The Quizbowl Resource Center

Qblitz is excited to announce its first ever tournament, Qblitz Winter 1, to take place between Monday January 28 and Friday February 1 of 2019. The tournament will take place online on the Qblitz website.

The Qblitz website uses an automated moderator to read questions to players, and then tracks where they buzzed. Those buzz points are used to compare players against each other, allowing matches to be constructed. You can see this automated moderator in action by playing our sample packet.

FORMAT
Qblitz Winter 1 is open to individual players in high school (or below). Over the 5 days, participants will play 5 rounds of 20 tossups. The format is a shootout. For each round, players are assigned to a small pool. Once everyone has played their questions for that day, we build the matches within the pool, and the top performers in each pool move up the tournament ladder. The following round, players will be assigned to a new pool with others on their rung. At the end, the winner of the top pool is the champion.

REGISTRATION
Official registration opens on January 1, 2019 and goes until January 21. Until then, interested players can visit our homepage to join our email list to get a reminder when registration begins.

QUESTIONS
If you have questions, please post them here, or PM me, or email Qblitz.

We hope to see you all (virtually speaking) at Qblitz Winter 1!

What question set will this tournament use?

vinteuil wrote: ↑Sat Dec 15, 2018 12:49 pm What question set will this tournament use?

Good question. We're writing the questions in-house.

Perhaps it is because I'm on mobile and the site does not work very well, but how much does this cost? The only information in could find was about a year's membership but didn't state a price.

Cody wrote: ↑Sat Dec 15, 2018 5:11 pm Perhaps it is because I'm on mobile and the site does not work very well, but how much does this cost?...

Two points:
(1) We are still working with our web design team to make the site more responsive for smaller devices. That said, I'm still not sure we'll get it just right for phone-sized devices until we release the app.
(2) The final price will be announced when registration officially opens, but players should expect it will cost less than a typical quizbowl event.

Will school clubs be able to pay for this event?

jorgeiswang wrote: ↑Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:21 am Will school clubs be able to pay for this event?

That's a great question, but one that's hard to give a definitive answer to. The issue is that schools tend to have very idiosyncratic rules about how they deal with money. Some are really easy and only need an invoice to cut a check, while others need some particular vendor paperwork to be filed and take months to process it. Some are an odd combination, like the school I worked at that required specialized vendor paperwork unless a school employee had already paid for it, in which case they would reimburse with just an invoice.

No matter what type your school is, we'd like to work with you to make it happen. Perhaps you could have your coach email us to help us figure out which boat you're in.

As a reminder, registration is now open for Qblitz Winter 1. You can register by logging in to your account and navigating to the registration page. (You'll only see the option to register if you're in a high school grade or lower.)

So if I'm reading this right, each event is 5 rounds of 20 tossups for $50 per individual player?

Iamteehee wrote: ↑Wed Jan 09, 2019 6:44 pm So if I'm reading this right, each event is 5 rounds of 20 tossups for $50 per individual player?

Yes, assuming the player doesn't sign up for the discounted season pass rate.

Is there any way to see the field?

Regrettably, Qblitz has decided to cancel this tournament. We felt that the event wouldn't meet our standards if we held it now, and that we'd better serve our competitors by waiting until we could give them the tournament they deserve.

Everyone registered for this event has been notified and is being refunded.

We are excited to put our best foot forward with the QANTA League 0 event in February. And we still plan to run the would-be successor to Winter 1, Qblitz Spring 1, in March.

troyharris wrote: ↑Wed Jan 16, 2019 3:35 pm Is there any way to see the field?

No, there's not, but I could see how that would be a good and desirable thing. I'll add it to my list of things to do for future tournaments. (It's a moot point for this one.) Thanks!

I absolutely think that being able to see the field will be helpful to you. I can imagine that if someone sees a strong group, or someone who catches their eye, it might spur them to join, too.