Aztlan Cup

Aztlan Cup is a packet submission tournament run by UCLA. It usually packet swaps with or mirrors a tournament in the Midwest or on the East Coast.

Aztlan Cup I

Aztlan Cup I was held on March 6, 2004. About half the packets were submitted by West Coast or freelance teams and edited by Charles Meigs with some science help from Jerry Vinokurov and possibly some other Berkeley people; the other half were provided via a direct packet swap with Swarthmore. This tournament was one of the last (possibly the last, to date?) fifteen-round packet-submission tournaments on the West Coast. In total, sixteen packets were produced, and there was also a USC A packet that for unknown reasons did not end up in the final set.

Minions of the Mystical Orb (Seth Teitler, Ray Luo, Brendan Shapiro) went undefeated to win the tournament. A Caltech team led by Jordan Boyd-Graber finished second, losing only in the fifteenth round to the eventual champions. Full statistics were sadly lost when Ray Luo accidentally deleted the UCLA club's website in January 2006.

If nothing else, Aztlan Cup I will be remembered for its prizes. The championship team received a trophy cup into which some Jarritos soda was poured, and the winning team thus drank from the original Aztlan Cup. The current location of the Aztlan Cup is unknown. In addition, the winning team received a matched set of four books on Lives of the Fathers of the Church courtesy of the Mormon bookstore. The second-place finishers received the Spanish language version of the same four books. Individual high scorers received other Mormon-themed literature such as "How to Be a Missionary in Argentina". The neg champ was awarded a trophy depicting a horse's hind legs and rear end.

Andrew Jackson Open

The Andrew Jackson Open was a 2005 replacement for Aztlan Cup. It was to have been edited by Steve Kaplan, Dwight Wynne, and others and featured an "at cost" packet discount for a ridiculously early packet, but was canceled in January 2005 due to a lack of packets. UCLA therefore did not run an independent packet-submission tournament in 2005.

Aztlan Cup II

Aztlan Cup II was held on March 11, 2006. A packet swap was set up with Brown and a mirror was held at North Carolina. Aztlan Cup II was edited by Ray Luo, Charles Meigs, Jay Turetzky, and Dwight Wynne at UCLA and Jerry Vinokurov at Brown and ultimately produced an eleven-packet set of higher-than-intended difficulty.

Neither the UCLA nor Brown tournament went smoothly. At UCLA, a UC Davis team, which through the magic of miscommunication was under the impression that this was a CBI tournament, left the tournament after three rounds and a bye, expressing their displeasure both during the rounds and later through an e-mail from their CBI Program Coordinator. Brown, meanwhile, was nearly unable to recruit a field due to several Northeast circuit teams deciding to play Cancel Bowl instead on the same date.

After a reworked playoff schedule, USC and UCSD were tied with identical 7-1 records. USC won the ensuing finals match to win the tournament.

Aztlan Cup III

Aztlan Cup III was held on March 10, 2007. After attempts to packet swap with aborted tournaments at Dartmouth and Brown, UCLA was able to mirror the Matt Cvijanovich Memorial Novice Tournament at Illinois. Although a separate Division I and Division II (with never-clarified Division II eligibility rules) were promised, the small field size necessitated a merge between the divisions. UCI's Divsion I team (Ray Anderson, Carl Boone, Thomas Bushnell, Willie Chen) won a one-game final against UCLA's Division I team (Steve Kaplan playing solo) to win the tournament. UCLA A won the Division II championship.

Aztlan Cup IV

Aztlan Cup IV was held on January 19, 2008 as a mirror of TIT and MLK.

External Links

Aztlan Cup II statistics
Aztlan Cup III statistics including one-game final