The Quizbowl Resource Center

Glacierguy1 wrote:Does anyone know anything about the Leonia format?
Or what teams are going?

I'm going to assume it's speed; not Hunter.

Gather rather the table and papa bear will tell you all about Leonia's "quiz bowl" tournament
Four rounds in prelim that are jeopardy style. I remember our team protesting 4 questions.....each round

Top 16 teams make the playoffs, single elim. The first two rounds are also jeopardy format. The semi-finals and finals are "tossup/bonus", although the bonus part is worth 10, not 30. The questions were.......questionable and Chip Beall-esque. I remember a question that was something like "The baseball hall of fame was established in 1939. For ten points, name any four of the original five inducted in....

Jeopardy style? Like "I'll take 'Words Ending in -amburger' for $100" Jeopardy.
And answer in the form of a question Jeopardy
Or just really esque speed questions arranged on a board in relative degree of difficulty?

"Jeoprady" style was a staple here in NJ for a number of years. Bloomfield, Millburn, Phillipsburg, Columbia, High Tech ... just to name a few ... all used to or still host tournaments of this nature. They are relatively easy to staff as coaches usually serve as moderators. However, as questions are assigned point values, ostensibly based upon their relative difficulty, fun and hillarity usually follow. (Before attending these events, I usually double my blood pressure medication and prepare for absurdity!)

For new players or for people just looking to "have fun", these formats are fine. So long as you know what you are getting into. Do not be surprised to see odd results come out of this tournament.

Basically what Michael said. Add in the fact that Jeopardy format, for some reason, seems to encourage teams that leave early, and it's a recipe for a fun afternoon.

Cool. It seems fun. as long as I don't rupture an anuerysm while losing to North Timbuktu Q it should be very fun

Brief results from Leonia's "NORJAC".

70 teams played 3 rounds of "Jeopardy" style games. (This seems to be a phenomenon confined to Northern New Jeresey ...)

Top sixteen :

16. Chatham A d. 1. Delbarton
2. Livingston A d. 15. NV Demarest A
14. Cresskill A d. 3. Westfield A
13. Newark Academy A d. 4. Livingston B
5. Livingston C d.. 12. Pingry B
6. SHP A d.. 11. Pingry A
10 Millburn A d. 7. Kellenberg A
8. BCA B v. 9. High Point A

Teams were re-seeded for quarterfinals ...

1. Livington A d. 8. Chatham A
7. Cresskill A d. 2. Livingston C
3. SHP A v. 6. Newark Academy A
5. Millburn A d. 4. BCA B

Teams were re-seeded again ...

1. Livington A d. 4. Cresskill A
2. SHP A d. 3. Millburn A

Finals: Livingston A d. SHP A

I will let other teams, should they so choose, to comment on the tournament.

3 rounds! Kellenberg ranked 7th and getting eliminated in the first round of the (single elimination) playoffs!

Thanks for saving me all the legwork of having to explain why this tournament sucks.

I actually stopped by this tournament to catch up with some old teammates and witnessed the first (and hopefully last) "tossup" (if you can call it that) on shoelaces

While it's nice to have a tournament in northern new jersey, honestly change the format/use naqt questions/do something. While I hesistate in saying it, this tournament actually seems worse than

While it WAS nice to see so many different and new teams at the tournament today, I wish that they would come to LIFT/Rutgers/Prison Bowl/etc. I understand that many of these teams go "just to have fun", but, you can also have fun at any of the other aforementioned tournaments. Just as fodder for anyone reading this board ... the "Math Category" contained four computational questions, all of which were multiple choice. In my honest opinion, there is a reason that this type of tournament has almost completely disappeared.

However, as a plus to Leonia, there were 70 teams there today. Now, the job is to introduce many of these teams to other formats.

"Best" thing about the Jeopardy-board tournaments: they don't even use buzzers! I imagine the ease of setting up a buzzerless tournament is part of why they are/were so popular. Also, three rounds wasn't unheard of; I know that's all we got at BRITE (Bridgewater-Raritan's tournament that ran over several weeks after school). Woo hoo.

Just out of curiosity: are they still running the Rutgers Academic Challenge? Eight-man teams, three-team quizbowl matches paired with all sorts of other things such as building bridges out of toothpicks and giving oral versions of APUSH-esque document-based essays? Does this ring a bell for anyone?

As I recall, the Rutgers Challenge was the victim of a budget cut several years ago.

As to the ease of running a "Jeopardy" event, you are correct. While you were at Bloomfield, your own school ran a three-round Jeopardy event.

OK ... Seton Hall Preparatory School (West Orange, NJ) will be hosting the NJ State Championship tournament on March 21, 2009. (All approvals were given today.) Assuming that I have a snow-day tomorrow, I will start working on the details and try to post here by the end of the week.

So ... to revive the New York/New Jersey discussion ...

After having read all ten rounds at BATE yesterday, a few observations ...

1. Hunter A is BY FAR in a league of their own.
2. After Hunter A, things are far less clear.

I finally had the opportunity to see Half Hollow Hills West at full strength. I must admit that I was impressed. Andrew and Lauren are a powerful pair with a solid depth and breadth of knowledge.

Kellenberg A looked very good at times ... and a bit befuddled at others. (I wound up reading for them throughout the preliminary rounds) They too have a good base but lost on a number of buzzer races.

Bergen A perplexed me. Against Hunter A in the playoff round it seemed that the rest of the team was waiting during the tossups to see if Watson was going to buzz or not. Toward the end of the game, Gabe seemed to get involved. All in all, I am not sure if this was just a bad packet for Watson and BCA, but they looked vulnerable. However, I do feel that they are still the best team in NJ. (We will know for sure in two weeks after the State Championship tournament.)

Hunter B (specifically Lily) will be a force for the next three years. (This is not to take away from the rest of the Hunter B team.) Every question of the Hunter A v. Hunter B game seemed to be a buzzer race. This team is well prepared, has a solid grasp of the canon, and really enjoys playing the game. However, they too can be streaky.

For New Jersey ...

1. BCA
2. East Brunswick
3. SHP
4. Livingston

I do not know where Columbia fits into this mix. They have only played one "Jeopardy" tournament thus far. Let's see what happens at states.

For New York ...

1. Hunter A
2. Hunter B/HHHW/K-Berg

I am not "copping-out" here. The results from this season seem to fit a good blend at the #2 spot.

I realize that I have left out a number of the Westchester teams (New Rochelle/White Plains/etc.) but, as my team no longer plays in that circuit, I have had little experience with them thus far.

Let's see, Hunter B beat Kellenberg A by 20, lost to HHHW A by 60. Hills A lost by 200 to Kellenberg A. I have to say I definitely agree with Zinsmeister's comments.

keep in mind that hunter a was not at full strength, since there were missing lily and york, who were on hunter which was hunter b did so well. I imagine at things like PACE NSC hunter A will be guy, maggie, lily and york. In which case they will be even better

aarcoh wrote:keep in mind that hunter a was not at full strength, since there were missing lily and york, who were on hunter which was hunter b did so well. I imagine at things like PACE NSC hunter A will be guy, maggie, lily and york. In which case they will be even better

Replacing York for Tony. York knows some lit, but Tony knows history and stuff that I just don't. He usually puts up more when playing with me, I think.

SHP Pirate wrote:
Bergen A perplexed me. Against Hunter A in the playoff round it seemed that the rest of the team was waiting during the tossups to see if Watson was going to buzz or not. Toward the end of the game, Gabe seemed to get involved. All in all, I am not sure if this was just a bad packet for Watson and BCA, but they looked vulnerable. However, I do feel that they are still the best team in NJ. (We will know for sure in two weeks after the State Championship tournament.)

Thanks; our (my?) strategy for that one was to buzz in irrationally early. If we had implemented it earlier in the match, we may have had a shot.

However, at States we won't have our best team. Janine and Jay, among others, will be forced to miss that date. However, we should still have a good chance at winning.

gabjoh wrote:

SHP Pirate wrote:
Bergen A perplexed me. Against Hunter A in the playoff round it seemed that the rest of the team was waiting during the tossups to see if Watson was going to buzz or not. Toward the end of the game, Gabe seemed to get involved. All in all, I am not sure if this was just a bad packet for Watson and BCA, but they looked vulnerable. However, I do feel that they are still the best team in NJ. (We will know for sure in two weeks after the State Championship tournament.)

Thanks; our (my?) strategy for that one was to buzz in irrationally early. If we had implemented it earlier in the match, we may have had a shot.

However, at States we won't have our best team. Janine and Jay, among others, will be forced to miss that date. However, we should still have a good chance at winning.

Not that it matters if Watson continues putting up 16/1 rounds.

SHP Pirate wrote: For New York ...

1. Hunter A
2. Hunter B/HHHW/K-Berg

I am not "copping-out" here. The results from this season seem to fit a good blend at the #2 spot.

I hate to toot my own horn, but Stuyvesant has a team that totally exists.

Since you weren't at BATE, you sank into the back of peoples minds, even though your team kinda goes at the top of the mess at No.2 if not alone at 2.

Well, I don't know if they are number 2, it seems kellenberg, HHW and hunter b (of course hunter b sort of depends on who's not on hunter a) are all better than stuy. plus, hasn't been to too many tournaments this year

I wouldn't be so quick to rank Stuy behind Kellenberg and HHHW. Aidan has a very interesting knowledge base, to be sure, and I think they have a lot more potential to upset teams with his deep knowledge in certain areas. I haven't actually played HHHW this year, but Stuyvesant seemed more of a threat than Kellenberg to me.

HHHW played quite well at Blue Hen last weekend, only losing to Charter A in the final round by 135, in the process beating RM A twice (once by 200).

Stuy handed our butts to us at Prison bowl in the playoffs. We also lost to them in the prelims by 5 points after 0ing a bonus on linguistics.

Thanks to all who particiapted in the Livingston March Madness Academic tournament. Bergen A def. MIllburn A in the finals. Here is a link to the full results:

http://www.musicamor.com/Lord_Mega/LHS_ ... dness.html

To those who particiapted, I would appreciate any feedback/constructive criticism about the day to help us make it run better next time. Thanks a lot.

Wait, Hunter didn't win? Or make the finals? How is this possible?

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:Wait, Hunter didn't win? Or make the finals? How is this possible?

Dante (Bichette) wrote:Hunter will be bringing two teams, made up of fragments of the B and C teams.

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:Wait, Hunter didn't win? Or make the finals? How is this possible?

No Guy, no Lily. I was impressed by Millburn, as they soundly defeated BCA-B (trailed 145-90 after 9 tossups, answered 7 of the next 9 to take a 310-165 lead), and then beat East Brunswick in the semifinals.

ExcessStrausses wrote:I hate to toot my own horn, but Stuyvesant has a team that totally exists.

Bergen Academy is hosting a tournament this Saturday. Don't know if it's too short notice, but we'd love to have you. There's information in the Announcements forum.

Also, for those not at Livingston, Coach Z said they were looking at April 25 as a possible make-up for NJ states.

Gotcha. Well then, they did pretty well without two awesome players.

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:Gotcha. Well then, they did pretty well without two awesome players.

None of our top five players were there, if I remember correctly. Then again, it is NAQT...

1. Bergen County Academies
2. St. Joseph
3. East Brunswick
4. Seton Hall
5. Columbia
6. Millburn
7. Livingston
User was banned for one day for posting without an identifying signature. If your real name is, in fact, Publius, please contact an administrator. --Mgmt.

I think I managed to hit most of the usual suspects with my email, but just in case: I'm looking to host a slew of summer quizbowl practices in NYC, most likely at Hunter College, but perhaps a public library. If you're interested in participating and in discussing dates and times, please go to http://groups.google.com/group/ny-nj-summer-quizbowl and click the "Join this group" button on the right-hand menu. I look forward to seeing you there!