Upcoming Events

2023 MOQBA Fall Championship Announcement

The 2023 MOQBA Fall Championship was held on December 9, 2023. This is an archive of the original tournament announcement. Read the recap.

The Missouri Quizbowl Alliance is pleased to announce that we will host the MOQBA Fall Championship on Saturday, December 9, 2023. As MOQBA's flagship fall tournament, we look forward to hosting another highly competitive and geographically diverse field and encourage high school teams from every area of the state to attend.

Location

Columbia College (Main Campus)
1001 Rogers Street
Columbia, MO 65216

Participants

This tournament is open to all high school teams eligible to participate in MSHSAA-sanctioned Scholar Bowl events. Team rosters may have up to eight players for the day, with no more than four starters and two substitutes playing in each game.

The Missouri Quizbowl Alliance is committed to ensuring a safe and welcoming atmosphere for all competitors, coaches, tournament staff, and spectators at this tournament. In addition to all applicable MSHSAA and school policies regarding sportsmanship and personal conduct, participants are expected to abide by Section I (Ethics and Conduct) of the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence ruleset.

Question Set

The MOQBA Fall Championship will use the 2023 Scottie question set. While we expect to be the only tournament in Missouri using this set, it is your responsibility to ensure that your team has not previously heard this question set and will not compete in any other tournaments using this set.

Format

Games consist of twenty tossups worth ten points each followed by non-rebounding bonuses worth up to thirty points. Tossups will feature 15 point "powers" and -5 point "negs".

The top four teams will receive trophies, and an all-tournament team will be recognized based on individual performances in the preliminary rounds. Teams will not be divided into separate divisions based on school size, but the top small school team (by NAQT's definition of a "Traditional Public" small school) will be recognized as the small school champion.

Schedule

Registered teams should arrive between 7:45 and 8:20 AM for check in. We will have a brief introductory meeting at 8:30 and are hoping to start the first round of tournament play as early as 8:45. A lunch break will follow the preliminary rounds, with all teams returning from lunch for championship or consolation games in the afternoon. All teams will be guaranteed 9-10 rounds and most teams should be done by 5:00.

Based on each team's record in games within the final championship pool, a finals series of one or two full games will be played until no more than one team has fewer than two losses and any ties for first place are broken. Ties for other trophies will be played off on half packets. We aim to conclude the tournament by 7:00.

A full game small school final will be played between the top two small school teams only if they are tied in overall placement. Otherwise, the highest placing small school team will be named the small school champion outright.

Qualifying for National Tournaments

The top 20% of the field will qualify for the 2024 PACE National Scholastic Championship, scheduled for June 8-9 in the Washington D.C. area. (In previous years, this tournament was a "Platinum" qualifier for NSC, but PACE has simplified their qualification criteria and there are no longer different qualification levels for tournaments.)

Pricing

Registration and Waitlist

Please see the list below for details regarding the order that registrations will be processed within each waitlist group; in particular, the randomization of second teams that sign up during the first few days of registration.

Please complete this form to register for the tournament. Registrations will not be accepted via any other method. Our tournaments traditionally fill very quickly and have large waitlists, so we strongly recommend that you register as soon as possible.

The field will initially be limited to 24 teams. We expect to expand the field to at least 30-36 teams once we confirm enough staffers to run a larger tournament in a timely manner.

Registrations and the waitlist will be handled in this manner:

At midnight on Wednesday, November 1, the waitlist will be combined into a single group, any remaining openings will be filled from the top of the combined list, and any subsequent registrations will be added to the end of the full waitlist.

Tournament information, including a list of registered teams and current staff counts, will be updated regularly on the Missouri Quizbowl Message Board.

We hope to see you and your team in Columbia in December and wish you the best of luck as you compete this season. If you have any questions about the tournament, don't hesitate to ask us at fall@moqba.org.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey Hill and Matt Chadbourne
2023 MOQBA Fall Championship Co-Directors