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Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 11:43 pm
by dolphin
Columbia will be hosting the East Coast mirror of Minnesota Open V on November 17, 2012 in NYC. This is an open tournament; anyone in teams of up to four can play.
EDIT: Since Amazing Planet was canceled, we'll be playing everything on Saturday: the main tournament, Eyes during lunch, and trash at night (starting around ~6pm), for a long day of Quiz Bowl.

To register (latest Thursday November 15), please fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/vie ... c6MQ#gid=0

You can view that form here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... 05CcHFvQ3c if you would like to see who else is going/looking for teammates.

To register for side events: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/vie ... bkJBYnc6MQ
We'll accept people registering Saturday morning also since this was posted pretty late.

Tournament fee will be $160/team like the main site.

What:
Minnesota Open V http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... =8&t=13067
Eyes that Do Not See http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... =8&t=13591 - as a singles tournament during lunch
Trash written by Mike Cheyne http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... 19&t=13569 - as a tournament in 6 rounds

Eligibility:
Open, anyone can play, regardless of high school/college affiliation.

Time:
Games will hopefully start at 9:00 am, please be in Hamilton 603 by 8:30 for announcements/registration.

Location:
Hamilton Hall (1130 Amsterdam Avenue), on Columbia University campus. Buses to New York will take you to Port Authority or somewhere downtown around 34th street. Trains will go into Penn Station. From any of those places (and wherever you are staying), the easiest way to get here will be via MTA subway – the red (1) line, which will stop at 116th and Broadway. When you come out, you will see the Columbia gates. To Hamilton: walk east past the center of campus toward the next lane of trees and the building will be on your right. Turn right before the building, the entrance is on the other side (there is a statue of Alexander Hamilton in front).
Map: http://www.columbia.edu/about_columbia/map/.

Fees:
$160 per team base fee (includes the $2/player for the Trash tournament)
$40 for free agents
-$5 per usable buzzer set - please bring buzzers! Columbia only has one set!
-$20 for moderators

Checks are payable to Columbia University, have "Quiz Bowl" in the subject line. Cash works too.

Field:
If you haven't already, please fill out the form below by Nov 15. Make sure to include names of people on the team (you can re-submit the form or email me if the roster changes) and a working phone number.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/vie ... c6MQ#gid=0

NYU (2)
Yale
Dartmouth
RPI+Aaron Cohen (and Nimit D, Qi W, Eric B, Josh K)
Penn+Ted (and Saajid M, Eric M, Patrick L)
"David Seal Team" (and Matt W, Daniel H, Jonathan M)
Columbia (inc. Marnold)
Maryland (2)
Rutgers
Free agents team (Maryland x2, Willie)

Total: 12

Princeton?

Contact:
Cell (512) 289-3718
Email <[email protected]>

Thanks :)

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 5:28 pm
by Demonic Leftovers
I'm tentatively signing up for this as a free agent, assuming UVA doesn't send a team and there are no intervening scheduling issues.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 5:29 pm
by Ondes Martenot
NYU will definitely be there in some form

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 7:10 pm
by Rompimientos del Centauro
I'll be a free agent looking for teammates.

EDIT: Nope, looks like I won't be able to make it.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 5:49 pm
by Adventure Temple Trail
dolphin wrote:Columbia will be hosting the East Coast mirror of Minnesota Open V on November 17-18, 2012 in NYC. This is an open tournament; anyone in teams of up to four can play. To register, please email me at <[email protected]>.

I'll update this as we figure things out (inc fee per team, which won't differ too much from the main site), but I wanted to let everyone know that the tournament is happening.
Just to make sure, this isn't going to be a main tournament split across two days, but rather a main tournament one day and some side events across the two days, right?

Expect a Yale presence.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 10:27 pm
by dolphin
RyuAqua wrote:
Just to make sure, this isn't going to be a main tournament split across two days, but rather a main tournament one day and some side events across the two days, right?
Yes! I updated it above too.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:08 pm
by Chimango Caracara
Dartmouth will be sending one or two teams.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 5:05 pm
by Rothlover
Edit: I should be able to staff if needed, for lunch and transportation and play whatever side events...

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:40 am
by Edward Lansdale
I am signing up as a free agent for this.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 12:20 pm
by Cheynem
Is there any interest in mirroring my short vanity trash tournament at this?

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 12:22 am
by dolphin
Yes! We didn't know anyone was writing one yet. How would the format work?

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 1:13 pm
by magin
I'll throw my hat into the ring as a free agent for this.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 1:24 pm
by Cheynem
The trash tournament I'm writing is 6 packets of tossups and bonuses, so the format is admittedly a little limited, but you can run it however.

http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... 19&t=13569 has more details.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 9:23 pm
by nimit
An RPI-NYU mixed team seems to be on the cards. I'll update this thread once the team composition is finalized.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2012 5:22 pm
by nimit
I've registered a RPI-NYU mixed team with the return of a certain RPI alum now at NYU. We are also interested in playing the trash tournament.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2012 1:15 pm
by Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill
I'm considering showing up on both days. Whether I would be playing or not, I do not know. I'll see if anyone else at Stony Brook is willing to come along before registering.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 2:07 am
by DumbJaques
Some manner of "Maryland" is going to show up to this tournament, with 1-2 teams.

Also, given that Wild Kingdom II has been cancelled, I'd like to plead with the organizers of this tournament to truncate it into a one day event. Or, I guess, let's just play Eyes Saturday night - it's clear to me from talking to people that an awful lot of attendees aren't interested in Vanity Trash, and would just like to play MO proper and Eyes Saturday. Can we make this happen?

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 2:28 am
by Rothlover
I think there is solid demand for trash from what I can tell from the spreadsheet/knowing other people who want to play. I think it depends on the format, but regardless 6 packets is the sort of thing that could be done in 3 hours tops with quick org. I want to play Eyes and trash and am amenable to a consolidated solution. Don't think trash should go by the wayside though, Cheyne writes solid stuff that deserves to be played on.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:18 am
by dolphin
Also, given that Wild Kingdom II has been cancelled, I'd like to plead with the organizers of this tournament to truncate it into a one day event
Running the tournament in one day would also be easier for Columbia also, so how about:
1) The main tournament will start earlier (meet in Hamilton at 8:00 am, games at 8:30). MO will be at most 13 rounds.
2) During extended lunch, have Eyes (people playing can pay us a couple dollars for pizza)
3) After the final games ~6pm, have the trash tournament until ~9 (6 packets).

It'll be a long day of Quizbowl, but that will leave Sunday free for everyone to go home, etc.

If you haven't already (posting something here doesn't actually count), PLEASE REGISTER your team or yourself (playing or staffing) with the Google Doc:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/vie ... c6MQ#gid=0
The faster that happens, the less ambiguity there will be with the schedule.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:17 pm
by DumbJaques
I think you're playing with fire banking on starting a tournament held in NYC at 8:30 - a lot of teams (mine included) don't have a ton of familiarity with local transportation, and for almost everybody it's going to require multiple steps in the transit merry-go-round. In my experience you can't expect we cretins to show up at 8:00 AM at an easy-to-get-to site, so I don't know how well that's going to work.

I really like the idea of running Eyes during an extended lunch and ordering pizza - if people pre-register appropriately for that, it's going to save a lot of time. I don't think it's a good idea to push the tournament earlier, though.
Rothlover wrote:I think there is solid demand for trash from what I can tell from the spreadsheet/knowing other people who want to play.
I have no idea if this is true, because that spreadsheet is exceptionally useless at displaying the needed information. Please just make a normal sign-up google spreadsheet like every other side tournament does; right now you can't really tell anything. Also you weren't even registering for those events, as it just says "interested in." I further suspect schedule is going to heavily determine who wants to play which event, rather than the other way around.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 7:39 pm
by dolphin
Anyone against running everything in a day?
I think you're playing with fire banking on starting a tournament held in NYC at 8:30 - a lot of teams (mine included) don't have a ton of familiarity with local transportation, and for almost everybody it's going to require multiple steps in the transit merry-go-round. In my experience you can't expect we cretins to show up at 8:00 AM at an easy-to-get-to site, so I don't know how well that's going to work.
If 8:30 is too optimistic, we'll stick with 9:00 AM (show up around 8:30).
Please just make a normal sign-up google spreadsheet like every other side tournament does; right now you can't really tell anything. Also you weren't even registering for those events, as it just says "interested in."
There has been enough interest to warrant holding both Eyes (at lunch) and Trash (after the main tournament). People can register here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/vie ... bkJBYnc6MQ

If you've already filled out the form to register for the main tournament, sorry for the confusion. We'll still accept people/teams registering for side events Saturday morning, since it's not that hard to order pizza or allow for more teams playing Trash.

Thanks.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 7:48 pm
by Cheynem
I was sort of vague in the main thread, but I'm charging $2 a person to play trash. If this is too onerous for people, I'd be willing to work out something, so contact me individually.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 1:40 pm
by marnold
Cheynem wrote:I was sort of vague in the main thread, but I'm charging $2 a person to play trash. If this is too onerous for people, I'd be willing to work out something, so contact me individually.
...MARSHALL

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:14 pm
by Grace
I'd like to sign up for this as a free agent.

EDIT: I'll actually be joining an NYU team.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 10:34 pm
by dyetman89
Ivar the Boneless wrote:I'd like to sign up for this as a free agent.
EDIT: Looks as though I'll be playing with NYU.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 10:46 am
by warpoet
NYU will be sending one or two teams, plus a buzzer system- we'll have a definite answer for you sometime tonight...

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 11:56 am
by Matt Weiner
I have registered a team for the trash tournament containing person-who-knows-wrestling Dan Passner and person-who-knows-Mike-Cheyne's-interests me. I've heard that we are playing trash as teams of four, so if you want to join up let me know.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 12:47 pm
by DumbJaques
Hey, I've noted this in email, but "Maryland" is coming with two teams (which at one point someone attempted to put into some registration document somewhere, I believe). We've also got two free agents who are actively looking for spots - are any still available?

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:00 pm
by Adventure Temple Trail
DumbJaques wrote:Hey, I've noted this in email, but "Maryland" is coming with two teams (which at one point someone attempted to put into some registration document somewhere, I believe). We've also got two free agents who are actively looking for spots - are any still available?
Presumably, given the 13-packet upper limit, a 12-team, 11-game round robin is still possible if a twelfth team is added. But if we'd run up to 13 teams rather than 12, it's probably incumbent upon Columbia to withdraw their house team so as to make a working schedule possible. Not to speak for them or anything.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:38 pm
by Auroni
edit: nevermind, I can't do math

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 11:10 pm
by Smuttynose Island
Penn defeated Yale at this tournament by going undefeated. Congrats! Almost more importantly, 8-10 people stuck around to play Mike Cheyne's Vanity Tournament. Three rounds were played in a traditional format, while afterwards a 3-team It's Academic format was adopted for one round, then David joined Universal Exports for the remaining rounds as Marnold left. Stats for the first three rounds can be found here.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 12:26 am
by Adventure Temple Trail
Smuttynose Island wrote:Penn defeated Yale at this tournament by going undefeated. Congrats! Almost more importantly, 8-10 people stuck around to play Mike Cheyne's Vanity Tournament. Three rounds were played in a traditional format, while afterwards a 3-team It's Academic format was adopted for one round, then David joined Universal Exports for the remaining rounds as Marnold left. Stats for the first three rounds can be found here.
Actually, Penn went undefeated in the round robin and Yale went 10-1, after which the first game of a nail-biting, chalk-throwing advantaged final went our way by a 5-point margin and the second game went theirs by 15. Congrats to Penn+Ted for pulling through in what's certainly one of the most, probably the most, intense and thrill-filled quizbowl experience(s) I've ever had.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 12:28 am
by Kouign Amann
Full stats are now here.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 1:08 am
by dolphin
Thanks to all the teams and staffers who were able to make it to the tournament today, and congrats to Penn+Ted and Yale!

7 rounds of Eyes were also played, with the top scorers being Aidan Mehigan, Matt Jackson, and Ahmad Ragab.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 4:46 am
by DumbJaques
Thanks to Columbia for hosting a pretty well-run event. I do have some suggestions for the future, and am pretty sure there are numerous problems with the stats and from what I can tell not just ours (Kevin Koai's two well-deserved powers from our game, at the very least have disappeared). Alternatively, I've been traveling all day and am no longer processing information in the normal human way, but there are certainly a number of problems with ours.

I wonder if this is related to the fact that Columbia readers - while very good from top to bottom in a technical/clarity/speed sense, had a strange lack of awareness of how quizbowl worked. People had to be reminded what powers were and frequently forgot to note them/enter them into the scoresheets. A shockingly high number of incorrect answers drew responses of "I don't think I can take that," even when the player would say something like "George Bush" but the answer would be like "George Washington." Or "Molecular Orbitals." I guess nobody at Columbia practices ever negs, but consider renting someone (me, Trevor Davis. . . wasn't Freeburg at New School?) to get a better feel for it.

Most bizarrely, almost every Columbia reader just used a total foreign procedure for timing questions. Specifically, they'd pretty much count to four, say "answer" normally, then say "answer," wait, maybe say "answer" again, etc. etc. I seriously don't think I ever heard time called by someone who wasn't Aidan/Dan Passner/Ahmad; I make a habit of rarely saying "no answer" because that's time you should be using to come up with a marginally less-insane guess, but we were saying it several times a round out of necessity to keep thins moving today.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of all of this was that it was completely uniform. Every Columbia reader was like this, and they did it with everyone, so it wasn't exactly creating an unbalanced environment, I guess. I also didn't hear anyone complain, and most surprising of all, I found I didn't really have a desire to complain myself (which is itself quite odd). But it was just super weird and in fact not how the rules work. But I guess when people decide to have an extra tossup to flesh out their undying need for terrible common link ideas or whatever, why not remake the rules a bit just for kicks? I mean, I know how everyone at the last few MOs was constantly bitching about how short the questions were and how quickly the rounds flew by; glad we addressed this issue by adding an extra tossup to the one tournament that needed it more than any other.


Congratulations to Penn and Yale - I thought both teams showed very well at this tournament, and made a strong case for why they're clear contenders for the title this year.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 12:33 pm
by SnookerUSF
RyuAqua wrote:Actually, Penn went undefeated in the round robin and Yale went 10-1, after which the first game of a nail-biting, chalk-throwing advantaged final went our way by a 5-point margin and the second game went theirs by 15. Congrats to Penn+Ted for pulling through in what's certainly one of the most, probably the most, intense and thrill-filled quizbowl experience(s) I've ever had.
I wanted to sincerely apologize to Penn+Ted, Yale and Victoria et al., for unnecessarily extending the tournament. I will dispense with the logistics of the mishandled question until the discussion for the tournament is cleared. I guess it is fairly obvious that I should have prompted, but my woeful lack of biology knowledge seems to have stumbled my efforts again.

I am often of two minds on prompting.

Generally, I think that it is the responsibility of the editors/writers to try to be as descriptive as possible in prompting guidelines and when they fail to do so, then I as a moderator should not attempt to infer from the question and my knowledge of the answer attempt to guess what should qualify as worthy of a prompt. Moderator activism, as it were, seems like a tricky proposition. I believe the moderator should act as a naive and transparent reader of a question and rely on only what is described in answer lines whenever possible, editorial intentionality and all that. When it is required for moderator intervention it should always attempt to be minimal and as fair to BOTH teams as possible. From my experience at NAQT, and while I don't speak for them, I would hazard a guess that this is probably how they would want to their moderators to behave.

At the same time, I recognize that as the complexity of answers (both in terms of content and their formulation) and the ability and knowledge of players increase, there is some need for some reflective consideration in the process. I don't know how far to take that though, should I take into account that a player is receiving an advanced degree in the subject matter in question and assume he/she knows what they are talking about?

On the opposite end, I know that at novice tournaments or at CC tournaments like Delta Burke, there is arguably a benefit to being a little looser with prompting rules in order to spur competitive interest, reward knowledge, and allow teams to hear a few more bonuses and get a few more points.

Alright, apologies again to all parties involved and thanks to everyone for letting me read, as always it was fun.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 2:09 pm
by Sima Guang Hater
SnookerUSF wrote:I wanted to sincerely apologize to Penn+Ted, Yale and Victoria et al., for unnecessarily extending the tournament.
Regardless of my thoughts about any other part of that whole thing, none of this was your fault. You were in a situation in which you didn't have enough knowledge of the subject and you handled it extremely well. I really appreciate that and I'm sure my teammates did too.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 3:42 pm
by dolphin
DumbJaques wrote:
I wonder if this is related to the fact that Columbia readers - while very good from top to bottom in a technical/clarity/speed sense, had a strange lack of awareness of how quizbowl worked.
I want to apologize for this - I was counting on having more experienced readers for the tournament but we ended up having, besides Ahmad and Dan, freshmen and/or inexperienced moderators (a demographic that I am aware includes myself) and we failed to go over the ACF rules sufficiently prior, which is something we'll make sure to do next time. I'm glad we got through the rounds acceptably quickly considering the length of the tournament (inc the 21st questions).
DumbJaques wrote:
I also didn't hear anyone complain, and most surprising of all, I found I didn't really have a desire to complain myself (which is itself quite odd).
Thanks for you patience. Additional comments/suggestions are welcome so Columbia/I can do a better job hosting/TD-ing future tournaments.
The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:
SnookerUSF wrote:
I wanted to sincerely apologize to Penn+Ted, Yale and Victoria et al., for unnecessarily extending the tournament. I will dispense with the logistics of the mishandled question until the discussion for the tournament is cleared. I guess it is fairly obvious that I should have prompted, but my woeful lack of biology knowledge seems to have stumbled my efforts again.
Regardless of my thoughts about any other part of that whole thing, none of this was your fault. You were in a situation in which you didn't have enough knowledge of the subject and you handled it extremely well. I really appreciate that and I'm sure my teammates did too.
I agree with Eric - thank you for moderating the two final games extremely well given the circumstances.

Re: Minnesota Open Mirror @ Columbia 11/17-18/2012

Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2012 11:38 am
by Kouign Amann
I am now in possession of the SQBS file, not just its output, so if anyone has any stats corrections, please let me know. I've fixed a few things already.