The Quizbowl Resource Center

Hello,

The University of Minnesota Quiz Bowl plans on running a mirror of Sun N Fun on 7/11/09. Room reservations and all haven't exactly been made, but that surely will be taken care of within the next couple of weeks.

This post will be updated with fee schedule and other details soon. Do plan on making the trip to Minneapolis to play this surely awesome tournament!

Edit:

Room Reservations and Side Events
Room reservations have been sent in today. I am reserving rooms for the Sunday as well, since I've heard that both Casalaspi Lit and Darger are being written as side events for this tournament. One of those probably should happen Saturday night post Sun N' Fun, but it's for you guys to decide.

Teams and Stuff
I don't know if you guys want to form teams beforehand, or want to have a draft the day of the tournament. I guess it's for you to decide as well.

Fee Structure
As for fee structure, I'm feeling like everyone should be charged on an individual basis, unless, of course, you are having your school/college pay for it. I guess we can come up with some reasonable fee structure for the latter case. I will talk with Ahmad and see what's up.

Other stuff
Please bring buzzers as well. I think we will have enough laptops given that there are a bunch of local people playing, but please bring one along if you don't mind it being used to read packets.

Gautam

This tournament is clearly my early 22nd birthday present.

theMoMA wrote:This tournament is clearly my early 22nd birthday present.

Cake will be necessary.

Are there plans of mirroring Sun N' Fun in the Chicago Area? We are still keen on mirroring this tournament, so it would be great if you can let me know if you are interested in coming and/or what your interest level is. Also, we definitely plan on running the side tournaments, too, if we have the approval of people writing said tournaments.

This is a list of people who are interested in playing/staffing. It will be updated regularly.

Andrew Hart
Brendan Byrne
Bernadette Spencer
Rob Carson
Other members of UMN Quiz Bowl I may not remember...
Anant Shah
Sam Peterson/Michael Wright Teamwork
Trevor Davis
Trygve Meade/Chris Carter Teamwork
Mike Sorice
Gaurav Kandlikar
Matt Chadbourne (?)
Charlie Dees (?)

Staff:
Donald Taylor (?)
Brian W.
Mike L.

Buzzers:
UMN - 1
Brendan - 2 (?)

I'm interested in coming up to play this.

I am interested in playing and that Trygve Meade fella and I have discussed some sort of teamwork.

Well, if Trygve's going...

MaS

Hey, just to make sure, I am looking for people who are:
a) going to be available to staff this tournament, and
b) open to running this tournament.

I will not be in the country to direct this event, so I would appreciate it if someone steps up to do that. It shouldn't be a big deal to direct the event, because I don't expect that there will be more than 10 teams playing this.

Depending on when I get back from the backwoods of TN, I may try to hitch a ride and staff this.

What was this talk of a mirror in the Chicago area? I might be too weak to resist if that happened.

I was trying to see if was going to happen at all, but it looks like it isn't.

On the other hand, think of the wonders running a tournament from another continent would do for your street cred.

DumbJaques wrote:On the other hand, think of the wonders running a tournament from another continent would do for your street cred.

With a good internet connection, it really wouldn't be that hard.

I am free that weekend and I would be happy to drive up to Minnesota if you are still looking for staffers. Just shoot me an email ([email protected]) with the details if I can be of service.

While I don't feel like traveling alone to this, if any quizbowlers in Michigan have the crazy urge to hop into a car and drive with me to this (and possibly play as a team), let me know at cheyne AT wmis DOT net.

gkandlikar wrote:Hey, just to make sure, I am looking for people who are:
a) going to be available to staff this tournament, and
b) open to running this tournament.

Hey, I can do both of these things!

Maybe I can work with you on the "running" part; if you get the rooms reserved and the teams signed up, I can handle the on-site part so as many of the current local players who want to play can do so.

I'll shoot you an email later when I'm on my other computer.

Brian and Mike L,

We would definitely love it if you would be able to moderate at the event.

As for "running" the tournament, we only really need a person to be the "on-site" person like you said. I am going to be making room reservations tonight as I finally got in touch with the appropriate people. I will figure out how to handle the money and stuff, so you shouldn't have to worry about that.

Thanks very much!

Gautam

gkandlikar wrote:Brian and Mike L,

We would definitely love it if you would be able to moderate at the event.

As for "running" the tournament, we only really need a person to be the "on-site" person like you said. I am going to be making room reservations tonight as I finally got in touch with the appropriate people. I will figure out how to handle the money and stuff, so you shouldn't have to worry about that.

Thanks very much!

Gautam

Ok, I'll plan on showing up to moderate. If you need me to do any of the other TD-type stuff (setting up schedules, researching protests, handling packet distribution) just let me know.

Sounds great. Thanks.

The first post has been updated with more info. I don't think I will be able to respond for 2-3 days from now, but I will surely check this thread and keep updating you guys as frequently as possible.

Thank you,
Gautam

Oh dear...those side events make it even harder to resist coming to this. I may have to start seriously considering it.

Cheynem wrote:Oh dear...those side events make it even harder to resist coming to this. I may have to start seriously considering it.

You know you want to!

Well, "I" want to. My checking account may quibble.

I'd welcome the opportunity to form a team ahead of time, rather than have a draft on site.

No drafts, I had enough of those for a lifetime at Missouri Open.

Hello All,

Rooms 301, 302, 304, 305, 323, and 324 of Coffman Memorial Union have been reserved on 7/11/2009 from 9 AM - 11 PM. So, it might just be good if everybody met at The Mississippi Room no later than 9:30 AM.

Here's a link for directions to Coffman Union. If you want to look things up on google maps, the address for Coffman is:

300 Washington Ave SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

You would want to park in the East River Road Garage. A map can be found here.

I am in the process of reserving rooms for Sunday, because it has to be in a different building. The rooms for Sunday cannot be used earlier than 12PM, so it might be a good idea to run the main tournament and one of the side events on Saturday, and run the second side event on Sunday.

If you have any more questions, let me know. I will update the first post with information soon.

Thanks,
Gautam

gkandlikar wrote:Hello All,

I am in India being awesome.

Thanks,
Gautam

Seriously, G. Thanks for doing this work for us.

If we are going with predetermined teams, I'm playing with Michael Wright. Others may join us.

Inspired by CO, I have created this. Please fill out your team rosters (or, if you're teamless, list yourself as a free agent). If you're having trouble accessing it, email me!

Also, please bring buzzers, unless you really really want to play lots of slapbowl!

I have two buzzer sets that I can probably bring.

Hi,

I have just discovered that rooms cannot be reserved for Sunday unless we pay a $175 fee. I don't think it's worth it for us to shell out that kind of money to get some rooms for just one side event.

I would suggest that it would be best to fit in as much QB as possible on Saturday itself, and save the remainder for the trip back home/summer practice sessions, etc. Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks,
Gautam

I agree. I think we should try to play all the tournaments in one day, or we could just find somewhere on campus on Sunday to play the remaining side event.

Does someone in Minneapolis have room to house people who might want to play some kind of shootout type event on Sunday with the extra tournament set?

When I'm back on campus Monday I'll look into the openness of library reading rooms and the like on Sundays; if that fails, we'll see what else is doable. Worst case, we can probably squat somewhere in Coffman.

Ukonvasara wrote:When I'm back on campus Monday I'll look into the openness of library reading rooms and the like on Sundays; if that fails, we'll see what else is doable. Worst case, we can probably squat somewhere in Coffman.

Coffman is closed all of Sunday, hence the need for the fee to be there. The libraries are open 12pm-6pm on Sundays, so that may not be the best option for us, unless people who are traveling are willing to stay that late. They do, however, have three large and two small group study rooms that have outlets, wireless, etc... and could be squatted in.

Do you guys have dorms that people can get into without signing in? If so, they probably have lounges not being used that are open at all hours.

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:Do you guys have dorms that people can get into without signing in? If so, they probably have lounges not being used that are open at all hours.

When I get back to campus I'll be checking to see whether we can reserve one or more of the rooms in the on-campus apartment building I live in.

Assuming I get a ride up from the U of I guys or bus up, I'm totally up for staffing this, if you still need me.

SomethingBetterAndLessCumbersome wrote:Assuming I get a ride up from the U of I guys or bus up, I'm totally up for staffing this, if you still need me.

Awesome! That's good to hear.

I just learned that the buzzers I am planning on bringing only partially work.

On one of the buzzers, 3 of the 10 buzzers don't work. Both buzzers only make noise upon buzzing in some of the time. I still plan on bringing them, but if anyone else can bring a buzzer of buzzers that are completely functional, that would be best.

Hey everyone, based on the number of packets available (14, 13 of which are blind), I've come up with the following seemingly-optimal format.

1) We structure the teams as I have indicated at the bottom of the doc.
2) With the six teams, we play a double round-robin (ten games on ten packets).
3) We divide the field into brackets of top 3/bottom 3 and do another round-robin (two games per team, three packets used, including the non-blind packet)

The downside to this format is that finals are deemphasized; if there is a desire to play something we could work something out with the remaining packet (otherwise we could run some kind of scrimmage or something). However, this format provides the most games given the packets available, which I think is what everyone wants.

I don't mind that format, assuming everyone is okay with those teams. I think my brother might still prefer to play with me if possible, but I'll ask him.

You forgot Trygve.

Pilgrim wrote:You forgot Trygve.

I wish, man. Something's come up and I can't make it.

Is there anyone on-site who is directing this tournament or the lit tournament? Tommy C. has emailed me asking where he should send the lit tournament packets. If no one steps up, I'll have him email them to me. I will be playing the lit tournament regardless, so I'd prefer to have the packets sent to someone else, for propriety's sake.

theMoMA wrote:Is there anyone on-site who is directing this tournament or the lit tournament? Tommy C. has emailed me asking where he should send the lit tournament packets. If no one steps up, I'll have him email them to me. I will be playing the lit tournament regardless, so I'd prefer to have the packets sent to someone else, for propriety's sake.

I'm only reading for the main event, but I can certainly pop the lit packets onto a flash drive and bring it along.

I can do the same for the main event, for that matter.

Hi, I've been trying to get ahold of apparent TD-type-dude Rib Carson, but can't, so I'll just post this here. Due to a series of mishaps, I've got nobody but me in my car anymore, have some writing to do to finish Tönnies (which is going to rock,) and don't want to impose on the people kind enough to put me up for a couple nights for minimal gain, so I'm somewhat disinclined to go anymore. However, I will happily that that ride if my absence would mess up the schedule (or whatever.) What do you dudes think? Someone in some kind of charge, please get back to me in the next couple hours or the decision will be virtually made by dint of drive length.

MaS

I'm sure everyone here is looking forward to playing you at the tournament, but if it doesn't make sense to go anymore, we certainly understand. We'd still love to have you though.