BMI4 on January 25, 2014 at Bloomington (IL) HS [IMSANITY 4]

[Dominator]

Bloomington High School and the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy are pleased to announce the fourth iteration of their tournament partnership. BMI4: Bloomington Mirror of IMSANITY 4 will take place at Bloomington High School in Bloomington, IL on January 25, 2014.

This tournament is using the IMSANITY 4 set, produced by the quizbowl team at IMSA. More information about the set can be found here.

The tournament is open to all interested teams, although we will temporarily cap the field at 18 teams until sufficient interest and staff urge us to increase that limit. Attached are an invitation letter and registration form. Hope to see you there!

[Dominator]

Field [Teams/Buzzers/Staffers]
Cumberland HS (Toledo) [2/1/1]
Keith Country Day School [1/1/1]
Springfield HS [2/1/0] *
Glenwood HS (Chatham) [2/1/0]
Moline HS [1/1/0]*
Ridgeview HS (Colfax) [1/?/?]
Macomb HS [3/3/0]*
Bloomington HS [2-3/?/?]
Central HS (Campaign) [1/?/?]

Total: 15-16

Staffers
Noah Prince
Brad Fischer
Eric Ordonez
Cumberland staffer
(IMSA and BHS people)

Total: 4+

*Payment has been received. Thank you!

[Dominator]

The field has been updated.

We are currently at 18-20 teams, which would be perfect. If interest dictates, we can expand up to 24, at which point we'll cap the field (at least temporarily).

If there is a question mark next to your school's name, it means that we haven't gotten your official registration form* yet, so please send that in soon.


*It could also mean that you sent it in but I haven't yet updated the post, so please give us a day to handle that.

[Dominator]

With less than a week to go, I'd be shocked if more schools signed up, so it looks like we will end up with either 18 or 20 teams. Once I get final registrations, I will close things up and post a schedule.

[Dominator]

Unfortunately, Carbondale has had to drop from the field. It looks like we will now be running with 16 teams.

[thrillhouse]

While I am sure they are still on the road back to Aurora, I want to thank Dr. Prince and IMSA for writing a fantastic set, and especially for staffing BMI4. A huge thanks goes out to the moderators Noah, Brad, Eric, Siva, Dan, Brian, Andrew, and Mr. Aydt. Thanks, too, go out to Cassie, Angelina, and Jessica. Perhaps most of all, HUGE props go out to Molly for runnin' stats like a boss.

The matches, especially at the top, made for fantastic drama. Really. Wow.

Thanks to all who came and competed.

After a long day of scholastic bowl (and on top of bonus scholastic bowl born of the drama of advataged finals), there are few better ways to unwind than a bit of pop culture quiz bowl. Luckily, we had just that.

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

Thanks to IMSA for a very enjoyable set to read. The main quality I felt this set had was that it pushed the boundary of what could be tossed up sliiiightly beyond the standard canon -- I don't recall anything absurd, as compared with HFT, and the worst that I noticed was a slight doubt from some players that [this thing that they knew things about] would actually be tossed up, but that doubt manifested in the form of correct tossups given shakily, rather than people letting them go dead. It worked well.
The main problem I had when reading was that some giveaways lacked "easy enough" giving away -- I don't recall any questions being missed because of it, but that's just my room, and it's likely to happen over the larger population of rooms. I'll send Noah all my notes on this.

Thanks to Bloomington for a well-run tournament -- my kids had a phenomenal time, and we're looking forward to driving down for it again next year!

Who won the advantaged final?

[thrillhouse]

Brad:
Thanks for the insights; I am sure Dr. Prince and IMSA will be happy to have them.

It was tense ending to the day. After winning the initial playoff bracket, including an especially tight match versus Springfield, Bloomington and SHS faced off again in an advantaged final. SHS took the first match pretty handily, but Bloomington held on for the victory in the second. Like the first of their three meetings, it went down to the last question. After Jackson nabbed TU #20, SHS needed to 30 the last bonus for a five-point win; BHS could only watch and wait as SHS took their crack at the bonuses - seriously, not a person in the room wasn't holding their breath. SHS took 2 of the 3 parts, leaving Bloomington the W by the slimmest of margins. Like I said: drama.
Congrats to both teams.