VCU Winter Tournament XII (Richmond, VA – 12/4/21)

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Matt Weiner
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VCU Winter Tournament XII (Richmond, VA – 12/4/21)

Post by Matt Weiner »

This is the general announcement for the 2021 Virginia Commonwealth University Winter Tournament, which is a high school academic quizbowl tournament, to be hosted at VCU in Richmond, Virginia, on Saturday, December 4, 2021 from 8:30 AM to about 4:30 PM. We plan to host this tournament as an in-person event. See the end of this announcement for further information about covid safety.

The registration link is here. Please read the entire announcement before registering.

Location
The tournament will take place in Grace E. Harris Hall at 900 W Main St, Richmond VA. Teams should go to the attached lecture hall (Harris 101) by 8:30 for registration and the opening meeting. All game rooms will be on the second floor of the classroom wing of the building.

Parking
Parking on Main Street directly in front of the building or on other nearby surface streets is, usually, free and available on Saturdays. In the event that the on-street parking is closed or full, you can use the West Main Street Parking Deck one block east of the tournament building. The parking deck has entrances on Cherry Street and Laurel Street and is nominally located at 801 W Main St for GPS purposes. A campus map is accessible here.

Questions:
This tournament will be using NAQT’s Invitational Series #206 question set. Teams that have played IS-206 at other tournaments are not eligible.

Any person who has encountered the content of IS-206, in any context including as a player or staffer at another tournament, is not eligible to play and is expected to disclose the fact that they have knowledge of set content if they are in touch with teams playing this tournament, e.g. as a coach or peer in a quizbowl club.

This tournament is for teams of eligible players representing a single high school. Other than those schools which are disqualified due to exposure to the IS-206 set, all public, private, religious, magnet, and charter schools are eligible regardless of experience level or location. Eligibility to participate for a given school will generally reflect the practices of national quizbowl organizations such as PACE and NAQT. For homeschool co-ops and collectives, VCU's high school tournaments will follow the eligibility guidelines published by NAQT here. If you believe that you should be granted an eligibility exception, please contact us at [email protected].

Affiliation:
This tournament will be submitted to the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence for appropriate certification and may be a qualification opportunity for the 2022 National Scholastics Championship, which will occur at the end of the 2021-2022 school year at a date and location to be announced. More information will be available at this link. This tournament will also be an automatic qualifier for NAQT's 2022 High School National Championship Tournament, which will occur on May 27-29 in Atlanta.

Format:
This tournament will use the tossup/bonus format. A round will consist of 20 tossups with correct tossup answers earning a team a bonus in which it can earn up to 30 additional points, broken into three questions each worth 10 points. There will be no math calculation tossups or bonuses; this does not preclude tossups or bonuses on mathematical concepts. Specific scenarios will be handled according to the ACF rules. Teams will be seeded to preliminary groupings before being reseeded based on record for playoffs. All teams will be offered a minimum of 8 games, and we hope to increase that number once the final field size is determined. Trophies will be awarded to the top teams, and book prizes will be awarded to the top individual scorers.

Registration & fees:
base fee: +$70 per team to your school's total fee.

buzzer discount: -$5 to your school's total fee for each fully functional system. There is no limit to the number of systems you can bring. A fully functional buzzer system is defined as follows:
  • A buzzer system that clearly indicates which player has buzzed.
  • The control unit and at least 8 activators work, including lights on either or both of the 8 activators and control unit.
  • If the activators plug into a control unit via a modular connector, such as a telephone plug, tape must be provided if any latching tabs are broken.
staff discount: -$10 to your school's total fee. This can be a coach, parent, student, or other person who is not playing. Team-provided staffers will keep score for various games. Volunteer staffers must stay through all the games (excepting finals) in order to receive credit for their school. There is no limit to the number of staffers you can bring.

travel discount: -$10 to your school's total fee for every 150 miles traveled one-way from your school's address to VCU, according to Google Maps.

minimum fee: The minimum fee is $0. You can bring enough buzzers and staffers to eliminate your fee, but you cannot have a negative fee.

To register for this tournament, fill out this form. Once you have submitted the form, there is no further action needed on your part in order to be officially registered. There will be periodic updates in this thread and by e-mail indicating who has registered. Posts made in this thread do not count as official registrations. Contact [email protected] if you need to modify your registration.

Please feel welcome to share this announcement with any schools that you think would be interested in attending!

Field size

There is an initial 24-team cap on field size at this tournament. There is no limit on the number of teams which may register from the same school. We hope to split this tournament into several experience-based divisions (e.g. nationally competitive, standard, and JV or novice), and will have further information on this once we see who has registered.

Method of payment:
All teams must pay by the day of the tournament. We encourage either using electronic payment or mailing payment in advance, though day-of payment will also be accepted on site. Teams who do not pay by the day of the tournament will be charged a $25 penalty and will have two weeks to pay their total amount.

Venmo and Zelle information, as well as a mailing address for checks, will be shared with all registrants. For on-site payment, we can accept checks or cash or run physical credit/debit cards via Square.

All checks must be made out to "Quizbowl at VCU". If you require an invoice or W-9 form in order to have a check cut, you must let us know by November 15, so that we can send you the paperwork in time. If you do not let us know about this requirement by November 15, and it causes you to come to the tournament without your payment, then you will be subject to the $25 late payment penalty.

Team & roster size:
There may be a maximum of six players on one team's roster, up to four of whom may play at one time. There will be no exceptions to this rule. If you bring more than six players, you must register a second team to have all of them play. There is a half-time substitution opportunity in each game. Each player may appear on only one team's roster throughout the day; there is no switching from the B team to the A team, etc. Teams may play shorthanded, with fewer than four players.

Code of conduct and chaperone policy:

All participants in the tournament are expected to be familiar with the code of conduct designed to provide a safe and inclusive environment at Quizbowl at VCU events.

All schools participating in this event are expected to have at least one coach or other designated adult who is present for the duration of the tournament and actively takes responsibility for the conduct of the school's players. One coach may suffice for multiple teams from the same school.

Food:
Neither breakfast nor lunch will be provided by the tournament. We will provide a list of suggested eateries for the lunch break, which will be at some time after 12 PM.

Safety plan regarding covid:

*General guidance on VCU campus closures may be accessed at VCU Alert. This is where official decisions on closing the campus due to weather emergencies and other concerns outside of covid may be found. In the event that there is an emergency situation near the date of the tournament, we will go by what is published on VCU Alert and will run the tournament if the campus is open.

*All attendees at this event must be vaccinated.

*Except for moderators actively reading games, all attendees should properly wear face masks while inside the building.

Current field (Updated 12/3):

BASIS McLean- 2 total teams (1 Upper division/1 Standard division)
Douglas Freeman- 2 (1/1)
Langley- 1 (1/0)
Lightridge- 1 (0/1)
Maggie Walker- 5 (2/3)
Norfolk Academic Guild- 2 (1/1)
Regents- 2 (0/2)
St. Catherine's- 1 (1/0)
Thomas Jefferson- 4 (4/0)

20 total teams (10 in Upper/10 in Standard)

Matt Weiner
Advisor and Tournament Director, Quizbowl at VCU
[email protected]
Last edited by Matt Weiner on Fri Dec 03, 2021 4:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Matt Weiner
Advisor to Quizbowl at Virginia Commonwealth University / Founder of hsquizbowl.org
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Matt Weiner
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Re: VCU Winter Tournament XII (Richmond, VA – 12/4/21)

Post by Matt Weiner »

I sent out a survey to registered teams today trying to gauge how many teams would fit in each of two divisions if we split the field by competitiveness. Based on the responses, we will make a decision about the tournament format/field split in the final team update e-mail next week.

I have lowered the field cap for this tournament to 24 pending further staff recruitment. There are 19 teams registered now. If you are interested in staffing this event and have not already heard from me, please get in touch.
Matt Weiner
Advisor to Quizbowl at Virginia Commonwealth University / Founder of hsquizbowl.org
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Matt Weiner
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Posts: 8145
Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2003 8:34 pm
Location: Richmond, VA

Re: VCU Winter Tournament XII (Richmond, VA – 12/4/21)

Post by Matt Weiner »

Registration for this tournament is soft-closed at this time. All teams who have contacted me to this point by e-mail or the registration form about being added to the field should be listed above. Further registrants will be waitlisted and will be invited to replace any teams that withdraw from the field over the next 48 hours.
Matt Weiner
Advisor to Quizbowl at Virginia Commonwealth University / Founder of hsquizbowl.org
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Matt Weiner
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Re: VCU Winter Tournament XII (Richmond, VA – 12/4/21)

Post by Matt Weiner »

Thanks to all teams and staffers for an excellent showing at VCU Winter XII. In addition to our VCU club members & affiliates we were excited to have Ryan and Shannon from JMU, Veer from VMI, and a coach and parent from Maggie Walker on hand to make this tournament possible.

In the Standard division, Norfolk Academic Guild B cleared the field at 9-0 and Maggie Walker C finished second at 7-2.

In the Upper division, Thomas Jefferson B ended the round-robin at 8-1 and Douglas Freeman A was 7-2. Freeman won both games of an advantaged final to take the championship.

The third and fifth place ties for nationals qualification were not played off because they were moot (one tie was between two teams from the same school, so would have ended with "TJ receiving a second HSNCT bid" either way, and the other was between two teams who have already qualified for NSC).

Stats are here: https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/7 ... /complete/
Matt Weiner
Advisor to Quizbowl at Virginia Commonwealth University / Founder of hsquizbowl.org
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