The Quizbowl Resource Center

I'm please to announce the 2019 iteration of the Early Fall Tournament, a medium-difficulty tournament designed to serve as an introduction to college quizbowl. Our target difficulty is equivalent to the highly acclaimed 2016 edition of this tournament, with fewer "rough" questions.

I will be serving as overall head editor of this tournament. Most of this tournament's writing will be done by Jakob, Rahul, Ankit Aggarwal, and a mix of up-and-coming and established writers: Matt Lehmann, Julia Zhou, Catherine Qian, Rohith Nagari, Aayush Rajasekaran, Rebecca Rosenthal, and Nick Collins.

All mirrors of this tournament, except online mirrors and the in-person British open, are closed unless special permission is requested by the host to allow limited open teams. High schoolers are encouraged to play but are also subject to the same requirement. There are no restrictions on grad students.

Subject editing assignments are as follows:
- Rahul Keyal: Literature
- Jakob Myers: History
- Eric Mukherjee: Science
- Will Alston: Everything Else

The 20/20 distribution we will use is as follows, and represents a slight change from earlier versions of this tournament:

Literature (4/4)
- 1/1 Long Fiction
- 1/1 Poetry (non-epic)
- 1/1 Drama and Short Fiction
- 1/1 Misc Lit + More Long Fiction

History (4/4)
- 1/1 US History
- 1/1 Post-Classical European History (including Britain and Ireland)
- 1/1 Commonwealth History, Ancient History, Archaeology/Historiography, and Cross/Miscellaneous
- 1/1 "World" History (as traditionally construed)

Science (4/4)
- 1/1 Biology. This category will include more "biochem" topics that would normally go into Chemistry
- 0.75/0.75 Chemistry
- 0.25/0.25 Applied Math, Data Science, and "Pure Engineering"
- 1/1 Physics. This category will include more borderline "quantum" topics that would normally go into Chemistry
- 1/1 Other Science (roughly as traditionally construed, but with more room freed up for interdisciplinary questions)

Arts (3/3)
- 1/1 Classical Music and Opera (with a decent number of questions blending the two, ala SGI, as well as non-Western "classical" traditions)
- 1/1 Painting and Sculpture (ala SGI, PIANO, and MYSTERIUM)
- 1/1 Other Arts (jazz and non-classical/folk music, architecture, film, ballet, performance, photography, and more)

Beliefs (2/2)
- 1/1 "Myths and Legends." This category will focus more on the narrative aspects of human beliefs, tales, etc. about the supernatural.
- 1/1 "Religion." This category will focus more on theology, practice, and worship-related aspects of human supernatural beliefs.

Philosophy, Social Science, and Other (3/3)
- 1/1 Social Science, per packet
- 10/10 Philosophy, cross-tournament
- 10/10 Geography, cross-tournament (see ACF Nationals 2017/19 and GEODUCK for the main models for this category)
- 10/10 Other Academic, cross-tournament (see ACF Nationals 2017/19 and SGI for the main models for this category)

The mirror fee for this tournament will be $45 per team, including house teams. Please contact me at [email protected] if you are interested in mirroring this tournament.

Tentative mirror regions/dates:

Discord playtest: 9/21
New England: MIT (10/5)
Northeast: Columbia University (10/5)
Mid-Atlantic: UMD (10/5)
Lower Mid-Atlantic: UNC (10/5)
Southeast: Auburn (10/5)
Florida: UCF (10/5 or 10/12)
Texas: Rice (9/28)
Upper Midwest: MSU (10/12)
Central: WUSTL (10/5)
Mountain / PNW: Boise State (10/19)
Minnesota: UMN (10/5)
NorCal: Stanford (10/5)
SoCal: UCSD (10/19)
Arizona: ASU (10/19)
Britain (open): Oxford, Magdalen College (9/28)
Britain (closed, North): Glasgow University (10/19)
Britain (closed, South): Oxford Brookes (10/19)
Canada: Toronto (10/5)
Illinois (high school): New Trier Varsity
Mid-Atlantic (high school): Penn (12/7)

Do you expect there to be a mirror site further northeast than Columbia?

High Dependency Unit wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 3:39 pm Do you expect there to be a mirror site further northeast than Columbia?

If people want to organize one, I'm open to the possibility, but I would strongly prefer to have a bunch of big tournament sites with people of all different backgrounds and strengths playing. I like large events that can bring the community together this way. I'd like sites to be spaced such that most teams should be able to reach one within 3 to 4 hours of driving.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 3:47 pm

High Dependency Unit wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 3:39 pm Do you expect there to be a mirror site further northeast than Columbia?

If people want to organize one, I'm open to the possibility, but I would strongly prefer to have a bunch of big tournament sites with people of all different backgrounds and strengths playing. I like large events that can bring the community together this way. I'd like sites to be spaced such that most teams should be able to reach one within 3 to 4 hours of driving.

(Boston is decidedly over 4 hours' drive from New York)

(For an accessibility-oriented regional tournament, I would urge you to consider maximizing the number of teams that play over the size of individual sites)

I've never had the Boston-NYC drive take more than 3 to 3.5 hours in practice, but fair enough. We'll be looking for a site in the Boston area as well, and the OP has been updated in accordance.

Has the PNW site for this been decided?

(edit: sorry, saw the edits on OP... do you have a sense of where/when it usually is?)

depends on who wants to host, but we'll be soliciting sites this summer. Would love to have one in PNW!

Cool. UBC was talking about hosting. Ultimately decided we'd rather just field a team, but if there's no suitable site, we could probably host in a pinch.

Subject editors have been reshuffled a bit; please view OP for additional information

ArnavS wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2019 7:57 pm Has the PNW site for this been decided?

(edit: sorry, saw the edits on OP... do you have a sense of where/when it usually is?)

We expect to mirror this at Boise State. That may not be Pacific enough in the northwest for you, but I hope you'll come!

A raft of mirror sites have been updated and added to the original post. All hosts of this tournament are encouraged to announce as soon as they are comfortable doing so.

We are still seeking additional mirrors in several regions! I've added a couple more to the OP.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:47 pm Mid-Atlantic: Maryland?

To be clear, does this mean that a Maryland mirror is not yet confirmed, or that it is confirmed but the date has not yet been? In either case, is there an idea of when details regarding it will be confirmed?

Milhouse wrote: ↑Mon Aug 19, 2019 7:10 pm

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:47 pm Mid-Atlantic: Maryland?

To be clear, does this mean that a Maryland mirror is not yet confirmed, or that it is confirmed but the date has not yet been? In either case, is there an idea of when details regarding it will be confirmed?

I will follow up with Maryland about this and I encourage you to do the same.

As a reminder, high school teams are not only allowed to attend this event, but encouraged to do so, as are experienced college players. This tournament is for everyone!

Some people seem to be under the impression that this tournament is not for grad students. This isn't true! Grad students are more than welcome to play as well.

We have added additional mirrors in Florida and Arizona!

The Northern California mirror of this tournament will take place in November.

As a point of clarification, house teams for this tournament have to pay the full mirror fee. This decision is made with the understanding that demand for this tournament is high and many people want to play it, and also out of a desire to adequately compensate our hardworking writing staff.

Is there an announcement for the WUSTL site? Could you please link announcements in this post?

I can add links at some point, but that's about 69th on my priority list right now.

Tournament directors, please get your announcements up as soon as reasonably possible. I will have one up for Columbia this weekend. I understand that booking rooms can be challenging, but it would really help teams coordinate. Thanks!

Very excited to announce we have three UK mirrors - one open and two closed!

thebluehawk1 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 9:35 pm Is there an announcement for the WUSTL site? Could you please link announcements in this post?

We are now within four weeks of the tournament. We are also coincidentally past the time my club could have requested funding for this tournament. Also the number of new people in my club, unfamiliar with how these things work, are wondering if this site will happen, and I can't blame them. I wan't to be able to send my new people to NAQT novice, but it conflicts with the MSU site (also WUSTL is a lot closer).

thebluehawk1 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 09, 2019 11:42 pm

thebluehawk1 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 9:35 pm Is there an announcement for the WUSTL site? Could you please link announcements in this post?

We are now within four weeks of the tournament. We are also coincidentally past the time my club could have requested funding for this tournament. Also the number of new people in my club, unfamiliar with how these things work, are wondering if this site will happen, and I can't blame them. I wan't to be able to send my new people to NAQT novice, but it conflicts with the MSU site (also WUSTL is a lot closer).

For what it's worth, I'v been told that the announcement for the WUSTL site was made last night, and it's currently in the moderating que, since the TD has less than 7 posts and had to edit something in the announcement.

The post is up, and it seems to have been made before Justin made his comment, though presumably not made it through the mod queue before then.

Regardless, there's very little I can personally do besides tell hosts to post their stuff, but in the future if there's an issue with asking for school funding, I would strongly encourage actively seeking out contact information from the hosting team in question, as opposed to saying "woe is me" on the forums.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: ↑Tue Sep 10, 2019 6:40 pm The post is up, and it seems to have been made before Justin made his comment, though presumably not made it through the mod queue before then.

Regardless, there's very little I can personally do besides tell hosts to post their stuff, but in the future if there's an issue with asking for school funding, I would strongly encourage actively seeking out contact information from the hosting team in question, as opposed to saying "woe is me" on the forums.

I think the responsibility should probably be more on the host here, even if reminding them to post is all we can really do. Encouraging a gung-ho attitude is all well and good but not everyone has the connections to put it in practice so it seems unfair to expect that from people.

When there’s no announcement posted and consequently no public information on who to contact complaining about having to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket because the hosts didn’t communicate with them seems reasonable to me.

I'm sorry if my post came off wrong. I posted here because to me this was the most logical place to put it. I was more hoping someone at WUSTL would see it. I was in no way attempting to criticize you Will, I am aware this is the hosts responsibility.

I added the part about passing the feuding request deadline as a way to remind us all that when clubs start out they need everything to be as easy as possible. I'm not thinking of my own new club here. I was planning on playing this tournament by myself if I couldn't get teammates and pay out of pocket, but who knows what young teams might be out there unwilling to do that.

Anyways here's links to all the currently posted mirrors - I will not be updating this:

Discord playtest: 9/21
New England: MIT (10/5)
Northeast: Columbia University (10/5)
Mid-Atlantic: UMD (10/5)
Lower Mid-Atlantic: UNC (10/5)
Southeast: Auburn (10/5)
Florida: UCF (10/5 or 10/12)
Texas: Rice (9/28)
Upper Midwest: MSU (10/12)
Central: WUSTL (10/5)
Mountain / PNW: Boise State (10/19)
Minnesota: UMN (10/5)
NorCal: Stanford (10/5)
SoCal: UCSD (10/19)
Arizona: ASU (10/19)
Britain (open): Oxford, Magdalen College (9/28)
Britain (closed, North): Glasgow University (10/19)
Britain (closed, South): Oxford Brookes (10/19)
Canada: Toronto (10/5)

High School mirrors
Whatever region Pennsylvania is: Penn (12/7)

thebluehawk1 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:15 pm I'm sorry if my post came off wrong. I posted here because to me this was the most logical place to put it. I was more hoping someone at WUSTL would see it. I was in no way attempting to criticize you Will, I am aware this is the hosts responsibility.

I added the part about passing the feuding request deadline as a way to remind us all that when clubs start out they need everything to be as easy as possible. I'm not thinking of my own new club here. I was planning on playing this tournament by myself if I couldn't get teammates and pay out of pocket, but who knows what young teams might be out there unwilling to do that.

This is totally understandable - my only thought is to give actionable advice in case that a host does not provide adequate information. Obviously, hosts should all try to do their best, but in a world where not everyone is on point, it's probably more productive to have a backup plan.

In any case, hosts posting late undermines our bottom line as a writing team (case in point - Justin's team might not be able to attend!) so I'm not exactly happy about these delays either, but with uncertainty around club operations and university cooperation (it's still the first half of September) many of these issues are understandable. It's a fine line to try to push hosts for more communication (I spoke with some of our hosts individually about this) and to seem overbearing and make people not want to work with you / host more tournaments in the future.

As a clarification, this tournament will use online scoresheets and packets. The system will be similar to the one used for the 2016–2018 EFTs.

Instructions for using online scoresheets and packets will be sent to tournament directors in order to train moderators.

Information about access to detailed stats will be announced after this weekend’s mirrors.

A private discussion group/forum for this tournament has been created. You can join it via your User Control Panel.

Good luck to all teams playing tomorrow!

Is this set going on quizbowlpackets.com?

SparkleOyster wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 2:29 pm Is this set going on quizbowlpackets.com?

This has been delayed too long and I apologize. I'll upload it soon.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 2:42 pm

SparkleOyster wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2020 2:29 pm Is this set going on quizbowlpackets.com?

This has been delayed too long and I apologize. I'll upload it soon.

No need to apologize, thank you for doing all this!

edit: im dum set is on archives now pending approval