2012 Natl. History Bee & Bowl Nationals - 4/28-29 in DC

[Great Bustard]

Edit 3/20 in a number of places for updates. Please see http://www.historybowl.com and http://www.historybee.com for the most accurate information on our National Championships.

Excuse the length of this post... All of this information is provided here to help facilitate discussion where anything is unclear.
The National History Bee and Bowl is pleased to officially announce the date of its second National Championships on Saturday, April 28 and Sunday April 29, 2012 in greater Washington, DC and that the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Crystal City, Arlington, VA will be the official host hotel. The National History Bowl National Championships (i.e. the team event) will be held in their entirety on Saturday the 28th. The National History Bee National Championships will be held in their entirety on Sunday the 29th.

Qualification
Both the Bee and the Bowl will feature Varsity (open to all students, no age restrictions) and Junior Varsity (10th grade and under only) Divisions; teams qualify through finishing with a winning record in their division or by winning at least one playoff match at any of our projected 75-85 qualifying tournaments around the USA and abroad. Individuals qualify for the Bee through finishing in the top 1/3 of students in their division at any of our qualifying tournaments, or by making the final rounds at the qualifying tournament. As we are featuring three separate question sets, students and teams have up to three chances to qualify - there is no difference for qualifying purposes as to whether a team qualifies off of an A set, B set, or C set tournament. Edit: 3/20 re Wild Card Policy:
Since we are aware that due to the distribution of tournaments, not everyone had an equal opportunity to qualify, we are extending wild card bids to teams who went 2-3 who did not have more than 1 tournament within a 250 mile drive. These are teams who might otherwise have likely qualified given a second or third opportunity to play within a four-hour drive. All teams must still have competed once though at an NHBB Regional tournament. Likewise, if a team had registered for a tournament which was canceled, they are given an automatic bid, as cancellations are not the fault of teams who had planned accordingly. This will affect at most about 6 schools this year; they have been contacted regarding this.

Tournament Format
Teams will be guaranteed (Edit 3/20 - 5 rounds are guaranteed on site; the rest will likely be at the hotel) 5 rounds of preliminary matches this year at sites of historic and cultural importance in Washington, DC including the Smithsonian museums, the International Spy Museum, National Museum of Crime and Punishment, Dumbarton House, Anderson House, the Embassies of Slovenia, Uruguay, Malawi, and Nigeria (more to come), the Newseum, the Phillips Collection, the Woodrow Wilson House, the Middle East Insitute, the Kosciuszko Foundation, and more. Teams will be grouped into a seeded bracket of six teams in the morning and play a full round robin. Teams will either play at a site that falls under the heading of Greater DuPont Circle or Greater Mall/Capitol Hill. Teams will then play their afternoon matches based on where they finished in their morning games. Depending on how many teams sign up, there will be either two or three levels of rebracketing in the afternoon (meaning either that teams ranked 1, 2, and 3 in their division in the morning will advance to the top bracket in the afternoon while teams ranked 4-6 would play in the lower bracket. Alternatively, just teams ranked 1 and 2 in their morning division would qualify for the top bracket, in which case there would then be an afternoon middle bracket for teams ranked 3 and 4 in the morning, and an afternoon lower bracket for teams ranked 5 and 6 in the morning as well).
In the afternoon, teams will play at different sites, but if they played at a DuPont Circle site in the morning, they will do so as well in the afternoon (same thing for Mall/Capitol Hill). This will minimize moving around DC and help us stay on schedule. There will be a minimum of a 90 minute lunch break, and teams will not have to move more than 2 miles at most from their morning to their afternoon site during this time.
For the Varsity division, the top 32 teams (based first on finish in their afternoon division, then by afternoon points) will then qualify for the playoffs in the evening. These matches will then be held at the hotel (see below). In the playoffs, teams will be seeded based on results from the afternoon's matches into 8 groups of 4 and play a round robin of three matches. The winners of these will then play three single elimination final rounds which are expected to conclude around 10:15pm at the hotel.
For the JV division, we are likely to have 16 teams qualify for the final rounds; these will also consist of 4 groups of 4 teams which will then play a round robin. Tentatively, two of these groups will play their matches at the Newseum, one will play at the nearby International Spy Museum and one will play at the Museum of Crime and Punishment. The winners of all four groups will then play single elim semifinals and finals at the Newseum. This is projected to end around 8:30pm, which would allow participants enough time to return to the hotel by 9:30pm to watch the final Varsity match. If this is unfeasible or undesired by teams, we will have enough space to do the JV playoffs at the hotel as well.
We will also be featuring a Small School final championship in both Varsity and JV. Small schools however will not be in a separate draw. If one small school (definition forthcoming) reaches a level of the competition farther than any other (e.g. only one small school is found among the 32 Varsity playoff teams or if only one small school reaches the final 8) then that school will be the automatic small school champion. However, if two small schools each are in the same final level, then they will compete for the title, even if one has a higher order of finish. If more than two schools are at the same level (e.g. say three small schools make the 32 Varsity playoff teams, but none make the elite 8), then the top two will play for the title. If one finishes at a higher level than any other, but two (or more) finish at the next level down, then the top two of these will play for the small school 2nd place title.

EDIT 4/25 - OFFICIAL START TIMES
In the Bee on Sunday, we will have 6 prelim rounds with (Edit 3/20) 40 questions each divided as follows:
Rd 1 8:05 World History to 1491
Rd 2 8:48 US (incl. colonial) History to 1815
Rd 3 9:31 World History 1492-1932
Rd 4 10:14 US History 1816-1932
Rd 5 10:57 World History 1933-2010
Rd 6 11:40 US History 1933-2010
End at 12:05

Consolation Bee (consists of 4 rounds only) Finals: 12:05-12:20
Tiebreakers held, if needed: 12:15-12:30
Mt Vernon Qualifiers announced at 12:30
Leave for Mt Vernon at 12:45
Arrive at Mt Vernon at 1:15
Welcome Message at 1:35
Final rounds begin at 1:45, end at 3:45; awards ceremony concludes by 4:00; return to hotel/National Airport by 4:30 (an earlier bus will arrive by 4pm)

The top 20 Varsity and top 10 JV students will be bused out to Mount Vernon for the final rounds in the afternoon, the format of which is found in the recent forum post on the topic. In contrast with last year, all Bee rounds on Sunday morning will be held at the host hotel. Also, this will also allow us to offer a "Consolation Bee" which will run concurrently with the 6 morning rounds, and will be open solely to those students who did not qualify at a qualifying tournament for the National History Bee National Finals.

Questions
All questions used at our National Championships will be provided by High School Academic Pyramid Questions (HSAPQ) and edited by HSAPQ in conjunction with The National History Bee and Bowl. This year's tossups will be somewhat shorter than last year's. Also, tossups in the Junior Varsity division at all levels, tossups in the afternoon rounds of the Bowl for the lower level(s) and tossups used in the Consolation Bee will be slightly shorter and easier as well.

Prizes
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will be providing monetary prizes for the top teams and students. The amounts in question will be Edit 3/20 $10,000 for all competitions combined. Other prizes, including the History Bowls and Bee Cups, plaques, book prizes, MVP awards, sportsmanship awards, and possibly other in-kind prizes and scholarships will be awarded as well.

Hotel
The official hotel for The 2012 National History Bee and Bowl National Championships is the Crystal Gateway Marriott http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/wasgw-crystal-gateway-marriott/ in Crystal City, Arlington, VA. We have secured a rate of $127 per night plus tax for quad occupancy. This rate is valid from Wednesday April 25 through Tuesday May 1 for teams who wish to extend their stay. The hotel is connected by an underground walkway to a Metro station (i.e. the subway), which is about 3 minutes away. From the hotel to the center of DC it is only 3-4 stops. Between the hotel and the subway stop is an underground shopping mall with numerous food options for all price ranges. In contrast with last year, we will have access to 61 suites for scrimmage and side event matches on Friday night and for the Bee preliminary matches and the Consolation Bee on Sunday. We will also have access to a 1000 seat ballroom for an opening meeting on Friday evening and playoff matches for the Varsity on Saturday night. We also have six other conference rooms at our disposal for the quarterfinal and semifinal matches on Saturday, along with the Small School championships. To avoid elevator traffic jams on Sunday, Bee matches will likely have slightly staggered start times, though with six elevators, we should be okay. Internet access is free in the lobby and the competition rooms; in the bedrooms it is extra, but between smart phones and complimentary internet in the lobby, this shouldn't be a major concern. Parking costs about $20 a night, but the hotel is also located only about half a mile from Reagan National Airport, and there is a free airport shuttle as well. We recommend you fly into Reagan National if you plan on flying. Teams who fly will not need to rent cars to get around. We have secured 450 bedrooms at the hotel; hopefully this will suffice; if not we can likely secure overflow space at the same rate at the nearby Crystal City Marriott across the street (note this is a different hotel from the Crystal Gateway, which is where the tournament is). As the tournament coincides with the Cherry Blossom festival, as the Crystal Gateway Marriott is the closest of all Crystal City hotels to the Metro, and as numerous NHBB events will take place there, we highly recommend you take advantage of the rate we have negotiated, which is very competitive for an upscale hotel in greater DC at this time of year (including tax, it's about $27 cheaper per room per night than our rate at the main hotel last year). Finally, the hotel is located on the way to Mount Vernon, which will effectively give us 30 more minutes of competition/later start time than what we had last year, where the Bee rounds also necessitated going to a separate site in the morning.

[b]Friday Night Events
Update 4/25 See http://friday.historybowl.com/ for the official lineup of Friday night events.[/b]

The Coaches' Bee and the National Popular Culture History Bee will each cost $20; all other events are free (including the Staff Bee for staff). The Coaches' Bee will feature questions from all periods and aspects of history. Depending on student input, the Popular Culture History Bee will either have sports and entertainment and broader culture all mixed in together, or we'll split it up entirely into a Sports History Bee and a Popular Culture History Bee. Depending on the number who sign up and whether students would want it, we'll do a separate JV division or not. Note that Coaches' Bee and NPCHB questions are not by HSAPQ.

Costs
The final costs will be a $450 base fee for a team in the Bowl and $80 base fee for a student in the Bee. There will be no difference in price from JV to Varsity. Discounts will be offered for hosting a qualifying tournament ($50 per host school for one team), providing moderators (see http://www.historybowl.com for details here) and bringing a functioning buzzer system ($15). For the Bee, the only discount offered will be for having won a qualifying tournament ($15). The Consolation Bee will cost about $50 per student but will feature no monetary prizes nor the opportunity to play in the finals at Mount Vernon. The amounts of these discounts will be determined when we see what our needs are. Tournament costs also include a free commemorative program, a gift for each coach, and a commemorative team photo, and homemade cookies. Lots of cookies.
(Edit 3/20)There is no limit on the number of teams at Nationals.

Staff Wanted!
If you are interested in helping to staff the NHBB Nationals, please email director at historybowl dot com. We will try to honor reading requests as much as we can (i.e. whether you would prefer to read at an embassy, museum, mansion, etc.). Staff members are given a complimentary polo shirt and staff gift. They also have the opportunity to play in the Staff Bee late on Friday night. We can reimburse travel expenses on a case by case basis (up to $150 per person, but this depends on our needs), and also help you find people to carpool with if applicable. Accommodations for staff are provided on Friday and Saturday night, along with a $15 food allowance and thousands of homemade chocolate chip cookies (that's for everyone, not per person. sorry.) Also, note that different permanent NHBB staff members will be responsible for coordinating various aspects of Nationals.

Questions? Comments?
If you have suggestions or comments, please post in this thread. If it's a question that is specific to your team or does not relate to NHBB Nationals, email me. We're working hard to alleviate all the logistical issues from last year; with a lot more planning time, staff, and a much better hotel, we are highly confident that everything that needed fixing has been thought of. Still, let us know your thoughts and we'll take them into consideration. Good luck in qualifying and hope to see you and your team at NHBB Nationals next April!

[salmon of wisdom]

Depending on how many teams sign up, there will be either two or three levels of rebracketing in the afternoon (meaning either that teams ranked 1, 2, and 3 in their division in the morning will advance to the top bracket in the afternoon while teams ranked 4-6 would play in the lower bracket. Alternatively, just teams ranked 1 and 2 in their morning division would qualify for the top bracket, in which case there would then be an afternoon middle bracket for teams ranked 3 and 4 in the morning, and an afternoon lower bracket for teams ranked 5 and 6 in the morning as well).

Due to the amount of teams probably coming to this nationals, I think it would be unfeasible to have two or three re-brackets. Re-bracketing a tournament once with 200 teams would be very hard and to do this two or three teams would be inviting disaster to strike. If a problem were to occur during one of the many re brackets this tournament could run ridiculously late. Also, will there be time for dinner if you make the playoffs?

[jonpin]

Depending on how many teams sign up, there will be either two or three levels of rebracketing in the afternoon (meaning either that teams ranked 1, 2, and 3 in their division in the morning will advance to the top bracket in the afternoon while teams ranked 4-6 would play in the lower bracket. Alternatively, just teams ranked 1 and 2 in their morning division would qualify for the top bracket, in which case there would then be an afternoon middle bracket for teams ranked 3 and 4 in the morning, and an afternoon lower bracket for teams ranked 5 and 6 in the morning as well).

Due to the amount of teams probably coming to this nationals, I think it would be unfeasible to have two or three re-brackets. Re-bracketing a tournament once with 200 teams would be very hard and to do this two or three teams would be inviting disaster to strike. If a problem were to occur during one of the many re brackets this tournament could run ridiculously late. Also, will there be time for dinner if you make the playoffs?

The way I'm reading this paragraph is not that there will be 2-3 pauses for rebracketing, but 2-3 tiers of brackets. So much as PACE 2010 had four levels of playoff brackets (each with two divisions of eight), this would have 2-3 levels of afternoon brackets (each with X divisions of six).

My concern about the structure, besides the oft-repeated "biting off more than anyone could chew" problem, is this: The goal is roughly 200 teams, so I'll estimate 120 varsity and 80 JV. Of the 120 varsity teams, the top third make the top tier for the afternoon which is 40. And now from those 40, 32 make the playoff stage. Similarly, JV would use the afternoon to weed ~25 into 16. Am I misreading that? I think I'd recommend that both varsity and JV use half as many teams in the third stage, allowing the top two teams from each third-stage pool to advance to the knockout stage. So a potential schematic would be
120 varsity
Morning: 20 groups of 6
Afternoon: 3 tiers with roughly 7/7/6 divisions of 6
Evening: 4 pools of 4
Knockout: 8 teams

72 varsity
Morning: 12 groups of 6
Afternoon: 3 tiers with 4/4/4 divisions of 6
Evening: 2 pools of 4
Knockout: 4 teams
This reduces the odds that a tiebreaker will eliminate a team after the evening stage.

[Great Bustard]

Depending on how many teams sign up, there will be either two or three levels of rebracketing in the afternoon (meaning either that teams ranked 1, 2, and 3 in their division in the morning will advance to the top bracket in the afternoon while teams ranked 4-6 would play in the lower bracket. Alternatively, just teams ranked 1 and 2 in their morning division would qualify for the top bracket, in which case there would then be an afternoon middle bracket for teams ranked 3 and 4 in the morning, and an afternoon lower bracket for teams ranked 5 and 6 in the morning as well).

Due to the amount of teams probably coming to this nationals, I think it would be unfeasible to have two or three re-brackets. Re-bracketing a tournament once with 200 teams would be very hard and to do this two or three teams would be inviting disaster to strike. If a problem were to occur during one of the many re brackets this tournament could run ridiculously late. Also, will there be time for dinner if you make the playoffs?

The way I'm reading this paragraph is not that there will be 2-3 pauses for rebracketing, but 2-3 tiers of brackets. So much as PACE 2010 had four levels of playoff brackets (each with two divisions of eight), this would have 2-3 levels of afternoon brackets (each with X divisions of six).

My concern about the structure, besides the oft-repeated "biting off more than anyone could chew" problem, is this: The goal is roughly 200 teams, so I'll estimate 120 varsity and 80 JV. Of the 120 varsity teams, the top third make the top tier for the afternoon which is 40. And now from those 40, 32 make the playoff stage. Similarly, JV would use the afternoon to weed ~25 into 16. Am I misreading that? I think I'd recommend that both varsity and JV use half as many teams in the third stage, allowing the top two teams from each third-stage pool to advance to the knockout stage. So a potential schematic would be
120 varsity
Morning: 20 groups of 6
Afternoon: 3 tiers with roughly 7/7/6 divisions of 6
Evening: 4 pools of 4
Knockout: 8 teams

72 varsity
Morning: 12 groups of 6
Afternoon: 3 tiers with 4/4/4 divisions of 6
Evening: 2 pools of 4
Knockout: 4 teams
This reduces the odds that a tiebreaker will eliminate a team after the evening stage.

Jon and Todd,
Thanks for your comments. Obviously, the reason I'm posting about this so early is so that we can hash all this out way ahead of time to make sure it runs as smoothly as possible. First off, I think it would help to outline a potential schedule for the Bowl, so here goes:

Morning Rounds
Rd 1: 8:45
Rd 2: 9:20
Rd 3: 9:45
Rd 4: 10:15
Rd 5: 10:45

Keep in mind that all readers at Nationals this year will be trained and experienced, and that each site will have only 3 rooms (a very few may have 6 and run two brackets). I think running on 30 minute intervals is entirely realistic. Even allowing for some extra time to sort out issues, the morning rounds should finish by 11:45 at the absolute latest. Since the afternoon rounds will be within 2 miles tops of the morning rounds, 90 minutes (really, this should be more like 2 hours for the vast majority of teams, assuming it runs on time) is more than enough to get to the next stop, even if it's not known prior to the competition day where teams will play in the afternoon (though they'll know it will be at one of six possible sites, tops, and most teams will be able to plan on it being 3 sites or fewer, if they can project their order of finish in the morning rounds).

Afternoon Rounds
Rd 6: 1:15
Rd 7: 1:45
Rd 8: 2:15
Rd 9: 2:45
Rd 10: 3:15

Likewise, even allowing for leeway, the afternoon rounds should end no later than 4:15 at the absolute latest. The evening matches would then start at 6:15pm. This gives teams 2 hours at least to make it back to the hotel, grab something at the food court, that's right at the hotel, and start the evening matches

Evening Round Robin Rounds
Rd 11: 6:15
Rd 12: 6:50
Rd 13: 7:25
End: 8:00

Knockout Rounds
Quarterfinals: 8:20
Seminfals: 9:00
Finals: 9:40
End: 10:15
End Awards: 10:30

Obviously, I'm wary of overreaching, but I think this is an eminently doable schedule, especially with the hotel being a 3 minute walk from the metro, and the food court in between the metro and the hotel.

Now onto Jon's question. 200 teams is a goal; we may have more. Looking at it more closely, due to the need to give teams an opportunity to play at 2 different sites, have the sites be close to each other, but avoid playing teams they played in the morning, I think a two tiered structure is probably much more plausible for the afternoon. Also, I think 120 teams in the Varsity is probably on the low end. Not to get overly optimistic, but we had 72 Varsity last year, coming off of 32 regionals, 3 of which ran the weekend before Nationals. Our average numbers this year at all our tournaments will be up too. Also, even if we did get 200 teams, then I think a split of 140-60 is probably more likely (last year it was 72-28, Varsity/JV). So if we have 140 Varsity teams in the morning, and 70 in the upper bracket in the afternoon, then maybe we could take 24 into the evening rounds, in 6 groups of four. That way the winners in each bracket would advance along with the top two second seeds (this would at some level at least help to guard against leaving a great team out of the top 8; if you don't win your group and aren't one of the top 2 of the 6 second seeds, I'm not going to be feeling much sympathy at that late stage in the competition - at a certain point, teams need to get eliminated; the issue is doing it in a fair and logistically feasible manner, and I think this would allow for that.) Even if we had as many as, say 180 Varsity teams, then 90 would make the top afternoon rounds, and then we could take 28 (with the winners of 7 groups and one wild card second seed in the evening making knockout) for the evening. So I think it could scale up if need be.
Thoughts? Thanks again for your input, I really appreciate it.

[pray for elves]

I would be wary of suggesting that teams eat dinner in the food court. Most of the places in the Crystal City Shops are only open 9-5 Monday through Friday, including restaurants. A few will be open.

[Great Bustard]

According to this: http://www.thecrystalcityshops.com/ it says shops are open until 6pm on Saturday; restaurants longer. The bigger issue is likely to be Sunday morning for breakfast, as the shops are closed on Sundays, but we can work something out. There's an Einstein Bros. Bagels in the hotel (opening in a few weeks) that will definitely be open though. We can work with them so they're prepared for a rush. Thanks for the heads up here.

[STPickrell]

Saturday would be ok for Crystal City; while some places will be closed most will be open. Sunday I'd be more worried about.

Have they re-opened the food court in the 1800 Crystal Drive area? When I left BNA in October 2010, it was still closed and I had heard no plans for setting something else in that area.

With that said, I wouldn't be terribly worried about finding places to eat, there's at least 15-20 restaurants within a 10 minute walk (a few in the 1800 Crystal Drive area, still more in the 2200 Crystal Drive area, a few in the 2500 Crystal Drive area, and still more along 23rd Street just west of Route 1, although the latter might only work for non-playoff teams.)

Now the downside is that the fast casual places (Chipotle, Au Bon Pain, etc.) are more likely to be closed by this hour, but not all.

I'd honestly be more worried about getting to Crystal City, getting a table, getting food, and getting back to the hotel all in 2-2.5 hours, though, especially with people who're not terribly familiar with the area.

[Great Bustard]

The hotel's basement is effectively a food court; it's basically a two minute walk to a bunch of places to eat; most of which are fast food in nature. As for Sunday, we will order pizza and sandwiches or something comparable if we need to. Again, we'll have five weeks between the last of our regional tournaments and Nationals; time that we will use to handle all sorts of logistical issues like this. We'll work this out for sure.

[Great Bustard]

I am pleased to announce that the winner of the Varsity Division of The National History Bee High School Competition will in addition to their ACE Quizbowl Camp Scholarship now also receive a $2000 travel stipend to compete in The European Championships of The National History Bee on May 18-20 on the French Riviera. Full details at: http://www.nhbbeurope.com/regionalsite/european-championships/
Further prize information will follow as sponsors are secured.

[DumbJaques]

Wow, that's just awesome.

So uh, any chance we'll be seeing a College History Bowl version of "send you to the French Riviera to play quizbowl?"

[Great Bustard]

This year, no, but we'll be looking to likely set up a European collegiate division in 2013-2014, with a collegiate world championship a possibility in 2014-2015, and a high likelihood in 2015-2016. And an open division too. Eventually, the idea is that everyone around the world age 7 and older can play NHBB. But that's the 10 year plan.

[Great Bustard]

We will likely need to push Riviera Bowl back to the first Saturday in June, as 5/19 is smack in the middle of IB testing, which, Nolwenn tells me, something like 90% of the schools she's contacted in Europe have their students do. This will be confirmed asap.

[List of Fighting Spirit characters]

We will likely need to push Riviera Bowl back to the first Saturday in June, as 5/19 is smack in the middle of IB testing, which, Nolwenn tells me, something like 90% of the schools she's contacted in Europe have their students do. This will be confirmed asap.

This schedule would pose a great risk of mental exhaustion for the potential American player, especially if they're also making the rounds at HSNCT/NSC/NASAT. Nevertheless, it is probably the only viable time to hold such an event.

[Great Bustard]

Nationals registration will open (EDIT 2/4) on Feb. 10 at http://www.historybowl.com. It will stay open until (Edit 3/28: Wednesday, April 18 at 11pm Eastern - as per registration website here: http://www.historybowl.com/nationals-registration/ ) There is no field cap.

[Great Bustard]

Update on NHBB Nationals:

Hotel and Rate
Crystal Gateway Marriott. $127 + tax (roughly $14) per room per night for quad occupancy. Call 703-920-3230 to reserve, and say you're with The National History Bee and Bowl to get the rate.

Confirmed Prices
Base Fee for Bowl Team: $450
Buzzer Discount: $15 per system, limit 2 per team
Experienced Moderator Discount: $75 for the Bowl, $25 for the Bee, $25 for Friday night bees (possible of $125, limit one per team, can be capped if no more moderators end up being needed, though teams signing up with this will not have theirs retracted)
Host School Discount: $50 per Bowl team

Base Fee for Bee: $80 per student. No further discounts.
Base Fee for National Sports History Bee OR National Entertainment History Bee on Friday evening: $25 per student, $30 per adult.

Note that in the Friday night Bees, students up through 11th grade will all play in a JV division. Students in 12th grade will play with adults, including interested coaches, in an open division. No crossover registrations are permitted for students in 11th grade and younger.

Finally, there may be a consolation bee on Sunday, but registration for that would only open in early April, once I ensure there's enough room for all interested Bee qualifiers to play. Registration will open by Friday, Feb. 10! See you in DC!

[Great Bustard]

Granted, this thread hasn't been updated in ages, but I have edited parts of the original post for more accurate updates. The most important of these concerns a Wild Card Policy update; the following is excerpted from the above post. Teams for whom this applies will be contacted early next week. For the most up to date NHBB Nationals Information, see www.historybowl.com or www.historybee.com and click on the appropriate tabs. Or email me, but look first online for details as I get about 100 emails a day, and am trying to keep the flood to a minimum.

Edit: 3/20 re Wild Card Policy:
Since we are aware that due to the distribution of tournaments, not everyone had an equal opportunity to qualify, we are extending wild card bids to teams who went 2-3 who did not have more than 1 tournament within a 250 mile drive. These are teams who might otherwise have likely qualified given a second or third opportunity to play within a four-hour drive. All teams must still have competed once though at an NHBB Regional tournament. Likewise, if a team had registered for a tournament which was canceled, they are given an automatic bid, as cancellations are not the fault of teams who had planned accordingly. This will affect at most about 6 schools this year; they have been contacted regarding this.

[Great Bustard]

Current Field Size as of 3/28:
High School Varsity: 80
High School JV: 27
Middle School: 7

Current Overall # of teams: 114

Projected Field Size:
High School Varsity: 123-135
High School JV: 30-36
Middle School: 12-14

Overall Estimated # of teams: 165-190

Staffers still very much needed. Please email NHBB Nationals Staff Director Nick Clusserath at info@historybee.com for details.

[Madagascar Serpent Eagle]

This is the weekend before exams at a lot of semester schools, so that's probably contributing to difficulty with staff recruitment.

[Great Bustard]

I'm going to have a comprehensive look at our staff situation on Monday. We'll be okay though, and everyone will go through a training session with subpar readers relegated to scorekeeping.

[jonpin]

I'd like to make a strong suggestion that all teams and staffers receive by email ahead of time and in paper copy the day of the tournament an overview of the rules, so that everyone knows the procedures for subs, quarter-by-quarter play, handling common but abnormal circumstances. Also that the Game Format and Official Rules pages on the NHBB website be updated ASAP, so that teams are not surprised or confused by the rules when they get to DC.

[Great Bustard]

This will be done. We will also have mandatory moderator training sessions on Friday for all readers. Finally, the format of the prelim games at Nationals is entirely the same as the format of Regionals games this year, so that should also help to avoid confusion.

[Great Bustard]

Current Field Size as of 4/6:
High School Varsity: 100
High School JV: 39
Middle School: 10

Current Overall # of teams: 149

Projected Field Size:
High School Varsity: 126, 132, 138, 144, or 150
High School JV: 48 or 54
Middle School: 12

Overall Estimated # of teams: 176-216 - around 190-200 most likely

Staffers still very much needed. Please email NHBB Nationals Staff Director Nick Clusserath at info@historybee.com for details.

[Kouign Amann]

I'm going to have a comprehensive look at our staff situation on Monday.

What were the results of this analysis? Your last few posts have all included "staffers still very much needed." A tournament with no field cap inevitably runs into these sorts of issues. What are your plans if these staffers don't materialize?

[Great Bustard]

We have about 100 readers lined up - with the mandatory training and the fact that the Nationals is using the exact same rules as Regionals this year, we are in good shape. That said, some readers could be moved to scorekeeping if other more experienced readers express an interest in helping out. We can still certainly use scorekeepers too, though at this point, DC area people who don't need rooms are really who we are going to be looking to here.
In any case, right now, I'm more concerned about finding a few additional host sites (that are not schools or colleges for the sake of variety) If anyone reading this has connections at any DC area businesses, NGOs, museums, etc., and think they might be able to offer 3 rooms for either or both the morning or afternoon on Saturday, April 28, I'd greatly appreciate any offers.

[Great Bustard]

Just a final reminder that registration for NHBB Nationals closes at 11pm Eastern on Wed. April 18.
Current field is:
131 Varsity
47 JV
11 Middle school

and can be viewed here: http://www.historybowl.com/nationals-teams/ in full. Good luck with your preparations! Greetings from Dupont Circle, DC.

[Francis the Talking France]

Is there a list of players registered for the bee(s) anywhere (Sports/Entertainment/History Bees that is)?

[Great Bustard]

We will try and post lists, but don't expect anything before Monday at the earliest. Also, sports and entertainment will likely have registration remain open through 4/26 at least - possibly early on 4/27 too. Roughly 300 people will compete in the Bee - pretty even split between Varsity and JV for now.

[Great Bustard]

NHBB Nationals field confirmed and now closed at:
138 Varsity
48 JV
11 (possibly 12) Middle

Note: Varsity field is currently at 135, but we're in touch with 3 schools we expect to complete the field. See: http://www.historybowl.com/nationals-teams/ for updated list

[Great Bustard]

Field is now finalized for Varsity and JV. Still waiting to hear back from the potential 12th middle school - if they don't work, we'll find someone else.

[salmon of wisdom]

Logistically, how will teams know where to go in the afternoon? Will there be some official way of telling each team where they are playing, or will you just need to figure out where to go from the schedule?

[jonathanmarx]

Is there a list of players registered for the bee(s) anywhere (Sports/Entertainment/History Bees that is)?

I take it this isn't happening at this point? Do you have numbers at least on the registration for the JV/Open divisions of each? Just curious about the turnout.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

A have a quick question about rules that i couldn't find in the rules document - i'll be reading tomorrow at the Arlington hotel so i want to be clear.

It's kind of a rare event, but i just wanted to ask in case there is a rule.

Which team gets to pick the lightning round category first if the two teams are tied going into that round?

[bird bird bird bird bird]

If the teams are tied, the last team to answer a tossup correctly will go first.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Awesome. Thanks so much Jeff. I figured it was there somewhere but i just couldn't find it.

I'm excited to staff! Good luck to all the teams.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

The bowl is mercilessly coming to an end. I left around 9:30 because i had a 2-hour drive home. I believe the Varsity HS quarterfinals were being read. I read the Middle School semifinals and finals. Longfellow was victorious and St. Ignatius finished second.

The rest of the tournament, namely the games read in the hotel rooms, will be the topic of much conversation (read: consternation) in the short future, so i'll contribute to that commentary when the time comes.

[The Predictable Consequences]

You know, maybe telling people beforehand that the Bee wouldn't include the modern American history round would have been a good idea.

[nadph]

Rumor is that Alex Frey of St. Joseph's won the Varsity Bee and Sameer Rai of Bellarmine won JV.

[jonpin]

I'm going to have a comprehensive look at our staff situation on Monday.

What were the results of this analysis? Your last few posts have all included "staffers still very much needed." A tournament with no field cap inevitably runs into these sorts of issues. What are your plans if these staffers don't materialize?

REMARKABLY PRESCIENT. I will have a full-length post of some sort by Tuesday, but ohhhh boy. It's hard for me to come up with an aspect of the tournament I was present for that went as planned/as the David Madden Experience claimed it would.

[jbarnes112358]

So, who won the bowl? Results anyone?

[nadph]

From the other thread:

Yeah, Hunter won 330-190 over Bellarmine (Ankit/Sameer), and in JV, Northmont won 210-200 against Chattahoochee.

[Francis the Talking France]

You know, maybe telling people beforehand that the Bee wouldn't include the modern American history round would have been a good idea.

Yes, not that this would've been pivotal to my score today, but I think a lot of people were banking on this round being what would put them over the top or at least allow them to have one good round.

[Edward Powers]

Rumor is that Alex Frey of St. Joseph's won the Varsity Bee and Sameer Rai of Bellarmine won JV.

That rumor is correct. Sameer defeated Jonathan Leidenheimer from George Marshall in the JV Championship match, while Alex emerged as the National Champion in a Final 4 which also included last year's National Champion, Mark Arilldsen of The University School of Nashville, Richard Yu of Hunter, this year's MVP in the National History Bowl, and Bruce McCuskey of Nitro, who earned his spot in the Final 4 by edging out Bobby Dorigo Jones of DCC in a very competitive Semifinal match. So Alex earned his victory against a very gifted field. And I know that Mark & Richard tied for 2nd.

[Cheynem]

I know HSAPQ will post their questions. Will the "Sports" and "Entertainment" questions and whatever else be posted as well?

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

A public and frank discussion needs to be had about the logistics of this tournament, if it's going to be more successful next year. I will defer to someone who had even more knowledge of what happened and why it happened, but i was there for most of the craziness on Saturday at the hotel so i can surely speak from that angle.

[thejeopardyfan]

Curious - What time did the Bee end on Sunday? Also, does anyone know if any Bowl or Bee players are appearing on the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament this week? Thanks.

[Cheynem]

I wasn't at this tournament, but I'm hearing various stories about what did happen.

Most of them are not good and relate to poor logistics, poor organization, and poor behavior on the part of players/coaches/spectators.

I'd like to hear from coaches or staffers with official responsibilities.

[Northern Central Railway]

A public and frank discussion needs to be had about the logistics of this tournament, if it's going to be more successful next year. I will defer to someone who had even more knowledge of what happened and why it happened, but i was there for most of the craziness on Saturday at the hotel so i can surely speak from that angle.

Some of the transportation issues to and from the DC sites was because the metro directions given to teams were for if the metro was running on a regular schedule, while in reality the metro was on a weekend schedule. What the directions said should have been a 25 minute trip to my site ended up being 45 minutes for one of the teams.

I can only speak for my site, but the morning rounds were not too much of a problem, although I did start 20 minutes late because two teams arrived late due to aforementioned metro issues.

For my site, the afternoon was somewhat of a trainwreck. Shortly after my morning rounds, I called HQ to ask how I was supposed to get my afternoon schedule. I was told "I'll call you back about that"; I went ahead and made my own schedule. At 12:45, when the afternoon rounds were supposed to start, it was me, the other two moderators, and one team, sitting in a room waiting for everyone else to show up. By a little after one, I had two more teams, but neither of them were sure they were at the right place. I called HQ to try and find out if these two teams were supposed to be at my site. One of them got confirmed, but not the other for the reason that someone's handwriting was illegible. At 1:15 I called HQ again, and was told the three teams at my site were definitely supposed to be there, and a 4th was on the way after they had gone to the wrong site first. They arrived at 1:25, along with another team - this made 5. At 1:45 I called HQ to tell them I was going to start without the sixth team because the teams there were getting restless. On this phone call I was informed that I was never supposed to have a sixth team.

Luckily my afternoon rounds then went quickly and were done by 5. After I went back to the hotel, I talked to a few people and then headed back up to my room to find out that there was a match just starting. It was 6 o'clock at this point.

There was a schedule for who was reading which rounds of playoffs, but it largely wasn't followed, partially due to people being assigned to do two different things in the same round. I also got the impression that there was no communication to staffers about which rooms were being used for playoffs beforehand, as one staffer bemusedly entered her room right in the middle of a JV octofinal that I was reading.

I was a runner for the Bee. There weren't many issues with students running late in my rooms, although some rooms got started late because they waited for everyone.

The buzzer situation at the end was ridiculous. At no point did I get any direction as to what I was supposed to do after Round 5, so I just told the readers in the rooms I was the runner for that I would help them take down buzzers and bring them down to the lobby. Not all runners had this foresight, as several buzzers ended up locked in hotel rooms. Of the buzzers that did get brought down somewhat promptly, there were issues as well. One school's buzzers was in the HQ, but the box they were supposed to go in was nowhere to be found. Another school had someone else's buzzers in one of their boxes (how does this even happen??). There were multiple buzzer systems not labelled at all, both those that did and did not have boxes.

[Francis the Talking France]

Curious - What time did the Bee end on Sunday? Also, does anyone know if any Bowl or Bee players are appearing on the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament this week? Thanks.

Krishna Bharathala's name was on my bee schedule and he will be on the teen tournament at some point this week.

[jonpin]

Curious - What time did the Bee end on Sunday? Also, does anyone know if any Bowl or Bee players are appearing on the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament this week? Thanks.

Someone, I believe Greg Bossick, reported that the competition ended a little after 5, with awarding of prizes taking some time afterward. After our post-tournament activities, my team returned to the hotel at approximately 5:45, and St. Joseph team had already returned.

Some of the transportation issues to and from the DC sites was because the metro directions given to teams were for if the metro was running on a regular schedule, while in reality the metro was on a weekend schedule. What the directions said should have been a 25 minute trip to my site ended up being 45 minutes for one of the teams.

On top of this, Dupont Circle, the point of exit for German Marshall and I believe at least one other site, was down to one track, making delays even longer.

For my site, the afternoon was somewhat of a trainwreck. Shortly after my morning rounds, I called HQ to ask how I was supposed to get my afternoon schedule. I was told "I'll call you back about that"; I went ahead and made my own schedule. At 12:45, when the afternoon rounds were supposed to start, it was me, the other two moderators, and one team, sitting in a room waiting for everyone else to show up. By a little after one, I had two more teams, but neither of them were sure they were at the right place. I called HQ to try and find out if these two teams were supposed to be at my site. One of them got confirmed, but not the other for the reason that someone's handwriting was illegible. At 1:15 I called HQ again, and was told the three teams at my site were definitely supposed to be there, and a 4th was on the way after they had gone to the wrong site first. They arrived at 1:25, along with another team - this made 5. At 1:45 I called HQ to tell them I was going to start without the sixth team because the teams there were getting restless. On this phone call I was informed that I was never supposed to have a sixth team.

I didn't even process until now how entirely screwed up the process must have been for teams traveling away for the afternoon. In at least one case in JV teams played several rounds in the wrong afternoon bracket; if such a thing had happened in a varsity league playing their playoff groups on site, it would have been a disaster that no one could recover from. Not having been at PACE 2011, I wonder whether the method of texting a coach/captain with their next assignment might have been worth implementing here.

I was a runner for the Bee. There weren't many issues with students running late in my rooms, although some rooms got started late because they waited for everyone.

I read JV, and I'll freely admit that I waited for my players to arrive without regard to how long it was taking. I was already planning to do this, but one coach (or possibly parent) arrived in Round 3 without his student and said that student was still playing the previous round. He mentioned that a different student from his school had arrived late to a game because his previous round had run long, and that not only had the round already started, but there wasn't a buzzer available.

The buzzer situation at the end was ridiculous.

I am not at all surprised by this.

[thejeopardyfan]

Jonpin: I left at 20 til 5, and a staffer told me at that time there were four rounds left. ? Maybe they took a lot out.