ACF West Coast Newsletter V.3 Dec 1998 Editors Gaius Stern & Eric Owens Contents: Results: Deep Bench Caltech Illinois NAQT Conference Tourneys Spring Schedule Information on ACF Regionals Information on ACF Nationals A few notes on hosting high school tournaments DEEP BENCH RESULTS (unintentionally omitted from last months newsletter) The top three finishers at the Minnesota Dead Elephant Deep Bench tournament were: 1. Chicago 2. Michigan 3. Illinois Chicago players took #1 singles, #2 singles, #2 doubles, #3 doubles, #2 quads. Michigan players took #1 doubles and #2 quads. CAL TECH RESULTS In Division I, BYU and Berkeley A (We Kick Ass for the Lord) were tied for first after a double round-robin. They played a single match tie-breaker which Berkeley WKAftL won to take the title. In Division II, UC Irvine went undefeated to win. The Best Packet Award went to BYU. The Giant-Killer Award (for biggest upset) went to Stanford. (The Stanford team, while missing its traditional big guns, managed to score a win over R. Hentzel.) ILLINOIS SALUTE TO MEDIOCRITY RESULTS The final standings were thus: Team W-L TO-INT B/BA CON PF-PA DIFF TO/I UC Scottish 14-2 192-32 3605/5760 62.59% 5365-1895 216.88 6.00 Dr. Gamblers 13-3 168-53 2845/5040 56.45% 4260-2215 127.81 3.17 Kentucky 12-3 147-17 2375/4410 53.85% 3760-2020 116.00 8.65 Carleton 8-7 95-27 1230/2790 44.09% 2045-3405 -90.67 3.52 Parkland B 10-5 147-31 2080/4410 47.17% 3395-2360 69.00 4.74 Fire & Brimst. 9-6 134-25 2080/4020 51.74% 3295-2320 65.00 5.36 Wisconsin 8-7 115-24 1510/3450 43.77% 2540-2585 -3.00 4.79 Ill. Old People 6-9 106-33 1225/3150 38.89% 2120-3180 -70.67 3.21 Chicago Crap 6-9 97-32 1050/2910 36.08% 1860-2630 -51.33 3.03 Quincy 4-10 79-36 810/2370 34.18% 1420-2725 -93.21 2.19 Iowa 4-11 110-22 1290/3300 39.09% 2280-2600 -21.33 5.00 Vanderbilt 3-11 91-19 775/2730 28.39% 1590-2955 -97.50 4.79 Western Mich. 0-14 32-4 115/960 11.98% 415-3455-217.14 8.00 Chicago Scottish won the tournament, Drunken Gamblers were awarded the trophy for best masters team finish, and Wisconsin, with 6 teams finishing ahead of and 6 teams behind them, receives recognition (but no award) as most mediocre team. All tournament team was calculated after the 12 games of the round robin, and included Andrew Yaphe, Steve Watchorn, "John Daly" (John Sheahan), Eric Hilleman, and Karl Schmidt. NAQT CONFERENCE TOURNEYS FIRST SECOND BIG 10 Michigan Iowa MIDWEST Quincy Wichita St. SOUTH ???? ???? WEST Berkeley Stanford If anyone knows what happened at Austin, feel free to let the rest of the planet know. WEST UPCOMING CALENDAR: (couretesy of Mike Usher, consul UC-Berk, Samer Ismail's tournament web site, and various others) 1/23: UC Irvine novice tournament UMKC 1/30: UCLA novice tournament 2/6: Stanford Cardinal Classic Quincy Wisconsin 2/13: NAQT Sectionals (Caltech, Iowa, Southwest TBD) 2/27: ACF Regionals (Berkeley, College Station, & 3/6: Carleton 3/27: Wichita St. 4/3: Quincy ACF REGIONALS INFORMATION (Courtesy Mike Zarren) ACF would like to announce the 1999 ACF Regional Championships, to be held Feb 26-7 at the following locations: Midwest: Chicago South: Texas A&M West: Berkeley Each of these schools should be posting a tournament announcement sometime soon. (Note that some schools may decide to run Saturday-only tourneys; consult with your region's host to find this out if it's not clear in their announcement.) The editor of this year's Regionals will be Dave Hamilton. Question discount deadlines may vary by site, but expect the final deadline (before severe penalties are imposed) to be no later than 1/31. Packet distribution will be the same as last year; it can be found at http://www.inform.umd.edu/StudentOrg/maqt/acf/writers.html but note that the DATE/SUBMISSION INFO ON THIS SITE IS FROM LAST YEAR & IS NO LONGER VALID. Please just use that site for the question subject guidelines & I'll try to get it updated for this year's info when it is available. If Dave decides he has other things to say about packets, I'm sure he'll post them - please pay attention if he does. For more info, please email me at mikez@tiac.net with "ACF Question" in the subject line. Otherwise, expect to see announcements from the various regional organizers sometime in the next couple weeks. ACF NATIONALS INFORMATION (Ditto) ACF hereby officially announces the 1999 ACF National Championship Tournament, to be held at The University of Chicago on April 23-24 1999. Various pieces of information follow, including editing/packet info, registration info, fees, travel info, and other miscellany. EDITING/PACKETS: This year's NCT will be (as always) a packet submission tournament. The editing team (and it is a _team_, as opposed to last year's "top-heavy" model) is being led by John Edwards and Rick Grimes, and includes several former ACF editors and/or champions. Expect a posting from the editors including packet distribution guidelines, etc, within the next week or two. Note that the distribution is not included in this message but is likely to be quite similar, if not the same, as that of last year. I leave other info on this to the editors. FORMAT: The format for this tournament will depend on the number of teams attending, but expect a field split into divisional round robins with teams advancing to playoff RRs, as in previous years. I expect the tournament to begin with a meeting around 6:30 & rounds at 7 on Friday. Saturday will likely have rounds starting at 9, and I expect to be done by 5:30. All times subject to change, though. (I promise we will not start earlier than 6 on Fri.) REGISTRATION: This tournament is limited by space and other resources to 30 teams. If we have fewer than 30 teams registered (that is, registrations _received,_ not necessarily sent) by 11:59:59CST Jan 31, then registration will become first-come, first-served until we fill up. If we have more than 30, first teams from schools will be accepted first. After that, B (and perhaps C) teams will be accepted based upon the old ACF system of finish results at ACF format invitationals and regionals. (More on this system later if you need it; it basically will consist of us looking at how your teams have done at other ACF format tourneys, especially Regionals.) If teams have sent in a packet before Jan 31 but are, for some reason, not allowed to participate, the packet will be returned to them & not used in the tournament. This is possible, but unlikely. This system seems to us to be the fairest way to let the broadest number of schools into the tourney while not compromising quality amongst B-teams, etc. TO REGISTER, do the following: send an email to mikez@tiac.net with "ACF REG" in the subject line & an appropriate message in the body saying what school's team(s) you're registering. Do not put "ACF REG" in the subject unless you are registering; for questions and other email info please see below. Please do not register a team unless you are relatively certain it will be attending. If you're going to be claiming any moderator or buzzer discounts, please also let us know (either when you register or later) at the same address/subject. I will attempt to confirm receipt of all registration emails within one week. If you've heard nothing back after that time, please contact me again. FEES: $100 base fee per team. $40 minimum fee. -$40 + complete packet sets if packet submitted by 12/31 -$40 if packet submitted by 1/15 -$30 1/31 -$10 2/15 No penalty packet deadline 2/31. -$5 working buzzer, notified before 2/15. We will only take 20 of these discounts. 1st come, 1st served. -$10 experienced moderator, approved by TD by 2/15. We will only take 10. 1st come 1st served., 1/school. -$20 if your school has never attended ACF NCT before. -$05, packet formatted _exactly_ according to specs. (in editors' msg) Penalties for late packets will be announced later (Jan). They may be steep. This is to ensure that this year's ACF NCT questions are of the highest quality. No packet by 4/1 penalty: $80. +$15 for packets; +$20 for packs if you didn't play. TRAVEL: Chicago is easy & (relatively) cheap to get to from almost anywhere in the country. Midway airport is closer to campus than O'Hare is. Taxis from Midway are ~$20 and take about 25min; from O'Hare it's more like $50 and ~1hour. Public transportation is available from both airports to campus; feel free to ask me about it later. There _will_ be parking available in the neighborhood for teams who drive or rent (or both) a car. HOTEL: I am currently trying to get a block of rooms at the only hotel in the neighborhood; more info on this in a couple weeks. If we do end up getting these rooms, the hotel has a shuttle to center campus. Otherwise you're on your own for transportation, depending on where you stay. If you need other travel info, feel free to email me; I will be sending out a more detailed transportation info email to registered teams once I have the hotel squared away (or not). QUESTIONS? If you have further questions, feel free to email me at mikez@tiac.net - please put "ACF Question" in the subject line. Thank you. A FEW NOTES ON HOSTING HIGH SCHOOL TOURNAMENTS Many of the teams that are most active on the qb circuit have the ability (i.e., finances) to do so due to the hosting of high school tournaments. This is not true of all teams on the circuit, nor perhaps even a majority of teams on the circuit, though it is definitely at least a significant minority. Hosting a good, well-planned high school tournament is probably the quickest way to improve your quiz-bowl budget, however there are a number of pitfalls to avoid. A very important piece of adviceis that it's not a snap of the fingers to run a high school competition. Take the time to really plan out your competition, as long as a year in order to plan out dates and get a critical mass of addresses to start sending out invitations. Furthermore, your team must be committed to running a high school competition for the long run; you should not just plan on it just for the financial gain, but you should view it as part of your "service" to the high school qb community around you. It is also more important to run a small tournament well than run a large tournament lousy because you also put your team's reputation on the line and the success of your competition depends on that reputation. Finally, make sure that everyone enjoys competing at your campus. "FIGURES": The benefits to running a high school tournament - financial - "recruiting" - numerical: you will should get more teams at a HS tournament than a college one - community service - name recognition The responsibilities - organization must be committed - it is a team effort - writing questions (perhaps) - officiating and running the competition - long-term planning (most HS programs want you to succeed so they can compete more frequently) - long-term training for the future (very, very, very important!) - must be knowledgeable about other HS competitions (sectional/state championship) and dates held High school tournaments are an inordinate amount of work, but a successful tournament will often provide over half of a team's income for a season from all sources, including your college. However, the importance of planning cannot be overstated. If you are considering hosting a high school tournament in the future and have not done so in the past, I strongly encourage you to soliciit the opinions of those teams in your area that have had successful tournaments. I would like to thank the following people for sharing their experiences with high school tournaments: Anthony de Jesus, Brian Ulrich, Joshua Solomin, Samer Ismail, Steve Lawrie, Kent from Minnesota (sorry I don't know your last name), Emil Thomas Chuck, Robert Whaples and Willie Chen. NEXT MONTH: More information on ACF Regionals Spring Preview