent submissions. So in other words, don't submit crap and don't submit hard-ass stuff unless that's the tournament you're okay with playing.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 1:03 pm
by Lagotto Romagnolo
What Mike said. As an example, last year we received one packet in which most of the tossups were 14 lines or longer, most of them on extremely hard topics. This is NOT the point of CO. We don't want to send packets back for rewrites if we can avoid it, but we will if necessary.

EDIT: Also, there will be powers.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 2:26 pm
by ThisIsMyUsername
Some notes for the Literature (I normally don't say these things for packet submission, because packets are combined; but for CO, each packet stands alone):

- In the interest of normalizing difficulty across packets, I'm telling you all now that I'm not going to allow more than one canon-busting Literature tossup per packet. If you submit more than one of these in your packet, at least one will be cut.
- Of your 5/5, please write 1/1 Drama and 1/1 Poetry, and please do not write more than 1/1 on Short Stories. I won't guarantee that there will be 1/1 each of Drama and Poetry in each final edited packet, because sometimes the most usable Literature submissions will be the other 3/3. But I can assure you that I am enforcing genre diversity in each packet, and that lack of this in submitted packets will lead to questions being cut.
- Please also remember to vary by place and time period. I will also be enforcing chronological and geographical diversity within each packet.

Thanks.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2016 2:33 am
by The Ununtiable Twine
Here are a few notes for the math portion of this year's CO:

1. I want to use your questions, so write good questions.
2. Math is a very diverse subject. While I want to use all of your submissions, it will probably be difficult to strike the perfect balance of topics using your submissions alone. I plan to construct the math portion of the set around the good submissions that we receive.
3. Try not to write on very difficult topics unless you are experienced in writing such questions. While there is definitely space for tough CO-type answerlines (tossups on the octonions and the like), it is best to assume that the amount of space that will be allotted for said answerlines in this set is not extremely large. The probability of your submission being used goes up if your topics are accessible.
4. With that being said, there's definitely a lot of room in the set for standard topics covered in courses intended for undergraduates and beginning graduate students. If you're having trouble finding a topic to write on, the best thing to do is to consult textbooks which handle the material and search for a topic. If your team doesn't have anyone particularly experienced with writing technical math questions, don't worry! The worst thing that could possibly happen is that your submission gives me another idea to possibly use in the set.

Also, good submissions in applied mathematics and statistics are encouraged. If your team is set on writing on a particular topic within the realm of pure mathematics, that's fine. However, if your team is unsure what to write, strong submissions in the previously mentioned areas will make my job of producing a well-balanced set of questions slightly easier.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 9:17 am
by Lagotto Romagnolo
A friendly reminder that the first deadline is just under three weeks away. Please register if you have not done so already but have a complete team.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 10:58 am
by Lagotto Romagnolo
In order to prevent the field from clogging up, we will not allow additional two- or three-person teams for the time being (the Borglum and Grant teams will be grandfathered in, but please try to fill up your teams as soon as possible - that's why we have this thread).

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 11:39 am
by Cody
The Superfluous Man wrote:In order to prevent the field from clogging up, we will not allow additional two- or three-person teams for the time being (the Borglum and Grant teams will be grandfathered in, but please try to fill up your teams as soon as possible - that's why we have this thread).
But what if a team with only 2 or 3 players submits a packet? (not outside of the realm of possibility!)

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 12:17 pm
by Lagotto Romagnolo
Cody wrote:
The Superfluous Man wrote:In order to prevent the field from clogging up, we will not allow additional two- or three-person teams for the time being (the Borglum and Grant teams will be grandfathered in, but please try to fill up your teams as soon as possible - that's why we have this thread).
But what if a team with only 2 or 3 players submits a packet? (not outside of the realm of possibility!)
We strongly encourage teams to fill their rosters before submitting. I won't go so far as to mandate it. However, in the unlikely event that a 2- or 3- person team submits a (competent) packet, I suppose we'll accept it on condition that the team is able to fill its roster before a total of 17 other packets (from 4-person teams) have arrived.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 12:42 pm
by Cody
The Superfluous Man wrote:
Cody wrote:
The Superfluous Man wrote:In order to prevent the field from clogging up, we will not allow additional two- or three-person teams for the time being (the Borglum and Grant teams will be grandfathered in, but please try to fill up your teams as soon as possible - that's why we have this thread).
But what if a team with only 2 or 3 players submits a packet? (not outside of the realm of possibility!)
We strongly encourage teams to fill their rosters before submitting. I won't go so far as to mandate it. However, in the unlikely event that a 2- or 3- person team submits a (competent) packet, I suppose we'll accept it on condition that the team is able to fill its roster before a total of 17 other packets (from 4-person teams) have arrived.
Wait, really? It would seem to me that a packet should secure your spot in the field no matter what! Rosters can always be filled up to the day of the tournament, so they should not be the biggest concern. Why potentially lock a team out just because they don't have a full roster before the 17th packet is submitted?

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 1:09 pm
by Lagotto Romagnolo
Cody wrote:
The Superfluous Man wrote:
Cody wrote:
The Superfluous Man wrote:In order to prevent the field from clogging up, we will not allow additional two- or three-person teams for the time being (the Borglum and Grant teams will be grandfathered in, but please try to fill up your teams as soon as possible - that's why we have this thread).
But what if a team with only 2 or 3 players submits a packet? (not outside of the realm of possibility!)
We strongly encourage teams to fill their rosters before submitting. I won't go so far as to mandate it. However, in the unlikely event that a 2- or 3- person team submits a (competent) packet, I suppose we'll accept it on condition that the team is able to fill its roster before a total of 17 other packets (from 4-person teams) have arrived.
Wait, really? It would seem to me that a packet should secure your spot in the field no matter what! Rosters can always be filled up to the day of the tournament, so they should not be the biggest concern. Why potentially lock a team out just because they don't have a full roster before the 17th packet is submitted?
That situation strikes me as unlikely, given the number of free agents available and the fact that the last deadline is over 2 months away. But very well, we'll review exemptions on a case-by-case basis if you email [email protected] with details.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 3:21 pm
by Cheynem
Also nobody's written a packet anyway yet, soo...

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 11:24 am
by Lagotto Romagnolo
Because more than 17 teams have expressed interest in playing CO, we'd like to do another poll. It is possible that U Chicago will grant us additional rooms and therefore let us expand the field. However, this will require us to abandon the full round robin and switch to a bracketed system. Matt Jackson is currently designing possible schedules for this scenario. In the meantime, please fill out this poll so we can gauge interest in expanding the field.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 12:51 pm
by Adventure Temple Trail
The Superfluous Man wrote:Because more than 17 teams have expressed interest in playing CO, we'd like to do another poll. It is possible that U Chicago will grant us additional rooms and therefore let us expand the field. However, this will require us to abandon the full round robin and switch to a bracketed system. Matt Jackson is currently designing possible schedules for this scenario. In the meantime, please fill out this poll so we can gauge interest in expanding the field.
To amend the above, because it affects how many packets get written, edited, combined, etc., we would really like every person interested in playing Chicago Open to fill out the above poll this week, so we're prepared to know what we have to do before packets come in.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 2:29 pm
by Camille Palkia
Adventure Temple Trail wrote:
The Superfluous Man wrote:Because more than 17 teams have expressed interest in playing CO, we'd like to do another poll. It is possible that U Chicago will grant us additional rooms and therefore let us expand the field. However, this will require us to abandon the full round robin and switch to a bracketed system. Matt Jackson is currently designing possible schedules for this scenario. In the meantime, please fill out this poll so we can gauge interest in expanding the field.
To amend the above, because it affects how many packets get written, edited, combined, etc., we would really like every person interested in playing Chicago Open to fill out the above poll this week, so we're prepared to know what we have to do before packets come in.
In light of the fact that editors are already considering expansion to 18 teams - and there are now at least 9 free agents who have declared interest and only 5 remaining spots for those players on declared teams - enough to fill existing teams and create an additional leftover team, would editors be open to considering expanding the field cap to 19 teams, which preserves the ability to have a round robin?

I have to say additionally that I find it extremely distasteful that despite an ample supply of people who have declared interest in playing this event for weeks, teams continue to be non-communicative to those free agents, and actively recruit people who have not taken any initiative to declare interest whatsoever to fill their roster. This is not cool.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 2:36 pm
by Cheynem
I don't think we're going to have a 19-team round robin.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 3:38 pm
by Cody
Yeah—a 19-team round robin is not possible in one day (17 is already pushing it).
S.P.A.C.E. wrote:I have to say additionally that I find it extremely distasteful that despite an ample supply of people who have declared interest in playing this event for weeks, teams continue to be non-communicative to those free agents, and actively recruit people who have not taken any initiative to declare interest whatsoever to fill their roster. This is not cool.
Are you calling people out for...asking people to play with them, even if they aren't on the free agent list? I had no interest in playing CO before I was asked by someone I love playing with—what of it? Taking people off the free agent list isn't a requirement.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 3:57 pm
by theMoMA
I have a mild preference for a full round robin, but I'm essentially indifferent to the format. It strikes me that a format minimizing editor packets might be advantageous this year, but I also wouldn't want to see teams turned away. Teams also tend to drop between the "tentative interest" and "actually writing a packet" stages, so if the editors are considering a bracketed format that will require several editor packets, they may be stuck between a rock and a hard place--not wanting to start too soon in case the field ends up being 17 anyway, but not being able to wait too long because they need time to write the packets. I think it's good to survey interested players now to see whether it's worth exploring bracketed formats while the tournament is still a ways off, but if there isn't a clear answer (either on the number of teams that are expected to play, or whether players are ok with a bracketed format), I suggest picking a format and a mechanism for finalizing registration and sticking with it.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 4:00 pm
by Ike
Full Round Robin with 19 teams sounds like the way to go.

Ike

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2016 4:03 pm
by Gautam
Cody wrote:Yeah—a 19-team round robin is not possible in one day (17 is already pushing it).
S.P.A.C.E. wrote:I have to say additionally that I find it extremely distasteful that despite an ample supply of people who have declared interest in playing this event for weeks, teams continue to be non-communicative to those free agents, and actively recruit people who have not taken any initiative to declare interest whatsoever to fill their roster. This is not cool.
Are you calling people out for...asking people to play with them, even if they aren't on the free agent list? I had no interest in playing CO before I was asked by someone I love playing with—what of it? Taking people off the free agent list isn't a requirement.
Also if you really want to play, then the onus is on you to find a team who would like to have you on board. You should definitely do this once you know you risk being pigeonholed.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 3:45 pm
by Lagotto Romagnolo
We're currently deciding whether or not to expand the field to 21 teams or keep it at 17. A big factor in making this decision either way is knowing if there's enough interest from teams and prospective staff to make this viable. If you're on the fence about attending and would go if space existed, please pipe up by mid-week.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 4:08 pm
by Cody
The Superfluous Man wrote:We're currently deciding whether or not to expand the field to 21 teams or keep it at 17. A big factor in making this decision either way is knowing if there's enough interest from teams and prospective staff to make this viable. If you're on the fence about attending and would go if space existed, please pipe up by mid-week.
I just had to schedule a 21 team high school tournament, so I've thought long and hard about various unrealizable 21 team formats that would avoid using a PPB tiebreaker at the high school level.

Having gone through all of them, what would be the 21 team format that satisfies the CO field? 3x7 to split 4/3 crossover, giving the bottom 9 teams only 12 games?!! (and the top 12 only 14, though this is at least marginally acceptable).

Even if the schedule could be sorted out, expanding to 21 teams without any recourse in the event of a drop between now and the tournament seems unwise (plus, I have serious doubts you'd get to 21 in the first place). Having to schedule down from 21 teams leaves you a lot of bad options!

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 4:15 pm
by Adventure Temple Trail
Cody wrote:
The Superfluous Man wrote:We're currently deciding whether or not to expand the field to 21 teams or keep it at 17. A big factor in making this decision either way is knowing if there's enough interest from teams and prospective staff to make this viable. If you're on the fence about attending and would go if space existed, please pipe up by mid-week.
I just had to schedule a 21 team high school tournament, so I've thought long and hard about various unrealizable 21 team formats that would avoid using a PPB tiebreaker at the high school level.

Having gone through all of them, what would the 21 team format be that would satisfy the CO field? 3x7 to split 4/3 crossover, giving the bottom 9 teams only 12 games?!! (and the top 12 only 14, though this is at least marginally acceptable).

Even if the schedule could be sorted out, expanding to 21 teams without any recourse in the event of a drop between now and the tournament seems unwise (plus, I have serious doubts you'd get to 21 in the first place). Having to schedule down from 21 teams leaves you a lot of bad options!
The plan would be 3x7 (6 prelim rounds), then splitting each prelim bracket 4/3 crossover, then doing playoff crossovers with a top bracket of 12 and a bottom bracket of 9 (8 playoff rounds for top bracket; 6 for bottom bracket with an additional bye), yes.

There really is no workable schedule for 20 teams using packet submission, a 19-team round robin would only be possible if some rounds were held early Sunday morning before CO Trash started, and an 18-team schedule with two prelim brackets of 9, while possible, requires a lot of "double up" of reading distinct packets in distinct rooms during one round as the playoffs go on. If 21 teams are genuinely interested in playing Chicago Open, though, I'd rather give them a schedule which is somewhat shorter than years past (but gives teams a higher proportion of games against teams of similar skill level) than leave four teams out in the cold. Your priorities may be different.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 4:23 pm
by Tejas
Adventure Temple Trail wrote:
Cody wrote:
The Superfluous Man wrote:We're currently deciding whether or not to expand the field to 21 teams or keep it at 17. A big factor in making this decision either way is knowing if there's enough interest from teams and prospective staff to make this viable. If you're on the fence about attending and would go if space existed, please pipe up by mid-week.
I just had to schedule a 21 team high school tournament, so I've thought long and hard about various unrealizable 21 team formats that would avoid using a PPB tiebreaker at the high school level.

Having gone through all of them, what would the 21 team format be that would satisfy the CO field? 3x7 to split 4/3 crossover, giving the bottom 9 teams only 12 games?!! (and the top 12 only 14, though this is at least marginally acceptable).

Even if the schedule could be sorted out, expanding to 21 teams without any recourse in the event of a drop between now and the tournament seems unwise (plus, I have serious doubts you'd get to 21 in the first place). Having to schedule down from 21 teams leaves you a lot of bad options!
The plan would be 3x7 (6 prelim rounds), then splitting each prelim bracket 4/3 crossover, then doing playoff crossovers with a top bracket of 12 and a bottom bracket of 9 (8 playoff rounds for top bracket; 6 for bottom bracket with an additional bye), yes.

There really is no workable schedule for 20 teams using packet submission, a 19-team round robin would only be possible if some rounds were held early Sunday morning before CO Trash started, and an 18-team schedule with two prelim brackets of 9, while possible, requires a lot of "double up" of reading distinct packets in distinct rooms during one round as the playoffs go on. If 21 teams are genuinely interested in playing Chicago Open, though, I'd rather give them a schedule which is somewhat shorter than years past (but gives teams a higher proportion of games against teams of similar skill level) than leave four teams out in the cold. Your priorities may be different.
There are currently 19 teams on the sign up sheet, and there has been ample time aince the tournament was announced so I wouldn't consider anyone who hasn't yet found a team "out in the cold." I'd prefer to have a 19 team round robin, whether people would prefer to stay super late on Saturday or finish it Sunday morning.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 6:45 pm
by theMoMA
Drops have been fairly inevitable whenever there's been big interest in CO before; is there any reason not to cap the field at 19 and devise 17, 18, and 19-team formats? All of those numbers seem pretty doable, likely without the drawbacks of a 21-team format, unless I'm missing something.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Mon May 02, 2016 6:57 pm
by jonpin
This may have the same problem as Matt's 18-team schedule once it gets to playoffs, but with 20 teams, you can play two groups of 10 in ten submitted rounds. Take a traditional 9-round schedule, and pull one pairing from each round (featuring distinct teams) and place it in round ten instead. Then split each group 5/5 for 5 crossover rounds which would use the remaining packets (I have not thought about it for more than 10 minutes, but I'm almost certain you'd be able to arrange this by playing two packets in each round. That makes 20 submitted packets being played during 1-10, 12-16 with editors' packets for 11 (TB), 17-19 (TB&F).

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed May 04, 2016 4:32 pm
by Lagotto Romagnolo
Effective today, we are expanding the field to 20 teams. But please, keep the good packets rolling!

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 12:57 pm
by BurteL
Free agent if any team needs a player: practically senile veteran of many Chicago Opens.

Lorin Burte
[email protected]

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Sun May 08, 2016 10:30 am
by Adventure Temple Trail
Reminder: The first packet deadline is tonight, and we are eagerly awaiting tasty packets!

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Sat May 21, 2016 8:44 pm
by Adventure Temple Trail
We've received all of one (1) submitted packet so far. Hoping that number goes up drastically tomorrow, which is the -$30 deadline! As it says in the book of Deuteronomy, "the submitted packet is the life".

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 11:40 pm
by Lagotto Romagnolo
Attention: Due to the NSC, the no-penalty deadline will be extended by 48 hours if your team has at least one person staffing the NSC. That means you have up to and including 11:59 PM Central on Tuesday.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2016 11:02 pm
by Adventure Temple Trail
Tonight is the no-penalty deadline for basically everybody -- make it count!

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 12:04 am
by Lagotto Romagnolo
Also, we still need at least two more staff - preferably experienced moderators. Please let me know if you're interested!

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 2:19 pm
by Lagotto Romagnolo
We now have sufficient staff to run the tournament (but more are welcome!). Anyway, as you can see, Team Oklahoma has dropped from the field, leaving us with 19. Needless to say, this is a bad number. A 19-team round robin on Saturday is completely off the table. Nor do we wish to run the tournament over 2 days. If there is anyone else out there who is still interested in playing the tournament, please contact us! (You won't be required to submit a full-length packet by this weekend or pay the +$60 penalty; we'll work something out)

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 3:00 pm
by theMoMA
Is there a reason you couldn't have prelim brackets of 9 and 10 for 9 rounds, followed by playoff brackets of 7, 7, and 5 for 7 additional rounds? You might need to double-up on packets for one round in the prelims (because there are no byes in the 10-team pool), but you may be able to break up the prelim pools so that this isn't necessary (i.e. use submitted packets from only the 9-team pool in the prelims; this may not work depending on how the seeding lines up with who wrote what packets). (You'd use either 16 or 17 packets.)

It would also be slightly awkward to figure out the seventh team in the top bracket, but perhaps there could be a crossover game between the teams vying for that position, or a half-game crossover if time constraints require it, given that only 16 or 17 packets would be used before finals in this format. Some statistical tiebreakers may be necessary or expedient (i.e. to figure out who the 4th-place teams in both brackets are, if records are tied), but the distinction between 7th/8th at CO is probably low-stakes enough to warrant slightly suboptimal practices in the name of convenience.

I guess this is fewer games than is typical at CO (teams would be guaranteed at least 12, and might play as many as 15, before finals, depending on which prelim bracket they were in and whether they were in the bottom playoff bracket), but it's not substantially different from a 15- or 17-team round robin.

There may be better suggestions for formats, and I may be assuming that there are more packets available than actually exist, but this seems to me to be the workings of an acceptable 19-team format in case a 20th team doesn't materialize.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 8:46 pm
by Lagotto Romagnolo
A reminder that the +$25 penalty deadline is tonight.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 8:55 pm
by Wynaut
Have you received a packet from Chris Borglum et. al. yet? Dylan says he submitted it days ago.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 9:24 pm
by Harpie's Feather Duster
Wynaut wrote:Have you received a packet from Chris Borglum et. al. yet? Dylan says he submitted it days ago.
It's marked as submitted in the team formation sheet, so I think we're fine, though I never got a confirmation.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 10:49 pm
by Adventure Temple Trail
The Top Percentage of Rattatas wrote:
Wynaut wrote:Have you received a packet from Chris Borglum et. al. yet? Dylan says he submitted it days ago.
It's marked as submitted in the team formation sheet, so I think we're fine, though I never got a confirmation.
Yes, we received this.

Other teams: Be like Chris Borglum et. al. Submit packets!

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 8:24 am
by ValenciaQBowl
Other teams: Be like Chris Borglum
Wow! Not something I could've ever expected to read under earlier management of this board . . . ::tears::

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 5:31 pm
by theMoMA
Is anyone coming to CO from the New York City area who'd be willing to take a buzzer back for a high school team to pick up? Please email me if so.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 10:26 am
by Lagotto Romagnolo
A reminder that the +$60 deadline is tonight. Teams who do not get their packets in risk being dropped from the tournament.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2016 4:52 pm
by Lagotto Romagnolo
An update to let you know that all packets have been received, and we have finished aligning team names. I will email each team before the tournament with final registration fees.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2016 12:22 am
by gyre and gimble
Can we get a new name since Isaac isn't playing anymore?

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2016 9:10 am
by Cheynem
But it's such a good name!

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2016 2:12 pm
by Lagotto Romagnolo
Fine, you'll get your new name.

Dan Passner, Chinmay Kansara, and Charles Martin have kindly signed up as our 20th (saviors) team. They still have room for one more; email the tournament official address if interested.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 11:29 am
by wd4gdz
What's the tournament format? Two brackets of ten teams each, followed by...???

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 12:40 pm
by ThisIsMyUsername
wd4gdz wrote:What's the tournament format? Two brackets of ten teams each, followed by...???
Two prelim brackets of ten. Teams finish either in the top five or bottom five of their prelim bracket. In the playoffs, they then play the corresponding half of the other prelim bracket. Finals as needed.

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 4:29 pm
by Maxwell Sniffingwell
ThisIsMyUsername wrote:
wd4gdz wrote:What's the tournament format? Two brackets of ten teams each, followed by...???
Two prelim brackets of ten. Teams finish either in the top five or bottom five of their prelim bracket. In the playoffs, they then play the corresponding half of the other prelim bracket. Finals as needed.
How will packets work with no byes?

Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 4:41 pm
by Cody
cornfused wrote:
ThisIsMyUsername wrote:
wd4gdz wrote:What's the tournament format? Two brackets of ten teams each, followed by...???
Two prelim brackets of ten. Teams finish either in the top five or bottom five of their prelim bracket. In the playoffs, they then play the corresponding half of the other prelim bracket. Finals as needed.
How will packets work with no byes?
You can refer to Jon Pinyan's post.