The Quizbowl Resource Center

Hello!

I am pleased to announce the Northeast site of ACF Fall 2014, to be held at Yale University in New Haven, CT on Saturday, 8 November 2014. ACF Fall is the year's premier introductory-level collegiate quizbowl tournament, and we do hope that you join us at this event. In-person registration will begin at 9 A.M., with the aim of starting the opening meeting by 9:30 A.M. and the first round by 9:40 A.M. The tournament will take place at the Watson Center (not Watson Hall) on Yale's main campus (map), located at 60 Sachem Street, New Haven, Connecticut. This is different from our traditional tournament site of WLH; please take note! Check-in and opening meeting will take place in Room A74. The setup of the building may be a little confusing, so don't hesitate to ask the reception desk for directions. We also hope to put up signs pointing the way to the correct room.

Many Yale parking lots within one to two blocks of the Watson Center are open to the public on weekends for free, including Lots 19, 22, 41, shown here, and the Peabody museum parking lot. Street parking is also available, as is garage parking in the 16V and Grove Street garages, shown here.

We know that some teams are planning to arrive by train at New Haven's Union station at around 9:07 AM. Getting to 60 Sachem from the train station may take about half an hour by walking or by bus; those in need of faster transportation should consider taking a taxi from the station, which should get you to the desired address in less than 10 minutes. Call 203-777-7777 if there are no cabs in sight.


Registration
Registration for this event has two steps:
First, please write to us at [email protected] with team name, number, and buzzer/staffer information.
Second, fill out the central ACF Fall registration form at this site with all relevant information.

Fees
Base fee: $120 for one team from a school, $240 for two teams from a school, etc.
Buzzer systems*: -$5 each
Staffers: -$10 each (no maximum)
Laptop: -$5 each (maximum 1 per team)
Travel: -$10 per 200 miles traveled one way
International**: -$20
New to ACF teams***: -$25
New quizbowl teams****: -$75

* No discount for broken buzzers; no maximum.
** For teams representing schools located in a different country than the tournament host.
*** For schools which haven't played an ACF tournament between September 2012 and August 2014, and have no one on the team(s) claiming this discount who played those tournaments for another school.
**** For schools which did not send a team to any regular collegiate academic tournament since September 2012, and have no one on the team(s) claiming this discount who played those tournaments for another school. May be combined with new ACF team discount for a total new-team discount of $100.

Packet Discounts/Penalties
Any team with at least one person on it who played a regular, collegiate, academic quizbowl tournament prior to September 1, 2013 is required to submit a packet. High school players are included in this definition and are subject to the same discounts and penalties as college teams.

Please reference this flowchart for the packet-submission guidelines. The links in the diagram are clickable. If you have questions on the submission guidelines, email them to [email protected] and they'll clarify.

Please submit packets to [email protected] and use “ACF Fall 2014: [Team Name]” in the subject line.

Submission schedule
Please refer to the below submission schedule:


Payment
Payment for ACF Fall will be processed through the ACF treasurer, Jerry Vinokurov. He will get in touch with you about how much your team owes, how to pay for the tournament, etc. Please contact Jerry with any questions regarding payment.

Note Regarding High School Teams
High school teams are welcome to play this tournament, though they should keep in mind that while this may be a lower difficulty tournament, it is nevertheless a collegiate event and significantly more difficult than many high school tournaments. There will be no further discounts for things like playing short-handed or being new to ACF or quizbowl, which applies only to new college teams. Furthermore, high school teams must abide by the packet requirements if any of its members played a college tournament prior to the 2013-2014 competition season.

For more information, refer to the Global Announcement of ACF Fall 2014 or email the editors at [email protected].

Field Updates: TOTAL (32/13/9/10)
Field cap of 35 teams [Teams/Buzzers/Staff/Laptops]

Amherst (2/2/0/0)
Vassar A (1/0/1/1)
University of Ottawa (1/0/0/1)
Central Connecticut State University (1/0/0/0)
McMaster University (1/0/0/1)
Cornell (3/1/0/3)
Boston College (1/0/0/0)
High Tech (1/1/0/0)
University of Toronto (1/0/0/0)
NYU (1/1/0/0)
Brown (3/0/0/0)
Penn (2/0/2/0)
Harvard (1/3/1/1)
MIT (2/1/1/0)
Rutgers (1/1/1/0)
UConn (1/0/0/1)
RPI (2/1/0/0)
Columbia (4/1/2/2)
Princeton (1/0/0/0)
Dartmouth (1/0/1/0)
Williams (1/1/0/0)

Waiting List

Expressed Interest:

Our field is more than three-quarters full already (4 spots remain), and field expansion, while a possibility, is unlikely without more outside staff.

We're currently negotiating with the Yale classrooms registrar in order to expand the field. Stay tuned!

EDIT: Pending approval of my current request and a healthy influx of volunteer staff, the field will probably expand to 31 teams.

We have just sent an email to all the people listed as contacts for the various teams attending the Yale mirror. The email contains a brief questionnaire.

Please respond to this email. Include Grace Liu ([email protected]) in your response.

If your team has not received any email from us, please send us an email at [email protected]

Thanks to some very helpful advice from Gautam, we're pleased to announce that the field has officially expanded to include 33 teams. This means that all teams currently on the waitlist are now part of the field.

The official ACF form has re-opened registration for the Yale site. Please do sign up if you would like to attend.

Is it safe to assume that this tournament, as is usual for Yale tournaments of recent vintage, will start somewhat after 9:00 in order to allow teams to take the MetroNorth train that arrives at 9:07 and still make it to the tournament on time? This seems particularly relevant if this tournament is being held all the way the hell up on Sachem instead of at WLH.

Kouign Amann wrote:Is it safe to assume that this tournament, as is usual for Yale tournaments of recent vintage, will start somewhat after 9:00 in order to allow teams to take the MetroNorth train that arrives at 9:07 and still make it to the tournament on time? This seems particularly relevant if this tournament is being held all the way the hell up on Sachem instead of at WLH.

This is correct to the best of my knowledge.

To confirm what Jacob has said:

Check in will start at 9:00 and will go to 9:30 in order to accommodate Metro North and Amtrak riders.
We do apologize for the unfamiliar 60 Sachem tournament location, but it was the only available site. You can get there via the Yale Shuttle, by walking, or by calling a taxi from Union Station. The first post will be updated soon with detailed travel suggestions for those arriving via train.

For teams travelling to Yale by car (as the Toronto, Ottawa, and McMaster teams will be), is there any particular parking options/locations you would recommend/not recommend?

We have some parking tips (and more!) online here

Everybody in the field should have just gotten an email with logistical information etc; if you didn't, email Grace or me.

Per a suggestion from the ACF Fall editing team, we may be able to finish the tournament with fewer rounds (12, instead of the planned...15) if we have a field of 35 teams rather than 33 teams. Adding two more teams would probable ease logistics for everyone, so if anyone would like to claim those additional spots, please email me and the ACF Fall editing team ([email protected]) by Thursday morning. Thanks!

A belated thank you to Jacob (and in other posts, Grace) for the parking info: it is much appreciated. Really looking forward to what promises to be an exciting and well-run event. As a quick (final) question, are any social events planned after the tournament wraps up?
And of course, as quizbowl "tourists," Jay, Andrew, and myself are always very appreciative (from anyone) of tips as to what to see, good places to eat, things to do, the usual stuff.

Sure, I'll prepare a general "tourism" sort of email that should get sent out tonight.

EDIT: Sent to Jordan—email him or me if you want a copy.
EDIT^2: Forgot to add: we don't really have any specific social events planned, but we'll presumably go to dinner afterwards, and I'd personally be happy to have whoever wants to come along along.

Stats have been / will be updated here: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/2332/

Thanks to everyone for playing through the whopping 15 rounds we had today—I think this tournament went almost as well as it could have for one of its size, although I can't say that I'd particularly recommend trying to do 33 teams to anyone. Complete stats should be up sometime tomorrow, I'd guess.

Thanks a ton to everyone who came and staffed (and there sure are a lot of you!). Thanks in particular to Eric Mukherjee, who was a very welcome (and willing) help when it came to solving some logistical issues near the end.

Hope everyone enjoyed the set and tournament!

Congratulations to Brown A for sweeping the overall, undergraduate, and DII championships! A hearty congratulations, too, to Penn B, which finished in second place in every category after some hard-fought second place play-ins.

Full statistics will hopefully materialize after Ben Zhang (blessed be his name and his statkeeping) recovers from the rather long day.

Just want to say a huge Thank You to Yale and all staff for an enjoyable and smoothly run tournament, the ACF eds for an good set (I mean, every set is liable to a modicum of kvetching, but as I said, a good set), and my opponents for lively and fun (and competitive) games! Friends were made (and old friends were seen). Awesome job.

I just woke up, and prelim stats are now posted at http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/2332/

Stats for all games are now available at that link. I'm still missing the scoresheet for the McMaster v. Columbia B game in B52 (Chip's room), and for the Brown B v. Cornell C game in A53. I put both of them as forfeit wins for now, and I don't know the outcome of the Brown/Cornell game, so I put it as a forfeit win for Cornell C for now.

Wish I could've been there to help staff and watch this play out - this looked it like was a great tournament! It's great to see so many teams in the Northeast playing, and I'm super excited for what the winter has in store.

Awesome tournament, had a lot of fun! Learned some new things, met some new people, and have decided that Yale is currently my favourite Ivy League campus so far. Thanks for hosting!