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Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:46 pm
by naan/steak-holding toll
I am pleased to announce that PACE has agreed to make the Modern World Tournament its official post-PACE tournament. This tournament will take place on Sunday, 5/25, beginning after the finals and award ceremony, and may run into Memorial Day, depending on how the schedule works out.

For more information about the set, check out this thread - it's being written by members of the Dartmouth team. It's basically a tournament about things that have been important since 1989, with roughly 2/3 of the tournament centering on politics/business/social phenomena and 1/3 on other cultural phenomena (literature, TV, cinema, music, food, fashion, video games, etc). Basically, there will almost certainly be something for everybody in this tournament.

The fee for this tournament will be $5 per player. This money will mostly be used to buy non-traditional prizes for the top few teams; there will still be traditional book prizes for top individual scorers and for the top finishing teams.

People/teams interested in playing should use this sign-up sheet. The field is capped at 16 teams for now, which may be expanded if more rooms become available.

The tournament has been completely written.

The difficulty for this tournament is "regular-plus", i.e. in line with the difficulty Penn Bowl and SUBMIT, harder than DRAGOON, and somewhat harder than Regionals.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 11:13 am
by Skepticism and Animal Feed
I'm coming out of retirement to play this tournament. I'm looking for at least one additional teammate, preferably somebody who is an expert on either East Asian or Latin American culture/politics.

My only confirmed teammate at the moment is a friend who is new to quizbowl, but works as a reporter in Washington DC and is extremely knowlegeable about current events and politics. I am also in talks with another retired quizbowler from the DC area who is a former local geography bowl champion, but we're not ready to announce that formally because he's not 100% sure of his schedule that weekend.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 12:47 pm
by Rococo A Go Go
Is there any chance this could be mirrored at HSNCT too?

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 1:10 pm
by Adventure Temple Trail
gamegeek2 wrote:Furthermore, I am interested in community feedback over what difficulty this set should be. Currently, the target difficulty is "regular-plus" in order to accommodate tossups on a wide variety of countries and their leaders, as well as a good amount of modern literature that would/should not be tossed up in a regular-difficulty college set. In addition, anything lower than this difficulty may not provide very good competition between top college players. However, I want to know if the top high school players in this country would be okay with playing such a set - given that many top HS teams played Penn Bowl, I'd expect that this wouldn't be too much of an issue, but I still would like to hear from others.
If this tournament is "regular-plus" in terms of answer selection, and you want some of the best HSers to still be able to get points, I'd say you probably shouldn't aim any higher than Penn Bowl 2013 in terms of ideal difficulty. Most writers have a tendency to overshoot on anticipated difficulty rather than undershoot, so if you keep in mind some principle such as "no, we need to keep this in Penn Bowl range" it'll help resist the temptation to go off the deep end. I also recommend establishing (internally) some limit on the number of harder answers per packet, and distributing those across the whole set rather than clumping them in harder finals packets.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 1:34 pm
by naan/steak-holding toll
Sulawesi Myzomela wrote:Is there any chance this could be mirrored at HSNCT too?
I will gladly let the set be mirrored at HSNCT, though I can't make it out there personally due to finals.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 3:50 pm
by Arkangel de la Muerte
Sulawesi Myzomela wrote:Is there any chance this could be mirrored at HSNCT too?
I second this.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 1:53 pm
by The Kirk Store Called
I agree with Matt on the difficulty. My target difficulty for questions is actually regular-difficulty since I'd prefer it be accessible to above-average/good HS teams as well (also known as most people at PACE). I'm just assuming I'll overshoot like many question writers and overshoot into regular plus/Penn Bowl territory.

The hope is that HS players from an average team who like current eventy-type stuff should find it an enjoyable set, as well as most top HS teams (and most college teams)

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 11:57 pm
by naan/steak-holding toll
The tournament is more than half complete now!

Also, somebody needs to assemble a squad to take down that Mukherjee/Bollinger/Steinbaum/Bailey superteam. Get on that, people.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 8:54 am
by Cheynem
Already did.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 10:12 am
by Tees-Exe Line
Cheynem wrote:Already did.
I have devoted my life to the destruction of Mike Cheyne and I'm not going to stop now.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 4:25 pm
by Cheynem
Urgent Call to Unity was a good try.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 4:34 pm
by Tees-Exe Line
Cheynem wrote:Urgent Call to Unity was a good try.
Urgent Call to Unity was the Nazi attempt to dilute the Urgent Call for Unity, so it's not surprising you'd opt for that one.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 4:36 pm
by Cheynem
I love Nazis.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 4:44 pm
by Rococo A Go Go
I'd really like to play this set. Unless I go to NSC (which I presume is unlikely since the team I'm coaching isn't attending) then I'm guessing the best bet would be a mirror that takes place at some other event. I know I've posted about it before, but is it even feasible for another side event to occur HSNCT weekend?

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 7:51 pm
by naan/steak-holding toll
If somebody wants to organize a mirror, they are free to do so. I will gladly provide the set for an HSNCT mirror for a $10-per-team fee.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 2:31 pm
by Steeve Ho You Fat
Last I heard, the plan was to play part of this tournament after the finals on Sunday and part Monday morning. Are we still planning on 12 rounds of 20/20? I'm trying to figure out when we can anticipate it being over by on Monday for flight booking purposes.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 3:03 pm
by naan/steak-holding toll
I would like to run a full tournament if possible, which would probably mean we'd want to extend this into Memorial Day if we don't want to be up 'till all hours. I need to check for room availability, though, so I'll get back to you as soon as I can about that.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 12:00 am
by naan/steak-holding toll
To my understanding, we have at least 8 rooms available on Monday - the staff suites. This means I'm going to cap the field at 14 teams for now (7 rooms + 1 control room) until I know for sure that more rooms are available.

I'm going to set a target time of having this tournament done by 2PM on Memorial Day Monday, but I can target an earlier time if people would prefer that and don't mind waking up earlier.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 12:12 am
by Masked Canadian History Bandit
gamegeek2 wrote:To my understanding, we have at least 8 rooms available on Monday - the staff suites. This means I'm going to cap the field at 14 teams for now (7 rooms + 1 control room) until I know for sure that more rooms are available.

I'm going to set a target time of having this tournament done by 2PM on Memorial Day Monday, but I can target an earlier time if people would prefer that and don't mind waking up earlier.
If necessary, the control room could just be run out of a game room to free up space.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 12:30 am
by naan/steak-holding toll
Masked Canadian History Bandit wrote:
gamegeek2 wrote:To my understanding, we have at least 8 rooms available on Monday - the staff suites. This means I'm going to cap the field at 14 teams for now (7 rooms + 1 control room) until I know for sure that more rooms are available.

I'm going to set a target time of having this tournament done by 2PM on Memorial Day Monday, but I can target an earlier time if people would prefer that and don't mind waking up earlier.
If necessary, the control room could just be run out of a game room to free up space.
That's true. I guess I can bump the field cap to 16.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2014 6:15 pm
by naan/steak-holding toll
In case people were worried that this wouldn't get completed, over 200 tossups and 200 bonuses are written for this tournament now. Assuming there are no screw-ups with the rooms, this tournament will definitely be happening.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 12:22 am
by The Kirk Store Called
Good News Everyone
Image

The tournament is now 80-85% done, even though we decided to add another packet in case a circle of death happens.

This should lead to ample time for playtesting, extensive editing, and all the other stuff packets should get.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 3:44 pm
by Cheynem
I ask this with the utmost sincerity: Now that various Dartmouth players have apparently quit, is this tournament still going to happen?

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 4:25 pm
by naan/steak-holding toll
Based on what statement do you think I have quit playing quizbowl? I plan in playing as many appropriate tournaments as I can until I graduate, and I will not step out of writing commitments that I have made, either.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 4:33 pm
by Cheynem
I wasn't referring to you, but to one of your co-writers. If everything is okay in terms of this being done, great, I just wanted to clarify to be sure.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 5:44 pm
by The Kirk Store Called
IIRC, we have like 10 tossups or so left to write. It would take divine intervention from Angra Mainyu to prevent us from finishing the tournament on time, especially since we're playtesting (already packetized) questions today.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 4:29 pm
by Matt Weiner
I am looking for teammates for this tournament. I consider myself pretty good at the type of questions it claims to be asking, so for the most part I'm not looking for any particular specialties (other than someone who can both answer Kirk's conception of "East Asian culture" questions and showers regularly, if such a quixotic being is really out there) but rather people who can provide any help at all at the general subject matter and can play intelligently. If you are a coach of a team participating in the NSC and would like to try playing quizbowl, I will take up to two such people onto my team, especially if you teach government or otherwise have some background in the subject areas being asked.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 4:36 pm
by Harpie's Feather Duster
Nicholas Karas and I are looking for teammates for this. I can't speak for him but I should be able to get primarily American questions on anything and all types of culture questions. Get in contact with me if you want to join forces.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 11:21 am
by grapesmoker
I'm interested in teammates for this. I read news.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 11:22 am
by vcuEvan
grapesmoker wrote:I'm interested in teammates for this. I read news.
You're already signed up to play with my team... what did you think you were signing up to play?

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 11:47 am
by grapesmoker
vcuEvan wrote:
grapesmoker wrote:I'm interested in teammates for this. I read news.
You're already signed up to play with my team... what did you think you were signing up to play?
Dude, I'm old and my memory is going. Sorry!

edit: yes, I am playing with you. I just forgot.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 11:50 am
by vcuEvan
grapesmoker wrote:
vcuEvan wrote:
grapesmoker wrote:I'm interested in teammates for this. I read news.
You're already signed up to play with my team... what did you think you were signing up to play?
Dude, I'm old and my memory is going. Sorry!

edit: yes, I am playing with you. I just forgot.
Great! I was worried I had dreamed the whole thing.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 11:51 am
by Tees-Exe Line
vcuEvan wrote:
grapesmoker wrote:I'm interested in teammates for this. I read news.
You're already signed up to play with my team... what did you think you were signing up to play?

Hmm, could it be that the man most critical of tournament sign-up sheet sabotage is actually the one responsible for all of it?

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 11:55 am
by grapesmoker
Tees-Exe Line wrote:
vcuEvan wrote:
grapesmoker wrote:I'm interested in teammates for this. I read news.
You're already signed up to play with my team... what did you think you were signing up to play?

Hmm, could it be that the man most critical of tournament sign-up sheet sabotage is actually the one responsible for all of it?
It's my alter ego Evil Dr. Vinokurov.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 12:00 pm
by Tees-Exe Line
grapesmoker wrote:
Tees-Exe Line wrote:
vcuEvan wrote:
grapesmoker wrote:I'm interested in teammates for this. I read news.
You're already signed up to play with my team... what did you think you were signing up to play?

Hmm, could it be that the man most critical of tournament sign-up sheet sabotage is actually the one responsible for all of it?
It's my alter ego Evil Dr. Vinokurov.
As opposed to your regular ego Forgetful Dr. Vinokurov?

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 12:20 pm
by grapesmoker
Tees-Exe Line wrote:As opposed to your regular ego Forgetful Dr. Vinokurov?
My regular ego is Ornery Dr. Vinokurov, a subtle but important distinction.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 8:11 pm
by Angry Babies in Love
I am a free agent.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 12:46 am
by Gautam
All right, I signed up for this business. I know some things.

I don't have the "Page A3 of the Star Tribune for Patrick's Press" formula for this tournament figured out, though, so I can't tell you how many red pandas the Como Zoo has.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Wed May 14, 2014 6:49 pm
by naan/steak-holding toll
Could I get a contact email for each of the teams that are signed up to play this? Also, do we have any idea what buzzer sets may be available for this (for example, those of UVA, UMD, or Oakland Mills).

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Sat May 17, 2014 9:44 pm
by Mike Bentley
Chris Ray, Matt Jackson and I are looking for a 4th player. Shoot me an e-mail ([email protected]) if you're interested in playing.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 5:23 pm
by ScoBo
I'm interested in playing, but will only be able to play on Sunday because my return flight leaves Monday morning. If anyone has a spot to offer that would otherwise go unfilled, let me know, but if the tournament extends into Monday, I don't want to take a spot from someone who is able to play the full tournament.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 11:50 am
by UlyssesInvictus
I unfortunately have to back out of playing this, which means the ineffable Mark Arildsen now is teamless and a free agent. To all unfilled teams: pick up Mark! He knows things! (like geography!) And other things! (like geography!)

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 12:51 pm
by Skepticism and Animal Feed
Any specifics as to the timing and such of this? Is it still Sunday night after the tournament? Are there any Monday plans for it?

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 1:19 pm
by naan/steak-holding toll
I would like to start this by an hour after NSC finishes, if not earlier, allowing people to get food. The idea would be to get through prelims on Sunday, then to finish the playoffs on Monday morning, finishing by 1PM at the absolute latest, though we can definitely shoot for earlier depending on how early people are willing to be up to finish this (I think we can definitely finish before 1 if we start playoffs at 8 AM).

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Mon May 19, 2014 6:14 pm
by Gautam
Sorry, I'm out.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 12:39 pm
by Skepticism and Animal Feed
I have teammates playing this who are not moderating the NSC. I need to tell them what time to show up to the tournament site on both Sunday and Monday. What time should I tell them?

Can we revisit the decision to have rounds on both Sunday and Monday? It has already caused several people with Monday flights to withdraw from the tournament. Several of my teammates have non-federal jobs in the DC area that might require them to miss the playoffs if they are on a Monday rather than a weekend.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 1:12 pm
by Auks Ran Ova
Skepticism and Animal Feed wrote:I have teammates playing this who are not moderating the NSC. I need to tell them what time to show up to the tournament site on both Sunday and Monday. What time should I tell them?

Can we revisit the decision to have rounds on both Sunday and Monday? It has already caused several people with Monday flights to withdraw from the tournament. Several of my teammates have non-federal jobs in the DC area that might require them to miss the playoffs if they are on a Monday rather than a weekend.
People unable to or uninterested in staffing the NSC who want to play its side tournament and people who are unable to schedule or are uninterested in scheduling transit or time off work to allow them to play the quizbowl events they want to play should, in general, be pretty low on the scheduling demands totem pole, and should probably just Spheal With It.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 1:27 pm
by naan/steak-holding toll
I propose the alternative of running this tournament on Saturday night and Sunday night, if that's what people are interested in. This would allow early Monday flights, though I suspect for most people it won't do much with regards to missing this tournament on account of Sunday flights.

What the PACE announcement states is that tournament play will end on Saturday at 6PM and on Sunday at 4PM. We are going to have 14 packets (we decided to write another one) so assuming that we somehow use all of them and that rounds take about 40 minutes each (these are 20/20 packets, with tossups averaging slightly under eight full lines and bonus parts typically two lines each):

If we do Sunday-Monday, then having seven rounds each on both days means we finish by 10PM Sunday (allowing a one-hour dinner break), and if we start at 7AM the next day, we're done by noon. Alternatively, we play the whole tournament on Sunday night and finish by around 2AM (if not later).

If we do Saturday-Sunday, then having seven rounds each on both nights means we get seven rounds out of the way by midnight on Saturday and done with everything by around 10PM on Sunday.

Of course, this is reliant on things moving along at a reasonable pace. If rounds take longer, or people don't show up on time, as is wont to happen at quizbowl tournaments, then things may not pan out exactly as we plan.

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 1:46 pm
by Susan
Obviously this is up to the PACE powers that be, but if I were running the NSC I'd be really unenthusiastic about staffers playing a side event where the plan was to finish at midnight on Saturday (especially given how wildly long side events tend to run).

Re: Modern World Tournament - Post-NSC Mirror

Posted: Tue May 20, 2014 1:53 pm
by ryanrosenberg
It's not feasible for staffers to play rounds on Saturday night, especially people like Rob and Matt who are pretty essential to having the Sunday playoffs run smoothly.

I agree with Rob re: people who didn't plan on playing Monday. I'd also be in favor of playing everything Sunday night, if only to see how many soft drinks it takes Max Schindler to stay awake for the whole tournament.