The UC Berkeley Quiz Bowl team is pleased to announce that we will be holding the second annual California Cup, a series of four tournaments. The third and fourth tournaments will be held on the UC Berkeley campus on Sunday, January 19 and Saturday, February 1, 2014. We hope to attract many teams from across the state and possibly elsewhere. We will guarantee teams a high number of games (8 or more) per tournament and will make provisions so that teams are able to play others of the same skill level after preliminary rounds.
We will be running these tournaments on high-quality question sets that have been vetted by the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence (PACE). The sets that will be used are the Brookwood Invitational Scholars Bowl, NAQT Invitational Series #130, the Ladue Invitational Spring Tournament, and the Maggie Walker GSAC XXI. The top teams in each tournament will qualify for the 2014 PACE National Scholastics Championship (NSC), which will be held on May 24-25 at the Reston Hyatt in Reston, Virginia. Additionally, teams that perform well on NAQT sets during the California Cup will qualify for the 2014 High School National Championship Tournament (HSNCT), held May 31-June 1 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare hotel near Chicago, Illinois.
There will be individual results for each tournament as well as a cumulative result. We will split the field into junior varsity and varsity divisions and evaluate each separately. After the cup results are tallied, we will crown a California Cup state champion! There will be book prizes and gift cards for the highest-performing teams and individual scorers at each tournament, and other prizes are in store for the top California Cup teams. When calculating final Cup standings, we will count the top three performances by each team, allowing teams to account for extenuating circumstances at one tournament. Teams that register for the entire series of tournaments will be eligible for prizes at the end. With four guaranteed tournaments and plenty of gameplay, this series will offer the best prizes, value, and national qualification opportunities available anywhere in the state!
Entry Fees:
Base fee per team for package of all four tournaments: $250
New team (first year of quiz bowl competition for the club): -$50
Buzzer discount: -$10 per tournament
Staff discount: -$10 per tournament (if needed)
Travel discount: -$25 per 75 miles one-way (determined by Google Maps)
Registering for a single tournament: $90
*Buzzers and staff discounts apply on an as-needed, first-come, first-serve basis. When registering, please detail how many staff and/or buzzers you may be able to bring. As the tournament approaches, we will let you know whether they are needed or not. Payment will be taken at registration on November 9; please make checks payable to Tanay Kothari.
We are setting a tentative field cap of 40 teams. There is no maximum to the number of teams each school may bring. We will likely be able to expand if there is enough interest, but until that point, we will accept teams on a first-come, first-serve basis. Fields can fill fast, so sign up soon to reserve your slot! To register, please send an email to californiacupquizbowl@gmail.com. Our website is http://californiacupquizbowl.wordpress.com/. The registration deadline for the first tournament, the Beartolt Brecht Invitational, is November 3. Please bring the cash or check for full payment of the series of tournaments to the first tournament and make it out to Tanay Kothari. You can still pay the base fee $250 for three tournaments if you register by the second tournament.
The second California Cup tournament will take place on Saturday, November 23; dates for the two spring-semester tournaments in the series are Sunday, January 19 and Saturday, February 1.
Thank you for your interest, and please spread the word to other high schools that are interested in quiz bowl or are heavily involved in other academic events like debate or Science Bowl. We look forward to an exciting year of academic competition!
The UC Berkeley Quiz Bowl Club is a student group acting independently of the University of California. The student organization is the host of the California Cup and takes full responsibility for the guests.
