Announcement: ACF Fall West (11/8/08) at UC Irvine

[cvdwightw]

UC Irvine has been selected as the host for ACF Fall West. The tournament director is Dwight Wynne.

ELIGIBILITY
The tournament will use the official ACF Eligibility Rules, which essentially state that if you're doing undergraduate or graduate work, you're eligible. High school teams may be interested in attending, in which case all team members must be enrolled at the same school.

LOCATION, TIME, FORMAT
The tournament meeting room will be the large lecture hall on the first floor of Humanities Hall, with games to be played in the second floor classrooms. This is subject to change as the UCI scheduling office is approaching Maryland Scheduling Department territory (notably, they double-booked our practice rooms and at one tournament forgot to notify Facilities Management to open the doors so we could get inside the building).

Our target start time is 9:00, though we will wait until 9:15 AM at the latest to start (unless the problem is on our end). If you are bringing a buzzer system or laptop, please show up around 8:30 AM to help us set up; if not, please try to show up by 8:45 AM.

All teams in attendance will play each other in a single round robin. Playoff structure will depend on the number of teams.

FEES
We are using the official ACF Fee Structure
Base fee: $120 per team
Buzzer system: -$5/buzzer, no limit
Staffer: -$10/staffer, no limit
Laptop: -$10 (one per team)
Distance: -$10 per 200 miles one-way (this means Bay Area teams get a discount of at least $10, I'll have to check if any of you meet the $20 discount level)
International: -$20 (come on, Mexican quizbowl teams, you know you want to come)
New ACF team: -$25
New quizbowl team: -$75 (UCSD, I believe you just barely qualify for both of these discounts)
Shorthanded team: -$60 or -$80, please see the official ACF Packet and Fee Information to see if you qualify for this discount

What does the extra base fee go to (Why are you charging me $120 instead of $100)?
1. Good questions. ACF guarantees well-written, controlled difficulty questions, and feels they can charge this much for their high-quality product.
2. Prizes. ACF is making me hand out trophies to the top 2 teams and the top undergraduate/D2 teams if four or more such teams are in attendance, plus they want me to hand out something like 20 book prizes.

PACKETS
Packets should be sent to Andrew Hart at limozeen at gmail dot com. Under no circumstances should you send them to me, unless for some reason you want me to look them over before you submit them to Andrew.

Packet in by September 14: -$50
Packet in by September 28: -$25, -$50 for packet-optional teams
Packet in by October 12: $0, -$25 for packet-optional teams
Packet in by October 19: +$25
Packet in by October 26: +$50
Packet not in by October 26: Dropped from Tournament unless given special exemption by editors
Note that a packet must be in by 11:59 PM Eastern Time on that day to count for the discount. This means that you need to actually send your questions to Andrew sometime before 9:00 PM, don't send it at 11:59 PM Pacific Time and expect him to give you the discount.

Please see the ACF Packet and Fee Information for whether or not your team has to write a packet and additional distribution information.

REGISTRATION
Please email me at dpwynne at gmail dot com with the number of teams you plan to send, and whether any of them are undergraduate-eligible or Division II-eligible. Also, indicate and buzzers/staffers/laptops you intend to bring.

Hope to see you all on November 8.

Dwight

[Auroni]

1 team for sure, perhaps two.

[cvdwightw]

Field Update (1 month till tournament):
Division 1:
UCLA A

Undergrad:
UCLA B (possibly Div2)
Caltech (possibly Div2)

Division 2:
BYU (tentative)
Rancho Bernardo HS
UCSD

Due to previously unforeseen staff shortages, we are tentatively capping this tournament at 12 teams.

A reminder that the no-penalty deadline is this Sunday.

If you have already sent in a packet to Andrew and have not registered with me (that is, tell me whether your team is eligible for undergrad/D2, and how many buzzers/staffers/laptops you plan on bringing), you should do so as soon as possible.

[Auroni]

pending further updates, UCSD will bring two full teams and a buzzer system

[ihavenoidea]

Dwight, can you put RB down for 1 team and 2 buzzers? I'll ask about a laptop so we don't have to pay anything.

EDIT: Ah crap...we played ZotBowl....Does that really count?

[cvdwightw]

This is what I got from Matt regarding you and the other high schoolers at Zot Bowl. I think you're okay, but you should make sure with him:

New is defined as "no real tournaments since 2006" at http://www.hsquizbowl.org/acf/acf.html . For now, the word "school" seems to imply that participation on masters teams does not affect "new" status.

[Joe Romersa]

wait...so if Arcadia goes, we get both discounts for New ACF team and New Quiz Bowl team, which means $20 fee?

[cvdwightw]

Field Update:

UCLA x2
Caltech x2
Claremont
UCSD
BYU
Rancho Bernardo HS
Arcadia HS

If you aren't on this list, you really, really need to contact me by Wednesday night. If you have to submit a packet and didn't, I don't have the authority to let you play anyway.

If you are on this list and your club has not received an e-mail with details (e.g. where/when to meet), please send me an email ASAP.

[Auroni]

we're bringing two teams rather than one.

[cvdwightw]

Due to field size fluctuations, ACF Fall West will have between 11 and 13 teams. If you have not contacted me about potentially adding/dropping a team since my last email, you need to do that tonight (those of you who have already contacted me should give me a decision by tomorrow afternoon).

In any case, we will be using a full round robin schedule.

[ihavenoidea]

In any case, we will be using a full round robin schedule.

Awesome

[cvdwightw]

ACF Fall West will have 11 teams.

Major, major information:

Due to staff dropping like flies, we have three (3!) confirmed staffers for this event. A fourth position will be filled by a rotating moderator (Arcadia is bringing more people than spots and will have whoever is sitting out during that round be a moderator instead). It is unlikely that I will find a fifth staffer. I am sincerely hoping that teams will be amenable to having one person per team moderate during that team's bye round. If you are on your bye round and would like to moderate/scorekeep to help the tournament move quickly, I would greatly appreciate that help as well.

[ihavenoidea]

RB will definitely read/scorekeep as needed per bye round.

Incidentally, how much will this cost for RB? We're bringing one team and two buzzers

[cvdwightw]

ACF FALL WEST: WHAT CAN GO WRONG NOW? will start at 10:00, or at whatever time after 10:00 we can get into the rooms. Please show up on the benches outside Humanities Hall between 9:15 and 9:45 as per my email.

We anticipate the start of any necessary finals no later than 5:45 PM and the end of the tournament (inc. awards ceremony) no later than 7:00 PM, barring even more things going wrong.

[cvdwightw]

ACF FALL WEST: A MITIGATED DISASTER happened.

Quick Results:
Overall Winner: UCLA A def. Rancho Bernardo in first game of an advantaged final.
Undergraduate: Rancho Bernardo/UCSD A*
Division II: Rancho Bernardo

*Under a strict reading of the rules, Rancho Bernardo was the Undergraduate Champion; they graciously agreed to give this trophy instead to UCSD A (who finished a game behind) due to my confusion about ACF's official policy on high schoolers being "Undergraduates" and my inability to access the internet at that time to find the official ACF rules (read: UCSD asked me whether Rancho Bernardo really counted as "undergraduate", I didn't know, I asked Rancho Bernardo if they cared if I awarded this trophy to UCSD, they didn't care, UCSD can now use it for recruiting purposes, and ACF can decide who the "official" winner is).

Many thanks to all the teams that showed up and dealt with me watching every contingency plan fall apart. I apologize for all the snafus, expected and unexpected, and I hope you had fun in your two rounds in the hallway. To all the young teams, I was impressed with your desire to get better and genuine love for the game - the young players on BYU, Caltech, UCLA, and UCSD are going to be really good if they keep that kind of attitude.

Stats will be available once I figure out whether I've lost two scoresheets or simply not entered them (I don't know right now if I picked up the scoresheet for the final, so that may or may not be entered) and will either be posted on the club website when Ray has time to do that or posted elsewhere if I end up having to do it.

Anyone who wants an itemized list of problems with this tournament can email me privately, suffice it to say that there were multiple fuckups on our part and multiple other problems we had not planned for.

[cvdwightw]

Oh, also, apparently we were supposed to give everyone 11 games, but I think everyone was fine with 11 rounds of play instead, and if we had actually tried to do a format giving people 11 games, we'd probably still be playing right now.

[manary]

I had tons of fun and I think everyone did. Good field = nicely varied difficulty teams. The fuck-ups were mostly funny. Since the problems were not your fault, great job in the face of adversity, Dwight.

Best image of the tournament: Caltech laying on the floor of a basement hallway across from 4 high schoolers, also on the floor. Lots of people walking by/interrupting. Oh, we're supposed to be playing quizbowl, but we're just listening to RB get questions.

Micah

[ak47]

Beside the late tournament start (that like Micah said was really just funny) and J. Luna's random departure (ostensibly for "complicated" reasons according to Marcus) that caused our extremely late round against Arcadia B, the tournament was well-directed. So thanks to Dwight for directing and all staff for helping out. The tournament was a lot of fun, and there was some great competition. Congrats to UCLA A for taking the win. Like always, I look forward to more UCI-directed tournaments.

[Auroni]

The late tournament start wasn't really Dwight's fault at all and I had a great time running up the stairs due to a practical joke involving RB.. who we played a rousing game against. In face of adversity, Dwight did really well and nobody pulled a Carleton (though Jason Luna leaving is also sort of amusing). Excellent prize selection as well, and our team really wants to play more UCI-directed stuff in the future.

[Golran]

I really enjoyed playing the tournament, it was great to have so much close competition, and the questions were extremely well written and at a very accessible level, very few tossups going dead. My only complaints are the late start and the rooms not being open, but given the circumstances I would say it was very well run. Also, there was a lot of repeats through the set, but I think that is to be expected when you have a large number of packets with a limited cannon.

[cvdwightw]

Good field = nicely varied difficulty teams.

Now that the scoresheets that mysteriously disappeared ended up being in the stack of scoresheets, I have stats! Actually, this quote was dead on. Teams 1-3 (UCLA A, RB, UCSD A) were pretty even, teams 4-7 ("Germany First"*, Caltech B, UCLA B, Caltech A) were pretty even, and teams 8-11 (UCLA C, "Carnal Embrace"*, BYU, UCSD B) were pretty even. There were lots of close games, even teams in the bottom division routinely broke triple digits against each other. Outside of a few repeats, this was an awesome set.

RB people - I cannot find the scoresheet for the finals. If you want to put this in and have full stats for both UCLA A and RB, email team and individual point totals to me.

*High school did not want to play under official name since they were not officially school-sponsored

[ihavenoidea]

I echo everyone else's sentiments. Dwight did pretty much all he can to deal with the problems that were presented. UCI tournaments are always the most well run, and when they're not, they're ran the best way possible within the circumstances. I had a lot of fun playing every team, losing to UCLA A twice, and discovering how inadequate my knowledge is. Congratulations to Ray, "Sita", Jay, and Mik for their victory; it was well deserved.

[cvdwightw]

Thanks, everyone, again, for the kind words and for being such good sports about everything yesterday. My own impression of the tournament mirrors Mike Sorice's impression of the Truman State site - there were some things that could and arguably should have gone better, but we did an okay job given all the problems that we encountered.

Stats are temporarily posted at http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings until Ray has time to put the stats on our website.

[cvdwightw]

Stats are now posted on the club website:
http://www.clubs.uci.edu/qbc/ptas/ACFWe ... dings.html

We will probably continue to use the Scobonet site for early storage of results before posting final stats on our website after tournaments.

[rylltraka]

If it matters to alter the stats now, Dwight, my stats (ganesh) are switched with ray's (lakshmi) for our (UCLA A)match versus UCLA B.

[cvdwightw]

Stats have been fixed on the scobonet site. I'd prefer not to bother Ray with this right now, though, so the club website stats will probably stay the same.