2021 ACF Winter at the University of Virginia (11/06/2021)

[Arabidopsis failiana]

I am pleased to announce that the Lower Mid-Atlantic site of 2021 ACF Winter will be held at the University of Virginia on Saturday, November 7, 2021.

The tournament will be held in New Cabell Hall in Charlottesville. I will update with information about parking and directions within the next week. The opening meeting will begin at 8:45 and gameplay will begin at 9:00. I, Mark Bailey, will be the tournament director. Please direct any questions about this site to me at [email protected].

Eligibility
In general, teams where players are all attending the same school and all taking at least one class for credit during the 2021–2022 school year are eligible to play 2021 ACF Winter. ACF’s full eligibility rules are available here. Questions about eligibility should be directed to [email protected].

Rules
This tournament will follow ACF’s official gameplay rules. Rules specifically pertaining to online tournaments have been rendered in blue.

Registration
Fill out the central 2021 ACF Winter registration form with all relevant information. The form is here. The field for each site can be found here.

If possible, teams should register for the site that is geographically closest to them and/or is in the region they would normally attend. The field cap is 18, after which teams will be placed on a waitlist or potentially assigned to another site. Please register by November 1, 2021.
Fees

• Base fee: $150
• New to quizbowl discount: −$100
• Shorthanded discount (1–2 players): −$75
• Travel discount: −$10 per 200 miles traveled one-way
• Buzzers: −$10 per functional buzzer system
• Staffers: −$15 per staffer with a functional laptop. Staffers must register with ACF in advance by filling out this form.

The new to quizbowl discount is intended for schools that have not sent a team to any mainstream collegiate academic tournament (not counting exclusively novice tournaments) since September 2020, and which have no players who competed in non-novice collegiate tournaments during that same period.

Packet Submission
Any team with at least two people on it who played a regular, collegiate, academic quizbowl tournament* (either as a college student or high school student) prior to September 1, 2020, is required to submit a half-packet. Please email [email protected] if you are unsure whether your team is required to submit a half-packet. A team that is not required to submit a packet may submit an optional packet by the no-penalty deadline for a $50 discount.

* For these purposes, all ACF tournaments, NAQT SCT (Division I or Division II), NAQT ICT, and typical college-level academic invitationals count as regular collegiate academic tournaments. Pop culture or “hybrid” tournaments, HCASC, and tournaments played on NAQT’s Collegiate Novice series sets do not.

Here is the submission schedule:

• September 5: −$50
• September 24: −$25
• October 3: no penalty
• October 17: +$25
• October 24: +$50

There is an additional $10/day penalty for each day after October 24th. If teams required to submit a half-packet have not submitted by October 31st, they will be dropped from the tournament, with no exceptions.

If your team is going to submit a half-packet, whether required or not, email [email protected] to request a distribution. All finished packets must be sent to that email before 11:59 Pacific time on the day listed to receive the discount or penalty. Please format the half-packet in .doc or .docx before sending it. The email subject line should list the name of the school, the team number (if applicable), and the words “half-packet.”

[Coach Jim]

Mark, for registration payments, who do we make out our checks to?

[Arabidopsis failiana]

Unfortunately, we're still waiting for confirmation about our room reservations. The event planning office told us they would get back to us on Friday, and they didn't, so we emailed Monday morning and this afternoon they said that there are some unspecified "new guidelines" and that we have to contact a different office for approval. It's still our intent to host in person, and it should happen especially considering that we were already able to get a larger high school tournament approved in October, but we're still hedging in case it's not possible. I really, really hope that we will know by the end of this week because the uncertainty sucks for everyone involved. I will post here as soon as I know more.

Regarding payment for the tournament: I will email registered teams an invoice with the amount owed and payment information. We can accept payment in advance or on the day of the tournament, and in the form of cash or check (made out to "Academic Competition Club at UVA"), or by Zelle or Venmo.

[DavidB256]

Edit: This post contained outdated logistics info. Refer to posts in this thread made by Mark.

[Cody]

Good news! UVA Event Planning has finally approved us for 9 classrooms in New Cabell Hall. This tournament will be happening in-person with a field cap of 18 teams.

Edit: Our field cap will be 18 teams, not 16 teams.

You can run 21 teams with 9 rooms; Sam Luongo hosted many tournaments using that format while the building was under renovation. (I'd recommend an initial cap of 18 teams and expanding when you have 3 or more teams on the waitlist.)

[Arabidopsis failiana]

I am thrilled to announce we have received room reservations for more rooms and are expanding the field cap to 24 teams. It's not too late to come play ACF Winter and experience beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia this fall.

If you are a non-team-affiliated staffer, we would love to have your help with staffing this tournament. Outside staffers will be paid $25 per ACF policies, and we will give you breakfast and lunch or reimburse you if you're unable to eat our provided food. Sign up to staff using the form linked in the first announcement.

[Arabidopsis failiana]

I've sent out the logistics and information email for Saturday's tournament.

[meebles127]

Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaats will be updated here throughout the tournament.

[meebles127]

Full stats will be up probably by Monday. If you see errors email me at vef2jj AT virginia DOT edu

[Arabidopsis failiana]

UNC A won the tournament with a 12-0 record and Maryland finished in second at 11-1 after declining to play a final. UNC A won the Undergraduate title and William & Mary finished second in Undergraduate by a playoffs PPG tiebreaker over UNC C. Georgetown C won the DII title by finishing with a playoff record two games better than the DII second place, UNC D. Congratulations to all of the winners and runners-up who were recognized with trophies as well as all of the top individual scorers.

Thank you to all of the volunteer staffers who made this tournament possible - Matt Weiner, Jarrett Holmes, Ryan Ritter, Harry White, and Matt Hoffer-Hawlik, as well as everyone from UVA (Ian, Jeffrey, Luke, Yashu, Kroesna, Charlotte, Kani, Alana, David, and Em) for giving up their Saturday and staffing this tournament. In particular, Harry and Em were extremely helpful in the control room, completing the rebracketing process and recognizing title winners at the end of the day as quickly as possible to minimize delay.

Complete statistics will be posted tomorrow. A wrap-up email has also been sent to all teams.

Edit: stats can be found at https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/7154/

[meebles127]

Full stats should be up now.

Thanks again to everyone that made this tournament an absolute blast. I'd also like to give a huge thanks to Harry White for helping to make the control room run extremely smoothly, the transition to the playoffs and the quick awarding of Overall, UG, and DII titles at the end of the tournament would not have been possible without his help.

Hope to see y'all in Charlottesville again soon.

EDIT: I see that there's an error with the prelims, I'm fixing that. This is now fixed.