The UTC Academic Trivia Association will host its sixth annual Muck Masters, a one-day open trash tournament on Saturday, August 19, 2006. That's the day before the Moc Masters open academic tournament (see the appropriate message for more information on that event). WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE: Editing and pre-tournament registration will be handled by myself, John Kilby. If you wish to register or need any more information regarding the tournament, please e-mail me at muckmasters [at] gmail [dot] com. Your tournament director is Charlie Steinhice. If you have any questions for him, he can be reached by e-mail at steinhic [at] bellsouth [dot] net or by snail mail at 1185 Mountain Creek Rd. #1801, Chattanooga, TN 37405. TIME & PLACE: Registration will be at 9:00 AM, announcements at 9:45 AM, and play beginning at 10 AM. The tournament length will depend on the number of teams attending, but we will aim for playoffs (or the final round robin rounds if the field is large) by 6 PM if not earlier. Tournament headquarters will officially be Holt 124 on the UTC campus, the same building the tournament will be held. Directions to UTC can be found at the end of this message. ELIGIBILITY: This tournament is open to all interested parties EXCEPT those who have been exposed to the questions being used at the Montgomery Burns trash tournament on August 5, 2006 at Ann Arbor, Michigan (we will be swapping packets with that tournament). Teams do not have to have any academic affiliation. If you want to make yourself available as a free agent to join a team or if you have a partial team but need free agent help, please e-mail me. FORMAT: Teams will be four players each with alternates allowed as long as there are no substitutions during rounds. Depending on the number of teams, the schedule will either be round robin, round robin plus playoffs/swiss pairings, or bracketed round robin. We will be using the standard modified-ACF rules used at most UTC trash tournaments. Each round will have 20 toss-up questions and be untimed. Bonus laming and claiming will be in effect. MUSIC ROUND: If you are interested in hosting a music round or some other special round, please e-mail me. Preference will be given to players on teams that submit their packet earlier. PACKET SUBMISSION: Muck Masters will return to being a packet submission tournament this year. All teams will be required to submit a full packet of 24/24 unless the team arranges it in advance. FEES: The base fees are as follows: Questions submitted before 11:59 PM EST on Friday, July 21: $40 Questions submitted before 11:59 PM EST on Friday, July 28 but after previous deadline: $60 Questions submitted before 11:59 PM EST on Friday, August 4 but after previous deadline: $80 Questions submitted before 11:59 PM EST on Friday, August 11 but after previous deadline: $100 No packet submitted (must be requested by before 11:59 PM EST on Friday, July 21 to guarantee spot): $120 Questions submitted Saturday, August 12 or later: $140 (acceptance of packet is up to editor's discretion) As shown above, there is a significant difference between the base fee for teams who submit their packet early compared to those who wait until the last minute or submit no packet at all. This is mainly done in order to be able to send a sufficient number of fully-edited packets to the Michigan folks (and of course doing so gives your editor more time to do his job). Although the base fee for teams who submit packets early is generous, please do not send in a sloppy packet in order to beat a deadline. A packet that does not meet the specifications outlined below will be returned with the reason or reasons for rejection. The following discounts are available: Novice teams: - $40 (a novice team is defined as a team that consists entirely of players who have never attended a trash tournament before) Full-time reader: - $10 or said reader can join us for dinner at Provino's after the tournament Working buzzer: - $5 High school packet discount*: - $15 High school partial packet (10/10) discount*: - $5 * These discounts involve writing a packet or partial packet of questions for our upcoming fall high school tournament. Packet must be submitted by Friday, August 17 and sent to Charlie. For more information, please e-mail Charlie (steinhic [at] bellsouth [dot] net). The minimum fee after all discounts is $0. (Hey, we'd love to have you come, but we're not gonna pay you to play!) REGISTRATION: To register for Muck Masters, e-mail me with how many teams you are bringing, if you are planning on bringing any moderators or buzzers, and what the trashy team name is for each team. PACKET SPECIFICATIONS: Although Muck Masters has "Masters" in the name, the question difficulty being aimed for is medium to difficult. Although this means that toss-up questions on subjects that would be considered too obscure for an average tournament are fair game, please make sure that the majority of toss-up questions are answerable by the end of the question. Of course, all toss-up questions should be pyramidal and contain enough clues to differentiate between different depths of knowledge (two clues or one sentence is not enough for a toss-up, unless that one sentence is Faulknarian in nature). For bonus questions, use the three-part, ten points per answer variety as often as possible. Try to avoid other question types such as 40-30-20-10-1's or 30-20-10-5-1's and 15-10-5's. For a standard three-part bonus question, one part should be answerable by most teams, one part should be answerable by teams with a fair amount of knowledge of the subject, and one part should be answerable only by those teams with extremely deep knowledge of the subject. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. This includes such actions as copying questions from an older set and copying and pasting information from Wikipedia or other Internet sources. If undeniable proof of plagiarism is obtained, the packet will be returned to the submitting team. For fee purposes, the packet will be considered to have not yet been submitted at the time that the packet is returned. Each packet should contain 24 toss-up questions and 24 bonus questions. They should be distributed as follows: Major Categories - 4/4 each from: - movies - TV - sports - music For each major category, the questions should approximately cover the following time periods: - 1/1 from 1960's or earlier - 1/1 from 1970's or 1980's - 1/1 from 1990's or 2000's - 1/1 author's choice of remaining decades For the author's choice, write a question about a decade that has not been covered yet. For example, if you wrote a toss-up question on a song from the 1960's, one on an artist from the 1980's, and one on an album from the 2000's, you can choose from the 1990's, 1970's, and the 1950's or earlier as the time period covered by the subject in your final music toss-up. Some questions will span across time periods, but please aim for these guidelines where applicable. Also, please mix-up genres. For example, writing a toss-up question on baseball and a bonus question on baseball is fine, but writing multiple baseball toss-up questions or multiple baseball bonus questions is not. Another example: writing a toss-up question on a horror film and a bonus question on horror films is fine, but writing multiple toss-up questions on horror films or multiple bonus questions on horror films is not. Minor Categories - 8/8 total, 2/2 maximum from any category including: - popular literature - comics - computers and Internet - computer or video games - non-electronic games - gadgets/inventions/appliances - consumer brands and products - food & drink - Americana - periodicals (features, columnists, etc.) - current events - toys - amusement parks and rides - game/activity (game show style bonus questions, etc.) - mixed major categories (i.e. toss-up questions with no more than one clue from a given major category or bonus questions with at most one part from each category) - any other category not listed here Since it is often harder to apply the standards of time periods to questions in the minor categories, please use the following time period guidelines to ensure that your packet does not lean excessively toward any time period: - no more than 3/3 from 1960's or earlier - no more than 3/3 from 1970's or 1980's - no more than 3/3 from 1990's or 2000's The same comments about the major category question apply to the minor category questions. Some questions will span across time periods, but please aim for these guidelines where applicable. Also, please mix-up genres. For example, writing a toss-up question on a certain brand of soda and a bonus question on several different sodas is fine, but writing two toss-up questions about sodas or two bonus questions about sodas is not. Please do not number your questions. Group the toss-up questions and bonus questions separately and within each of the two question types group questions together by category (that is, put all the sports toss-ups together, put all the TV toss-ups together, put all the music boni together, etc.). Please send your questions to me as a Microsoft Word document. Please use 1/2 inch page margins, 10-pt Times New Roman font, and format your questions like this: This is a toss-up question. FTP, what is the answer? ANS: answer (preceded by a tab, required part bolded) This is the bonus lead-in that mentions the point scale, such as FTPE or FTSNP. A. This is the first part (two spaces follow the letter). ANS: answer 1 (preceded by a tab, required part bolded) B. This is the second part (two spaces follow the letter). ANS: answer 2 (preceded by a tab, required part bolded) C. This is the third part (two spaces follow the letter). ANS: answer 3 (preceded by a tab, required part bolded) Please do not use underline; use italics for titles and bold to indicate the required portion of the answer. If you need any help with your packet, please feel free to e-mail me. DRIVING DIRECTIONS: >From Atlanta and points south -- take I-75 to Chattanooga, then I-24 west towards downtown, then follow the freeway splitoff for U.S. 27 North, downtown Chattanooga. From 27 North take the 4th Street exit, within sight of the Tennessee Aquarium. Go right on 4th St. (you have no choice) and follow it for ca. 1 mile. Go past the UTC Arena, after which E. 4th St. becomes part of E. 3rd St. After that, take the second right on Palmetto St. Go two blocks and turn right on Vine St. (just past the EMCS Building.) Just before the place where Vine St. is blocked off, the parking lot for Grote and Holt Halls is on the right. Enter Grote by the door next to the dumpster. >From Knoxville and points north -- take I-75 to Chattanooga, then I-24 West; directions from there same as above. >From Nashville and points west/north: Take I-24 east to Chattanooga. As you round Moccasin Bend (freeway goes alongside river) watch for two exit lanes on the right; take the less rightward of the two, which will have signs above it for U.S. 27 N. Rest of directions are the same as above. >From Birmingham and points southwest: Take I-59 to the outskirts of Chattanooga, where it dead-ends into I-24. Get on I-24 East and follow the Nashville directions from there. MIRRORS/PACKET SWAPPING/FREELANCING: If you are interested in mirroring, swapping packets with, or freelancing for Muck Masters, please e-mail me.
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