ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ

The 2021 Middle School Individual Player National Championship Tournament (MS IPNCT) was held online on April 25, 2021.

The MS IPNCT is ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ’s championship tournament for individual middle school players. There is also the team-based Middle School National Championship Tournament on May 1–2 as well as a High School IPNCT on Sunday, April 11.

Tournament Atrium

Tournament Date

April 25, 2021 (Sunday). This is the same weekend (and, in large part, questions) as ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ’s 2021 Small School National Championship Tournament, but the MS IPNCT is a completely separate event; no player may play both.

Medium

Online, via Zoom and in accordance with the rest of ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ’s Online Tournament Guide.

To promote confidence in the integrity of online competition, ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ has established an Integrity Policy for Online National Championships that establishes requirements for players while they are active. All players and coaches should read the policy, and all players should be prepared to comply with it during gameplay.

Technical Requirements

Players should read and must follow the rules and procedures in ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ’s Online Tournament Guide. This includes, but is not limited to, the requirements that players must…

• Be visible on camera at all times during gameplay.
• Use an Internet connection with at least 2.5 megabits/second bandwidth, both upstream and downstream.

Furthermore, we very strongly recommend that players…

• Use a full-featured desktop or laptop computer (as opposed to a phone, tablet, or Chromebook) for Zoom. It is fine to use a phone to buzz in (but no other use of the phone is acceptable).
• Use the installed Zoom client application (as opposed to the web app).
• Read the player portion of the Online Tournament Guide, and potentially the entire guide.

In addition to the requirements of the Online Tournament Guide, for this tournament:

• All players must comply with the Integrity Policy for Online National Championships, including the requirement that every player’s face and both hands be visible at essentially all times when they are active in gameplay.

• All players are expected to use headphones, earbuds, or a headset—not speakers. Failure to use headphones (etc.) is not a violation of the rules per se, but if a player is not using headphones, earbuds, or a headset and experiences audio problems, no time will be spent troubleshooting their issues, and they will be swiftly removed from the game if necessary to maintain the quality of the game for other participants.

  We furthermore very strongly recommend that players use a headset or external microphone rather than their device’s built-in microphone.

Schedule

This schedule is final.

All times are listed in Central time.

Gameplay Rules

The tournament will use ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ’s standard rules with the IPNCT modifications and the online play modifications. In brief:

• There are only tossups (no bonuses).
• Matches are untimed.
• There are no notions of teammates or captains.
• Some matches (“group matches”) will start with three or more (typically eight to ten) players at once.
• In group matches, an interrupt penalty will be assessed for every incorrect answer given before the question is completely read.
• In group matches, players may secure a high placement and be removed from the game (“buzz out”) before it is over, depending on their performance.
• In group matches, a question only “goes dead” when time expires or every active player has answered incorrectly.
• There are no timeouts in group matches, but there will be periodic score checks.

Eligibility

The tournament is open to all players eligible to compete for their school (or homeschool) team according to ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ’s Middle School Eligibility Rules.

Qualification

There is no qualification procedure for the Middle School Individual Player National Championship Tournament. ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ welcomes all players who want to see how their knowledge stacks up against the very best.

Field

These players attended the tournament.

Format

The tournament will consist entirely of group matches, in which up to ten players compete in each room. (Unlike in previous years, there will be no head-to-head matches.) There are special gameplay rules for group matches (in addition to the rules modifications for online play).

All players will compete in Rounds 1–6. The top eight players from those matches will advance to the finals (Round 7).

Within each game, players will be ranked by the order in which they buzz out (by reaching a specified score), or if they do not buzz out, by other criteria, starting with points earned in that game. The threshold to buzz out is 60 points in Round 1 and 90 points in subsequent rounds (except the finals).

Round 1: 44 tossups

The players will be seeded and placed into game rooms of balanced strength.

Round 2: 66 tossups

The game rooms will be balanced in strength based on players’ Round 1 performances.

Round 3: 66 tossups

The game rooms will not be balanced in strength so as to make finer distinctions between players with similar performances thus far.

Lunch is after Round 3.

Round 4: 66 tossups (elimination matches)

The game rooms will be balanced in strength based on players’ Round 3 performances. In each game, up to five players may buzz out; once five players have buzzed out, the remaining players will play for the rest of the game. The top six players in each game will remain in contention for the championship; the other players will have been eliminated from contention (but will continue playing in Rounds 5 and 6).

If at the end of this round there is a tie among players who have not buzzed out, and the tie determines who will be eliminated from championship contention, the tie will be broken by further play (three tossups, followed by sudden death if the tie remains). Other than this, players will be ranked within each game the same way as they were in previous rounds.

Round 5: 66 tossups (elimination matches in some rooms)

Four rooms will contain players who remain in contention for the championship. In each of these rooms, at most three players may buzz out, and the top four players will remain in contention for the championship.

In the other rooms, there is no limit on how many players may buzz out.

Round 6: 66 tossups (elimination matches in some rooms)

Two rooms will contain players who remain in contention for the championship. In each of these rooms, at most three players may buzz out, and the top four players will remain in contention for the championship.

In the other rooms, there is no limit on how many players may buzz out. The other rooms are split into two tiers, one of higher-scoring players and one of lower-scoring players (based on previous rounds).

Round 7: 72 tossups (finals)

At this point, eight players remain in contention for the championship and will play in a single game. There is no buzzing out.

After 24 tossups, the player with the lowest score will be eliminated. Every 8 tossups after this, the remaining player with the lowest score will be eliminated.

If there is a tie for the lowest-scoring player, the standard statistical tiebreakers will be used, with two exceptions:

• If there is a tie at or below 0 points that is not resolved by Rules B.6.b.i–B.6.b.iv, both/all players involved in the tie will be eliminated, and the next player elimination(s) will be skipped until the number of players remaining in the game matches what it would have been if that tie had not occurred.
• If after 72 tossups there is a tie, standard gameplay tiebreakers will be used (three tossups, followed by sudden death if the tie remains).

The eight players in the finals will be ranked by their performance in that game. The 8 players who were eliminated from contention in Round 6 will be ranked by their order of finish within their Round 6 games, with players finishing in corresponding positions in the two games considered tied. The players in the two upper-tier rooms in Round 6 will be ranked in similar tied pairs. The players in the two lower-tier rooms in Round 6 will be ranked in a final group of tied pairs.

The IPNCT format is based on the Hillemann Singles Format pioneered by ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ Member Emeritus Eric Hillemann in 1997.

Registration and Fees

Registration has closed.

The registration fee is $220 per player.

The registration fee only covers participation in the tournament. It does not cover equipment or other expenses.

Questions

The tournament will use the tossups from the Small School National Championship Tournament question set, plus perhaps additional (newly written) tossups. No bonuses will be used at this tournament. This is also similar in difficulty to the questions used for the playoff rounds at the 2019 Middle School National Championship Tournament. Players may wish to see a sample of a previous year’s SSNCT questions to familiarize themselves with the difficulty level.

Because of the use of the same questions, players whose school is playing in the SSNCT may not play the MS IPNCT.

Participation Releases

Every player’s parent or legal guardian will be required to sign a participation release covering expectations, media coverage, etc. All releases must be submitted to [email protected] by Saturday, April 17, 2021. Release forms will be made available via the registration process.

Please be sure that the signer initials the first page in the lower-right corner!

An example participation release is available.

Chaperones

Every player must have one official chaperone, subject to the following rules:

• The chaperone must be at least 21 years old.
• The chaperone must be reachable by text message (at a number provided to ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ) throughout the tournament, to the maximum extent possible given availability of cellular networks.
• The chaperone must always be able to reach the player essentially immediately, whether physically or by a reliable electronic communication method, during the tournament. In the latter case, all parties involved must take every reasonable step to ensure their reachability.
• The chaperone may also be the chaperone for other players at the tournament, thus potentially reducing their regular proximity to the player (but without nullifying any of these requirements).
• The chaperone must follow the requirements of chaperones in ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ’s Online Tournament Guide.
• The chaperone must complete a participation agreement.
• The chaperone must be the same person for the entire tournament.

All players’ parents/guardians must affirm (via the participation agreement) that they accept their child’s chaperone and the chaperone’s role of responsibility.

Players who wish to request a variance from the chaperone policy should write to ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ at [email protected] well in advance of the tournament to discuss their situation.

Awards

All players who have not been eliminated after the end of the first six group rounds will receive plaques. The top players in each subject area (history, literature, etc.) will also receive plaques.

Each plaque will be personalized with the name of the player and have a list of their overall finish and top subject performances. These plaques will be ordered by ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ following the tournament and shipped to the players who earned them.

Advocate Program

Because ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ believes that quiz bowl is an activity for everybody, and in which all participants should feel welcome and respected, we have established the Advocate Program to make sure select tournament staff are available to hear reports about problematic behavior and comments by anyone at the tournament.

Please send concerns to [email protected], ideally as soon as practical after any incident.

There are other suitable channels for reporting concerns, such as the Misconduct Reporting Form, but the Advocate Program is intended to allow for immediate reporting of sensitive complaints so they can be handled during the tournament.

Reports are confidential to the extent permitted by law and ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ’s agreements to share critical information with other quiz bowl organizations.

Practice Material

Participants may be interested in practicing on questions from previous years to prepare for the event. All of ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ’s past regular-season sets are available, as are the sets from previous championships.

Participants may also want to study frequency lists, Power Up study guides, and/or Thumbs Up! question anthologies. These are also available on our practice materials page.

Finally, participants may want to look at the information contained in ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ’s free You Gotta Know articles before the tournament. These detail the most frequently asked-about question topics in a wide variety of areas.

Spectators

Spectators who are closely connected to a player, but not to any other school that participates in quiz bowl, are welcome to attend any and all parts of the tournament. No registration or tickets are required.

Prospective spectators should read ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ’s advice for spectators of online tournaments. To ensure the quality of the tournament experience for players, spectators may be removed from games if they are disruptive or if the moderator believes that their presence is degrading audio or video quality.

Social Media

The official hashtag for the tournament is ipnct; please use this tag for all posts about the tournament.

Remember that question content for the championship cannot be posted online (or shared through other channels)! This means that players, coaches, spectators, and moderators should not discuss clues, answers, or even overall themes (e.g., “Lots of opera”) with anyone else at all.

Companion Mobile App

ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ has created a companion mobile app for attendees. The app includes the tournament schedule (with the ability to set reminders for various events), links to results, connections to social media, and other important documents related to the tournament.

Further Questions

To ask specific questions about the MS IPNCT, write to [email protected].

We look forward to answering any and all questions, no matter how expansive or trivial, in the hopes of eliminating any possible confusion or mistakes in participants’ plans. If something’s not clear, let us know!