Andrew Gao
| Andrew Gao | |
| High school | Belmont (2023-present) |
| Middle school | Chenery (2020-2023) |
| Stats | HDWhite • NAQT |
Andrew Gao is a freshman player for Belmont. He is siblings with Cindy Gao. Andrew is a generalist, with main focuses on literature, geography, history, and current events. He is also the creator of Pandruwu Sheetz. Andrew is also a noted panda enjoyer, and is somewhat well known for bringing an IKEA kramig to tournaments.
Middle School Career (2020-2023)
Andrew was first active in the 2020-2021 season, with his first tournament being Knights' Challenge. He played various events as a sixth grader and ran the first iteration of MSQB Madness, a summer league-style packet submission tournament.
In the 2021-2022 season, Andrew played his first in-person tournament solo. He also played the 2022 MS IPNCT, finishing 3rd. The team he led, Chenery, placed second in the 2022 MSNCT after losing against Longfellow. Additionally, a team composed of him and Gregory Zeldovich won the 2022 MINT ("MS NASAT").
In 2022 and 2023, he had a goal to play every set below 2-dot college difficulty, however, he ended up six sets short. This goal led him to fly to Sacramento to play two middle school tournaments. Notable results from this season include him breaking the H-M limit with Gregory Zeldovich at the 2023 LATTE with both players breaking 100 PPG (30 more each than the 70 PPG H-M requirement). Andrew also played the HS IPNCT, finishing t-22 after making the semifinals, the only middle schooler to do so. Andrew was a tournament all-star at the 2023 MSNCT, and got the game-winning power over River Trail to win. He was slated to play the 2023 HSNCT with Gregory Zeldovich but ended up soloing to a 196th-place finish.
High School Career (2023-present)
Andrew is a captain for the Belmont quizbowl team, along with Julian Halpern-Smith and Krikor Hachikian.
Writing and Editing
Andrew has written for Conor Thompson's line of novice sets since CERES. He wrote over 140 questions for MAKEMAKE, and is a writer and subject editor for QUAOAR. He is a writer for various Missouri sets, such as MOQBA Novice, SHOW-ME, and the SHOW-ME sequel, SHOW-ME More. Additionally, Gao served as a head editor for the line of MSQB Madness sets, the third iteration of which was turned into SWAMP.
Tournament Directing
In the 2020-2021 season, Aatreyo Bhattacharyya and Andrew directed MCMT Solo, a singles middle school tournament with an IPNCT-like format. Three middle school tournaments, the CERES National Mirror, SPRING, and ROAR were co-directed by Gao in the 2021-2022 season. Andrew ran two summer tournaments, MOIST in the summer of 2022, and SUNSET in the summer of 2023. In the 2022 and 2023 regular season, he ran the KICKOFF Northeast Mirror, MMMM, KRAMIG, MAKEMAKE National Mirror, and SPRING II.