The Quizbowl Resource Center

Centennial High School, in Roswell, GA, is pleased to announce the first incarnation of ATTACK (Academic Team Tournament Authored by Centennial Knights), on January 14, 2012. That’s MLK weekend, which hopefully won’t limit our turnout.

Format:
We will use two divisions, one for regular varsity and one for teams that have already or will likely qualify for nationals. Decisions about which division a team belongs in will be made as the tournament deadline approaches. We will use some form of non-elimination—most likely, round robin and re-bracketing. All teams will be guaranteed 7 games.

Fees:
Base of $65 per team. Possible discounts: -$5/workable buzzer system (limit 1), -$10 to out of state teams, -$5 on the base fee for each additional team entered (the second team only costs $60, third is 55, and so on). Schools will be limited to three teams unless otherwise noted.

Questions:
It’s a house-write that I’m writing. A smidgen of assistance will be given from past alumni and current students. The tossups are pyramidal and 5-6 lines in 10 TNR font. They are power-marked, with the intention that powers constitute very deep knowledge. These are not easy powers. Similarly, the “hard” parts of bonuses are written to challenge the top teams nationally. These are not easy 30s, either. At the same time, we are striving for very answerable tossups and easy parts on the bonus, even for teams that aren't competitive on a national level. Given early play-testing, I can confidently say that this set is "regular difficulty"—comparable to the 2011 Yale BHSAT.

We will also be seeking out-of-state mirrors for this tournament during second semester.

Distribution:
4/4 Literature (at least 1/1 US, 1/1 World, 1/1 European)
4/4 History (1/1 US, 1/1 World, 2/2 European)
4/4 Science (1/1 Biology, 1/1 Chemistry, 1/1 Physics, 1/1 Earth Science/Astronomy/Miscellaneous)
1/1 Non-Computational Math and Computer Science
2/2 Fine Arts (1/1 Visual, 1/1 Music)
2/2 Religion, Mythology, and Philosophy
1/1 Social Science
1/1 Geography
1/1 Trash

The set is done, other than the trash, which is being written by my teammates. It will be continually revised, playtested, and polished before the tournament.

If you would like to attend the tournament, or if you have any questions for me, please contact me at adsilverman AT bellsouth DOT net. Thanks, we look forward to seeing you in January!

Interested Teams:
Eastside
Central Gwinnett
Cedar Shoals
Marist
Athens Academy
Rabun Gap
Dorman (SC)
Collins Hill

Confirmed:
Chattahoochee (2?)
Alpharetta
Norcross
Wheeler
Prince Avenue Christian
Brookwood

Hey teams:

This tournament is coming up rather soon after winter break, so I'd like to get some planning done over the holidays. I understand some schools may have trouble requisitioning funds before school is out; if that's the case, please email me and we can work something out. Regardless, if you are planning on attending, please fill out the registration form and either mail it to the school or email it to me so that we can get a good picture of the field before the week of.

The field has also been updated, with a lot of "interested" and not a lot of "confirmed." Let's start getting those forms in!

Thanks, we look forward to seeing you in January!

Order of finish:
National
1) Dorman A
2) Brookwood A
3) Chattahoochee A *
4) Dorman B

Varsity
1) Roswell A
2) Eastside
3) Johns Creek A
4) GSMST

Full stats: http://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/16 ... ull_stats/

*Remarkably, Chatt A and Dorman B had exactly the same W-L and PPG, but Chatt had stronger PPB. Also, for any ranking purposes, Chatt was short two members of its A team for the morning rounds.

There were some issues with the stats earlier, but these have hopefully all been corrected. As far as the set goes, it appears that the lower end of bonus conversion was actually pretty solid, and the upper end probably could have been better. Some of the hard parts might have been a bit too difficult for some teams, and some of the answer-lines were probably "strange."

Adam,

I thought the set was quite strong (as was the competition). It was really nice to hear such good questions and get to play most of the top teams in GA (plus the best team in SC and one of the best in the country). For this being your first tournament-directing experience, you did a superb job. Congratulations! Many thanks!