Minnesota 2011-12

[theMoMA]

I'm starting this thread to ask whether any high schoolers would be interested in summer quizbowl practices. We could likely find a place on the University of Minnesota campus or in the southwest suburbs if enough people are interested. We've run these in years past with great success and it's always been a lot of fun.

[mtimmons]

I'll be out of town until mid-August but after that I'd certainly be interested, particularly if the practices were at the University of Minnesota.

[mtimmons]

So far it seems like there will be 6 tournaments held in Minnesota during the fall:
Minnesota High School Novice 10/1
SOCIAL 10/29 [IS-108A] [tentative]
MHSQBL starts late October/early November
TOSSUP [MS-02] early November
Fall Novice 11/12
GINVIT [IS-107] 12/3 [tentative].

The problem I see is that there is only 1 regular difficulty tournament [GINVIT] while 2 restricted eligibity tournaments [TOSSUP and Fall Novice] and 3 tournaments on easy questions [Minnesot High School Novice, SOCIAL, League]. Although I think there is certainly some room for easy difficulty and novice tournaments, I would argue most tournaments still should be regular difficulty. In particular, TOSSUP strikes me as a bad idea because its eligibity rules of only freshmen and sophomores could both leave some very good players eligible while excluding a lot of newer players and teams who could use practice on easy questions. I'm also not convinced that having high schoolers play on middle school questions is a good idea. Maybe TOSSUP could be replaced by a regular difficulty tournament or there could be a regular difficulty tournament run alongside it. Any other thoughts?

[eliza.grames]

If teams are interested in another regular difficulty set, Minnesota could tentatively (pending willing staffers) host one on October 29. The sets that would be available would be BDAT, another NAQT set, something from HSAPQ, OLEFIN, or whatever Torrey Pines is producing.

[Cheynem]

We should also be realistic. Minnesota had very small fields for a number of their high school tournaments last year. I would be open to running another tournament, but I think interest would need to materialize first.

[eliza.grames]

We should also be realistic. Minnesota had very small fields for a number of their high school tournaments last year. I would be open to running another tournament, but I think interest would need to materialize first.

I'd say we'd need at least 8 teams (preferably more) interested to make it worth adding another tournament, since we don't have a lot of free weekends this semester already.

[mtimmons]

We should also be realistic. Minnesota had very small fields for a number of their high school tournaments last year. I would be open to running another tournament, but I think interest would need to materialize first.

Do you guys have any idea why this is the case? Are most Minnesota teams unwilling to play housewrites or is there some other reason for the lack of interest in these tournaments?

[Cheynem]

I think a lot of teams are not exposed to non-NAQT tournaments so there's some hesitancy or confusion about attending those types of tournaments. In my admittedly brief time at Minnesota, I've found that non NAQT tournaments tend to attract teams on a somewhat cyclical basis depending on how familiar they are with other types of quizbowl.

[theMoMA]

I think a lot of teams are not exposed to non-NAQT tournaments so there's some hesitancy or confusion about attending those types of tournaments. In my admittedly brief time at Minnesota, I've found that non NAQT tournaments tend to attract teams on a somewhat cyclical basis depending on how familiar they are with other types of quizbowl.

There are also a lot of events between league and the other MQBA events offered, and teams typically want to play only so many events. The demand for the twelfth quizbowl event of the year is somewhat diminished compared to the second, for instance.

[suchacardinal]

I think one of the other issues is that many teams, mine included, compete in Knowledge Bowl in addition to the various Quiz Bowl events throughout the year. This adds a considerable number of events to my team's schedule every year, roughly 9 or 10, making additional quiz bowl events harder to attend. The other issue I know that my team, at least, has, is that we just don't have the budget to go to all these tournaments. Every time a tournament gets announced mid-season that we want to go to we always end up having to go rogue. So much of our annual budget goes towards nationals that unless it's going to be in Minneapolis this year we may not go to tournaments simply because we don't want to pay the entry fee. That said, I would definitely be interested in adding another tournament this year.

[Mr. Scogan]

I think one of the other issues is that many teams, mine included, compete in Knowledge Bowl in addition to the various Quiz Bowl events throughout the year. This adds a considerable number of events to my team's schedule every year, roughly 9 or 10, making additional quiz bowl events harder to attend. The other issue I know that my team, at least, has, is that we just don't have the budget to go to all these tournaments. Every time a tournament gets announced mid-season that we want to go to we always end up having to go rogue. So much of our annual budget goes towards nationals that unless it's going to be in Minneapolis this year we may not go to tournaments simply because we don't want to pay the entry fee. That said, I would definitely be interested in adding another tournament this year.

The HSNCT is going to be held in Atlanta again this coming year, for whatever it is worth.

[mtimmons]

I think one of the other issues is that many teams, mine included, compete in Knowledge Bowl in addition to the various Quiz Bowl events throughout the year. This adds a considerable number of events to my team's schedule every year, roughly 9 or 10, making additional quiz bowl events harder to attend. The other issue I know that my team, at least, has, is that we just don't have the budget to go to all these tournaments. Every time a tournament gets announced mid-season that we want to go to we always end up having to go rogue. So much of our annual budget goes towards nationals that unless it's going to be in Minneapolis this year we may not go to tournaments simply because we don't want to pay the entry fee. That said, I would definitely be interested in adding another tournament this year.

It seems like quitting knowledge bowl would solve most if not all of your problems.

[Coelacanth]

It seems like quitting knowledge bowl would solve most if not all of every team's problems.

Fixed that for you.

[Horned Screamer]

How much money and how many dates does Knowledge Bowl suck away?

[suchacardinal]

It seems like quitting knowledge bowl would solve most if not all of your problems.

I wish it were that easy. The problem with that is that Knowledge Bowl has become such a major part of the team that it would be hard to eliminate. Also, our middle school coach is fairly influential in the Knowledge Bowl world. The main expense created by Knowledge Bowl is the state meet. The school covers all the costs, mainly renting a car to get there and rooms. Rooms at Cragun's are expensive, I don't know exact numbers, but they have a weird system of charging. They charge per person per night instead of per room per night meaning no it doesn't matter if we get one room or two we end up having to pay for five or six people.

This doesn't just affect a few teams, many of the leading metro area teams double up, for example Chanhassen, Chaska and Eden Prarie all do KB. The other thing is that some of the teams that we see at events like MNHSQB are actually KB teams that occasionally venture out into the QB world, St. Anthony Village for example. Though I detest Knowledge Bowl with every inch of my being it seems to me that it is here to stay and will continue to create with conflict with Quiz Bowl for a while. Once again, I'm always willing to play another QB tournament, and I think my team is too. I just thought I might provide a theory as to why Minnesota teams are so unwilling to do additional QB tournaments.

[eliza.grames]

The other thing is that some of the teams that we see at events like MNHSQB are actually KB teams that occasionally venture out into the QB world, St. Anthony Village for example.

We have had a few KB teams venturing into QB even at invitational tournaments. Glencoe-Silver Lake sent two teams to a tournament last year, and Red Wing High School is sending two teams to MHSNT this year. Hopefully those two teams continue to play QB for the rest of the season.

[theMoMA]

Knowledge Bowl is significantly ahead of quizbowl in both the middle school ranks and the out-of-state teams. An opportunity exists for quizbowl to draw better among those demographics.

[mtimmons]

I played the first round of league today. The questions were far too short with easy lead-ins and there was far too much non-academic stuff as usual. But on the bright side it seems playoffs have been changed for single to double elimination. Although this will approximately double the length of playoffs it is still a massive improvement in insuring the best teams will win the tournament.

[suchacardinal]

I played the first round of league today. The questions were far too short with easy lead-ins and there was far too much non-academic stuff as usual. But on the bright side it seems playoffs have been changed for single to double elimination. Although this will approximately double the length of playoffs it is still a massive improvement in insuring the best teams will win the tournament.

I agree, the questions were laughably easy, but what really annoyed me was the lack of competition in my division. We switched back to the south because the dates and location were more convenient, but none of the other teams can even compete with us.

[mtimmons]

I agree, the questions were laughably easy, but what really annoyed me was the lack of competition in my division. We switched back to the south because the dates and location were more convenient, but none of the other teams can even compete with us.

I think that is probably more a function of the very small number of good teams in Minnesota and the large number of teams in league. Though when you consider the six tournaments that will happen this fall in Minnesota: Social, League, Fall Novice, Rat-Race, Tossup, and Ginvit it's not really surprising as there is 1 regular difficulty tournament, 1 A-level tournament, and 4 easier than A-level.

[gaurav.kandlikar]

If it's hard(er) questions and more competition you guys are looking for, you can play some college tournaments. Most of the teams playing at league probably find the questions more than sufficiently challenging and satisfying, so it's probably not changing any time soon. You've missed MOO, MAGNI and ACF Fall this semester, but there'll be regionals (probably), MUT, and likely some other things happening in the area next semester.

Registration fees shouldn't hold you guys back, I am sure that hosts will be willing to work something out given that you'll probably be paying out of pocket.

[mtimmons]

If it's hard(er) questions and more competition you guys are looking for, you can play some college tournaments. Most of the teams playing at league probably find the questions more than sufficiently challenging and satisfying, so it's probably not changing any time soon. You've missed MOO, MAGNI and ACF Fall this semester, but there'll be regionals (probably), MUT, and likely some other things happening in the area next semester.

I think there's a pretty big difference between the difficulty of league and regular difficulty college questions which is what MOO and MAGNI were. Maybe I'm totally wrong but somehow I didn't think the rest of my team would have wanted to go to MOO to face open teams on 8 line questions. It also appears six players from STA played MOO and got 0.56, 1.43, 2.78, 3, 3.5, and 10 points per game respectively http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... detail/#t1. Central would have gone to ACF Fall but we were required to write a packet which I neglected to do. The biggest problem I have with the questions used in league is that they're too short. It would be a huge improvement even if they kept the same answer lines but added 1 line to every tossup. In particular the 2-line tossups featured at the beginning of league and that compose the entirety of Rat-Race are terrible and should be eliminated.

[suchacardinal]

I think there's a pretty big difference between the difficulty of league and regular difficulty college questions which is what MOO and MAGNI were. Maybe I'm totally wrong but somehow I didn't think the rest of my team would have wanted to go to MOO to face open teams on 8 line questions. It also appears six players from STA played MOO and got 0.56, 1.43, 2.78, 3, 3.5, and 10 points per game respectively

I agree, there is a huge difference between the two. We did have 6 guys at MOO, playing on two different mixed teams, one with Brendan Byrne, the other with Alex Gerten which partially explains the low ppg, but I do think that there need to be more regular difficulty tournaments. Now on the subject of RAT-RACE, I think that, unless they've changed the format from that of TOMCAT, the short, easy tossups that grow in point value are the novelty of that tournament.

On an unrelated note does anyone know when the Minnesota Novice Tournament is being rescheduled for?

[mtimmons]

Now on the subject of RAT-RACE, I think that, unless they've changed the format from that of TOMCAT, the short, easy tossups that grow in point value are the novelty of that tournament.

That may be the case but that doesn't mean that the questions aren't terrible...

[CaptainSwing]

Coming from a KB-only school, I can assure you that the main reason schools stay away from quiz bowl is cost and difficulty.

Playing in the MN KB league and going to the invitational tournaments costs significantly less then playing in the MNHSQB and going to the Saturday tournaments. I came from a program with six KB teams which ranged in ability from a very competitive, state-level team to the bottom rung of JV. From the perspective of the administration, they wanted to keep costs down and make sure everyone got a chance to play. Knowledge Bowl questions are very short, non-pyramidal, and often require solving riddles or using educated guesswork order to get points. This serves to level the playing field in a bizarre way. For example: When I was a junior, I played KB against Sam Peterson's Chaska team who would go on to win the state KB meet and place top ten at HSNCT. My team was routinely able to get points against him, and while we never beat him, St. Anthony Village did actually beat them in the Regional qualifier round that year.

There is also the perception among KB schools that quiz bowl is too hard or too obscure. There is rarely any RMP (certainly not myth) and very little by way of Fine Arts in KB. In all honesty: myth, philosophy, classical music, and opera are simply not taught in most high schools. Good high school quiz bowl teams, for the most part, know this stuff because they have studied it in a quiz bowl context. Most teams out there (your B, C, and D teams and even a good number of A teams) don't study exclusively for this kind of thing.

Knowledge Bowl questions are very annoying and the program is draconian. That said, it is (at least perceived to be) cheaper and easier than Quiz Bowl. That is why you see so many easy tournaments with easier questions floating around now, and that is why there will be 45-50 teams competing at RATRACE. Quiz bowl is trying to take some of that market share.

If you are looking to improve as a high school quiz bowl team in MN, then you really should come to collegiate events. I think it is somewhat unfortunate that STA chose to come to MOO, because the field was so tough and the questions were probably above their intended difficulty level. James and Max, if either of you guys had brought teams to Carleton for MAGNI or Fall, you would have been getting points and playing competitively in those fields. I think it is safe to say that Eliza and I are fine with cutting prices for rogue high school teams.

[Cheynem]

Perhaps this post could be referenced in the HFT thread where Dave Madden is calling for higher tournament fees.

[mtimmons]

Knowledge Bowl questions are very short, non-pyramidal, and often require solving riddles or using educated guesswork order to get points. This serves to level the playing field in a bizarre way. For example: When I was a junior, I played KB against Sam Peterson's Chaska team who would go on to win the state KB meet and place top ten at HSNCT. My team was routinely able to get points against him, and while we never beat him, St. Anthony Village did actually beat them in the Regional qualifier round that year.

There is also the perception among KB schools that quiz bowl is too hard or too obscure. There is rarely any RMP (certainly not myth) and very little by way of Fine Arts in KB. In all honesty: myth, philosophy, classical music, and opera are simply not taught in most high schools. Good high school quiz bowl teams, for the most part, know this stuff because they have studied it in a quiz bowl context. Most teams out there (your B, C, and D teams and even a good number of A teams) don't study exclusively for this kind of thing.

I totally believe that this is true. Most teams in Minnesota seem content to exclusively easy questions while the number of teams that focus on regular difficulty or higher questions seems to be very small. I think the abundance of easy tournaments and lack of regular difficulty tournaments reinforces the perception among many teams that easy questions are normal and regular difficulty questions are too hard. I also think there's a problem if the high school circuit is divided into good teams that regularly play on college and regular difficulty questions and a large number of teams that just play easy questions.

Knowledge Bowl questions are very annoying and the program is draconian. That said, it is (at least perceived to be) cheaper and easier than Quiz Bowl. That is why you see so many easy tournaments with easier questions floating around now, and that is why there will be 45-50 teams competing at RATRACE. Quiz bowl is trying to take some of that market share.

Although cost and difficulty certainly plays an important role in determining the tournaments teams attend I think there are other important factors. For example 31 teams paid 80$and went Carleton to play SnoCAT even though the set was almost certainly too hard for most of the field [the median ppb was 10.41], while the GSAC, Prison Bowl, and BHSAT mirrors at the University of Minnesota, which is much closer for most teams were 30-40$ cheaper and somewhat easier yet drew very small fields. According to this source http://www.nesc.k12.mn.us/files/2012_SH ... ration.pdf Knowledge Bowl would be more expensive than quiz bowl invitationals unless a school brought a lot of teams. MHSQBL is also far from the cheapest way to play quiz bowl yet it draws many more teams than other competitions.

[eliza.grames]

On an unrelated note does anyone know when the Minnesota Novice Tournament is being rescheduled for?

Sometime in the spring - right now it is dependent on when Penn Bowl ends up being hosted. It will probably be in February or early March.

[suchacardinal]

This is just a little thing, but it's impacted me twice this season already and will probably affect others as the year progresses. When scheduling meets, if at all possible could TD's try and work around SAT/ACT test dates? I just found out that I cannot play GINVIT, a meet I like and was looking forward to, on Saturday due to testing.

[mtimmons]

This is just a little thing, but it's impacted me twice this season already and will probably affect others as the year progresses. When scheduling meets, if at all possible could TD's try and work around SAT/ACT test dates? I just found out that I cannot play GINVIT, a meet I like and was looking forward to, on Saturday due to testing.

You may want to look at the many previous discussions of this topic on these boards...

[eliza.grames]

This is just a little thing, but it's impacted me twice this season already and will probably affect others as the year progresses. When scheduling meets, if at all possible could TD's try and work around SAT/ACT test dates? I just found out that I cannot play GINVIT, a meet I like and was looking forward to, on Saturday due to testing.

It's not always possible to plan around test dates because the collegiate schedule only leaves us with a few open weekends to host tournaments on. I really should have looked at the dates for GINVIT though and perhaps moved it to next weekend; I honestly didn't even consider checking because I just planned to host it on the same weekend we always have. In the future, if there are two possible weekends, I'll check test dates and choose the better weekend.

[mtimmons]

This is just a little thing, but it's impacted me twice this season already and will probably affect others as the year progresses. When scheduling meets, if at all possible could TD's try and work around SAT/ACT test dates? I just found out that I cannot play GINVIT, a meet I like and was looking forward to, on Saturday due to testing.

It's not always possible to plan around test dates because the collegiate schedule only leaves us with a few open weekends to host tournaments on. I really should have looked at the dates for GINVIT though and perhaps moved it to next weekend; I honestly didn't even consider checking because I just planned to host it on the same weekend we always have. In the future, if there are two possible weekends, I'll check test dates and choose the better weekend.

At least in the past couple years I think the current date for GINVIT has been pretty good as fewer people have missed GINVIT due to conflicts than most other tournaments. I think people have conflicts with other things is unfortunately a pretty endemic problem to quiz bowl. These kinds of things are also really going to mess with finding a good date for NASAT tryouts if the University of Minnesota ends up trying to do them.

[eliza.grames]

These kinds of things are also really going to mess with finding a good date for NASAT tryouts if the University of Minnesota ends up trying to do them.

That wouldn't be a big tournament though, and it shouldn't be too hard to find a weekend that works for like 10-15 interested people or however many want to do that.

[mtimmons]

Apparently, the 9th and 10th grade TOSSUP tournament on middle school questions happened last weekend. I wasn't there but looking at bonus conversions it seems the set was far too easy for the field as 10 out of 13 teams broke 20ppb. Even more alarmingly other than the top 2 teams and the bottom 2 teams there appears to be very little correlation between ppb and placement. In contrast, the middle school tournament run at the same time on the same set produced a more typical distribution of ppbs with the top teams around 20 and most teams around 15. I see another tournament for 9th and 10th graders on middle school questions in the spring. As the younger players are likely to be better by then perhaps that tournament could instead be run on an A-level set and middle school questions could be left for middle school tournaments.

[suchacardinal]

Max, I was at TOSSUP/LARGESSE and while I agree that the questions were a bit easy for the underclassmen, I talked to our middle school team too, and they thought that the questions were of a reasonable difficulty. However, I see no reason for the spring incarnation of this tournament to use harder questions. I think that the middle school set was a nice break for some of the freshmen who don't usually answer a lot of tossups on regular sets. I understand your concerns about the ppb, but based on observations from my practices, if the spring tournament were to be played on an A level packet the ppb would be a lot lower than normal, because a lot of the tossups would fall dead, meaning fewer bonuses would be heard, simply because the underclassmen just don't know enough of the stuff in those packets. I know that that's a huge generalization but if you look at the individual stats, yes there were some players sitting at around 70 pp20th, but the majority of them were scoring around 20 pp20th. You have to remember that these underclassmen are not you and me. There is a lot they don't know, and I think that these middle school questions were exactly what they needed. Also, just think about the logistical nightmare it could be to run two separate tournaments on two separate question sets simultaneously. Not only that, but there were so few teams there, a total of 25 middle school and high school teams. So why would NAQT bother using two sets anyway? It makes no sense.

[mtimmons]

if the spring tournament were to be played on an A level packet the ppb would be a lot lower than normal, because a lot of the tossups would fall dead, meaning fewer bonuses would be heard,

Wait how does fewer bonuses heard affect ppb? Last time I checked a dead tossup doesn't affect ppb in any way. That's not to say that dead tossups aren't bad but I don't think they are going to affect ppb.

I know that that's a huge generalization but if you look at the individual stats, yes there were some players sitting at around 70 pp20th, but the majority of them were scoring around 20 pp20th.

Well unless there are a huge number of powers most players won't be able to score more than 20ppb because if there are 20 tossups and 8 players even if all the tossups are converted each player will only answer 2.5 tossups per packet. This has little to do with the difficulty and more to do with the format of quiz bowl. Obviously if lots of tossups are going dead then the average ppg will be slightly lower but it would probably still be fairly close to 20. Assuming I calculated these things correctly 37% of tossups were powered and 93% were converted. This suggests that there were probably a lot of early buzzer races and the tossup selection was unnecessarily limited.

You have to remember that these underclassmen are not you and me. There is a lot they don't know, and I think that these middle school questions were exactly what they needed. Also, just think about the logistical nightmare it could be to run two separate tournaments on two separate question sets simultaneously. Not only that, but there were so few teams there, a total of 25 middle school and high school teams. So why would NAQT bother using two sets anyway? It makes no sense.

I don't really see how it would be a logistical nightmare to run the middle school and 9th and 10th tournaments on two different sets. Other than having to have two different sets it doesn't seem like it would be much more work but maybe I'm wrong about this. I guess I never really saw the point of running a tournament for just 9th and 10th graders instead of a regular novice tournament. Are sets like Fall Novice really too hard for many new players? I imagine one reason for the small field is that many schools don't have many 9th and 10th graders in quiz bowl. I would guess that there a lot of new 11th and 12th grade players who don't know much either would similarly benefit from an easy set although probably not a middle school one.

[suchacardinal]

I understand some of your points, forgive me if some of my arguments weren't the most thought out, it was late and I was half asleep while writing that. When I said that fewer tossups answered would skew ppb, what I meant was that since the number of bonuses heard would drop, the ppb number may be skewed one way or the other due to the fact that it is calculated from a smaller amount bonuses, and may not actually reflect how good the team is. As to the quality of the tossups, yes 37% were powered, because there were some clues still in power that wouldn't have been normally. However, I talked with some of the underclassmen from my team today and they all told me that it was a huge confidence boost to be able to power, or just even get, those tossups.
All that aside though, I think that the real reason that they decided to do an underclassmen tournament coinciding with that middle school one, was because NAQT wanted more than just the 12 middle school teams to play the packet, and it seemed illogical to open the tournament up to upperclassmen. And besides, aren't there enough general novice tournaments this year already? Two should be enough, no? There was fall novice and there will be the U of M novice in the spring. I think that's plenty.

[mtimmons]

All that aside though, I think that the real reason that they decided to do an underclassmen tournament coinciding with that middle school one, was because NAQT wanted more than just the 12 middle school teams to play the packet, and it seemed illogical to open the tournament up to upperclassmen. And besides, aren't there enough general novice tournaments this year already? Two should be enough, no? There was fall novice and there will be the U of M novice in the spring. I think that's plenty.

I would say that 3 novice tournaments in 1 year is probably enough given that I can only remember 1 [the 2009 Fall Novice mirrored at EP] in the past 3 years. Although I think given how lenient the restrictions are for Fall Novice and Minnesota High School Novice are they're very different than a 9th and 10th grade tournament. I think the number of players in Minnesota ineligible to play Fall Novice was around 10. Which makes sense if you look at the stats from GINVIT as it seems fairly clear that the vast majority of players would benefit from a tournament on relatively easy questions [although harder than middle school level]. Another more fundamental problem with middle questions is the differences in distribution. How are new players going to learn categories like social science or philosophy if those questions are almost or entirely absent from the sets they play on?

[eliza.grames]

Although I think given how lenient the restrictions are for Fall Novice and Minnesota High School Novice are they're very different than a 9th and 10th grade tournament. I think the number of players in Minnesota ineligible to play Fall Novice was around 10. Which makes sense if you look at the stats from GINVIT as it seems fairly clear that the vast majority of players would benefit from a tournament on relatively easy questions [although harder than middle school level].

Yeah, since we're now going to run MHSNT in the spring (although the date is still TBD for another 3 days), it won't really have any eligibility restrictions since it's basically just an easier set for the majority of the field. Granted, I still think there are some players who may want to just opt out of playing for the sake of keeping the field level, but I won't ask those players to do so.

[mrichardquinn]

I am happy to announce the fifth ACRONYM (Armstrong’s Conceivably Regular Or Nearly Yearly Meet) tournament or ACRONYM V. This year the tournament will feature pop culture questions, house written by former and current Armstrong Quiz Bowlers, me, and various other contributors.

Date/Time: Sat. 2/25/12- 9:00 am-4:00pm

Place: Armstrong High School 10635 36th ave. N, Plymouth, MN 55441

We will have six rounds before lunch and after lunch hold single elimination playoffs as well as informal scrimmages.

The format will be 20 toss-ups/bonuses per round. The toss-up questions will not be power marked, every correct answer is 10 points. There will be -5 penalties on incorrect answers that interrupt a toss-up. Correctly answered toss ups earn teams the chance at a potential 30 points of bonus questions. Generally speaking, the conventions of most Minnesota quiz bowl tournaments will be followed.

We will have novelty trophies for the top 4 teams and top 8 players

Registration- e-mail me to register matt_quinn at rdale.org, $80 per team, $5 discount per buzzer system. $20 discount for bringing a qualified moderator. Please register by 2/17/12. Checks made payable to Armstrong High School. Registration will be capped at 40 teams total so sign up early if you would like to attend.

Hope to see you and your team there.

-Matt Quinn- Armstrong Quiz Bowl Coach

[Standard-winged Nightjar]

Hi Minnesota teams,
Just wanted to touch base with those of you on the boards - we're definitely looking for teams to sign up for NHBB Minnesota at U of M on March 3. We've had a few teams express interest, and I expect a number of last year's teams to be back, but let me know if you might be able to come! $75 for a Bowl team, $15 per student in the Bee. Bowl registration is online at www.historybowl.com/registration
Hope you can make it!

[mtimmons]

Is anybody planning on organizing NASAT tryouts? Duligur Ibeling and myself are planning on organizing a team ourselves but will defer if tryouts are going to happen.

[Standard-winged Nightjar]

If any MN quizbowler reading this would like to earn $150 next Saturday, we need someone to go up and direct the inaugural North Dakota History Bee and Bowl in Fargo. I'll cover $150 for directing, gas at $.15 a mile, and $60 for a motel on Friday night. Note: a coach who might be entering their team into our MN tournament can do this, since we're using C set in ND and B set in MN. Otherwise, any college quizbowler, old quizbowl hand, or anyone else is welcome to contact me by email or private message if they're interested. We should have about 14 teams - I believe that's the largest ND field for anything that I know of at least.

[mtimmons]

Due to Duligur becoming a presidential scholar we have an open spot on the Minnesota NASAT team. The other members are myself, Jeffrey Lyman, and James Hartnett. Interested people should contact me ASAP.

[gaurav.kandlikar]

We will be having summer practices on Mondays (edit 6/18: Wednesdays) at 5:30ish (edit 6/1: 7 pm) in Room 126 of Coffman Union at the U. We'll read some combination of academic and trashy things; everyone is welcome.

Edit: practice has been moved to 7:00 pm at the same place.
Edit 2: now on Wednesdays