The Brief Wondrous Tournament of WAO (January 21st-after)
Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 10:22 am
I'm happy to announce The Brief Wondrous Tournament of WAO (WAO standing for Will Alston Open - not my suggestion), an open tournament that will be available for mirrors January 21 and later. This tournament will be edited by myself, Joey Goldman, Athena Kern, Jason Cheng, James Lasker, and Naveed Chowdhury, with some assistance/oversight from Shan Kothari. I will serve as head editor.
This tournament is going to be solidly regular-plus in difficulty, which means it will sit somewhere between Penn Bowl/MLK and VCUO 2011/2015 in difficulty, steering away from the more challenging tossup answers at the latter end of the spectrum. We will work to keep easy parts at the Regionals level and include a good number of strong middle-late clues, in order to maximize playability.
As its name suggest, this tournament will need packets - however, in order to help ensure a good field size, we are not going to mandate packet submission in order for school teams to play. Instead, fees and packet submission are going to be intertwined:
School Teams: Packet submission optional. $140 base fee; $70 discount for submission by December 18th, $50 discount for submission before 2017 (Pacific Time).
Open Teams: Packet submission required. $120 base fee; $20 discount for submission by December 18th.
We're willing to negotiate a half packet submission for school or shorthanded open teams who are interested in submitting, but may not be able to adequately write for all categories - discounts for half-packets would be $35 and $20, respectively, for the same submission deadlines. Let us know what you're willing/interested in writing, and we can get you an assignment of 12/12. If you're a highly ranked quizbowl team, however, we will probably expect a full packet if you do choose to submit.
Base mirror fees for this tournament will be $45, but will be reduced to $25 per school team that submits a packet ($35 for half packet), in order to not bleed host sites of money. High school teams are "school teams" but high school chimera teams are "open teams." Hosts must provide buzzer discounts of at least $5 and travel discounts of at least $5 per 200 miles.
If you plan on submitting a packet for this tournament and getting a discount, contact me by December 18th stating that you will do so - PM and email are both fine. This is to ensure that we know in advance how many packets will be submitted, so we can plan ahead accordingly. If you promise a packet, do not submit one, and this causes us to be short on packets, we reserve the right to penalize you by preventing you from playing the tournament. Getting a tournament done completely in a bit over two months takes coordination - your cooperation is most appreciated! If you're playing on an open team, I'm ok with allowing some flexibility since team formation can be difficulty, but we'd still appreciate organizing more quickly.
Packets should be submitted according to the following distribution and emailed to [email protected] with the subject "WAO Packet - [Team Name]"
(24/24 in total)
(5/5 total literature)
1/1 US Literature
1/1 British Literature
1/1 European Literature (nonclassical)
1/1 Nonwester and Classical Literature (questions on the Mahabharata, Aeneid, and Odyssey go here)
1/1 Any Literature (your choice)
Across your 10 literature questions, you must have at least 2 on poetry, 2 on long fiction, and 1 on drama.
(5/5 total history)
1/1 US History
1/1 Continental European History (post-600 CE)
1 Continental or Near Eastern History (pre-600 CE)
1 British, Canadian, Australian, or New Zealand history
1 Historiography or Archaeology
1/1 Other History (not covered above; "world" history) - At least one of these must be on a non-20th century topic (more is fine)
1 Any history (more of any of the above categories)
(5/5 total science)
1/1 Biology
1/1 Chemistry (please no more than one organic)
1/1 Physics
1 Math or Computer Science
1 Any other science (earth science, astronomy, etc.)
1/1 Any science (more of the above)
(4/4 total RMPSS)
1/1 Philosophy - Don't write both on the same philosophical discipline (i.e. don't write both on ethics or analytic language philosophy or whatever)
1/1 Social Science - Don't write both on the same social science
1 "Other Thought" or more social science (do with this what you will - I look forward to seeing what you give me)
1 Mythology
1/1 Religion - At least one question must be on a religion other than Christianity or Judaism (can be more)
(3/3 total Fine Arts)
1/1 Classical Music
1/1 Painting
1/1 Other Arts
(2/2 total Other)
1 Geography
1 Current Events and Modern Institutions
2 Other Academic (can be more geography/current events, or any academic topic that doesn't fit neatly into the standard distribution)
All submitted questions should be at least seven lines long. The requirements in history, social science, and mythology reflect my goals for diversity when editing these categories. The final distribution will be 20/20, with 4/4 history, 4/4 literature, and 4/4 science. Tiebreakers will be drawn from extra/unused questions in the submitted packets if available.
Make sure to use a good mix of easy and "standard" regular difficulty tossup answers in your packets, with a few more challenging questions to mix things up. We are keen on keeping this set under control.
List of submitted packets:
Andrew Wang / Ike Jose (half) (-$10, half the full packet open team discount)
Anderson Wang / Neil Gurram (half) (-$10)
Oxford A (half) (-$35, half the full packet school team discount)
Aaron Dos Remedios et al (-$20)
Mike Bentley (-$20)
Virginia (-$70)
Duke (-$50)
Maryland A (-$50)
Michigan (-$50)
Berkeley (-$50)
WUSTL (-$50)
OSU (-$50)
Maryland B (half, -$25)
Northwestern (half, -$25)
Queen's (half, -$25)
Kentucky (half, -$25)
Cambridge (half, -$25)
Adam Swift and Leslie Newcombe (half)
Ankit et al (half)
Rob Carson et al.
We are looking to assemble a number of larger sites for this tournament in order to create large, dynamic fields. We would like to have sites in the following locations:
Northeast: Columbia University (1/28)
Mid-Atlantic: University of Virginia (1/28)
Southeast: University of Florida
Upper Midwest: University of Chicago (1/21)
Lower Midwest: University of Missouri (1/28)
Northern California: University of California, Berkeley (TBD)
Southern Califotnia: Caltech (2/25)
Canada: University of Waterloo (1/21)
United Kingdom: University of Oxford
Online:
We are open to a Texas mirror as well, if there is interest.
This tournament is going to be solidly regular-plus in difficulty, which means it will sit somewhere between Penn Bowl/MLK and VCUO 2011/2015 in difficulty, steering away from the more challenging tossup answers at the latter end of the spectrum. We will work to keep easy parts at the Regionals level and include a good number of strong middle-late clues, in order to maximize playability.
As its name suggest, this tournament will need packets - however, in order to help ensure a good field size, we are not going to mandate packet submission in order for school teams to play. Instead, fees and packet submission are going to be intertwined:
School Teams: Packet submission optional. $140 base fee; $70 discount for submission by December 18th, $50 discount for submission before 2017 (Pacific Time).
Open Teams: Packet submission required. $120 base fee; $20 discount for submission by December 18th.
We're willing to negotiate a half packet submission for school or shorthanded open teams who are interested in submitting, but may not be able to adequately write for all categories - discounts for half-packets would be $35 and $20, respectively, for the same submission deadlines. Let us know what you're willing/interested in writing, and we can get you an assignment of 12/12. If you're a highly ranked quizbowl team, however, we will probably expect a full packet if you do choose to submit.
Base mirror fees for this tournament will be $45, but will be reduced to $25 per school team that submits a packet ($35 for half packet), in order to not bleed host sites of money. High school teams are "school teams" but high school chimera teams are "open teams." Hosts must provide buzzer discounts of at least $5 and travel discounts of at least $5 per 200 miles.
If you plan on submitting a packet for this tournament and getting a discount, contact me by December 18th stating that you will do so - PM and email are both fine. This is to ensure that we know in advance how many packets will be submitted, so we can plan ahead accordingly. If you promise a packet, do not submit one, and this causes us to be short on packets, we reserve the right to penalize you by preventing you from playing the tournament. Getting a tournament done completely in a bit over two months takes coordination - your cooperation is most appreciated! If you're playing on an open team, I'm ok with allowing some flexibility since team formation can be difficulty, but we'd still appreciate organizing more quickly.
Packets should be submitted according to the following distribution and emailed to [email protected] with the subject "WAO Packet - [Team Name]"
(24/24 in total)
(5/5 total literature)
1/1 US Literature
1/1 British Literature
1/1 European Literature (nonclassical)
1/1 Nonwester and Classical Literature (questions on the Mahabharata, Aeneid, and Odyssey go here)
1/1 Any Literature (your choice)
Across your 10 literature questions, you must have at least 2 on poetry, 2 on long fiction, and 1 on drama.
(5/5 total history)
1/1 US History
1/1 Continental European History (post-600 CE)
1 Continental or Near Eastern History (pre-600 CE)
1 British, Canadian, Australian, or New Zealand history
1 Historiography or Archaeology
1/1 Other History (not covered above; "world" history) - At least one of these must be on a non-20th century topic (more is fine)
1 Any history (more of any of the above categories)
(5/5 total science)
1/1 Biology
1/1 Chemistry (please no more than one organic)
1/1 Physics
1 Math or Computer Science
1 Any other science (earth science, astronomy, etc.)
1/1 Any science (more of the above)
(4/4 total RMPSS)
1/1 Philosophy - Don't write both on the same philosophical discipline (i.e. don't write both on ethics or analytic language philosophy or whatever)
1/1 Social Science - Don't write both on the same social science
1 "Other Thought" or more social science (do with this what you will - I look forward to seeing what you give me)
1 Mythology
1/1 Religion - At least one question must be on a religion other than Christianity or Judaism (can be more)
(3/3 total Fine Arts)
1/1 Classical Music
1/1 Painting
1/1 Other Arts
(2/2 total Other)
1 Geography
1 Current Events and Modern Institutions
2 Other Academic (can be more geography/current events, or any academic topic that doesn't fit neatly into the standard distribution)
All submitted questions should be at least seven lines long. The requirements in history, social science, and mythology reflect my goals for diversity when editing these categories. The final distribution will be 20/20, with 4/4 history, 4/4 literature, and 4/4 science. Tiebreakers will be drawn from extra/unused questions in the submitted packets if available.
Make sure to use a good mix of easy and "standard" regular difficulty tossup answers in your packets, with a few more challenging questions to mix things up. We are keen on keeping this set under control.
List of submitted packets:
Andrew Wang / Ike Jose (half) (-$10, half the full packet open team discount)
Anderson Wang / Neil Gurram (half) (-$10)
Oxford A (half) (-$35, half the full packet school team discount)
Aaron Dos Remedios et al (-$20)
Mike Bentley (-$20)
Virginia (-$70)
Duke (-$50)
Maryland A (-$50)
Michigan (-$50)
Berkeley (-$50)
WUSTL (-$50)
OSU (-$50)
Maryland B (half, -$25)
Northwestern (half, -$25)
Queen's (half, -$25)
Kentucky (half, -$25)
Cambridge (half, -$25)
Adam Swift and Leslie Newcombe (half)
Ankit et al (half)
Rob Carson et al.
We are looking to assemble a number of larger sites for this tournament in order to create large, dynamic fields. We would like to have sites in the following locations:
Northeast: Columbia University (1/28)
Mid-Atlantic: University of Virginia (1/28)
Southeast: University of Florida
Upper Midwest: University of Chicago (1/21)
Lower Midwest: University of Missouri (1/28)
Northern California: University of California, Berkeley (TBD)
Southern Califotnia: Caltech (2/25)
Canada: University of Waterloo (1/21)
United Kingdom: University of Oxford
Online:
We are open to a Texas mirror as well, if there is interest.