Samhain Classic 2010 (10/30/2010, Hackensack NJ)

[jonpin]

Bergen County Academies Quiz Bowl is pleased to announce our fall tournament, the Samhain Classic, will be held October 30, 2010 at BCA in Hackensack, NJ. We will be using NAQT set IS-96, playing untimed rounds of 20 tossups and associated bonuses.

Registration fees:
* $70 for first team, $60 for each team after the first.
* $10 discount for each fully functioning buzzer system, $10 discount for each moderator provided
* If you are coming from a long distance, feel free to contact me about a possible distance discount
* Checks should be made payable to "Student Activity Fund / Quiz Bowl".

For now, we are working on a maximum of 24 teams, and so I'm capping it at 3 teams per school for now. We plan to use a prelim and playoff structure with a goal of getting everyone ~10 games (something quite similar to last year's fall tournament is likely).

- Location: Bergen County Academies, 200 Hackensack Ave Hackensack NJ 07601
*Coming from the south: GSParkway to Exit 161 for NJ-4. Travel ~2.5 miles to Hackensack Ave, take the first exit (for Hackensack), school is immediately on your left.
*Coming from NY State: New York Thruway to Exit 15, stay left onto NJ-17. Travel 15 miles to NJ-4 east. Travel 2 miles to Hackensack Ave, take the first exit, school is immediately on your left.
*Coming from NYC/LI/New England: GW Bridge into New Jersey, follow signs for NJ-4. Travel 5 miles to Hackensack Ave, take the second exit (for Hackensack), school is on your left after you pass over highway.

Registration should be from 7:45 to 8:30am, with us planning to start competition by 9:00.The tournament and awards should be concluded no later than 5:30pm and hopefully somewhat earlier.
Remarks of interest may be posted here, but I will only consider official registrations sent by email to me via [my last name]@gmail.com or by paper. [I haven't yet made the paper registration form, will post it early next week].

[jonpin]

Bumping this to remind everyone about this tournament coming up in a month. No formal registrations have been received yet. Here is a registration form if your school wants a paper copy.

EDIT TO ADD: One important fact to note, this tournament is being run on IS-96. This is, notably, the same set used at the Maryland Fall Tournament, so any Delaware (or further south) schools who attended that tournament unfortunately will be unable to attend here.

[SHP Pirate]

SHP will be there with at least one team and definitely four buzzers. I will get in touch with you soon.

[Nik]

Kellenberg plans to send two teams.

[jonpin]

FINAL (hopefully) Field update, evening of Oct 26:
Chatham (2)
East Brunswick (2)
Glen Rock (3)
Great Neck South (1)
Hunter (3)
Kellenberg (3)
Livingston (3)
North Babylon
Paramus Catholic (2)
Ranney (2)
Ridgewood (2)
Seton Hall Prep (1)
St. Joseph (3)
Wissahickon (2)
House teams (2)
Total: 32 teams from 15 schools (including BCA)

Assuming no dropouts (and that we can support two house teams), we will have 32 teams!

[Edward Powers]

Saint Joe's is also interested. I will send you an email to register 2 teams, 1 buzzer and 1 moderator before the day is done.

EDITED: For concision.

[jonpin]

Field update posted. All teams on the "expressed interest" list, please contact me soon to firm up your attendance and how many teams you will be bringing.

[Edward Powers]

Jon,

Will we be able to purchase the full IS 96 Set at the end of the tournament for a nominal fee? Also, I might be sending my B & C teams to Samhain; not sure yet. I'll let you know once I talk to my kids.

[jonpin]

Jon,

Will we be able to purchase the full IS 96 Set at the end of the tournament for a nominal fee? Also, I might be sending my B & C teams to Samhain; not sure yet. I'll let you know once I talk to my kids.

Yes, you can buy the set for $10 at the end of the tournament, including any rounds we didn't use.

Also, field updated above.

[Edward Powers]

Jon,

My A Team WILL BE attending, but I would also like to add my C Team to the two I've already registered, for a total of 3 teams if it is not too late to add a team. Is this OK? And I sent you an email to make this a formal request.

Thanks.

EDIT: And my assistant will not be there; I will be there instead, so I will definitely moderate.

[jonpin]

As noted in the field update above, our field will land between 28 and 32 teams, barring teams dropping out.

Format: 4 groups of 7-8 play a round-robin, with a lunch break probably after round 5. Teams will then split into four playoffs tiers, the first three containing 8 teams, the fourth containing those teams that remain. For example, the top tier will contain four first-place teams and four second-place teams. Those teams will be split into two divisions of four (each containing the winners of two groups and the runner-ups of the other two groups) for three playoff games. It's likely we will then have crossover semifinals and a third-place/championship game. Meanwhile, should the teams choose to play it, there would be fifth-place and seventh-place games. The second and third tiers would also play three playoff games followed by a placement game, with the format of the fourth tier determined mostly on how many teams stick around for it. Every team that stays through the conclusion of the playoff stage will get at least 9 games.

No new schools will be permitted to register at this time, it being a week before the tournament. Schools that have informed me that they may be changing the number of the teams should do so by Tuesday. Note that any school which requests additional team(s) may be denied if we do not have the staff required to support that additional team.

We are very much looking forward to this tournament, and we will see you all next Saturday!

[SHP Pirate]

SHP will definitely have two teams and 4 buzzers. I will help moderate (if needed) when I arrive @ 1:00. By the way ... Jimmy will be leaving @ 2:00 for another function.

Sorry I have not been in touch. (Open House this week at school!)

[jonpin]

Email just sent to coaches:

Greetings coaches! On behalf of the Bergen County Academies Quiz Bowl team, thank you again for registering for the Samhain Classic this Saturday at BCA in Hackensack, NJ. First things first, a field update/check. If this information is not accurate TELL ME IMMEDIATELY.

Chatham: 2 teams (need a phone number)
East Brunswick: 2 teams (need a phone number)
Glen Rock: 3 teams
Great Neck South: 2 teams, 2 buzzers, 1 moderator
Hunter: 3 teams (need a phone number)
Kellenberg: 3 teams, 3 buzzers, 1 moderator
Livingston: 3 teams (need a phone number)
North Babylon: 1 team (need a phone number)
Paramus Catholic: 2 teams
Ranney: 2 teams
Ridgewood: 2 teams, 1 buzzer, 1 moderator
Seton Hall Prep: 2 teams, 4 buzzers
Saint Joseph: 3 teams, 1 buzzer, 1 moderator (need a phone number)
Wissahickon: 2 teams

GRAND TOTAL: 32 teams from 14 schools

We also welcome David Madden, who is organizing a History Bee and Bowl in the spring, who has volunteered his moderating services as well as five buzzer systems. He will share more information on his competition Saturday morning at the pre-tournament meeting.

Again, if any of that is not accurate, or if you're asked to provide a phone number, please contact me as soon as possible.

Saturday morning, check-in is from 8 to 8:30 in the upstairs cafeteria. You should arrive at the auditorium entrance (the main parking lot; when approaching from Route 4, it is after the school), and you will be directed to the cafeteria for breakfast, registration, and an informational meeting. The tournament is slated to start at 9:00. If you are running late or become lost on your way to the school, call me at [redacted].
The tournament is forecast to end at about 5pm.

Lunch: We will break for lunch after about 5 rounds, at approximately 11:45am, and return to play at about 1:00pm. Teams have the option to bring their own lunches, travel to the nearby Boston Market, Burger King, or anything at Riverside Square Mall (maps will be provided at check-in), or purchase pizzas from the supply we are ordering. Pizzas will be between $15 and $20, I don't have that information in front of me right now.

Format: Teams will be split into four groups of eight teams each, roughly equal in strength. If you have information that would help us in more accurately judging the relative strength of your team (i.e. you will be missing a key player, or your results from earlier in the season were without a key player, etc), please let me know. Each group will play a round-robin (7 games). Then the top two teams in each group will advance to the Championship Tier (1st-8th place), the next two to the second tier (9th-16th place), and so forth.
Each tier will have two divisions of four teams; teams will play the other three teams in their division, followed by a placement game against a team from the opposite division. Every team will get at least 9-10 games, and if everyone sticks around, they will get 11 games. In the Championship Tier, the top two teams from each division will advance to semifinals and then a championship.
Trophies will be awarded to the final four teams, as well as the top five individual scorers based on points-per-game in the preliminary rounds, plus the individual students with the most powers and the most negs.
The game format is tossup/bonus, NAQT untimed. We will be reading computational math questions. A digest of relevant rules is attached; any team unfamiliar with tossup/bonus should read that file before Saturday. More complete rules are available at http://naqt.com/rules.html (note that any references to a game clock should be disregarded, and note that we will allow THREE seconds to answer after a player buzzes in).

Questions: We will be using NAQT set IS-96. To my knowledge, no team at this tournament has played a previous tournament using these questions. The set contains 15 rounds of questions, we anticipate using 12 rounds (with rounds 13 and 14 available for tiebreakers and round 15 available for emergencies). Teams are welcome to purchase a copy of the questions at the conclusion of the tournament for $10. If you anticipate that you will purchase the questions, please let us know before Saturday, so we can have sufficient copies of the later packets.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or anything else, please feel free to contact me and I will get back to you as soon as I can. I look forward to seeing you all on Saturday!

Jon Pinyan
BCA Quizbowl

[jonpin]

Quick Results:

Wow what a day. Thank you all for coming out, especially those who volunteered to read.

In the final: Hunter-A defeated Kellenberg-A 350-225.
In the third-place game: St Joseph-A defeated Seton Hall-A 315-180. All four teams earned HSNCT and NSC bids.
In the fifth-place game: I believe someone told me Hunter-B defeated East Brunswick-A to claim the last bid to HSNCT. If this tournament is PACE gold-certified, both of these teams earn NSC qualification.
Ranney-A and Livingston-A finished tied for seventh.

Full prelim results will go up maybe after I have food but more likely tomorrow. Full playoff results need to be entered into SQBS, so look for those when I have a chance to breathe, likely around Monday.

[Edward Powers]

Congratulations to all for a fine tournament, especially Hunter A & Kellenberg A, who were both outstanding. Seton Hall also had an excellent run when you consider their top scorer Jimmy had to leave early in their playoff run, if not before. And, as always, thanks to our hosts at Bergen Academies, especially to Jon Pinyan. And a personal thanks to Josh of BCA for instructing me in the intricacies of the SQBS program.

[anderson]

The tournament was great fun, and our whole team really enjoyed it. We originally had some students who were hesitant at driving 2 hours to a quiz bowl tournament, but afterwards, they all said that it was a great experience and that they would like to go to more competitions in the future, so thanks to the hosts at BCA and the moderators for doing a great job.

It was pretty unfortunate how the fire alarm went off, but some things just happen. :/

We also had two extremely close games against St. Joe's and Ranney, where we realized how intense quiz bowl can get. We'll make the championship tier eventually!

[jonpin]

Sorry, playoff results still aren't entered into SQBS. Prelim stats are here: http://results.scobo.net/BergenCountyAcademies (overall stats will be there eventually).

Top level playoff results in quick form:
Sanity: Kellenberg 3-0, St Joseph 2-1, Hunter B 1-2, Livingston 0-3
Fear: Hunter A 3-0, SH Prep 2-1, East Brun 1-2, Ranney 0-3

Semifinals
Kellenberg 355-265 Seton Hall
Hunter A 415-190 St Joseph

Championship
Hunter A 350-225 Kellenberg

[jonpin]

http://results.scobo.net/resultmenu.asp ... mies&id=11

In the top tier, each of the teams in gold went 3-0 in the playoffs and won a semifinal; the teams in silver went 2-1 and lost a semifinal; the teams in brown went 1-2.

If there are any disputes on statistics, please email them to me and I will compare your remarks to the scoresheets I have. Otherwise, I will send the scoresheets on to NAQT so they can calculate conversion rates and such.