VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

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VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Matt Weiner »

This is the general announcement for the fourth annual VCU Season Finale Tournament. This is a high school academic quizbowl tournament to be hosted by the quizbowl club of Virginia Commonwealth University on Saturday, April 24 from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM. The tournament is open to any high school team that wishes to attend.

This is a date change from the initially announced date of April 3.

The tournament will take place at the VCU campus, in a building to be determined.

AFFILIATION: This tournament will seek affiliation with the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence and will be an opportunity to qualify for the National Scholastics Championship (pace-nsc.org), which is run by PACE and will occur in June 2010.

QUESTIONS: The questions will be provided by Hunter College High School, and are the same set that will be used at their Prison Bowl tournament in February.

FORMAT: Our ideal tournament format is for the maximum 24 teams. The teams will be divided into four brackets of six teams each and play five-game round robins in rounds 1-5. The teams will then be ranked. Over rounds 6-11, each first and second place team will play its counterparts in the other three brackets, each third and fourth place team will do the same, and each fifth and sixth place team likewise, to produce a final ranking. The tournament championship will be decided by a final of up to two games if necessary.

In the event that fewer than 24 teams register, or that we are able to expand the field and host more than 24 teams, the format will change accordingly. All teams will be offered a minimum of 9 games in any format. Trophies will be awarded to the top four teams, and book prizes will be awarded to the top eight individual scorers.

REGISTRATION AND FEES:
-The fee structure is as follows:
Base fee: $70 per team. There is no limit to the number of teams who can attend from one school.
Buzzer discount: $5 off school's total fee for each fully functional system (control box and eight activators all work)-no limit to # of systems you can bring
Staff discount: $15 off school's total fee. This could be a coach, parent, student who is not playing, etc. Team-provided staffers will keep score for various games not involving the team with which they are affiliated. Volunteer staffers must stay through all the games (except finals) in order to receive credit for their school. There is no limit to the number of staffers you can bring.
Minimum fee: The minimum fee is $0 (you can bring enough buzzers and staffers to eliminate your entire fee via discounts, but you cannot have a "negative fee.")
-To register, e- mail me at [email protected] with the number of teams, buzzers, and staffers you want to bring, and an email address where you can be contacted with details. We are also requiring a cell phone contact number belonging to someone who will be attending the tournament, so that we can track you down if you are running late. Feel free to share this announcement with any schools that you think would be interested in attending. There is no further registration form or other action needed on your part in order to be officially registered; you only need to e-mail me at that address with the information requested. Posts made in this thread will not be considered official registrations; you must e-mail me.

METHOD OF PAYMENT: All teams must pay by the day of the tournament. We prefer to accept payment in person right before the tournament starts, but we will accept checks by mail ahead of time if your procedures require it. Teams who do not pay by the day of the tournament will be charged a $25 penalty and will have two weeks to pay their total amount before we start mailing letters to your school administration about it.

We can accept cash, personal checks, or checks from school, school district, or quizbowl club funds. We have no ability to process purchase orders, credit cards, Paypal, or any other forms of payment. Bringing forms of payment outside of the three listed will be considered nonpayment and subject you to the $25 late payment penalty.

We will contact registered teams with instructions on who to make the checks out to. If you require a pre-tournament invoice in order to have a check cut, let us know by March 10 so that we can send you the paperwork in time. If you do not let us know about this requirement by March 10, and it causes you to come to the tournament without your payment, then you will be subject to the $25 late payment penalty.

TEAM & ROSTER SIZE: There may be a maximum of six players on one team's roster, up to four of whom may play at one time. There will be no exceptions to this rule. If you bring more than six players, you must register a second team to have all of them play. There is a halftime substitution opportunity in each game. Each player may appear on only one team's roster throughout the day-no switching from the B team to the A team, etc. Teams may also play shorthanded with only three players. Teams consisting of fewer than three players may not play without my express prior permission.

FOOD: Neither breakfast nor lunch will be provided by the tournament. There are several eateries within walking distance of campus buildings and a vast cornucopia within a ten minutes' drive; maps and suggestions will be provided at the tournament.

Please e-mail me if you have any further questions. I'm looking forward to seeing a wide variety of teams from Virginia and surrounding states on April 24.

Matt Weiner
Tournament Director, VCU Season Finale Tournament IV
[email protected]

List of registered teams (to be updated as registrations come in):

Caesar Rodney
Clover Hill
Georgetown Day
Maggie Walker A
Maggie Walker B
St. Anne's-Belfield
Thomas Jefferson A
Thomas Jefferson B
Thomas Jefferson C
Thomas Jefferson D
Walt Whitman
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Is this still the date for this tournament? You are aware that this is the day before Easter, and during the Spring Break for many many schools?
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Matt Weiner »

There is no other date on which to hold this tournament, and "the day before Easter" remains not a holiday in any religion I know of. We expect a good field.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Kanga-Rat Murder Society »

Matt Weiner wrote:There is no other date on which to hold this tournament, and "the day before Easter" remains not a holiday in any religion I know of. We expect a good field.
Then you are not aware of Christianity. Holy Saturday is a pretty important holiday in many Christian denominations. As it is the day that Jesus was is in the tomb, many churches consider it a an important day of sabbath. In particular, no devout Eastern Orthodox members would be allowed to go to a tournament on this day, and I am pretty sure you would lose devout Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists as well.

Ninja Edit: I should probably note that many of the Eastern Orthodox churches that care about this more have Easter on a different day, so it will not affect them.
Last edited by Kanga-Rat Murder Society on Mon Apr 12, 2010 8:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Matt Weiner »

Look, folks. There are a certain number of Saturdays in the academic year. In the spring, college teams have to go play college tournaments. High schools should be the last group complaining about this situation; you have your pick of dates since you aren't worried about two levels of competitive quizbowl like college teams are.

VCU's calendar looks like this, extending from three days before our spring semester of classes begins, right up to our exam period:

January 16- ACF Winter
January 23
January 30- Penn Bowl
February 6- NAQT Sectionals
February 14- T-Party
February 21- ACF Regionals
February 27- staffing at VHSL states, which would preclude hosting a high school tournament that day in any case
March 6
March 13- our spring break starts, and this is when GDS's tournament is so we wouldn't be hosting a tournament here anyway
March 20- our spring break ends, also Harvard International
March 27- Princeton Buzzerfest
April 3
April 10- NAQT ICT
April 17- ACF Nationals
April 24
May 1

After May 1, VCU's semester is over, and half our team goes back home for the summer and can't staff. With colleges ending each week in May, it's really only high schools who can try to host a tournament during the AP exam period that neatly covers the gap between here and HS nationals.

So, there's five open weekends, over which four spring high school tournaments in the Richmond-Charlottesville area (VCU Spring, VCU Season Finale, Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship, and NAQT states) need to be scheduled. There are going to be people on the VCU team either playing or staffing a quizbowl tournament on literally every Saturday of the spring semester.

We chose January 23 for the "spring" tournament and April 3 and May 1 for the other two that we are doing. For Season Finale, we originally did not consider April 24 as a date, since both ACF Nationals and two high school novice tournaments were targeting that weekend when we came up with our schedule for this year. That made April 3 literally our only choice.

With Nationals being kicked up a week and both of the HS novice events cancelled, and some more flexibility in the schedule given the cancellation of Weekend of Quizbowl, we may be able to move onto the 24th. I will need more than one team to say they would prefer such a change before we begin the process of making it, though. Furthermore, I am skeptical that the number of teams we would lose to the problems of the April 3 date is greater than the number who would miss either Season Finale or the NAQT Regional tournament due to not wanting to come to two tournaments at VCU on two consecutive weekends.

Now, a note about this "day before Easter" business in general. If you are one of the 2 people in our usual high school field who observes Holy Saturday, my apologies. You have to deal with the same thing that observant Jews deal with for every tournament. We hope to see you at our other 4 tournaments this year or at the other 20 events hosted by other colleges and high schools in the Mid-Atlantic region. We're not going to just not host a tournament that will provide an opportunity to play on good questions for teams and raise money for us, because some people can't come. Consider the implications of what this would mean. Between SATs, religious holidays, the days before religious holidays, and even more outlandish requests we've gotten such as "don't host a quizbowl tournament on the day of a model UN competition because there's two people who do both activities," you are basically saying there should be something like 3 high school quizbowl tournaments a year, if you don't want one hosted that may exclude some players or teams due to conflicts.

Most quizbowl players are motivated people who are involved in other academic activities; most of them are trying to get into a prestigious college and are worried about the SAT; some of them are religious and will not be available on certain days. That's how things are, and that's not going to change. We can host a lot of tournaments so that each player and each team has their possible opportunities to play maximized and thus can still compete regularly even though they have other things to do sometimes, or we can respond to every single request that might affect even one person and not have high school quizbowl anymore.

With that said: if people want us to look at April 24, you can say so, but I wanted to make sure people were really cognizant of the difficulties that an active college program faces in scheduling times to host high school tournaments, and realize that tradeoffs always have to be made. No doubt moving the tournament to April 24 will also cause conflict with some other group, and will, as I said, result in the suboptimal situation of two high school events in the same place two weeks in a row. If you are a team that would still like to see the switch, post and we'll look into it. If we investigate and conclude that April 3 is still the best overall date, then we will host on April 3, and people who can attend will do so, while others will not, much like every tournament. If we move to April 24, then I guarantee that someone else will host a tournament on April 3, and teams will go, even if some teams are unable to do so.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by AKKOLADE »

Pro-tip: Don't go to tournaments if you can't, go to tournaments if you can.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Angry Babies in Love »

RM is very tentatively interested in going, but considering it's during our spring break, we'll probably be under-manned, as will probably a few other teams.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Self-incompatibility in plants »

The issue isn't necessarily the observance of Holy Saturday, as much as it is traveling to various destinations for Easter. I know I will be traveling to go see family on Saturday, and I think other people on my team are as well. Despite wanting to attend this tournament, I really can't find a way to get out of my family's travels. That being said, we at CR of course don't like the circumstances, but we also fully understand the predicament, and regret that the situation does not allow for us to attend. We wish everyone at VCU the best of luck in running the tournament for the many teams that will be able to make it.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

A band of heathens from GDS is interested in this.

EDIT: Said band of heathens from GDS would be 99% certain to not go if this got moved to the 24th. Eh, if it works better for everyone else, go ahead and move the tournament. Such is life.

EDIT2: Also, it might not be a good idea to mirror Hunter's tournament two months after its debut, making public discussion of the set wait three more weeks as a result of the delay, when this weekend would otherwise be free for something like a spring tournament for novices.
Last edited by Adventure Temple Trail on Mon Nov 30, 2009 9:24 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Matt Weiner »

In light of the unexpected clustering of spring breaks around April 3, we've decided to move this to April 24 unless someone has a good reason not to.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by wexs883198215 »

It's Academic Semi-finals does tape on the 24th. There are some good teams that are also good at speed and will probably make it to the semis.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

EDIT2: Also, it might not be a good idea to mirror Hunter's tournament two months after its debut, making public discussion of the set wait three more weeks as a result of the delay, when this weekend would otherwise be free for something like a spring tournament for novices.
I don't get this. Why deny people the chance to hear a (hopefully) good set for as frivolous a reason as the top players would rather discuss it soon on the boards. NAQT and HSAPQ use their sets for large swathes of time because it maximizes the potential for people to use them at tournaments all over the country, and because, as sane organizations, they both realize this is far more ideal than a situation where you can only run the set on a couple weekends then people get to critique it publicly. I think housewritten tournaments should absolutely be allowed to decide to run a mirror much later, much in the same way, not least because it is their prerogative to make money, and accommodating all areas of the country that are interested is a completely sane approach to mirroring. I sincerely hope that in the future, people will realize that the chance for a relative few people to discuss a set quickly is essentially a non-issue when compared to the tradeoff of hundreds more people possibly being allowed to hear good questions, and that advocating for anything else is somewhat contrary to the spread of good quizbowl.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

wexs883198215 wrote:It's Academic Semi-finals does tape on the 24th. There are some good teams that are also good at speed and will probably make it to the semis.
In that case, those teams have a choice to make. Sorry, but this affects so few teams (if any) that it's hard to justify a date change based on it.

Anyway, if those teams are committed to good quizbowl, they'll skip a half hour of terrible speedchecks to play a good tournament. (Theoretically, there are financial issues to consider, but it's unlikely for a primarily good quizbowl team to get to the finals, simply because there are teams that practice exclusively on bad questions.)
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by wexs883198215 »

Journey to the Planets wrote:
wexs883198215 wrote:It's Academic Semi-finals does tape on the 24th. There are some good teams that are also good at speed and will probably make it to the semis.
In that case, those teams have a choice to make. Sorry, but this affects so few teams (if any) that it's hard to justify a date change based on it.

Anyway, if those teams are committed to good quizbowl, they'll skip a half hour of terrible speedchecks to play a good tournament. (Theoretically, there are financial issues to consider, but it's unlikely for a primarily good quizbowl team to get to the finals, simply because there are teams that practice exclusively on bad questions.)
I'm talking about the semifinals, which has 9 teams taping, and I can think of multiple teams that might be there, including St. Anselms, actually.
I think commitment to good quizbowl has nothing to do with it. Nobody here likes awful speedchecks (I hope). However, one does represent the school on television, and I don't think everyone has the luxury of being able to convince their coach to skip a rather important taping.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

wexs883198215 wrote:
Journey to the Planets wrote:
wexs883198215 wrote:It's Academic Semi-finals does tape on the 24th. There are some good teams that are also good at speed and will probably make it to the semis.
In that case, those teams have a choice to make. Sorry, but this affects so few teams (if any) that it's hard to justify a date change based on it.

Anyway, if those teams are committed to good quizbowl, they'll skip a half hour of terrible speedchecks to play a good tournament. (Theoretically, there are financial issues to consider, but it's unlikely for a primarily good quizbowl team to get to the finals, simply because there are teams that practice exclusively on bad questions.)
I'm talking about the semifinals, which has 9 teams taping, and I can think of multiple teams that might be there, including St. Anselms, actually.
I think commitment to good quizbowl has nothing to do with it. Nobody here likes awful speedchecks (I hope). However, one does represent the school on television, and I don't think everyone has the luxury of being able to convince their coach to skip a rather important taping.
Okay, I'll admit that those are good points. I'm just frustrated that this show is taking up tournament dates. I meant that people could skip the semis if they weren't going to make the finals, but I guess if your coach wants you to go, there's little you can do.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by ieppler »

TV sucks. Fortunately, you'll probably find that others at your high school disagree and will happily take your spot on the TV team should you choose to spend your weekends participating in more intellectually fulfilling activities. I can't explain the desire to put on a suit and play a glorified reaction test for an audience consisting of DC's nursing home population and your high school's cheerleading squad, but in my experience, it's never been hard to find TV players.

As a side note,
Journey to the Planets wrote: it's unlikely for a primarily good quizbowl team to get to the finals, simply because there are teams that practice exclusively on bad questions
It's a waste of time to predict It's Ac; by design, game outcomes are essentially random. (Interestingly, Altman Productions is very willing to inform its staunchest supporters of that fact.) Usually, this works to advantage teams with less knowledge (last year's TJ first-round loss comes to mind, but there are countless other examples), but you never know.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by wexs883198215 »

Yea, I guess this is kind of the same issue as the not being able to discuss questions earlier kind of thing. If 4/24 really works better for a large majority of the people, it wouldn't be reasonable to ask for another date for a small minority. Whoever can't go can still access the set online, anyways.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Nine-Tenths Ideas »

I think teams who do go to the semi-finals pretty much give up the right to ask for a rescheduling, anyway.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Howard »

ieppler wrote:It's a waste of time to predict It's Ac
Yes. Especially in the semifinals in DC, where it's pretty much guaranteed all 9 teams will be very good at the show's format.
ieppler wrote:game outcomes are essentially random. (Interestingly, Altman Productions is very willing to inform its staunchest supporters of that fact.) Usually, this works to advantage teams with less knowledge (last year's TJ first-round loss comes to mind, but there are countless other examples), but you never know.
Um, no. A quick check of the distribution of the schools appearing in the semifinals or finals over a significant number of years will show this isn't true. The average team will reach the semifinals once every 9 years and the championship game once every 27.

I'm not sure what Altman Productions specifically said to you, but their comments to me typically indicated that they didn't try to predict results because there were a significant number of matches where the "favorite" to win did not achieve that result. There was no particular discussion as to how the favorite team was determined. It could have been historical data or current season observations.

Even if you were correct in the random point, it still wouldn't give an advantage to a team with less knowledge (since that would by definition not be random). Furthermore, I'll assert that the team with more knowledge has the advantage in any competition where knowledge is required to answer the questions. Possession of knowledge doesn't preclude teams from familiarizing themselves with the task at hand, i.e. preparing for the taping.


As a side note, it's worth stating that without It's Academic, you probably wouldn't be able to play in good tournament of your choice on a majority of weekends throughout the year. It's Academic brings quiz bowl to the masses and creates interest in the schools. Without that interest, you'd likely be looking at attending tournaments on fewer weekends and in much more distant places.

A look at the college circuit should give you a good idea of what could happen if large numbers of schools don't retain interest in academic competition. Most of the collegiate tournaments in which I've assisted have teams coming from 5 to 8 hours away. While this may be reasonable for college teams, very few high school teams would be willing to commit to making several tournaments 5 to 8 hours away in a season. Most would maybe consider one that far away in a year.


None of this should imply, of course, that the April 24 date is to be avoided because of the semifinals. Given the option of the 4/3 and 4/24 dates, I'd choose the 24th, too. Why? Because turnout is likely to be poor over spring break. Many families plan their vacations around the spring break schedule, enough that nearly all teams considering entry would be affected in some way, even if minor. The It's Academic taping is guaranteed to affect no more than nine teams. It's an unfortunate choice to make, but as Matt says, there are a limited number of weekends on which tournaments can be held.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Matt Weiner »

Can anti-quizbowl people who want to defend fake tournaments, including the worst tournament in the world, It's Academic, which does nothing but steal dates from real quizbowl, find someplace to do it other than my thread about the actual quizbowl tournament being held at VCU this spring? Thanks in advance.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 3, 2010

Post by Matt Weiner »

The move to April 24 is official.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Thanks to the date change, we're looking at coming to this... obviously nothing concrete, but we definitely want to make at least one VCU tournament this year, and this might be it.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by pblessman »

I'm looking for a tournament in April for my team to attend, so this looks interesting, but is the field really zero teams right now? Unless I missed something, the field update slot in the original tournament announcement lists no teams. Is it just to early, or has the field just not been updated?
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Matt Weiner »

pblessman wrote:I'm looking for a tournament in April for my team to attend, so this looks interesting, but is the field really zero teams right now? Unless I missed something, the field update slot in the original tournament announcement lists no teams. Is it just to early, or has the field just not been updated?
Both. As you can see from the development of our January tournament thread, we usually get 14-18 teams, with nearly all of them registering in the 10 days before the event.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

We're certainly "more officially" considering this tournament. Hopefully before our Spring Break (a month, basically) i can have definite registration for you.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by at your pleasure »

Whitman is interested pending our ability to dragoon players to this.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Algeria »

TJ's sending at least one team to this.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by at your pleasure »

Er, could we have an uptdate, including such information as "what teams are registered", "what teams are intersted" and "is this tournament happening"?
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

In case i haven't made it really clear, we are definitely coming to this and looking forward to it a lot.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Matt Weiner »

Algeria wrote:TJ's sending at least one team to this.
I need an e-mailed registration to this effect, please.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by t-bar »

Matt Weiner wrote:
Algeria wrote:TJ's sending at least one team to this.
I need an e-mailed registration to this effect, please.
As of four minutes before you made this post, you should have this email.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Any field updates to this? Is Maggie Walker going to sign up? Or are we really just going to run with 8 teams?
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by at your pleasure »

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:Any field updates to this? Is Maggie Walker going to sign up? Or are we really just going to run with 8 teams?
Gov is in fact in the posted field.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Doink the Clown wrote:
Carangoides ciliarius wrote:Any field updates to this? Is Maggie Walker going to sign up? Or are we really just going to run with 8 teams?
Gov is in fact in the posted field.
Well, they weren't at 6:43 this morning!

Good though. Now i see ten teams... just a simple full round-robin i guess is in order?
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:
Doink the Clown wrote:
Carangoides ciliarius wrote:Any field updates to this? Is Maggie Walker going to sign up? Or are we really just going to run with 8 teams?
Gov is in fact in the posted field.
Well, they weren't at 6:43 this morning!

Good though. Now i see ten teams... just a simple full round-robin i guess is in order?
Depends on who adds/drops in the next few days.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Matt Weiner »

We will be meeting in Hibbs, room 303.

Usual info on getting there:

-The nominal address of the building is "900 Park Ave, Richmond VA" if you need to put something into your map software of choice, but be aware that Hibbs does not actually face the street, so you will have to park and then walk to the area where the building is in order to find it. I suggest printing out the appropriate campus maps and bringing them along--note that Hibbs is directly across from the Cabell Library, which will probably be easier for you to find if you have not been to the VCU campus before.
-It is almost certain that the one and only door to Hibbs which will be unlocked for the weekend is the door on the north (interior) side of the vestibule that is on the library side of the building. We will endeavor to have signs up that point you to this door.
-On Saturdays, parking on the street is free and available in most places around the campus; the best place to park for access to Hibbs is on one of the residential streets such as Park Avenue, Floyd Avenue, or West Avenue that branch off Harrison Street to the west near the Hibbs/library area. If you cannot find a space in that area, then you can try parking on Floyd Avenue near the Commons, or, further south, on Main Street. If all else fails, you should use the parking deck at Harrison and Broad, which is about three blocks north of the tournament building and will charge you somewhere between zero and five dollars to park all day on a Saturday.
-We won't be providing breakfast. There are 7-11s along Harrison at both the Main Street and Grace Street intersections, which are three blocks south and north of the tournament building respectively. If you prefer to sit down and/or eat hot food, the Village Cafe at Harrison and Grace is open for breakfast.

Here is how to get to the actual building rather than the parking garage that the VCU website sends you to:

--Get off on exit 76B if coming from the north or west. Turn left at the light at the end of the ramp, putting you on Leigh St. The next intersection will have two different streets running very close to each other than you can turn right onto; turn right onto the second/larger street, Belvidere St. Continue on Belvidere until you reach Broad Street, and take a right. Continue on Broad until you reach Harrison, and turn left. After three blocks traveling south on Harrison, you will pass a statue on your left; the building is located in that area. Turn right from here and park on a residential street, or turn left and park in the loop near the library.

--If coming from the south or east, take exit 76A, then turn left onto Chamberlayne Parkway/Avenue. Moving south on Chamberlayne, it will become Adams St as you cross Leigh. Continue on Adams until you reach Broad Street, and turn right onto Broad. Continue on Broad until you reach Harrison, and turn left. After three blocks traveling south on Harrison, you will pass a statue on your left; the building is located in that area. Turn right from here and park on a residential street, or turn left and park in the loop near the library.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Sounds good.

Hey Matt Jackson... you coming this time to help out GDS try to upset Maggie Walker? If so, i guess a lot of us are playing for third.

Looking forward to finally hearing Prison Bowl this year.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

Carangoides ciliarius wrote: Hey Matt Jackson... you coming this time to help out GDS try to upset Maggie Walker? If so, i guess a lot of us are playing for third.
Thought I said this upthread somewhere, but I guess not...my show is still going this weekend, so I won't make it to this tournament. If the May 1st tournament happens, though, I'll be at that.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

RyuAqua wrote:
Carangoides ciliarius wrote: Hey Matt Jackson... you coming this time to help out GDS try to upset Maggie Walker? If so, i guess a lot of us are playing for third.
Thought I said this upthread somewhere, but I guess not...my show is still going this weekend, so I won't make it to this tournament. If the May 1st tournament happens, though, I'll be at that.
Ah, alright, well break a leg then!
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

I see an 11th team added. We're still doing a full round-robin now, but with a bye in there somewhere?
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Matt Weiner »

We're starting round 7 now. Stats are only through round 2 and will be caught up during lunch:

http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Matt Weiner »

Now amidst lunch, stats are current.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Matt Weiner »

Round robin concludes, MW and TJ to play advantaged final starting now.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

Maggie Walker A beats TJ A to win.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by jonpin »

Frater Taciturnus wrote:Maggie Walker A beats TJ A to win.
:shock: [to be clear, this is in response to the scoresheet that shows MW as a whole going 18/1 to win 635-40.
That's insane.

Looking at the stats for this, and comparing them to Prison Bowl NYC, it did get me to thinking. Has a team ever had a perfect game on bonuses, hearing 10 or more? LASA had games of 37-for-39 and 38-for-39; Maggie Walker here went 49-for-51 in one game. Is such a feat even rarer than 20-for-20?
Last edited by jonpin on Sat Apr 24, 2010 3:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by wexs883198215 »

I guess I'll be the first to repeat how scary Gov is? Holding TJ to a single toss-up?!?
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by Kouign Amann »

On a slightly-easier-than-normal set, Gov did it here, during round 4.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by jonpin »

Prof.Whoopie wrote:On a slightly-easier-than-normal set, Gov did it here, during round 4.
And upon perusing that thread, I see there's a name for it and all. And holy crap on the 780 at that tournament. Easier-than-normal or not, I couldn't put up 780 if I was playing on the packet I read in practice on Thursday.

I look forward to watching a few epic MW/SC matches in the coming months...
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by jbarnes112358 »

As incredible as that final game was, it should be noted that Maggie Walker almost lost the first meeting of the day against TJ, needing to sweep the final three tossups in order to avoid the loss. TJ is an excellent team, and has improved steadily this year. They should be counted among the best teams out there, and I believe they are all back next year. TJ is a dangerous team, capable of beating just about anybody on the right packet.
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Re: VCU Season Finale Tournament IV -- April 24, 2010

Post by at your pleasure »

jbarnes112358 wrote:As incredible as that final game was, it should be noted that Maggie Walker almost lost the first meeting of the day against TJ, needing to sweep the final three tossups in order to avoid the loss. TJ is an excellent team, and has improved steadily this year. They should be counted among the best teams out there, and I believe they are all back next year. TJ is a dangerous team, capable of beating just about anybody on the right packet.
Having lost to TJ by almost as large a margin as we lost to Gov, I endorse this sentiment.
Also thanks go to VCU for running this tournament so well(I got home earlier than I have from some tournaments 15 minutes away) and Hunter for writing such a good set. There seemed to be more close games today than usual, but that may have been the full round-robin.
Douglas Graebner, Walt Whitman HS 10, Uchicago 14
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