7-10-2022: SuMO Trash at Tusculum, Greeneville TN

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TusculumPearson
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7-10-2022: SuMO Trash at Tusculum, Greeneville TN

Post by TusculumPearson »

This is the formal announcement of and invitation of registrations for SuMO Trash: We Never Got A Witty Subtitle Last Year.

The stress of SuMO Academic can tax even the hardiest buzzer-presser, and we have taken great delight in breaking that stress with a playable trash tournament that rewards players of all levels. We hope you’ll join us for fun and games on the campus of Tusculum University in Greeneville, TN for a fast-paced mixed-partnerships trash competition.

Details below, or you can just go ahead and bypass the details and sign your partnership up.
https://forms.gle/9Cre3aZ9nd5am9X37

FORMAT
You still register as a partnership of two, not as a team of four. On the morning of the tournament, you and your teammate will still be paired with another partnership, roughly based on your experience and skill level. You will still play the tournament with that other partnership, two partnerships paired as a four-player team. We still do this to try to build the most evenly-paired field possible; we want every game to be as competitive as possible.

We’ll establish a schedule when it’s clear how many partnerships will register; in the past, we’ve been able to guarantee nine games before playoffs. (We were packet-limited last year, so we offered a discount on the competition. We’re back to full-freight this year, because…)

SET
SuMO Trash this year is a mirror of ACRONYM 15, the high-quality trash set from Erik Nelson’s Play Quiz Bowl. We’re delighted to have access to ACRONYM for this year’s competition, and we thank Erik for supporting us with his questions.

FEE
The registration fee is $50 per partnership. If at all possible, we need the registration fee in cash, because…

PRIZES
…SuMO remains a cash game, and the prizes for the top teams are cash. There’s roughly a 50/30/20 split of the tournament prize pool among the top three teams. Again, the final prize pool will be established when we get picture of the field.

The initial field cap is 20 partnerships. We ran last year’s tournament with 24 partnerships, so we can expand and have expanded the field with additional readers and staff.

ACADEMIC
You know you want to prove your worth in the serious game before you goof off on Sunday. Find out more about SuMO VII: Haunted By Andrew Johnson here.

COVID-19
As I type this on April 15, the most recent case rate for Greene County, TN is 7.24/100,000 residents, with a positivity rate of 1.3% (as reported by the Tennessee Health Department). This is below the old CDC standard for "low" community transmission; all surrounding counties in East Tennessee have "low" to "moderate" rates of community transmission. There are no masking requirements on the Tusculum campus at this time.

Nonetheless, the BA.2 variant is spreading, across New England especially, and there is every reason to have concern that these low numbers won’t remain when we get to July. We reserve the right to establish masking regulations for the tournament, and those masking regulations may well exceed those recommended by regional or campus authorities.

Regardless of any COVID spread levels, we continue to emphasize that your best defense against the virus is your personal vaccination level - and if appropriate, that your vaccination includes boosters.

STAFF, BUZZERS
We benefit from the good quizbowl community in this region to help make this tournament work! We historically haven’t given a staff or buzzer discount for the tournament to keep the division of the funds clean, but we do want the best staff possible, and we have confidence in readers of the region to provide support.
We’ve got a short registration for staffers to make sure you’re placed where you need to be <https://forms.gle/Em2MurSa9QAC3Aq96>.

CONTACT
This is an East Tennessee Quizbowl event, and all questions and concerns should be shuttled through the East Tennessee Quizbowl email address ([email protected]). The tournament direction team is Dren Rollins (lead reader, chief of the treasury, head of protest committee) and Chuck Pearson (host, logistics director, stats-book wrangler).

REGISTER NOW
https://forms.gle/9Cre3aZ9nd5am9X37

DISCLAIMERS
Some information is subject to change; if changes occur, they will be posted on this thread.

And, as always, in the words of the genial quizmaster, all decisions of the tournament director are arbitrary, capricious, and final.

Come join us as we reconvene in Greeneville on July 10th.
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Chuck Pearson, Tusculum University, general purpose East TN/SWVA quiz flunky, [email protected].
TusculumPearson
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Re: 7-10-2022: SuMO Trash at Tusculum, Greeneville TN

Post by TusculumPearson »

Field update as of July 7.

Sam Matson/Eli Apple
Eric Chang/Steven Brown
McKenzie Sykes/Abigail Sykes
Dargan Ware/Kristi Ware
William Barnes/Chris Wright
Ramapriya Rangaraju/Nick Conder
Jonathan Page/Stacy Brand
Christopher Hale/Caleb Bales
Spencer Brown/Luke Quesenberry
Jonce Culbertson/Joey Simmons
Gavin Littrell/Owen Bales
Connor Ketron/Maggie Grizzle
Chandler West/Rebecca Thomas
Oishee Shemontee/Nicholas Karas
Jud Bailey/Elliot Deep
Sevan Ford/Gabe Emery
Paige Scott/Ryan Shepherd
Eric Douglass/Bryn Douglass
Alex Tabor/Breanna Tabor
Seth Kendall/Mitch Alday
Jason Russell/John Riddle

Derek Disman (free agent)
Andrew Helton (SOOPER SEEKRIT free agent revealed!)
Last edited by TusculumPearson on Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:47 pm, edited 13 times in total.
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Chuck Pearson, Tusculum University, general purpose East TN/SWVA quiz flunky, [email protected].
TusculumPearson
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Re: 7-10-2022: SuMO Trash at Tusculum, Greeneville TN

Post by TusculumPearson »

Bump for field update on May 30. Memorial Day is peaceful for field updating.
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Chuck Pearson, Tusculum University, general purpose East TN/SWVA quiz flunky, [email protected].
TusculumPearson
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Re: 7-10-2022: SuMO Trash at Tusculum, Greeneville TN

Post by TusculumPearson »

Bump for field update on June 18. We’re starting to fill out.

More news ahead of tournament date forthcoming.
---
Chuck Pearson, Tusculum University, general purpose East TN/SWVA quiz flunky, [email protected].
TusculumPearson
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Re: 7-10-2022: SuMO Trash at Tusculum, Greeneville TN

Post by TusculumPearson »

Bump for July 3 field update.

We have a malleable field for this tournament. Right now we're on registrants for 10 teams if one team plays with 3 members (although there is a rumored surprise free agent lurking). If partnerships drop, we can shift to 9 teams with ease. If partnerships add, we can split field and play an 11- or 12-team tournament. We really are in an ideal spot right now to make adjustments.

If there's a flood of late-adding trash players we might set the hard cap, but as of right now we're flexible.

(Update: surprise free agent added and claimed a sitting free agent out of the pool! We're at 40 registrants, 10 teams exactly.)
---
Chuck Pearson, Tusculum University, general purpose East TN/SWVA quiz flunky, [email protected].
TusculumPearson
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Re: 7-10-2022: SuMO Trash at Tusculum, Greeneville TN

Post by TusculumPearson »

It’s Thursday of tournament week. The updates are overdue. Let’s go through the list.

COVID-19
Okay, this is the hard one. 


We’re dealing with an uptick in COVID cases without any regulations, institutional or local, on masking, and we’re going to ask all individuals to use their best judgement but strongly encourage parties and particularly unvaccinated individuals to remain masked throughout.

We’re encouraging (but not enforcing) masking after a great deal of discussion and some consternation over the local masking discipline (or lack thereof) but also the relatively low number of cases locally, and the lack of institutional guidelines for this edition to carry us.

If you want the full reasoning behind this decision, read below. But be warned: I think about this stuff a LOT.

PARKING
On both tournament days, we expect the building to be open and available for us from 800 AM. Our mass meeting room will be Meen Center 007. Google Maps responds well to a mapping of 35 Shiloh Road, Greeneville for the location of the parking lot you should be aiming for to place yourself in the proximity of the Meen Center; you might fare well also searching for Pioneer Park, the baseball stadium next door to the Meen Center.

The Meen Center is surrounded by parking on the west and south sides. Signs will direct you to the primary ground floor entrance, although the secondary entrance will put you directly in 007.

SCHEDULE AND REGISTRATION
On Saturday we will be registering teams between 815 and 900 AM, and we will plan for our general meeting and draft of teams at 900 AM, with first games at 930 AM. Please plan to be present by 900 AM. Please remember to bring cash to register; SuMO is a cash game, and prize money is more easily divided when we have funds in cash.

Current schedule models for SuMO Academic plan five rounds before lunch with lunch break roughly at 1200-1230 PM and eight rounds (not counting group tiebreakers if necessary) of gameplay overall. We have sufficient packets for a full advantaged final if one team doesn’t manage to clear the field by two games.

We’re still contacting participants and giving them a heads-up about the tournament status; we’ll post the schedule and seedings as soon as the field settles.

On Sunday we intend to keep the same schedule, but we’ve had some folk inquire about making it to church on Sunday morning and we’ll be generous on start times. As of right now, though, we anticipate the same basic format for trash as academic, and the field for trash has been more stable than academic, so we might even have more certain seedings and scheduling!



MUSIC
The major music event is on Sunday - the debut of Mitch Alday’s SuMO Music game. You play with a partner to identify mash-ups of pop songs from all eras and genres. Choose your partner carefully, and play for cash prizes - $10 per partnership.

There’s no baseball in Greeneville on Saturday night, so we’re plotting more music games (for free!) after everybody gets dinner as the social entertainment The Jeremy Alexander Tabor Memorial Music Game returns for a second year, this time with Jeremy Alexander Tabor in presence to run it! And, for those who didn’t get a chance to play it at the Munson, Robin Richards will have Time-Life Strife along for the ride. (I personally will be playing both.)

It will be a spectacular weekend. DM’s are open; please don’t hesitate to contact if you need.

THE COVID-19 FINE PRINT
The hard data: Greene County currently has a weekly transmission rate of 162.4 cases per 100,000 residents, and a 15.9% positivity rate, per the latest state guidance from covid19.tn.gov. Under the current system of CDC “Community Levels” based on hospitalization rates (2.9 admissions/100,000) and staffed inpatient beds (2.2%), Greene County is “low”. However, under the old standards based on case rate and positivity, Greene County would have just exceeded a Level IV standard, the highest standard for transmission.



This is true of most counties in the region - the official CDC Community Levels remain low, but actual transmission rates are still what would have been considered dangerous levels a year ago. The mixed messaging of the CDC standards hasn’t helped with institutional discipline in mask-wearing, either, and without institutional guidelines on that kind of protection (and Tusculum currently offers none), it’s hard to put a stand-alone policy in place and enforce it.

In addition, there are early reports of the new BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron being exceptionally infectious. Again, that’s nothing that I have seen or practically can demonstrate locally. But there are early reports of that reality.

After some discussion, this is where we’ve landed - essentially where we landed last year, with some stronger cautions. People will be traveling from all over the region, from Texas to Florida to Pennsylvania and points in between, to play this tournament. I (Pearson) will be in cloth masks for the majority of my time at the event. Other staffers and participants will be masked as well. We won’t engage in enforcement but we will encourage mask-wearing for the event, and doubly so for those who are unvaccinated. (People have had to be vaccinated to play in and staff national tournaments; there is hopefully a greater comfort level with masking and playing/reading quizbowl now than there has been.)



Further, because Greene County is comparatively low in transmission rate, you do need to bear in mind that you are almost certainly coming in from a higher transmission region to a region that’s comparatively unaffected. Make decisions with your personal protection in mind, but also with the protection of the host campus and county in mind.
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Chuck Pearson, Tusculum University, general purpose East TN/SWVA quiz flunky, [email protected].
TusculumPearson
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Re: 7-10-2022: SuMO Trash at Tusculum, Greeneville TN

Post by TusculumPearson »

At long last, the post of SuMO VII congratulations, appreciation and gratitude:

Congratulations to Team 7 (Thinkin’ ‘Bout A Team Name; Tracy Mirkin, Graham Cope, Trey Stephens, and Bailey Watts) for sweeping their games and winning the big prize at #SuMOVII. Team 9 (Midvale School for the Gifted; Ramapriya Rangaraju, Nick Conder, Stacy Brand, and Jonathan Page) placed second at 8-1. There was a tie for 3rd after the round-robin; Team 6 (the unnamed Eric Douglass/Bryn Douglass/Gavin Littrell/Owen Bales collaboration) defeated Team 5 (The Four Stooges; Eric Chang, Steven Brown, Connor Ketron, Maggie Grizzle) in the big-room playoff for the money.

Congratulations should be SHARED between Team 2 (Andy Reid’s Waffle House; Jonathan Page, Stacy Brand, Spencer Brown, and Luke Quesenberry) and Team 8 (The ’99 Corolla Rides Again!; Seth Kendall, Mitch Alday, Abigail Sykes, and McKenzie Sykes), who finished the #SuMOVII Trash round-robin at 8-1 and agreed to share top prize rather than playing off. (Mitch Alday, the Father of SuMO, declared Page/Brand/Brown/Quesenberry the first among equals at the end of the day, so Team 2 gets the privilege of the top rank in the standings.) Congratulations should doubly be extended to Jonathan Page and Stacy Brand for their engagement at the end of the tournament day, in an unprecedented ending to any tournament I’ve been involved with, and one we’ll remember for some time to come.

An almighty dogfight for 3rd place at SuMO Trash saw Team 10 (The Unusual Suspects; Nicholas Karas, Oishee Shemontee, Gavin Littrell, and Owen Bales) emerge in the money over a crowded field. Congratulations to all the teams who played for close matches all day.

Thanks to all who offered compliments on the efficiency and the speed of the tournament; that gratitude should be extended to the staff of the day, a crew that should be the envy of tournament directors everywhere. Two-day readers included East Tennessee Quizbowl pooh-bah Dren Rollins, my long-time partner-in-crime Erskine Thompson (assisted by his beloved wife Stacy), Georgia stalwarts Sarah Mauldin and Robin Richards, and local stalwart Sarah Whisenhunt (who helped get us on track with scoresheet-checking early in the day).

Nicholas Karas and Oishee Shemontee teamed up to read academic on Saturday, as did Father of SuMO Mitch Alday; Chris Hale kept score on Saturday and threw in to read a game or two. My dean, Heather Henson-Ramsey, also joined us to see this game her science chair keeps going on about and to fill out a scoresheet or five. We gave everybody nine games on Saturday and avoided byes by fielding a house team of staffers; that house team, dubbed the Luke-Alikes, was made up of Shauna Shepard, Luke Chapman, Caleb Bales, Luke Quesenberry, and Spencer Brown. (Guess where the name came from.)

On Sunday, Dylan Cox and Noah Lyons joined the staff to scorekeep, along with Luke-Alike Luke Chapman, and Allison Keen, who has long been my Person Without Whom. Shauna Shepard joined me in HQ to check scoresheets and to serve as a Tournament Director In Training. (I look forward to news from Randolph College!)

On behalf of East Tennessee Quizbowl, I want to thank everybody who came to play and staff for their support of what we do. I don’t have a lot of flowery language left in me; so much goes into making an event like SuMO flow smoothly, and we got so much help. I’m just very grateful to everyone who was here.
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Chuck Pearson, Tusculum University, general purpose East TN/SWVA quiz flunky, [email protected].
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