HFT XI at Harvard (11/5/16)

[UlyssesInvictus]

Hello, everybody! I'm very excited to announce the main site for the 11th annual Harvard Fall Tournament. In a date a a little earlier than last year*, HFT XI will be happening on November 5th, 2016.

To register, please email me at "raynorkuang AT college DOT harvard DOT edu". You can post in this thread or PM me as well, but your registration is NOT officially complete until I respond in some fashion saying so. Please indicate how many teams you will be bringing and what discounts will apply to you, as well as include "HFT Registration" in the email subject so I can easily find your email.

Logistics

The tournament will take place entirely in historic Sever Hall, which is in Tercentary Theater, the yard adjacent to Harvard Yard. I highly recommend accessing the Yard by the T, the public metro in Boston; the T is 30 seconds outside the College and parking is sparse and expensive. Registration will open at 8:40 AM in Sever Hall Room 202, and games will begin soon after 9:15 AM. Supplementary and reminder information will be sent to registered and attending teams. Teams will be guaranteed at least 9 games, as well as preliminary and playoff games. A break for lunch will take place when convenient. Most games should be done by 6:00; teams expecting to be here for finals or in placement tie-breakers at the end of day may need to budget until 6:30.

Registration and Fees

We've set the (near)-final cap at 32 teams. A waitlist will be maintained. Historically, a 36 team cap has been filled every year, so get your registrations in earlier if you'd like a guaranteed spot. As a side addendum, teams will be restricted to 6-player rosters--that is, no more than 6 different players can play for a single team during the day.

As stated above, you need to email me, with all necessary information, and receive a confirmation, before your registration is complete. Additionally, a significant amount of details will be provided to attending teams, and I strongly advise everyone to read them.

The base fee will be $90 per attending team. In addition, the following discounts will apply (with caveats):**
- $5 per functioning buzzer system (i.e. power cord and eight working buzzers; maximum of three systems per organization).
- $10 per experienced scorekeeper (i.e. familiar with rules and scoring of pyramidal quizbowl).
- $20 per experienced moderator (i.e. familiar with rules and scoring of pyramidal quizbowl; good pronunciation and reading skills).

All discounts are applied per organization; the minimum average fee for any team is $60. I reserve the right to revoke these discounts if any of the caveats provided in good faith were found not to be so, and to incur additional fees for egregious and blatant violations. Additionally, with the exception of informed medical, weather, or other emergencies at my judgment, teams dropping after 9 PM, November 4th will be responsible for the entirety of their fee, even if no longer attending. To loosely quote Jacob Reed of Yale (and myself of last year): I will try to be understanding, and this policy will not punish teams uncertain of their initial field, but it is unfair to our program and other teams attending if you drop without any fair warning.

Either cash or check is acceptable; checks should be made out to "Harvard College Bowl". If you'd like an invoice, let me know ahead of time.

The Set

Set details can be found here. I (Raynor Kuang), will be head editing.

Closing Comments

Just like last year, I'm personally very excited to be head editing the set and leading much of the tournament's coordination. This is presumably my last year with the Harvard team, and I've always had good memories of HFT since personally attending in high school, so I want to provide as enjoyable an experience to everyone attending. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about registration, payment, logistics, ambiguities, or whatever; new teams and players in particular should feel free to ask me anything. I hope to see you in November!

* due to reservations difficulties; in exchange we won't have to travel between 3 buildings anymore. Also please note that an SAT testing date is the same day, so get your conflicts away ahead of time!
** note the removal of the distance discount and the increase of the staffer discounts

[UlyssesInvictus]

TEAM | # Teams | # Buzzers | # Staffers
===================================
Smithtown HS West (NY)| 1 | 1 | 0
Smithtown HS East (NY)| 1 | 1| 0
Lehigh Valley Academy (PA) | 1 | 1 | 1
Lexington HS (MA)| 3 | 1 | 0
Community School of Naples (FL) | 2 | 1 | 1
Mason Classical Academy (FL) | 1 | 0 | 0
Southside High School (SC) | 2 | 0 | 0
Kellenberg (NY) | 2 | 3 | 1
Shrewsbury (MA) | 1 | 1 | 0
Wayzata (MN) | 2 | 0 | 0
Plymouth Regional HS (NH) | 1 | 1 | 0
Acton-Boxborough (MA) | 1 | 0 | 0
Phillips Academy (MA) | 2 | 3 | 0
LASA (TX) | 4 | 0 | 0
Hunter (NY) | 2 | 2 | 0
Mountain Lakes (NJ) | 1 | 0 | 1
Northampton (MA) | 1 | 1 | 0
Needham (MA) | 1 | 0 | 0
TOTAL: 30 (/max 32) | 17 | 5

WAITLIST:
TEAM | # Teams | # Buzzers | # Staffers
===================================

[UlyssesInvictus]

Field has been updated. We've now got a bit over two months left before the tournament takes place, so consider bringing up HFT attendance at those initial team meetings as school gets under session!

[UlyssesInvictus]

Good news everybody!

Congratulations! PACE (the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence) has awarded your tournament, Harvard Fall Tournament XI, platinum certification. This means that the top 25% of teams in your tournament (rounded up to the nearest integer) will qualify for our national high school quizbowl championship, the PACE NSC on the weekend of June 10th-11th at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare outside of Chicago. If you, as the host organization, send a team to the NSC, you will also earn a $20 discount on your entry fee.

Get those registrations in!

I don't think Harvard plans on sending a mini-Harvard team to the NSC anytime soon; but sort-of-related, I do understand that a lot of attendees for HFT steal the weekend for the chance to tour Harvard as well for admissions. I'd like to give back, so if you plan on coming and would like someone to talk to about Harvard, just hit me up! (email me, or ask your coach to pass on my contact info)

[UlyssesInvictus]

Field update: 9/19. Unfortunately, Dunbar dropped, so we briefly reached the half-full field but have come back down to 10 teams.

[Cassian]

LASA will be attending HFT this year with some yet-to-be-determined number of teams.

[UlyssesInvictus]

LASA will be attending HFT this year with some yet-to-be-determined number of teams.

Indeed, and Captain Flowers has already informed me as much. However, I do want to (in all good will) point out that several teams are currently in this "interested" status, including Hunter, Hingham, and Phillips Academy. For all such parties, and anyone else interested, I'll note that (for fairness purposes) I won't count your registration until you give me official team counts, and there is a chance you may end up on the waitlist despite registering as interested.

Not trying to push anyone!--just genuinely pointing this out so no one is left unawares.

[UlyssesInvictus]

Field update, 9/29. We've reached our 2/3 benchmark (16 out of (tentative) 24 teams).

[UlyssesInvictus]

Field update, 10/4. We've just hit the field cap (even upping it a teensy bit), so all further registrations will end up on the waitlist.

[UlyssesInvictus]

Just got my initial staff list, and I'm happy to up the cap size to 28 teams. Get your registrations in while the field's open again!

[UlyssesInvictus]

We just filled the 28 team cap, and increased the field again to 30. Apologies if it seems like I'm playing games with the cap! (My staff is count rolling, so I have to be as conservative as I can.)

[UlyssesInvictus]

The field's been increased to 32. This is likely the final field size, because it works most nicely for scheduling.

We thus have only one spot remaining, after which the wait list will start filling.

Edit: LASA took the final spot. We're full up!

[quiz4life]

Wow what a great field! This looks like an early season All-Star game. So many top teams. Great job Raynor.

Sadly my team will be cannon fodder. But we hope to win a few matches in what is our second year.

[UlyssesInvictus]

Wow what a great field! This looks like an early season All-Star game. So many top teams. Great job Raynor.

Sadly my team will be cannon fodder. But we hope to win a few matches in what is our second year.

I appreciate the praise. But two responses:

1. As the Greatest Upsets thread taught us, never give up; never surrender.
2. All credit goes to the teams! I just sent a few emails, and I'm glad everyone thought it was worthwhile to sign up for HFT.

Anyway, now that we have such a plentiful field, (to all registered teams) please let me know promptly if you have to drop so I can update the field and make the spot available.

[UlyssesInvictus]

I've sent the first of a couple logistics emails for the tournament. If you didn't receive said email, please let me know.

[UlyssesInvictus]

Apologies for not noting this earlier, but Acton-Boxborough dropped a team, and Ithaca couldn't send their team, so Needham has entered the field. The waitlist is now empty again.

[UlyssesInvictus]

Shrewsbury B dropped, so we have an empty spot in the field.

[UlyssesInvictus]

Field is locked, and everyone registered should have received a final logistics email. See you all Saturday!

[UlyssesInvictus]

Most people attending know this, but stats are live at neg5 at:

(All) http://neg5.org/t/NyeRtLhi1M/stats/team?phase=1
(Prelims) http://neg5.org/t/NyeRtLhi1M/stats/team?phase=Eyp2U2oyz
(Playoffs) http://neg5.org/t/NyeRtLhi1M/stats/team?phase=NkeT82o1z

[UlyssesInvictus]

Woops, forgot to update with final results!

After five rounds of playoff competition, Lexington A, Hunter A, and Southside A were tied by record, so we sorted by PPG. Hunter A defeated Lexington A in a play-in game to challenge Southside A, who then defeated Hunter A to take the victory. Congratulations to all three teams, and thank you to all teams who attended!

I'm going to delay updating the DB stats since I'm not sure how to export Neg5 reports to SQBS without using QBJ, but the full stats are more or less listed in the previous Neg5 links.

As we have many mirrors planned, please refrain from discussing the set publicly! A private subforum exists, so please request permission to enter that group. Quoting myself on how to do so:

Thanks! As a lesson to anyone who hasn't used usergroups before, you'll have to

- Go to your User Control Panel.
- Select the Usergroups tab.
- Check the "2016 Harvard Fall Discussion" group and apply for membership, which I need to approve manually. If you don't have a full name associated with your account, I won't approve you.