Official Announcement: Chicago Open 2007

[setht]

Hi all,

looks like I’m in charge of editing Chicago Open 2007, with the help of Bruce Arthur and hopefully some more people. Here’s an official announcement, largely cribbed from last year’s announcement.

Chicago Open 2007 will be an academic submission tournament and the target difficulty goal is to emulate past Chicago Opens; that is to say, somewhere between ACF Regionals and this year’s Nationals [though I reserve the right to up the ante a bit in the playoffs]. The tournament is open to all comers and it traditionally attracts between 12 and 16 of the most talented and competitive teams anywhere. If you like quizbowl then you will have fun and you should register ASAP.

The tournament and the various coetaneous events accompanying it will occur on the weekend of August 4th-5th on the campus of the University of Chicago [in a building yet to be determined, most likely Harper].

I want to continue the tradition of opening the tournament up to potential hosts for mirror events on the east and west coasts, so if any parties are interested in this, they should contact me at setht@uchicago.edu.

Packet Specs: The format is pretty much ACF and since I assume most folks coming to this tournament know how to write questions in that style I won’t waste your time with any super specific instructions beyond those offered below. If you do need some additional guidance email me and we can discuss things in more detail.

Base Fee: $120/team

Packet discounts/penalties
June 1st: -$40
June 15th: $0
June 29th: +$40
July 13th: +$80
[Of course it goes without saying that these fine questions you all submit should take into account regional and temporal overlap, blah, blah, blah (ie. don’t write me a packet where every answer is British or Swahili or everything involves the 19th century—you know what I’m saying)]

If you can’t produce a full packet but you want to write a partial packet you must arrange the details with me by June 15th. If you don’t want to write a packet and you tell me by June 15th, you can play for $250. If you don’t have a complete, acceptable packet in by July 13th and you didn’t tell me anything by June 15th, you can play for $400. Please, just write a packet in a timely fashion—I’d rather have lots of submitted packets with time to edit than lots of money.

The questions should be sorted by category: put all the history tossups and bonuses under a nice heading that says “Historyâ€

[Matt Weiner]

It is almost certain that I will be in charge of this year's Sunday-after-CO trash tournament. Whether it will be centrally written or packet submission is not yet for sure, so let me know via this thread what you'd prefer and anything else you want to say about your desires for this event.

[setht]

Some more stuff: it would appear that I carefully left out the distribution. Here's the distribution:

5/5 literature
5/5 history
5/5 science
3/3 religion, myth, philosophy [1/1 of each]
3/3 fine arts
1/1 social science
1/1 trash
1/1 geography

If anyone is interested in writing a freelance packet by June 29th in exchange for the set, please drop me a line (setht@uchicago.edu). If anyone is interested in helping with editing/writing biology, chemistry, computer science, philosophy, music, trash or geography, please drop me a line. I may already be set for some or all of those topics, or I may really want some help.

Finally, as far as I'm aware the current proposed set of side events consists of a trash team tournament (run by Matt Weiner), a literature singles tournament (run by Jonathan Magin) and a science doubles tournament (run by Jerry Vinokurov and Andrew Ullsperger). Assuming these three events get sufficient interest to warrant running them, I will reserve space for them. I'm not sure there will be enough time to run another event, but if any of these events fall through that will open up some space.

-Seth

[Pat Freeburn]

It is almost certain that I will be in charge of this year's Sunday-after-CO trash tournament. Whether it will be centrally written or packet submission is not yet for sure, so let me know via this thread what you'd prefer and anything else you want to say about your desires for this event.

Matt Weiner's head theme packet please.

[Rothlover]

It is almost certain that I will be in charge of this year's Sunday-after-CO trash tournament. Whether it will be centrally written or packet submission is not yet for sure, so let me know via this thread what you'd prefer and anything else you want to say about your desires for this event.

ahem, I will be the man behind the curtain at said event writing the 1/1 "Rape in the rondos of Tawana Brawley" distribution.

[DumbJaques]

History tournament?

[grapesmoker]

It is almost certain that I will be in charge of this year's Sunday-after-CO trash tournament. Whether it will be centrally written or packet submission is not yet for sure, so let me know via this thread what you'd prefer and anything else you want to say about your desires for this event.

I care little for trash (unless there is a soccer and computer game subdistribution that will be grossly overrepresented) but I will be happy to staff if necessary.

[Mr. Kwalter]

Jerry we should form the worst trash team ever

[grapesmoker]

Jerry we should form the worst trash team ever

I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Matt Weiner]

The trash announcement is up at http://www.hsquizbowl.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=49236 .

[Jeremy Gibbs Lemma]

Oh dang, I just realized Lollapalooza is that weekend as well. I may have just gotten a lot more interested in driving to Chicago... Charles has mentioned getting a team together of MO people so we might come and have some fun.

[Mr. Kwalter]

Charles has mentioned getting a team together of MO people so we might come and have some fun.

Chicago Open '07: The Day of the Mueller

[Rothlover]

Charles has mentioned getting a team together of MO people so we might come and have some fun.

Chicago Open '07: The Day of the Mueller

That'll be the day.

[trphilli]

History tournament?

Final decision on history singles is still pending. I should have an answer for everybody shortly.

[setht]

Hey,

I apologize for leaving the history singles off the list of events for CO weekend, that was an embarrassing oversight on my part.

Assuming there's sufficient interest (say, 12 people*) to warrant running the event (say, 12 people), we'll try to find a spot in the schedule for the event. If you think you'll be coming to CO and you think you'll want to play the history singles, please email Tom soon so he can confirm that it looks like there'll be sufficient interest.

-Seth

[setht]

So far, CO weekend has the following events slated: CO, trash, science doubles, literature singles, history singles. CO will run on Saturday, trash will run on Sunday, and I guess we'll squeeze the three subject tournaments in on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. This effectively uses up our available time, so barring any event cancellations there is no longer space for more events.

For the people in charge of the trash, science, literature and history events: please let me know when you hear from enough interested people to warrant running the event. If I haven't heard anything by the end of April or so I'll check in and we'll see how we're doing.

-Seth

[DumbJaques]

Update on existence/effect on schedule of the lack of history tournament? I can't remember if anyone was interested in taking this over, but I'd really like them if they did.

[Morraine Man]

Update on existence/effect on schedule of the lack of history tournament? I can't remember if anyone was interested in taking this over, but I'd really like them if they did.

I'm in the process of writing a History tournament. It may or may not be played at Chicago Open -- as per my last conversation with Seth Teitler, there are 3 subject tournaments competing for 2 spots -- but it will be written by CO weekend.

[DumbJaques]

Is there any thing the historical masses can do to persuade Mr. Teitler of the immense worth of such a glorious project? I have $15 and a crowbar.

[setht]

Is there any thing the historical masses can do to persuade Mr. Teitler of the immense worth of such a glorious project? I have $15 and a crowbar.

I don't have any use for $15, but that crowbar sounds pretty good. It sounds like we'll try to run the history, literature and science tournaments, unless one of those folds for lack of organizers or lack of interest.

The early deadline for Chicago Open submissions is just under two weeks away. A couple reminders: the target difficulty is between this year's ACF Regionals and ACF Nationals (the round-robin portion, not the playoffs). If you're not sure how difficult you should be writing, I strongly encourage you to write questions on topics that are Regionals level (or easier, if you want)--it's much easier to edit a question to an appropriate difficulty level by tweaking clues if the answer is fine than if the answer is really hard to start with. Also, the target length is shorter than ACF Nationals: 5-7 lines in 10 point TNR for tossups, 1-3 lines for bonus intros and prompts.

Here's hoping I get a bunch of packets in the next 2 weeks.

-Seth

[setht]

It occurs to me that some of you may not have ready access to this year's ACF Nationals set to facilitate difficulty comparisons for your CO submissions. This year's ACF Regionals set is available here. The 2004 ACF Nationals set is available here, and should also give a decent feel for the desired difficulty level.

-Seth

[Jeremy Gibbs Lemma]

Missouri will indeed be bringing a team. Charles and I will be there assuming all goes according to plan and we will work to find 2 others.

Also, I would be interested in doing the Science Doubles tourney but I would need a partner who knows stuff... I am a biology major going for a chem minor .. I suck at quiz bowl science but I feel like I should be a part of this anyway :-P.

[setht]

The no-penalty deadline is a week and a half away. I've already received a couple packets, which is great, but I hope I'll have most of the rest by the 15th. Also, in hopes of receiving no more 9+ line tossups, I will reiterate that I want 5-7 line tossups (in 10 point TNR, 1.25" margins).

I believe the trash, literature, history and science events are all going forward. The current schedule is: history Friday night, Chicago Open Saturday and literature Saturday night, trash Sunday and science Sunday night.

I think that's it.

-Seth

[Rothlover]

Seth, could we get a field update too? I'd love to write my q's, but first gotta find a spot some place that would have me, and I'm guessing at least a few others are interested for similar reasons. Thanks, man.

[setht]

Seth, could we get a field update too? I'd love to write my q's, but first gotta find a spot some place that would have me, and I'm guessing at least a few others are interested for similar reasons. Thanks, man.

Sure.

I have received packets from:
Ahmad Ragab
Maryland (Mike Bentley, Jeremy Eaton, Jonathan Magin, and Chris Ray)
Andrew Hart
Matt Lafer/Ray Luo/Jerry Vinokurov/Ryan Westbrook

I have heard that the following teams will also play:
Paul Gauthier/Matt Keller/Eric Kwartler/Charles Meigs
Kent Buxton/Charlie Dees
Ed Cohn/Susan Ferrari

I'm guessing there will be some more teams. I'm also guessing that Ahmad, Andrew, Kent/Charlie and Ed/Susan will fill out their teams some amount.

While I'm at it, I'll mention that the no-penalty deadline is in one week. June 15th is also the deadline for announcing that you want to play without writing a packet, without incurring a steep fee.

-Seth

[Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It]

The Missouri contingent will be me, Kent, Brandon Thomas from Truman State, and Josh Chittum from Mizzou. And he's nothing like Mueller.

[Ukonvasara]

Andrew Hart's team consists of Andrew, me, and two draft picks to be named later (likely, either Brendan Byrne/Quentin Roper of Drake or Selene Koo/Thad Novak).

[setht]

Hi all,

the no-penalty packet deadline (for the Chicago site) is tomorrow. If you want to play without writing a packet, you should tell me by tomorrow night or plan on paying lots of money.

Two more teams have signed up since my last field update:
Sudheer Potru/Mike Sorice/Andrew Ullsperger/Matt Weiner
Tim Hartman/Arsalan Khan/Rom Masrour

-Seth

[cornfused]

ignore that...

[setht]

Hi all,

the final deadline for packet submission is coming up this Friday. Of the teams that have signed up, I have not yet received packets from Paul Gauthier/Matt Keller/Eric Kwartler/Charles Meigs and from Sudheer Potru/Mike Sorice/Andrew Ullsperger/Matt Weiner.

So far there are 9 teams signed up. I'm not sure if there are going to be any more teams signing up. My impression is that there are several free agents that don't yet have teams. If you are a free agent with no team, please email me at setht@uchicago.edu so we can figure out what's going on.

-Seth

[Jeremy Gibbs Lemma]

Team Missouri just fell apart. Brandon Thomas got scammed out of a LOT of money and will thus be moving out of his apartment and back to Kansas to work his ass off to make the money back before school starts again. He also was responsible for getting us our hotel room at an employee rate.... so pretty much he was the only way we could afford to go.

Chuq and I are currently exploring other options of where to stay and are looking for two more players as replacements. We each had a few ideas on who to get so we will report back soon if those fall through... we might have to tap into the free agent market if all else fails.

[Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It]

if all else fails... and they have money for hotels. Or an apartment in the Chi.

[setht]

Here's a quick update on Chicago Open...

The following teams are registered for Chicago Open:
-Team CFKT: Ed Cohn/Susan Ferrari/Adam Kemezis/Kelly Tourdot
-Team Hart: Rob Carson/Andrew Hart/Dan Passner/Quentin Roper
-Team Locals: Bruce Arthur/Tim Hartman/Rom Masrour/some combination of Bob Johnson/Arsalan Khan/Hemant Mehta
-Team LLVW: Matt Lafer/Ray Luo/Jerry Vinokurov/Ryan Westbrook
-Team Maryland: Mike Bentley/Jeremy Eaton/Jonathan Magin/Chris Ray
-Team Missouri: Kent Buxton/Charles Dees/2 mystery guests
-Team Ragab: Selene Koo/Thad Novak/Ahmad Ragab/mystery guest
-Team Where's My Fine Arts: Sudheer Potru/Mike Sorice/Andrew Ullsperger/Matt Weiner
-Team Where's My Packet: Paul Gauthier/Matt Keller/Eric Kwartler/Charles Meigs


I'm not sure if there are still free agents running around that want to form a 10th team. I'm happy to let in more teams, but I'm going to close registration soon.

Any team that wants a clever team name to appear on the schedule should let me know soon (and send me 3/3 fine arts or a packet, in certain cases).

I have received half-packets from the following West Coast teams: Berkeley, Stanford, UCI, and Yaphe.

Those of you who requested feedback on question submissions will receive feedback at least from me after the tournament.

I think that's it. Please let me know (setht@uchicago.edu) if you have any questions or concerns.

-Seth

[Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It]

OK, fair warning.
If the Kent Buxton/Charles Dees team doesn't get 2 people to join by, say, Tuesday, we won't come because of finances. Please email Kent or me about this (my email is charlie16 @ gmail . com). Or contact me on facebook, I guess.

--EDIT--
Anybody who may have some extra space in their hotel rooms or apartments or whatever that's enough to hold 2 extra people, please let us know. We can pay cash money.

[setht]

Team Where's My Fine Arts will henceforth be known as Team Ed Lolington & the Sealed Bids.

[vandyhawk]

I have a somewhat random question. Just how bad of an idea is it to take the Metra down to campus? I'm staying downtown with my brother, who does not have a car, and he didn't think walking by the UC Metra area was the best idea. I've heard conflicting reports on this. Thoughts?

[myamphigory]

Unless you're Ed "Crime Magnet" Cohn, you won't get mugged.

Seriously, I don't really know what your brother is talking about; the Metra is on the east (aka safer) side of Hyde Park. However, it might be easier or faster, depending on where you're coming from, to take the #6 bus, or to take the Red Line to Garfield and take the #55 bus. Of the three options, the #55 is the only one that I've ever found to be at all sketchy, and that only after dark.

[grapesmoker]

Seriously, I don't really know what your brother is talking about; the Metra is on the east (aka safer) side of Hyde Park. However, it might be easier or faster, depending on where you're coming from, to take the #6 bus, or to take the Red Line to Garfield and take the #55 bus. Of the three options, the #55 is the only one that I've ever found to be at all sketchy, and that only after dark.

I take the 55 to Hyde Park whenever I go to Chicago for tournaments, and I've never had any problems, whether after dark or otherwise.

[Hilarius Bookbinder]

I take the 55 to Hyde Park whenever I go to Chicago for tournaments, and I've never had any problems, whether after dark or otherwise.

It's the beard. They don't mess with the beard.

[DumbJaques]

Muggers know cash on hand varies inversely with beard length.

[grapesmoker]

Muggers know cash on hand varies inversely with beard length.

My beard isn't even that long. I probably look a little like a crazy homeless man though, especially as of late.

[Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It]

No, they look at Jerry and know that if someone tries to steal his money, he'll eat them. Isn't that right, Jerry?

[grapesmoker]

No, they look at Jerry and know that if someone tries to steal his money, he'll eat them. Isn't that right, Jerry?

Well, there's that too. Or vomit on them.

[setht]

Hi all,

if you're planning on bringing a fully-functional buzzer set or a fully-functional experienced reader, please let me know.

All events will be held in Harper Memorial Library. Nearby parking is usually available on 59th.

Registration for Chicago Open will begin at 8:30, with games starting at 9.

I think that's it for now.

-Seth

[setht]

Hi all,

the initial meeting for the Chicago Open will be in 130 Harper. It's on the main floor and there'll be a bunch of quizbowlers in and around it.

-Seth

[vandyhawk]

This is rather late notice, but I just found out that, due to a variety of issues, Paul G. most likely can't make it tomorrow, unless someone will happen to be driving through/near the Wheaton area (western suburb) and wouldn't mind picking him up. If this applies to you, call me (Matt Keller) at 615-293-8717. If you read this and may want to play tomorrow in his place, talk to Eric Kwartler tonight or one of us at some point.

[setht]

Congratulations to Ed Lolington and the Sealed Bids (Sudheer Potru, Mike Sorice, Andrew Ullsperger and Matt Weiner), the champions of Chicago Open 2007. They won a close second match of an advantaged best-of-three series against Team LafLuoVinWes (Matt Lafer, Ray Luo, Jerry Vinokurov and Ryan Westbrook) to claim the title.

I want to thank all the teams for coming from all over to play the tournament and for writing packets--I hope you all had a goofy good time on a set that maybe went too easy in the early rounds and too hard in the late rounds (or maybe not, I'm not sure). I also want to thank my fellow editors/writers (Michael Arnold, Peter Austin, Ezequiel Berdichevsky, William Dix, Jeff Hoppes, Kannan Mahadevan, Eric Mukherjee, David Press, Seth Samelson and David Seal), and my fellow staffers (Seth Samelson and Christopher Stone). Finally, I would like to thank all the people who worked to put on the other events for the weekend.

Please feel free to email me (setht@uchicago.edu) with any questions/comments/suggestions/rants/screeds regarding the tournament, or post them over in the discussion section.

Thanks again to all the people that helped put together a fun weekend of quizbowl.

-Seth

[setht]

I should have said this in the previous post, but I forgot: I also want to thank the people that put on the West Coast mirror and supplied us with much-appreciated question submissions. I hope you all also had a good time.

More complete stats for the Chicago site will be made publicly available soon.

-Seth

[setht]

The complete stats for Chicago Open 2007 can be found here.

Note that teams played an initial 9-round round robin, then were seeded by record into 2 brackets, top 4 and bottom 5. The bottom 5 played a round-robin on the remaining 5 packets. The top 4 played a 3-round round robin on the 3 playoff packets, then the top 2 (ELSB and LafLuoVinWes) advanced to a best-of-three finals. After 12 rounds, LafLuoVinWes and CohnFerKemTour were tied for second based on record, but LafLuoVinWes won the statistical tiebreaker; unfortunately there were no extra packets available to play the tie off. Also note that team Maryland and team Ragab agreed to let their 12th round tie stand.

-Seth

[Bentley Like Beckham]

I'd like to congratulate Chris Ray for going "5/15" in the match against LafLouVinWes, especially since Jonathan Magin went 3/0 in that game.

Buzzing on 20 of the tossups and still having your teammates buzz on tossups is a skill I have not yet learned.