AQBL October Tournament @ Plains

[Jcm48]

The American Quiz Bowl League will be hosting a Plains (Dakotas, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming) Regional Mirror of a house-produced set on Sunday, October 25th.

Date and Time

The tournament will take place on October 25 on Discord, starting at 9 AM CT. All players and coaches should be logged onto the server by 8:45 AM CT.

Questions

This tournament will be using a housewritten set of regular difficulty written by Michael Borecki - what would be considered appropriate for a normal high school competition. This should serve as a reasonable challenge for experienced teams, albeit significantly harder than ERIS, which we used at our September events.

There will be 20 tossups per round. The tournament will use AQBL Ruleset A, although there will be no bonuses.

Event Format

Teams will be seeded into preliminary brackets, followed by re-seeding for playoffs. All teams will be guaranteed 10 rounds. Teams are expected to stay and play the entire event, even if not in contention for the championship.

The field cap of this tournament is 36 teams, and it will be split up into Varsity and JV/Small School divisions. The AQBL may choose to split the region into multiple fields or merge regions depending on interest, but that will not affect the registration process.

The top two teams in Varsity and the winner of the JV/New School division will qualify for the Online National Championship Tournament (ONCT) next June. More information about the ONCT can be found here.

Eligibility

Teams may field a maximum of 6 players with four active at any one time, although there is no need to play a full team; single-player teams are welcome. Substitutions will be permitted after 10 tossups or before a potential tiebreaker tossup. Nobody may switch teams during the tournament, such as from "A" to "B" or otherwise. Without exception, all players must be from the same school. This is not an open mirror; no “chimera” or mixed teams are permitted whatsoever. We are happy to allow pseudonymous teams and teams not directly sponsored by their school or district to register. However, we do have certain requirements for these teams, so please contact us via email or phone prior to registration and we will be happy to work with you.

To ensure our event functions smoothly, rosters should be submitted at least one week in advance. Coaches are welcome to spectate, as long as we know in advance.

For further information regarding the rules or for contact information, please see the full ruleset of the AQBL.

Prizes

Trophies will be mailed to the top three teams as well as the top individual. We reserve the right to change this number depending on the amount of teams that register for this tournament.

Payment

There will be a flat fee of $75 per team for either division. There is a $20 discount available for each moderator or scorekeeper you bring. Payment is due up front via the registration form unless you choose to pay by check or purchase order, or make other arrangements with us directly. Payment can be made via mailed check, PayPal, Venmo, purchase order, or credit card via the AQBL website. Please do not mail cash. Note that PayPal and Credit Card payments incur a 3% fee. We can provide W-9 forms and invoices on request.

Write all checks to "The American Quizbowl League". Mail checks to P.O. Box 205, Nesconset, NY 11767.

Registration

In order to register, fill out the form located at this page. Once you receive a confirmation email, you are officially registered.

Please ensure you register prior to the day of the tournament. The deadline for dropping out of the field is one week prior to the event (Sunday, October 18th in this case), after which you will be responsible for the full amount due. If you cannot pay the full fee due to monetary reasons, please contact us via email at [email protected] or [email protected] and we will be happy to work with you.

Staff

We will take moderators and scorekeepers who want to staff this tournament. All staffers not affiliated with attending teams will be paid $20. If you have any further questions regarding any of the above, please let us know.

Cheating

Cheating will absolutely not be tolerated at this tournament. If sufficient evidence is found, the guilty parties will be banned from the tournament and disqualified from future AQBL tournaments.

Note

Any misconduct, harassment, or poor behavior of any kind at our events will not be tolerated and offenders may be subject to being kicked from the tournament or other sanctions. If you ever feel unsafe at any quizbowl event, you are strongly encouraged to fill out this form, which allows for reporting (anonymized by request) of misconduct to organizations besides the AQBL; as the AQBL cannot view reports on the misconduct form and it takes time to process submissions, you should also report misconduct and any other urgent concerns to the tournament director and/or an Administrator of the AQBL.