Triacontakaipentagon
Triacontakaipentagon, or Tricon, was a series of side events devised by Matt Weiner originally conceived to be run as companions to VCU Open.
The defining characteristic of Tricon was its 35/0 distribution, which was not divided into conventional categories but rather into very specific and esoteric niches (examples from the first iteration include "A question related to animals" and "A question somehow involving hats"). This was initially based on the subject matter of side events that had been announced but never occurred.
The tournament was run as a guerilla packet sub: every team participating would write their own packet adhering to the distro and the results would be collected and played without further editing. As with every tournament employing this format, the results varied wildly, something that was only exacerbated by the zany distribution.
| Year | Forum post | Packets |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Tricon: The 4D IMAX Experience Coming Summer 2016 | packets |
| 2014 | Triacontakaipentagon 2.5: August 2014 | packets |
| 2013 | Triacontakaipentagon: Side Tournament Redemption | packets |
Amusing anecdotes
- a triacontakaipentagon is a polygon with 35 sides - one for each tossup
- the 2014 iteration of Tricon featured a slot for a "history question involving a famous serial killer or incident of murder, in which all factual details are otherwise accurate but all names of victims are replaced with the name "Kirk Jing"", presumably as a means of insulting Kirk for his work on Modern World
- after overuse at the first iteration, later instances of Tricon banned the following topics from appearing in questions: anime, the painter Duccio, the early 90s rap group Arrested Development, and the Salman Rushdie novel "The Ground Beneath Her Feet"
- after the second Tricon had a packet that was entirely questions about Seinfeld, the third Tricon banned theme packets