ACF West Newsletter II.8
Welcome to the hugely growing newsletter. Since there is a lot to say, I
will end up sending out issue 2.9 later this month - probably at the
end of May. A welcome to all the new schools and subscribers. The
newsletter has at least one member school in almost every state west of
the Mississippi, and a few back East to make up for the gaps.
This issue will contain:
ACF Nationals Results Pooling efforts to run tournaments
Summer Tournament info Missouri State Championship
Preliminary Fall Schedule Attending more than CBI
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GA TECH WINS 1996 ACF NATIONAL TITLE; U-MD at COLLEGE PARK TAKES 2nd
Ga Tech won a splendid undefeated record at ACF Nationals in
April and captured the National title after several close misses in the
past. The Tech team clearly dominated the competition, defeating most
opponents by over 200 points. The University of MD at College Park took
2nd place, Virginia was 3rd, and Illinois was 4th. UC Berkeley took 5th
place and retained the distinction of best showing West of the Missippi.
Congratulations are also due to Iowa State for a 6th place showing, and
also to Iowa at 10th place at the team's first ACF Nationals. The
Mid-West certainly held its own, placing three teams in the top 12.
The tournament format calls for three brackets of 13 teams who play
round-robin. The top 4 records from each bracket advance to the National
semi-finals. In this 12 team bracket, teams play the 4 teams from the
other two brackets and then compare records against the other 11 best
teams to determine who is the champion. If any team is 2 wins better
than all others, that team wins the championship outright. If 1 win
separates first and 2nd place (as happened between Ga Tech and MD), there
is a best 2/3 series, counting the original match-up as the first of
those three games. Tech defeated MD in their second match-up, thus
taking the title.
Top 12 finishers (in order) at the 1996 ACF Nationals
TEAM W L B TO INT TP TPA OP.T OP.I OP.P
OP.AV DIFF
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----- ----
*Georgia Tech I 11 0 0 13.55 2.00 4710 428.2 5.45 2.18 1555 141.4 286.8
*Maryland I 10 1 0 11.82 1.73 3850 350.0 6.55 3.18 1880 170.9 179.1
Virginia I 8 3 0 10.18 2.64 3185 289.5 8.00 2.09 2320 210.9 78.6
Illinois I 8 3 0 9.09 2.64 2570 233.6 8.27 2.55 2395 217.7 15.9
Berkeley I 5 6 0 8.55 2.55 2630 239.1 9.36 3.00 2755 250.5 -11.4
Iowa St 5 6 0 9.55 2.73 2630 239.1 9.09 2.36 2790 253.6 -14.5
Cornell 5 6 0 8.27 1.55 2290 208.2 10.00 2.55 3115 283.2 -75.0
Harvard I 5 6 0 9.91 3.45 3175 288.6 9.18 1.27 2790 253.6 35.0
Emory I 4 7 0 7.64 2.27 2030 184.5 10.45 2.18 3270 297.3 -112.7
Iowa 2 9 0 6.09 1.82 1550 140.9 12.00 2.18 3460 314.5 -173.6
Michigan I 2 9 0 7.73 2.36 2275 206.8 10.91 2.36 3295 299.5 -92.7
Princeton 1 10 0 7.27 2.55 1795 163.2 10.36 2.36 3065 278.6 -115.5
Tournament MVPs from the west included:
player school TUs Ints games played aver/game
Robert H Iowa St 132 43 20 55.25
Robert T Iowa 131 24 20 59.50
James A Illinois I 113 16 20 52.50
Mikael T Rice 64 13 12 47.92
Jeff S Princeton 99 30 20 42.00
(formerly BYU)
Karl S Illinois II 43 4 12 34.12
Phillip Berkeley I 75 17 20 33.25
Bryce I. BYU 28 6 9 27.78
Wade R Texas Austin 40 14 12 27.50
Darren R Michigan I 56 2 20 27.50
(Formerly of BYU)
David L Berkeley I 59 13 20 26.25
Ben G Berkeley I 58 14 20 25.50
James C. Illinois I 55 18 20 23.00
Congrats to all who attended.
BYU CONSIDERING A SUMMER TOURNAMENT
Interest in a fun tournament where players from schools may form
mixed teams has caused BYU to consider hosting an event later this
summer. Teams would be required to sumbit a clean round as their entry
dues. Mixed teams are encouraged. A date has yet to be selected.
If interested, please contact Craig Harmon and Lynn Elliot at:
paris@byu.edu and tlelliot@byu.edu
PLEASE PLAN THE FALL SCHEDULE CAREFULLY
As this school year comes to a close, several schools have requested that
they wish to reserve certain weekends in their own areas for tournaments
next year. Please make a note of these dates, both so you can budget to
attend the tournaments, and so that you do not plan an event on the same
weekend.
UC Berkeley: unsure -- either last weekend of Oct or Nov 1 or 8
Cal Tech 22-23 November Technophobia One
Oklahoma 23 November Oklahoma
Michigan has announced they wish to run a national
tournament at 7 sites around the country on 23
November -- this conflicting with Caltech. After
this is straightened out, again we urge all teams
to arrange schedules carefully to avoid schedule
conflicts with other established tournaments.
BY POOLING EFFORTS, TOURNAMENTS CAN BE RUN MORE EASILY
There are several routes of increasing your budget. Some teams receive
lavish grants from their administrations. This is of course an excellent
state of affairs, but also fairly rare. For the rest of us, the best way
to raise money is to host a tournametn, or two, or more. Berkeley hosted
four this school year. Some schools run several tournaments a year to
raise funds by hosting events for
high school quizbowl college teams IMs
There is also the age old bake sale. Vanderbilt runs a huge high school
tournament which raises over $2000 some years. Penn hosts the biggest 64
team college tournament which raises over $5000 annually. Stanford runs a
very successfull IM with 32 teams some years. If you estimate the cost
of running a good tournament with trophies for the winners at > $150.00,
entry fees of $60 or more, a 10 team event raises $450. In most
cases it is every bit as important and to the advantage of the team to run
tournaments that cater to future players as it is to run invitationals for
other schools' teams. When these events lead to money coming in and an
increase in club size, two goals are accomplished - money and members.
Perhaps the most efficient manner for schools around the country
to achieve these goals would be to "share" tournaments with other hosts
far away (so there is no competition for the same attendees). This year
Berkeley and OSU and U-MD jointly produced a high school tournament
played on the same questions. The three clubs divided the work and each
wrote some of the packets in advance. We would be perfectly willing to
sell all 12 rounds to any school who wishes to run a high school
tournament of their own - with ready-made questions. We also plan to do
the same again next year. If other teams would like to jump in and share
this project, arrangements can surely be made.
This same tactic can be used for college tournaments. The West
Coast division of the ACF would like to help another region, such as
the SW by having one team from the SW attend the Fall Berkeley
tournament 1-2 weeks before their own scheduled event. Then, after
playing the questions used at Berkeley, that team can take home all
the rounds, xerox them, and host the same tournament themselves. This
would provide an extra chance to proofread through a quality set of
questions and provide the material for a fine tournament in the SW.
If anyone is interested, please write back to gaius@uclink2.berkeley.edu.
U-MISSOURI at ROLLA WINS the MISSOURI STATE TITLE
In April, the 2nd Annual Mo State Championship was won by .
Participants included NorthEastern Mo State (NEMO), Wash in St. Louis,
UMKC x2, Missouri x2, and Mo Rolla x4. At the end of prelims, the top
four teams were Missouri B, WashU, Rolla B, and UMKC A. In the
championship game, Rolla B defeated Missouri B for the title
YOU MEAN THERE IS MORE OUT THERE BESIDES COLLEGEBOWL?
Aside from the Collegebowl Inc./ACUI annual February Regional
Championship, there are many, many tournaments in varying formats. Teams
with transportation and enthusiasm can play 4+ tournaments a year. There
are many reasons to go to these invitational tournaments:
experience
more fun
travel to new places
meeting new different teams
These other tournaments offer teams an opportunity to see all different
types of format, locations, teams, etc. The experience one gains by
playing multiple tournaments in incomperable. After all, the only way to
become a better player is to hear more questions. Many teams gain more
experience by losing and realizing what went wrong, than by winning close
matches, and therefore not stopping to consider why the game was close.
Many invitational tournaments mimic CBI format, others use ACF, still
others invent their own. In fact, a few schools choose to play only
invitational tournaments in order to maximize their playing. (CBI alone
costs more than two invitational tournaments.) This list includes Yale,
Berkeley, Ga Tech, Illinois, U-MD, Colorado, and UCLA.
If your area has too few tournaments, speak to the other teams
nearby and see if any of them are willing to improve the circuit.
The following schools west of the Mississippi have announced
interest in hosting a tournament next school year:
Berkeley
Brigham Young
Caltech
Iowa
Iowa State
Memphis (for teams on both sides of the river)
Minnesota
UMKC
Oklahoma
Stanford
U-T Dallas ??
Wisconsin
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