The Quizbowl Resource Center

UNC Quiz Bowl is proud to announce the 11th (?) annual Tar Heel Cup, which is being held on Saturday, October 1 on the UNC campus. For those of you who have attended before, not much is changing this year.

Registration: Tournament fees are as follows:

• $75 for the first team
• $50 for each subsequent team
• -$10 for each buzzer set
• -$15 for staff (readers or scorekeepers); discount only applies once

Send an e-mail to [email protected] with the name of your school, how many teams and buzzer sets you plan on bringing, and whether you have anyone willing to help staff the tournament. We are capping the number of teams at about 28, so send your registration in as early as possible.

Payment will be accepted on the morning of the tournament, at check-in. If you must pay in advance, note this in your e-mail and I'll provide you with a mailing address. Checks should be made out to Carolina Academic Team.

Format and questions: Round-robin in each of four divisions in the morning, followed by a bracket-style playoff in the afternoon. As in previous years, we will be using questions provided by HSAPQ.

Location and parking: UNC's fall event registration hasn't started yet, but we will try to locate in Dey and Bingham Halls as we have for past tournaments. You can consult the campus map for more details. Parking is largely unrestricted on weekends, and you should be able to park in any of the nearby campus lots at no charge. Meals will not be provided, though there is no shortage of good food on Franklin Street.

If you have any further questions, post them here or send them to [email protected]. We look forward to seeing you in October!

Edit: We are aware that October 1 is an SAT date. There is little we can do about this; there are home football games on all but three Saturdays in September and October. Out of the remaining dates, September 24 is too early to make event reservations through the Carolina Union, and October 22 is fall break at UNC. Short of holding Tar Heel Cup sometime in November, which is much later in the year than usual, this is the best we can do. My apologies for the inconvenience.

Field so far:

• Enloe (2 teams, 1 buzzer)
• Early College at Guilford (3 teams, 1 buzzer)
• Thomas Jefferson (2 teams, 1 buzzer)
• NCSSM (3 teams, 1 buzzer, staff)

Also, we've successfully reserved rooms in Dey and Bingham. Tournament orientation will be at 9:00 in Bingham 103. Teams bringing staffers should plan on arriving about 15 minutes early, in order to nail down logistics.

Registration is now closed. Here is the final field of 16 teams:

• Enloe (2 teams, 1 buzzer)
• Early College at Guilford (3 teams, 1 buzzer)
• Thomas Jefferson (2 teams, 1 buzzer)
• NCSSM (2 teams, 1 buzzer, staff)
• East Chapel Hill (2 teams)
• Raleigh Charter (3 teams, 3 buzzers)
• Chapel Hill (1 team)
• Richmond Senior (1 team)

We've secured affiliation with PACE NSC again this year.

Early College at Guilford A defeated East Chapel Hill A, 560 to 175, to repeat as this year's champions. Enloe A and NCSSM A placed third and fourth, respectively. Full tournament statistics will be posted soon.

As promised, here are the full tournament stats.

What set was used at this tournament?

HSAPQ Tournament #22.

query wrote:As promised, here are the full tournament stats.

From looking at what was posted, both the playoff and overall stats were generated with teams still organized by prelim brackets. Could whoever is responsible for the stats clean that up?

query wrote:HSAPQ Tournament #22.

RIDICULOUS power marks. Otherwise a fine set of questions.

The power statistics look dead on to me.

College Park Spyders wrote:The power statistics look dead on to me.

I mean to say they were generous. For example, if the TU is looking for, say, Steinbeck, and the power mark is downstream of "Of Mice and Men" that seems off to me.

I do not mean to start a discussion about what's a fair power mark. PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I am simply offering my opinion for anyone who is interested in the HSAPQ product, which I have always enjoyed. These simply seemed generous for them.

Eric

The power marks were exceedingly generous in some cases. In our first game, we powered about 5 of the first 10 questions, some of which were after pretty obvious clues. All in all, though, the questions covered a nice range of topics.

I really enjoyed the set and also felt that some of the powers were forgiving. Fun time though.

Look guys, you would be astounded at what most teams don't know. I guarantee you the majority of teams that will play this set would not be able to get the buzzes you think are so easy. It is my opinion, and I think HSAPQ's as well, that teams who know more than a really substantial group of teams playing the set deserve powers for their buzzes, even if the clues they are buzzing off of seem like second nature to the players. That's what sets serious teams apart from the bulk of the field, and serious teams deserve powers for their work.

College Park Spyders wrote:Look guys, you would be astounded at what most teams don't know. I guarantee you the majority of teams that will play this set would not be able to get the buzzes you think are so easy. It is my opinion, and I think HSAPQ's as well, that teams who know more than a really substantial group of teams playing the set deserve powers for their buzzes, even if the clues they are buzzing off of seem like second nature to the players. That's what sets serious teams apart from the bulk of the field, and serious teams deserve powers for their work.

In 15 years of coaching quizbowl I've seen a lot, including my C team scoring -5 on one of these rounds Saturday. I too get sick of the complaints about how easy questions were/how late the power marks were/stock clues/blah blah from players in these forums, many of whom are good and should be happy they can get those that early. However, I thought that in that time I had developed a pretty good feel for the difference between a power clue and an FTP clue. Maybe the feeling about power marking has changed and I've missed this. Having read and heard HSAPQ sets in the past I was surprised with some of these marks. The particular questions I'm thinking of weren't rewarding serious teams for serious knowledge; the power mark just went on too far.

College Park Spyders wrote:Look guys, you would be astounded at what most teams don't know. I guarantee you the majority of teams that will play this set would not be able to get the buzzes you think are so easy. It is my opinion, and I think HSAPQ's as well, that teams who know more than a really substantial group of teams playing the set deserve powers for their buzzes, even if the clues they are buzzing off of seem like second nature to the players. That's what sets serious teams apart from the bulk of the field, and serious teams deserve powers for their work.

I checked out stats from last year's HSAPQ in Illinois and DC, and after what I saw out of those regions, it's almost as if they wouldn't go more than a question without powering. Last year was my first year playing real quiz bowl, so I was out of the loop last year. I'm still not even really qualified to be an evaluator of where powers should be marked, what scores should be, etc.