The Quizbowl Resource Center

I am happy to announce that we are running an OPEN playtest mirror of Spartan Housewrite in December. Please fill out this Doodle poll and pick one of the dates in late December. I know that people may be traveling for the holidays, but this is the time that works best for us. I will be running this tournament on Discord. The tournament will start at 10 AM Eastern Time and I don’t anticipate running more than 9 rounds plus finals. I expect all players to have mics or at least talk and instead of type everything out.

EDIT: This tournament will take place on December 22 barring any cancellations or unexpected events. The date poll is closed.

Eligibility and field cap: Anyone can play and is encouraged to do so especially if they are a college graduate who is not enrolled in school. Also, if you are in high school and wish to play with people not on your high school team (i.e. chimera teams), this is your only chance to do so. There is a high school mirror at Thomas Jefferson in Virginia so please go to that if possible. The initial field cap is 8 teams. This is 32 players and I will not expand the field until we are 32 players, so I will put free agents on teams so we can expand the field.

Payment: The fee per team will be 70 dollars. The only acceptable methods of payment are either Venmo to my name or a check written to MSU Academic Competition Club mailed to my apartment (PM for address). Teams are to pay all at once so I will be asking the designated team captain for payment the day of the tournament. If you need to pay by check, let me know a week before the tournament. Do not let me the know the day of. Additionally, there is a potential rebate of 10 dollars if the team fills out a brief survey about the tournament. This anonymous survey will allow us to improve the questions ahead of the first in-person mirror. It will be a Google form.

Team formation spreadsheet is here.

Please let me know if you have any further questions. I will put out a notice if we need moderators and I will compensate readers if they are needed.

I suspect a large number of people may want to know if there is a physical mirror near them, of which only MSU's and TJ's have thusfar been announced, before they commit to playing this online mirror.

The team formation spreadsheet is view only - can you fix this please

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2018 11:22 am The team formation spreadsheet is view only - can you fix this please

Fixed. Thanks.

Milhouse wrote: I suspect a large number of people may want to know if there is a physical mirror near them, of which only MSU's and TJ's have thusfar been announced, before they commit to playing this online mirror.

I anticipate that there will be in-person mirrors in all active collegiate regions. I am in contact with teams in several regions about mirroring the set. A region like the Mid-Atlantic will surely have a mirror and I would encourage teams interested in mirroring to reach out to me. Unfortunately, some schools won't be able to mirror until after Regionals, but this is okay with me and I'd be okay with February mirrors.

In short, if you are on a collegiate team in an active circuit that plays tournaments such as Penn Bowl and Sun God, I would encourage you to play the in-person mirror rather than the Discord mirror.

Can a free agents list be added to the team formation spreadsheet?

I'm playing this and seeking teammates. I'm not good at science but will buzz everywhere else whether you like it or not.

I feel like someone should remind people that Dec 23 is Festivus, if that's happening again this year.

I will pick a date for this after this Friday so get those votes in ASAP! Also, I'd really prefer it if there were no super teams as I would like to get feedback from teams that are somewhat like the average in-person fields. (A team of former high school superstars is not the modal collegiate team.) Don't feel discouraged to play if you are not a (former) top 25 college player or a former elite high school player!

Again, this tournament is meant for playtesting purposes and open players. Players on current collegiate teams should try to work with their regions to try to find a way the set can be played in person. I am open to it being mirrored from January to the first week of March. When a group of players just settle for the open online mirror, this lowers the amount of players that can play a physical mirror and lowers the probability that it will happen.

Thanks and let me know if there are any issues. I am working with hosts to nail down some dates for the in-person mirrors. This takes time as many schools have not finalized winter semesters.

Barring any unforeseen events, this tournament will take place on December 22. A discord server will be made before the event and look our for a logistics email. As I said previously, if you plan on playing this event, please use a microphone.

I forgot to mention this, but could the contact email for each team email me (harrisbunker AT gmail . com) and say "Hey Harris, I'm playing with players X, Y, Z. I will pay you via [CHECK/VENMO] and, if necessary, my Venmo name is [VENMONAME]." This email will formally constitute a registration.

We have over 8 teams including all the free agents, so please organize yourself into teams ASAP so I can expand the field to 10 or so teams. I think 10 teams is a great number for an online tournament as it can be done via a 9 game RR.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Matt Weiner and I are teaming up for this. We're looking for a 4th, preferably someone who knows biology.

EDIT: Mia Nussbaum is joining us a our third. Geoffrey Chen is our fourth.

Two teams have reached via email out to me register, and I'd like to hear from some more before expanding the field to 10 teams. Free agents, please join teams ASAP so we can expand. I personally think 10 teams is a great number for this event.

EDIT (November 28): I am now expanding the field to 10 teams.

Sam Braunfeld and I are looking for teammates (to occupy that tenth spot in the team formation sheet I imagine). Doesn't really matter what you specialize in but biochem or lit would probably be the most helpful! PM or email me if you're interested

EDIT: We good. Chandler and Joelle have joined us

EDIT: jk we lookin' for a fourth again

3 teams listed on the spreadsheet have yet to officially register and there are still free agents. Given that this will be taking place in 2 weeks, I would like to finalize this field. Please try to finalize registration and team composition as soon as possible.

I sent out a logistics email with the Discord server for Saturday. Please let me know if you did not get the email and especially if your team composition changes. To the three free agents still listed on the sheet: Rahul, Kenji and Rudra, please email me if you wish to be added to a team as a fifth player. I will add you to a team that will not be overpowered.

Thanks to all the readers for putting this event on! There were some hiccups, but the tournament organizers dealt with them in a professional manner. And honestly, 11 rounds in 11 hours isn't great, but it could be much worse

Congrats to Matt, Mia, Geoffrey, and Daniel on a really well played final series

So this definitively happened. Neg5 stats are here. We are missing one round 9 game and hope to either input those stats or recreate them somehow. Please let me know if you have any information here.

Check out my Sick Elephant (Matt, Mia, Geoffrey, and Daniel) beat Hoppes-Mikanowski (Will, Jason, Jim, and Ben who left early) in a one game final after a play-in game with Team Coates et al. This was a very entertaining tournament to read due to how close a lot of games were and how strong the field was. If you played the set, please join the discussion forum to give feedback.

I'd like to thank Jakob, Conor, Stephen, Nick and Shubham and Ryan Rosenberg for reading. This tournament could not have happened without you guys be willing to give up some of your Saturday. There were a couple of minor headaches but we were able to work through them. I hope this tournament showed that Discord tournaments can be done professionally and semi-competently with serious planning and good staffers.

I am planning to playtest some of the unused Lit and Science and potentially other categories this Sunday at 8 pm EST after work. I will be using the same Discord server as the playtest mirror. If you are open player who would like to help with this process, PM me.

I am planning on testing some of the unread Fine Arts, History and other questions tonight in the playtest Discord at 8 pm EST. If people could make it, that would be very helpful.

Will stats from this be posted on hsqb at some point?