EFT

EFT (Early Fall Tournament) is the name of two distinct series of easier-than-regular, non-packet submission college quizbowl tournaments. The original series ran five times between 2006 and 2010 and was written largely by the Brown club. The second series began in 2016 and ran until 2019.

The intent of EFT is to serve as an accessible "introduction to college quizbowl" for newer or less experienced teams, while still being appropriate for players of all skill levels. However, EFT is not a novice tournament; the easier difficulty, high quality, and non-packet-submission model of EFT gives it a wide appeal, but it is still quite challenging for new players. EFT's idea of being an "introduction to college quizbowl" is to be understood as also including giving new players the opportunity to play against all of their local circuit's "regulars," and thus get acquainted with the (small but close-knit) college quizbowl community, early in the fall season.

Modern revival

The "EFT" name was revived in fall 2016 by Will Alston, who head-edited the 2016, 2017, and 2019 iterations of EFT. (In 2018, Will edited SGI.)

The modern iterations of EFT were highly successful, routinely drawing the largest fields and most mirrors of any collegiate tournament not run by ACF or NAQT. After quickly earning a reputation as an exemplary easier-than-regular difficulty question set, the name "EFT" became nearly synonymous with the new "Medium" collegiate difficulty level and was an explicit target or reference difficulty for many sets since 2019 (2019 Terrapin, MWT, LIT, ACF Winter).

2019

The 2019 iteration of EFT was edited and written by Will Alston, Jakob Myers, Rahul Keyal, and Eric Mukherjee, with Aayush Rajakesaran, Matthew Lehmann, Rohith Nagari, Catherine Qian, Julia Zhou, Rebecca Rosenthal, Nick Collins, and Ankit Aggarwal. It had an open call for collaborators shortly after 2018 EFT. Ophir Lifshitz assisted and created detailed stats.

It was played by roughly 210 total teams across 14 mirrors, likely setting a record.

Afterward, Will announced that he did not intend to edit another full-blown collegiate tournament (again), and tried to institute an informal "hand-off" system (similar to Chicago Open) in which the head-editor bequeaths the brand to a requisitioning new head-editor. In 2020, nobody stepped up and Will edited IKEA instead; the gap left by EFT was filled by LIT and the newly revived ACF Winter.

Discussion

2019 EFT was highly praised.

In a short discussion about "tough" tossup answers with under 75% empirical conversion (such as on important and famous creators like Keith Haring, György Ligeti, and Alice Munro), Ben Miller argued that it is better for them to be asked as medium parts of bonuses. Others defended and justified them since EFT's philosophy is not about having all easy answers, otherwise it wouldn't do its job as a "welcome to college quizbowl" balancing many audiences.

The forced humor in several questions was criticized as unnecessary, unamusing, self-serving, unprofessional, and out of place for such an esteemed and popular tournament that represents "what quizbowl is like" and sends an undesirable message to so many new players (including high schoolers) having their first college tournament experience.

2018

The 2018 iteration was originally intended to be head edited by Joey Goldman alongside editors Alex Damisch, Ewan MacAulay, Dylan Minarik, Tejas Raje, Ramapriya Rangaraju, and Ryan Rosenberg. However, management of the tournament broke down, forcing the original editors Tejas, Alex, Dylan, and Ryan to recruit additional editors Billy Busse, Ike Jose, Eric Mukherjee, Will Nediger, Jacob Reed, and Kenji Shimizu in the final weeks of its production. Jordan Brownstein, Rob Carson, Auroni Gupta, Andrew Hart, Kady Hsu, Ryan Humphrey, Young Fenimore Lee, Benji Nguyen, Andrew Wang, and Jason Zhou were writers. Joey and Ewan were unable to complete their roles as head editor and science editor respectively and were ultimately credited as writers; the set's subtitle was made I guess Brexit really does mean Brexit as a result. Ramapriya did not appear in the final credits. Alex managed logistics. Ophir Lifshitz assisted and created detailed stats.

Discussion

The final product was thought to have overshot its intended difficulty, and its unfortunate editing situation meant that it was much rougher around the edges than previous iterations of EFT.

In the general discussion thread, Justine French criticized putting hard clues in easy parts since it would dishearten players by rendering their knowledge useless. Justine also claimed that detailed stats are a "significant burden on hosts" (forcing them to recruit double the staffers), "only exist so that elite players can flex" (by "remembering clues from Chicago Open four years ago"), and are "actively harmful to the community" unless editors use them to actively fix questions. French's hyperbolic arguments were widely criticized, with Billy Busse comparing them to "throwing a temper tantrum at McDonalds because they put pickles on your burger after you asked for no pickles."

The set also featured Andrew Wang's memorable tossup on "carbon and carbon," which Graham Reid described as "pathological." The question was changed to ask for "these bonds" in later mirrors, but the mere existence of this question inspired several players to neg future tossups that used the pronoun "these two elements" with the answer "carbon and carbon."

A bond between these two elements is reversibly formed and broken in a Wanzlick equilibrium. Some schemes for forming bonds between these two elements use catalytic cycles consisting of oxidative addition, transmetalation, and reductive elimination. A bond forms between these two elements in the first step of a reaction that has a four-membered oxaphosphetane ring intermediate. A bond between these two elements forms in palladium-catalyzed (*) coupling reactions. Organometallic reagents are often used to produce bonds between these two elements by giving one of them an atypical nucleophilic character. Bonds between these two elements are simply drawn as lines with no labels in skeletal structures of molecules. For 10 points, the backbone of organic chemistry consists of bonds between what two elements, which both have an atomic mass of 12?

ANSWER: carbon AND carbon [or C AND C; or two carbons; accept carbon–carbon bonds]

Region	Host	Date	Champion	Second	Stats	Packets
Discord	the editing team	9/22/2018			Stats	Packets
SoCal	UCLA	12/1/2018			Stats
NorCal	Stanford	11/10/2018			Stats
Virginia Tech	Virginia Tech	11/10/2018			Stats
SoCal	UCSD	10/27/2018			cancelled
UK (closed)	Oxford	10/20/2018			Prelims, Combined
Boise State	Boise State	10/13/2018	BYU	Oregon	Stats
Georgia Tech	Georgia Tech	10/13/2018			Prelims, Overall
UK (open)	Oxford	10/13/2018			Stats
Yale	Yale	10/13/2018	Amherst A	Harvard B	Morning, Complete
UCF	University of Central Florida	10/13/2018			Prelims, Combined
Canada	Carleton University	10/13/2018	Toronto J	Toronto B	Prelims, All Games
Minnesota	Minnesota	10/6/2018	"Drangonball Z" (sic)	Minnesota D	Stats
WUSTL	WUSTL	10/6/2018			Prelims, combined
Michigan	Michigan	9/29/2018	OSU A	MSU A	Prelims, Combined
Maryland	Maryland	9/29/2018	Johns Hopkins A	Maryland A	Prelims, Combined

2017

The 2017 iteration was again edited by Will Alston and Richard Yu, with James Lasker joining them. Other writers included Alex Fregeau, Vasa Clarke, Eric Xu, and Jack Mehr. Ophir Lifshitz assisted and created detailed stats.

It followed in the steps of TTIAC by including a "thought" distribution.

Discussion

2017 EFT was one of the first tournaments to collect detailed stats (and specifically buzzpoints) on a large scale, following trials at MYSTERIUM, EFT, 2016 Terrapin, TTIAC, and Jordaens in 2016–2017. Many moderators had never used the new online scorekeeping system, or any online scoresheet, before.

In the thread "PSA - Don't be a Luddite", Will said that attendees of the WUSTL mirror complained that several moderators misbehaved due to displeasure with the technology. After David Dennis came forward as one of them, Nicholas Conder said that learning a new system on short notice was a daunting task; Cody Voight (and a chorus of others) responded by asserting that it was easy to learn. Any conversation about how to improve the interface and usability of the technology was quickly drowned out by accusations of stupidity, malice, and incompetence leveled between those who had never used it and those who had.

Though many people found the system as easy or easier to use than either online or paper scoresheets, it was clearly harder for some less experienced moderators. Many improvements were promptly made to the system, its logistics (communicating requirements to hosts with plenty advance notice), and its documentation (instructions and accommodations to help those who may be less tech-savvy), in response to feedback in and out of the thread.

Region	Host	Date	Champion	Second	Stats	Packets
Skype	the editing team	12/26/2017			Stats	Packets
Michigan	Michigan	10/21/2017			Prelims, Combined
UK		10/21/2017			Stats (incomplete)
Northern California	Stanford	10/15/2017			Stats
Louisville	Louisville	10/14/2017			Prelims, Combined
Southern California	UCSD	10/14/2017			Stats
Canada	University of Toronto	10/14/2017			Stats
Virginia	Virginia	10/14/2017			Prelims, Overall
WKU	WKU	10/14/2017			(cancelled)
Georgia Tech	Georgia Tech	10/14/2017			Stats
Minnesota	University of Minnesota	10/14/2017			Stats
Boise State	Boise State	10/14/2017	Oregon	Colorado	Stats
WUSTL	WUSTL	10/7/2017			Prelims, Combined
Yale	Yale	9/30/2017			Prelims, Combined
New College of Florida	New College of Florida	9/30/2017			Stats
Second Skype	the editing team	12/26/2017			Stats

2016

The 2016 iteration of EFT was edited by Will Alston, Richard Yu, and Andrew Wang, with writing contributions from Eddie Kim, Jason Cheng, Parikshit Chauhan, Jason Zhou, and Ryan Humphrey. Auroni Gupta, Ike Jose, and Billy Busse assisted with tournament production. Ophir Lifshitz assisted and created detailed stats.

This tournament was the first to explicitly include a playtest mirror by holding an open Skype mirror of the tournament a week before any closed mirrors.

Region	Host	Date	Champion	Second	Stats	Packets
Skype	the editing team	9/17/2016			Stats	Packets
Northeast	New York University	10/1/2016			Prelims, Combined
Mid-Atlantic	University of Maryland	10/8/2016			Prelims, Combined
Southeast	Duke University	10/8/2016			Prelims, Combined
Florida	University of Florida	10/1/2016			Stats
Kentucky	Western Kentucky University	10/15/2016			Stats
Texas	Texas A&M	10/29/2016			Stats
North	University of Minnesota	9/24/2016			Stats
Upper Midwest	University of Chicago	10/22/2016			Prelims, Complete
Lower Midwest	Washington University in St. Louis	10/1/2016			Stats
Great Lakes	Youngstown State University	10/8/2016			Prelims, Playoffs
Northern California	Stanford University	10/15/2016			Prelims, Combined
Southwest	University of California, San Diego	10/8/2016			Prelims, Combined
Canada	University of Ottawa	10/15/2016			Stats
UK	Oxford	11/26/2016			Stats

Original Brown tournament

2010

EFT 5: The Prince of Aquitaine whose Tournament is Destroyed was a collaboration between Brown, Eric Mukherjee, and Illinois, headed by Ike Jose. Mirrors occurred at Brown, Illinois, VCU, Georgia Tech, and Toronto, with the main site taking place on October 2, 2010.

This incarnation of EFT received more criticism than previous years, with common complaints being poor grammar and lack of copyediting, absurd difficulty outliers, and an unclear baseline difficulty. A discussion about slack eligibility guidelines and gentlemen's agreements also took place.

Set	Region	Host	Date	Champion	Second	Stats	Packets
EFT 5	New England (main site)	Brown	October 2, 2010	Harvard A	Yale A	Prelims, Playoffs	Packets
	Midwest	Illinois	October 2, 2010	Minnesota A	Minnesota B	Stats†
	California	Claremont	October 3, 2010	Irvine	UCSD A	Prelims, Playoffs
	Mid-Atlantic	VCU	October 3, 2010	Maryland A	Carnegie Mellon	Stats
	Minnesota	Minnesota	October 16, 2010	Gautam Kandlikar	St. Thomas A	Stats
	Southeast	Georgia Tech	October 23, 2010	South Carolina A	Chipola & Georgia (tie)	Prelims, Playoffs
	Canada	Toronto	October 31, 2010	Western Ontario	Toronto A	Stats

2009

EFT 4: Cattle-Related Vocabulary took place on October 3 and 4, 2009 at Brown, Virginia, Illinois, Texas, UCLA, Millsaps, Toronto, Gonzaga, and Macalester. Substantial portions of the set were written by Jerry Vinokurov, Guy Tabachnick, Eric Mukherjee, Aaron Rosenberg, Daniel Klein, and Ian Eppler, with contributions from Seth Teitler, Ike Jose, Trygve Meade, and Hannah Kirsch.

The tournament was mostly well-received, with most of the complaints centered on uneven bonus difficulty and mediocre copyediting. The tournament elicited discussion of the nature of stock clues after Andy Watkins criticized the use of the Reptile Fund as an early clue for Bismarck. A discussion of the trash distribution in academic tournaments also ensued.

Set	Region	Host	Date	Champion	Second	Stats	Packets
EFT 4	New England (main site)	Brown	October 3, 2009	Harvard B	Harvard A	Prelims, Playoffs	Packets
	Canada	Toronto	October 3, 2009	Toronto A	Michigan A	Prelims, Playoffs†
	Mid-Atlantic	Virginia	October 3, 2009	Maggie Walker	State College	Stats†
	Midwest	Illinois	October 3, 2009	Chicago D	Chicago B	Stats†
	Minnesota	Macalester	October 3, 2009	Minnesota Red	Carleton	Stats
	Northwest	Gonzaga	October 3, 2009	Washington A	Washington B	Stats†
	Southeast	South Carolina	October 3, 2009	Clemson	Southside	Stats
	Texas	UT-Austin	October 3, 2009	Rice	LASA A	Stats†
	California	UCLA	October 4, 2009	UCSD	Steve Katz	Stats
	South	Millsaps	October 4, 2009	Alabama A?	Alabama B?	Stats

2008

EFT 3: Trapping Bees in a Dyson Sphere ran on October 4 and 11, 2008, at various sites around the country, including Brown, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, UCLA, FSU and Illinois, with many sites seeing record attendance (the Brown site had to cap registration at 24 teams due to staff shortages). The set was written in equal shares by Jerry Vinokurov, Dennis Jang, Eric Mukherjee, and Aaron Rosenberg, with contributions from Jonathan Magin, Evan Nagler, Lisa Qing, and Eric Johnson, and as tradition dictates, was assembled at 7 a.m. on the day of the tournament.

The tournament was received well overall, with the exception of a tossup on peer-to-peer networks and an excess of questions on comic books in the trash distribution (everyone knows whose fault that is). The tournament also set off a large discussion about the writing of music questions, due to a tossup on the Leningrad Symphony containing some technical middle clues that were not uniquely identifying.

EFT 3 was also notably the subject of Christian Flow's Mind Games Article in the Harvard Crimson, which followed the exploits of Dallas Simons and the Harvard B team.

Set	Region	Host	Date	Champion	Second	Stats	Packets
EFT 3	New England (main site)	Brown	October 4, 2008	Harvard A	Dartmouth A	Stats†	Packets
	California	UCLA	October 4, 2008	UCLA 2	UCSD A & Stanford (tie)	Stats
	Mid-Atlantic	Wake Forest	October 11, 2008	Maryland B	Virginia	Stats
	Florida	FSU				Stats†
	Midwest	Illinois				Stats†
	Southeast	Vanderbilt				Stats†

2007

EFT 2, subtitled Rataplan Ghost Rides the World War I Ambulance, was written by Dennis Jang, Eric Mukherjee, and Jerry Vinokurov, with the same goal as the previous incarnation. Mirrors were held at Brown, UCLA, USF, William and Mary, Chicago, Vanderbilt, and OU, with the main mirror taking place on September 29, 2007.

Rutgers won the Brown mirror after defeating Harvard, with Jason Keller winning the individual scoring award. The tournament was a huge logistical nightmare however, and prizes couldn't be given because stats were not compiled in time. Surprisingly, people did not complain.

The question set itself was praised fairly highly, with some qualms about the length of the questions (which averaged somewhere between 6 and 7 lines), the difficulty of tossups on Tlaloc and Legendre, the representation of the social science canon (some liked it, some didn't), and a factual error about the writer of Harrison Bergeron. The two packets written exclusively by Jerry were also seen as much more difficult than the others. Willie Chen returned briefly to complain about problems in the set that didn't exist, but was quickly refuted by Eric and Chris Ray.

Dennis Jang compiled a spreadsheet of tossup and bonus conversion stats from the 20-team Brown site, which is no longer available.

Set	Region	Host	Date	Champion	Second	Stats	Packets
EFT 2	New England (main site)	Brown	September 29, 2007	Rutgers	Harvard	Stats	Packets
	Texas/Oklahoma	Oklahoma	September 29, 2007	UT-Austin	Harding	Stats
	California	UCLA	October 6, 2007	Irvine A	UCLA B	Prelims, Playoffs
	Florida	USF	October 6, 2007			Not available
	Mid-Atlantic	William and Mary	October 6, 2007	Maryland A	Penn	Stats†
	Midwest	Chicago	October 6, 2007	Minnesota B	Illinois A & UIC (tie)	Prelims, Playoffs
	Southeast	Vanderbilt	October 6, 2007	Alabama A	WUSTL A	Stats†

2006

The first iteration of EFT was intended to be an additional early-season novice tournament that, unlike ACF Fall, did not require teams to submit a packet to play. It was written by Seth Teitler, Ryan Westbrook, Jerry Vinokurov, and Selene Koo. EFT was held at several regional sites over the weekends of October 7–8 and October 14–15, 2006. Host schools included Chicago, Brown, Maryland, Texas, Georgia Tech, USF, and UCLA.

Feedback can be found in this thread. Overall, this tournament was received with praise. Much of the commentary revolved around the difficulty of "hard" bonus parts as well as niche subjects like world literature and social science.

Set	Region	Host	Date	Champion	Second	Stats	Packets
EFT 1	New England(main site)	Brown	October 7, 2006	Yale A	Rutgers	Stats†	Packets
	California	UCLA	October 7, 2006	Stanford A	UCLA A	Stats
	Florida	USF	October 7, 2006			Not available
	Texas	UT-Austin	October 7, 2006			Not available
	Southeast	Georgia Tech	October 8, 2006	Vanderbilt	Kentucky	Stats†
	Midwest	Chicago	October 14, 2006	Chicago A	Michigan A	Prelims, Playoffs

^† Broken stats link