Minnesota Open
Minnesota Open (or MO) was an mACF, open, hard collegiate tournament held every fall from 2008 to 2012. In the years that it existed, it served as the premier hard tournament before nationals season every year.
2008
The first MO was held on October 18, 2008 at the University of Minnesota. It was a Regionals+ difficulty packet submission event edited by Rob Carson, Andrew Hart, Gautam Kandlikar, and Bernadette Spencer with several contributions by Charles Meigs and other gracious members of the community. Mirrors of the 2008 MO were held at UTC, Stanford and MIT.
In addition to the main tournament, MO started a tradition of hosting a broader slate of events across the weekend with three side events:
- a literature subject doubles headed by Andrew Hart et al and
- a Trash tournament produced by Colin O'Donnell et al.
- JECHT Doubles written by Jeremy Eaton and Jonathan Magin
The first annual Giacomo Balla basketball tournament was played the Friday night before the tournament, resulting in the delightful spectacle of a sore Rob Carson limping around for the entire ensuing weekend. The always ill-conceived, rarely-executed idea of "Quizbowl Basketball" has haunted the world ever since.
2009
The second MO was held on October 17, 2009 at the University of Minnesota. It was a difficult packet submission event edited by Rob Carson, Andrew Hart, Gautam Kandlikar, Bernadette Spencer, and Brian Lindquist.
Once again, there were some exciting side events:
- A fine arts tournament by Shantanu Jha, Ted Gioia, Aaron Rosenberg, et al on Saturday night
- A science tournament by Eric Mukherjee on Sunday
- A vanity literature/trash event by Mike Cheyne
2010
The third MO was held on November 17, 2010. It was edited by Rob Carson, Mike Cheyne, Gautam Kandlikar, and Bernadette Spencer (Andrew was starting law school at the time).
Side events included a guerrilla tournament on RPG video games, a set of Before-and-After questions by Mike Cheyne, a music listening tournament by Andrew Hart, and Bruce Arthur's Wild Kingdom, a set of tossups about animals.
2011 (Minnesota Open/Penn Intergalactic)
The 2011 incarnation of Minnesota Open got its second name when Rob Carson, Mike Cheyne, and Bernadette Spencer added Eric Mukherjee of Penn for their science editing. Some editors' packets featured questions from Saajid Moyen and Patrick Liao. It was held at two sites on November 19, 2011: a Minnesota site and a Penn site.
The side event was Eyes that Do Not See III.
2012
The 2012 incarnation of Minnesota Open, held on November 17, 2012, was edited by Andrew Hart, Auroni Gupta, Cody Voight, and Gaurav Kandlikar.
The major side events were Eyes that Do Not See IV, and a vanity trash event written by Mike Cheyne.
2019 (PIANO)
The Minnesota Open brand was partially revived by Sam Bailey and Shan Kothari in their collaboration with Jacob Reed on 2019's spring open, PIANO.
Results
Main site results
| Year | Winners | Number of Teams | High Scorer | Stats |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Alex Boone, Charlie Dees, Matt Weiner, and Christian Carter | 17 | probably Jonathan Magin or Matt Weiner | not yet recovered |
| 2009 | Jerry Vinokurov, Eric Mukherjee, and Guy Tabachnick | 13 | probably Jonathan Magin | not yet recovered |
| 2010 | Matt Lafer, Ryan Westbrook, Seth Teitler, Jerry Vinokurov | 8 | Jonathan Magin | Yes |
| 2011 | Seth Teitler, Selene Koo, Matt Lafer, Ryan Westbrook | 9 | Ike Jose | Yes |
| 2012 | Seth Teitler, Selene Koo, Jeff Hoppes, Jon Pennington | 11 | Seth Teitler | Yes |
Mirror site results
- 2008: The MIT mirror was won by a duo of Jerry Vinokurov and Eric Mukherjee, whose efforts to replicate the Hoppes-Mikanowski feat of topping 70 ppg each was almost successful. Stats can be found here. The Stanford Mirror was won by a team of Mike Sexton and Brian Lindquist. Stats can be found here.
- 2009: A small mid-Atlantic mirror at Maryland was won by Penn. Stats
- 2010: A mid-Atlantic mirror at Maryland was won by VCU plus Matt Weiner. Stats
- 2011: Penn Intergalactic was won by Yale, who defeated a team of Bruce Arthur, Jerry Vinokurov, Ted Gioia, and Aaron Rosenberg. Stats
- 2012: A mirror at Columbia was won by Penn plus Ted Gioia, who defeated Yale in a terse two-game final riddled with science protests. Stats. Some Canadians also played a delayed mirror two months later or something.