The announcement for the 2014-2015 California Cup is now on the forums and is reproduced below:
The Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance and Quiz Bowl Club at UC Berkeley are pleased to announce that we will be holding the third annual California Cup. The California Cup consists of four quiz bowl tournaments held throughout the year, and it is widely considered the premier academic competition event in Northern California. The first two tournaments in the series will be held on Saturday, November 1 and Saturday, November 22. The dates for the two events in the Spring are yet to be confirmed and will be announced during the winter.
We hope to attract many teams from across the state and elsewhere. We have previously attracted teams from as far away as Southern California and Mississippi. As we have in the past, we will guarantee teams a high number of games (8 or more) per tournament and ensure that teams are able to play others of the same skill level after preliminary placement rounds.
The top teams at each tournament will qualify for the 2015 PACE National Scholastics Championship (NSC; http://www.pace-nsc.org/nsc-2015/), which will be held June 6-7 at the Reston Hyatt in Reston, Virginia. Additionally, teams that perform well on NAQT sets during the California Cup will qualify for the 2015 High School National Championship Tournament (HSNCT;https://www.naqt.com/hsnct/2015/details.html), held May 29-31 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare hotel in Rosemont, Illinois (near Chicago). California Cup tournaments have historically held the highest possible certification from PACE (platinum). Teams that do well at the non-NAQT California Cup competitions can also apply for wildcards to HSNCT, and many have received them. The likelihood is that, for California Cup #1, we will use the Maryland Spring Set for varsity and the Fall Kickoff Tournament set for JV, while California Cup #2 will use NAQT sets appropriate for the varsity and junior varsity divisions. California Cup #3 and #4, while not scheduled yet, will likely use the Brookwood Invitational Scholars Bowl (BISB) and Yale’s Bulldog High School Academic Tournament (BHSAT), respectively, for both divisions.
Registration
Teams may choose to register separately for each tournament within the series, though we recommend registering for all four tournaments at once (the “package”), which ensures a significant discount. 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 (NorCal) 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 (either a lower-than-expected performance or non-attendance). Only teams that register for the entire series of tournaments will be eligible for the title as well as prizes at the end. With four guaranteed tournaments and plenty of gameplay, this series will offer the best prizes, greatest value, and most national qualification opportunities available anywhere in the country!
Entry Fees:
Base fee per team for package of all four tournaments (paying by cash or check): $270
Base fee per team for package of all four tournaments (paying via Square–how to do this will be explained later): $260
If your school played zero Cal Cup events last year (i.e. new team discount): -$70
Referral discount: An established team can pay the new team price if they refer a previously non quiz bowl-playing school to the California Cup and that school ends up purchasing the package. This will be -$25 if that new school only ends up purchasing a single tournament.
Buzzer discount: -$10 per tournament (We will test buzzers and NOT accept them if they do not have four fully functioning units on each “side,” so do not try to claim discounts on buzzers that are not in full working order. Also, PLEASE LABEL your buzzers with your school/team name so that you can promptly pick them up at the tournament’s conclusion. We will require that the buzzer boxes be labeled for this purpose. Lastly, we will no longer accept buzzers that require a laptop to operate unless we really need them.)
Staff discount: -$10 per tournament for experienced, competent moderator (if needed)
-$5 per tournament for scorekeeper
Travel discount: -$20 per 75 miles one-way (determined by Google Maps)
Registering for a single tournament: $90
New school registering for a single tournament: $65
Minimum entry fee: $20 per tournament
*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 either online via Square or at registration; please make checks payable to “Quiz Bowl Club”. Note that discounts for future tournaments will NOT be given at any particular tournament. What this means is that if, for example, at the first tournament you claim a buzzer discount for all four tournaments, you must still pay as if you only claimed it for one tournament. Then, for each subsequent tournament in which you actually bring the buzzer, we will refund you $10 in cash. The same goes for the staffer discount. The entire distance discount may be claimed at the first tournament, though (that is, teams more than 75 miles away from UC Berkeley will pay $80 less).
We are setting a field cap of 40 teams (overall, not per division). Schools may register multiple teams–there is no limit. We might 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 fill out this Google Form:
https://docs.google.com/a/berkeley.edu/ … A/viewform
The registration deadline for Cal Cup #1 is Wednesday, October 29. Please bring the cash or check for full payment of the series of tournaments to the first tournament unless you are paying via Square. You can still pay the base fee for three tournaments if you register by the second tournament.
Scoring and Gameplay
The California Cup assigns points to schools based on their performance at the tournaments that take place throughout the year. We have decided to adopt the following scoring system: 10 points for 1st place, 8 points for 2nd place, 6 points for 3rd place, 4 points for 4th place, 3 points for 5th place, 2 points for 6th place, and 1 point for 7th place. Since the scoring automatically drops the lowest result of a team, only three of the tournaments will end up counting in the final evaluation of a team’s standing. Of course, attending all four tournaments will ensure that your team’s worst performance is disregarded. This means, for example, if a team wins the first three California Cup tournaments, they will be declared the California Cup champion for that division. If a team that does not purchase the full package ends up placing high enough on the scoring system, then we will simply skip them in the California Cup overall ranking (but they will still retain their ranking for that individual tournament). At the end of the year, we will break ties by evaluating (1) the performance in the 4th tournament and (2) statistics from each team’s performances throughout the year. We will maintain separate standings for JV and Varsity teams.
We will enforce all the gameplay rules as they are written in Sections D-H of the official rules of the Academic Competition Federation (http://acf-quizbowl.com/documents/official-acf-rules/), so all players must fully familiarize themselves with these rules before playing these tournaments. If you are having trouble remember them, we recommend you print out a copy and refresh your memory immediately prior to the tournament. Pay special attention to timing, pronunciation, and protest guidelines, as players often lose out on points by not knowing these. You can find out more about what quiz bowl is here: (https://www.norcalquizbowl.org/?page_id=18) and you can find more quiz bowl-pertinent resources here (https://www.norcalquizbowl.org/?page_id=51). Teams that owe the Berkeley club money from last year must reimburse us before paying for this tournament.
Contact Information
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, AcaDeca, or Science Bowl. We look forward to another exciting year of academic competition!
Please contact us at californiacupquizbowl@gmail.com with any questions that you have or to register. There will be a section on the NCQBA website (https://www.norcalquizbowl.org/) specifically devoted to the California Cup as well.
Field (Nov 1):
Varsity:
JV:
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.
