SATURDAY JULY 8 - MAD CITY MASTERS (at the University of Wisconsin-Madison). In 1999 the Mad City Masters succeeded the Minnesota Masters (Paul Bunyan/All-Onion), held since 1993, as the upper Midwest's summer open tournament for three-person teams. For the third year in a row, I will be packet editor and tournament director. This year's Mad City Masters will again be a Saturday-only, packet-submission, open quiz tournament featuring teams of _THREE_ or fewer players, not four. As an open tournament, anyone is welcome to play regardless of age or student status. The tournament will generally employ NAQT game rules, except that games will be untimed. Field size will be capped at a maximum of 22 teams, and I welcome team registrations from this point forward. ENTRANCE FEE: $45 per team whose acceptable packet is received by June 19. OR $75 per team whose acceptable packet is received by July 1. OR $120 per team whose acceptable packet is received by July 6. OR $1,000.00 per team sending no acceptable packet but willing to pay to play anyway. PACKET WRITING: The required packets should have 25 tossups and 25 bonuses, balanced across subjects as per the following ranges for each set of 25: 4-5 History (mixing eras and geography of course) 4-5 Literature (ditto) 4-5 Science/Math (mixing subcategories) 1-3 Geography 1-2 Sports 2-3 Film or TV or Pop Music or other Pop Culture topic 2-3 Fine Arts (Music other than Pop, Visual Arts, etc.) 1-2 Philosophy/Religion/Mythology 1-2 Social Sciences (Soc, Anthro/Archaeology, Econ, Poli Sci, Psych, Law, etc.) 1-4 General/Miscellaneous (other topics, mixed topics, current events) Acceptable packets must have subject distribution that falls within these ranges. The text of tossup questions (not including spaces or answers) should always fall between 200 and 500 characters in length--that's roughly two and a half to at most six lines of text in most fonts. Bonuses should all be worth a total of 30 points, with partial points possible. What to say about desired difficulty? Questions should be interesting and challenging for experienced players, as befits a Masters event; at the same time, however, I want packets that can be played with enjoyment by a team of only average college-circuit ability. Tossups in particular should rarely go unanswered if read to completion. As one benchmark, I'd say that for this event any packet within the range from '00 NAQT Sectionals difficulty on one end to '00 NAQT ICT difficulty on the other (average to well above-average invitational circuit difficulty) would be appropriate and successful, but that writers should aim to avoid writing a packet with a difficulty level outside that range in either direction. Finally, an acceptable packet should show some evidence of having been prepared with care, and _proofread_ prior to being sent off. Yes, it will be edited, but you should submit it in a state that you believe is ready for play as is. The tournament will be held in classrooms of the University of Wisconsin Humanities Building, Park Street between University and State. Information about start time and lodging possibilities will be available later. Meanwhile, teams should reserve places by contacting me (ehillema_at_...). Packets should be submitted in electronic form, either by email (Word, RTF or Text-only attachment preferred) or on a disk (Mac preferred) mailed to: Eric Hillemann Carleton College Archives One North College Street Northfield, MN 55057
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