Upcoming Events

2018 MOQBA Fall Championship Rules

Unless announced otherwise by the tournament co-directors (Jeffrey Hill and Matt Chadbourne), these rules will be used at the 2018 MOQBA Fall Championship on December 8, 2018.

Overview

The official MSHSAA Scholar Bowl Rules Book for the current competition season shall apply except where superseded by the rules outlined below. Teams participating in this tournament consent to any rules below that differ from standard MSHSAA rules as allowed by MSHSAA's rules jurisdiction policy.

Games consist of twenty tossups with three part bonuses.

Game Format

A game consists of twenty tossups with three part bonuses read to two teams.

Team Size: Each team shall have between one and four players active during each tossup/bonus cycle. Additional players on a team's roster may be substituted into the game at times allowed by these rules.

Allowed Materials: Each active player may only use a sheet of scratch paper and a writing utensil. A player's sheet of paper must be completely blank when the player becomes active in the game. These materials will generally not be provided by the game room staff.

Halftime: A short halftime shall occur after tossup/bonus cycle 10. Please keep halftime brief.

Overtime: If the game is tied after tossup/bonus cycle 20, the tie shall be broken by reading tossups until the score changes. No bonus is read during overtime.

Forfeits: If a team is significantly late to a game and the delay is not caused by another game running late or another factor directly caused by the overall conduct of the tournament, the tournament director may declare a forfeit.

Tossups

Recognition: Moderators will recognize the player who has buzzed in on a tossup. There is no penalty for answering correctly before being recognized if the buzzer system indicates the answering player buzzed in first.

Scoring: Correct tossup answers are worth 10 points by default.

  • Powers: If a player buzzes in before an unannounced "power mark" printed on the page and answers correctly, 15 points shall be awarded instead of the normal 10.
  • Negs: If the first player to buzz in on a tossup does so before the end of the question and answers incorrectly, a 5 point penalty shall be deducted.

Timing: Standard MSHSAA timing rules shall be used for tossups:

  • Once a tossup has been read, players shall have 5 seconds to buzz in.
  • Once a player who has buzzed in has been recognized, that player shall begin a significant answer within 3 seconds and be allowed a total of 10 seconds to complete their answer.
  • This tournament has no computation tossups.

Bonuses

Bonuses are read one part at a time to the team that answers a tossup correctly. Bonuses do not rebound.

Answering: Bonus answers must come from the captain, unless the captain defers to another player by name to provide the team's answer. Once the captain defers, only the designated player may provide the team's answer on that bonus part. Deferring does not extend the amount of time allowed to answer.

Scoring: Each bonus is worth a total of 30 points. All bonuses are expected to be 3 parts worth 10 points each, but a bonus could use a different structure as long as it is worth a total of 30 points.

Timing: Once a bonus part has been read, the captain has 5 seconds to answer, unless indicated otherwise by the question. The moderator shall prompt for an answer after 4 seconds. No extra time is allotted for computation bonuses unless explicitly specified by the question.

Correct Answers

Prompting: If a player gives an answer that is not incorrect but also not specific enough, the moderator shall prompt for a more specific answer, usually by saying the word "prompt". There is no limit to the number of times a player may be prompted on a question as long as each answer is more specific than the previous answer or is another answer for which the moderator is explicitly instructed to prompt.

Blitzing: Providing multiple, related pieces of information of different types (also known as "blitzing") is acceptable as long as the correct answer is included and all parts of the answer are accurate. For instance, providing a title and author is acceptable (as long as they are paired correctly), but providing two titles is not. There is not a specific limitation on what types of answers may be included in a multiple-answer response.

Timeouts and Substitutions

Timeouts: Each team is allowed one 30 second timeout per game, during which either team may substitute and/or confer with coaches.

Substitutions: Substitutions are allowed at halftime, before overtime, or during either team's timeout. Players removed from the game by substitution may re-enter the game at a later substitution opportunity. Each team may play no more than six players over the course of a particular game.

Score Checks: A score check shall be performed at halftime and at the end of the game. Any active player or coach may request a score check before any tossup, but the moderator reserves the right to refuse excessive requests for score checks. Any discrepancies between the official score and scores kept by teams shall be resolved before proceeding with the game.

Protests

Protests shall be noted by the game room staff and will only be resolved at the end of the game if it could change which team wins the game. Protests must be made before the official scoresheet is submitted to tournament central. Protests may only be brought to tournament central by a member of the game room staff.

Issues of moderator discretion such as timing, what the moderator heard, etc., are not protestable.

Moderator Errors

Tossups: If the moderator reveals the answer to a tossup while at least one team still has a chance to answer it, a replacement tossup shall be read from the extra questions in the packet or another set of questions designated by the tournament director. The replacement tossup is not required to be in the same category as the original. If one team already provided an incorrect answer to the original tossup before the answer was spoiled, that team will not have a chance to answer the replacement tossup.

Bonuses: If a moderator reveals the answer to a bonus part before the team has answered or time has expired, the entire bonus shall be replaced by reading the next bonus in its entirety. However, the scoring of any parts that were answered correctly or incorrectly before the previous bonus was spoiled will stand once the new bonus is fully read. The team is guaranteed to receive any points scored on unspoiled parts of the original bonus, and is not given a second chance to score points for unspoiled parts answered incorrectly. Refer to this document for additional clarification.

Final Score

Please make sure that the official scorekeeper and both teams all agree on the final score before the official scoresheet is submitted.

If mathematical errors are discovered on the official scoresheet in tournament central when entering statistics, the final score may be adjusted to account for the discrepancy. In the unlikely event that resolving a scoring discrepancy changes the outcome of the game, both coaches and the game room staff shall be consulted to confirm the changes before the result is changed or the teams are reseated for an overtime period.

Acceptable Answer Reminders

Titles: Titles of works generally must be exact, except that leading articles such as “a” and “the” may be omitted. Adding “The” in front of a title where it does not exist is acceptable unless it creates ambiguity with another plausible answer (e.g. Invisible Man and The Invisible Man are two different works). Partial titles will not be accepted or prompted unless specifically allowed by the answer line.

Names of non-fictional people:

Revised 2018-11-26