The Quizbowl Resource Center

Torrey Pines High School will be hosting the TPOT(“tea-pot”), its first ever pyramidal tournament on Saturday, February 5th, 2011. (Note: "Open" means it is open to all HS players, not college in this case).

LOCATION:
Lecture Hall (and other rooms) at Torrey Pines High School, located at 3710 Del Mar Heights Road, San Diego, CA, 92130.

SCHEDULE:
will be announced later

FOOD:
We are providing breakfast. Lunch options can be found near the school. (more info later)

FORMAT:
It will be in mACF format (4 vs. 4, 20/20 per match, three TU's as tiebreak, no bouncebacks or powers, untimed).

QUESTIONS:
The questions will be written by both TP (current and former) members and St. Anselm's members. They are standard HS difficulty (look at HSAPQ tournaments).
(See viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9940 for more info).

Distribution:
4/4 Lit
4/4 History
4/4 Science
2.5/2.5 Fine Arts
2.5/2.5 RMP
1/1 SS
1/1 Geography
1/1 Trash

The questions will be at least 5 lines long and capped at 6 (10pt TNR, 1’ margins). There will be 14 packets, two of which will be finals and thus harder than the other packets. The sample packet has now been uploaded. It is attached at the bottom of this post.

PRICE:
$80/team ($70 for each subsequent team)
-$10 (off total cost) for a new school (which is one that hasn’t attended a pyramidal tournament in at least one year)
-$5 (off total cost) for a buzzer system (at least 4 per side with lockout)
Minimum fee for a team is $60

REGISTRATION:
Send an email to [email protected] if your school would like to register.

Please include the following:
1. your school's name
2. the number of teams being registered
3. if you are bringing any buzzers
4. if you qualify for a new school discount
5. your appropriate registration fee

MIRRORS:
Email [email protected] if you are interested in mirroring the tournament. The fees for mirroring are still being discussed but should be in the $10-15 range.
(taken from PSAT/NMSQT post)

Torrey Pines, CA (February 5th)
Copley, OH (March 5th)
St. Anselm's, DC (March 12th)
NIU, IL (Late April)
(possibly) Mizzou, MO (I have not been informed of a timeframe yet)
(possibly) Seven Lakes, TX (sometime after the DC site)
Heritage High School, GA (February 5th)

FIELD:
Santa Fe Christian (1 team, 1 buzzer)
La Jolla (1 team, 1 buzzer)


INTEREST:
University
Rancho Bernardo (2 or 3 teams)
Carlsbad (2 teams)

Thanks!

This is definitely something we would be interested in looking into.

If it will be house-written, will it be available for mirrors?

EDIT: Pronouns

It should be, yes.

The announcement has been updated. It didn't bring this thread on the first page of announcements, so I hope this post will.

We're interested.

Rancho Bernardo will probably send 2-3 teams with at least two buzzer sets.

I would really love to be able to come to this tournament but it happens to be on the same day as the middle school Science Olympiad, and I have to help sell food since RB hosts it. Is it possible to change the date for a week earlier or a week later? Thanks

I'm sorry, but accommodating a single player having a conflict is not at all a good reason to ask for an entire tournament to change its date.

Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It wrote:I'm sorry, but accommodating a single player having a conflict is not at all a good reason to ask for an entire tournament to change its date.

I think it was implied that "other people want this too" - if NorCal is anything to go by, there is likely significant overlap between Science Olympiad/Bowl and quizbowl teams, so David might be saying that a bunch of RB people are needed to staff Science Olympiad, and that it would be advantageous for them if the tournament date was changed.

nadph wrote:

Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It wrote:I'm sorry, but accommodating a single player having a conflict is not at all a good reason to ask for an entire tournament to change its date.

I think it was implied that "other people want this too" - if NorCal is anything to go by, there is likely significant overlap between Science Olympiad/Bowl and quizbowl teams, so David might be saying that a bunch of RB people are needed to staff Science Olympiad, and that it would be advantageous for them if the tournament date was changed.

To Nikhil: Do you know of any conflicts with Middle School Science Olympiad in norcal? I don't see how big of a problem this will be unless SciOly is hosted in Bellarmine and you guys have to help, because I don't know if any other NorCal schools are even planning on attending this tournament.

To David: Are there any other RBers that would miss the tournament because of this?

To others: Do you know of any potential SciOly conflicts with schools that are interested or that might attend?

At this point, I'm not sure how much of a problem this will be unless every RB quizbowler cannot attend the tournament.

I believe this is also the traditional weekend of Academic Decathlon in Orange County and possibly neighboring counties, but I'm not sure how much overlap there is between those two activities anymore.

sharadmv wrote:

nadph wrote:

Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It wrote:I'm sorry, but accommodating a single player having a conflict is not at all a good reason to ask for an entire tournament to change its date.

I think it was implied that "other people want this too" - if NorCal is anything to go by, there is likely significant overlap between Science Olympiad/Bowl and quizbowl teams, so David might be saying that a bunch of RB people are needed to staff Science Olympiad, and that it would be advantageous for them if the tournament date was changed.

To Nikhil: Do you know of any conflicts with Middle School Science Olympiad in norcal? I don't see how big of a problem this will be unless SciOly is hosted in Bellarmine and you guys have to help, because I don't know if any other NorCal schools are even planning on attending this tournament.

Well, I meant to say participation in the two events; I would guess that, like David, other people from RB likely interested in quizbowl (and planning to attend TPOT) and Science Olympiad would be required by their club to help staff the MS regional. I was unsure of the reason David might post something like that, but something like this seems the most likely.

Bellarmine itself has no conflicts: we have never participated in Science Olympiad, though we do the Science Olympiads (USAPHO, USNCO, USABO, USACO, etc.) and Science Bowl, which are entirely different. Hopefully this means we're not entirely science-deficient, though it would seem that way. I was actually basing my observation off traditional Science Bowl/Olympiad powerhouses such as Mira Loma and MSJ, whose "science teams" generally feature a significant overlap of "people generally interested in learning science at a higher level" with quizbowl teams. Science Olympiad and Bowl at all levels are hosted by colleges, though, so I doubt either we or MSJ would face significant conflicts between that and TPOT.

EDIT: make more sense in that last paragraph

sharadmv wrote:

nadph wrote:

Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It wrote:I'm sorry, but accommodating a single player having a conflict is not at all a good reason to ask for an entire tournament to change its date.

I think it was implied that "other people want this too" - ... David might be saying that a bunch of RB people are needed to staff Science Olympiad, and that it would be advantageous for them if the tournament date was changed.

To David: Are there any other RBers that would miss the tournament because of this?

There are quite a few, actually. We have some quizbowlers who coach the Bernardo Heights Middle School teams and most the other quizbowlers are Science Olympiad competitors and therefore under rather strong incentive to help with staffing.

Is there enough to field at least one RB team? David told me it was possible.

I don't do Science Olympiad and am perfectly fine with going solo (I've done it at ASCII 1 and Technophobia Jr 2009), so yes. Without asking, I don't know any other RB quizbowlers who do Science Olympiad, but I don't think there are any; besides, we won't know anything about this for sure until our club rush in the next week or two.

cvdwightw wrote:I believe this is also the traditional weekend of Academic Decathlon in Orange County and possibly neighboring counties, but I'm not sure how much overlap there is between those two activities anymore.

Can you elaborate? How many schools would potentially be involved in this?

Praneet wrote:

cvdwightw wrote:I believe this is also the traditional weekend of Academic Decathlon in Orange County and possibly neighboring counties, but I'm not sure how much overlap there is between those two activities anymore.

Can you elaborate? How many schools would potentially be involved in this?

I can't find the date in LA County, but San Diego County Academic Decathlon is definitely on February 5 and Orange County almost certainly is. I don't know how many schools would be involved because I don't know how many players and coaches overlap anymore (there is certainly much less overlap than 10 years ago).

For what it's worth, Baby Anteater has a date claim on the week before and specifically makes it a JV tournament to minimize the potential competitor overlap between quizbowl and the essay/interview/speech part of Academic Decathlon.

The sample packet has been attached in the first post.

I know a good chunk of the Uni team probably won't be able to go due to a (BAD AND NOT FUN) Latin Quiz Bowl-like competition on the same day. Oh the irony.
We might still be able to field one team and one buzzer of our teammates who take Spanish. Any more is a stretch unless we recruit massively between now and February or date gets moved.

Hello everybody!

I just wanted to send a reminder that the tournament date (2/5/2011) is coming up and that if you wish to participate, you should register as soon as possible.

The registration deadline will be 2/2, the Wednesday before the tournament date.

How does the field look so far?

So far, only Santa Fe Christian has registered.

I'll update the field in the main post when there are more registrations.

Can RB register one team for now? Another might come, depending on how much interest there is among the underclassmen.

Just a reminder to all teams playing this tournament today:

The set will not be open to public discussion for quite some time. However, we will welcome and consider any feedback sent to me at [email protected]. Thanks.

Rancho Bernardo won this tournament after splitting games with La Jolla and agreeing to break the tie by PPG after some members on the La Jolla team had to leave early.

Canyon Crest Academy placed third, and Westview placed fourth.

I am told that the highest ppb at this tournament was 25 ppb, and the lowest, by completely new-to-the-circuit team Santa Fe Christian, was 12.22 ppb.

Stats can be found here:

Prelims: http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings

Playoffs: http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings

Combined: http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings

Thanks to all the teams that attended this tournament and made it a success.