Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Old college threads.
User avatar
Skepticism and Animal Feed
Auron
Posts: 3238
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 11:47 pm
Location: Arlington, VA

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Skepticism and Animal Feed »

I've never understood the Cult of the Supreme Round Robin that infected Chicago Open half a decade ago. Bracketing is good enough to determine the high school and collegiate national champions (all four of them), why isn't it good enough to determine the open champion? Don't give me the argument of "I want to play everybody!" or "I want to see all of the players!". If you are playing Chicago Open, odds are that not only have you played against and seen most of the players on other teams, you've likely gone to the Waffle House or Plato's Diner or Harold's with them at odd hours on multiple, non-consecutive occasions.

Also, now that the UCPD has decided to become a bunch of Little Giulianis, a round robin greatly increases the chances that CO will not be determined by a tossup on some obscure book, but by an officer's knock on the door.

With that rant out of the way, let's all recognize that Matt's only had bad choices in this situation. He could poop on people who signed up late, he could poop on people who submitted late, he could poop on players who were unpopular or less well-known, or he could (arguably) poop on everybody by adopting a sup-par schedule. Whatever he did, somebody would get pooped on, and those people and their allies would be in this thread calling Matt out on it.

Arguably, Matt's decision is the most far-sighted one. The very existence of quizbowl relies on people writing questions and on new players being engaged in the game at high levels. By not favoring new players over the cool kids, and favoring packet writers over non packet writers, Matt is favoring the future of the game. If you care about high-level quizbowl, you should be happy that we are having this problem in the first place. Indeed, if Chicago Open continues to grow at this pace, future editors will have no choice but to make it a shorter, bracketed tournament. Perhaps they’ll even have enough time to institute a potluck.
Bruce
Harvard '10 / UChicago '07 / Roycemore School '04
ACF Member emeritus
My guide to using Wikipedia as a question source
User avatar
Mike Bentley
Sin
Posts: 6461
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2006 11:03 pm
Location: Bellevue, WA
Contact:

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Mike Bentley »

Are there other bracketed schedules that provide some sort of compromise solution? For instance, could we split into 9/10 brackets with 19 teams?
Mike Bentley
Treasurer, Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence
Adviser, Quizbowl Team at University of Washington
University of Maryland, Class of 2008
User avatar
grapesmoker
Sin
Posts: 6345
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 5:23 pm
Location: NYC
Contact:

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by grapesmoker »

As a member of a team that submitted a packet long ago (shocker!) I have no real stake in this, but I will defend the round robin on the grounds of getting to play everyone. Sure, I see a lot of those people both at tournaments and socially; it's still fun to get to play all of them, something I don't get to do very often. Obviously, priority #1 should be to actually finish the tournament, so if that can't happen unless we bracket, then that's what we should do. But if we can get through a round robin, I would definitely prefer that ceteris paribus.
Jerry Vinokurov
ex-LJHS, ex-Berkeley, ex-Brown, sorta-ex-CMU
presently: John Jay College Economics
code ape, loud voice, general nuissance
User avatar
Nine-Tenths Ideas
Auron
Posts: 1558
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:14 pm
Location: MD

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Nine-Tenths Ideas »

I just want to say that idea of a tournament being "For us, by us" and then insinuating it'd be unfair that old vets who didn't submit a packet wouldn't get to play when some folks we've never even HEARD OF would is the exact opposite of what "for us, by us" should be.
Isaac Hirsch
University of Maryland '14
Never Gonna Play Again
User avatar
setht
Auron
Posts: 1205
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:41 pm
Location: Columbus, Ohio

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by setht »

Mike Bentley wrote:Are there other bracketed schedules that provide some sort of compromise solution? For instance, could we split into 9/10 brackets with 19 teams?
Assuming that every team writes a packet, and that any ties that need to be broken are broken by statistics:

With 18 teams, I think it should work to do prelim brackets of 9 and 9 followed by playoff brackets of 6, 7, and 5. If you do a decent job of bracketing teams and predicting which teams will wind up in the top bracket (and to a lesser extent which teams will wind up in the bottom bracket), you should be able to tack on an additional 3 crossover games for the top bracket using packets written by the field. Worst case scenario, you don't run crossover games, and the top bracket teams play 13 games in 14 rounds, middle bracket gets 14 games in 16 rounds, and bottom bracket gets 12 games in 14 rounds; I'm pretty sure you need only 2 editors' packets for this to work. If things work out well and you do the crossover games for the top bracket on field-written packets, that's 16 games in 17 rounds (same games/rounds as a 17-team round robin but the top-bracket teams all play each other twice), and you still only need 2 editors' packets. There might be some intermediate case where you could pull off the 3 crossover games given 3 or 4 editors' packets. You can always offer 3 crossover games if you have 5 editors' packets.

With 19 teams, I think you can do prelims of 10 and 9 followed by playoff brackets of 6, 6, and 7. Run a round-robin in each of those playoff brackets, then run 3 crossover games in the top and middle brackets. You need only 2 editors' packets for this, and this does not depend at all on predicting which teams will end up in which playoff bracket. Top bracket teams play 17 games in 17 rounds or 16 games in 17 rounds, and play each other twice; middle bracket teams have the same numbers (and also play each other twice); bottom bracket teams play 16 games in 17 rounds or 15 games in 17 rounds.

Assuming I haven't messed something up here, I'm fine with these formats and would rather play one of them and let in more teams than exclude people who want to play just so that we can run a 17-team schedule. If there's some other reason to cap at 17 (rooms, staff, something else), that's another story.

-Seth
Seth Teitler
Formerly UC Berkeley and U. Chicago
President of NAQT
Emeritus member of ACF
User avatar
The King's Flight to the Scots
Auron
Posts: 1645
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:11 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

Mike Bentley wrote:Are there other bracketed schedules that provide some sort of compromise solution? For instance, could we split into 9/10 brackets with 19 teams?
I talked to Cody about this last night and he said it was a mess; he worked it out again today and it's somewhat less of a mess but still ugly. We should have enough rooms. The drawbacks are that every team is only guaranteed 13 games, teams no longer get to play every other team, and I have to edit 2 more packets I'm not confident I'll be able to complete.

EDIT: Seth basically laid it out.

SECOND EDIT: Cody tells me that Seth's schedule is different. Hold!

TRIPLE EDIT: Cody says that this involves 2 or 3 more packets than I'm realistically able to edit and entails 17 games + 2 significant delays for rebracketing, risking us getting kicked out. That's the downside.
Matt Bollinger
UVA '14, UVA '15
User avatar
Cody
2008-09 Male Athlete of the Year
Posts: 2891
Joined: Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:57 am

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Cody »

Seth - I'm a bit confused by the playoffs for the 19 team schedule (mainly by the top & middle terminology). Are you saying take the top 6 from each bracket, rank them by some metric, and snake seed to get two brackets of six which then play a RR? Then, top/bottom three crossover at the end? If so, my calculations say you need 19 edited packets, 1 editor's packet (for the crossover and the bottom bracket) and 2 finals packets.
Cody Voight, VCU ’14.
tabstop
Wakka
Posts: 122
Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2007 10:48 am
Location: NNVA

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by tabstop »

I think the idea is this:
Original brackets of 9/10 play 9RR on packets from bracket A (as they have the bye).
Playoffs are top 3/middle 3/bottom x.
The top two brackets are 5RR, while the bottom is 7RR. The first five rounds use four packets from the bottom group from bracket B and an editor packet.
Now the top two brackets will play the three crossover games using the bracket B packets from the other playoff pool (ie 123 will play on the packets from 456 and vice versa).
The bottom bracket still has two rounds to go in their 7RR which can be played on bracket B packets from the top brackets.
Finals on an editor packet.

(Edit: The idea of the crossover games is to have two matches against your playoff bracket, I guess.)
Last edited by tabstop on Thu Jun 13, 2013 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Andrew Feist
The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man
Lulu
Posts: 73
Joined: Sun Nov 29, 2009 7:34 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man »

Though I think that going with one of Seth's schedules and not excluding teams would be the best plan, if the field is going to be capped at 17 teams, the "fairest" (by which I mean most efficient) way of distributing rights to play CO would be to rank teams by how much they value the ability to play CO and to select the top 17 teams on this ranking. A packet race approximates such a ranking, but it is imperfect because people don't have identical values on time, and some people are better at quickly writing questions than other people. One way to improve on the packet race approximation would be to give people the opportunity to buy and sell rights to play CO.

If someone who doesn't care that much about playing the tournament has a seat on a team, he can sell his seat on the team to someone who is willing to pay for it. Similarly, full teams can buy the rights of other full teams. Further, if someone believes that his CO experience would not be complete without being able to play against so-and-so, he can put his money where his mouth is and bundle with so-and-so to buy the right to a seat/team.

While the solution that I have described would not result in an ideal situation, it would be a Pareto improvement on what we currently have.
Alex Gerten
Wisconsin '12
Columbia '16
User avatar
No Rules Westbrook
Auron
Posts: 1238
Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:04 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by No Rules Westbrook »

Do you know what else might make your editing job a lot harder? Not having a packet by the very
capable writing team of Hart, Davis, Gioia, and Sorice.

This is aside from the present question- but, if you had to exclude teans, another much better option would have been to say "you must submit a packet by (insert date) - if I have more than 17 packets as of that date, then Im going to pick the 17 best packets and those teams play." See, now you actually have a rule that maximizes the quality of the tournament, unlike the "everyone race to the inbox" rule.
Ryan Westbrook, no affiliation whatsoever.

I am pure energy...and as ancient as the cosmos. Feeble creatures, GO!

Left here since birth...forgotten in the river of time...I've had an eternity to...ponder the meaning of things...and now I have an answer!
User avatar
The King's Flight to the Scots
Auron
Posts: 1645
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:11 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

No Rules Westbrook wrote:Do you know what else might make your editing job a lot harder? Not having a packet by the very
capable writing team of Hart, Davis, Gioia, and Sorice.
No writers are good enough that editing their packet takes negative effort. Try again.
This is aside from the present question- but, if you had to exclude teans, another much better option would have been to say "you must submit a packet by (insert date) - if I have more than 17 packets as of that date, then Im going to pick the 17 best packets and those teams play." See, now you actually have a rule that maximizes the quality of the tournament, unlike the "everyone race to the inbox" rule.
I still don't like the in-crowd dynamics of this rule--but regardless, it's too late now, stop offering suggestions that would have been useful a month ago.
Matt Bollinger
UVA '14, UVA '15
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Auroni »

Skepticism and Animal Feed wrote:I've never understood the Cult of the Supreme Round Robin that infected Chicago Open half a decade ago. Bracketing is good enough to determine the high school and collegiate national champions (all four of them), why isn't it good enough to determine the open champion? Don't give me the argument of "I want to play everybody!" or "I want to see all of the players!". If you are playing Chicago Open, odds are that not only have you played against and seen most of the players on other teams, you've likely gone to the Waffle House or Plato's Diner or Harold's with them at odd hours on multiple, non-consecutive occasions.

Also, now that the UCPD has decided to become a bunch of Little Giulianis, a round robin greatly increases the chances that CO will not be determined by a tossup on some obscure book, but by an officer's knock on the door.

With that rant out of the way, let's all recognize that Matt's only had bad choices in this situation. He could poop on people who signed up late, he could poop on people who submitted late, he could poop on players who were unpopular or less well-known, or he could (arguably) poop on everybody by adopting a sup-par schedule. Whatever he did, somebody would get pooped on, and those people and their allies would be in this thread calling Matt out on it.

Arguably, Matt's decision is the most far-sighted one. The very existence of quizbowl relies on people writing questions and on new players being engaged in the game at high levels. By not favoring new players over the cool kids, and favoring packet writers over non packet writers, Matt is favoring the future of the game. If you care about high-level quizbowl, you should be happy that we are having this problem in the first place. Indeed, if Chicago Open continues to grow at this pace, future editors will have no choice but to make it a shorter, bracketed tournament. Perhaps they’ll even have enough time to institute a potluck.
Apart from the Round Robin bit, this post is extremely good and everyone should take it to heart.
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
User avatar
setht
Auron
Posts: 1205
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:41 pm
Location: Columbus, Ohio

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by setht »

tabstop wrote:I think the idea is this:
Original brackets of 9/10 play 9RR on packets from bracket A (as they have the bye).
Playoffs are top 3/middle 3/bottom x.
The top two brackets are 5RR, while the bottom is 7RR. The first five rounds use four packets from the bottom group from bracket B and an editor packet.
Now the top two brackets will play the three crossover games using the bracket B packets from the other playoff pool (ie 123 will play on the packets from 456 and vice versa).
The bottom bracket still has two rounds to go in their 7RR which can be played on bracket B packets from the top brackets.
Finals on an editor packet.

(Edit: The idea of the crossover games is to have two matches against your playoff bracket, I guess.)
This is what I was proposing. To spell it out further:

Two prelim brackets (bracket 1: teams 1-10, bracket 2: teams a-i). Play a 9 round round-robin using packets a-i.

For convenience of notation, let's assume that teams are ordered by their finish within prelim bracket, so teams 1-3 are the top 3 teams in bracket 1, teams d-f are the 4th-to-6th-best teams in bracket 2, etc.

Three playoff brackets (top bracket: teams 1-3 and a-c; middle bracket: teams 4-6 and d-f; bottom bracket: teams 7-10 and g-i). Play a round-robin. This requires 5 rounds with no byes for the top and middle brackets, and 7 rounds with 1 bye/round for the bottom bracket. Use packets 7-10 for the first 4 rounds of the round robin, then an editors' packet for the last round of the round robin. Then play crossover matches in the top and middle brackets. This requires 3 more rounds with no byes in those brackets. Use packets 1-3 in the middle bracket, and packets 4-6 in the top bracket (and any one of the packet pairs (1,2), (1,5), (4,2), (4,5) in the bottom bracket).

Then run finals. The worst-case scenario is that teams 1 and 2 are in the finals; in this case, you can use packet 3 for one game of the finals (it's been read to the middle bracket but is blind to teams 1 and 2), then a second editors' packet for a second game if needed. This way, you need at most 2 editors' packets total. If you're worried about people discussing questions between brackets between rounds, you'll need a third editors' packet.

This format has 17 rounds before finals start, so it's the same as the 17-team RR schedule with the addition of one rebracketing after round 9. You need 2 editors' packets, which is also the case for 17-team RR, or 3 (one more than for 17-team RR) if you're worried about reusing a packet from the middle bracket crossover matches as a second finals packet.


If you're worried about time, or if you don't have 3 editors' packets and don't want to reuse a middle bracket crossover packet in the finals, you can cut the crossover matches. The bottom bracket takes 16 rounds to complete, while the top and middle brackets take 14 rounds. Then you run finals and you're done. In this scenario, you don't need any editors' packets. The downside is that each team plays some of its fellow bracket teams twice and others only once, but this may be better than running a beautifully balanced schedule that runs long and gets cut short by UCPD.

-Seth
Seth Teitler
Formerly UC Berkeley and U. Chicago
President of NAQT
Emeritus member of ACF
User avatar
setht
Auron
Posts: 1205
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:41 pm
Location: Columbus, Ohio

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by setht »

setht wrote:Three playoff brackets (top bracket: teams 1-3 and a-c; middle bracket: teams 4-6 and d-f; bottom bracket: teams 7-10 and g-i). Play a round-robin. This requires 5 rounds with no byes for the top and middle brackets, and 7 rounds with 1 bye/round for the bottom bracket. Use packets 7-10 for the first 4 rounds of the round robin, then an editors' packet for the last round of the round robin.
To clarify: the editors' packet is used in round 5 of the playoffs, which is the last round of the playoff round-robin for the top and middle brackets. It is round 5 of the 7-round round-robin for the bottom bracket. Rounds 6 and 7 of the bottom bracket round-robin can be played on any one of the packet pairs (1,2), (1,5), (4,2), or (4,5).

-Seth
Seth Teitler
Formerly UC Berkeley and U. Chicago
President of NAQT
Emeritus member of ACF
User avatar
The Ununtiable Twine
Auron
Posts: 1058
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:09 pm
Location: Lafayette, LA

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr. wrote:stop offering suggestions that would have been useful a month ago.
I believe this basically brings us to the heart of what I believe the actual problem to be. Matt, you are editing a tournament that is full of veterans and tournament directors. If you had the slightest notion that any decision that you made was going to result in some potentially negative side effects, then it might have been the best idea for you to simply ask for suggestions on what to do about the problem. Sure, you'll get some suggestions that you think are good and some suggestions that you think are bad, but at least everything is on the table and you can use your judgment to decide what is best. If you would have asked the community what it thought was best, then perhaps this suggestion would have been useful to you.

EDIT: If you already did this behind the scenes, then of course disregard the comment.
Jake Sundberg
Louisiana, Alabama
retired
User avatar
The King's Flight to the Scots
Auron
Posts: 1645
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:11 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

The Ununtiable Twine wrote:
Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr. wrote:stop offering suggestions that would have been useful a month ago.
I believe this basically brings us to the heart of what I believe the actual problem to be. Matt, you are editing a tournament that is full of veterans and tournament directors. If you had the slightest notion that any decision that you made was going to result in some potentially negative side effects, then it might have been the best idea for you to simply ask for suggestions on what to do about the problem. Sure, you'll get some suggestions that you think are good and some suggestions that you think are bad, but at least everything is on the table and you can use your judgment to decide what is best. If you would have asked the community what it thought was best, then perhaps this suggestion would have been useful to you.

EDIT: If you already did this behind the scenes, then of course disregard the comment.
I did ask several people I trust for their advice, and this suggestion would not have been useful to me.
Matt Bollinger
UVA '14, UVA '15
User avatar
Cheynem
Sin
Posts: 7220
Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Cheynem »

I feel a little guilty for kicking off the flood of ex post facto complaints in this thread, so I'll reiterate:

The ONLY thing that is fair *now* is to consider expanding the field and perhaps adopting one of the different schedules Seth or whoever has been suggesting. That's it. My intent in posting was to reiterate something that I'm sure Matt himself was aware of--that the way this went down wasn't very optimal and that future TD's of any such tournaments need to be careful--perhaps more formalizing registration and keeping a closer eye on field exigencies.
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota

"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
User avatar
The King's Flight to the Scots
Auron
Posts: 1645
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:11 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

Cheynem wrote:I feel a little guilty for kicking off the flood of ex post facto complaints in this thread, so I'll reiterate:

The ONLY thing that is fair *now* is to consider expanding the field and perhaps adopting one of the different schedules Seth or whoever has been suggesting. That's it. My intent in posting was to reiterate something that I'm sure Matt himself was aware of--that the way this went down wasn't very optimal and that future TD's of any such tournaments need to be careful--perhaps more formalizing registration and keeping a closer eye on field exigencies.
I agree with this completely. As I said above, it's looking like every tournament from now on is going to have to have email registration--that's not difficult and is kind of obvious in retrospect, but the informal methods I tried this time were a dismal failure.

I'm talking to Katy about Seth's schedule and whether it's workable. I'm not really following the bracketology here but I'm happy to consider it if it's not going to endanger the completion of the set or the tournament.
Last edited by The King's Flight to the Scots on Thu Jun 13, 2013 1:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Matt Bollinger
UVA '14, UVA '15
User avatar
No Rules Westbrook
Auron
Posts: 1238
Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:04 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by No Rules Westbrook »

I have no doubt it was discussed behind the scenes, in the wind tunnel of of the IRC cadre and amongst the next-gen yes men, who know way more than someone like me about how to put a tournament like this together

Seth's schedule wasnt hard to come up with- I:m sure the whiz kids would've happened upon it if they cared to try. Nothing in this conversation convinces me that they cared.

Its completely ridiculous to say that packets by very good writers do not vastly improve the quality of your tournament. Those of us who give some special privileges to certain players don't do it because we think theyre the coolest kids at school- we do it because those players know what the fuck theyre doing, way more than most players, and have proven it many times over
Ryan Westbrook, no affiliation whatsoever.

I am pure energy...and as ancient as the cosmos. Feeble creatures, GO!

Left here since birth...forgotten in the river of time...I've had an eternity to...ponder the meaning of things...and now I have an answer!
User avatar
fleurdelivre
Tidus
Posts: 535
Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 3:35 am
Location: ???

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by fleurdelivre »

Jumping in to note that I'm happy to run any schedule maximizing teams that meets the constraints of rooms/available packets/getting kicked out by UCPD - and that I don't yet have a complete staff roster and sincerely hope to prevent moderators from being a constraint as well.

Consider this an invitation for any would-be CO players who don't have packets in to consider moderating?
Katy
Vanderbilt '06 / Harvard '11 / freelance moderator
User avatar
setht
Auron
Posts: 1205
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:41 pm
Location: Columbus, Ohio

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by setht »

Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr. wrote:I'm talking to Katy about Seth's schedule and whether it's workable. I'm not really following the bracketology here but I'm happy to consider it if it's not going to endanger the completion of the set or the tournament.
If anything is unclear, or if there are additional constraints (rooms, staff, packets, buzzers, whatever) to be considered, I'm happy to help by email or on here or in IRC or whatever—just let me know.

-Seth
Seth Teitler
Formerly UC Berkeley and U. Chicago
President of NAQT
Emeritus member of ACF
User avatar
The King's Flight to the Scots
Auron
Posts: 1645
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:11 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

The Sorice team submitted a packet. We are now at 17 teams, and under the current standards the field is full. I'm still going to consider the 19-team option, though I'm going to note that there are vague rumors about teams not wanting to come, so I'm contacting teams to resolve those issues before I expand the field. Thank you for your patience.
Matt Bollinger
UVA '14, UVA '15
User avatar
Tees-Exe Line
Tidus
Posts: 623
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2010 5:02 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Tees-Exe Line »

This is a reminder that if you want to come to the CO barbecue on Friday night (July 19th), please RSVP to me by email ([email protected]). We will in face be running the side tournament of British questions thanks to Edmund Dickinson. That will be a three-round, four-team (I hope) round robin, and I'm imagining one of those scenes in Star Wars where the storm-troopers come at Jeff Hoppes one by one, only to be dispatched by his light sabre of knowledge about Britain. So let me know if you're coming to partake of that opportunity.
Marshall I. Steinbaum

Oxford University (2002-2005)
University of Chicago (2008-2014)
University of Utah (2019- )

Get in the elevator.
Edmund
Wakka
Posts: 176
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2010 8:25 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Edmund »

Tees-Exe Line wrote:We will in fact be running the side tournament of British questions thanks to Edmund Dickinson. That will be a three-round, four-team (I hope) round robin, and I'm imagining one of those scenes in Star Wars where the storm-troopers come at Jeff Hoppes one by one, only to be dispatched by his light sabre of knowledge about Britain. So let me know if you're coming to partake of that opportunity.
To flesh this idea out somewhat, I have prepared three packets of 20/20 plus 1/1 spare each of a tentatively named "Wee British Tournament", using the questions written by British authors to adapt the ICT Div II set into the British Student Quiz Championships this year. Time and interest permitting, we could accommodate an informal three-round four-team round robin in which Marshall and Jeff would each play solo as two of the teams.

The approximate distribution is 7/7 History, 4/4 Literature, 4/4 Geography, 2/2 Current Events, 4/4 Trash, spanning British, Irish, and "British interest" topics. I have taken the opportunity to fix typos and to correct questions that have become factually inaccurate in the last two months, but no effort whatsoever has been made to otherwise edit questions to take account of facts like that they are not being read to Britons, that they may be fraudable because they are known to have a particularly British answer, etc.
Edmund Dickinson
UK Quizbowl
University of Oxford '11
User avatar
Cheynem
Sin
Posts: 7220
Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Cheynem »

Apparently my van is going to be at the BBQ, so I'd like to play this. I can get questions on "Fancy a Jar, Do You?" and "Don't You Go Runnin' Roun to Re Ro"
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota

"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
User avatar
fleurdelivre
Tidus
Posts: 535
Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 3:35 am
Location: ???

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by fleurdelivre »

LOGISTICS UPDATE:

We'll be meeting in Cobb Hall (map) on Saturday morning. We should have access to the building starting at 8am; plan to arrive then, because we'll keep the kick-off meeting short and begin play at the earliest possible moment. The format will be a full 17-team round robin.

Your friendly staff will be Joe Su on stats, with the Brothers Gauthier (Greg & Paul), Saul Hankin, Brice Russ, Mike Laudermith, David Madden, Jacob O'Rourke, and Bryan Berend moderating. Bye teams are encouraged to moderate or scorekeep to help provide breaks for these folks.

We've got four buzzer systems courtesy of the UChicago team; if you have access to others, please bring them.

Lunch planning is underway in this thread.

See you all soon!
Last edited by fleurdelivre on Tue Jul 16, 2013 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Katy
Vanderbilt '06 / Harvard '11 / freelance moderator
User avatar
Matt Weiner
Sin
Posts: 8145
Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2003 8:34 pm
Location: Richmond, VA

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Matt Weiner »

I'd also suggest scheduling lunch for 2 PM in order to help people endure later in the day.
Let me modify this suggestion to "order the food such that it is supposed to arrive at 2, but don't start lunch until after whatever round it actually arrives during." Last year everything ground to a halt at 1:45 and the pizza didn't get there until 2:15. A 15-minute delay in a free lunch shouldn't have upset anyone, but a total of 30 minutes of downtime meant that we could have just played another round.
Matt Weiner
Advisor to Quizbowl at Virginia Commonwealth University / Founder of hsquizbowl.org
User avatar
fleurdelivre
Tidus
Posts: 535
Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 3:35 am
Location: ???

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by fleurdelivre »

Mike Bentley wrote:I suggest that registration be moved to as early as possible to allow more time to play the tournament. Last year we started at 8:30 AM and tried to run as efficiently as possible but still faced a danger of getting kicked out.
Duly edited. I was accounting for it taking at least a short while for the moderating staff to get organized and set up rooms, but we'll try and multi-thread that as much as possible.
Katy
Vanderbilt '06 / Harvard '11 / freelance moderator
User avatar
Mike Bentley
Sin
Posts: 6461
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2006 11:03 pm
Location: Bellevue, WA
Contact:

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Mike Bentley »

Mike Bentley wrote:
I'd also suggest scheduling lunch for 2 PM in order to help people endure later in the day.
Let me modify this suggestion to "order the food such that it is supposed to arrive at 2, but don't start lunch until after whatever round it actually arrives during." Last year everything ground to a halt at 1:45 and the pizza didn't get there until 2:15. A 15-minute delay in a free lunch shouldn't have upset anyone, but a total of 30 minutes of downtime meant that we could have just played another round.
Did some admin edit this post or something? I didn't post this.
Mike Bentley
Treasurer, Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence
Adviser, Quizbowl Team at University of Washington
University of Maryland, Class of 2008
User avatar
Matt Weiner
Sin
Posts: 8145
Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2003 8:34 pm
Location: Richmond, VA

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Matt Weiner »

Sorry, I accidentally pressed "edit" instead of "quote" on your post.
Matt Weiner
Advisor to Quizbowl at Virginia Commonwealth University / Founder of hsquizbowl.org
Susan
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 1812
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2003 12:43 am

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Susan »

fleurdelivre wrote:LOGISTICS UPDATE:

We'll be meeting in Cobb Hall (map) on Saturday morning. We should have access to the building starting at 8am; plan to arrive then, because we'll keep the kick-off meeting short and begin play at the earliest possible moment. The format will be a full 17-team round robin.

Your friendly staff will be Joe Su on stats, with the Brothers Gauthier (Greg & Paul), Saul Hankin, Brice Russ, Mike Laudermith, David Madden, Jacob O'Rourke, and Bryan Berend moderating. Bye teams are encouraged to moderate or scorekeep to help provide breaks for these folks.

We've got four buzzer systems courtesy of the UChicago team; if you have access to others, please bring them.

Lunch planning is underway in this thread.

See you all soon!
I will be around Hyde Park in the morning (but only in the morning) and can help moderate if needed. I'd mentioned this to Marshall a few days ago, who said he'd tell Katy, but it occurs to me that Quizbowl Telephone is probably not the most efficient way to get things done.
Susan
UChicago alum (AB 2003, PhD 2009)
Member emerita, ACF
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by jonah »

Susan wrote:I will be around Hyde Park in the morning (but only in the morning) and can help moderate if needed. I'd mentioned this to Marshall a few days ago, who said he'd tell Katy, but it occurs to me that Quizbowl Telephone is probably not the most efficient way to get things done.
Conversely, I can be around in the afternoon/evening if necessary (I'm not sure starting at exactly when, but probably by 2 or so). Call, text, or email me if I'm needed.
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
User avatar
merv1618
Tidus
Posts: 719
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:43 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by merv1618 »

If anyone cares, I have some homegrown trash I could read during lunch on Saturday or Sunday. More for novelty than anything else.
Adam Sperber
Hickman '10
Northwestern B '14
Loyola (inactive) '21

" 'Yay, more Adam Sperber' --Nobody " --Cody Voight
Great Bustard
Auron
Posts: 1463
Joined: Sun Aug 29, 2010 9:23 pm
Location: DC, NJ, and everywhere else
Contact:

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Great Bustard »

Tees-Exe Line wrote:This is a reminder that if you want to come to the CO barbecue on Friday night (July 19th), please RSVP to me by email ([email protected]). We will in face be running the side tournament of British questions thanks to Edmund Dickinson. That will be a three-round, four-team (I hope) round robin, and I'm imagining one of those scenes in Star Wars where the storm-troopers come at Jeff Hoppes one by one, only to be dispatched by his light sabre of knowledge about Britain. So let me know if you're coming to partake of that opportunity.
Can someone post as to when and where the barbecue begins, and specifically, when British Bowl begins?
David Madden
Ridgewood (NJ) '99, Princeton '03
Founder and Director: International History Bee and Bowl, National History Bee and Bowl (High School Division), International History Olympiad, United States Geography Olympiad, US History Bee, US Academic Bee and Bowl, National Humanities Bee, National Science Bee, International Academic Bowl.
Adviser and former head coach for Team USA at the International Geography Olympiad
User avatar
Tees-Exe Line
Tidus
Posts: 623
Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2010 5:02 pm

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Tees-Exe Line »

Standard-winged Nightjar wrote:
Tees-Exe Line wrote:This is a reminder that if you want to come to the CO barbecue on Friday night (July 19th), please RSVP to me by email ([email protected]). We will in face be running the side tournament of British questions thanks to Edmund Dickinson. That will be a three-round, four-team (I hope) round robin, and I'm imagining one of those scenes in Star Wars where the storm-troopers come at Jeff Hoppes one by one, only to be dispatched by his light sabre of knowledge about Britain. So let me know if you're coming to partake of that opportunity.
Can someone post as to when and where the barbecue begins, and specifically, when British Bowl begins?
The barbecue is officially called for 6 PM. I don't know yet when British Bowl will begin, but probably around 8:00-8:30 PM.
Marshall I. Steinbaum

Oxford University (2002-2005)
University of Chicago (2008-2014)
University of Utah (2019- )

Get in the elevator.
User avatar
Sam
Rikku
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:35 am

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Sam »

Maybe a little late to ask, but do any of the people providing food (either for lunch or barbecue) want any sort of monetary reimbursement from those partaking?
Sam Bailey
Minnesota '21
Chicago '13
User avatar
fleurdelivre
Tidus
Posts: 535
Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 3:35 am
Location: ???

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by fleurdelivre »

Susan wrote: I will be around Hyde Park in the morning (but only in the morning) and can help moderate if needed. I'd mentioned this to Marshall a few days ago, who said he'd tell Katy, but it occurs to me that Quizbowl Telephone is probably not the most efficient way to get things done.
jonah wrote: Conversely, I can be around in the afternoon/evening if necessary (I'm not sure starting at exactly when, but probably by 2 or so). Call, text, or email me if I'm needed.
We should be adequately staffed, but I never turn down celebrity cameos. If either of you would like to read a round or two, absolutely stop by. Drop me a line at kathryn dot e dot peters at gmail if you need/want additional details.
Katy
Vanderbilt '06 / Harvard '11 / freelance moderator
User avatar
Habitat_Against_Humanity
Rikku
Posts: 476
Joined: Sun Jan 21, 2007 8:51 pm
Location: Syracuse, NY

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Habitat_Against_Humanity »

I'm not a celebrity, but I might drop by at lunchtime if anyone wants to pay me in advance for Sunday's trash tournament. Advance payment would be nice to streamline things Sunday morning. Also, one or two more staffers could be a help. I have enough, but having scorekeepers would help a lot, especially if a laptop were to break or something similar.
Rachel
UChicago 09
Great Bustard
Auron
Posts: 1463
Joined: Sun Aug 29, 2010 9:23 pm
Location: DC, NJ, and everywhere else
Contact:

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Great Bustard »

Sam wrote:Maybe a little late to ask, but do any of the people providing food (either for lunch or barbecue) want any sort of monetary reimbursement from those partaking?
Not for me, for lunch on Saturday. NHBB is sponsoring it.
David Madden
Ridgewood (NJ) '99, Princeton '03
Founder and Director: International History Bee and Bowl, National History Bee and Bowl (High School Division), International History Olympiad, United States Geography Olympiad, US History Bee, US Academic Bee and Bowl, National Humanities Bee, National Science Bee, International Academic Bowl.
Adviser and former head coach for Team USA at the International Geography Olympiad
Susan
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 1812
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2003 12:43 am

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Susan »

fleurdelivre wrote: We should be adequately staffed, but I never turn down celebrity cameos. If either of you would like to read a round or two, absolutely stop by. Drop me a line at kathryn dot e dot peters at gmail if you need/want additional details.
If you guys are adequately staffed, I will spare myself the 6:30AM train and make other plans. Have fun!
Susan
UChicago alum (AB 2003, PhD 2009)
Member emerita, ACF
User avatar
fleurdelivre
Tidus
Posts: 535
Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 3:35 am
Location: ???

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by fleurdelivre »

After a brief moment of worry when the packets (and editor) were the last remaining bottleneck as of 8:25, we're now one round down as of 9:20am CDT. I'll post updates as possible, but given that I don't yet have access to the uchicago wireless network...
Katy
Vanderbilt '06 / Harvard '11 / freelance moderator
User avatar
fleurdelivre
Tidus
Posts: 535
Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 3:35 am
Location: ???

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by fleurdelivre »

fleurdelivre wrote:After a brief moment of worry when the packets (and editor) were the last remaining bottleneck as of 8:25, we're now one round down as of 9:20am CDT. I'll post updates as possible, but given that I don't yet have access to the uchicago wireless network...
Actually, given that I can't connect via my laptop, more regular updates will almost certainly be on the #chiopen hashtag I've been using on twitter. About to post a scoreboard update photo there.
Katy
Vanderbilt '06 / Harvard '11 / freelance moderator
User avatar
Fado Alexandrino
Yuna
Posts: 834
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 8:46 pm
Location: Farhaven, Ontario

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

Lunch should be from 2:10 to 2:50 and round 9 should begin no later than 3:00 pm
Stats after 8 are here: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... _after_10/
The official hashtag on twitter is #chiopen
Joe Su, OCT
Lisgar 2012, McGill 2015, McGill 2019, Queen's 2020
User avatar
Fado Alexandrino
Yuna
Posts: 834
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 8:46 pm
Location: Farhaven, Ontario

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

Joe Su, OCT
Lisgar 2012, McGill 2015, McGill 2019, Queen's 2020
User avatar
fleurdelivre
Tidus
Posts: 535
Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 3:35 am
Location: ???

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by fleurdelivre »

The Audubon Has No Speed Limit (Seth, Selene, Jeff, and John) cleared the field outright after 17 rounds, precluding the need for a final. Individual stats and complete results to follow shortly.

Thanks to everyone who made running this tournament possible: Joe Su, Paul and Greg Gauthier, Brice Russ, Mike Laudermith, David Madden, Jacob O'Rourke, Saul Hankin, Bryan Berend, Allison (LNU? Sorice, please share my gratitude), and Marshall Steinbaum.
Katy
Vanderbilt '06 / Harvard '11 / freelance moderator
User avatar
Fado Alexandrino
Yuna
Posts: 834
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 8:46 pm
Location: Farhaven, Ontario

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... standings/

Congrats to Jeff, Seth, John, and Selene!
Joe Su, OCT
Lisgar 2012, McGill 2015, McGill 2019, Queen's 2020
User avatar
Fado Alexandrino
Yuna
Posts: 834
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 8:46 pm
Location: Farhaven, Ontario

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

http://tinyurl.com/lbs7pc8 has a recording of Matt Weiner's team vs Rob Carson's team
Joe Su, OCT
Lisgar 2012, McGill 2015, McGill 2019, Queen's 2020
User avatar
naan/steak-holding toll
Auron
Posts: 2515
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:53 pm
Location: New York, NY

Re: Chicago Open 2013 (7/20-21/13)

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Tees-Exe Line wrote:
Standard-winged Nightjar wrote:
Tees-Exe Line wrote:This is a reminder that if you want to come to the CO barbecue on Friday night (July 19th), please RSVP to me by email ([email protected]). We will in face be running the side tournament of British questions thanks to Edmund Dickinson. That will be a three-round, four-team (I hope) round robin, and I'm imagining one of those scenes in Star Wars where the storm-troopers come at Jeff Hoppes one by one, only to be dispatched by his light sabre of knowledge about Britain. So let me know if you're coming to partake of that opportunity.
Can someone post as to when and where the barbecue begins, and specifically, when British Bowl begins?
The barbecue is officially called for 6 PM. I don't know yet when British Bowl will begin, but probably around 8:00-8:30 PM.
Did this happen? And if it did, could somebody post the questions - I'd love to play them at practice.
Will Alston
Dartmouth College '16
Columbia Business School '21
Locked