The Quizbowl Resource Center

This is an announcement for Illinois' traditional academic mACF tournament, Illinois Open 2008: Where Ignorant Armies Clash by Spite, which will be held at the University of Illinois on November 15, 2008. The Saturday events of this tournament will take place in Gregory Hall, while the Sunday events are to be held in the Armory.

Fee Structure

$100: Base fee for registration.
$5: Buzzer discount.
$10: Moderator discount.
$10: Travel discount for teams traveling more than 200 miles, as determined by Google Maps.
Minimum fee: $70.
Particular circumstances: If you are a player not affiliated with an institute of higher education and you're playing on a team with at least one other person who is also not affiliated, your team can play for $20/player.

Questions and Format

Teams are not required to submit packets for this tournament; instead, the questions will be centrally produced by me, with sincerely appreciated help from three or four others. This tournament will be in mACF format without powers, and the questions will follow the standard ACF distribution. The difficulty will be a little harder than ACF Regionals.

Final Field

Chicago A
Chicago B
Chicago C
Minnesota A
Minnesota B
Michigan A
Michigan B
Truman A
Truman B
Iowa + Carsten
FSU + Westbrook
Sudheer + Andrew + Rom

Mirroring this Tournament

If you're interested in holding a mirror of Illinois Open, you have only to contact me and send me a check after your tournament is over. No packet writing is required, and you can do it on any day November 15 or after. The mirroring fee is $30 for each team that attends your tournament.

These are the regions that already have a mirror of Illinois Open planned:

Southwest (at Tulsa. Contact Angelo Malabanan with questions or if you're interested in attending.)
Northeast (at Brandeis. Contact Hannah Kirsch with questions or if you're interested in attending.)
Mid-Atlantic (at Maryland. Contact Chris Ray with questions or if you're interested in attending.)
West Coast (at UC-Berkeley. Contact Elise Burton with questions or if you're interested in attending.)

Current Schedule of Events

Friday Night: Nothing yet (nor will there be, unless there's great interest).
Saturday Morning: Illinois Open (Gregory Hall)
Saturday Night: RMPFest at Illinois (Gregory Hall. Contact Michael Arnold to register for this event.)
Sunday Morning: TRASH Regionals (Armory. Contact me to register for this.)
Sunday Afternoon/Evening: Miniature Literature Tournament. (Armory. Contact Andrew Hart to register for this event.)

Contact Information

If you wish to attend this tournament, or if you have any questions about it, you can e-mail the Tournament Director, me, at [email protected]. Please inform me of the number of teams, buzzers, and moderators you intend to bring, as well as whether or not you believe you qualify for the travel discount.

I hope to see many of you in November!

Bumping; I added a little information.

I mentioned this to Trygve a little while ago, but I may be interested (emphasis on may) in running, as a small side tournament to IO, a sequel to my Experiment tourney. It would be the same format as before (drafting players onto teams, powers/superpowers, really hard difficulty level, etc.) - again, the goal would be to encourage lots of teams/people to come to IO and play a good weekend of QB. Depending on my schedule and willpower, it might be kind of small - for instance, I may only do 5 rounds and run a 6 team round robin, or something like that. But, I thought I'd throw the idea out there for people to consider.

I will probably have time to finish my "Impossible Speedcheck" tournament in the week between ACF Fall and this tournament (there's almost no way I can get to it before then). If I'm feeling good about that, I'd be happy to run it at IO as an after-main-event event. Assuming we'd have Ryan's event and Pyramid II: Sneferu's Revenge on Sunday.

I would say to put Truman as interested if funding works out.

I added yet more information to the above. If you're in one of the regions that doesn't yet have an IO mirror, and you want some free money with no packet writing attached, e-mail me about hosting a mirror!

I had actually hoped to make an appearance at this event, but just found out one of my wife's good friends is getting married that weekend. Boo.

I can definitely attend my fifth consecutive Illinois Open. I know an Urbana family who let me stay with them overnight on Saturdays twice last season, so I am also interested in any and all side tourneys. I have a big meeting next Monday with UIC's College Bowl coordinator, who might be able to free up considerable monies for ACF/NAQT tournaments now that he does not have to waste some seventy dollars per packet of short, unchallenging CBI campus tournament questions. I shall also attempt to recruit fellow UIC students as teammates so that I do not have to play solo as I did twice last February.

Congratulations to Afghanistan on its first medal,
Rom Masrour,
CPS/UIC

I think we can find some people from Michigan who will drink your IO milkshake.

I added even more information, but the important thing to note is that there will be a mirror at the University of Maryland directed by Chris Ray.

Would you like me to finish my impossible speedcheck set in time for this?

theMoMA wrote:Would you like me to finish my impossible speedcheck set in time for this?

Yeah, if we get TRASH Regionals, we can run this on Sunday night, or if we don't, we can run this on Sunday morning. If you have time to finish this up by IO, we'll certainly run it.

I've added lots of information to the above. We don't have anything scheduled Friday night preceding IO, and I think I'm inclined to keep it that way; if there's lots of demand, perhaps we can attempt to find yet more quizbowl to play.

With a little less than a month to go, I'd be very appreciative if teams that have mentioned to me that they're coming could start sending me e-mails telling me how many teams they intend to bring so that I can get an idea of scheduling. We can accommodate up to 18 teams, so I don't expect that space will be an issue, but it would still be great if I could hear from people.

Additionally, we've added another mirror to the above; if you're on the west coast and you want to play this, the Berkeley team can help you out. Contact Elise Burton to sign up.

millionwaves wrote:With a little less than a month to go, I'd be very appreciative if teams that have mentioned to me that they're coming could start sending me e-mails telling me how many teams they intend to bring so that I can get an idea of scheduling. We can accommodate up to 18 teams, so I don't expect that space will be an issue, but it would still be great if I could hear from people.

Additionally, we've added another mirror to the above; if you're on the west coast and you want to play this, the Berkeley team can help you out. Contact Elise Burton to sign up.

I know that Minnesota is for sure bringing one team to this, and we hope to have two.

Indiana intends to show up with one team. We'll confirm this soon.

I imagine Michigan will have 2 teams, maybe 3. We'll know in a couple of weeks.

Anyone have a portion of floor that I can use to sleep on for Friday and Saturday night?

My email: [email protected]

Probably, email [email protected] to follow up.

The schedule looks good. I have two quick questions. First, does anyone still want Impossible Speedcheck to be played at this tournament, and second, if it is only the lit tournament, could we please do that before TRASH, since it will take only a short while and allow us to get on the road faster.

If we do Impossible Speedcheck, ideally, we would do that as a Sunday event right after lit. If TRASH can't be run after both, I think we can probably work it out, but I would like to know sooner than later.

I have given up trying to find teammates on my own, and I would rather not play solo as I did twice in February. Even if the editors/organizers cannot find teammates for me as they did last year, I will still show up in exactly a fortnight, hoping to find a spot as a free agent.

Happy All Hallow's Eve,
Rom Masrour
CPS/UIC

Like Hart, I would be greatly aided if we could find a way to have the Lit Tournament prior to TRASH, since I can't stay around too late on Sunday without effectively attempting suicide by driving back at heavens knows what time in the morning. I might still give it a shot if it were after TRASH, but I have my doubts.

Hey,

The field for this event is final now, and is reflected in the initial post. We have twelve teams, which means that we're going to run a full round robin, followed by an advantaged ACF-style finals. Ties in record will be broken by playing a full packet, or if both teams agree, points per game.

Registration for the tournament will begin in Gregory Hall at 8:30 AM, with play beginning at 9. Please register in Room 111. We're running eleven rounds, so I expect that the prelims of this tournament will conclude by 6 PM. After that, RMPFest will ensue (contact Michael Arnold for details). A representative from each team should be receiving an e-mail shortly with this and other information.

RARGH I MUST KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE RIGHT NOW OR I MIGHT JUST CONSUME THE WORLD IN ANGER

After 9 rounds:

Minnesota hasn't lost, beating FSU/Ryan.
Chicago A (Seth Teitler's Laws of Zerg Rush) has lost once (to FSU/Ryan)
FSU/Ryan has only the single loss.

GEORGESTEVENSLOL wrote:RARGH I MUST KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE RIGHT NOW OR I MIGHT JUST CONSUME THE WORLD IN ANGER

Sorry I didn't understand that asking for updates to a tournament is taboo.

ClemsonQB wrote:

GEORGESTEVENSLOL wrote:RARGH I MUST KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE RIGHT NOW OR I MIGHT JUST CONSUME THE WORLD IN ANGER

Sorry I didn't understand that asking for updates to a tournament is taboo.

Its not, dude. I'm guessing someone is just poking fun at you.

ClemsonQB wrote:

GEORGESTEVENSLOL wrote:RARGH I MUST KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE RIGHT NOW OR I MIGHT JUST CONSUME THE WORLD IN ANGER

Sorry I didn't understand that asking for updates to a tournament is taboo.

For $20 I'll tell you whose IP it came from so that you may exact bloody vengeance.

Congratulations to Minnesota A, who went undefeated and defeated FSU/Westbrook in a one game final to win the tournament. Coming in third was Chicago Seth Teitler's Rules of Zerg Rush. Although the final should have been advantaged, we didn't have enough packets to do that due to my oversight. It ended up not mattering, but I apologize to both teams that were affected. Congratulations also to Paul Drube of Iowa/Carsten, who was today's leading scorer.

Thanks very much to Mike Sorice, James Sanner, Greg Baboukis, Micah Hodosh, Jonah Greenthal, Charles Martin, Craig Messner, and Jonah Greenthal for coming to help staff today. Thanks especially to Donald Taylor, who again served as a very able statistician.

Thanks also to George Stevens, who gave me advice on my history, Hannah Kirsch, who did the same for music, Mike Sorice, who edited the science, James Sanner, who wrote the biology, and George Stevens again, who wrote the geography. IO was made much better for your effort, and I really appreciate it.

I'm very interested to hear criticism and commentary from everyone who played the packets, but since the questions can't be discussed until next Saturday, the best way to do that is to e-mail at [email protected]. Thanks very much to everyone who played, and I hope the issues that were present in the set didn't hurt anyone's enjoyment.

millionwaves wrote:Thanks very much to Mike Sorice, James Sanner, Greg Baboukis, Micah Hodosh, Jonah Greenthal, Charles Martin, Craig Messner, and Jonah Greenthal for coming to help staff today.

I'd like to say "you're welcome" to Trygve Meade and Trygve Meade.


Statistics are posted.

Congrats to Minnesota (and to Chicago for those amazing team names.)

jonah wrote:

millionwaves wrote:Thanks very much to Mike Sorice, James Sanner, Greg Baboukis, Micah Hodosh, Jonah Greenthal, Charles Martin, Craig Messner, and Jonah Greenthal for coming to help staff today.

I'd like to say "you're welcome" to Trygve Meade and Trygve Meade.


Statistics are posted.

Will you be able to add the stats from the final round?

Once I get the scoresheet, yes.