QuBIT 2021 Primer: BLOCH:SPHERE

Bringing Lincroft's Online Competition Hype STASH Packets Here: Endued Reveling Excite(ment)

Sorry I couldn't make the rhyme work but here we are. 4 days before the tournament, our expectations for QuBIT thrillingly lie in a state of non-deterministic superposition much like an actual qubit. Will it collapse to |0〉 or |1〉? Of course it's impractical to deduce now, but also let's not do anything rash like applying a Pauli-X or a Hadamard gate to reset expectations to pure randomness or go flip-floping (not to be confused with a classical flip flop circuits used in 555 timers) with a Fredkin gate all over again. I suppose that our fates are entangled with the results of the tournament's set, STASH and of course with aspects of the tournament itself. We can't measure these unknowns with exact precision without also stymying our enjoyment on the day of, the Heisenberg with hair told us as such...Apologies for these ancilla comments and quantum jokes, I'll dive into the content now.

STASH, written by TJ High School in Virginia, will be by far the hardest set of the northeast yet this year. In contrast to the NAQT IS Sets, RAFT II, and LONE STAR, which were all aimed at regular difficulty, STASH is targeted above even SATURNALIA, at a nationals level. Although the difficulty of national championships have some variation from year to year, expect to average somewhere around 2 powers per game and 2.5 points per bonus lower than you did on SATURNALIA, although of course this depends on how well you adjust to more difficult questions in relation to everyone else.

In essence, this is why QuBIT is especially important, it stands as the only tournament in New Jersey (or the northeast as a whole really) so far this year of that difficulty because writing such a set is incredibly intensive. Thus, it will offer the best preview for how teams may perform come nationals (especially PACE NSC but also HSNCT). Additionally, QuBIT will use a third party app, buzzin.live, for buzzing to hopefully smooth out the gameplay experience on Discord. There will also be bonuses but not bouncebacks like at PACE NSC.

But thanks to online, we'll see something else that's interesting: how well the best of our region fares against the best of other regions. Teams from New England, as well as Beavercreek from Ohio (the 2019 HSNCT champions!!), Centennial from Maryland, TAG Magnet from Texas (remember them from Hawk's Nest?), and Troy from Michigan will also be competing due to circumstances effecting their ability to compete within their own regions. Be inviting to our guests, they should feel honored to compete in the most sublime, excellent state of the union (online; also good behavior is expected, misconduct is taken seriously and should be reported to the tournament director right away).

For many people in quizbowl, QuBIT is bringing really what's most exciting about the game: the competition facilitated by attracting the best teams in both the northeast and the country in a tournament with a challenging enough set to truly graduate the skill levels. However, having written so many sets myself it's also a valuable opportunity to pay attention to the clues, the topics, and the diversity in the content that is only able to be offered by writing at such a high level. At STASH and nationals, the freedom to write about more niche topics that people are more deeply passionate about is a great opportunity to connect with your competitors, AKA other people, on a deeper level, especially with many of them coming from so many different places. With so few opportunities to interact with quizbowl and its players in such a way, every chance to do so is especially precious.

Right now, we're on the surface of a Bloch Sphere, just the same as we are before every tournament and thrill in our lives. Soon our expectations will collapse upwards as we marvel in the ultimate sublimity in the midst of the tournament. As a staffer, I'm excited to read for QuBIT and be a part of all the hype myself. Thank you High Tech and the writers and editors of STASH for making it all possible! Thank you for reading and good luck to everyone on Saturday!