The Quizbowl Resource Center

This is an announcement for a Skype mirror of EFT to take place on September 17, 2016, starting at 11 AM Eastern Time. This will be an open tournament, in contrast to in-person US sites of this tournament, which will all be closed. Full details can be found below.

You may notice that this tournament is taking place a week before any "IRL" mirrors of EFT. This is because we are running this tournament in lieu of conducting traditional playtesting sessions for EFT. There are several reasons behind this:

1) We feel that a live tournament will offer a more "authentic" playtesting experience than traditional IRC playtesting or in-house playtesting.
2) Running a Skype tournament beforehand allows people who play the set online - including veterans who are not eligible to compete in the US sites of this tournament, which will be closed - to then staff "IRL" mirrors.
3) We would rather a higher-quality, "fixed" set be ready for "IRL" mirrors as opposed to Skype mirrors.
4) This will make sure that the set isn't completed at the last minute for IRL hosts, and therefore minimize resultant headaches and worries.

Essentially, people playing this tournament will also be playtesting it! This is highly experimental, but we feel it's an experiment worth trying.

If you would be eligible to play an in-person site of this tournament and can plausibly attend such an in-person mirror of this tournament (i.e. there is a mirror within five hours' drive of your school and you do NOT have a conflict on the day of that mirror) then we will NOT permit you to play this tournament. This policy is to maximize attendance at physical sites, because the authors firmly believe that this will provide the best quizbowl experience.

Since there are no moderator, buzzer, or travel discounts available, the entry fee for this tournament will be a flat $15 per player. Payment details will be worked out later, but they will almost certainly involve paying me through Venmo if possible (and PayPal if necessary).

Form teams and indicate interest here: http://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1 ... sp=sharing

Full details about the set found here: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... =8&t=18443

Great way to sell your tournament mirror: this mirror is all about playtesting.

I think it's actually a good idea, Cody. It's obviously not a major attempt to get teams. What are your thoughts on this?

Cody wrote:Great way to sell your tournament mirror: this mirror is all about playtesting.

Well I guess that's one fewer person playing. Oh well.

I just want to say, I like this idea. Hopefully it works out, and other tournaments can make a habit of doing the same thing.

I think using it for playtesting makes sense, provided that the editors don't interrupt the tournament to ask about clues or difficulty (restricting that to post-tournament discussion would make the most sense). I mean, in my mind it's not that much different than being the first site to play a tournament.

Cheynem wrote:I think using it for playtesting makes sense, provided that the editors don't interrupt the tournament to ask about clues or difficulty (restricting that to post-tournament discussion would make the most sense). I mean, in my mind it's not that much different than being the first site to play a tournament.

Comments about those will go in the appropriate tournament discussion forum (or on email) - we plan on running a traditional Skype tournament as efficiently as possible. We will actively solicit feedback after the tournament.

Personally I think using the event as a playtest is a great idea, but at the same time I think that since it *is* in fact being used as a playtesting session, you should cut those fees by a bit. Pros: you'll get lots of feedback and you'll have a couple of weeks to polish your tournament. Cons: well I think since the set won't be as polished, you shouldn't charge the crowd that will help you to fix it regular tournament prices. That might just be me though.

The Ununtiable Twine wrote:Personally I think using the event as a playtest is a great idea, but at the same time I think that since it *is* in fact being used as a playtesting session, you should cut those fees by a bit. Pros: you'll get lots of feedback and you'll have a couple of weeks to polish your tournament. Cons: well I think since the set won't be as polished, you shouldn't charge the crowd that will help you to fix it regular tournament prices. That might just be me though.

Agreed. $100 per team with no possible discounts --- comparable to most other tournaments --- seems a little steep for a set that hasn't been playtested.

I think that's fair; I was thinking that myself, actually. I'll be changing the entry fee shortly.

EDIT: Forgot to add putside of OP, but new entry fee is $20 per person, with full teams allowed to register their fourth for free. This means a full team pays half the normal entry fee (assuming no discounts) which I think is fair. The set will be edited by then, for what it's worth, just "raw."

I actually think this idea is an excellent idea in general. Scheduling a Skype mirror of a set for, say, retired persons a couple of weeks before the set is played anywhere is an interesting thing to think about. Older people both enjoy quizbowl (and have fewer opportunities to do so) and can typically provide a bit more feedback than most, so scheduling tournament-style playtesting sessions surely isn't the worst idea for housewrites or sets that are near completion. While there are typically a few opportunities per year to play opens, I think there would be a ton of people who would occasionally enjoy playtesting sets they are otherwise ineligible to play in this manner. Of course, we would have to be very careful from a question security standpoint (especially if there are mirrors of more important events like Regs and Nats) but it's something to think about.

Bump - this is a bit less than three weeks away now. I highly encourage folks to sign up. I've also changed the entry fee to a flat $15 per player, in order to not penalize teams for spreading out - we need a decent-sized field.

I am looking for teammates to play this with. PM me if you are interested.

Now that I've heard about this tournament, I'm interested in playing this, hopefully with teammates, but I likely won't be available until round 2 given that I have to drive people around that morning until ~9:45 AM EDT.

Hey folks,

Somebody suggested a decent proposal to me - I'd like to try to guarantee a minimum field size of four teams. Instead of having folks form their own teams, I could assign teams of two (if the field stays at 8 players). I won't break up any teams that have already been formed, of course.

Would people be open to such a scheme? And if so, at what level should we start allowing triples - past 8 players (guaranteed field size of 4 teams) or past 12 players (guaranteed field size of 6 teams)?

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: Instead of having folks form their own teams, I could assign teams of two (if the field stays at 8 players). I won't break up any teams that have already been formed, of course.

Would people be open to such a scheme? And if so, at what level should we start allowing triples - past 8 players (guaranteed field size of 4 teams) or past 12 players (guaranteed field size of 6 teams)?

I would prefer just having a cap placed on team size and allowing players to form their own teams, but am fine with the original proposal, so long as an effort to create balanced teams is made.

I'd allow teams of three to form if more than twelve people sign up.

Smuttynose Island wrote:

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: Instead of having folks form their own teams, I could assign teams of two (if the field stays at 8 players). I won't break up any teams that have already been formed, of course.

Would people be open to such a scheme? And if so, at what level should we start allowing triples - past 8 players (guaranteed field size of 4 teams) or past 12 players (guaranteed field size of 6 teams)?

I would prefer just having a cap placed on team size and allowing players to form their own teams, but am fine with the original proposal, so long as an effort to create balanced teams is made.

I'd allow teams of three to form if more than twelve people sign up.

That sounds good - I think I'll go with Daniel's proposal.

The field size has passed 12, so teams of three are now allowed to be formed.

I will let teams of four form if we get more than 24 signups, or if it's necessary to get an even field size.

Cornell University would like to register 8 players; we'd like to form 2 teams of four players each.

EDIT: A contact email would be [email protected]. Also, how would you like us to pay?

I've been silly and not made this clear: Please post a contact email for the team in the original post! I'm considering any team signup in the spreadsheet as a "registration" but if I don't receive any contact information, I can't send you the official logistics email.

Also, if there are still free agents by the evening of the 15th, I am forming arbitrary teams for them based on what I know of peoples' complementary category strengths.

EDIT: I missed the point of the Cornell post - yes, Cornell is permitted to register two teams of four players each. All teams may now take on four players, though I encourage veterans playing this tournament to form their own teams first. Speaking of which, I'm going to cap field size at 8 teams unless there appears to be enough interest to expand to ten.

Since I've been asked by some people, we will probably start this tournament at 11AM Eastern/8AM Pacific time.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:Since I've been asked by some people, we will probably start this tournament at 11AM Eastern/8AM Pacific time.

Any change at a slightly earlier start time? I want to try to get through as many rounds as possible before I have to work at six.

Yeah, that's a thing wrote:

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:Since I've been asked by some people, we will probably start this tournament at 11AM Eastern/8AM Pacific time.

Any change at a slightly earlier start time? I want to try to get through as many rounds as possible before I have to work at six.

I'd love to (especially since this is gonna run pretty late on the East Coast end) but a substantial portion of our readers and players are from the West Coast; the former in particular aren't interested in getting up earlier.

The plan is to start at 11AM sharp; we won't be waiting more than 5 minutes for players to join once game calls have started. The lunch break will be very short - 30 minutes at some point in the day (depending on how the final schedule looks).

We've been able to expand the field to 10 teams. Further expansion may be possible if there's sufficient interest.

Wasn't there a commercial where some Japanese guy says, "I would like to play . . . " Maybe a Wii commercial or something. Anyway. Can you put down my team, potentially of CSUN teammates, Cal State Northridge, but maybe a random assortment of friends instead? I'm Steven Katz.

You think you will finish before, say 3:30 PM Pacific Time? Thanks.

I can't guarantee any specific finish time and I'm not going to make any promises other than "we will try our best to run this as efficiently as possible" and "lunch will be no longer than 30 minutes." We don't even have a schedule yet because registrations aren't finalized.

I've formed teams out of the remaining free agents. The field is closed at ten teams. I'll be sending a logistics email tomorrow.

Logistics emails have been sent out. If you didn't see one, please email me and I'll forward it to you.

EDIT: If I missed you and don't get info to you, meet in #eftonline at 10:50 AM Eastern Time tomorrow.

Why hasn't quizbowl not embraced quickpay, which is like Venmo only better?

Ankit, Daniel, and Anderson (Corry Wang had left) defeated Tejas, Chris, Ophir, and Jake in a one game final. Both teams went 8-1 in the prelims.

Thanks a ton for playing and helping us test out our tournament, folks! We'll get a discussion board up ASAP.

OH MY GOD THESE STATS ARE SO LOUD

Anyway, thanks for hosting! It was a lot of fun.

Cody wrote:Great way to sell your tournament mirror: this mirror is all about playtesting.

I just wanted to say, I'm really happy this experiment with a "playtest open" worked out. We took a shot in the dark with this one and I think it paid off.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:

Cody wrote:Great way to sell your tournament mirror: this mirror is all about playtesting.

I just wanted to say, I'm really happy this experiment with a "playtest open" worked out. We took a shot in the dark with this one and I think it paid off.

Yeah this was fun. More tournaments should do this.

Mike Bentley wrote:

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:

Cody wrote:Great way to sell your tournament mirror: this mirror is all about playtesting.

I just wanted to say, I'm really happy this experiment with a "playtest open" worked out. We took a shot in the dark with this one and I think it paid off.

Yeah this was fun. More tournaments should do this.

I agree that this was a lot of fun and that the playtesting "experiment" seemed to work. A big reason for this, which I think needs to be mentioned, is that the editors delivered what was essentially a complete set. Anyone seeking to imitate this set up ought to keep that in mind and be equally diligent in delivering a playable set, prior to playtesting.

Smuttynose Island wrote:I agree that this was a lot of fun and that the playtesting "experiment" seemed to work. A big reason for this, which I think needs to be mentioned, is that the editors delivered what was essentially a complete set. Anyone seeking to imitate this set up ought to keep that in mind and be equally diligent in delivering a playable set, prior to playtesting.

100% this; EFT as enjoyed this afternoon was ready to go for "real" mirrors. It was a blast for the players, and it'll help give the first "real" mirrors the shine of a finely polished set. In my 9 rounds, I think there were maybe 5 questions where we gave active "that should be improved" advice, and 1 where we gave "that needs to be fixed" advice. I doubt anyone was particularly worried about this, but kudos to the editors for not succumbing to a "we can just scrape this together for Skype then fix it for real after" mentality.

Thanks to the moderators for reading!