Belmont Academic Invitational Tournament (BAIT) VI (CARD and QUAOAR, 3/30)

[komododragon655]

Belmont Quizbowl is excited to announce the SIXTH iteration of BAIT (Belmont Academic Invitational Tournament), an in-person tournament on Saturday, March 30th. The tournament will be held at Belmont High School on 221 Concord Avenue, Belmont, Massachusetts, 02478. There is on-site parking and an MBTA bus stop in front of the building.

We will have two divisions: the Standard Division will run CARD, a set on the harder end of HS Regular difficulty; the Novice Division will run QUAOAR, a HS Novice set. All HS and MS teams of all different skill levels from New England and beyond are invited to attend!

Registration & Fees
Register by 3/27 @ 3:00 ET using this form. All staffers will receive free lunch and community service hours/a staffer discount for a school/$25 for staffing the whole tournament and may sign up here.

Base fee: $90/team or $70/new team (hasn't played pyramidal quizbowl since 9/1/2021)
Buzzer discount: -$5/complete working system
Travel discount: -$10/100 miles one-way, as determined by Google Maps
Staff discount: -$25/staffer
There is a minimum fee of $0 per school. Teams who cancel after March 26th @ 11:59 PM ET must pay the full fee, barring extenuating circumstances. Teams are expected to pay within a month of the tournament via Venmo, cash, or check. Payment info will be provided in invoices sent in the registration confirmation email.

The form will ask you to ESTIMATE your pizza order. Actual pizza orders will be dealt with through a separate form sent out about a week before the tournament.

Rules
Rosters are capped at 6 players, but only 4 may play simultaneously. Players will follow NAQT gameplay rules (with modifications like untimed rounds and timing).

Format
We will start with a combined field cap of 24 teams. If there is insufficient interest in the Novice Division (<4 teams), we will let teams know and give them the choice to move up to Standard or receive a full refund. We also reserve the right to bump up teams signed up in the Novice Division to Standard if they would not be competitive against other Novice teams.

Check-in will be from 8:20 AM to 8:50 AM. The tournament will start around 9:00 AM and end around 6:00 PM. Teams will be guaranteed 8 games. We will have rounds of 20 tossups and 20 three-part-bonuses. 15-point powers and negative-5-point negs are in play. There is no computational math. We will have live stats (up-to-the-game) and category stats.

Additionally, this tournament is a pending PACE qualifier, meaning high-finishing teams in the Standard Division will qualify for the NSC in June!

Prizes
The winner of the tournament (in the Standard Division) will receive a trophy. Top scorers in both divisions will receive a panda sticker and potentially a book prize.

Conduct
Anyone involved with the tournament, including but not limited to: coaches, parents, players, staff, tournament directors, and spectators must adhere to the PACE Code of Conduct. Misconduct should be reported to this form and/or sent to [email protected].

Contact
Feel free to direct questions to [email protected]. We hope to see your team here at the end of March for our flagship tournament!

[komododragon655]

Field (updated 3/27)

Standard Division -- CARD (12 teams registered)
Lexington (MA)
Belmont A (MA)
AMSA (MA)
Marshwood (ME)
Choate (CT)
Westwood A (MA)
Mansfield A (MA)
Mansfield B (MA)
North Quincy A (MA)
Sharon (MA)
Amherst Regional (MA)
Phillips Academy (MA)

Novice Division -- QUAOAR (6 teams registered)
Waltham A (MA)
Waltham B (MA)
Belmont B (MA)
Westwood B (MA)
Mansfield C (MA)
North Quincy B (MA)

Totals: 18 teams, 10 buzzers, 12 staffers; combined field cap: 24

[komododragon655]

We are just under 2 weeks away and are looking for more teams and staff! Register now:

Team registration: https://forms.gle/YudnnBjHnYt99tdf8
Staffer registration: https://forms.gle/LKqNs12mYEtU8AKP9

[komododragon655]

We are still looking for more teams and staff!

[komododragon655]

BAIT VI ran very well yesterday! Here is a slightly modified version of our wrap-up email:

Thank you to all 18 teams at BAIT. It really wouldn't have been possible without every single one of you, and it was lovely seeing everyone here. We hope you enjoyed the tournament as much as we did hosting it!

We would like to give a shoutout to all of our wonderful staffers: Angie Seul, Bri Yueh, Daniel Sheffield, Ethan Lido, Gregory Zeldovich, Heidi Early-Hersey, Jeffrey Wu, Julian Halpern-Smith, Khugan Chan, Krikor Hachikian, Luca Hu, Nabeela Zoss, and Towery McNeil.

In the Standard Division, Lexington, Choate Magikarp, and Westwood A were all tied with the best record (4-1) after playoffs. Since they had the best PPG, Lexington automatically advanced to the finals. Choate Magikarp and Westwood A contested a half-packet tiebreaker to determine who would advance to the finals and who would finish in 3rd. Choate won 205-90 on the half packet and moved on to play Lexington. In the finals, Choate won 215-95 against shorthanded Lexington.

In the Novice Division, Mansfield C went undefeated (10-0) to win the tournament outright. Waltham B took second.

Our top scorers were Alvan Hossain (9), Shishir Bharadwaj (9), Ethan Lu (12), Sky Hong (10), Rishi Pendyala (11), Noah Chin (9), Jasper Xu (11), Kaden Wu (12), Parker Evans (12), Josh Sengupta (10), Soham Gohil (10), Lucas Budiansky (11), Declan O'Brien (11), Ruizhao Sun (8), William McBrine (9), Elise Hutton (11), Kevin Noti (10), Patrick O'Brien (9), and Ethan Lee (11).

You can see full stats and placements from the tournament here. Congrats to all of the teams!

Category stats for the Standard Division are out here. Category stats for the Novice Division are out here.

We hope to see everyone again at a tournament soon! This is most likely the last tournament Belmont is hosting this season, but we look forward to seeing everyone back next season. Special thanks to Amherst Regional, Mansfield, North Quincy, Waltham, and Westwood for attending all three of our tournaments this season.

Have a great Sunday!