Brainbusters Fall V (Ithaca HS 11/19/16) - OFFICIAL ANNOUNCE

[Ithaca Cricket Ump]

This is the official announcement that the Fifth Annual BrainBusters Fall quizbowl tournament will take place on SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2016, at Ithaca High School in Ithaca, NY (1401 North Cayuga Street, Ithaca, NY 14850). Registration will take place from 7:30-8:30 am, with players’ and staffers’ meeting starting precisely at 8:30 am in preparation for a 9:00 am tournament start.

BrainBusters Fall V will use a regular-difficulty NAQT set, IS-160. Standard NAQT rules will be used, except that games will be untimed (played until the end of the 20th tossup and any associated bonus), any required overtime will be sudden-death, and ACF timing will be used to simplify timing matters (5 seconds for everything). Exact format will depend on the number of teams attending, but will most likely be as it has been in past years: a quasi-seeded morning round robin, with a rebracketed afternoon round robin after lunch followed by a final/playoff game for the top teams. Top teams will receive trophies and the ten tournament all-stars (the top 5 overall scorers, plus the top scorers from the top 5 teams in the standings that did not have an overall top 5 scorer) will receive book prizes. As in previous years, lunch will be available for purchase at the tournament site.

Two logistical matters will be submitted to a vote of the teams’ coaches before the tournament: whether or not to use computational math BONUSES (there will be no computational math TOSSUPS used), and whether to use points per game or head-to-head result as a tiebreaker if two teams are tied in the bracket standings. In past years, we have used a 10-question playoff to break relevant ties at BB Fall, which we believe is the fairest way to do it, but the new NAQT packet structure and the fact that these tiebreakers can add up to an hour to an already long day will force us to revert to a statistical tiebreaking method this year. Both of the tiebreaking methods have drawbacks, so we’ll go with the majority opinion on this and run with it.

The initial field cap for BrainBusters Fall V will be set at 36 teams (the number of competing teams from last year). IHS has the space and facilities to possibly expand the field to up to 48 teams if there is sufficient interest, but any such expansion will be completely dependent on having sufficient buzzers and staffers.

Schools may initially register as many teams as they wish for BrainBusters Fall V, but we reserve the right to limit each school to bringing a maximum of 2 teams if circumstances dictate. If this becomes necessary, we will let all registered teams know and make an announcement to that effect on the HSQB boards.

The base fee for the tournament will be $80 per TEAM (not per school). We will apply the following discounts:

-$10 per working buzzer brought for use in the tournament (“working” = at least 8 functional buzzers on the unit. We reserve the right to rescind the discount for a buzzer that does not meet this standard. Wireless buzzers do not qualify for this discount.)

-$10 per staffer provided by the school. Most staffers will be assigned to scorekeep, although based on staffer experience or TD need some may be assigned as readers.

-$10 PER TEAM for new schools – teams that have NEVER before played at BrainBusters Fall (not just teams that didn’t play last year).

The minimum fee per team is $40.

In order to register for the tournament, please contact me at scottblish at gmail dot com with the number of teams that you would like to register. We prefer pre-payment for this tournament (we’ve found in the past that it generally makes things less painful for both tournament administrators and schools), but no money is due immediately – I will provide payment information to teams when they contact me to register. If you need to pay on the day of the tournament, let me know that and we can most likely make arrangements for you to do so, but this year I’d like to make that more the exception than the rule.

We’re looking forward to seeing you at Ithaca HS on November 19.

[Ithaca Cricket Ump]

Current field (asterisk denotes small school):
Amsterdam (1)
Berwick (1)
Brighton (2)
Cato-Meridian (1)*
Cooperstown (2)*
Delaware Valley (2)
Dundee (1)*
Fayetteville-Manlius (1)
Geneva (2)*
Greene (1)*
Ithaca (4)
Lakeland (1) *
Lisgar (1)
Marcus Whitman (2)*
Milford (1) *
Notre Dame (2) *
Oneonta (2)*
Pittsford Mendon (1)
Wallenpaupack (2)
Whitney Point (2)*

TOTAL: 32 (17 small school)

[Ithaca Cricket Ump]

Two months before the tournament, we are already at 20 teams registered (of a projected soft cap of 36). Get those registrations in ASAP if your team(s) is interested in playing!

[Ithaca Cricket Ump]

The tournament field is now two-thirds full, as of October 3.