Cross-posting on behalf of Max Krawczyk from Palo Alto quizbowl:

The Palo Alto Quiz Bowl Team will be hosting a novice quiz bowl tournament on October 4th, 2014 at Palo Alto High School, in Palo Alto, CA! The tournament will be run in order to provide an introduction into quiz bowl without any prior experience necessary and to demonstrate what a truly fun activity quiz bowl is! We highly encourage teams from around the Bay Area to come. 

The tournament set will be National Academic Quiz Tournaments’ (NAQT) Invitational Series 139-A, which is aimed at teams with little to no experience. We have rented out space for a field cap of 30 teams (15 rooms) and strongly encourage all eligible teams to sign up! All players/teams will be eligible, except for those who have played at any national quiz bowl tournaments (HSNCT/PACE NSC). Teams will be restricted to at most 6 players, with 4 players playing at any given time and 2 on the bench. Please be aware that the majority of teams will be teams with new players.

Tournament Logistics: The tournament will be held at Palo Alto High School at 50 Embarcadero Rd, Palo Alto, CA, 94303 in the second floor of the 800 building, in rooms 850-864, located at the northeast of the campus near the train tracks. The control room will be in 850. Here’s a printable map of the Palo Alto campus.

We project that the tournament will run from 9 until about 4:30pm, with a break for lunch in between. Depending on the number of teams who register, we will change the format of our brackets; however, we will try to get all teams to be able to play at least 8 rounds of quiz bowl throughout the day, either in a round robin or some other format. During lunch, there are many wonderful locations across the street from Paly at the Town and Country Village for food options.

On the day of the tournament, please report to the control room (850) by 8:30am. We will have a brief introduction to quiz bowl for novices, and we plan to begin the first round by 9:00.

Fees
base fee: $50 per team
–$5 for all additional teams from the same school
–$20 for teams composed entirely of students that have not competed at a pyramidal quiz bowl tournament before the 2014-15 school year: “pyramidal quiz bowl” does not encompass other academic/trivia competitions like Science Bowl or Quiz Kids
–$10 per working buzzer 
–$10 per staffer (must stay whole day)
For payment, please bring cash or checks made out to Palo Alto High School.


We urge teams attending to bring buzzers and staffers if available. Though we do not expect that teams have played tournaments previously, we will enforce all the gameplay rules as they are written in Sections D-H of the official rules of the Academic Competition Federation, so all players must fully familiarize themselves with these rules before proceeding. Pay special attention to timing, pronunciation, and protest guidelines.

Registration: email me (Max Krawczyk, max.j.krawczyk@gmail.com) before Tuesday, September 30th, 2014 with the proper information (team name, roster, how many teams, number of buzzers/staffers to be brought, the amount to be paid, and contact info). 

We look forward to seeing you there!

NCQBA and Rio Americano HS are pleased to announce that the Sacramento Fall Tournament will be held on Saturday, September 13, 2014.

Location: This tournament will take place at Rio Americano HS, Sacramento, California. Registration will begin at 9:30AM and we hope to start round 1 at 10:00AM. We will have a field cap of 12 teams.

Questions: We will be using NAQT IS-137A.

Eligibility: All high schools (public, private, charter, religious, homeschool, etc.) are eligible to play in this event.

Schools are encouraged to enter multiple teams, but please note that players must play for the same team throughout the tournament.

Fees:

Base fee: $65 per team

-$10 second or subsequent team from the same school

-$15 schools playing their first quizbowl tournament

-$10 working buzzer system (must accommodate at least eight players)

-$10 scorekeeper (We will hold a brief training session during check-in for those volunteers who have never kept score before.)

Payment will be taken at check-in on September 13. Please make checks out to Rio Americano HS.

How to register: fill out this form, on or before Wednesday, September 10, 2014, indicating how many teams, buzzers, and staff your school plans to bring.

Welcome to a new season of quizbowl in northern California! We’re planning a full calendar of tournaments for fall 2014. Preliminary dates are as follows:

Saturday, September 13th: Sacramento Fall Tournament (contact Nicholas Karas)

Saturday, October 4th: Novice tournaments at Palo Alto (contact Max Krawczyk) and Amador Valley (contact Varun Govil)

Saturday, November 1st: California Cup #1 at UC Berkeley (contact Nicholas Karas and Ankit Aggarwal)

Saturday, November 22nd: California Cup #2 at UC Berkeley (contact Nicholas Karas and Ankit Aggarwal)

Please stay tuned for winter and spring tournament announcements, including a full slate of five middle school events.

Cross-posting on behalf of Jonchee Kao from Bellarmine:

Bellarmine’s Quiz Bowl team is pleased to announce that the homesite tournament of our first housewrite set, BELLum Omnium Contra Omnes (BELLOCO), will be held on February 22, 2014 at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, California.

The initial field cap will be 24 teams, with possible expansion, dependent on the number of staffers and buzzers we have available. Teams are restricted to six players each; please break up any larger teams into two or more teams. There is no limit to the number of teams that can come from any single school.

The tentative tournament structure will be 6-team preliminary brackets with 5 games of round robin preliminary play followed by a rebracketing into playoff rounds, the structure of which will be determined by the number of teams who register for this event. We anticipate that rounds will go from 9:00 until approximately 5:30, followed by an awards ceremony. The exact round timings and other logistical information will be emailed to registered teams before the tournament. Please do not plan to leave early without telling us beforehand.

Eligibility
All teams of high schoolers from the same school are eligible to play in this event.

Fees

• base fee: $80 per team
• –$10 for second or subsequent team from the same school
• –$10 per working buzzer (please do not bring buzzers that are not in good working condition)
• –$5 per inexperienced staffer
• –$15 per experienced moderator
• –$10 per 75 miles driving, one way, rounded down
• The minimum fee after all discounts have been added is $0. Payment will be taken at check-in the morning of the tournament.

To register: please email Jonchee Kao (jonchee.kao15@bcp.org) by Thursday, February 20, 2014, indicating how many teams, buzzers and staffers that your school will bring as well as the contact person (and cell phone number) for your team. Please also include the names of the members of each team to make onsite check-in easier.
Any volunteers not affiliated with a registered team are warmly welcome and should contact me as well.
Registered teams will be provided with more detailed information before the tournament. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me. We hope to see your team there!

The Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance and Berkeley Quiz Bowl are pleased to announce that Berkeley will host the 2014 NAQT Northern California State Championship on Saturday, March 15, 2014.

Location: This tournament will take place at UC Berkeley. Details of which classroom building(s) will be posted closer to the date of the tournament.

Questions: We will be using NAQT Invitational Series IS #136. No computational math will be read.

The top 15% of teams will qualify for the 2014 NAQT High School National Championship Tournament, to be held May 31-June 1 near Chicago. In addition, the highest-finishing team that has not yet qualified for the HSNCT will qualify at this tournament (whether or not that team places in the top 15% of the state championship field).

Eligibility: All high schools (public, private, charter, religious, homeschool, etc.) are eligible to play in this event.

Schools are encouraged to enter multiple teams, but please note that players must play for the same team throughout the tournament.

Fees:

Base fee: $80 per team

$10 discount: second or subsequent team from the same school

$10 discount per working buzzer system (must accommodate at least eight players)

$20 discount per experienced moderator

$10 discount per scorekeeper (We will hold a brief training session during check-in for those volunteers who have never kept score before.)

$30 discount: new to quizbowl (played no pyramidal tournaments before October 1, 2013)

$20 discount: teams that travel 60 or more miles one-way (distance measured from your high school to UC Berkeley by Google Maps)

Payment will be taken at check-in on March 15th. Please make checks out to “Tanay Kothari.”

How to register: please contact the tournament director, Jeff Hoppes (jeff.hoppes@gmail.com), on or before Monday, March 10th, indicating how many teams, buzzers, and staff your school plans to bring.

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 2014 NAQT Northern California State Championship and takes full responsibility for the guests.