Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

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Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by wizkalisa »

The Purdue Academic Team will mirror Chris Borglum's Delta Burke tournament on its West Lafayette, Indiana campus on Saturday, November 15. The tournament is open to all teams, but understand the questions are written for a less-experienced audience. Community college teams and teams with players in their first two years of collegiate quiz bowl will be best-suited to these questions, but we won't turn anyone away. If possible/necessary we'll make divisions pitting teams of like experience against one another.

FEES/DISCOUNTS:

Base fee: $100/team
Buzzer discount: $5 per buzzer used
Moderator discount: $15 per moderator used
Discount for travel more than 200 miles one-way: $15 (per team, schools are eligible for multiple discounts)

Included in your entry fee will be continental breakfast and prizes presented to the top teams and scorers (and maybe even a neg prize). Register by e-mailing tournament director and PUAT president Andrew Marcotte at [email protected].

Fall is beautiful in Indiana. Hope to see many of you in a few weeks!
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by Ben Dillon »

How about good high school teams?
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by wizkalisa »

Yes we will accept high school teams. However high school teams must be aware that they will be competing against college teams unless we have enough for a high school bracket. We encourage high school teams who are experienced in competing and confident to come to our tournament.
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by Potatoes »

Do you have a field update?
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by wizkalisa »

Currently we have two teams from NMU, two from NIU and one from Northwestern attending this tournament
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by wizkalisa »

This tournament has been cancelled due to lack of teams. We apologize for this but we plan to host a tournament in the spring so please keep an eye out for that!
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by Mewto55555 »

That's unfortunate; UChicago was planning on bringing at least two and just hadn't gotten a concrete number to register. Were any other teams coming to this?

Edit: wait I just saw the above; is this still too small?
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by stanjast »

Having several teams from Chicago might make the tournament feasible, assuming other teams haven't already canceled their travel plans. Teams that had previously signaled their intention to play, as well as a representative from U of C, can expect an e-mail today. We can try to put this back together, so stay tuned.

I guess the folks from NIU, Northwestern and Northern Michigan can also reply here saying whether they can still come, given this new development, too.

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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by amarcot »

Ok, with a few teams from Chicago and everyone else still being able to attend, we should have enough. Max, can you email me at [email protected] with team numbers once you have them? I'll post again later once we confirm if we have enough or not. And if any other schools were interested, please let me know ASAP. Thanks
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by mjoy »

Sorry, I don't think NMU can make it. It's 8 hours of driving and requires some logistical work in advance. We had made hotel and van reservations, I'd asked for money from administration, and I'd told my family I was going to be gone next weekend. Then I got an email from Purdue saying the event was canceled. So I canceled the reservations, told administration we didn't need the money, and told my kids I'd be home this weekend. I don't think I can pull the rug out from under them now.

I do wish that U of C had communicated with the Purdue organizers earlier, via email--instead of making a post 4.5 days before the tournament was set to start--so that they could have made an informed decision about whether or not to hold the tournament.

If our status changes, I will email the organizers.
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by ThisIsMyUsername »

I'm not currently responsible for the operational, administrative parts of the running of the Chicago team, such as tournament registration, so I'm commenting now less in my capacity as a member of the team, and more as someone who has both run teams and directed tournaments.

I think it's common courtesy for teams that are interested in attending to express interest with a minimum of a week's notice, and ideally with much more notice than that, so that a tournament director can get a good estimate of the staffing resources they will require, and give some advanced thought to scheduling options. The fact that UChicago dragged its feet on this tournament registration was certainly non-ideal. This is not the first time this has happened, and I'm going to try to do what I can to make sure this doesn't happen again. I strongly encourage club presidents to think of timely registrations as part of being considerate towards tournament directors, and therefore being a good citizen of the community.

That being said, tournament directors should know that teams are often lazy about sign-ups, and that you can't assume that the sign-ups you've received are an accurate picture of who is thinking of coming to a tournament. When your tournament date is nearing and you're worrying about your field size, you should e-mail the teams in your region that you haven't heard from yet, explain the circumstances, and ask them to let you know of their plans as soon as possible. This is not an ethical "should" on the host's part (indeed, in an ideal world, you shouldn't have to do this), but this is a pragmatic "should". This is a much better course of action than making decisions based on what is likely fairly incomplete data.
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by Potatoes »

I emailed who I assume is the TD, but I'll also post here. NIU made other plans between when this tournament was cancelled, and when it was un-cancelled. So, we won't be in attendance.
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

I also have made plans to visit my family this weekend since the tournament was cancelled, so we'll be unable to make it. We would be interested in coming if it was held in the spring though.
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by DumbJaques »

I do wish that U of C had communicated with the Purdue organizers earlier, via email--instead of making a post 4.5 days before the tournament was set to start--so that they could have made an informed decision about whether or not to hold the tournament.
Since it seems rather unlikely people all made plans to cancel reservations, return home for the weekend, etc. etc. in the 3-hour span from 8:00 to 11:00 PM Monday night, I'm assuming the cancellation email preceded the post significantly. If not, well, I guess your van rental operators work some curious hours.
If that is the case though, I'm going to echo John and say Purdue really did not conform to standard practice in this case (I'll similarly note I'm not involved in logistical planning, and that in an ideal world we'd have registered earlier than a week out).

In particular, NMU's complaints about Chicago's role in this are pretty misguided. It's frankly bizarre that a tournament that was facing cancellation wouldn't have notified teams - as John said, by emailing local clubs, but barring that at LEAST by posting in this thread. It's silly to characterize a not-even-11th-hour registration as the problem when you have the hosts making a sudden "surprise, the tournament is cancelled" post with absolutely no warning.
Also, and no less importantly, from what I can tell this was shaping up to be a 6-team tournament (5 registered teams and a house team, which you assume a host should be able to field when they agree to mirror a set like Delta Burke). That's on the smaller side, but by no means unusual and definitely not an automatic cancellation. In fact, I'm still kind of curious why Purdue cancelled the tournament; 6-team events run all the time. If you had like 2, sure, but this only makes the sudden cancellation stranger and less defensible. It seems to me that Purdue is responsible for the short-circuit here, not Chicago.
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by Cody »

UChicago goes to far more events than anyone else involved in this conversation. If UChicago had any plans to bring any teams, they should've e-mailed Purdue a long time ago registering some number of teams. As experienced members of the circuit, UChicago should know that "e-mail a ballpark number of teams and adjust up/down later" is how things are done. Or at the least an "expression of interest", as people are wont to call it.

NMU's complaints, in particular, are spot on and correct. UChicago is the only school in the wrong here.

When was the last time Purdue or anyone involved with the Purdue team hosted a tournament? I don't think jumping on them is in any way right here when Purdue is very new to the circuit's norms and the team who does know the circuit's norms failed, spectacularly, to adhere to them. I don't think it's in any way "frankly bizarre" that a team hosting for the first time in recent memory failed to do what you'd expect from experienced quizbowl schools, and I'm not surprised that they then made plans to try to host in the spring.

I wish Purdue luck in their future hosting endeavors; John gives particularly good advice here.

As a sidenote, the idea that schools not-as-involved-as-Chicago are checking the boards at all hours of the night and day is pretty crazy. And very wrong! The same goes for a house team -- not every team is capable of staffing even a small tournament and having a house team!
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Re: Delta Burke Mirror Tournament (11/15/14) at Purdue

Post by stanjast »

For some background information on this (and, more importantly, by way of recognizing those who go to great lengths to help the QB community), I want to give massive thanks to Alec Krueger at NIU throughout all of this. He not only agreed to give up what was NIU's right to host the tourney so that Purdue might get the experience of doing it, but he also (weeks ago) sent an e-mail to a bunch of his Midwestern contacts asking people to come to the tourney when it seemed the field was small. So, many thanks to Alec for going FAR out of his way to help.

Lots to be learned, for sure, on many sides. We all probably could have communicated better -- no need to place blame -- and from this we'll glean that and move forward.
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