ANNOUNCEMENT: Chicago Open 2008

[No Rules Westbrook]

Okay, since people are posting about side tourneys, I figured I should get out an announcement for this.

As indicated in the previous thread, I'm going to be head editing CO, with the help of an unspecified number of others. I haven't seen any objections to the date of July 19, so that's looking good, though you can still object and perhaps we'll move it to the 12th or some other date.


Here's the distribution for submitted packets:

5/5 history (at least 1/1 American, 1/1 European, 1/1 world, vary by time and place)
5/5 Literature (at least 1/1 American, 1/1 European, 1/1 world, vary genres etc.)
5/5 Science (at least 1/1 bio, 1/1 chem, 1/1 physics, 1/1 other sciences)
3/3 RMP (at least 1/1 myth and 1/1 philosophy, no rigid 1/1 requirement for religion necessarily)
3/3 Fine Arts (at least 1/1 art and 1/1 classical music)
2/2 Social Science (no more than 1/1 of any cateogry of soc sci)
2/2 Geography or Trash or "Your Choice" (no more than 1/1 of any of those things, your choice meaning any academic topic of course)


Length: Basically, every submitted tossup should at least make it to the sixth line (10 point, TNR, 1 inch margins) and should not exceed the eighth line.

Difficulty: I imagine the appropriate difficulty for this event to be about that of ACF Nationals (last year's or this year's nats). But, really, you can assign your own difficulty, within reason - feel free to write regionals-level stuff if you want, as long as the difficulty is consistent within each packet itself. As long as you submit good questions, you can be responsible for choosing your favorite difficulty level. ("within reason" of course: please don't send tossups on things that return 50 results from Google, that leaves me with no choice but to write an entirely new tossup and get irritated, or send it back to you maybe)


Fees: Send a packet a month and two weeks before the tourney - reduced fee of $80
Send a packet a month before the tourney - base fee of $120
Send packet two weeks before tourney - increased fee of $160
Send a packet after that - $180


Email packets to me at: CryoBristow@aol.com
And, for now, you can email any questions about whatever to me too.

There may be more about logistics, etc. to come later; I just wanted to get this out there.

[setht]

A couple things:

First, Andrew Yaphe has agreed to serve again as head editor for the CO trash tournament. He'll probably post an official announcement with more details at some point.

Second, there are lots of side tournaments being proposed for the weekend, which is great, but I'm not sure we'll be able to fit them all in. Last year we were able to occupy the buildings pretty much as late as we wanted, but I'm almost certain we won't be able to do that this year, making it even harder to fit in extra events. CO and CO trash will get the prime slots on Saturday and Sunday; all other events have to fit in around those two. So far, I have received proposals for literature doubles, history doubles, social science/philosophy doubles, and science doubles, and I have heard rumors of a fine arts tournament.

Third, I am going to see about room reservations soon. Based on Ryan's post, I'm going to request rooms for the weekend of July 19th. If you don't want CO to be on that weekend, tell Ryan ASAP. I will try to get the rooms as late as possible, but I think there's a good chance we'll be able to fit in 3 side events max, possibly less, unless people are willing to come in earlier this year and run some events on Friday, or stay later and run some events on Monday. If Friday or Monday does work for you, please tell me ASAP (setht@uchicago.edu), I guess.

-Seth

[Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It]

What kind of time frame are we talking about on Friday? I remember there was pretty much no problem with the history doubles being run Friday night, so I'd be good with a tournament happening on Friday beginning in the late afternoon.

[Bentley Like Beckham]

I'd prefer an early Friday tournament (or just moving some of these tournaments to other tournaments with planned side events), as that would save me from having to get a hotel room on Sunday night.

[cornfused]

And I'd prefer that nothing starts until 5-6 on Friday, as, well, I work.

[Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It]

I think Mike is onto something as well - if there are excess sets I'd like to see some of them held around some other major tournaments like IO or this new Minnesota Open, or something else entirely.

[EncyclopediaCDRom]

The weekend of July 19 would be quite convenient for UIC, for that date is nowhere near the end of the now later summer semester. Last autumn, the IO was followed by smooth literature doubles Saturday night, experimental doubles Sunday morning, and pyramid Sunday afternoon, so some of those proposed doubles could be postponed from the CO to the IO, especially since last summer's science doubles and trash quadruples were not ready to be held on Sunday after the CO. Don't worry, I have no plans to write a movie tournament this year.

Happy early Earth Hour (I'll still be watching the Indy Car season opener from 8-9 PM)
Rom Masrour
UIC/CPS

[ValenciaQBowl]

Has there been any progress in figuring out when the CO side tournaments are happening? I haven't heard much more about possible science or fine arts side things going on, so I'm guessing we have three confirmed sides: philosophy/SS, Lit, and History. I presume that means one side tournament Friday night, CO Saturday, another side tournament Sat. night, and Trash Sunday. When would the third side tournament be? Sunday night or early Friday? The 7-8 of us in the Florida contingent will be making travel plans in the next week or so, and it would be great to have a handle on scheduling.

Also, I'm not sure whether the folks running the side tournaments want us to post in the various threads to state our playing interest; should we do that or do people want direct e-mails or what? Should we get some threads listing the various teams for these?

Finally, Ryan, if you need him, I've got a Valencia player coming who is capable and interested in reading for CO Saturday, though he'll play in some of the others.

[Morraine Man]

Since there are either:
(i) more side events than side event slots; or
(ii) just as many side events as there are side event slots,

I as a side event writer would appreciate it if the people running CO made a decision as to which side events will be hosted and which will be rejected. Time slot is a less important issue for me, but I'm sure a lot of people who want to buy tickets soon will want to know the schedule.

As I told Seth Teitler over email, if the History Doubles are accepted as a CO side event I would ideally want it to be held on Friday night, the time slot it's had for the past two years.

[grapesmoker]

There will be a philosophy/social science subject tournament written by myself, Trygve, and Chris Ray, as announced. I don't know when exactly it will happen though.

[Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It]

Fine Arts will not be happening at CO. I talked to Trygve and right now I think we are planning on hosting it as a side event to Illinois Opne.

[Bentley Like Beckham]

Can you confirm the date and the packet deadline dates soon? There is some ambiguity about having deadlines due "a month before the tournament date".

[setht]

Hey gang,

here's the deal: I've put in room requests for the weekend of July 19th. If I'm remembering correctly, I requested a bunch of rooms for Friday 6 pm-midnight, Saturday 8 am-midnight, and Sunday 8 am-midnight. The hold-up on announcing dates and time slots is that the people in charge of rooms for the summer aren't going to do any summer scheduling until late May/early June. The people I spoke with seemed to feel there should be no problem with our getting the rooms for that weekend, but it's conceivable that some other group with higher priority will come in between now and the end of May and take the rooms for that weekend. If that happens, we'll try to get rooms a week before or a week after, I guess.

I will post here as soon as I hear anything further, but I don't expect to hear anything for another month. In the meantime, I suggest everyone plan for Chicago Open occurring on the weekend of July 19th, and I guess we should go ahead and set up the side tournament schedule based on the times I listed above.

So far, I show the following events: Chicago Open, the Eric Axel Karlfeldt Memorial Trash Tournament, literature doubles, history doubles, and social science/philosophy doubles. Chicago Open has the Saturday daytime slot, the trash tournament has the Sunday daytime slot, and the three doubles events will get the Friday/Saturday/Sunday evening slots. Are there any objections to doing history on Friday, literature on Saturday, and social science/philosophy on Sunday?

If anyone wants to run a lunch-time event--e.g., a name-that-tune event--I think we can squeeze one in on Saturday, as long as it doesn't run longer than an hour and a half, tops. There might be a bit more time on Sunday, since it sounds like the trash tournament won't run as many rounds as the Chicago Open.

I think that's it for now.

-Seth

[setht]

So far, I show the following events: Chicago Open, the Eric Axel Karlfeldt Memorial Trash Tournament, literature doubles, history doubles, and social science/philosophy doubles. Chicago Open has the Saturday daytime slot, the trash tournament has the Sunday daytime slot, and the three doubles events will get the Friday/Saturday/Sunday evening slots. Are there any objections to doing history on Friday, literature on Saturday, and social science/philosophy on Sunday?

If anyone wants to run a lunch-time event--e.g., a name-that-tune event--I think we can squeeze one in on Saturday, as long as it doesn't run longer than an hour and a half, tops. There might be a bit more time on Sunday, since it sounds like the trash tournament won't run as many rounds as the Chicago Open.

So far, I've heard from Bruce saying that he wants the Friday evening spot. People from the literature doubles and the social science/philosophy doubles crews: let me know once you've figured out when you want to run those events. People playing various events: I guess you can tell the writers if you have scheduling preferences.

There's a proposal to add a movies tournament: 4 rounds of 50 tossups-only games, written by Ray Luo and Yogesh Raut. If there's interest, we'll try to squeeze it in. One option is to run it late Sunday after trash and social science/philosophy. Another option is to run it during the lunch breaks on Saturday and/or Sunday. If you're interested in playing this tournament, please email Ray (recfreq AT yahoo DOT com); let him know if you have strong preferences on scheduling.

I haven't heard yet whether there will be another name-that-tune event. If there is, it will get its traditional Saturday lunch break spot, unless the field/organizers prefer something else.

-Seth

[cornfused]

Lit on Saturday would definitely be good.

[EncyclopediaCDRom]

Friday evening for history doubles and Saturday evening for literature doubles sound great. I could staff Sunday evening for social science/philosophy doubles. During Saturday and Sunday lunchbreaks, I would also be interested in name-that-tune, especially if it expanded to include musical theatre and film scores, and I would salivate over four rounds of just movie clues.

Enjoy your IRS rebates courtesy of Dubya,
Rom Masrour
CPS/UIC

[No Rules Westbrook]

Oh, dear, I haven't been paying attention to this thread at all. I promise I'll start paying attention soon.

Uh, Chris - yeah, sure, anyone who wants to moderate for CO or any other tourney that weekend would be great. I'll knock off 10 bucks for any team providing a competent moderator we end up using. Mike - let's say a month before the tourney means June 19th. And, the side event schedule looks smashing.

[evilmonkey]

Oh, dear, I haven't been paying attention to this thread at all. I promise I'll start paying attention soon.

Uh, Chris - yeah, sure, anyone who wants to moderate for CO or any other tourney that weekend would be great. I'll knock off 10 bucks for any team providing a competent moderator we end up using. Mike - let's say a month before the tourney means June 19th. And, the side event schedule looks smashing.

Would you be willing to slide the discounts between tournaments? Like... if I read for a side tournament, I wouldn't mind getting CO cred

[No Rules Westbrook]

Okay, now that I no longer have to deal with this nuisance called law school, daddy's in town.

Let's get writing those packets. Specific deadlines are (these assume that the weekend will be July 19th - good assumption to definitely plan on, but see Seth's post):

Packet by June 5th (month away!) - 80 dollars
Packet by June 19th - 120 dollars
Packet by July 4th (yes, July 4th!...no fireworks, slave over packets!) - 160 dollars
Packet after that - 180 dollars and my unending hatred at your existence

Moderators: -10 dollars for ones we use (to answer an earlier question, this only applies if we need you at CO, not the side tourneys, those can give discounts/enticements separately)
Buzzers: -5 dollars for every one we use


If you've formed a team, drop me a line to register and tell me who's in said team and anything else you want me to know - CryoBristow@aol.com
Send the packets there too when you're done.

[No Rules Westbrook]

Oh, and just like at nationals, I'll offer a 25 dollar discount to whichever team submits the best packet for CO, as judged by me. While I won't grade wholly based on "effort," I will seriously take into account experience/ability/etc. in making the determination.

[setht]

We've got 11 rooms reserved in Cobb Hall for Friday, July 18th, 5-11 pm; Saturday, July 19th, 8 am-11 pm; and Sunday, July 20th, 8 am-11 pm. Parking can sometimes be found along Ellis, or more often along 59th.

I don't know if the 11 pm ending time will be enforced, but I asked for a later ending time and this is what they gave me, so I think there's a decent chance they're serious about closing up at 11. If the people in charge of the various events can try to keep things moving as efficiently as possible, especially between events and through breaks for food, that would be great. This is probably mostly a concern on Saturday, since I imagine CO will run longer than trash.

I haven't heard any objections to the schedule I outlined above, so we're going with the history event Friday night, Chicago Open Saturday, the literature event Saturday night, trash Sunday, and the social science/philosophy event Sunday night. There may also be an event during the lunch break Saturday and/or Sunday.

A word about food: if people want to order in pizza or other food to help keep things moving, that's fine, but the trash has to be taken out to a dumpster--if we leave stacks of pizza boxes and mounds of soda cans in the rooms, the Chicago club will be charged extra fees (not a huge problem) and may not be able to reserve rooms in the future (very much a huge problem).

I think that's it. See you all in Chicago.

-Seth

p.s. I almost forgot--if those of you that still owe me money for last year's Chicago Open could pay me soon (say, before this year's Chicago Open), I would appreciate it.