DEES at Northwestern (11/22/2014)

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Alright, after much deliberation about finding rooms, I'm taking my tournament directing talents to Evanston to bring you the Great Lakes mirror of DEES on November 22nd, 2014. It will be held on the campus of Northwestern University, rooms and start time TBA. This tournament requires packet submission for any teams with players who have played a college quizbowl tournament before Sept. 1, 2013.

The base fee is $120.
There will be $5 discounts for each fully functioning buzzer a team brings. If your buzzer does not have 8 functioning units with full lights and sounds, then it will not warrant a discount.
There will be a $15 discount for every team that brings a staffer. However, the staff must be approved by me at least 2 weeks in advance of the tournament.
The other discount is for your packet submissions. The schedule for that is here - viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16257
Please bring all payments to me on the morning of the tournament, either as a Paypal deposit, in cash, or in check. I will not accept POs. If you need me to fill out an invoice, please let me know in advance so that you can get your money for me on time.

If you would like to register for the tournament, email me at [email protected]. I will not count you as registered unless I have an email outlining exactly how many teams you are bringing.

If you like staffing tournaments, I need staff! I will pay you handsomely! Email me at [email protected].

Here is the current field:
Northwestern University


See you in November!

[armitage]

I emailed you three weeks ago to sign up for this. Is this tournament happening?

[DumbJaques]

Chicago is coming to this tournament with at least two teams. Michigan should also come to this tournament, considering they wrote a packet.

EDIT: But it would be ideal if, contra Penn Bowl, more than two people were assembled to staff it.

[Harpie's Feather Duster]

Seeing as Charlie is doing all of the direction and staff coordination for this site and the Northwestern club is just providing the rooms, that should (hopefully) not be an issue.

[Harpie's Feather Duster]

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Since Charlie has not been in contact with the rest of this tournament's editors for a few weeks according to them, it looks like I've been thrown into the fire of having to run this site with two weeks' notice. If you told Charlie you would staff this site, please please please please please get in touch with me. If I don't think that I can run a sufficiently-staffed tournament, I will likely have to cancel this site. I'll keep everyone updated and would greatly welcome any advice on what to do.

[Harpie's Feather Duster]

I'll go ahead and keep an updated field here:

Chicago x2
Michigan x2
Sethlene + Laferbrook
Srivasta et al
We've got enough rooms for 18 teams, but right now I only have enough staff for about 10. I'll keep doing my best to recruit locals and encourage teams to bring staffers.

[Excelsior (smack)]

I offered to Dylan that I would staff this tournament if necessary to keep it afloat, and that offer still stands, but in the event that this tournament finds itself with an excess of staffers, I would like to play on some sort of open team instead. Let me know if you would like to team up (contingent on enough staffers being found).

[setht]

I'm currently planning on playing on a team with Matt Lafer and Ryan Westbrook. If I'm needed to staff instead, I can do that.

I assume the goal is an odd number of teams (and enough staff). If we can figure out soon-ish whether that means 1 open team or 2 open teams, we can figure out whether Ashvin should join our team or fill out a second open team.

-Seth

[Harpie's Feather Duster]

It looks like WUSTL is going to the Mizzou site, which means that we currently have 5 teams. I'm not sure what the ideal format would be if we don't manage to get any more.

[Excelsior (smack)]

If a sixth team can be created (either by the addition of open people or by splitting one of the non-packet-writing teams or by magicking another collegiate team from somewhere), you can burn Chicago/Michigan's packets and run a double round robin (10 games in 10 rounds + finals). This leaves you with one blind packet for ties or whatever. If you have enough staff to play a (possibly-rotating) house team of one or more persons, that would do it - this tournament should only need three staffers total.

FIve teams with just fifteen packets is terrible, though. The best you can get is probably a double round robin followed by a 3/2 split (10/11 games in 13 rounds + finals).

(I'm assuming there are fifteen packets, which I think is what Victor said somewhere, but I could be mistaken.)

[Sun Devil Student]

If a sixth team can be created (either by the addition of open people or by splitting one of the non-packet-writing teams or by magicking another collegiate team from somewhere), you can burn Chicago/Michigan's packets and run a double round robin (10 games in 10 rounds + finals). This leaves you with one blind packet for ties or whatever. If you have enough staff to play a (possibly-rotating) house team of one or more persons, that would do it - this tournament should only need three staffers total.

FIve teams with just fifteen packets is terrible, though. The best you can get is probably a double round robin followed by a 3/2 split (10/11 games in 13 rounds + finals).

Are you guys still looking for open people? I'll offer to join the open group for this event if that helps you get the number of teams you need.

[Victor Prieto]

(I'm assuming there are fifteen packets, which I think is what Victor said somewhere, but I could be mistaken.)

I can confirm that there are 15 packets.

[Harpie's Feather Duster]

Some staff I expected to be available bailed on me, but I currently have enough to run 3 rooms with all interested open players playing and we currently have 6 teams registered. I'll keep looking for staff in the meanwhile and post some logistical information within the next few days.

[Harpie's Feather Duster]

HOT NEW INFO:

Assuming the field remains at 6 (with Seth and Ashvin being 2 separate open teams), we will run a double round robin unless someone can enlighten me on how to guarantee more games with the number of packets we have (15 counting Chicago's and Michigan's, 13 if we burn them both). I will also need more staff if we need to run any more rooms.

The tournament will take place in Locy Hall. For those of you who were at Penn Bowl, this is the building that is directly connected to Fisk. For those who weren't, it's the northernmost of the two red brick buildings close to the Lakeside Parking Structure. I can give directions to anybody who needs them and will e-mail a contact from each team with the room number to meet in on Saturday once I figure that out.

The fee structure remains unchanged from Charlie's original post regarding buzzer and staffer discounts, but packet deadline discounts have been changed, so make sure to check the main DEES thread so you have some idea of how much you owe. Please pay for the tournament by either giving me a check on Saturday or mailing one to 630 Emerson Street East, Room 222, Evanston, Illinois 60201. I will do a mass deposit of checks the Monday after the tourney, so please yell at me if for some reason it doesn't look like your check went through. Please make all checks out to "Northwestern University". If you have any more questions about payment, please contact me privately.

I will send a final logistical update by e-mail on Thursday or Friday. Get in contact with me if you have any pressing questions or concerns.

[Matt Weiner]

HOT NEW INFO:

Assuming the field remains at 6 (with Seth and Ashvin being 2 separate open teams), we will run a double round robin unless someone can enlighten me on how to guarantee more games with the number of packets we have (15 counting Chicago's and Michigan's, 13 if we burn them both). I will also need more staff if we need to run any more rooms.

You can get 14 packets without byes by doubling up Chicago and Michigan's packets in round 1. Make sure the two teams aren't playing each other and schedule each game on a packet not by a team involved. This isn't awesome but if the alternative is to ignore those packets and run with 13 it does give you some wiggle room.

[Excelsior (smack)]

That's a good idea. That would permit a double round-robin followed by a 2-upper/4-lower split in which the lower bracket plays a round robin and the upper bracket plays two games, leaving you with two packets for finals between the top two teams - but you won't need the last packet for finals, since the top two teams will have played 4 games against each other by the end of the split, meaning that they're either 2-2 and need a one-game final, or 3-1 or 4-0, in which case the higher team clears. That's 13 games for the bottom 4 teams and 12-13 games for the top 2 teams, with one packet guaranteed free for tiebreakers assuming no fuckery.

In unrelated news: much as I like quizbowl, the prospect of paying 120 bucks to lose 13 games is mildly unappealing. Any dinosaurs in the Chicago area want to join me?

[setht]

I'm playing on team KoLafTlerBrook (with Selene, Matt Lafer, Ryan Westbrook). We may come up with a better team name at some point.

-Seth

[Sun Devil Student]

In unrelated news: much as I like quizbowl, the prospect of paying 120 bucks to lose 13 games is mildly unappealing. Any dinosaurs in the Chicago area want to join me?

Thank you for being brave enough to express the exact sentiment which is undoubtedly shared by so many below-average quizbowl teams nationwide! I've always thought this is exactly why there are so many "novice-only" teams, but have often had the impression that the prevailing opinion on these forums (even if unspoken) looks down on any team that feels this way as being morally inferior, or perhaps even unworthy of the privilege of playing quizbowl. Hopefully this sense has changed during the months I've been away from the forums recently, though (anyway, this discussion belongs elsewhere and is above my pay grade, so back on topic)

Anyway, answering your immediate question: I'm no dinosaur, but on regular difficulty I can get you a number of medium bonus parts in chemistry, religion, mythology, or history if you're particularly weak in any of those areas. I seem to remember reading on the forums that you're a biology person like me, so I'm afraid my main special ability (sniping bio questions from otherwise superior opponents) may not be that useful to you, but if you're out of other options, well, here's one more option for you. I'm a 1.5-hour train ride from Northwestern so let me know as soon as you can

[Excelsior (smack)]

Anyway, answering your immediate question: I'm no dinosaur, but on regular difficulty I can get you a number of medium bonus parts in chemistry, religion, mythology, or history if you're particularly weak in any of those areas. I seem to remember reading on the forums that you're a biology person like me, so I'm afraid my main special ability (sniping bio questions from otherwise superior opponents) may not be that useful to you, but if you're out of other options, well, here's one more option for you. I'm a 1.5-hour train ride from Northwestern so let me know as soon as you can :party:

But you're a student at UIC, aren't you? The eligibility rules for DEES prohibit students playing on teams with non-students.

[Muriel Axon]

Ashvin, the editors have decided that you can play with KLan.

[Excelsior (smack)]

Oh. Well, in that case, we should definitely team up, Kenneth.

(As such, I guess I won't be staffing, Dylan.)

[Mewto55555]

Hey, has a logistics email been sent out about this tournament yet? When/where should we be?

[Sun Devil Student]

Oh. Well, in that case, we should definitely team up, Kenneth.

(As such, I guess I won't be staffing, Dylan.)

Cool, can you forward me any logistical e-mails (kenneth_lan at yahoo . com) and I'll meet you wherever the opening meeting is tomorrow? Hopefully you know some humanities (or found additional teammates who do) to improve our chances of actually winning a game... but at least we won't be alone

[Important Bird Area]

Posts about open tournaments, creating new teams, online mirrors, etc. may be found here.

[Harpie's Feather Duster]

Seth and co. defeated Michigan A in a 1 game final to win the tourney.

Despite the tournament definitely running on the long end (we started at about 9:15 and finished 13 rounds plus finals at about 8 PM), there were no other disastrous occurrences and it seems that fun was had by all. I'll post statistics later tonight or tomorrow when I get a chance to enter in the remaining scoresheets, and prelim stats within the next hour.

EDIT: Prelim Stats are now up. Combined Stats coming once I enter in the last few rounds of scoresheets.

EDIT 2: Combined Stats