The Quizbowl Resource Center

Hi all,

Paul Lee of Penn has given me permission to organize a Skype mirror of Penn Bowl. Therefore, I am doing so. Sign-ups may be found here!

The fee will be $60 per team. This covers two costs - the $40 per team mirror fee and $20 extra per team to pay staff.

Why so much for staff? My reasoning is that this tournament isn't being hosted by a school to raise money, so there's no need for the usual $120 mirror fee. Furthermore, I would like for this tournament's staff to not have to come from the Penn team and its associates, who will have already spent a large amount of time writing the tournament and a full day staffing it. Which brings us to the fact that this is a full tournament, and staffing it is going to involve committing to about a normal 8 hour workday's worth of work - so $40 for the day actually translates to below minimum wage! However, considering the going market rate for volunteer readers, I think this is an improvement that people are probably willing to pay for, and that a number of readers would be interested in doing for something they might give up their Saturday for anyways.

Anyone who wants to staff should put their name down on the sheet - Penn folks are, as much as anyone else, free to staff if they like (but should not feel obliged to in any way!)

One last thing - I'm hoping to not have too many super-duper-OP teams in this tournament. If you're a national champion or CO winner or someone of similar skill, try not to fill your whole team with such people! This looks to be a really strong field and I'm excited to have a lot of competitive games.

EDIT: The poll is closed, and the mirror will take place on Sunday, December 3rd.

What time is this supposed to start and end? It'd be hard for me if it started at, say, 11 EST.

Progcon wrote:What time is this supposed to start and end? It'd be hard for me if it started at, say, 11 EST.

Considering that there's likely to be a non-zero West Coast audience, I would imagine it would have to be around 10-11 EST.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:

Progcon wrote:What time is this supposed to start and end? It'd be hard for me if it started at, say, 11 EST.

Considering that there's likely to be a non-zero West Coast audience, I would imagine it would have to be around 10-11 EST.

That's certainly understandable. In that case, I won't participate in all likelihood though I wish I could.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:One last thing - I'm hoping to not have too many super-duper-OP teams in this tournament. If you're a national champion or CO winner or someone of similar skill, try not to fill your whole team with such people! This looks to be a really strong field and I'm excited to have a lot of competitive games.

I was wondering whether it would be worth considering changing this mirror to a doubles or triples event?

There are currently 16 people interested in playing, which makes for 4 full teams, at least half of which are bound to be very very strong. Personally, I don't particularly enjoy playing the same teams 3-4 times each in one day. Staff availability permitting, I think it would make for a much more interesting tournament if team sizes were reduced.

gyre and gimble wrote:

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:One last thing - I'm hoping to not have too many super-duper-OP teams in this tournament. If you're a national champion or CO winner or someone of similar skill, try not to fill your whole team with such people! This looks to be a really strong field and I'm excited to have a lot of competitive games.

I was wondering whether it would be worth considering changing this mirror to a doubles or triples event?

There are currently 16 people interested in playing, which makes for 4 full teams, at least half of which are bound to be very very strong. Personally, I don't particularly enjoy playing the same teams 3-4 times each in one day. Staff availability permitting, I think it would make for a much more interesting tournament if team sizes were reduced.

I'm okay with triples, assuming Auroni's team is ok with splitting.

I think a final date should come first. It sounds like many people are tentative based on when it will take place (I am also in this camp).

Mike Bentley wrote:I think a final date should come first. It sounds like many people are tentative based on when it will take place (I am also in this camp).

I second this, especially given that 49 people have taken the poll and thus (we can assume) have some interest.

People are allowed to vote for each day that works for them, so I don't think that many have taken the poll.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:People are allowed to vote for each day that works for them, so I don't think that many have taken the poll.

Well then, disregard my faulty statistics. That being said, Mike’s point is still valid.

EDIT: After rereading my post, I felt I needed to make it more clear that I do not doubt the veracity of Will's claim.

Is there a final date on this?

It looks like Sunday, December 3rd is the most popular option - I'm going to go ahead and call that the mirror date.

EDIT: Also, with the team of Kentuckians signed up, I think we could have a viable 6-team field at this point with four-man teams, assuming no drops. That'd make for an easy round-robin schedule.

Count me in. If any of you need a teammate, hit me up.

Bump. This is happening - folks should form teams!

Please put an email for the team in the spreadsheet so I can coordinate payment. Thanks!

Wang is unable to play with us and Kurtis Droge and I are in need of a scientist. If you wish to play on the team with by far the best dual reference in its name, feel free to message me.

My team would also benefit from a scientist.

(We got our scientist)

Currently there are three staffers and six teams signed up. I'm talking to additional people about staffing right now, but for now it's okay to sign up additional teams. I'm going to cap the field at 8 teams for now, though - that should allow for a manageable seven rounds of prelims and three of rebracketed playoffs, which seems about the maximum reasonable length.

I plan to close the field on Saturday evening. Please sign up by then. Thanks!

On the moderator front, it would be great if all moderators had headsets. It greatly improves the experience. I'd be willing to kick in extra to make sure everyone has one.

Hey if anyone’s looking to fill out their team with someone who may or may not be able to make it to this tournament, shoot me a message. I’m happy to play with anybody.

EDIT: I’ve joined Sam, Joelle, and Laurence.

If people are cool with this, I can just pair up the existing free agents and close the field. Six is a fine number too (double RR worked fine at EFT).

Can we get an update on the start time/schedule?

matt2718 wrote:Can we get an update on the start time/schedule?

I'm going to go ahead and say this will start at 7:30AM PST / 10:30 AM EST, since I anticipate that rounds could take a while. I'll add a Discord server to this post later. Please show up there 10 minutes ahead of time.

By the way - seven teams sucks as a number because byes are bad, so I'd like to see an eighth team sign up. Hopefully this happens in the next couple of days. Once the number of teams is finalized, I will randomly generate a schedule and post it in the sign-up sheet.

Can the eighth team play for free?

Cheynem wrote:Can the eighth team play for free?

I need to cover the mirror fees and promised moderator payments, so I don't think I can make this arrangement. There's absolutely no overhead here.

If one of the mods is okay with taking a $20 pay cut I could reduce it to $40, and if Penn is okay with waving your mirror fee then I can take out that component too.

Happy to make arrangements for people to play with the other free agents if that helps.

Just checking; can we have >4 players and substitute halfway though? Some people on our team are interested but can't make it for the whole day.

matt2718 wrote:Just checking; can we have >4 players and substitute halfway though? Some people on our team are interested but can't make it for the whole day.

That's definitely fine.

I'm going to go ahead and close the field at 7 teams (Arun joined our team and I placed Noah with the Kentuckians). This should let us reduce the mirror fee by $5 per team, since we only need 3 moderators. The first-round bye will go to Colorado's team, so they can all show up a bit later than the tournament start time (7:30 PST / 8:30 MT / 9:30 CST / 10:30 EST) if they'd like.

The format will be a round-robin, followed by split into upper and lower brackets of 4 and 3 teams respectively - upper bracket teams will play 9 games and lower bracket ones 8 games, and the tournament will take place across 10 rounds.

We'll meet here in this Discord server.

Rebracketing / break will be 15 minutes after the prelims - teams should use their byes to eat if they need longer to go get lunch.

Hey, sorry, I forgot to remove my name from the signup sheet when I found out I had to work today. I took it off now. People should feel free to take that spot.

Good luck everyone!

Auroni / Daniel / Oliver finished 8-1 and Stephen / Joelle / Sam / Laurence finished 7-2. They declined to play a final, so the former wins!

Full stats are up.

Also - note to mods: if someone is paying you to staff, please wake up on time!