The Quizbowl Resource Center

by **alch2** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 7:22 pm

SO,
what's your fav regular season tourney/invitational?
mine is either Vandy Fall or Brookwood...both are fun
AC

by **alch2** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 7:23 pm

oh yeah, if there are others, just say them

by **jewtemplar** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 8:03 pm

I'd have to say Yale, although I hear it wasn't up to par this year (we had to miss it because of regionals). UMD always has great tournaments. Good questions and good administration. Swiss pairings really is the way to go.

by **Boselch** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 9:55 pm

For me, the best tournament I have been to this year would have to be Yale. Despite the fact that it didn't end until 9 or 10 it was still a fun tournament. The field was somewhat large and strong and our team always sems to have a good time in New Haven. Of course the fact that we did well didn't hurt either.

by **ManiacalClown** » Thu Apr 24, 2003 3:12 pm

Best Arkansas invitational is definitely Fort Smith Northside.

by **ASimPerson** » Fri Apr 25, 2003 1:00 am

Of those, I've been only to Vandy, so I went ahead and picked that. But easily the most well-run tournament I've been to all year was NAQT State. Bobo and Co. did an excellent job running the thing. Vandy fall had delays, but I guess that's expected when there's around 45 to 50 teams and they seemed to do all their stats on paper. UTC's Dennis Haskins moved along pretty well. Our own tournament went off without a hitch except for a team that forgot its buzzers, causing a 1.5 hour delay. (I guess that qualifies as a hitch. :) ) I give major kudos to Holy Spirit down in Tuscaloosa, who ran their first tournament of their existance as well, and wrote all their own questions (like we did). Definitely a quality effort from them.

Most tournaments I have bad memories about usually had bad questions, though. We have stores of Patrick's Press questions dating back to the late 80's, and the quality was really downhill this year. (Also, it probably didn't help that was I expoed to collegiate style questions, intruducing such concepts as multiple clues and pyramidal structure (since I'm not really fast, this was a big deal to me since it meant that I could answer questions before our two best players got to them).

by **jrbarry** » Sat Apr 26, 2003 9:09 pm

by **alch2** » Sat Apr 26, 2003 9:26 pm

tru dat
on those horrid pat's press q's man. we just couldnt get into good rhythms. oh well, looks like i'll have fun next year with new better questions! yeah, i'll get to see new "bob"s
AC

by **GT_Webb** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 5:09 pm

I remember back in my days of high school play I enjoyed Vandy the most. Always had solid questions, only the occassional repeat (considering the size of the tournament and the nature of the questions that's a pretty good feat), and the night-before seeding rounds I thought were an idea that other large tournaments that use divisions could latch on to, kinda bases things more on actual ability than reputation.

by **Kevin** » Thu May 01, 2003 11:22 am

Well, unfortunately my team hasn't traveled out of state much (I personally have never been out of state for quiz bowl and the team has only left the state once in the past four years) so I can't comment on any of those live tournaments. I really wish we traveled out of state, but it doesn't seem like it's been a huge priority. It's ashame because we are just as good as Caddo Magnet and Newman, teams which have traveled out of state for tournaments. We did start competing in QuizNet this year, finishing 2nd in the country in the fall and 1st in the country in the winter. It was a relaxed (mostly, although the playoffs were pretty tense) and fun competition.

My favorite tournaments have been the ESA Invitational and the NAQT State Tournaments. ESA has been going on for quite a while, and it's a good, early-season tournament which, since it's in Lafayette, pulls in teams from all over Louisiana. THey also do a nice job with the food for lunch.

NAQT does a great job of keeping things moving, cramming in games, and having good questions. I also love their individual stats. I'm no0t a huge fan of the game format, but they have the best toss-ups I've come across.

by **einstein must die** » Sun May 04, 2003 11:57 pm

if brookwood had pop culture questions, it would be the best tournament ever :)

it was still by far my favorite high school tournament.

by **DukeDJA** » Mon May 05, 2003 2:13 am

I'd have to say that during my high school days, Brookwood was without any doubt the most professional, most well-run, and funnest tournament year after year.

The canon of questions, whether written in-house or purchased elsewhere, was always superb in that the questions were accessible to the very inexperienced teams while rewarding the knowledge and speed of the powerhouses. The playoff rounds always seemed particularly exciting as well, in that the question difficulty was augmented along with the quality of the teams as it should be.

The field size was always the largest in the country (somewhere between 160-180 teams from a multitude of states [upwards of 15] and even territories), yet there were no timing issues that seem endemic at times to even the smallest of tournament fields. For a tournament whose playoff bracket of 64 is bigger than the total field size of most other tournaments, the speedy turn-around between the preliminary rounds and the playoffs was extremely appreciated by all involved--whether players, coaches, parents, or readers/timers.

The top 8 teams all received trophies at the end of the day, and deservedly so, as finishing in the top percentile of a tournament of that size and national team quality is worthy of recognition.

The minute details made the tournament great as well...printed standings were diffused to all teams throughout the day. The worksheet part of each round and the bounce-back bonus made the games seem more fast-paced and gave teams a vested interest in each moment of the round, even if they didn't get the tossup. Lunch was always cheap and easy, never requiring students to hop back on the bus to eat, as food was brought en masse to BHS.

And lastly, Brookwood had the graciousness to always give each team a copy of the tournament questions.

Always an enjoyable Saturday.

dja

by **harshrealm** » Tue May 06, 2003 5:56 pm

Brookwood is always well run, they order Buck's pizza (best in the county), readers are usually decent, and it's close enough to home that I can be home while the sun is shining. Actually, it's close enough that I can still get lunch/dinner at home. I love having that school 8 minutes away, lots of good people there.

by **jrbarry** » Wed May 07, 2003 8:44 pm

I think the Brookwood Tournament sucks. It is too big. There are no college sports questions. The pizza is too expensive. $.50 for canned Cokes is outraGeous. Most readers at BHS are illiterate and the tournament director thinks he knows everything and everyone else was created to serve him! At least that JERK Andrew Moore isn't the Student Director anymore. :>)

by **einstein must die** » Wed May 07, 2003 11:15 pm

hahahaha

by **mhanna** » Thu May 08, 2003 4:03 pm

Brookwood and Dorman are by far the best tournaments we have attended the past dozen years.The only college tournament that remotely resembles them is Vandy. Great job, guys. Keep up the good work.

by **irmogopher** » Mon May 12, 2003 1:18 pm

One tournament not really mentioned often is the tournament at Savannah Country Day School. It's not as big as Dorman or Brookwood but it is consistently good and well run. We always stay at a nice Hampton Inn on the riverfront so that might add to my opinion! Anyone else agree?

by **zwtipp** » Tue May 13, 2003 1:13 pm

I went to Duke this year and thought that it was one of the best tournaments that I've been to. I haven't been to many out of state tournaments but next year our team is planning on attending Vandy and Pitt.

by **ballsofsteele** » Wed May 14, 2003 9:30 pm

The Duke tournament this year was really pretty disappointing. The prelim rounds weren't that bad, but the abrupt chop of the playoff field was very frustrating, as we didnt make it after the new cut.
On top of all this, the impending storm forced us to take an alternate route through Spartanburg South Carolina. Unfortunately, the storm took the same detour and we were iced in for three days.

by **CHSJrVar2003#1** » Sun May 25, 2003 4:47 pm

Although i wouldn't venture quite so far as to say it was my favorite tournament of the year (since this is my first in HS), Emory's unofficial NAQT was quite well run, altho there was an ungodly amount of time before the first round. but it all worked out coz we were in the room with Milton and they started talking about futurama, and the next round a set of bonuses we got just happened to be about what? futurama! i don't know if this is a good thing coz we got the points or a bad thing that NAQT would ask about such stupid stuff...but either way, Emory wasn't all that bad. But, DODGE COUNTY IS THE BEST EVER! lol to all the Central Georgia people.

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