The Quizbowl Resource Center

Posting this to gather information and interest regarding a potential online mirror of Cambridge Open, which is available for US mirrors and which offers a good opportunity for college teams and open players to play a regular-plus event. Personally, since there haven't been many opportunities to play other school teams in-person recently for obvious reasons, I'd like to have this be an open where attendance as a "school team" is strongly encouraged by players who are part of one, but would like to hear others' thoughts.

In any case, would like to gauge which dates people would be available to play on. Please respond to the poll in the next few days so I can work with the Cambridge team to get this thing on the books. Thanks!

EDIT: The date(s) will be May 24th, or May 23rd-24th. Please fill out this form to indicate your preferences for format. Thanks!

May 24th is winning so far! Will close the poll tomorrow.

naan/steak-holding toll wrote: ↑Wed Apr 29, 2020 1:37 pm May 24th is winning so far! Will close the poll tomorrow.

Echoing Daniel's post in the CamO announcement thread, I would also be interested in this event being a two-day affair (presumably 23-24th) if there's sufficient staff and interest to accommodate the longer schedule.

Would the plan for this to be played tossup only or with bonuses or is that to be determined?

I like the idea of a two day event mainly for this reason: I don't want to run a tossup only event if this is meant as a closer simulation of college competition. Instead, I would like to use bounce backs - which would doubtless make the event run longer, more reason to have it over two days. Additionally, I think many people's sleep schedules are kind of screwed up right now, so a two day set would allow for a later start time to accommodate the west coast, while limiting the event's length if any of the Brits want to staff.

The set has 13 packets, so we would probably want to do prelims one day and playoffs another and split them fairly evenly.

I very much like the idea of 2 days, TUs and bonuses, with bouncebacks.

I'd strongly prefer a one day event. WORKSHOP pretty efficiently ran 11 packets with bonuses in one day. I don't see why this tournament couldn't do that.

Mike Bentley wrote: ↑Wed Apr 29, 2020 6:54 pm I'd strongly prefer a one day event. WORKSHOP pretty efficiently ran 11 packets with bonuses in one day. I don't see why this tournament couldn't do that.

I suspect this set will play harder, given the British content, and there are 22 tossups per packet (which I'd like to play all of). Add that to the bounce back idea and I think a one day event is probably challenging. Would like to hear more thoughts though!

I'd like to hear the bonuses at this tournament, especially if the intention is to have as many school teams as possible play. I'm personally not much of a fan of bouncebacks.

For what it's worth, my main argument for bouncebacks is as follows: I think people have correctly identified that online quizbowl doesn't feel as "engaging" as IRL quizbowl does. Bouncebacks, while taking more effort and time, help people stay engaged throughout the tournament. They also have a (minor) effect of lowering variance, which can't be too bad a thing when we're talking about online events.

I do like a good well-run, one-day online event, but at the same time, I do think there's a risk that this could become a bit of a slog. I also want to give the Brits the courtesy of being able to staff if they'd like and not make the West Coast teams wake up too early during this environment (yes, I know ICT started early, but it needed to).

I'm open to the idea of bouncebacks, but not if their inclusion adversely affects the schedule or field size. My personal preferences prioritize playing a round robin over bouncebacks.

My concern with bouncebacks is the added time that they take. Based on the online mirror of TO, 9 rounds per day is probably the maximum number of rounds that you can run at this level online without bouncebacks. Because of the extra time bouncebacks take, I'd be hesitant to run online more than 7 rounds at this level in a day (maybe 8 on Saturday). Spread over two days, this limits the field size to a 14 team round robin. Given how many people have voted in the poll, it seems likely that a 12 or 14 team field will accommodate all interested players, but if not I would vote against bouncebacks.

EDIT: I should also reiterate my strong preference to play bonuses.

Smuttynose Island wrote: ↑Wed Apr 29, 2020 11:16 pm I'm open to the idea of bouncebacks, but not if their inclusion adversely affects the schedule or field size. My personal preferences prioritize playing a round robin over bouncebacks.

My concern with bouncebacks is the added time that they take. Based on the online mirror of TO, 9 rounds per day is probably the maximum number of rounds that you can run at this level online without bouncebacks. Because of the extra time bouncebacks take, I'd be hesitant to run online more than 7 rounds at this level in a day (maybe 8 on Saturday). Spread over two days, this limits the field size to a 14 team round robin. Given how many people have voted in the poll, it seems likely that a 12 or 14 team field will accommodate all interested players, but if not I would vote against bouncebacks.

My thought would be to have prelims and playoffs on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, as opposed to spreading out a round robin. That's idealistic about field size, but this tournament isn't super hard so I think it's not unreasonable, especially if a lot of teams play.

I'll create a Google form tomorrow for people's tournament format preferences around noon.

I would like to play this and would not like to commit multiple days to this

Oh No You Didn't wrote: ↑Wed Apr 29, 2020 11:53 pm I would like to play this and would not like to commit multiple days to this

seconding this

Strongly opposed to using bouncebacks for an online tournament.

naan/steak-holding toll wrote: ↑Wed Apr 29, 2020 11:01 pm I do like a good well-run, one-day online event, but at the same time, I do think there's a risk that this could become a bit of a slog.

[emphasis mine]

Are you saying a two-day event is less likely to be a slog?

excessive dismemberment wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 12:55 am

Oh No You Didn't wrote: ↑Wed Apr 29, 2020 11:53 pm I would like to play this and would not like to commit multiple days to this

seconding this

Thirding this.

I'm opposed to bonuses but I wouldn't die on that hill; I'm definitely opposed to bouncebacks and a two-day event.

Aaron's Rod wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 12:31 pm Are you saying a two-day event is less likely to be a slog?

I'm sure this is a factor of lifestyle, but I definitely find 2-day events to be less of a slog, yeah.

I was quite ready to stop playing WORKSHOP by the 8th round or so, but would have happily played another 8 the next day. The Terrapin open mirror was more enjoyable for this reason.

The date(s) will be May 24th, or May 23rd-24th. Please fill out this form to indicate your preferences for format. Thanks!

(also adding this to OP)

As a note on the video part - I'm adamant about running this in video call format. Reports I got from the UK indicated that the Zoom mirror of Terrapin, with video, went very smoothly. If your computer does not have a built-in webcam, or you don't have a separate one, we can discuss potential arrangements.

7:00 am pacific is very early. Assuming that most people wake up between 8 and 10 am, you're asking west coast people to wake up over an hour before their usual wakeup time. On the other hand, if the tournament starts at 8 am pacific, then even if it lasts 10 hours it will still end at 9 pm eastern, well before most people go to sleep.

Carlos Be wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 5:33 pm 7:00 am pacific is very early. Assuming that most people wake up between 8 and 10 am, you're asking west coast people to wake up over an hour before their usual wakeup time. On the other hand, if the tournament starts at 8 am pacific, then even if it lasts 10 hours it will still end at 9 pm eastern, well before most people go to sleep.

You have acquired your small potatoes. I can push to 11.

naan/steak-holding toll wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 6:56 pm

Carlos Be wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 5:33 pm 7:00 am pacific is very early. Assuming that most people wake up between 8 and 10 am, you're asking west coast people to wake up over an hour before their usual wakeup time. On the other hand, if the tournament starts at 8 am pacific, then even if it lasts 10 hours it will still end at 9 pm eastern, well before most people go to sleep.

You have acquired your small potatoes. I can push to 11.

Is this going to require more of a dinner break for East Coast teams or make it harder to staff/play for UK teams? I personally don't see it unreasonable to make West Coast players get up by 7 AM. You're often getting up a lot earlier for a real tournament.

The people have spoken - 32 out of 52 respondents indicated that they would prefer a one-day tournament, and Zoom narrowly beat out Discord as the choice of platform.

I'll be posting an announcement soon with spreadsheet signup. However, since I'm sick of organizing tournaments, please reach out to me if you'd be willing to do tournament coordination on this. Tournament coordinator would be responsible for organizing the Zoom stuff, collecting payments from teams, putting together schedules, communicating regarding format, etc. and would receive $5 per team. Mods should receive $40 for their day's work as well, per my typical standards.

I'll be speaking to the Cambridge team to see if we can arrange for a per-team mirror fee instead of per-player, as a $60 mirror fee per team seems quite high if we are to add on payments for moderators and the tournament coordinator.

EDIT: As a clarification, there will be no bouncebacks. A majority of people who voted for a two-day event also voted for bouncebacks, so that's worth keeping in mind for future event organizers.