2018 Chicago Open

2018 Chicago Open
Edited by	Auroni Gupta, with Jordan Brownstein, Joey Goldman, Eliza Grames, Will Holub-Moorman, Jacob Reed, and Seth Teitler
Champion	Monday Begins on Saturday and Sunday Comes Afterwards
Runner-up	A Dead Meme isn’t Art
Third	xtra thicc description
Fourth	three-way tie, by playoff PPG Let's Remember Some Goys
High scorer	Matt Bollinger, Monday Begins on Saturday and Sunday Comes Afterwards
Site	Northwestern
Field	22
Stats	Prelims, Playoffs

The 2018 Chicago Open was won by Monday Begins on Saturday and Sunday Comes Afterwards, consisting of Matt Bollinger, Shan Kothari, Adam Silverman, and Matt Weiner, who beat A Dead Meme isn’t Art (Ike Jose, John Lawrence, Jakob Myers, and Andrew Wang) in the first game of an advantaged final. It was the first CO since 2012 in which a team did not clear the field.

The tournament was edited by Auroni Gupta, with Jordan Brownstein, Joey Goldman, Eliza Grames, Will Holub-Moorman, Jacob Reed, and Seth Teitler.

Due to a Chicago room reservations problem, the tournament was held at Northwestern University in Evanston, leading to endless "Evanston Open" and "Chicagoland Open" jokes. Reed has advocated for returning to the title "Virginia Open" as a compromise.

Question Reception

The tournament had a mixed reception, partly due to still-excessive difficulty (somewhat harder than 2016 while being substantially easier than 2017). In particular, the decision to ask directly about a number of authors and works from minority groups, and the decision to make the arts distribution 1/3 non-European were seen as major contributors to the heightened difficulty, often negatively impacting playability.

Side Events

• 2018 Chicago Open Trash, a successor to the 2016 iteration. Written by Rob Carson, Carsten Gehring, and Andrew Hart.
• Imaginary Landscapes No. 4, an audio music tournament from the mind of John Lawrence.

External Links

• Tournament announcement
• Preliminary and playoff statistics
• discussion; arts discussion