Qblitz
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Qblitz is an online quizbowl company, founded circa late 2018 by Dr. Noah Prince. It offers a platform for asynchronous online tournaments that fills a similar niche to NAQT's Buzzword. Qblitz hosts open academic tournaments (its "Challenge Sets"), closed league events, and pop culture tournaments written by the larger community.
Features
Most Qblitz events are text-based. Instead of a moderator reading questions, the text is revealed at a regular pace. This allows players to compete asynchronously: each can see the question, buzz, and type in an answer entirely separately from their teammates and opponents. The system keeps track of the exact moment when each player buzzed and uses this information to determine who won a tossup. The procedure for doing so is identical to that of in-person tournaments.
Qblitz also offers audio tournaments, which instead of revealing question text to players play recordings of the question. The system uses the same procedure for awarding tossups and points as other Qblitz events. Most of the Qblitz audio tournaments have elected to use special rule variants to handle buzzing after negs and at the end of the question. Those rule changes are left to the discretion of the question provider.
Because buzzpoint stats are tracked for every player and every team in the absence of an opponent, there is nothing stopping preventing a team's performance from being compared to more than one team. In any given game, the difference between playing one team head-to-head or every other team in a simulated round robin is simply a choice in format.
There is a "stat system" provides statistical analysis, feedback, etc.
Tournaments and Events
Qblitz played its first online tournament in Spring 2019. Benjamin Fry became the Season Finale Champion, while Anson Berns and Mark Bailey placed 2nd and 3rd respectively. Yuti Das and Ameya Singh were the top Middle School finishers in the competition.
Side events
Qblitz is a natural choice for remote cooperation audio tournaments, a category conceived of by John Lawrence during the COVID-19 pandemic. As with other audio tournaments, sound clips are arranged pyramidally and serve as clues in place of spoken text, but now team members can take advantage of the platform to play independently of one another. As the majority of its academic competitions are at the high school or middle school level, these side events are the major use case of Qblitz in the collegiate and open community. Most tournaments thus far have been doubles format.
Closed events
Qblitz has also hosted closed events for North County Academic League, PAGE, Arkansas Governor's Quiz Bowl Association, International Quiz Bowl Tournaments, Tulsa Public Schools, and Qwiz.
Results
Qblitz releases summaries of event results on its blog.
Challenge
| Event | 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place | Top Individual Scorer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 2020 | Carmel | Auburn | Hoover | Samanyu Dixit North Carolina Science and Math |
| October 2020 | Auburn | Detroit Catholic Central | LAMP | E.F. Knoxville |
| November 2020 | Detroit Catholic Central | Auburn | Hoover | Nathan Beck Streator |
| December 2020 | Detroit Catholic Central | Auburn | Anonymous | Anonymous California |
| January 2021 | Detroit Catholic Central | Auburn | Centennial | Jisoo Park Centennial |
| February 2021 | Detroit Catholic Central | Auburn | Hoover | MS Hoover |
| March 2021 | Detroit Catholic Central | Auburn | Russellville (AL) | DL Detroit Catholic Central |
| April 2021 | Detroit Catholic Central | Auburn | Geneva (NY) | SM Auburn |
| October 2021 | Auburn | San Jose, CA | Huntsville, AL | AP (San Jose, CA) |
Middle School Challenge
| Event | 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place | Top Individual Scorer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 2020 | Lakeside (Cumming, GA) | North Gwinnett MS (Sugar Hill, GA) | Ellicott City, MD | TO (Monrovia MS [Huntsville, Alabama]) |
| December 2020 | Gwinnett MS (Sugar Hill, Georgia) | Monrovia MS (Huntsville, Alabama) | St. Benedict Preparatory School (Chicago, Illinois) | TO (Monrovia MS [Huntsville, Alabama]) |
| March 2021 | Monrovia MS (Huntsville, Alabama) | San Jose, CA | North Gwinnett MS (Sugar Hill, Georgia) | AP (San Jose, CA) |
| October 2021 | David T. Howard MS | Discovery MS | Creekland MS | WN (St. Benedict Preparatory School [Chicago, Illinois]) |
Side events
| Event | Results |
|---|---|
| MARCATo | The Bookbinders (1st mirror) Kravis/Patschak (2nd mirror) |
| PAveMENT | When you were partying, I studied the Bladee (December 7 - 18, 2020 mirror) Father of Asahd Mothers Temple (2nd mirror) |
| MIKE | Humoresque No. 7: The Force Awakens |
| LIBERACE | Cixi and the Banshees |
| Matt Weiner's Popular Culture Level 1 Challenge | D Puma |
| Fred Morlan's Buzz n Roll | Tejas Raje |
| Dede Allen Memorial | Clifford Galiher (October 18 - 27, 2021 mirror) TBD (2nd mirror) |
| Pavement II | They did surgery on a Moby Grape (November 1 - 12, 2021 mirror) |