Subject: ACF West Newsletter Volume V issue 7 Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 19:56:31 -0500 From: Eric Owens To: ACF-newsletter@uclink4.berkeley.edu ACF West Newsletter Volume V issue 7 April 21, 1999 editors Eric Owens, Gaius Stern Greetings to all old and some new subscribers in the Northwest. This issue contains details for upcoming ACF Nats NY Times article on quizbowl a few new buzzer companies question companies hints for starting a new club results from NAQT WSU Freee your Buzz Off Quincy Hawkfest invitations to Husky Bowl UC Irvine ------------------------------ ACF NATIONALS AT U-CHICAGO THIS WEEKEND (courtesy of Mike Zarren) A spate of dropouts (incl. Harvard, South Carolina, and Cornell- wow) marked this past weekend, so here's the current roster of 24 teams: Chicago A/B/C? Iowa Quincy Georgia Tech Vanderbilt Berkeley Texas (Austin) Kentucky Carleton Wash. U/St. Louis Maryland Michigan UTC Wichita State Illinois A/B Oklahoma BU Arkansas Berry Marquette Northwestern The format will most likely be two 12-team brackets, followed by top 4, middle 4, and bottom 4 playing those teams from the other bracket, followed by the traditional weighted best 2-of-3 final based on overall record. Exhibition games for non-author bye teams will be scheduled if this is necessary. This format does not provide quite as many games between the top teams, but it is much fairer to lower teams, and easier for everyone. The tournament is expected to be done no later than 6:45 Saturday with this format. (More likely by 6...) NY TIMES PUBLISHES ARTICLE ON QUIZ-BOWL The New York Times has run an article on quizbowl, specically on some programs in the Upper midwest/plains. If you go to www.nytimes.com you should be able to access the article from 4 April in the education magazine. The link below might be correct. http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+site+24944+0+ wAAA+%22total%7Erecall%22 An article also recently appeared on the Carleton team at this address: http://www.carletonian.carleton.edu/ We certainly would hope that at some point in the not too distant future a number of newspaper articles on quiz bowl, icluding college papers, can be collected on someone’s website. NEW BUZZER COMPANIES TO CONSIDER There must be some 25+ companies who make buzzers in the US. A year ago I did a 2 issue special on all of them I had come across. Since then I have heard of several more and at least 1 more in Canada, and 2 in England. This and next issue will describe some. If you need to see the full list of buzzers, you can find the old newsletters on the the Berkeley Quizbowl website. http://exuma.cs.berkeley.edu/quiz-bowl/ (Please note that the Newsletter does not endorse the buzzers below. Currently the newsletter endorses only the Quizwizard II made by Creative Electronics and the Quiz Pro made by Specialty Design Corps., both of whom give a discount to Newsletter subscribers) The Buzzers: A. Apparently for British quizbowl: www.webworld.co.uk/acegame/home.htm B. I came across the following quizbowl website. I am not exactly sure what this is, but it might be worth a look. If someone else has time to explore, please tell me what you find and I'll publish your description in the May issue. http://homepages.together.net/~tking/quizbowl.zip C. www.tiebreaker.com If I remember right, this system is for about 6 players and is used in many classrooms in Utah and some nearby Rocky mtn states. Lowell W. and I talked about this system which he thinks is popular for Biblebowl and other non-tournament competitions. There are many, many other systems to preview. I welcome comments from subscribers as to whether they like or dislike certain systems and why. This would be a good column to run in issue 1 next year. A few other systems I have heard of including www.jem.pair.com, HIGH SCHOOL (and new college team)QUESTION DISTRIBUTERS About two years back, a subscriber asked me what companies make questions for HS play. Here is a belated answer. Aside from CBI and NAQT, I know next to nothing about any of these companies, so I do not endorse any of them, but I do not think Questions Unlimited is a good choice. They have too many false lead-ins and inane questions. Quiz Star Po Box 1091 Franklin, Tenn 37065 (615) 599-2880, fax (615) 791-5651 http://www.chismtrail.com/quizstar.html Triple Q questions P.O.Box 305 Vienna, IL 62995-0305 Phone/Fax: (618) 949-3888 http://www.tripleqquestions.com/ChatroomInfo.htm But to get a full list of resources, go to http://www.dbtech.net/asca/resource.htm HINTS FOR STARTING A NEW CLUB NEXT YEAR In order to help new clubs form next year, "R. Hayden Hurst" has set up a page with some suggestions. Any suggestions and additions are welcome. http://copland.udel.edu/~hurstrh/udacc/start.htm CHICAGO, UNDEFEATED, WINS NAQT NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP The University of Chicago dominated the NAQT championship in Ann Arbor, Mich at U-M on 10 April. Sailing throught all three stages of play (semi-round robin, swiss-pair, and ladder play) undefeated, with two victories over the second and third place teams (Berkeley and Michigan), Chicago then easily defeated Berkeley again in the prelim weighted best 2/3 championship. The tournament is a 64 team national championship run by NAQT (with help from volunteers). In addition to the national championship, a division II champion among undergraduate players was crowned - Carleton College. OKLAHOMA WINS WSU FREEZE YOUR BUZZ OFF Oklahoma Dolomite (David Murphy, Dan Beshear, Louis Gill, and Jenn Walker) finished 8-1 to win the WSUAQT Freeze Your Buzz Off on March 20, defeating Flung From the Ivory Tower (Scott Coon, Chris Mayfield) (6-3) in the final. Flung From the Ivory Tower advanced to the final by virtue of a superior head to head point differential over Oklahoma Canada (Sarah Cooper, Stephen Gill, Andrew McKenzie, Adam Mitchell, Ryan Mauldin) and Arkansas (Mike Wehrman, Dargan Ware). The tournament was accompanied by a singles tournament, in which the top 4 finishers were, in order, Dargan Ware, Mike Wehrman, Scott Coon, and Dan Beshear. CHICAGO WINS QUINCY HAWKFEST (courtesy Subash Maddipoti) Chicago A finished the full round robin with an undefeated 16-0 record (a truly dominating performance), finishing two wins clear of Eric Hillemann/Karl Schmidt and Iowa What Germans Do Best, both with 14-2 records. On account of this Chicago won the tournament outright, managing to get out of here by 8:45 (early compared to the night before). Thus, Chicago won the overall title and the collegiate title. Hillemann and Schmidt won the Masters/Bastard title and Iowa What Germans Do Best and Carleton finished with strong showings to take 2nd and 3rd place respectively in the collegiate division. Top 4 all stars by ppg were Andrew Yaphe, Eric Hillemann, Eric Bell, and Steve Watchorn WASHINGTON NOVICE HUSKY BOWL 24 APRIL The Academic Competition Team of the University of Washington will be hosting Husky Bowl I on April 24th, 1999 on the University of Washington campus in Seattle. This will be the first ever Invitational Quiz Bowl Tournament in the Northwest. It is our hope that Husky Bowl will be a first step towards creating a circuit in the Northwest. The entry fee for Husky Bowl will be a mere $35 per team. Schools may enter as many teams as they like. We have set this fee very low so that as many teams as possible will be able to attend. There is an additional discount for bringing a buzzer. High school teams are invited, as Husky Bowl is intended to be a novice tournament. Play will be round robin. Questions for Husky Bowl are being provided by NAQT. If you would like to register a team or teams please email (Jason Brown) at ringostr@u.washington.edu or call (206) 329-8984. UC IRVINE INTRODUCES A MAY TOURNAMENT The College Bowl Club of the University of California, Irvine, will be hosting an open tournament for everyone who is interested in quiz bowl. The dates for the tournament are May 21-22, 1999, and it will be held on the second floor of Humanities Hall on the UCI campus. There is no editing for this packet-submission tournament. Please bring 8 copies of your packet. Each packet should contain 25 tossup and bonus questions. Theme/creative/original packets are strongly encouraged. We ask that each team of at most 4 players moderate their own packets. There is a $10 donation at the door to cover facility and prize costs, but it can be waived if your team brings a moderator. If everybody agrees, we can make it a one-day event on Saturday. Sign up as a team or as an individual by e-mailing Willie Chen at willchen@uci.edu.