Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

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Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

Post by estrom »

Overview
This is an announcement for the West collegiate site of the 2021 Southeast-Midwest Housewrite, which will take place on February 20, 2021. This tournament will cost $70 per team, with discounts outlined below. I (Ethan Strombeck) will be directing this tournament through Discord.

Registration Information and Discounts
The registration form for this tournament can be found here.

Payment for this tournament will be exclusively over Venmo; further information concerning payment will be available upon registration. If this is an issue, mention that in the email and we can work something out.

The base entry fee is $70. The following discounts are available for teams to claim:

-$20 for a shorthanded team of 1 or 2 players
-$20 if the university has not fielded a team at a tournament since August 1, 2019

Staffing
To sign up to staff for this tournament, fill out this form. Staffers will be paid $40 for 9 rounds of moderating.

Set
The difficulty of the Southeast-Midwest Housewrite is around the level of 2018 PACE or 2019 ILLIAC; about 1.5 dots on the dot scale. The set is edited by Aidan Leahy [UGA], Govind Prabhakar [Georgetown], Arjun Nageswaran [Adlai E. Stevenson], Katherine Lei [MIT], Dylan Bowman [UIUC], Ethan Strombeck [Stanford], William Groger [Miami Valley], and Ethan Ashbrook [UMN] with featured writers from Yale, UIUC, Stanton College Prep, Lambert, and University Lab. Taylor Harvey [UF] will be acting as a general overseer. The distribution per packet is as follows:

4.00/4.00 Literature
4.00/4.00 History
4.00/4.00 Science
3.00/3.00 Fine Arts
1.00/1.00 Religious Beliefs and Traditions
1.00/1.00 Myths and Legends
0.75/0.75 Philosophy
0.75/0.75 Social Science
0.50/0.50 Current Events
0.50/0.50 Geography
0.50/0.50 Popular Culture and Other Academic

Eligibility
This tournament is exclusive to college teams; middle school and high school players may not play or moderate for this tournament. There will be no formal restrictions on strong players but a good rule of thumb would be “if you played ACF Winter, you can probably play this tournament.”

This tournament is restricted to teams from the following states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, as well as the province of British Columbia. The regions are outlined in the map below.

Image

Misconduct
This tournament will not tolerate misconduct such as, but not limited to: racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, verbal harassment of players or staff, and generally inappropriate comments. A link to the misconduct form as well as the IKEA Code of Conduct, to which we’ll be adhering, will be available and visible on the server.

Cheating
Cheating will not be tolerated at this tournament. Video will be required for all players; if this is not an option please let us know beforehand via email or Discord. We reserve the right to remove anyone whom we believe to be cheating from the tournament. Our protocol for dealing with cheaters can also be found on the Code of Conduct linked above.
Last edited by estrom on Sun Feb 07, 2021 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ethan Strombeck
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Stanford University '24
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Re: Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

Post by estrom »

Current Field (Updated 2/15/21)

(18/18)

Oregon (1)
University of Washington (4)
Claremont Colleges (1)
UC Berkeley (3)
UCLA (1)
UCSD (3)
UBC (2)
Caltech (2)
Stanford (1)
Last edited by estrom on Mon Feb 15, 2021 5:31 pm, edited 8 times in total.
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Re: Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

Post by Bosa of York »

Why is it that "if you played ACF Winter, you can probably play this tournament" when Winter, like recent EFTs, had no formal or informal eligibility restrictions and was played by a lot of very good players, while the stated difficulty comparisons, PACE NSC and ILLIAC, are respectively a high school tournament and and undergrad-only tournament?

(Also, the possibility of questions like this is a big part of why global set announcements are usually a good thing; I don't expect Ethan in particular to give a response to this and if he can forward this question to Taylor I'd appreciate it).

EDIT: I have since become aware that this is a collegiate mirror of a previously-announced HS set. A link to that post should probably be included in the site announcements.
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Re: Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

Post by db0wman »

a named reaction wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 11:47 am Why is it that "if you played ACF Winter, you can probably play this tournament" when Winter, like recent EFTs, had no formal or informal eligibility restrictions and was played by a lot of very good players, while the stated difficulty comparisons, PACE NSC and ILLIAC, are respectively a high school tournament and and undergrad-only tournament?

(Also, the possibility of questions like this is a big part of why global set announcements are usually a good thing; I don't expect Ethan in particular to give a response to this and if he can forward this question to Taylor I'd appreciate it).

EDIT: I have since become aware that this is a collegiate mirror of a previously-announced HS set. A link to that post should probably be included in the site announcements.
Hi Eric, thanks for the comments. With regards to eligiblity, we didn't want to impose any hard-and-fast rules because we want anyone who wants to play to be able to play. In general, we'd suggest that players who are concerned about being too strong for their field should use their best judgement. We also plan on hosting an open mirror after this initial run of collegiate mirrors if there is sufficient interest; players who would be too strong for these regional mirrors would absolutely be welcomed there.

Per your suggestion, I've also created a global announcement here, where future questions and comments can be directed.
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Re: Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

Post by MMSANCHEZ »

Are British Columbia teams going to be included in the west region as is usual, or will they need to wait for a Canadian mirror to be announced?
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Re: Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

Post by db0wman »

MMSANCHEZ wrote: Wed Dec 23, 2020 5:24 am Are British Columbia teams going to be included in the west region as is usual, or will they need to wait for a Canadian mirror to be announced?
Our apologies for not considering Canadian teams outside of the Ontario circuit in the announcement. Teams from British Columbia will be eligible to play the West regional; the post will be updated to reflect this.
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Re: Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

Post by Ciorwrong »

db0wman wrote: Wed Dec 23, 2020 1:17 am
a named reaction wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 11:47 am Why is it that "if you played ACF Winter, you can probably play this tournament" when Winter, like recent EFTs, had no formal or informal eligibility restrictions and was played by a lot of very good players, while the stated difficulty comparisons, PACE NSC and ILLIAC, are respectively a high school tournament and and undergrad-only tournament?

(Also, the possibility of questions like this is a big part of why global set announcements are usually a good thing; I don't expect Ethan in particular to give a response to this and if he can forward this question to Taylor I'd appreciate it).

EDIT: I have since become aware that this is a collegiate mirror of a previously-announced HS set. A link to that post should probably be included in the site announcements.
Hi Eric, thanks for the comments. With regards to eligiblity, we didn't want to impose any hard-and-fast rules because we want anyone who wants to play to be able to play. In general, we'd suggest that players who are concerned about being too strong for their field should use their best judgement. We also plan on hosting an open mirror after this initial run of collegiate mirrors if there is sufficient interest; players who would be too strong for these regional mirrors would absolutely be welcomed there.

Per your suggestion, I've also created a global announcement here, where future questions and comments can be directed.
This is a really bad idea. Having objective eligibility restrictions, as I did for SUN, is good. Just because ACF tournaments do not have them, does not mean that this tournament should not utilize them. In the past, players have repeatedly failed to show sound judgement when determining whether they should play easy tournaments. Ignoring this history is willful naivety.

Anyway, I am a West Coast grad student and I am not playing this tournament. I encourage other experienced players and grad students on the West Coast to sit this tournament out and let less-experienced players play. I will be staffing. We do not have a lot of of novice tournaments here, and I will be encouraging the younger UCSD players this tournament. Don't be a jerk and club baby seals on a modified high school set.
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Re: Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

Post by Carlos Be »

Ciorwrong wrote: Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:51 pm This is a really bad idea. Having objective eligibility restrictions, as I did for SUN, is good. Just because ACF tournaments do not have them, does not mean that this tournament should not utilize them. In the past, players have repeatedly failed to show sound judgement when determining whether they should play easy tournaments. Ignoring this history is willful naivety.

Anyway, I am a West Coast grad student and I am not playing this tournament. I encourage other experienced players and grad students on the West Coast to sit this tournament out and let less-experienced players play. I will be staffing. We do not have a lot of of novice tournaments here, and I will be encouraging the younger UCSD players this tournament. Don't be a jerk and club baby seals on a modified high school set.
A couple things. First, your eligibility requirements for SUN were confusing and contradictory. (Is 35 PPG at fall anywhere close to feeling comfortable at ACF Regionals? What does "feel comfortable" mean, anyway? And is this 35 PPG solo, or 35 PPG on a balanced team?) In general, I think it is very difficult for the editors of a set to provide objective eligibility restrictions that work well for all regions. It is preferable, in my opinion, to leave decisions on who can play a set up to local TDs, since they will understand the needs and wishes of their circuit far better than the set's editors.

Second, PACE / ILLIAC is not an easy difficulty. In just the first two packets of ILLIAC, I see tossups on Demosthenes, groups (abstract algebra), and ubiquitin. PACE 2018 is a bit easier but is still fairly hard. Personally, I think this set would be too difficult to use as a novice tournament, so running it with the same eligibility as winter seems reasonable.
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Re: Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

Post by Ciorwrong »

Carlos Be wrote: Sat Dec 26, 2020 3:57 am
Ciorwrong wrote: Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:51 pm This is a really bad idea. Having objective eligibility restrictions, as I did for SUN, is good. Just because ACF tournaments do not have them, does not mean that this tournament should not utilize them. In the past, players have repeatedly failed to show sound judgement when determining whether they should play easy tournaments. Ignoring this history is willful naivety.

Anyway, I am a West Coast grad student and I am not playing this tournament. I encourage other experienced players and grad students on the West Coast to sit this tournament out and let less-experienced players play. I will be staffing. We do not have a lot of of novice tournaments here, and I will be encouraging the younger UCSD players this tournament. Don't be a jerk and club baby seals on a modified high school set.
A couple things. First, your eligibility requirements for SUN were confusing and contradictory. (Is 35 PPG at fall anywhere close to feeling comfortable at ACF Regionals? What does "feel comfortable" mean, anyway? And is this 35 PPG solo, or 35 PPG on a balanced team?) In general, I think it is very difficult for the editors of a set to provide objective eligibility restrictions that work well for all regions. It is preferable, in my opinion, to leave decisions on who can play a set up to local TDs, since they will understand the needs and wishes of their circuit far better than the set's editors.

Second, PACE / ILLIAC is not an easy difficulty. In just the first two packets of ILLIAC, I see tossups on Demosthenes, groups (abstract algebra), and ubiquitin. PACE 2018 is a bit easier but is still fairly hard. Personally, I think this set would be too difficult to use as a novice tournament, so running it with the same eligibility as winter seems reasonable.
Respectfully, I disagree. I think objective eligibility criteria provide a good ceiling for who cannot play a set. We can quibble about the details of such criteria if we want, but I was heavily inspired by the criteria Eric Xu put out a few years prior. The reason I prefer the explicit criteria is because I do not trust local TDs to do what you are suggesting. Many teams sign up for a tournament late or last minute, don't provide rosters, etc. Additionally, there are lot of freshmen who a TD might not be even aware are playing a tournament who could show up and dominate a novice event. This used to happen repeatedly where the best players on HSNCT and PACE teams would destroy Fall their first year of college. I do not think this should happen personally. If one agrees with me that this should not happen, I think leaving this decision to TDs is a mistake. In the past, TDs have either not been empowered or neglected to use this power to limit the strength or experience of their fields. People have shown low willingness to police themselves here as I think is evident when we look at history. Ideally, TDs would step up to the plate, and they certainly can in some regions. I just do not think empowering TDs this way works as a national strategy. TDs are busy and, honestly, have more important responsibilities to handle for their tournament. For SUN, I was overall very happy with the fields we got in terms of experience balance and some TDs did petition me to allow certain edge cases into their fields.

To a different point, I greatly dislike this fine difficulty grading we are attempting to engage in here. The reason I use the terms "easy," "median," "qualifier/Regionals" and "hard" is because they coincide with both the official ACF events and Ophir's difficulty dot system. Ophir does not advocate targeting like half dots or whatever, so I believe it is unwise to try to target, say, "1.5" dots just as it is unwise to target a specific PPB adjustment. ILLIAC was probably in the same ballpark as ACF Winter, sure, but I don't think outlier tossup really substantiate that point a lot. PACE, on average, is harder than Fall but I do not think it's that great to try to target specific iterations of a past set and mention them in your announcement. Doing so necessitates that interested players know the precise difficulty of past sets that may have come out years ago and they have no experience with. The people who know off-hand how hard these sets are might not align with the people who are the target audience of this set.

If we take the announcement seriously that the set is between Fall and Winter, why should the same eligibility criteria of Winter apply here? This set does not seem like a "true" novice set, but I also do not think it the right set for top 25 players and top 10 teams to play with regularity. The eligibility criteria "rule of thumb" does not make a lot of sense to me here, frankly. A lot of players played ACF Winter and there were few eligibility guidelines for that. Who is this not including exactly? I would prefer more explicit guidelines.
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Re: Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

Post by Smuttynose Island »

What's the field look like for this event?
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Re: Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

Post by estrom »

The field for this tournament is now full; an email containing the server link has been sent out to all registered teams.

If any West teams would still like to play the set, the Central mirror is being held on March 6th. Details can be found here.
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Re: Southeast-Midwest Housewrite @ West, 2/20/21

Post by estrom »

Congratulations to UCLA for winning the tournament by clearing the field with a 9-0 record! Stats can be found here. Advanced stats can be found here. Invoices will be sent to teams in a few days.

If you're from the West region but wish to play at a future mirror, let me know at [email protected]. The global announcement, which contains the link to all of the sites, can be found here.
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