Princeton High School Academic Tournament XXVII (PHSAT XXVII) at Princeton University, 09/28/2019

[Jack]

The Princeton University Quiz Bowl club will host the 27th Princeton High School Academic Tournament, PHSAT XXVII, tentatively on Saturday, September 28, 2019. We will be using NAQT IS-186, which is standard high school difficulty. The tournament will be structured as a series of bracketed, round-robin preliminary matches followed by re-bracketed round-robin playoffs and consolation rounds after lunch. We will be using untimed NAQT rules for this tournament, but overtime will be sudden death, and players will have 5 seconds instead of 2 to give an answer after buzzing in. We will be skipping computational math tossups and bonuses. This tournament is, as always, intended for schools and teams who are looking for an early season, competitive tournament with other competitive schools.

Any questions about the tournament may be directed to me. Please use jacke (at) princeton.edu to contact me, and put [PHSAT] as the first part of the subject line. If you're interested in staffing this tournament, please also email me; we need all the help we can get!

Location and Check-in:
Check-in will likely begin at 8 am in an auditorium on campus and will close at the latest by 8:40. Matches will begin around 9:00am. Visitor parking will be available for the tournament for cars, vans, and buses. When we receive information about the location of our visitor parking, all registered teams will receive an email, and this post will be updated to include the location.

We do not have a specific location determined for the tournament yet, but, given the historical large nature of the field, we will likely use McCosh Hall at a minimum, as well as at least one other building.

Registration and Fees:
The initial field cap is 24 teams. With interest and buzzer/staff support, we will expand the field. Our maximum field cap is 36 teams. Currently, we do not plan on having a competitive/standard split, as like last year, due to the layout of the rooms we were assigned. We are also capping registrations at 3 per school, although we will have a wait list in case any team is interested in bringing more than 3 teams. Eventually (probably in mid August), those teams will be added to the field. This is just to ensure no school takes up a sizable portion of the field before others have a chance to register.

First Team: $80
Additional teams: $70 per team

Buzzer discount: -$5 per functional system that allows for at least eight players.
Moderator discount: -$10 per experienced moderator. A moderator must be available to help for the entirety of the tournament in order to receive the discount. Moderators will also be provided with lunch (probably pizza like last year).

Minimum fee per team: $50

Payment can be made in the form of cash or a check on the day of the tournament. Checks should be made out to “Princeton University Quiz Bowl.”

To register for the tournament, please fill out this Google Form. If and when we need to contact you, I will email you directly. Please note that registering for the tournament is a commitment to stay for the whole tournament (barring any unforeseen circumstances).

Lunch:
Lunch will not be provided, except to staff. A number of eating options are available on Nassau Street at the north end of campus. Teams can also purchase lunch at the Frist Campus Center. Note that most places on Nassau street tend to be on the pricier side, so keep that in mind. If you plan on packing lunch, there are lots of tables in Frist Campus Center that you and your team can use.

Field List (36/36) (teams/buzzers/staffers):
"Robert Harp" (2/0/0*)
Manheim Township (2/0/0)
Hunter College HS (3/1/0)
Tenafly (2/1/0)
East Brunswick (2/2/0)
Wilton High (2/0/1)
"Team Gotham" (2/0/0)
Ridgewood (2/1/0)
Millburn (2/1/0)
Penn Manor(1/4/0)
Kellenberg (2/3/0)
West-Windsor Plainsboro (2/1/0)
Middlesex County Academy(3/3/0)
High Tech (2/3/0*)
Henderson(2/0/1)
Moravian Academy(2/1/1)
Trinity School (2/0/0)
Edison HS (1/1/0)

Wait list
Edison HS(1/0/0)
Parkland (1/1/0)
St. Joseph of Metuchen (1/0/0)
Mountain Lakes (2/0/0)
Acton-Boxborough(1/0/0)

We're looking forward to a great tournament. Hope to see you there!

[nicole.]

The Google Form doesn't work, is there any plans on fixing that in the near future or will it be opened closer to the tournament?

[Jack]

Google Form has been updated and should work now, sorry about that!

[AlanFromHolmdel]

jacke said:

As with last year, we will have a competitive/standard split if there is enough interest.

Just a quick question, how's this one being gauged? I think an edit to the Google Form could be an effective way.

[Jack]

An update: Unfortunately, Princeton still has yet to give me any information about our room reservation and event registration, and the online system still says it's "awaiting initial confirmation." Because of this, I can't expand the waitlist yet. I apologize for everyone waiting. This weekend and next week I'll be sending some emails to the university to try to get things sorted out. Stay tuned!

With regards to:

Just a quick question, how's this one being gauged? I think an edit to the Google Form could be an effective way.

I should have included that on the Google Form. I'll send an email to everyone registered so far to see what the hypothetical breakdown would be, and work from that point.

[avedantham]

Hello,

Is there any update on the registrations/event? My team (Parkland HS) signed up a few weeks ago but I haven't heard anything regarding the tournament. We are planning to bring a buzzer system, if that helps.

Thanks!

User was reminded to add a signature. -mgmt

[Jack]

We've expanded the field to 30 teams based on room and staffer availability. We hope to get to 36 in the coming days. I've also just submitted our PACE certification request, so expect to hear about this soon. We anticipate the highest level (Platinum, I believe) being applied to the tournament, as it has had in the past.

Also: we are no longer planning on splitting the field into standard and competitive. There is a chance that we may do this, but given our room availability as it stands, it would be infeasible and a burden on the tournament as a whole.

I, or our treasurer, Eve, will be in contact with teams about payment and invoices soon.

[Jack]

Stats are uploaded here: https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/5789/
We may be a bit behind uploading the stats, as Yellowfruit crashed on us midway through round 2. We're working to get live stats up ASAP!

Thanks to Brian Lu from Rutgers for offering to stats for us today!

[Jack]

Congratulations to Hunter College HS A for winning the tournament, amassing a 10-1 record, and defeating High Tech A in a one game final -- only losing once to Manheim Township.

In the third place game, Millburn A beat East Brunswick A, and in the fifth place game, Manheim Township A defeated Robert Harp A.

Thank you to everyone who came to this tournament, and thanks to our many staffers: Patrick Matthews, Emily LaMonica, Doug Simons, Rohan Vora, Lev Bernstein, Noah Sheidlower, Pete Schmidt, Daniel Ma from Hunter, and George from Wilton.

Final stats can be accessed at the previous link. I've also sent NAQT the combined stats.

Unfortunately, I have to make some negative remarks: for the second time in the past three years, teams have left early from PHSAT without notifying the TD. Today, Tenafly A left without telling me. I learned later that the team left because they didn't make the playoff. Half of their B team also left, so I commend those that stayed for playing the games. This meant that five teams had to play a scrimmage round. There were also reports of some teams trying to sneak players from their B or A team across to the other. Near the end of the tournament, despite being told to wait outside the control room (signs were also posted saying this!), some teams came in and, without notifying me, took their buzzers. This led to a debacle that resulted in one poor student from West Windsor having to wait nearly 40 minutes for her buzzer as we tried to track it down. All of these problems were completely avoidable. Please, teams, please respect the work of the tournament hosts, and think about how your actions affect others.

[Jack]

A few people pointed out some errors in the final stats. These all should be fixed now, and I have sent NAQT the new stats. If there are any other name/spelling errors, please let me know and I will fix them.

Thanks for coming everyone, hope to see you next year!

[Berniecrat]

Dean Ah Now from Millburn and Pedro Juan Orduz have written a recap of the tournament: https://grogerranks.com/2019/10/02/phsat-xxvii-writeup/