Re: ACF Regionals thoughts

• From: mustardbbq <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 06:50:54 -0000
• Message-ID: <c0pp8e+s5dp_at_...>

First of all, congrats to Kelly for utterly demolishing the southern 
field and to all of the folks who attended. I thought the questions 
were very good and the competition was particularly keen. 

The tournament did go on forever. It was a pretty big field and 
untimed, but 11:00 is just too late for a tournament to end. The 
moderators started emphasizing the time element towards the end of 
the day by making teams cut the chatter and reading quicker, but 
that was something that should have been emphasized from the get go 
given that it was a 15 round robin. 

ACF Fall at UT had a similarly sized field and Carole Guthrie made a 
point at the beginning of the tournament to encourage teams to shut 
up (in nicer words, of course) between questions and asked for 
everyone's cooperation in making the tournament run smoother. I 
think that had something to do with UTK's fall tournament ending 
much, much, much sooner than the ACF Regs did. 

Besides the time thing, the tournament was well run and enjoyable. 

Eric Douglass
University of South Carolina School of Law, '05

--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "Chris White" <cwhite2_at_s...> wrote:
> I thought that the tossups were mostly accessible, though I agree 
that
> the boni were tougher than expected.  Our team's bonus conversion 
this
> year was virtually the same as last year, even though we've 
improved
> quite a bit since then.  It was frustrating for the first few 
rounds,
> but then you just get used to it and know what to expect.
> 
> But, (and this is the main reason I'm replying), I really have to
> disagree with your condemnation of tossup length; your Regional's 
late
> running time was not the fault of the questions.  We played 12 
rounds
> at Rutgers and got to leave at 5:30, while it was still light 
out.  If
> rounds last an hour, it's the fault of the moderator, not the
> questions.  (Excellent job, Rutgers.  Probably the smoothest-run
> tournament I've ever attended.) 
> 
> -Chris, speaking only for himself
> 
> 
> --- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "quizbowllee" <charolee_at_h...> 
wrote:
> > This was Athens State's first ACF Regional Tournament.  We 
captured 
> > the Div. II title at the Southeastern Regionals at UTC, and had 
a 
> > hell of a time doing it.  My teammates now hate ACF, whereas I 
still 
> > love it.
> > 
> > The questions were HARD.  Really, really HARD.  We use ACF 
Regionals 
> > packets exclusively in practice, and these were way tougher and 
more 
> > obscure than any we had seen before.  Regardless of difficulty, 
I 
> > think they were good.  Lately I have been going over ACF 
Nationals 
> > packets, and I have to say that a few rounds this weekend were 
> > bordering on ACF Nationals difficulty (Indiana's packet comes to 
> > mind).
> > 
> > I have also noticed that since the turn of the century, the 
> > questions at ACF Regionals seem to have grown an extra sentence 
or 
> > two - or three (sometimes even four and five).  I know ACF is 
all 
> > about pyramidal multi-sentence, multi-clue tossups, but couldn't 
> > questions be just a bit shorter?  I think five lines in "10 
font" 
> > should be maximum.  Some of our rounds lasted nearly an hour!  
We 
> > didn't get out until nearly midnight.  Fourteen hours of quiz 
> > bowl!!! It was fun, and I always prefer the full Round Robin, 
but 
> > that was a LONG tournament.  
> > 
> > At any rate, despite my teammates complaining about not knowing 
any 
> > tossups or bonuses (the bonuses were the most obscure I've ever 
> > seen), it was a good tournament.  Also, despite knowing that we 
will 
> > get slaughtered like never before, we plan to attend ACF 
Nationals 
> > this year.  
> > 
> > Thanks to Charlie, Raj Bahn, and everyone else who had anything 
to 
> > do with the tournament this year.  I hope to see a few other 
Div. II 
> > teams at Maryland.
> > 
> > Lee Henry
> > Athens State Quiz Bowl