Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

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Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Shorts are comfy and easy to wear »

I am pleased to announce Chicago Open 2023. The date will be determined by an upcoming poll and the location will be announced at a later date.

Production Team

Head Editors: Henry Atkins, Alex Fregeau

Literature

American Literature, World Literature: Henry Atkins
British Literature, European Literature: Arya Karthik

History

Alex Fregeau

Science

Physics, Math, Biology (Molecular, Evolutionary, Ecology, Genetics): David Bass
Biology (Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology): Itamar Naveh-Benjamin
Chemistry: Gerhardt Hinkle
Earth Science: Dan Ni
Computer Science: Alistair Gray
Astronomy, Engineering, Applied Science, Cross Science Advising: Davis Everson-Rose

Fine Arts

Auditory Fine Arts: Jacob Egol, advised by Young Fenimore Lee
Visual Fine Arts: Ganon Evans
Other Fine Arts: Victor Pavao

BPSS, Geo/Modern World/Other

Beliefs: Kevin Thomas
Social Science: Ryan Rosenberg
Philosophy, Geo/Modern World/Other: Caleb Kendrick

TDs: Em Gunter, Young Fenimore Lee

Writers: Ankit Aggarwal, Mike Bentley, Eddie Kim, Young Fenimore Lee, Tim Morrison, Ani Perumalla, Jonathen Settle, Jonathan Shauf, Noah Sheidlower, Munir Siddiqui, Ashish Subramanian, Ivvone Zhou

Set Vision

We’re seeking to produce a well-executed, intellectually engaging, and sane version of CO. While we still want this to be the hardest mainstream set of the year, it should go no further than that. Through vigilant difficulty control, we will try to produce a tournament that is no
harder than the 2022 Chicago Open. In fact, we will consider it desirable if early buzzes increase from last year and if at least one team breaks 20 ppb. During production, answerlines will be distributed by difficulty as such: 50% appropriate for ACF Regionals; 35% appropriate for ACF Nationals; 15% extracanonical/CO only. We are also instituting hard 8-line caps on both tossups and bonuses before power marking and pronunciation guides.

Distribution

4/4 Literature

1/1 American
1/1 British
1/1 European
1/1 World

4/4 History

1/1 American
1/1 European
1/1 World
1/1 Other (Classical/Commonwealth/Historiography/Archaeology/Cross-Regional)

4/4 Science

1/1 Biology
1/1 Chemistry + Earth Science (.8 Chemistry + .2 Earth Science)
1/1 Physics + Astronomy (.8 physics + .2 Astronomy)
1/1 Other (math, statistics, CS, engineering, and applied science)

3/3 Fine Arts

1/1 Auditory (including opera)
1/1 Visual
1/1 Other

1.5/1.5 Beliefs

1/1 Philosophy

1/1 Social Science

1.5/1.5 Geo/Modern World/Other

Packet Submission
All teams will be required to submit an 18/18 packet. The editors will issue a 20/20 distro upon registration. Each team will have the option to not write 2/2 of their choosing, informing the editors of their choices prior to submitting the packet. The distros will increase in specificity the later a team registers. For example, the first team to register will have little to no restrictions on answerlines within each subdistro, while the last team may get distros like “World History, East Asia” or “European Literature, Italy”.

Submission Schedule and Fees

Base Fee: $300

Deadlines end at 11:59 PM Pacific Time. Packets should be sent to Young Fenimore Lee at youngflee99 AT gmail DOT com.

April 15: -$100
April 29: -$50
May 13: -$25
May 27: $0
June 10: +$25
June 24: +$50
July 8: +$100
Each day after July 8: +$10
July 22: team is dropped from the tournament

Quality Discount: -$50

Field Cap: 20 teams

Unofficial Team Formation/Staff Signup Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Filling out the spreadsheet does not constitute registration. Email Young Fenimore Lee at youngflee99 AT gmail DOT com to officially register.

Registered Teams
Last edited by Shorts are comfy and easy to wear on Wed Apr 05, 2023 1:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023

Post by Cheynem »

I don't know if we want another thread for matchmaking, but I'm looking for a team. I generally write promptly and I generally arrive on time. I generally don't answer questions.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023

Post by meebles127 »

Date poll can be found here: viewtopic.php?t=26749
Em Gunter
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Re: Chicago Open 2023

Post by meebles127 »

Cheynem wrote: Wed Feb 15, 2023 10:51 pm I don't know if we want another thread for matchmaking, but I'm looking for a team. I generally write promptly and I generally arrive on time. I generally don't answer questions.
viewtopic.php?t=26750
Em Gunter
Club President, University of Virginia
Tournament Director, 2023 Chicago Open
Assistant Tournament Director, 2022 and 2023 ACF Nationals

Author of: My Guide to High School Outreach and So You Want to Buy a Buzzer System

"That's got to be one of the most useful skills anyone has ever gotten from quizbowl." -John Lawrence
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Re: Chicago Open 2023

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

FZed the last couple of posts by tournament editor request. There's not a rule against joking posts in general, even in tournament announcement threads, but please don't make potentially misleading maybe-jokes like the one that just got exiled.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023

Post by Gene Harrogate »

A slight update: Gerhardt Hinkle is now editing chemistry for this year's Chicago Open. Dan Ni remains the earth science editor.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023

Post by Gene Harrogate »

This tournament will be held Saturday, August 5th at Northwestern University. Please note that the Northwestern club cannot officially secure rooms before the beginning of the summer, and that this date may be subject to change in case of unexpected issues.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Shorts are comfy and easy to wear »

The first, -$100 deadline is next Saturday, April 15 at 11:59 PM PST. We look forward to receiving your submissions.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

I'll keep track of the registrations in this post and keep them up-to-date via edits. If you're on this list, and I haven't gotten back to you yet with a distribution, hang tight — I'll get it to you ASAP. You're free to email me as a reminder if I still haven't replied in a bit, though. If you're on this list, you are registered, and if you don't have a distribution yet, one will be sent posthaste.

The discount deadlines each team submits their packet by will be included in brackets! Tilde (~) means "yet to be received." I'll list the teams in registration order.

Field (20/20)
TBA (Charles Hang, Jeremy Cummings, James Orefice, ar Ramji) [~]
TBA (Conor Thompson, Joy An, Joel Miles, Ethan Ashbrook) [April 15]
TBA (Zach Foster, Shahar Schwartz, Jason Golfinos, Taylor Harvey) [April 29]
TBA (Eric Bobrow, Seth Ebner, Alexander Nero, Cyrus Zhou) [April 15]
Kevin or Las Vegas (Vincent Du, Jim Fan, Vittal Bhat, Henry Goff) [May 27]
Curse you, Periplus the Platypus! (John Lawrence, Eric Mukherjee, Will Alston, Stephen Liu) [April 29]
TBA (Ali Hamzeh, Connor Blake, Cole Hartung, Vedul Palavajjhala) [May 27]
BHSU (Tejas Raje, Andrew Hart, Billy Busse, Rob Carson) [June 10]
I would prefer not to (Jason Cheng, Richard Yu, Corry Wang, Kevin Wang) [June 10]
The anti-STOON-dahl cabal (Ophir Lifshitz, Jinah Kim, Rahul Keyal, Andrew Wang) [July 8]
TBA (Tracy Mirkin, Aseems.db Keyal, Adam Fine, Nick Jensen) [May 27]
Legomachy (Jordan Brownstein, Matt Jackson, Will Nediger, Geoffrey Chen) [May 27]
TBA (Raul Passement, Jaskaran Singh, Jason Shi, William Golden) [July 8]
TBA (Matt Bollinger, Daniel Hothem, Mike Sorice, Ethan Strombeck) [July 8]
TBA (Chris Ray, Jerry Vinokurov) [~]
TBA (Paul Kasinski, Rein Otsason, Milan Fernandez, Chris Sims) [partial as of June 10]
Don't Be Afraid, the Clown's Afraid Too (Mitch McCullar, Iain Carpenter, Justin Wytmar) [June 10]
Evans Hall destruction awaiters (Kevin Ye, Michael Coates, Swapnil Garg, Steven Yuan) [June 10]
TBA (John Marvin, Anderson Wang, Kenji Shimizu, Connor Mayers) [June 24]
TBA (Halle Friedman, Vishwa Shanmugam, Emmett Laurie) [July 8]

Thank you all!
Last edited by Dantooine is Big! on Tue Jul 11, 2023 10:30 am, edited 11 times in total.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

I would like to announce we will be running tournaments on film side event On Cinema at the Buzzer and history side event COLONIAL on Sunday, August 6 at the same venue as the CO main event. At the end of the day, we will run a shootout on CANONINFLATION for those who wish to stick around for it. More details about specific times, schedule, and registration will come out at a later time.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

A reminder that the $0 deadline is a week from now.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

This is an announcement that we will tentatively set the field cap at 20 teams pending availability. We currently have 19 teams registered, so any teams that register beyond a 20th will be placed on a waitlist.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

I have sent everyone whose names and email addresses are on the team formation spreadsheet marked under "Staffer" an email. If you are interested in staffing this tournament, or know anyone else who is, please reach out to me directly via either forum DM or email (youngflee99 at gmail dot com) for more information. Thank you!
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

I am pleased to announce that the schedule for the side events on Sunday has been finalized. We will begin on Sunday at 8am at the same venue as the CO main event running history side event COLONIAL concurrently with the computer science side event EMACS. When both events have ended, we will have a short lunch break and afterwards run film side event On Cinema at the Buzzer. As soon as On Cinema at the Buzzer finishes, we will run a shootout on CANONINFLATION and wrap up the day. I will link to announcement threads or posts / registration information here for these mirrors as they arise. I look forward to seeing you all in Evanston!

On Cinema at the Buzzer @ CO
COLONIAL @ CO
EMACS @ CO
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

Hi all, we at CO are pleased to announce we have confirmed room reservations in the Tech building on Northwestern campus for both Saturday's main CO event and Sunday's side events.

Upon confirmation of the room reservations, we were informed that the Tech building does not have any gender neutral bathrooms. We are currently considering logistical options regarding an accessible gender neutral bathroom (the most extreme option being to change the venue to a different building on campus and reserve rooms there instead). If anyone has any strong preferences or prospective needs regarding a gender neutral bathroom at the tournament, please let us know by either contacting me (my email is youngflee99 at gmail dot com), Em (vef2jj at virginia dot edu), or any of the head editors directly or by posting in this thread so we can be aware of people's needs.

The field is currently filled at 20 teams. We are looking to expand the field, and have contacted all of the free agents listed on the unofficial team formation spreadsheet linked in the OP as well as one waitlisted team. If you are a free agent but never listed yourself on that spreadsheet / was never contacted regarding potential field expansion, please get in touch / contact me directly (email in the paragraph above).

If you are interested in staffing this tournament but have not yet filled out the staffing interest form, please do so at this link. We are still actively looking for more staff and would love to have more people help out.

The +$50 penalty deadline is this Saturday. We look forward to receiving your submissions.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

Hello all, if you're a free agent still interested in playing CO and I have not already contacted you, please contact me directly ASAP — this is probably your last chance to potentially play.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

We are currently looking for people willing to join the protest committee for the 2023 Chicago Open. You need not be in Chicago to participate, all deliberation will be taking place via Slack. We are particularly looking for people who are able to judge protests in the following subjects: science (all), mythology, and music. If you are interested in helping, please email me at vef2jj AT virginia DOT edu.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

I just sent an email with the subject line of "Chicago Open 2023 Team Names and Roster Confirmations" to the team contact for all registered teams.

If you did not get this email, please check with your teammates first. If none of you received the email, please contact me via email at vef2jj AT virginia DOT edu to have the email forwarded to you.

Please try to respond to this email as soon as reasonably possible. Thanks!
Em Gunter
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

So it looks like I've found my way onto a team, but the way the field expansion was handled for this tournament was... not good. Ryan/Matt/Alex/myself had agreed to team up and told that the field was very likely to expand. Then, after nearly a month of very little communication, we were abruptly told this week that the field is not in fact expanding and we're SOL. Don't do this! I'm very fortunate that I didn't have to burn a plane ticket to not play quizbowl for a day, but we still wrote questions that can no longer be used, which is extremely frustrating.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

The unofficial Team Formation/CO Staffing spreadsheet is not monitored 100% of the time. If for any reason, your team's lineup changes, please email me at vef2jj at virginia dot edu to notify me of said change so it is not missed.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

The schedule for the 2023 Chicago Open can be found here.

All teams will play 9 games across 10 rounds during the prelims. After round 10, We will re-bracket into groups of 8, 6, and 6 with carryovers. Teams in the top bracket will play 4 games over 4 rounds and teams in the 2nd and 3rd brackets will play 3 games over 3 rounds. We will be following the ACF procedures for finals.

Barring any catastrophic travel disasters, this will be the schedule. Team names will continue to be updated as they are emailed to me. If you don't send me a team name by next Wednesday, I'm choosing your team name.

Note: The primary reason I am releasing the schedule a week ahead of the tournament is to help ensure that any issues (e.g. a team only has 8 games listed, etc.) are found before next Saturday. Ideally, I will have printed schedules for teams on Saturday morning. I will not be entertaining complaints about seeding.

Edit: Thanks to the person who contacted me about the issue in the Holland bracket. I'm aware of it and I'll fix it soon.

Edit 2: The Holland bracket should now be correct.
Em Gunter
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Assistant Tournament Director, 2022 and 2023 ACF Nationals

Author of: My Guide to High School Outreach and So You Want to Buy a Buzzer System

"That's got to be one of the most useful skills anyone has ever gotten from quizbowl." -John Lawrence
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

What time should teams arrive by on Saturday morning? Is there an opening meeting or will teams proceed immediately to Round 1?

(General reminder to all -- set out for the tournament early, taking into account potential Lolla-induced delays!)
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

Adventure Temple Trail wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2023 5:53 pm What time should teams arrive by on Saturday morning? Is there an opening meeting or will teams proceed immediately to Round 1?

(General reminder to all -- set out for the tournament early, taking into account potential Lolla-induced delays!)
The listed team contact (who should have received an email from me last week) should expect to see an email in their inbox this evening.

Thanks for the reminder about Lolla, I will be sure to emphasize that in the email.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

It has come to my attention (i.e., I finally read all the threads closely enough to connect all these facts) that CO Sunday is scheduled to feature an 8-round tossups-only tournament, a 5-round tossups-only tournament, a 10-round tossups only tournament, and a 6-packet shootout. For some reason the first two of these are being run simultaneously, imperiling the ability for either to be adequately staffed, despite the fact that the first three events together should conservatively take about eight hours to run, assuming (I know) a modicum of efficiency.

Is there any way we could just...run them all consecutively? I'm more than willing to staff the event I'm not signed up for (COLONIAL) and I hope others would be too.

Failing that, could we at least not have to come in at 8 am to start?
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Here Comes Rusev Day »

I fully agree with what Rob is proposing.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

By the way, if you're one of the 3 teams have not provided me with a team name, you have until the logistics email is sent out this evening to do so or you will be assigned a team name.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

I have included a slightly modified version of the logistics email just sent out to team contacts in this post. Please feel free to email or post any lingering questions.
Em Gunter wrote:Thank you so much for committing to play the 2023 edition of Chicago Open at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois! Without your contributions through packet submission and the teams who are graciously bringing buzzers to Evanston, this tournament absolutely would not happen.

My name is Em Gunter (University of Virginia) and along with Young Fenimore Lee (Ohio University), we will be serving as your tournament directors for this year’s Chicago Open.

If you have any further questions after reading this email in its entirety, please feel free to respond to this email or post on the forums.

IMPORTANT:

If you experience a travel disaster that inhibits or significantly delays your travel to Chicago, please respond to this email as soon as you are able to. If you do not receive a response in a timely manner, please text me at the phone number below.

Additionally, if you are experiencing issues making it to Northwestern on Saturday morning in a timely fashion, please call or text me or Young. If you expect to be delayed returning from lunch, please call or text me or Young as soon as you know you are going to be late.

Note: If you have an international phone number (including Canada) please use Whatsapp to contact us over call/text to avoid incurring international calling/texting fees.

Em Gunter: [REDACTED]
Young Fenimore Lee: [REDACTED]

Lollapalooza:

Thank you, Matt Jackson, for reminding us thatLollapalooza is this weekend. This means that roads, public transit, etc. are likely going to be more congested than usual. I strongly urge that you allot yourself extra time to make it to the Tech Building on time Saturday morning.

Location:

Just like last year, the tournament will be hosted in the Technological Institute (Tech Building) at Northwestern University. The building is located at: 2145 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL 60208.

If you are driving to Northwestern in the morning, you may park in the lot located directly across the street from the Tech Building.

[Please see the logistics email for a screenshot from Google Maps.]

Team Check-In and Opening Meeting:

Team check-in will begin in room L170 (the control room) as close to 0730 as possible. Please make sure that you check in with me in L170 to confirm that you’ve arrived, drop off any buzzers you brought, as well as pay any outstanding fees. After you have checked in, you may proceed to LR2 (should be just across the hall from L170) to wait for the opening meeting.

Given that this tournament is going to be a very long day for everyone, especially our gracious volunteer moderators, the opening meeting will be starting promptly at 0820. Round 1 of the tournament will start as close to 0830 as possible. Please do not dawdle.

Tournament Format:

The schedule can be found here.

Teams have been seeded into two pools of ten teams each. The preliminary rounds will consist of ten rounds over which all teams will play a total of nine games.

After the preliminary rounds, we will take a short break to rebracket where teams will be re-seeded into three brackets of 8, 6, and 6.

The eight teams in the top bracket will play a round-robin, with carry-overs. Top bracket teams will play an additional four games over four rounds.

Teams in the middle and bottom brackets will also play a round-robin, with carry-overs. Middle and bottom bracket teams will play an additional three games over three rounds.

Finals will follow the standard ACF procedures, ignoring the sections about DII and UG titles.

Procedural Addendums:

If there is a tie in score at the end of regulation, it will be played off as follows:
In the event of a tie in score after regulation play, the teams will play one or more additional (sudden-death) tossups until the first change in score occurs, at which point the team with the higher score is immediately declared the winner. (Because the game ends immediately with the first change in score, answering a tiebreaker tossup correctly does not earn a player’s team a bonus.) [ACF C.6]
If at the end of prelims, teams are tied in record such that it affects the brackets the teams are seeded into (e.g. the 4th and 5th place teams are both tied in record) it will be broken using points per game against common opponents (all prelim games in this case). If two teams have identical PPGs, PPB will be used as a secondary statistical tiebreaker.

Protests:

We will be following the ACF guidelines for protests. When you lodge a protest, the moderator will record your protest in the staff Slack and the protest committee will resolve it, if necessary.

We will only be adjudicating protests which affect the win-loss outcomes of games.

Lunch:

Lunch is on your own. Expect lunch to be after about round 6 or 7. Plan for lunch to last about one hour. Some teams might find it easier to order delivery to the Tech Building to avoid having to burn a large chunk of their lunch on “acquiring food”.

First Aid:

There will be tampons, pads, band-aids, and over-the-counter pain medication available in the control room should any player need any of these things during the tournament. Over-the-counter medication will only be given to players who are at least 18 years of age.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

So...it's always hard to judge open teams before they play together, but these brackets are wildly unbalanced. May I ask what the process for seeding was? It doesn't make thaaaat much of a difference, but it's a bit suboptimal.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

Matt, I have read what you've posted and I will be posting a detailed response tomorrow morning. I want to give this response my full attention so thank you for your patience.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Mike Bentley »

Given that seeding is hard and the people playing are usually the ones who care the most about the seeding, my preference for most tournaments has always been to do an initial seeding and then having an appeals process where teams can at least make their case about why brackets are imbalanced. You don't have to listen as a TD, but often teams will have more detailed insights into their opponents (even if you need to recognize that people playing the tournament will be self-interested in seeding).
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

The King's Flight to the Scots wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2023 11:23 pm So...it's always hard to judge open teams before they play together, but these brackets are wildly unbalanced. May I ask what the process for seeding was? It doesn't make thaaaat much of a difference, but it's a bit suboptimal.
Sure.

When determining seeding, we were working under severe bracketing restraints due to the way teams' packet submissions were combined. The schedule is utilizing ACF's ten team limited single bye schedule,. Basically, teams who contributed to a packet both have to be in the same preliminary pool. Two instance of that ten-team limited single bye schedule are ran alongside one another, with the rounds (as depicted on ACF's website) being moved around as needed to make it such that there is one bye per round.

Our ultimate priorities were making sure that teams were balanced with respect to playoff bracket cut points and within broadly defined tiers of strength.

Given overnight roster changes, the schedule will remain as-is.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

Also, I'm currently adding a roster's tab to the spreadsheet so people can see who is on each team.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

All invoices have been sent out. If you don't have your team's invoice, ask your other teammates. If none of your teammates have your invoice, please reach out to me.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

Auks Ran Ova wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2023 7:34 pm It has come to my attention (i.e., I finally read all the threads closely enough to connect all these facts) that CO Sunday is scheduled to feature an 8-round tossups-only tournament, a 5-round tossups-only tournament, a 10-round tossups only tournament, and a 6-packet shootout. For some reason the first two of these are being run simultaneously, imperiling the ability for either to be adequately staffed, despite the fact that the first three events together should conservatively take about eight hours to run, assuming (I know) a modicum of efficiency.

Is there any way we could just...run them all consecutively? I'm more than willing to staff the event I'm not signed up for (COLONIAL) and I hope others would be too.

Failing that, could we at least not have to come in at 8 am to start?
After mentioning on Discord potential plans to run the side events on Sunday consecutively, given the above post, some have mentioned that Sunday flights have been scheduled around the stated schedule (EMACS and COLONIAL before lunch and On Cinema at the Buzzer after lunch, with CANONINFLATION after that), and changing the schedule may impede people's ability to play the entirety of On Cinema at the Buzzer before leaving for the airport.

EMACS has 8 packets, with a current prospective field of 8 teams, which would entail 7 rounds. COLONIAL has 5 packets and is going to take 5 rounds. On Cinema at the Buzzer is scheduled for 7 rounds. Given this, it seems our options are the following:

1. Stick with the stated schedule. The main issue with this, as Rob said in his forum post, seems to be staffing issues - we specifically need one more staffer for either COLONIAL or EMACS to make this work, looking at the team formation spreadsheet, assuming Alex is going to mod for COLONIAL (there are a bunch of free agents for COLONIAL who aren't on teams yet, so our best bet would probably be to ask if anyone would be willing to staff instead). A comparative disadvantage of sticking with this is some people playing EMACS would still like to play COLONIAL if possible and vice versa, though since this was the stated schedule already people have planned to play one or the other.

2. Run the events consecutively. It seems that if we did that and started the events at 8am on Sunday, we would have lunch starting at around 1-2pm, with On Cinema at the Buzzer then running until around 7 or 8. I'm unsure of what time everyone expected On Cinema at the Buzzer to finish, since we were going to run it after lunch anyway, but if people anticipated it finishing earlier and planned flights accordingly, that would be the main downside of this, it seems.

Open to hearing opinions about this - Will, Anderson, Alex, and I will make a decision as soon as we can. Feel free to email me (youngflee99 gmail) or DM me on Discord if you have thoughts.
Last edited by Dantooine is Big! on Fri Aug 04, 2023 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Cheynem »

I'm not going to be at CO, but I'll share some observations:

1. It's hard to run three different events consecutively and not go late. In my experience, around 4 or 5 PM or so on Sunday, you have people start to leave to make flights. This could be troublesome for the cinema event, although other events have worked around this.

2. It's very optimistic to expect things to start at 8 AM.

3. It was very suboptimal that no central figure appeared to be wrangling the CO Sunday events. This is not necessarily the responsibility of the CO TD's, but it seems not great that the schedule was placed there and not really noticed or commented on until this week.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

As much as I'd like to play both EMACS and COLONIAL, and as excited as I was to hear that that might be possible, it seems extremely late in the game to make a schedule change, and it's probably best for that reason alone to keep things as is. (A lot of the field is in transit to CO right now!)

I'm also wary that it's possible to get through 12-13 rounds of high-difficulty tossups (with a team/staff shakeup between events) from 8am and 1pm. You could speed things up by turning the first two events into shootouts, but that's an even bigger change to drop on people last-minute (and would require some sort of multi-room setup anyway).

In any case, it might be a good idea to look into ordering in lunch so there is minimal delay between events (though that invites its own logistical challenges).

The general lesson from this (and the main-event field expansion woes, and the shifting team sizes for these events) is just that a lot of this has to be attended to and firmed up earlier in future years. Also, generally doubles tournaments tend to be hard to find enough staff for when fields are big, which results in them often becoming more easily-managed quads events. If you have more than about 15 interested people, do backward induction and just announce it as a quads event from the outset.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

Hi all, thank you for your help and thoughts on the Sunday side event schedule. After discussing with the other side event organizers, we decided to stick with the current schedule - running EMACS and COLONIAL concurrently in the morning before lunch, and running On Cinema at the Buzzer after lunch. I have sent out a logistics email for EMACS to all players and staffers, which will start at 8:30am. Since COLONIAL is less rounds, I have left it Alex( Fregeau)'s prerogative as to when to start the COLONIAL rounds in the morning. I thank you all for your understanding and look forward to all the events running this weekend!
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

As a reminder, check-in is in room L170 which is inside and to the left. Please make sure that your team checks in so I don't have to obnoxiously call you.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

Lunch will be after round 6. Teams will be emailed the time they are expected to be back and it will also be posted here. Expect an hour
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

Please be back and in your next game room at 1445.
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"That's got to be one of the most useful skills anyone has ever gotten from quizbowl." -John Lawrence
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

After playoffs, The Plague (anime)" was redirected to: "Oran High School Host Club (Jordan Brownstein, Matt Jackson, Will Nediger, Geoffrey Chen) had an undefeated 7-0 playoff record, with The Catastrophic Implosion of Packet Sub (Tracy Mirkin, Aseem Keyal, Nick Jensen, Adam Fine) second in the field with a 6-1 playoff record. In the first game of an advantaged final series (with The Plague holding the advantage) Catastrophic Implosion defeated The Plague 290-260, leading to a second finals game. In the second finals game, The Plague defeated Catastrophic Implosion 420-160 to win the tournament. Congratulations to both The Plague, our 2023 Chicago Open champion, and Catastrophic Implosion for their impressive showings and a great finals series.

Thank you to everyone for playing and staffing. I’ll see you all back in the Tech building tomorrow for Sunday side events.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by meebles127 »

Congratulations to The Plague (anime)" was redirected to: "Oran High School Host Club for winning the 2023 Chicago Open after losing the first game of an advantaged final but coming back in the second game.

Thanks to everyone who made this a wonderful tournament. Expect some thoughts from me at a later time.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by women, fire and dangerous things »

Thank you to the editors, TDs, and staffers for all their work in providing us so much Quizbowl in one day! I had a great time at my first CO in years.
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Dantooine is Big! »

With COLONIAL, EMACS, and On Cinema at the Buzzer completing for the day, and CANONINFLATION in progress as we speak, the weekend is wrapping up. I found an Iron Flask tumbler in the control room at the end of the day yesterday (Saturday), and as Alex Fregeau noted in the thread for COLONIAL, someone left a blue Hydro Flask water bottle in one of the rooms used for COLONIAL this morning. If they belong to you, feel free to contact me directly - I'll hang on to them if no one claims them by the end of the day. Below is a picture of both of these items. Thank you to everyone who attended this weekend's events - keep a lookout for discussion threads for the CO main event, and safe travels to everyone heading back home from Chicagoland ~~

Image

(Resize your images before posting them, you oaves! --staff)
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Re: Chicago Open 2023 (August 5 at Northwestern)

Post by Gene Harrogate »

This set is now on the archive pending approval, with the exception of packets 11 and 16, which will be read on discord this week. I will also submit the zip file containing all packets in docx format after the discord reading.
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