VCU Spring Tournament VI (03/01/2014; New Kent, VA)

[Cody]

This is the general announcement for the 2014 Virginia Commonwealth University Spring Tournament VI, which is a high school academic quizbowl tournament, to be hosted at New Kent High School in New Kent County, Virginia, on Saturday, March 1, 2014 from 9am to about 5:00pm.

Location, directions & parking:
The tournament will take place at New Kent High School, in New Kent County, Virginia located at 7365 Egypt Rd New Kent, Virginia 23124. From previous experience traveling to New Kent, this is just a few miles off Interstate 64 exit 214. There should be plenty of parking available outside the building.

Questions:
This tournament will be using the fourth iteration of the Ladue Invitational Spring Tournament (LIST) as a question set; more information on the set can be found at this link.

Affiliation:
This tournament is Platinum certified by the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence, so it is an opportunity to qualify for the National Scholastics Championship, which will occur on May 24-25, 2014 in Reston, Virginia. The top 25% of teams qualify; more information is available at this link.

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, usually 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. Teams will be seeded to preliminary groupings before being reseeded based on record for playoffs. All teams will be offered a minimum of 9 games. 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. There is no limit to the number of teams who can attend from one school.
Buzzer discount: $5 off school's total fee for each fully functional system (control unit and eight activators all work). There is no limit to the number of systems you can bring. If bringing a buzzer system that plugs into a control unit with a modular connector, such as a telephone plug, you must provide tape with your system if any latching tabs are broken. Failure to do so means you cannot claim the discount.
Staff discount: $10 off school's total fee. This could be a coach, parent, or student who is not playing. Team-provided staffers will keep score for various games. Volunteer staffers must stay through all the games (except finals) in order to receive credit for their school. There is no limit to the number of staffers you can bring.
Travel: $10 off the school's fee for every 150 miles traveled one-way from your school's address to New Kent High School, 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, you must e-mail me at [email protected] with the number of teams, buzzers, and staffers you intend to bring, an email address where you can be contacted with details, and a cell phone number belonging to someone who will be attending the tournament, so that we can track you down if you are running late. Feel free to share this announcement with any schools that you think would be interested in attending. There is no further registration form or other action needed on your part in order to be officially registered; you only need to e-mail me at the above e-mail address with the information requested. Posts made in this thread do not count as official registrations.

Method of payment:
All teams must pay by the day of the tournament. We prefer to accept payment in person right before the tournament starts, but we will accept checks by mail ahead of time if required by your school. 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 before we start mailing letters to your school administration about it.

We can accept cash, personal checks, or checks from a school, school district, or quizbowl club funds. We have no ability to process purchase orders, credit cards, Paypal, or any other forms of payment. Bringing forms of payment outside of the three listed will be considered nonpayment and subject you to the $25 late payment penalty.

All checks must be made out to "Quizbowl at VCU". If you require a pre-tournament invoice or W-9 form in order to have a check cut, you must let us know by let us know by February 14th, so that we can send you the paperwork in time. If you do not let us know about this requirement by February 14th, 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 also play shorthanded with fewer than four players.

The VCU team reserves the right to cap the field based on availability of space and staff; the current cap is 20 teams. Teams registering after the field is full will be placed on a waitlist and will enter the field as we expand or as teams drop.

Food:
Neither breakfast nor lunch will be provided by the tournament. We will provide a list of suggested eateries for the lunch break.

Please e-mail me if you have any further questions. I'm looking forward to seeing a wide variety of teams from Virginia and surrounding states on the 1st.

Cody Voight
Treasurer, Quizbowl at VCU
Tournament Director, VCU Spring Tournament VI
[email protected]

List of registered teams (18):
2 Cave Spring
1 Culpeper County
3 Dinwiddie
1 GDS
1 Howard
1 Loudoun County
5 Maggie Walker
2 New Kent
1 Richard Montgomery
1 Walter Johnson

[tabstop]

I left during the (one-game) final between Maggie Walker A and Richard Montgomery. Cave Spring A was clear third, WJ and Loudoun County tied for 4th if I'm reading my file correctly, and GDS finished out the top six.

The stats are on my computer; I will get them to Cody who will get them into proper shape and then get them into the DB for all to see (but probably not until tomorrow).

[Cody]

Brief summary: 1st - Richard Montgomery. 2nd - Maggie Walker A. 3rd - Cave Spring A. thanks + more to come when I separate crossover games from the combined file.

[Cody]

All stats can be accessed from the sidebar of the Quizbowl Resource Database page for this tournament: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/1544/. The 'Crossover' files were how teams were ranked for final placement (1 through 19, continuous).

It was a real pleasure to see a wide array of teams from across the VA/MD/DC area at this tournament, so thank you all for coming. In addition, I'd like to particularly thank all the outside staff that made this tournament possible: Sarah & Josh from UVA, Andrew Feist, the Cave Spring coaches, the Howard coach, and staffers from Walter Johnson and Loudoun County.

The question set used at this tournament is not clear, so as a reminder, please do not discuss the questions with people who have not played it. There is a private discussion set up that can be accessed from the Usergroups tab of your User Control Panel. The set will be posted at http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/questionsets/592/ at the end of the season.

If you have an questions or need clarification, please e-mail me at the above address.

[vinteuil]

Did Cave Spring really play this tournament? Looking at the mirrors

Current Mirrors:
Raleigh Charter (NC) - November 9(ten packets only)
...
VCU Spring (VA) - March 1

and the stats
Raleigh Charter Prelims

Raleigh Charter Playoffs

VCU Spring

there must have been at least a few packets of overlap, considering that there are only 15 packets of LIST total?

Credit to Alex Li for pointing this out.

[Byzantium1453]

I would like to thank the organizers of this tournament, it was really well run and me and my team really enjoyed it. I especially liked your willingness to get us new readers after spending the entire morning in one room( Not to say that we didn't like our old readers, they were uniformly good). I do have one question about scores though, on the database it shows the bonus points of some teams in some games not ending in 0, rather ending in 5, which I don't believe can happen. Was this intentional or just a small error to match bonus scores with the recorded final score?

[RexSueciae]

If those pages are to be believed, then the entire Cave Spring A team at VCU Spring--James Cole, Ethan Mackey, Ethan Hoeffner, and Elyssa McMaster--played at both Bonfire of the Manatees and VCU Spring.

[Cody]

The involved parties have been contacted. I suggest everyone wait until a response is received.

[kamikaze]

I want to apologize for my mistake about yesterday's tournament. Our A team and one member from my B team did play on the LIST packet earlier this year at the Bonfire tournament held at Raleigh Charter. At no time were we trying to pull a fast one over anybody or get an unfair advantage over any other team. I think those that know our team and myself know we are quick to speak up if we have done anything wrong and we play by the rules. Truth be told, I didn't realize we had played on the set earlier this season and I should have double checked. It was entirely my fault. The kids and myself, even though we heard these questions earlier this season, did not recognize it while playing yesterday. Had we recognized that we heard this set before, we would have brought it to the attention of the tournament director and remove ourselves from the competition as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we did not. I hope that my mistake did not impact too heavily on everyone else's performances or their experiences yesterday. That being said, I'm endorsing any action that Cody sees fit with regards to the results and we will try to make sure this doesn't happen again.

[Cody]

I'd like to thank Coach Powers for his quick response to this situation. We will have to vacate all of Cave Spring A and Cave Spring B's games. I will endeavor to have corrected stats up by the end of the day. In addition, the #9 scorer (David Bushhouse) will receive a scoring prize the next time I see him.