Starting a Team on Pyramidal Competitions

[Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock]

Hello everyone, I don't know if you remember me or not from some of my earlier question posts, but if you don't that's OK. Our team has had an amazing season this year, but the thing is the competitions we play do not use pyramidal questions. I am the captain right now and I most likely will be next year as well and our coach really trusts my input, and as I've learned more about the world of pyramidal quiz bowl I've acquired the desire to get my team to participate in some of these competitions next year. But the thing is, I don't know where exactly to start to help not just myself but my teammates improve to the level where we might be able to really compete at these tournaments.

So we aren't starting a brand new team from scratch, but we will be going into the pyramidal tournament scene for the first time, where for now I'm the only one who has experience from going to the state history bee in March. I have looked up some things and I'm aware of some of the resources that are out there, but part of my problem is that there's just so much available that I'm kind of overwhelmed by it all. I hope this isn't a dumb question, but how exactly should my teammates and I go about taking the step up that adding these competitions into our schedule would require?

I know that's a pretty broad question, but any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Ryan

[Aaron Goldfein]

The best way to compete at pyramidal tournaments is to learn more things. As opposed to non-pyramidal formats, there isn't really a whole lot of strategy that goes into playing the actual games. Pretty much the more knowledgeable team wins. If you go to a pyramidal tournament, your team may have some troubles with the format for the first round or two but after that I'm sure you'll get used to it and will be on a equal footing to compete in a knowledge, rather than strategy contest.

There are lots of resources that will help you learn more for quizbowl, but probably the best and easiest way is to simply read pyramidal questions from past seasons as clues and especially answer lines tend to reoccur often at the high school level.