Montana - Torch Bowl Tourney

[QuizLegacy]

Enter Livingston!

This is the unofficial announcement for Livingston, Montana's Torch Bowl. Because it is unofficial, the specifics are still tentative.

Date: April 4th, 2014
Time: 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Place: Park High School, Livingston, MT

Benefits include:
[*]1) Strong competition from teams including yours truly; we expect to see Frenchtown and Billings Skyview, although we have yet to send invitations
[*]2) Guaranteed three rounds of play, followed by a play-off bracket
[*]3) Last chance to qualify for State competition in Missoula
[*]4) Last chance to qualify for National Academic Championship before State n Missoula

[High Dependency Unit]

[*]2) Guaranteed three rounds of play, followed by a play-off bracket
[*]4) Last chance to qualify for National Academic Championship before State n Missoula

A few things:
1. What set of questions will this tournament be using/who is the question provider? It is always a good idea to post that in a tournament announcement.
2. 3 guaranteed rounds of play seems like an extremely low amount-the fewest I've ever seen a tournament supply is 5 followed by a playoff bracket. The least you can do is offer consolation rounds for teams not in the playoffs.
3. To put it lightly, the National Academic Championship is an extremely bad tournament. There are a number of threads about how is bad and I highly recommend to anyone running a tournament to not affiliate yourself with . I have been to the NAC, and I have been to other national tournaments. In every way (format, competition, questions) the NAC was worse than the other national tournament (MSNCT). There are better national tournaments out there, but I don't know if you are aware of them or not. Hopefully someone else could explain more.

[QuizLegacy]

Thanks for the help. I would love to give details on the questions, and I am pushing to get the details finalized, but I am the co-organizer, and the organizer is still working on that.

Also, I understand people's feelings for the NAC, and I hope next year we can qualify for people for the other tournaments, but as it is, this is the first year of Torch Bowl. As it stands, time is running out, and we may not have the time to become an NAQT or NSC qualifier.

Finally, I agree with you on the guaranteed-match part. Due to a combination of limited space, time, and teams (Montana, the most populated state), 3 is all we can get at the moment. If, however, the number of teams greatly exceeds that originally expected (which it very well may), that will be our first priority.

Thanks for the advice; I'm not trying to say your post was useless, but rather that I'm actively working to improve the tournament, and I'm also glad to be reminded what other teams will want out of the experience.

[cchiego]

Also, I understand people's feelings for the NAC, and I hope next year we can qualify for people for the other tournaments, but as it is, this is the first year of Torch Bowl. As it stands, time is running out, and we may not have the time to become an NAQT or NSC qualifier.

This makes no sense. NAQT is incredibly easy to get questions from and you could do so in 15 minutes with a single email. The fact you're not doing this your first year doesn't augur well for future years.

Due to a combination of limited space, time, and teams (Montana, the most populated state), 3 is all we can get at the moment. If, however, the number of teams greatly exceeds that originally expected (which it very well may), that will be our first priority.

Somehow, previous tournaments in Montana that used NAQT questions managed to get in 6 games per team. Unless there was some kind of catastrophe at this tournament that we are not aware of, this is another red herring.

This sounds like a horrible step back for Montana from the progress Frenchtown appeared to be making.

[SevenbranchedCandelabra]

Hey David,
Glad to see a fellow Montanan here (I graduated from Frenchtown in 2012). First, I'd like to congratulate you on Park High's success in the past couple of years! If you have any questions about quizbowl in Montana, let me know, I'm pretty familiar with the organizations in Frenchtown, Missoula high schools, and Skyview so I could put you in contact with them if you'd like. Second, I'd like to offer you some advice. Please, please, please, stick to using pyramidal questions for your tournaments. As was previously mentioned in this thread, pyramidal questions from HSAPQ and NAQT are easy to obtain and are of much higher quality. One major difference is that questions from these providers are well-edited and free of hoses and trick questions. Most importantly, questions from HSAPQ or NAQT reward having in-depth knowledge. They differentiate teams that know more about a topic from teams that know less, not which teams can buzz in faster. The philosophy behind good quizbowl is that teams should be rewarded for knowing more, and pyramidal questions from providers such as NAQT or HSAPQ do the best job of that. If you're having logistical issues with the tournament, I would ask you to message me or Frenchtown's coach, Jim Stanicar, at stanicaj [at] ftsd [dot] org for assistance. My team encountered similar problems before. Also, do not let funding deter you. The first year we attended nationals (HSNCT, a pyramidal question tournament), we qualified in late April and had to raise enough money to attend nationals in a little under a month. The following three years, we started fundraising in the beginning of the year and sent a team to the NSC each year. It is possible to fundraise enough to attend a NSC or the HSNCT given the time between now and those events.

As it stands, time is running out, and we may not have the time to become an NAQT or NSC qualifier.

Funnily enough, Park High has already qualified for the HSNCT, due to your victory at Frenchtown's Fall Tournament! You can see the results here. http://www.naqt.com/stats/tournament-te ... nt_id=5216
I'm glad that there's continued enthusiasm for quizbowl in Montana. Please do not hesitate to message me if you have any questions. And again, use NAQT or HSAPQ questions for your tournament. Teams will prefer them, and you will be facilitating the growth of good quizbowl in a region that needs it.

[QuizLegacy]

cchiego wrote:
Somehow, previous tournaments in Montana that used NAQT questions managed to get in 6 games per team. Unless there was some kind of catastrophe at this tournament that we are not aware of, this is another red herring.

I would like to start off by saying that I have personally competed in 3 major tournaments (Frenchtown, Billings Skyview, Bozeman) at which the highest number of guaranteed games was 4. If there are other tournaments in Montana with a greater number of guaranteed matches, I think my team would be very interested in going, and also taking notes on their strategies in regards to higher game numbers, but as you can see, Frenchtown E at your example tournament only played 3 games. Therefore I would clarify that the teams that place higher will have played a total of 7 games.

While I admit I may have sounded like I was trying to be a perfect TD such that I've already thought of everything, and I apologize; however, I only intended to sound confident and on top of things, maybe a bit too much, and I do appreciate the help.

That said, thanks for the info on NAQT questions. I believe, if the head TD knows how quickly we can purchase these questions, he will be open to doing so. I probably sound like a robot when I say the information is very helpful, but it is nonetheless true.

P.S.

SevenbranchedCandelabra wrote:
Please, please, please, stick to using pyramidal questions for your tournaments.... They differentiate teams that know more about a topic from teams that know less, not which teams can buzz in faster.

I've been hearing a lot about pyramidal vs. non-pyramidal questions lately, and most people just say "they don't use pyramidal questions, how could they not use pyramidal questions, blah, blah, blah," but it's helpful to know you understand why they're better instead of being an alarm-system that goes off every time a non-pyramidal question is mentioned.

[RexSueciae]

I've been hearing a lot about pyramidal vs. non-pyramidal questions lately, and most people just say "they don't use pyramidal questions, how could they not use pyramidal questions, blah, blah, blah," but it's helpful to know you understand why they're better instead of being an alarm-system that goes off every time a non-pyramidal question is mentioned.

Nonpyramidal questions do not distinguish between differing skill levels and do not reward knowledge, which is pretty much the cornerstone of quizbowl. It's perfectly possible to have a decent time on questions that are shamelessly nonpyramidal, but given that NAQT and HSAPQ and others produce fairly inexpensive pyramidal questions, there's no reason at all to not take a gander at pyramidality. Otherwise, you kind of go against the reason why quizbowl exists.

[pajaro bobo]

there's no reason at all to not take a gander at pyramidality

Pretty sure that's not what he's doing.

[fett0001]

cchiego wrote:
Somehow, previous tournaments in Montana that used NAQT questions managed to get in 6 games per team. Unless there was some kind of catastrophe at this tournament that we are not aware of, this is another red herring.

I would like to start off by saying that I have personally competed in 3 major tournaments (Frenchtown, Billings Skyview, Bozeman) at which the highest number of guaranteed games was 4. If there are other tournaments in Montana with a greater number of guaranteed matches, I think my team would be very interested in going, and also taking notes on their strategies in regards to higher game numbers, but as you can see, Frenchtown E at your example tournament only played 3 games. Therefore I would clarify that the teams that place higher will have played a total of 7 games.

Upon looking into those stats, Frenchtown E and Beaverhead D appear to have been an exhibition teams created to fill out the playoff bracket, as they didn't play in the prelims, and are listed as not having scored any points.

[QuizLegacy]

Upon looking into those stats, Frenchtown E and Beaverhead D appear to have been an exhibition teams created to fill out the playoff bracket, as they didn't play in the prelims, and are listed as not having scored any points.

My team has played both of those teams at the Fall Invitational, and both of them managed to play more into the following brackets. Feel free to respond, and I'll probably read it, but I'm going to stop arguing or else I'll probably just get more worked up.

[SevenbranchedCandelabra]

Upon looking into those stats, Frenchtown E and Beaverhead D appear to have been an exhibition teams created to fill out the playoff bracket, as they didn't play in the prelims, and are listed as not having scored any points.

My team has played both of those teams at the Fall Invitational, and both of them managed to play more into the following brackets. Feel free to respond, and I'll probably read it, but I'm going to stop arguing or else I'll probably just get more worked up.

I understand that you played a Frenchtown E team or a Beaverhead D at the Fall Invitational, and that those teams do in fact exist. I think what was being suggested was that at the specific tournament, Frenchtown Fall 2012, Frenchtown E played only 3 games because it was a team created to fill out a playoff bracket. I think this is the most likely scenario. The tournament at which you played both Frenchtown E and Beaverhead D was the Frenchtown Fall 2013 tournament, where Beaverhead D played 6 games and Frenchtown E played 8 games, as you can see here: http://naqt.com/stats/tournament-teams. ... nt_id=5216 However, the composition of the Beaverhead D and Frenchtown E teams likely changed between the Fall 2012 and the Fall 2013 tournament, so to say that you have "played both of those teams" before doesn't really mean anything. It just seems that in the 2013 tournament, Frenchtown E was a full team (i.e., not a scab team), whereas they were probably created for the purposes of making the playoff brackets work in the 2012 tournament.
The point here is that basically all of the teams at Frenchtown tournaments are playing more than 4 matches. Similarly, I recall doing stats for at least 5 preliminary matches for our home tournaments when I was at Frenchtown. Now, regarding the other "major" tournaments in Montana: Bozeman and Billings are not really "good" tournaments. Neither Billings nor Bozeman use pyramidal questions. Bozeman is just a double elimination tournament. If I remember correctly the Billings tournament uses questions written by an English teacher from the East coast, which are admittedly better than most non-pyramidal questions but still not able to differentiate between two decently good teams. I also remember playing at least 4 preliminary matches in Billings. It would be worthwhile to try and convince the directors of the Bozeman tournament and Coach McFate at Skyview to use pyramidal questions. Coach McFate has been receptive to using pyramidal questions in the past. He has hosted History Bowl, which uses pyramidal questions for 4 years and counting. In any case, I hope you are able to obtain NAQT or HSAPQ questions for your tournament and that it gets more Montana quizbowl teams to enjoy pyramidal questions and quizbowl in general.