The Quizbowl Resource Center

This is the general announcement for the 2013 Virginia Commonwealth University Season Finale Tournament. This is a high school academic quizbowl tournament, to be held at The Collegiate School on Saturday, April 20th from 8:30 AM until shortly after 4:30 PM.

LOCATION, DIRECTIONS, PARKING: The tournament will take place at the campus of Collegiate School. We will be meeting in the Memorial Hall Cafeteria, and the tournament itself will be held in the building on this map labeled as "I. Flippen Hall- Upper School." Registration will begin at 8:30, and the first round will begin as soon as possible after that. Please arrive by 8:30 to guarantee that you do not miss the start of gameplay.
-You can use "103 North Mooreland Road" for your map software, or use the directions page linked above. Park in the school lot.

QUESTIONS: The tournament will be run on the “Bulldog High School Academic Tournament,” a question set written and produced by the quizbowl team at Yale University.

AFFILIATION: This tournament will seek affiliation with the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence, and as such we expect it will be an opportunity to qualify for the National Scholastics Championship (pace-nsc.org), to be held on June 8th and 9th, 2013.

FORMAT: This tournament will use the tossup/bonus format. A round will consist of 20 tossups with correct tossup answers earning a team a bonus in which it can earn up to 30 additional points, usually broken into three questions each worth 10 points. Teams will be seeded to preliminary groupings before being reseeded based on record. All teams will be offered a minimum of 9 games. Trophies will be awarded to the top teams, and book prizes will be awarded to the top individual scorers. The VCU team reserves the right to cap the field based on availability of space and staff.

REGISTRATION AND FEES:
-The fee structure is as follows:
Base fee: $70 per team. There is no limit to the number of teams who can attend from one school.
Buzzer discount: $5 off school's total fee for each fully functional system (control box and eight activators all work)-no limit to # of systems you can bring
Staff discount: $10 off school's total fee. This could be a coach, parent, student who is not playing, etc. Team-provided staffers will keep score for various games not involving the team with which they are affiliated. Volunteer staffers must stay through all the games (except finals) in order to receive credit for their school. There is no limit to the number of staffers you can bring.
Travel: $10 off the school's fee for every 150 one-way miles traveled to Collegiate School between your school's address and Collegiate School according to Google Maps.
Minimum fee: The minimum fee is $0 (you can bring enough buzzers and staffers to eliminate your entire fee via discounts, but you cannot have a "negative fee.")

-To register, e- mail me at [email protected] with the number of teams, buzzers, and staffers you want to bring, and an email address where you can be contacted with details. We are also requiring a cell phone contact number belonging to someone who will be attending the tournament, so that we can track you down if you are running late. Feel free to share this announcement with any schools that you think would be interested in attending. There is no further registration form or other action needed on your part in order to be officially registered; you only need to e-mail me at that address with the information requested. Posts made in this thread will not be considered official registrations; you must e-mail me.

METHOD OF PAYMENT: All teams must pay by the day of the tournament. We prefer to accept payment in person right before the tournament starts, but we will accept checks by mail ahead of time if your procedures require it. Teams who do not pay by the day of the tournament will be charged a $25 penalty and will have two weeks to pay their total amount before we start mailing letters to your school administration about it.
We can accept cash, personal checks, or checks from school, school district, or quizbowl club funds. We have no ability to process purchase orders, credit cards, Paypal, or any other forms of payment. Bringing forms of payment outside of the three listed will be considered nonpayment and subject you to the $25 late payment penalty.
We will contact registered teams with instructions on who to make the checks out to. If you require a pre-tournament invoice in order to have a check cut, let us know by March 22nd so that we can send you the paperwork in time. If you do not let us know about this requirement by March 22nd, and it causes you to come to the tournament without your payment, then you will be subject to the $25 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 halftime substitution opportunity in each game. Each player may appear on only one team's roster throughout the day-no switching from the B team to the A team, etc. Teams may also play shorthanded with only three players. Teams consisting of fewer than three players may not play without my express prior permission.

FOOD: Neither breakfast nor lunch will be provided by the tournament. We will provide a list of suggested eateries for the lunch break.

Please e-mail me if you have any further questions. I'm looking forward to seeing a wide variety of teams from Virginia and surrounding states on the 20th.

George Berry
Quizbowl at VCU
Tournament Director, VCU Season Finale Tournament
[email protected]

List of Registered Teams (23):
Cave Spring
Clover Hill
Culpeper County
Cosby
Deep Run
Douglas Freeman
Ginter Park Academy
CD Hylton
Loudoun County
Loyola Academy (IL)
Maggie Walker A
Maggie Walker B
Maggie Walker C
Matoaca
Midlothian
Montgomery Blair (MD)
New Kent A
New Kent B
Oakland Mills (MD)
Richard Montgomery (MD)
Trinity
Varina
Walter Johnson (MD)

WAIT LIST:
1.

Loyola Academy (IL) would like to sign up with one team.

This tournament is going to have an initial field cap of 18 teams. That cap is subject to change based on availability of staff and rooms.

We are going to this and will officially register next week.

Hey so our waitlist is already up to four teams at this point, but I have secured the necessary rooms for more teams, I just need to get a few more staff commitments and we can expand the field.

Frater Taciturnus wrote:Hey so our waitlist is already up to four teams at this point, but I have secured the necessary rooms for more teams, I just need to get a few more staff commitments and we can expand the field.

any updates?

Willmune Sof Burrghtenstein wrote:

Frater Taciturnus wrote:Hey so our waitlist is already up to four teams at this point, but I have secured the necessary rooms for more teams, I just need to get a few more staff commitments and we can expand the field.

any updates?

I have not been able to procure the services of enough moderators to expand beyond 18 teams at this time, and as we get closer to the tournament itself it becomes significantly more likely that we will not.

Okay, I'm going to try my heart out to get someone to moderate from OM this week. Because this is at this point the only tournament we can go to until NSC, it is my selfish wish that we can get in, even if it would mean slapbowl in the parking lot moderated by a mumbling, stuttering vagrant pulled off of the street.

Stats are available here as soon as I finish inputting a given round.

Tournament ended with Blair at x-0 and Loyola at x-1. Loyola won two straight games to take the championship; George will post complete stats when he gets a chance.

I hope everybody had a good time at this tournament. As a reminder, those who have played or staffed at a site of this year's BHSAT are welcome to join the 'BHSAT 2013 Discussion' subforum right here on these boards. To join, be logged in, go to the User Control Panel up top, then click the "Usergroups" tab, then scroll to "BHSAT 2013 discussion." Once you've hit the select button there, scroll down to where it says "Join selected" and hit Submit, at which point I can approve you if and only if I'm sure you've actually experienced the set.

Congratulations to Loyola Academy, who defeated Montgomery Blair in two straight games to overcome Blair's advantage in the finals. Richard Montgomery finished third, with New Kent A in fourth. Oakland Mills and Walter Johnson also made the top bracket.

Thanks to all of our teams for coming out yesterday, and to Joan Barnes and the Collegiate School for letting us use their building. Finally, a special thanks to all of our staff from yesterday, including Sarah Angelo, Sky Boggs, Dr. Andrew Feist, Isaac Hirsch, Brian Mongilio, Brian Neumann, and Dave Porter all coming out to help the VCU team, without which the tournament would not have been possible.

Final statistics may be found here