VCU SFT XIII hosted by VCU - 5/1/21 (Online) [LONE STAR]

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VCU SFT XIII hosted by VCU - 5/1/21 (Online) [LONE STAR]

Post by Matt Weiner »

This is the general announcement for VCU's late spring high school tournament, VCU Season Finale XIII. This will be an academic quizbowl tournament, to be hosted online via Discord or Zoom, on Saturday, May 1, 2021 from 9:00 AM to about 5:00 PM. Participants should be online by 8:30 AM. This tournament is open to all high school teams seeking to play quizbowl or Scholastic Bowl under any name (including but not limited to quizbowl, Scholastic Bowl, Battle of the Brains, or It's Academic) regardless of school location.

The registration link is here: https://forms.gle/vvJDG9fMG5egtffp9. Please read the entirety of the below information before registering.

Location, directions & parking:

Due to current conditions, the tournament will take place online. We will make a decision as the tournament approaches about whether we are using the Zoom or the Discord platform.

Questions and eligibility:

This tournament will be using the LONE STAR question set. Teams that have played this set at other tournaments are not eligible.

Any person who has encountered the content of LONE STAR, in any context, is not eligible to play and is expected to disclose the fact that they have knowledge of set content if they are in touch with teams playing this tournament, e.g. as a coach or peer in a quizbowl club.

This tournament is for teams of eligible players representing a single high school. Public, private, religious, magnet, and charter schools are all eligible. Eligibility to participate for a given school will generally reflect the practices of national quizbowl organizations such as PACE and NAQT.

For homeschool co-ops and collectives, beginning this year, VCU's high school tournaments will follow the new eligibility guidelines published by NAQT here.

If you believe that you should be granted an eligibility exception, please contact us at [email protected]. If you are not sure whether you may get an exception, there's no harm in asking.

We will seek affiliation with PACE to make this tournament a qualifier for the 2021 NSC; please see this link for further information. In most years, we would advise that given the May 1 date of this tournament, it is likely that the NSC field will be full by the time the tournament takes place, and teams should not rest their plans for NSC attendance on qualifying through this event. With this year's unique circumstances of online nationals, we do not know whether this will be the case or not, but teams should be aware of the possibility.

Format:

Games in this tournament will use the 20/20 tossup/bonus format and ACF rules, plus power tossups and the following standard modifications for online quizbowl:

*Players have 7 seconds to answer a tossup after being recognized.

*Teams have 10 seconds to give a bonus part answer and will be prompted for time at 9 seconds.

*On tossups that are negged a "withdraw" is assumed for all subsequent buzzes; if you still want to answer [to try to get power or for whatever reason] type "buzz" a second time.

*Direct your bonus part answers by typing in ALL CAPS or using the ^-- notation, or saying "directed" if answering by voice. If no answer is given or multiple answers are given without directing any, and nothing is then directed after the moderator says "answer" at 9 seconds, then the team will be ruled wrong.

*If exactly one answer has been given before 9 seconds [by one or more players] then the moderator will rule that answer right or wrong, without prompting for time, and you don't need to say or type it again.

The tournament structure (number of games, playoff process, etc.) will be determined based on the total field size. Our goal is to give each team 6 or 7 pre-scheduled games and then have a championship playoff. We overshot the mark time-wise at our Winter tournament by trying to run an 11-game all-in schedule and will not be doing that again at SFT; expect something more like 7 scheduled games followed by a small single-elimination playoff.

We will consider splitting the field into experience-based divisions (e.g. National/Varsity/JV/Novice) based on the number of registered teams potentially eligible for each division and field interest. Once we have a better picture of who is attending this event we will begin polling registered schools about their interest in a multi-division event.

Registration & fees:

Register by filling out this form: https://forms.gle/vvJDG9fMG5egtffp9.

base fee: +$60 per team to your school's total fee. There is no limit to the number of teams who can attend from one school.

staff discount: -$10 to your school's total fee per qualified staffer. There is no limit to the number of staffers you can bring. Staffers must remain with the tournament through the completion of the prelim schedule to receive the discount.

minimum fee: The minimum fee is $0. You can bring enough staffers to eliminate your fee, but you cannot have a negative fee.

Once you have submitted the form, there is no further action needed on your part in order to be officially registered. There will be periodic updates in this thread and by e-mail indicating who has registered. Posts made in this thread do not count as official registrations.

Method of payment:

All teams must submit or postmark a payment by the day of the tournament. Venmo and Zelle addresses for electronic payment and a physical address for mailed checks will be provided to all registrants. Teams who do not submit electronic payment or postmark mailed payment by May 1 will be subject to a $25 late payment penalty. We are not accepting other forms of electronic payment at this time; if you cannot use either Venmo or Zelle, then please arrange to mail a physical check.

All checks must be made out to "Quizbowl at VCU". If you require an invoice or W-9 form in order to have a check cut, you must let us know by April 20, so that we can send you the paperwork in time, or you will be subject to a late payment penalty.

Team & roster size:

There may be a maximum of six players on one team's roster, up to four of whom may play at one time. There will be no exceptions to this rule. If you bring more than six players, you must register a second team to have all of them play. There is a half-time substitution opportunity in each game. Each player may appear on only one team's roster throughout the day; there is no switching from the B team to the A team, etc. Teams may play shorthanded, with fewer than four players.

Code of conduct and chaperone policy:

All participants in the tournament are expected to be familiar with the code of conduct designed to provide a safe and inclusive environment at Quizbowl at VCU events.

All schools participating in this event are expected to have at least one coach or other designated adult who is connected to the tournament server for the duration of the tournament and actively takes responsibility for the conduct of the school's players. One coach may suffice for multiple teams from the same school.

Camera usage/anti-cheating policy:

All players in this tournament must have a video feed enabled in Discord/Zoom at any time they are playing live questions. Anyone whose video signal drops will be ineligible for any questions read until they get it working again. Those with privacy concerns may point the camera at their hands.

If you have historically had issues with getting webcams to work with Discord/Zoom, with the reliability of the Internet speed at your home, or any other technical barriers to providing always-on streaming video while playing quizbowl, then please schedule some time over the next three months to troubleshoot these problems and/or arrange an alternate location from which to play this event. We understand that this is a non-trivial task for some people, but it is our only option to protect the integrity of of the competition for the large number of players who will be devoting time and resources to participating.

Players using a phone or a second computer during the reading of live questions is prohibited. Other behaviors that may be interpreted as cheating will be evaluated by tournament staff. The TD of this tournament has the authority to end a player's participation based on reasonable belief in cheating and determine what further actions to take. If you believe that an opponent is cheating please contact your moderator or the TD privately so that we may take action. Please avoid confronting opponents directly or making public accusations.

All players in this tournament consent to audio and visual transmission of their voice and image to all other participants, including the recording of this signal, by participating and will be asked to type their name in the Discord chat during the pre-tournament meeting in order to register their awareness of this policy. Team coaches are responsible for making players and minor players' parents/guardians aware that electronic voice and image transmission is a precondition of participating in this tournament and will be taking place throughout the event.

Please post here or contact us at [email protected] if you have any further questions.

Field (4/28/21):

Cave Spring - 1
Cosby - 1
Galileo Magnet - 2
Great Bridge - 1
James River - 1
Langley -1
Quince Orchard - 1
Richard Montgomery - 3
Rockcastle County - 2
Thomas Jefferson - 5

Total: 18
Last edited by Matt Weiner on Wed Apr 28, 2021 12:47 pm, edited 7 times in total.
Matt Weiner
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Re: VCU SFT XIII hosted by VCU - 5/1/21 (Online) [LONE STAR]

Post by vespesian4 »

Have there been any new additions to the tournament's field since the thirtieth of last month?
Cavan B. Gabaldon O'Neill, BASIS Independent McLean 2018-23
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Matt Weiner
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Re: VCU SFT XIII hosted by VCU - 5/1/21 (Online) [LONE STAR]

Post by Matt Weiner »

We currently have 21 teams registered and will cap the field at 25 pending continued staff recruitment. Teams beyond 25 will be waitlisted and admitted to the field in the order they registered as more staffers sign up.

Full team and staff updates will be sent out later this week.
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Re: VCU SFT XIII hosted by VCU - 5/1/21 (Online) [LONE STAR]

Post by Matt Weiner »

Updates for registered teams and staff containing instructions for meeting on Zoom on Saturday were sent out yesterday morning - if you did not receive information and plan on participating in this tournament please get in touch with me.
Matt Weiner
Advisor to Quizbowl at Virginia Commonwealth University / Founder of hsquizbowl.org
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Re: VCU SFT XIII hosted by VCU - 5/1/21 (Online) [LONE STAR]

Post by Matt Weiner »

Congratulations to Richard Montgomery A for winning today's Season Finale Tournament in dramatic fashion. RM A and TJ A both entered the last round of the tournament undefeated, creating a de facto final. After the teams played to a 400-400 tie, RM player Justin answered a sudden death tiebreaker tossup to win the game and the tournament title.

Stats may be found here:

Prelims
Playoffs
Combined

The "playoffs" file is the correct order of finish; "combined" is provided for data-aggregating purposes only.

The tournament record book, updated with today's results, may be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M4srbN ... GVGq0/view

As this was VCU's first time running a tournament over Zoom, we used a co-TD approach to this event where I took care of protests and stats and VCU's club president Meredith Seaberg handled issues and inquiries regarding the technical side of the tournament. This seemed to work out fairly well and I'd recommend something similar (at least, having 2 people who are not tied down to reading games and are just troubleshooting and coordinating, even for smaller tournaments) for future online events.

We'd like to thank Ryan Ritter, Mally Stewart, Jonathan Ratliff, Casey Bindas, Ellen Patchin, Ben Cook, Tamara Carson, Jared Smith, Megan Nipper, Saule Juskelyte, Andrew Minagar, and Eric Mukherjee for making this tournament possible by staffing the game rooms. This was the fifth and last of the events we hosted online this year and VCU is looking forward to returning to a full slate of in-person high school and college tournaments at our campus in the 2021-2022 year.
Matt Weiner
Advisor to Quizbowl at Virginia Commonwealth University / Founder of hsquizbowl.org
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