Mort Walker Invitational @ Mizzou -- February 13, 2010

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Dear Coaches,

The University of Missouri Quizbowl Club is pleased to announce a third tournament on our high school schedule this year. The Mort Walker Invitational, named in honor of the Mizzou graduate and creator of Beetle Bailey, will be held on February 13, 2010. With all of our success in the past, we are prepared to offer your team another great day of quizbowl. We will be mirroring a set of questions written for high schoolers elsewhere in the country. Our game format will be played on ACF rules, which means there will be 20 tossups, each with a 30-point nonrebounding bonus. There will be no powers, but there will be negs.

Our tournament has been certified by the Missouri Quizbowl Alliance, a statewide group promoting high quality quizbowl. Criteria for certification include pyramidal questions, a guarantee of six rounds minimum per team, and other factors that MOQBA considers valuable for high quality quizbowl. Details on MOQBA and its certification procedures can be found online at http://www.moqba.org.

This tournament will be using a rule where each team can have a maximum of 6 players. If you have more than that, do not feel hesitant signing up an extra team so that every player gets more opportunities to participate in games.

The field will be capped at 18 teams, although if there is demand and space we will consider expansion of the field. Spaces will be allotted on a first-come, first-serve basis. We will form a waitlist, and if teams drop, we will proceed down the list in order. Please do not hesitate to contact us even if the field is full, as we have traditionally called teams from far down the waitlist. The top teams at this event will qualify for the 2010 PACE National Scholastics Championship.

Entry Fees:
First team from a school: $70
Additional teams from the same school: $60
Buzzer system discount: -$5 per system per team, up to $15. In order to receive the buzzer system discount, the system must be
fully functional for 8 players.
Staffer discount: -$5 per team that brings a scorekeeper the morning of the tournament. This can be a coach, parent, or any other person attending who isn’t playing. If finances allow, we will try to provide scorekeepers something for their assistance.

To register, please email mizzouquizbowl@gmail.com with the name of your school, how many teams you wish to enter, and the best way to contact you with any questions. We ask that for payment, you pay us either in cash or check by the day of the tournament unless you arrange otherwise with us. Please make checks out to “The University of Missouri Quizbowl Club”. In particular, we would ask that you avoid giving us purchase orders unless mandated by your school, and do not make checks out to the University of Missouri, because we will not be able to cash those. If you need other financial information, please let us know upon registration or as soon as possible so that we can begin filling out the necessary paperwork.

Don't hesitate to respond early! We will work with you every step of the way, allay your concerns, and answer any questions you may have. In addition, we would like to note that we will also be the location of the Missouri NAQT Qualifier tournament on March 20th hosted by MOQBA. Missouriquizbowl.com has an updated list of upcoming tournaments at MU and other locations statewide.

We hope to see you in Columbia in February!

Joey Spicer
Co-Tournament Director

Alex Dzurick
Co-Tournament Director
Mizzou Quizbowl President/Treasurer

P.S. We would like to recommend that if you are interested in finding
more practice material to prepare for our events, you check out
quizbowlpackets.com, which is an archive of hundreds of high school
packets.

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**Field Updated Below**

If you know of other schools who might be interested, please direct them our way. We would like to get as many schools as possible here on Feb. 13th.

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We are also now officially sanctioned by MSHSAA:
http://www.mshsaa.org/About/SanctionedE ... activity=1

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**Field Updated Below**

[PenforPrez]

I'm really looking forward to this one. We really don't have enough mirror/house-written tournaments in Missouri, and I'm glad to see it's becoming more of a trend.

[socalcaptain]

FIELD [updated as of 1:00 PM, Feb 11]:
Helias A
Helias B
Rock Bridge A
Rock Bridge B
Boonville
Fulton
Parkway West
Jefferson City

[This is panning out to be a very mid-Missouri heavy tournament...]

[socalcaptain]

With 8 teams, we will run a full round-robin of 7 games in the morning, and then split the field into two brackets and run a round-robin within those brackets, for a guaranteed total of 10 games per team. That leaves me two packets for finals should they be necessary.

With seven or nine teams, the format will change. I am hoping to maintain 8 teams, as the schedule above is optimal and doesn't involve byes or extra rounds.

[socalcaptain]

FIELD [all teams confirmed as of 1:00 PM, Feb. 12]:
Helias A
Helias B
Rock Bridge A
Rock Bridge B
Boonville
Fulton A
Fulton B
Parkway West
Jefferson City

[Jeffrey Hill]

Good luck to everyone today! There may be updates at http://www.twitter.com/moquizbowl

[socalcaptain]

Yes, good luck to all players! In addition to updates on Twitter @moquizbowl, also look for some updates on @alexdzurick (http://www.twitter.com/alexdzurick).

[socalcaptain]

After a full round-robin among all 9 teams in attendance, Helias A cleared the field to win the inaugural Mort Walker Invitational championship. In a tiebreaker game, Fulton B defeated Parkway West to claim second place. Both Helias and Fulton qualified teams for the PACE NSC. Congratulations go out to these teams.

Our top scorers, who each received books for their achievements, were:
1 - Nick Vellios, Helias A (46.67 PPG)
2 - Zach Goree, Rock Bridge A (40.00 PPG)
3 - Jeremy Clincy, Fulton B (30.67 PPG)
4 - Dylan Randolph, Fulton B (26.25 PPG)
5 - Michael McCoy, Helias B (25.71 PPG)

Our extremest gratitude is due to Jeffrey Hill, Paul Nelson, and Sean Phillips, who volunteered to come in and moderate, as well as to Jessi Forgy, Caryn Jackson, and Kelson Rosbach, who volunteered to scorekeep. The Missouri Quizbowl Club is always grateful for the support we receive from the greater quizbowl community, and these staffers exemplify that support.

Full results can be found here, at the Missouri Quizbowl website.

Again, our congratulations to all participating teams, and thanks once again to our wonderful volunteer staff. Today was a very exciting day and without all of the coaches, players, and staff it would not have happened.