Southern California Pre-Nationals Tuneup: Planning

[cvdwightw]

Since there's a lot of good teams out there this year, I think that we should have some sort of season-ending pre-nationals tuneup event, where the top teams just beat up on each other to get used to the grind of playing top teams one after the other for a full day (like what will happen at either HSNCT or NSC). Also, I think this should be some sort of culmination of all the hard work everyone's put in (and/or is going to put in) this year.

DATE: TBA. Realistically, any of the four weekends between Caltech's latest State Champs date and PACE NSC are likely to work, but my absolute preference is for the weekend of May 16/17. Yours probably should be too as it's the weekend after AP exams, though if for some reason you/your team would prefer a different date, please let me know.

LOCATION: TBA. Irvine might be able to host, but only if it's on a Saturday. If there are other places willing to host, and teams are willing to drive, then that would work as well. Please let me know soon if you're willing to host; I will bring up the issue with the rest of the Irvine club at practice on Wednesday and see if we would be able to do so.

STAFF: Assuming it is happening on May 16, I will direct the tournament or co-coordinate it with (a) representative(s) from the host school. The host school will be responsible for purchasing the appropriate questions (see below), providing rooms, breakfast and prizes (trophies, since administrators seem to love the trophy, and books), and collecting tournament fees from teams. I will be responsible for registering teams/buzzers, coordinating staff, and making the schedule. In the case that Irvine hosts, I will be responsible for all TD duties or will find people from within the club to help me. Profits (once tournament expenses, including gas/parking for staff, are reimbursed) will be split as follows: 50% for the host school, 50% to clubs providing staff in proportion to number of staff provided, which means the host school will probably end up with more than 50%.

SETUP: We would have two divisions. Division I would be for teams that have qualified for nationals. Division II would be for non-qualifiers, so they can have a good tournament on good questions while playing against teams that are more of their level.

QUESTIONS: This should be up to the teams in the top division. You tentatively have your choices of NAQT IS-81, NAQT Division II SCT, HSAPQ PACE #2, and HSAPQ ACF #4, though if a school elsewhere is hosting an independent pre-nationals event I may give that set as another option. Since I don't think we need to finalize questions for a while, we can wait until at least the Prison Bowl mirror.

I hope to have a preliminary announcement (date, location) out after President's Day Weekend, with final details (questions, format, fees) out in early March.

Those of you who post here can tell me if you'd like to attend a tournament like this.

[ak47]

This is a swell idea, Dwight.

The weekend of the 16/17 works fine for RB. In terms of the question set, I lean toward HSAPQ PACE #2 to gear up for the NSC. A mirror of a collegiate regular difficulty tournament would be chill, too (at least for the top division).

[Auroni]

So, I'll certainly staff this, and would like to see it happen on ACF 4 or PACE 2. While there are good teams this year, I don't think that there are enough that could benefit from holding a regular collegiate tournament though, since PACE writers are going to avoid swinging their material that way.

[The Goffman Prophecies]

Without revealing any specifics, after seeing IS-81 this past weekend at CCSCT, I would recommend one of the other question sets.

Just to clarify this a bit, because I can see how the above comment could be interpreted several ways: I think you'd probably find the difficulty of the set to be a bit below what you're looking for if you're trying to gear up for Nationals. I've shared some of my own thoughts on the set with NAQT, and don't wish to derail the thread here.

[tracyclee]

PACE #2 or ACF #4 sound good. And even if IS81 didn't have its problems, a regular IS set wouldn't exactly provide a nationals-level difficulty.

This is such a nice idea! =] If it rolls, I'll definitely bring 2-3 teams.

[cvdwightw]

Update: after talking over with the other club members, it looks like Irvine (as the most centralized location) would be able to host on May 16th, but we'd need staffing help from some other schools. Again, instead of a "we need moderators and will pay $X or discount $Y" thing, we would take the 50% "host" income and split the 50% "staffing" income proportional to the number of staff provided by each school, plus probably pay for one-way mileage and parking if necessary for those staffers.

There's no "regular difficulty" tournaments in the spring, to my knowledge, that would be worth mirroring. Unless there's several objections, I'll wait until HSAPQ posts the PACE set #1 before finalizing an order for the PACE set #2, so I have something to point teams to in the "official" announcement.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

FWIW, I played the PACE set at Brookwood and I think it would work for you. It was a great set with good answer selection and clue choice.

[cvdwightw]

Preliminary information about SCIENCE! (Southern California Invitational Expecting National Championship Excellence!) can be found here.

HSAPQ has confirmed that PACE #2 will be available for purchase, so barring massive outcry once HSAPQ posts the PACE #1 set, we'll be using that.

Official announcement will likely be coming next week.

[ihavenoidea]

Love the title.

[cvdwightw]

Official Announcement sent out today. Relevant Information summarized in forum post.