Tyrone Slothrop Literature Singles, 7/12/09

[felgon123]

Event Info: Tyrone Slothrop Literature Singles

Time and Place: July 12, 2009, at the University of Maryland, the Sunday after Maryland's mirror of Sun 'n Fun. As I currently understand, it is being mirrored on Saturday at the Minnesota Sun 'n Fun and Florida Sun 'n Fun.

Description: This is, as evidenced in the title, a literature singles tournament. Questions will be written entirely by myself, Tommy Casalaspi.

Format: It will consist of ten rounds of twenty tossups each to be followed by a forty-tossup finals round. There will be 20-point powers in all questions, but none of that 15-point junk. These are not "superpowers", but they should still require solid knowledge to get.

Difficulty: Pretty hard. The questions should be accessible in the sense that a majority of the questions should be converted by a majority of the players, but should feature difficult enough clues to differentiate top-tier lit players. There will be some twelve-line tossups on high school answers. There will be some tossups on things that have not been answers before.

Distribution: This tournament will show more favor to European and World literature than most lit tournaments, as I feel that they are generally underrepresented. This is the overall breakdown:
British – 20%
American – 20%
European – 30%
World – 30%

Eligibility: All quizbowl players welcome.

Price: $15 per person.

Contact me at felgon123 at yahoo dot com with any questions.

Current Field:
Jonathan Magin
Jerry Vinokurov
Ike Jose
Aaron Rosenberg
Doug Yetman
Ted Gioia
Cameron Orth
Matt Weiner
Andy Watkins
Chris Ray
Probably some other people from Maryland
Evan Adams

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Welcome to the forums, Tommy!

[at your pleasure]

I am intruiged by this.

[theMoMA]

I think I speak for the Minnesota mirror when I say we would enjoy mirroring this.

[wd4gdz]

I think I speak for the Minnesota mirror when I say we would enjoy mirroring this.

What he said, but substitute MN for Florida.

[magin]

This sounds really cool and ambitious. I'm excited to play, for sure.

[grapesmoker]

I'll definitely play this.

[Ike]

I'm not sure if Tyrone Slothrop is actually worthy to have a tournament named after him, but I will play this too.

[SnookerUSF]

I think I speak for the Minnesota mirror when I say we would enjoy mirroring this.

What he said, but substitute MN for Florida.

I think with Borglum's permission I can make the above happen.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Having been a po' high schooler, I support paying high schoolers for questions.

[Gautam]

Yes, expressing desire to play this in Minnesota.

Gautam

[Lagotto Romagnolo]

I will play this as well.

[dyetman89]

I will play this as well.

[Magister Ludi]

Is this a singles or doubles event? I would prefer doubles especially if it is going to be incredibly difficult and introducing a lot of new subjects to the world lit canon.

[Tower Monarch]

Is this a singles or doubles event? I would prefer doubles especially if it is going to be incredibly difficult and introducing a lot of new subjects to the world lit canon.

As I've heard last, Tommy still wants it to be singles, but that will likely depend more on the number of people who end up interested than on his sympathy for questions going dead (I think he somewhat enjoys the prospect of dead non-English language literature questions). I mean, seriously, look at this definition of accessibility:

The questions should be accessible in the sense that a majority of the questions should be converted by a majority of the players, but should feature difficult enough clues to differentiate top-tier lit players. There will be some twelve-line tossups on high school answers. There will be some tossups on things that have not been answers before.

On another note, I will almost certainly be playing, though for reasons of difficulty and distribution against my strengths and interests, could be talked into staffing.

[felgon123]

I would prefer it to be singles, but obviously that can't be set in stone. If there is strong popular demand to make it doubles, that's fine with me. Since this also depends on the number of people playing, I'd like people who know they are coming to Maryland and interested in playing to post so I can gauge the general field size.

[grapesmoker]

I would actually prefer a singles event rather than a doubles. Part of the fun of playing such an event alone is challenging yourself to see how well you can do without teammates.

[Matt Weiner]

I'd like people who know they are coming to Maryland and interested in playing to post so I can gauge the general field size.

I am playing this event and others should also indicate their intention to do so.

[Mechanical Beasts]

I'd like people who know they are coming to Maryland and interested in playing to post so I can gauge the general field size.

I am playing this event and others should also indicate their intention to do so.

When I said that I like giving high school students money, I meant that I like giving them money so that I can play win their quizbowl tournaments.

[DumbJaques]

I'll play. Probably some other people from Maryland will play too.

[vcuEvan]

I'm playing this.