ACF Newsletter II.7
Welcome to the newsletter once again. The number of new subscribers
has leapt considerably since last issue to the point where there are
102 subscribers (not counting the Berkeley club which has 20+) all over
the country. Some new subscribers include: U San Diego, UC Irvine,
Pomona, Caltech, Hawaii, New Mexico, and others. (Sorry for those of you
I may have left out)
This issue contains:
Brief ACF Regionals results results from Iowa Hawkeye
list of Nationals invitees suggestions on forming clubs
word on more buzzer systems recruiting players from high school
results from Cardinal Classic VI More on ACF West Regionals
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IOWA STATE, BERKELEY, RICE win their ACF REGIONALS
This year ACF Regionals expanded to seven sites around the
country, greatly increasing the number of participants from last year.
Thanks are especially due to Michigan for running a second mid-west ACF
Regionals for teams in the Rust Belt. Most Regionals hosted about ten
teams this year. The SE Regional in Atlanta again was the largest with 21.
At the Regional hosted by Iowa State, the contest again turned into
a match of the Roberts as Rob Hentzel (Iowa St) and Robert Trent (Iowa) led
their teams for the Regional championship. After the round robin, teams
divided by record into a gold and silver division and replayed other teams
in the same division. Iowa won the first match-up, but in the gold
division rematch, Iowa State ultimately prevailed in a close fight
decided by a math question.
In Texas, Rice won their first ever ACF Regional championship,
defeating UT-Dallas and Oklahoma head to head when records were
compared. All three teams finished 9-1. New school, U-Houston with old
MD sidekick, Naryan Kannappan came in 5th. This is Naryan's first year
playing officially for a college team, so he is sure to cause a stir in
the future.
In the West Coast, the title turned into a 4 way battle between
Berkeley A, Berkeley B, Stanford A, and Arizona State. CAL A (9-1) was
denied a clean undefeated performance when ASU scored a victory over them
in the final round of the tourney. The 2nd place team, CAL B (also 9-1)
forced a three game final, but lost the third match. Stanford (7-3) came
in third for the 2nd year in a row.
South West All Stars:
1. Robert Margolis,UTD I, 90.0 ppg
2. Eric Bell, OU, 63 ppg
3. Mikael Thompson Rice Gray, 54 ppg
4. Mike McStravick, A&M, 49 ppg
5. Naryanan Kannappan, UH, 42 ppg
6. Henry Herron, WSU, 40.5 ppg
Mid West All Stars: TUs Ints ppg
Eric Hillemann Carleton 87 6 93.33
Rob Hentzel Iowa State 86 12 88.89
Robert Trent Iowa A 78 14 78.89
Greg Lindsey Illinois 50 9 50.56
Mark Rooney Rolla-Accident 43 9 42.78
Karl Schmidt Illinois 29 8 27.78
Willie Keller Wisconsin 25 3 26.11
Jeremy Rolla-Accident 24 5 23.89
Jeremy Wisconsin 22 2 23.33
Kiley* Rolla-Accident 9 0 22.50
*Kiley played only 4 rounds, all others played 9.
West Coast All-stars TUs Ints ppg
Peter Freeman Arizona State 73 5 70.5
Partha S. Bannerjee CAL Berk Golden 58 5 55.5
Phil Huang CAL Berk Augusti 52 5 49.5
Evan Davis A 44 6 41.0
Norm Gillespie Brigham Young 40 4 38.0
Ben Craycraft CAL Berk Augusti 40 5 37.5
Brad Stan. A 43 13 36.5
Nick Meyer CAL Berk Phlogiston 33 6 30.0
Eric* Davis B 27 13 29.3
Michael Bennett CAL Berk Phlogiston 35 12 29.0
*Eric played only 7 rounds, all others played all 10.
Chad Kubiwan of Iowa State adds:
As a bonus to teams attending the Midwest ACF Regional at Iowa State, an
individual shootout was held using questions written by R. Robert Hentzel
of Iowa State and play-tested by the Iowa State team. The top five were
designated as the tournament All-Stars and received medals. The finalists
(in order of finish) were:
1. Eric Hillemann, Carleton
2. Karl Schmidt, Illinois
3. Robert Trent, Iowa A
4. Aaron Twait, Iowa A
5. Mary Moran, Iowa A
ACF NATIONALS in KNOXVILLE (again) 19-20 APRIL
This year ACF Nationals will again be held in Knoxville. Forty-
two to forty-five teams will attend and compete for the National title,
including all 7 first-place winners and all seven runner-ups. Teams will
be seeded and placed in one of three brackets of 13 or 14 teams and play
round-robin. The top four or five teams (by record) from each beacket
will then advance to the finals bracket and play the finalists from the
otehr two pools. If at the end of the finals round-robin, any team is 2
games ahead of all other contenders, that team will become the National
champion. While the finals bracket plays, the rest of the teams will
also be placed in pools with teams with similar records and continue to
play the rest of the tournament.
The following is a roster of the teams attending, but it does not
represent the brackets into which teams will be divided:
BYU Illinois II Princeton
Cal-Berkeley I Iowa St I Rochester TCU
Cal-Berkeley II Iowa St II TCU
Chicago Johns Hopkins Tennessee
Duke Maryland I Texas-Austin Dallas
Emory I Maryland II Texas-Dallas
Emory II Memphis Texas A&M
Ga Tech I Michigan I UNC-Chapel Hill
Ga Tech II Michigan II Vanderbilt
Harvard I Michigan III Viriginia
Harvard II NCS West Michigan
Illinois I Ohio St Wichita State
Oklahoma
YET TO CONFIRM: Florida, Minnesota, Stanford, Virginia II
Good luck to all attending!
TWO NEW BUZZER COMPANIES TO CONSIDER
The list of buzzer companies will be updated for the last issue
of the year in May, but I have come across two new systems worth
mentioning. I thank Bruce Lin of Queen's College (Canada) for passing on
the information about Shelty Systems.
A) Logitek Electronics "Quiztron"
This buzzer set uses hand held buzzers which players activate with their
thumb. In front of each player rests a blue or green pyramid which let
out either a dull honk or beep when one rings in. The noise is less
irritating that that of the QuizWizard or the Quik Pro.
2 x 4 players $355
3 x 4 players $390
3 x 5 players $438
phone: 1-800 231-5870 (USA and Canada)
B) Shelty Systems "the Buzz Box"
An eight person lockout system. Each person has a buzzer
with a small LED that lights up to tell the player that she was the first to
ring in; the control unit also has 8 LED's to indicate who was first. It
runs on a 6V AC adapter It's made out of aluminum and costs $330 CDN plus
taxes (7% provincial, 8% goods & services), and shipping.
(Note to US teams: 1 US dollar was 1.38 Canadian on Sunday)
UC BERKELEY SWEEPS 1ST and 2ND at CARDINAL CLASSIC VI
Stanford hosted the 6th annual Cardinal Classic on Feb 17-18.
Berkeley took the top two slots. Third and fourth place teams were
Vanderbilt (last yearUs winner) and BYU A. Although letter designations
mean nothing, the Cal A team emerged undefeated from the round robin,
while Cal B lost only to Cal A. The Cal A team then defeated BYU in a
semi-final while CAL B dispatched Vandy. Then in a one-shot finals
match, Cal B defeated Cal A.
Most valuable players were:
Norm Gillespie BYU A 53.9
Bryce Inouye BYU B 48.6
Nick Meyer Cal B 47.3
Phil Huang Cal A 43.3
Steve Lin Cal A 43.2
Sherman Lo Stanf B 42.1
Brad Harris Stanf A 38.8
Dawn Georgia St. 38.2
Roger Lee Stanf A 36.5
Hiram Jackson Davis A 33.1
Haggai Elitzur Cal B 32.8
It should be noted that both BYU teams were forced to play with only three
players. CAL offered to lend extra players (each Cal team had 6) to one
BYU team for the whole tournament so BYU A could compete with a full
roster, but the TD would not allow it. BYU's 4th place performance is all
the more impressive considering their two best players were on opposite
teams.
UNIV of CHICAGO WINS THE IOWA HAWYEYE Bowl (also called Last Minute Bowl)
The University of Iowa hosted its first ever tournament last
weekend. The top teams were
First Place: University of Chicago - Kevin Bacon
Second Place: Iowa State University Swanky Mode
others in playofs: Carleton College and Univ of Illinois-Urbana
Mondo Trasho Champions: Illinois
MVP: John Sheahan, University of Chicago - Kevin Bacon
All-Stars: R. Robert Hentzel, Iowa State Swanky Mode
James Anderson, Illinois
Christian Edstrom, University of Chicago - NV
Congratulations to Univ of Chicago and John Sheahan. Chicago
remains the top of the field in the Midwest. In the championship match,
John Sheahan took 65 TU points in the first half and led Chicago to a 250+
point plurality over Iowa State.
SOME SUGGESTIONS ON FORMING CLUBS for NEW TEAMS
For players interested in forming a team and joining the circuit,
the best advice we can give you is to get your club official with the
university so you can become eligible to apply for money. Many schools
consider a dozen memebrs the mimimum membership for eligibility, so
create a roster for your club with 12 members. Any twelve people who
will agree to come to one meeting is fine. Also, official status may
allow you to use rooms for free on campus for practice.
With money, your club can cover the costs of attending
tournamnets, purchase questions, xerox or print thousands of free
questions, and pay the small expenses needed to help recruitment (drinks,
run a booth, etc), and if you do not have one, buy a buzzer system.
Practicing with a buzzer makes a tremendous difference.
The most important thing you need is members and printing
privileges from a computer account. There are thousands of free questions
written by other student players at the FTP site. Instructions how to
access the FTP site are in previous newsletters and can be repeated in the
next issue if needed. Remember that CBI questions cost about $1.00 each.
If your school pays for it, you may not mind what the expense is, but if
it ultimately comes out of your budget, the $600 + price tag may become
burdensome. ACF also sell questions for a much more modest price, but
free questions are infinately preferable if you have to pay for all of
your club's materials.
Most clubs practice regularly once or twice a week for 2 hours (or
sometimes 3 if once a week). Choosing a regular time and place to
practice togethor makes a big difference. Just playing togethor for a
month before a tournament will greatly improve a team's knowledge and
skill. Additionally, the experience a team gains from the first three
tournaments will be greater than that of a whole semester's worth at home.
Most newcomer teams will take a losing record to start with the first few
tournaments, but the experiene they accumulate will completely transform
them by their fourth tournament. One plays many games in a short time at
a tournament and this compacts the benefit of a month's practice into one
weekend. Also one sees other teams who do the same thing and have to play
the same challenges. Watching how they rise to the challenges of
questions will also be very instructive. Watching their errors can also
be very instructive. One will learn how to cut losses on difficult
bonuses, get a better idea when to avoid taking -5s, learn to allow one's
teammates to answer questions in their specialties, etc.
The bottom line: do not be discouraged if you do not know many
answers. Players get a lot better by sticking around. It takes some
enthusiasm, but also patience. Everyone improves with practice.
RECRUITING PLAYERS OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL
Those high schoolers who compete in quizbowl and then play when
in college certainly have a leg up on other unexperienced college
freshmen. While these are certainly the best new recruits, how does one
find them? Here are a few ideas:
It may seem stupid, but if there is a high school tournament, go
to it and tell them your college team wants to recruit high seniors and
maybe run a high school tournament. Even if you can not run it this year,
their interest in helping out may lead them to join your club in college.
Also rememeber high school tournaments are a possible source of revenue.
First week of school or so run a table at one of the busy
crosswalks on campus. Put out your buzzer system. Most people will
recognize what it is if they have ever seen quizbowl before. Bring a few
questions along and give a reward to anyone who can get one right. You
will find the experienced players will stop to take a look as well as the
curious.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY on the WEST COAST ACF REGIONAL
(such reports would be welcome from the participants of other Regionals)
The West Coast ACF Regional grew from 9 to 11 this year and saw
the inclusion of four schools new to ACF Regionals: Caltech, UCLA,
ASU, and UC Davis. It was a pleasure to include so many new schools and
I look forward to an expanded circuit next year. The format was a full
round robin. If any team emerged with 2 more wins than all other
participants, that team was declared the winner. If this did not occur,
the top two teams would play a best of 3 series, counting the prelim as
the first match-up. The same playoff rule applied for 3rd place.
The tournament narrowed down to a contest between the top five
about half-way through. The grad students from last year's winning CAL
team did not play and Mike and Partha played for different teams this
year. BYU (6-4) came in 2nd last year but was defeated by the top 4
teams this year to settle into 5th place. BYU beat teams 6-11 but was
unable to break into the top 4. Stanford A (7-3) ended in 4th place
after the round-robin, losing to the top three, but the rules called for
a play-off for 3rd and Stanford was able to bounce back and beat ASU
twice in the series for 3rd.
Early in the tournament CAL Augusti (9-1) had defeated CAL B -
The Golden Horde (9-1) and continued to defeat every other team all the
way to the final match against ASU (8-2). However, ASU's Peter Freeman
and Brian Moore robbed CAL A of a clean sweep by defeating them in the
last round and forcing a play-off between CAL A and CAL B. Meanwhile,
ASU faced Stanford in a playoff for 3rd, which Stanford won.
Team: Prelim record: Prelim + finals record
Cal Augusti 9-1 10-2 (Lost once each to ASU, Cal B)
Cal B Gold 9-1 10-2 (lost twice to Cal A)
Stanford 7-3 9-3
ASU 8-2 8-4
As the TD, I was pleased to see such stiff competition in our
region, which I think is becoming one of the toughest in the country. I
was also very happy to see so many new teams. I strongly encourage all
the other teams now forming in CA to jump into the circuit next year
starting with the Fall tournament held at Berkeley. Also, there is
likely to be another tournament, perhaps at some school in So CAl for new
players. ACF regionals are usually at the end of the season, so do not
wait until then to start playing. There are thousands of free questions
on-line available to teams who wish to obtain more practice material. If
you have questions on how to access them, write to me and I will tell
you.
Gaius Stern
ACF West Coast Chair
and newsletter editor
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