Chris Ray (the pitcher) Memorial Open 2/13/10

[Zip Zap Rap Pants]

The William & Mary Quizbowl Club is pleased to announce the Chris Ray Memorial Open (as in, the former Tribe/Orioles relief pitcher), in honor of his poor UCL that caused his career to tank. It will be held at William and Mary on 2/13, in Morton Hall. This is an official, untimed 10-tossup half NAQT event using IS-92. I know, I know, that's the last day for VHSL regional tournaments and a few will wait for that deadline, but I reserved rooms for this a couple months ago before I found out, my bad. Also, the field we can handle is just 24 anyway, so it shouldn't make a difference although if it does and we have an egregiously low number of teams (like, under 16), then I'll make a push to have it moved back. There's a significant discount for teams at regionals that day that still manage to come by splitting up, so that should help somewhat. If we get 21 or more teams then four will qualify for NAQT nationals at this tournament, plus any top small school. When registering please let me know if yours is a small school by NAQT's definition (less than 500 students in grades 10-12 in a public school with non-selective admissions). UPDATE: PACE-NSC qualification has now been secured for this tournament as well. If we get 20 or more teams then 4 will qualify, though I'm hoping to get this tournament Gold Certified after the fact so that 6 will qualify.

I envision a competition format similar to college tournaments with two different sets of round robins. If we get a number of teams divisible by six, then we'll likely do a round robin of six, following by rebracketing into new groups of six based on w-l-ppg for a total of 10 rounds. With 20 teams I'd probably go with two round robin groups of ten followed by a playoff RR for the top two in each bracket. 22 works okay as I'd probably do something like a RR group of 8 and two groups of 7 with a RR plus cross bracket against each other, then for rebracketing maybe a championship RR group of six and consolation groups of four for everyone else. Basically everyone should get 9-10 rounds of play at least.

Here's the fee structure:

$80 base fee per team (includes a free copy of the questions per school)
-$10 per working buzzer system
-$15 per solid moderator/scorekeeper
-$20 per team from a school competing in Regionals on 2/13
-$10 per team traveling over 200 miles according to Google Maps.
-$20 per team traveling over 300 miles according to Google Maps.

Minimum fee per team: $40

To register, send an email to mpmorr AT wm DOT edu (my address), and include which of the discounts apply, how many teams you'll be sending, your name, and your school's name. You can direct any questions you have about the tournament/William & Mary to me through this address as well.

We'll probably have registration from 9-9:30 (I sleep in too late ), with lunch around 12:30 to 1:30 and we'll hopefully be done with all but finals by 4:30. This tournament really can't go but so late as our Tribe men's basketball team, one of the best mid majors this year, is playing at home that night at 7 pm against Northeastern, and there's a snowball's chance in hell I'd miss it! So I guarantee this thing to be over by 6:30. Also I'd encourage any team not traveling too far to stick around for dinner in the 'burg and that game, Kaplan has a pretty good atmosphere and tickets are only $10.

We'll have free breakfast at the tournament, individual awards, and trophies for at least 1st, 2nd, and 3rd as usual. For lunch I can direct you to some pretty good options, plus in the morning announcement period I'll take orders for food from Channello's (they have the best pizza, subs, and boneless wings in town), which I'll pick up for teams in time for the lunch break. We'll have free food and drink for staffers as well, I'm thinking Chick-Fil-A or Channello's at the moment. Finally, directions can be found here: http://www.wm.edu/about/visiting/directions/index.php

My apologies for this being on a slightly inconvenient date, though it may give teams that didn't make regionals a good chance to play each other. Also, sorry for this getting out on somewhat short notice and for the debacle that was our last planned tournament two years ago - things won't fall through like that again as we have a more robust club than we did then.

Sincerely,

Matt Morrison
Secretary, W&M Quizbowl, Acting Tournament Director (may get another one or two on board in the next couple weeks)

[Matt Weiner]

FYI: Out of the 8 VHSL regions that have published their tournament dates so far, 3 of them (AAA Central Region, AA Region III, and A region B) are on Feb 13 and 5 are not.

[Zip Zap Rap Pants]

Yeah I saw that a couple days ago, I'm anxiously awaiting more Regionals to publish and I hope the ones on the 13th will mostly be in the western part of the state. Obviously Central Region is the one that hurts the most right now; however I hope some of the top teams out of there might split up as that's been done before.

[Zip Zap Rap Pants]

Teams have finally been emailed about this. When registering remember to let me know about the small school thing for NAQT qualification. Also, we have PACE affiliation/NSC qualification now.

[Zip Zap Rap Pants]

Okay so only two teams have expressed interest so far. Hopefully teams will be reminded at NAREN and that will give us a boost, but if we stay this low by this time next week then I'll postpone this till 3/20.

[DumbJaques]

Okay so only two teams have expressed interest so far. Hopefully teams will be reminded at NAREN and that will give us a boost, but if we stay this low by this time next week then I'll postpone this till 3/20.

I mean, it's just getting back after break, and the tournament is still 3 weeks away. I've never hosted a hs event in which at least 2/3 of teams didn't register in the final 3 weeks, and if you really do have such a small field that you'd need to postpone, it won't hurt to postpone it closer to the actual date. I'd certainly encourage you as almost-namesake of this event to give it at least through next weekend - I'm sure there are some teams in Maryland who just haven't heard about it but are looking for NAQT events in the area.

[Zip Zap Rap Pants]

Yeah I suppose I should notice the consequences of not doing an early reg. discount like we used to. I mean next week is the second to last week to register and there is the VHSL conflict to consider, but I'll stick to the date if we get any significant registration boost by Tuesday-ish (so I don't mean we have to reach 16). Any more regionals announced for the 13th? My hard drive had to get wiped and now I can't view the schedule, even though I installed Adobe

[Matt Weiner]

No new ones on that date. Regions II, C, and D still have no dates published.

I think it's unreasonably difficult to get people to come to a tournament at a host with a poor reputation, announced less than six weeks before it occurs, on a date that conflicts with three other tournaments in the state. Perhaps you should reschedule to a date that gives you and your potential attendees adequate planning time now and take the extra time as an opportunity to better prepare for this hosting experience, rather than vacillating any further about the February 13 date which we all know is doomed.

[Zip Zap Rap Pants]

Good to know.

I said "by this time next week if we stay this low" and I'm sticking by that statement. Also, do we have a deservedly mediocre reputation for college events? Sure. Is the same true of high school and impressed on the minds of many coaches? Ehh, probably not considering our only tournament was 3 years ago, well staffed, well received, and for the most part well run until the playoffs, with many noting it was a pretty good effort for a first time tournament. Sound preparation on our part would not be affected by the date. So, while the advice is well taken, I suggest not spreading unwarranted negativity about a money making event in a public forum.

[Matt Weiner]

I suggest not spreading unwarranted negativity about a money making event in a public forum.

I suggest you not tell other people how to post.

In accordance with the current meta-discussion, I am trying to express some criticism in a constructive way that may help you. Your team stands to make many sixties of dollars and rebuild its reputation if you heed the warnings that I am trying to get across non-combatively; it's really up to you.

[Zip Zap Rap Pants]

I agree with Chris on this one, and you know there is a difference between how he posted (advice) and how you posted combatively (advice + discrediting us irrelevantly in front of potential attendees + probably trying to get a rise out of me). One way reputations become bad reputations become worse reputations is because people say they are, plus I don't appreciate it when anyone tries to force our hand by making potentially self-fulfilling predictions about a tournament not happening at a certain time. You know you're being disingenuous about the three tournaments in one day thing - 24 teams are involved and two thirds of those are probably too far to make it anyway. Since the bottom line is involved, I'm going to ask you again, please show courtesy to anyone trying to pay the bills of quizbowl (especially in order to go to your tournaments) and don't send a message about that host's incompetence beforehand to sabotage them or move their date to when you want it, or for any reason, and if you can't post thoughtful advice one way or another without doing that, stop trolling. If you have a separate unrelated issue with our club I suggest you take it up with those in charge, the president or vice president.

[AKKOLADE]

Matt Weiner post #1: there are 3 tournaments on this date

MW post #2: Calmly criticizes your tournament

MW post #3: Calmly notes forum rules & reinforces his posts.

Basically, Matt Morrison, it isn't Matt Weiner that's in the wrong here. It's you. Stop it.

[Madoc]

No new ones on that date. Regions II, C, and D still have no dates published.

Hate to randomly jump in during this argument, but we're hosting the Region D tournament on the 13th of February. However, it's not like it matters that much to us, anyway. Not only are we on the far end of the state, but we're the only team in Region D that even gets out for tournaments like this, and while we'd love to come to a W&M-hosted tournament, it would be out of the question for us to make an 8-hour trip to the same locale (possibly) twice in the same month (by that I mean the CRMO and the VHSL State Tournament).

Glad to see an announcement about this tournament, though.