The format of the ACC/AMEC Bible Quizzing season has always remained consistent. Coordinator Fred Hertzler splits the total quiz teams into 2 leagues. Over 8 weeks, every single team will quiz 17 to 21 other teams in their league, depending on the size of the league. Standings go by points scored. On the 8th week, the top 2 teams with the most points in the league go into a single-elimination playoff bracket to determine the season champion. Likewise, the ACC/AMEC Tournament has had a fairly stable format. Coordinator Fred Hertzler divides all teams participating into 8 groups, making sure that each group has no more than 1 team that finished in the top 4 in its respective league, and each group has no more than 1 church represented (sometimes that's impossible for Petra when they have more than 8 teams, though). Over the afternoon of the tournament, each team will quiz the other teams in the group, and the top teams advance to the playoffs in the evening. The only thing that has changed over the years is the number of teams per group qualifying for the tournament's playoffs. 2008 and prior, only the top 2 teams of each group advanced to the playoffs, but 2009 and after, the top 3 teams advanced, with the top team receiving a first round bye. The change in playoff format probably came about due to a change in the tournament location. 2003 and prior, Pequea Valley High School would allow ACC Bible Quizzing to use their building in the afternoon but not in the evening, which would force ACC Quizzing to move the evening playoffs to nearby Ridgeview Mennonite Church, a church that could only hold 4 quizmatches at a time. 2004 and after, the ACC/AMEC would be hosted by other schools, schools that allowed ACC/AMEC quizzing to stay there all day, schools could hold 8 quizmatches at a time. The Invitational Tournament, however, has been quite dynamic. Officially, the quizzing coordinator of the host conference decides format of the tournament. Unofficially, all the quizzing coordinators of the 4 conferences attempt to reach consensus on determining the format of the tournament. This has resulted in some interesting Invitational Tournament formats, each one with its advantages and disadvantages, positives and negatives. Below is A History of the Quizzing Invitational Tournament Formats.
1974?-2001: Double Elimination Bracket
The early Invitational Tournaments were quite simple. All quiz teams participating got thrown right away into a double-elimination bracket. It was as simple as losing two quizmatches eliminated quiz teams from the tournament, and the last quiz team standing became the Invitational champion. The biggest flaw with this format of the Invitational Tournament is that quiz teams could lose their first 2 quizmatches and be out of tournament, all before the lunch break at noon. Imagine Ohio teams driving all the way out to Pennsylvania, or ACC quiz teams driving all the way out to Ohio, just to lose their first 2 quizmatches right away and be out of the tournament, with nothing to do the rest of the afternoon (except play basketball and volleyball in the gym), evening and Sunday. Because of this scenario, after 2001, the quizzing coordinators agreed that every quiz team should quiz at least 4 quizmatches, just for making the trip all the way to the tournament. (Author's Note: Although I know the Invitational dates back to 1974, I could only confirm this format of the tournament to 1987).
2002-2003: Round Robin + Double Elimination Bracket
Although this format of the tournament began when Wayne County hosted the Invitational Tournament at Central Christian School in Kidron, Ohio, quite possibly, then-ACC Bible Quizzing Fred Hertzler may have given the idea, for Invitational format looks very similar to the ACC Tournament. Just like the ACC Tournament, the participating quiz teams separated into groups, and the top 2 teams qualified for the tournament playoffs. The Invitational Tournament, however, did have differences from the ACC Tournament. Because of the larger size of the Invitational, the quiz teams split into 16 groups, as opposed to the 8 in the ACC Tournament. To keep with the tradition, the Invitational playoffs had a double-elimination playoff bracket, while the ACC Tournament had a single-elimination playoff bracket. Since the tournament back then averaged 80some quiz teams, the 80some teams divided into 16 groups equaled at least 5 quiz teams per group, meaning each quiz team quizzed 4 times, as desired. Heck, roughly 2/5 of the participating teams would have a guaranteed 6 quizmatches, due to qualifying for a double-elimination-style playoffs. On the surface level, simply adding a round robin seemed to reach the desired goal of every quiz team quizzing at least 4 quiz matches. On a deeper level, however, the round robin was only a facade. Most often, the best team in a group went undefeated, and the second best team in the group just had 1 loss, the loss to the undefeated team. Second often, the top 2 teams would both finish the round robin with 1 loss, and the head-to-head tiebreaker would determine who finished 1st and who finished 2nd. In other words, losing 2 quizmatches virtually eliminated a quiz team from the tournament. If that sounds familiar, yes, back to square 1, just like the original Invitational format. In fact, this became such common knowledge that if a quiz team that lost its first 2 quizmatches would quiz a quiz team with friends on it, that quiz team would purposely lose to give their friends a shot at the playoffs (Author's Note: Yes, I speak from personal experience). While this format technically reached the goal of every quiz team quizzing 4 quizmatches, a quiz team that lost its first 2 quizmatches quizzed its last 2 quizmatches just for the sake of quizzing. This is probably why this format lasted only 2 years. Because of this situation, after 2003, the quizzing coordinators agree that every quiz team should quiz at least 4 meaningful quizmatches, not just quizzing for the sake of quizzing, just for making the trip all the way to the tournament.
2004-2007: Placement Bracket + Double Elimination Bracket + Single Elimination Bracket
While the preliminary round robin format of 2002-2003 easily provided each quiz team with 4 quizmatches, the bracket of the years before that did a better job of making quizmatches meaningful. Therefore, to return to more meaningful matches, the Invitational Tournament returned to brackets. From the onset, all participating quiz teams got placed in a placement bracket. If the quiz team won their quizmatch, they immediately got placed in the double-elimination bracket for the championship. If the quiz team lost, they advanced in the placement bracket. Yes, losing in the placement bracket advanced the team in the placement bracket. This setup allowed quiz teams losing in the placement bracket to quiz a quiz team with the same amount of losses. Likewise, in the 2nd round of the placement bracket, quiz teams that won in the 2nd round of the placement bracket automatically went into the double-elimination bracket for the championship, whereas the losing quiz teams further advanced in the placement bracket to 3rd round of the placement bracket to quiz another quiz team with 2 losses. Similarly, quiz teams who won in the 3rd round of the placement bracket advanced to the double-elimination bracket for the championship. Yes, it did not matter if the quiz team won the 1st, 2nd or 3rd placement quizmatch, as long as they won, they advanced to the double-elimination championship bracket. Winning early did have a couple advantages, though. For the 1st round of the double-elimination championship bracket, some quiz teams winning in the 1st round of the placement bracket quizzed teams who didn't win until the 3rd round of the placement bracket, which in theory should have given those 1st round winners an advantage. Also, since the tournament did not move on until all placement bracket quizmatches took place, winning early gave the early winners a break. If a quiz team lost all 3 placement quizmatches, however, that quiz team got put into a single-elimination consolation bracket. For the first 2 years, the tournament called this single-elimination consolation bracket "The Lazarus Bracket," for the single-elimination bracket gave quiz teams the opportunity to come back from the dead. For the last 2 years, the consolation bracket similarly got named after somebody who raised from the dead in the quizzing material: Dead Man from Nain Bracket in 2006 and Dorcas Bracket in 2007. Of course, the invention of this single-elimination consolation bracket obviously came about from the desire that all quiz team quiz 4 quizmatches. Just quizzing placement bracket quizmatches wasn't enough, for that would only result in 3 quizmatches quizzed. Something had to be done for those quiz teams who lost all 3 quizmatches in the placement bracket to give them 4 quizmatches, hence the single-elimination bracket. Speaking of the quantity of quizmatches, if keeping count and doing that math, the thought may araise, "Wait a minute, suppose a quiz team wins their 1st placement quizmatch, but then loses their first 2 double elimination championship bracket quizmatches right away. That's only 3 quizmatches!" Correct, that is only 3 quizmatches. Therefore, those who lost their 2 quizmatches in the double-elimination championship bracket also qualified for single-elimination consolation bracket. Just like qualifying for the double-elimination bracket, it did not matter if a quiz team made it to the championship bracket by winning the 1st, 2nd or 3rd round of the placement bracket, as long as the team lost its first 2 quizmatches, that team would go the single elimination bracket. Losing the first 2 quizmatches of the championship bracket, however, was the only way to go from the championship bracket to the consolation bracket. If the quiz team won their 1st double-elimination bracket quizmatch, but then proceeded to lose the next 2 double-elimination quizmatches, it would not go to the single elimination bracket. If a quiz team in the championship bracket lost its 1st quizmatch, won its 2nd quizmatch, and lost its 3rd quizmatch, they would not make it to consolation bracket. The only way to jump from double-elimination bracket to single-elimination bracket was to lose the first 2 double-elimination quizmatches in a row. Typically, the hosting conference would recognize the top 4 teams of championship bracket with trophies, and usually, the host conference would recognize the top 2 teams of the consolation bracket with plaques.
If this tournament format intended to make the minimum 4 quizmatches meaningful, the question remains if this format succeeding in doing so. Of the 3 brackets involved in this tournament format, the placement bracket brings the most doubt to whether those quizmatches have meaning. If a quiz team has to win just 1 placement quizmatch of a possible 3 quizmatches, one could argue the first 2 placement quizmatches do not matter. Only the 3rd placement bracket quizmatch matters because it determines whether the quiz team goes to the double elimination championship bracket or the single elimination consolation bracket. Of course, the quizmatches following the placement bracket, whether in the championship or consolation bracket, have meaning because they determine whether or not the quiz team remains in the tournament. Therefore, in reality, for the quiz team with the bare minimum 4 quizmatches, this tournament merely reverses the meaningful and meaningless quizmatches. For the quiz teams with the minimum 4 quizmatches, whereas the last format made the first 2 quizmatches meaningful and the last 2 quizmatches meaningless, this format makes the first 2 quizmatches meaningless and the last 2 quizmatches meaningful. In a way, it might be better to get your meaningless quizmatches out of the way to quiz some meaningful quizmatches than to virtually be eliminated from the tournament yet still quizzing. While the placement bracket brings the most doubt to how meaningful a quizmatch is, the single-elimination consolation bracket comes up in a close 2nd place. The consolation bracket begs the question of what it means to win the bracket or become the champion of the bracket. Typically, the average single-elimination consolation bracket had 32 quiz teams in it. If possible to rank all quiz teams participating in the Invitational Tournament, most often, 30 of 32 quiz teams in the consolation bracket were the bottom 30 quiz teams of the Invitational. As for those remaining 2 quiz teams, they were usually average quiz teams, or even sometimes above average quiz teams, that just had a bad morning. Perhaps they did not get enough sleep the previous night. Maybe they just got a tough set of questions. Quite possibly, their opponents just got lucky. Whatever the cause, 2 average or above average quiz teams would find themselves in the consolation bracket. This mini-tournament within the tournament would end up turning into the 2 average or above average quiz teams trouncing the below average quiz teams until they meet each other in the finals. At least an audience could find that finals quizmatch entertaining. Thus, winning the single-elimination bracket or becoming the champion of the consolation bracket made the winning champion the best of the worst. It's not really anything to brag about, but quiz teams have felt honor finishing 1st place in this mini-tournament within a tournament. While the Ohio quizzing coordinators felt like this tournament format did the best job with 4 guaranteed meaningful quizmatches, ACC quizzing coordinator Fred Hertzler felt differently. Therefore, this tournament format would only last 4 years.
2008: Round Robin + (Bigger) Double Elimination Bracket
ACC Bible Quizzing coordinator Fred Hertzler must felt like the most recent Invitational Tournament format felt too convoluted with all these brackets, and rightfully so. Whereas the the most recent Invitational format easily became complicated, the tournament format before that looked simple. A return to simplicity seemed inevitable, and it seemed even more inevitable when the 2008 Invitational Tournament had 81 quiz teams registered for it, a number almost perfectly divisible by 16. Therefore, Fred did indeed return the tournament to the round robin plus double-elimination playoff bracket of the 2002 & 2003 Invitational, albeit with a few tweaks. Just like in 2002 & 2003, the 81 participating teams divided into 16 groups, and each quiz team would quiz every team in their group round robin style. This time, however, the top 4 teams (as opposed to the top 2 teams in 2002 & 2003) qualified for the double-elimination playoff bracket. Only the bottom 1 team did not qualify for the double-elimination playoffs, and that team would be eliminated from the tournament, with no consolation bracket. On one hand, qualifying the top 4 teams and eliminating the bottom team had its advantages. Not only did all the quiz teams get guaranteed to quiz 4 quizmatches, 4/5 of the participating quiz teams, or 80% of all quiz teams involved, would be guaranteed 6 quizmatches, due to the nature of a double elimination playoff bracket. On the other hand, qualifying the top 4 teams and eliminating the bottom team had its disadvantages, too. Things can get nasty when the goal stops becoming shooting for the top and starts becoming about avoiding the bottom. It does bring into question about how many, if any, of the round robin quizmatches are meaningful, if a quiz team needs to just enough wins to hop into and to stay in the top 4 of its group. Furthermore, to make matters worse, the round robin schedule ended before the lunch break at noon. For 17 quiz teams, their tournament ended before the lunch break at noon. With nothing to do in the afternoon, evening or Sunday, many quiz teams opted to go home, including Ohio teams! These Ohio quiz teams' host families felt surprised to see them back at their homes in the afternoon, packing up and leaving! These Ohio quiz teams' church family felt shocked to see them in church on Sunday!
If that feels controversial, the seeding of the double elimination also could cause some controversy. When teams jumped from their round robin groups to their spot on the double elimination playoff bracket, the 1st place teams quizzed the 3rd place teams, and the 2nd place teams quizzed the 4th place teams. On one hand, this seeding made sense, with a twofold reason. With 1st place teams quizzing 4th place teams, the 1st place team had such a big advantage, the 1st place teams might as well start with a 1st round bye and the 4th place teams might as well just start off on the loser/second chance side of the bracket. Meanwhile, 2nd place teams only have a slight advantage over 3rd place teams. Not only does 1st place vs. 3rd. place and 2nd place vs. 4th place have equally space seeding than 1st vs. 4th and 2nd vs. 3rd, a 3rd place quiz team has a better chance of upsetting a 1st place quiz team, and a 4th place team has a better chance of upsetting a 2nd place team, than 4th place upsetting 1st place. On the other hand, this seeding made no sense. In a tournament with all but the bottom team qualifying for the playoffs, such a tournament needs to have in place a design for teams to strive for the top. Playing a weak team in the 1st round of the playoffs works perfectly well. In a 1st vs. 3rd and 2nd vs. 4th seeding, however, the 2nd place team has the best advantage, if placing the weakest team is the strongest advantage. Therefore, 1st vs 3rd and 2nd vs. 4th seeding creates a weird game of "chicken," in which teams strive to be good but not the best.
Despite all the disadvantages, the advantages outshine them. A round robin plus a big double elimination playoff bracket is the best way to run the Invitational Tournament. As discussed above, when only the top 2 teams of 5 or 6 team round robin group make it to the playoffs, quite possibly, only the first 2 quizmatches are meaningful, for if you lose, the remaining quizmatches are meaningless, just quizzing for the sake of quizzing. When the top 4 teams of a 5 or 6 team round robin group qualifies for the playoffs, all 4 round robin quizmatches become meaningful, and for a two-fold reason. Crunching some numbers reveals that, under this format, teams that have .500 win percentage (e.g. 2-2 for 5-team groups) or better have a 99.5% chance of making the playoffs. This alone makes at least 3 of those 4 round robin quizmatches meaningful. Heck, according to running the numbers, even the 1-3 teams have a 31.25% chance of qualifying the playoffs, so quite possibly, if the everything aligns, a quiz team could go into its fourth and final round robin quizmatch winless yet able to reach the playoffs with a single win in that last quizmatch. Furthermore, while the seeding in 2008 was up for debate, the truth still remains that the top 2 teams got an advantage by quizzing weaker teams in the playoffs. Again, running the numbers, for a team to rank in the top 2 among a 5-team group, that team must finish the round robin with either 4-0 or 3-1 record (technically possible with a 2-2 record, but the odds take a dip down to 15.6%). If a quiz team want that advantage, that quiz cannot quit after winning 1 or 2 quizmatches. The quizteam must commit to winning 3 or 4 quizmatches. Therefore, on one hand, qualifying for the playoffs makes all 4 round robin quizmatches meaningful, and on the other hand, the seeding advantage makes all 4 round robin quizmatches meaningful. If still not persuaded, adding small addendum to this format would add even more meaning. This is where a single-elimination consolation bracket would come in handy. Now this format goes from 100% of quiz teams quizzing 4 times and 80% quiz teams quizzing 6 times to 100% of quiz teams quizzing 5 times and 80% of quiz teams quizzing 6 times. The addition of a single-elimination consolation bracket also makes sure that none of the quiz teams are eliminated before the lunch break at noon and all the quiz teams continue quizzing into the afternoon. Yes, it's still arguably debatable about what it means to win this bracket (best of the worst? top of the bottom?), but in theory, all 16 (or more) quiz teams should have an equal shot of winning this consolation bracket. Therefore, a round robin plus a big double-elimination championship bracket (and perhaps a single-elimination consolation bracket) is the way to run the Invitational Tournament. Unfortunately, the Ohio conferences are stuck in their ways, so back to bracketology.
2009-2013: Placement Quizmatch + Double Elimination Bracket + Single Elimination BracketS
As discussed before, the problem with the placement bracket is that it just simply flipped-flopped the 2 meaningful quizmatches and the 2 meaningless quizmatches. The ideal solution is to eliminate the placement bracket altogether and have teams begin in the championship bracket, but doing so reverts back to the original Invitational formation and all its problems with it. Therefore, the new solution was to introduce multiple single-elimination consolation brackets. In its inaugural year, 2009, this format had 5 single-elimination brackets. Since the 2009 Bible quizzing was on Genesis, the 5 consolation brackets were named after 5 power couples in the quizzing material: Adam & Eve, Noah & wife, Abraham & Sarah, Isaac & Rebekah, Jacob & Rachel. Simply put, the Adam & Eve bracket consisted of all the quiz teams eliminated in the 1st round of the championship, the Noah & wife bracket contained all the quiz teams eliminated in the 2nd round of the championship, the Abraham & Sarah bracket had all the quiz teams eliminated in the 3rd round of the championship, the Isaac & Rebekah bracket was made up of all the quiz teams eliminated in the 4th round of the championship, and the Jacob & Rachel bracket were all the quiz teams eliminated in the 5th round of the championship. If a quiz team made it to the 6th round or farther, that quiz team had quizzed enough quizmatches, so the quiz team was simply eliminated from the tournament. It would take only a year, its inaugural year, for the quizzing coordinators to realize that 5 single-elimination consolation brackets was overdoing things. From 2010 to 2013, the tournament would only have 3 single-elimination consolation brackets. Still, it remained that the 1st consolation bracket consisted of all the quiz teams eliminated in the 1st round the championship, the 2nd consolation bracket contained all the quiz teams eliminated in the 2nd round of the championship, and the 3rd bracket had all the quiz teams eliminated in the 3rd round of the championship. Still, the truth remained that if a quiz team made it to the 4th round, the quiz team had quizzed enough quizmatches, so the quiz team was simply eliminated from the tournament. Just like with the one lone single-elimination consolation bracket used at the Invitational Tournament from 2004 to 2007, the question remains what it exactly means to win a consolation bracket. Seriously, the quizzers come home to their church and tells the congregation, "We won the [insert name here] bracket!" and the congregation asks, "What does that mean?" how do the quizzers answer that question? In theory, these single-elimination consolation brackets could function as a means for a tiebreaker for overall tournament placement. Since all the quiz teams for a certain consolation bracket all exited in the same round of the championship bracket, instead of having, say, a 16-way tie or an 8-way tie for overall tournament placing, the "champion" of the consolation bracket would be 1st place of everybody who went out that round, the "runner-up" of the consolation bracket would be 2nd place of everyone who went out that round, the "semifinalists" would be the quiz teams tied for 3rd of all the quiz teams that exited that round, so on and so forth. Unfortunately, however, the consolation brackets have never been used in this capacity, still begging the question of the purpose of these consolation brackets and what it means to win them. If anything, they feel like quizzing for the sake of quizzing, which brings into question if these are meaningful quizmatches.
If doing math, the calculations would reveal a quiz team could lose its first 2 quizmatches in the double-elimination championship bracket right away, lose its first single-elimination consolation bracket right away, and quiz only 3 quizmatches, 1 short of the 4 quizmatches desired. Therefore, the quizzing coordinators added a single placement quizmatch. The quizzing coordinators claimed the placement quizmatch served the purpose of seeding. Well, if truly for seeding, the placement bracket seeding was either inconsistent or constantly changing. Take for example the 2009 Invitational, which had a placement quizmatch between Spring City and RiverCorner. In 2009, Spring City finished 4th place in League A & 10th place overall, and RiverCorner finished 6th place in League B & 9th place overall. The final score for this placement quizmatch: Spring City - 85, RiverCorner - 75. Therefore, this placement quizmatch took place between 2 fairly equal quiz teams. As for another example, the 2010 Invitational had a placement quizmatch between Covenant Fellowship 1 (West Liberty) and Hope of the Nations (ACC). Covenant Fellowship finished 1st place in West Liberty as the season champions. Hope of the Nations finished 2nd-to-last in League A & 4th-to-last overall. The final score of this quizmatch: Covenant Fellowship 1 - 145, Hope of the Nations - 20. Therefore, this placement quizmatch took place between 2 very unequal quiz teams. Thus, the seeding either changed or was just inconsistent from the start. Even so, no matter if the quiz team won their only placement quizmatch, that quiz team still qualified for the championship bracket. With all quiz teams qualifying for the championship, no matter of the outcome of the placement quizmatch, and with either constantly changing or inconsistent seeding, whether or not the placement quizmatch is a meaning quizmatch comes into doubt.
Multiplying the single-elimination consolation brackets does not bring more definition or more value to winning a consolation bracket. If anything, more consolation brackets make it worse. Even more worse than that, the placement quizmatch has even less worth than the placement bracket of the past. At least the placement bracket of the past made quiz teams feel like they had to compete to enter for a chance at the championship. Here, the placement quizmatch really does feel like quizzing for the sake of quizzing. At best, if the consolation brackets feel worth winning, then this Invitational format has 1 meaningless quizmatch at the beginning followed by 3 meaningful quizmatches. At worst, if the consolation brackets have no value, then you 2 meaningful quizmatches sandwiched between 2 meaningless quizmatches. If only a way existed to eliminate that meaningless placement quizmatch. It should become obvious where this is going...
2014-2019 (excluding 2017): Triple Elimination Bracket + Single Elimination BracketS
Yes, the solution to that meaningless placement quizmatch resulted in a triple-elimination championship bracket. All participating quiz teams got thrown into the championship bracket right away, similar to the original Invitational Tournament format, but this time, it would take 3 losses to eliminate the team from championship contention. Of course, a quiz team can't lose its first 3 quizmatches of the triple-elimination championship bracket and be out of the tournament, for the Invitational promised each team 4 meaningful quizmatches. Therefore, yes, the 3 single-elimination consolation brackets returned, with the same qualifications as last time. The Ohio quizzing coordinators had toyed with the idea of a triple-elimination Invitational tournament, for they utilized a triple-elimination bracket for their own local tournaments. After 5 years of meaningless placement quizmatches, the Ohio quizzing coordinators finally convinced then-ACC quizzing coordinator Fred Hertzler to go along with it, and he would be the first one to use it when the Invitational came to Lancaster, PA in 2014. The triple-elimination championship bracket would become the standard for 5 years, until 2019.
Indeed, Ohio Bible quizzing does love their triple-elimination brackets for tournaments, but remember, during this time period, the Ohio quizzing conferences have only about 4 to 9 quiz teams per year. These triple-elimination brackets work wonderfully with smaller tournaments, like those which have only 4 to 9 quiz teams participating, but triple-elimination brackets work awfully for larger tournaments, like the Invitationals during this time period, which averaged in the 70s for the number of participants. The most egregious error of the triple-elimination is determining the champion. As the name obviously states, the quiz team must lose 3 times to be eliminated from championship contention. This process can become quite burdensome come the Sunday finals. Quite possibly, the 2 quiz teams vying for the championship on the Sunday finals could be an undefeated quiz team and a quiz team with a single loss. To make things easier to comprehend, let's nickname the undefeated quiz team "The Champions" (after all, being undefeated means they probably "won" the 0 loss/1st chance/winners bracket), and let's nickname the single loss quiz team "The Challengers." During the 1st Sunday finals quizmatch, The Challengers win. Now both The Champions and The Challengers have 1 loss. For the 2nd Sunday finals, the The Champions get their revenge from the 1st quizmatch, and they win. The Champions remain at 1 loss, but The Challengers have increased their loss count to 2. In the 3rd Sunday finals quizmatch, The Challengers avenge the revenge quizmatch, winning that 3rd quizmatch. Both The Champions and The Challengers now have 2 losses. With the 4th quizmatch, The Champions hold true to their name and come out with the victory, dealing The Challengers their 3rd loss, eliminating The Challengers from the tournament. Yes, the audience has just watched 4 quizmatches between the same 2 quiz teams. Even if the The Challengers would have pulled off the victory for the last quizmatch and become the tournament winners, the truth remains that 4 quizmatches would have taken place those 2 quiz teams. This is what exactly happened in 2015, the second year of this format. After the finals took 4 rounds in 2015, the quizzing bracketologist (yes, quizzing has a bracketologist) figured out a way to knock out some of those quizmatch earlier, which most often took place Saturday evening. With this update to the bracket, all but 1 quiz team involved in the Sunday quizzing would enter the Sunday quizmatches with 2 losses, on the brink of tournament elimination. Still, that 1 quiz team, the champion/victor/winner of the 0-loss/1st chance/winners bracket could quite possibly enter Sunday morning undefeated with 0 losses. Going back to the example of The Champions vs. The Challengers, The Challengers could still win the first 2 quizmatches, forcing a 3rd quizmatch. It doesn't matter if The Champions or The Challengers win that last quizmatch, 3 quizmatches still took place between 2 quiz teams. The updated format only eliminated 1 quizmatch! ACC quizzing coordinator Fred Hertzler attempted to convince the Ohio quizzing coordinators to make the Sunday finals simply a best-of-3 quizmatches, no matter what happened prior in the tournament. The Ohio coordinators stood firm, however, insisting that triple elimination means triple elimination, that every quiz teams needs 3 losses to be eliminated from championship contention, even the runner-up quiz team. Perhaps the Sunday morning championship finals could be broken up with the consolation brackets' finals, but even going into Sunday morning, no one knows if the championship finals could take 1, 2 or 3 (or 4) rounds to determine the tournament winner, making planning ahead somewhere between a nightmare and impossible. While ensuring a triple-elimation tournament has all quiz teams but the championship team suffer 3 losses, it becomes quite boring for spectators to watch.
The triple-elimination bracket assures all the participating quiz teams have 3 meaningful quizmatches. If value or worth can be found in the consolation brackets, then this format of the Invitational Tournament delivers on its promise of a minimum of 4 meaningful quizmatches. If not, then this Invitational format, at least, has 3 meaningful quizmatches, followed by 1 meaningless quizmatch (see discussion above; no need to debate further). With at least 3 meaningful quizmatches up front, and a 4th quizmatch (debatable if meaningful or meaningless) guaranteed, this tournament format may be the best one since 2008. Still, the method for determining the champion during the Sunday morning finals is so blatantly bad that it may negate the good of having 3 meaningful quizmatches up front, even to the point of becoming the worst tournament format in Invitational history. Alas, the heading for this section has as part of it "excluding 2017," which requires an examination of 2017, for that may become the worst tournament format in Invitational history.
2017: The Double-Double Elimination Bracket
If not picking up on the hint, then-ACC quizzing coordinator Fred Hertzler did not like the triple-elimination bracket, for the reasons mentioned above. Unfortunately, the Ohio conferences' coordinators would not allow him to go back to the round robins. Therefore, everybody compromised with a double-double elimination bracket. Not to be confused with a quadruple-elimination bracket, which is difficult to schedule and hard to follow, a double-double elimination, as the name states, has 2 double-elimination brackets. All participating quiz teams begin on the left side of the 1st double-elimination bracket. All losers of the left side of the 1st double elimination get sent to the right side of the 1st double-elimination bracket. Every quiz team who loses on the right side of the 1st double elimination get sent to the left side of the 2nd double-elimination bracket. The only exception to this rule is the 2 quiz teams that make it to the finals of the 1st double-elimination bracket. If a quiz team loses in the left side of the 2nd double-elimination bracket, that quiz team goes to the right side of the 2nd double-elimination bracket. When quiz teams lose on the right side of the 2nd double-elimination bracket, then they are eliminated from championship contention. This does not mean, however, they are eliminated from the tournament. Yes, the single-elimination consolation brackets come back again. This time, the consolation brackets have slightly different qualifications. The 1st consolation bracket consists of all the quiz teams eliminated from the 1st round of the right side of the 2nd double-elimination bracket. The 2nd consolation bracket contains every team eliminated from the 2nd & 3rd round of the right side of the 2nd double-elimination bracket. The 3rd consolation bracket has quiz teams that exited the right half of the double-elimination bracket during rounds 4 to 9. With this structure of the Invitational Tournament, 1st place goes to the champion of the 1st double-elimination bracket, 2nd place goes to the runner-up of the 1st double-elimination bracket, 3rd place goes to the champion of the 2nd double-elimination bracket, 4th place goes to the runner-up of the 2nd double-elimination bracket, 5th place goes to the semifinalist of the 2nd double-elimination bracket, 6th place goes to the quarterfinalist of the 2nd double-elimination bracket, and 7th place is a 2-way tie between the 2 octofinalists of the 2nd double-elimination bracket. Also, with the way the 3rd consolation bracket is set up, someone could argue that the champion of the 3rd consolation bracket is 8th place, the runner-up of the 3rd consolation bracket is 9th place, and the 2 semifinalists of the 3rd consolation bracket are 10th place (to create a top 10).
While the double-double elimination tournament is more feasible than a quadruple-elimination tournament, or even a triple-elimination tournament for that matter, the question remains whether or not it is more fair. The champion quiz team of the 1st double-elimination bracket, the 1st place overall quiz team, has either 0 losses or 1 loss. The runner-up quiz team of 1st double-elimination bracket, the 2nd place overall quiz team, has 2 losses. The champion of the 2nd double-elimination bracket, 3rd place overall, may have 3 losses, but quite possibly, that quiz team may only have 2 losses if they go undefeated in the 2nd double-elimination bracket. Technically, that would make the 2nd place overall quiz team and the 3rd place overall quiz team tied. It would seem like the tiebreaker goes for the quiz team who exited the 1st double-elimination bracket later, and tiebreaker goes against the quiz team who exited the quiz team earlier. Arguably, that's not fair. Those 2 quiz teams should at least have a playoff quizmatch to determine who is 2nd and who is 3rd, or maybe even the 3rd place quiz team should have a way to re-enter the finals for the championship. Furthermore, while a double-double elimination tournament is different than a quadruple elimination tournament, they do share a lot of the same headaches. While it's good each quiz team (even the lowest) gets a minimum of 4 quizmatches, the tournament itself will have about 124 quizmatches, and championship team could look at about 8 quizmatches to win the whole thing. This invites even more challenges, from quizzer fatigue to enough staff to affording a big venue that can hold all these quizmatches at once. Also, as mentioned before, this makes the tournament hard for everybody to follow, from the quiz teams to their fans. A round robin seems to be equally as fair, just more feasible.
Another baffling decision about this tournament is the return of the single-elimination consolation brackets. The whole purpose of those single-elimination was to bring more quizmatches to quiz teams eliminated from championship contention early. The double-double elimination tournament does not have that problem, however, for by nature, the double-double elimination tournament requires a minimum of 4 quizmatches lost to be eliminated. Perhaps the quizzing coordinators desired to expand the minimum quizmatches to 5. If indeed expanding the minimum quizmatches to 5, then each quiz team has a minimum of 4 meaningful quizmatches and 1 meaningless quizmatch, for, as debated enough above, consolation brackets have little to no value or worth. Maybe they just wanted to have a bracket named after all the main characters of this year's quizzing material, but that too makes little to no sense, for there are technically 7 brackets to 5 characters, resulting in Daniel's winners' bracket, a Daniel's second chance bracket, a Paul's winners' bracket, and a Paul's second chance bracket.
The double-double elimination tournament, however, could technically work, just with 1 small modification. The double-double elimination tournaments works if the 2nd double-elimination bracket acts as 1 giant consolation bracket. The overall tournament placing gets determined by the 1st double-elimination bracket. The 2nd double-elimination bracket is just something else for the quiz teams to do, almost like a mini-tournament within the grander tournament, in which for early exiting quiz teams to compete. If that's the case, then perhaps not everybody eliminated from the 1st double-elimination bracket go to the 2nd double-elimination bracket. Perhaps only the quiz teams eliminated during the first 2 rounds of the 1st double-elimination bracket get sent to the double-elimination consolation bracket, in order to keep the promise of a minimum of 4 quizmatches. Heck, those quiz teams exiting the championship double-elimination bracket can even get 1st round bye in the consolation double-elimination bracket. This seems more fair, yet it keeps the same feasibility of the double-double elimination tournament. Still, even as double-elimination bracket, a consolation bracket is a consolation bracket, which still brings into doubt the meaning of what it means to win the consolation bracket.
2017 was just an all-around bad year. Bad quizzing material (seriously, what kind of compromise results in half Old Testament and half New Testament?!). Least impressive double crown championship winners (season champions and Invitational champions Calvary Monument 1 eliminated from ACC Tournament in their first playoff quizmatch against an average quiz team). Seriously, the double-double tournament is so bad it may even surpass the badness of the triple-elimination-style tournaments. No wonder it has yet to be seen again in the Invitational!
Alas, history now brings us to 2020 & 2021, which with it brings the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled 2 years of Invitational Tournaments. Fortunately, those 2 years off of Invitationals gave time for the quizzing coordinators to think of new and fresh ideas, formats so new and so fresh that every Invitational since its reboot in 2022 has had a unique take on the Invitational format. Therefore, each year individually deserves a review of positive and negative critique. Without further ado, here are the past 4 Invitational Tournament formats over the past 4 years.
2022: Round Robin + Double-Elimination Championship Bracket + 2 Consolation Brackets
After a 14 year hiatus, especially including a 2 year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic cancelling the tournament outright, now-AMEC quizzing coordinator Fred Hertzler finally convinced the Ohio quizzing coordinators to allow a round robin to begin the tournament. Unfortunately, by this time, the Invitational Tournament had drop to 69 participating quiz teams. 16 groups would not work, for some groups would only have 4 quiz teams, meaning each quiz team would quiz only 3 times. Not only does 3 quizmatches fall 1 quizmatch short of the guaranteed 4 [meaningful] quizmatches, placing would come down to tiebreakers, even secondary tiebreakers. Out of necessity, groups got cut in half, down to 8 groups. As a result, every group had a minimum of 8 quiz teams, with a majority of groups having 9 quiz teams. That meant all quiz teams quizzed at least 7 quizmatches in their round robin, and a majority of the quiz teams quizzed 8 quizmatches. A majority of the quiz teams got double the guaranteed 4 quizmatches, and a minority of quiz teams got close to double of the promised quizmatches. The only question that remains is whether these round robin quizmatches were meaningful, and the playoff brackets would determine that.
The championship would be determined by a double-elimination playoff bracket. The quiz teams qualifying for the double-elimination championship bracket were the quiz teams that finished in the top 4 of their respective group. This resulted in 32 quiz teams vying for the championship, which matches the number of quiz teams who qualified for the double-elimination championship bracket back in 2002 & 2003, albeit with the top 2 teams of 16 groups. This also results in 46% of quiz teams participating in the Invitational qualifying for championship. With a little less than half the teams making it to the championship playoffs, that's enough for those quiz teams to feel elite. Returning to the double-elimination bracket for the 1st time since 2017 and only the 2nd time since 2013 means that it does not 3 to 4 rounds of finals quizmatches to determine that champion. At least, it takes 1, and at most, it takes 2 (in 2022, it took only 1 quizmatch for Strasburg 1 to overcome Strasburg 2 for the win). What a relief!
Quiz teams finishing 5th to 7th place in their respective groups wound up in a consolation bracket called the "Jonah Bracket," named after 1 of the main characters of this year's quizzing material. The Jonah Bracket was pretty much a standard single-elimination bracket, with the exception that the 5th place quiz teams got a 1st round bye. 24 quiz teams, or 35% of quiz teams participating in the Invitational wound up in this consolation bracket. Overall, when all is said and done, it is just another consolation bracket, which again brings into debate what value vying for and winning has. With such a concentration of quiz teams all coming from the same place in the round robin, however, the Jonah Bracket really feels more like a mini-tournament within a tournament than just another consolation bracket. This mini-tournament within a tournament allowed average quiz teams to aim for a goal that they usually could not obtain. Any spectator in the audience on Sunday morning could tell, for when observing Jonah Bracket final alongside the championship final, things definitely slowed down on the Jonah Bracket side and sped up on the championship side.
Quiz teams finishing 8th or 9th place in their respective groups did not end up in any bracket and were simply eliminated from the tournament. They had definitely hit the minimum quizmatches, for they would have quizzed 7 to 8 quizmatches. With just making the top 7 of the group allowing quiz teams to move on to the next phase of the tournament, with the top 4 making it to the championship bracket and the mid 3 making it to a consolation bracket, and with the higher seeding giving better matchups, a good argument could be made that all 7 to 8 quizmatches were meaningful. Therefore, these bottom quiz teams don't need a consolation bracket to make their trip worthwhile, although it would have been nice. Besides, these bottom quiz teams weren't eliminated until 3:00 p.m., making it past the lunch break (although not the dinner break), thus making the trip worthwhile, not like the problem the tournament had in 2008, when quiz teams got eliminated by the lunch break at noon.
As the heading states, however, the 2022 Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament had 2 consolation brackets. So far, only 1 has been discussed. The question remains on who went to the 2nd consolation bracket if the 8th and 9th place quiz teams did not go to the 2nd consolation bracket. This 2nd consolation bracket, called the "Nehemiah Bracket," named after another main character in the quizzing text, consisted of all the quiz teams who received their 2nd loss of the championship between rounds 1 and 3. This consolation bracket too was a standard single-elimination bracket, with the exception of the quiz teams eliminated in round 3 of the championship getting a 2-round bye in the Nehemiah Bracket. This Nehemiah Bracket felt really unnecessary. At this point, all the quiz teams involved in the Nehemiah Bracket quizzed a minimum of 9 to 10 quizmatches, so they don't need to quiz more. It's not technically a triple-elimination bracket, for no quiz teams, not even the "champions" of the bracket, can re-enter for the championship of the overall tournament. Once again, the Nehemiah Bracket is ultimately a consolation bracket, which brings into doubt the worth of become the "champion" of the bracket. Technically, an argument could be made that the champion of the bracket is 11th place overall, and the runner-up of the bracket could be considered 12th place overall. Nobody viewed it that way, and honestly, it makes little to no sense to view it that way when there's a 2-way tie for 5th, a 2-way tie for 7th, and a 4-way tie for 9th! At first, somebody might think the Nehemiah Bracket existed to have another bracket named after another main character quizzed on this year, but quizzing 2022 quizzed on 5 main characters, and neither Job nor Zechariah got a bracket!
Up to this point, at most, minor revisions have been suggested to modify the tournament to make it more fair or more feasible. This time, however, here is a proposal for a complete overhaul of the tournament. This complete overhaul will still keep the round robin, but to make things easier, it will assume every quiz team quizzing this year made it to the Invitational Tournament, bumping up the number of participating quiz teams to 72. That means all 8 groups have 9 quiz teams a piece. To keep with this year's theme of quizzing on 5 characters, the complete overhaul will have 5 brackets. The championship bracket will stay a double-elimination bracket, and it will also keep the top 4 teams of the 8 groups, for a total of 32 quiz teams, which is 44% of the quiz teams participating in the Invitational Tournament. This time, however, the entire double-elimination will receive the name "Leaders Bracket," for the bracket consists of all the top leaders of their group. The left-hand side of the Leaders Bracket, traditionally called the winners bracket, the 0 loss bracket, or the 1st chance bracket, will get the name "Joshua Bracket" because he was a leader of a larger group of Israelites, containing all 12 tribes of Israel. The right-hand side of the Leaders Bracket, typically named the losers bracket, the 1 loss bracket, or the 2nd chance bracket, will receive the name "Nehemiah Bracket" because Nehemiah was a leader of the Jews from the tribe of Judah, just 1 tribe of Israel. This would also justify calling it the Leaders Bracket, for both sides of the Leaders Bracket is named after leaders. The top 4 quiz teams could be awarded trophies. The bigger changes will come to the mini-tournament within the tournament for the mid-tier quiz teams. The mini-tournament within the tournament will expand to 32 quiz teams, consisting of the teams that finished 5th place to 8th place in the groups. This means that this mini-tournament will also have 44% of the quiz teams participating in the Invitational Tournament. This mini-tournament within a tournament will also expand to a double-elimination bracket. Doing so will make it feel more like a mini-tournament. This double-elimination bracket will receive the name "Prophets Bracket," for its 2 sides will be named after the 2 prophets studied this year. The left side of the bracket, traditionally named the winners bracket, the 0 loss bracket, or the 1st chance bracket, will get the name "Zechariah Bracket," for Zechariah was the better of the 2 prophets studied this year. The right side of the bracket, typically named the losers bracket, the 1 loss bracket, or the 2nd chance bracket, will receive the name "Jonah Bracket," for Jonah was the lesser of the 2 prophets studied this year. The top 2 quiz teams should receive plaques. The 5th and final bracket will go to the 8 quiz teams who finished dead last in 9th place in their group, which is 12% of the teams participating in the Invitational Tournament. They will all go a single-elimination bracket called the "Job Bracket," for just as Job suffered much loss, so these 8 teams suffered many losses. The quiz team in the single-elimination Job Bracket can overcome their many losses and win 3 quizmatches in a row would receive a plaque.
While this proposal for a complete overhaul of the tournament format would have made the 2022 Invitational Tournament better, the actual Invitational Tournament format was not that bad. A majority of quiz teams got twice the quizmatches guaranteed, and the minority of teams got close to double the promised quizmatches. Since the top 7 quiz teams of each group advanced to a playoff bracket, with the the top 4 competing for the championship and the mid 3 competing for a mini-tournament, a good argument could be made to say that all the round robin quizmatches were meaningful. Even the 13 quiz teams eliminated by the round robin at least made it to 3 o'clock before being eliminated. The only dark blot on this tournament format is the again the consolation brackets, especially the Nehemiah Bracket.
2023: Triple-Elimination Championship Bracket + Quizoff Playoffs + 4 Consolation Brackets
Yeah, the triple-elimination champion bracket returns for the 2023 Invitational Tournament. Northwest Ohio Bible Quizzing is very set in their ways, and they insist that the triple-elimination bracket best determines the champion. Read above if needing a refresher on the pros and cons of a triple-elimination bracket determining the championship. Northwest Ohio Quizzing did modify the triple-elimination championship bracket a bit, which does deserve comment. Recall from above that, since 2015, the quizzing bracketologist figured out a way that all but 1 quiz team entering the Sunday quizzing would have 2 losses. In 2023, the quizzing bracketologist designed the tournament to have those quizmatches between the undefeated quiz team and the other undefeated quiz team or the 1-loss quiz team happen as the Saturday finals. This kind of gave the Saturday quizzing a more climatic end. Sunday quizzing also saw an improvement. Not only were there finals, there were a semifinal, a quarterfinal, an octofinal and a hexadecafinal (made-up word, but it makes linguistic sense)! The hexadecafinal was virtually the finals of the 3rd chance bracket. The loser was declared 6th place overall in the 2023 Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament, and the winner advanced to the octofinals. In the octofinals, the winner of the 3rd chance bracket finals/hexadecafinals took on the 2nd chance bracket semifinalist. The loser was declared 5th place overall in the Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament, and the winner advanced to the quarterfinals. For the quarterfinals, the octofinals winner took on the 2nd chance bracket runner-up. Loser was declared 4th place overall in the 2023 Quizzing Invitational Tournament, and the winner advanced to the semifinals. The semifinals took place between the quarterfinals winner and the Saturday finals loser. Loser was declared 3rd place overall in the 2023 Invitational Tournament, and the winner advanced to the finals to face off with the Saturday finals winner. Again, by nature of the triple-elimination bracket, up to 3 rounds of finals could take place. Specifically in 2023, Rockville won the Saturday evening finals, suffering 1 loss on Saturday, so it only took Orville 2 wins to take home the championship. On the positive side of things, it was cool that the Sunday quizzing was set up in a way that it felt like a knockout tournament, in which the winner advanced on in the tournament and the loser was knocked out of the tournament. On the negative side, it didn't really relieve seeing quiz teams quiz multiple times over and over again. Rockville quizzed 2 times, Redemption 3 quizzed 3 times, and Orville quizzed 4 times. As another negative, 6 quizmatches on a Sunday morning felt like a bit too much, which is a first. Perhaps both too many quizmatches and too many repeats could have been alleviated if 1 less quizmatch took place on Sunday morning. Drop the hexadecafinals; leave the 3rd chance bracket finals to Saturday evening.
Yeah, the consolation brackets return. Even worse, the consolation bracket count increases to 4, the most since 2009. The quiz teams that exit the triple-elimination 3rd chance bracket in the 1st and 2nd round go to the Moses consolation bracket. The teams eliminated from the triple-elimination tournament in the 3rd round go to the Aaron consolation bracket. Those that exit in the 4th round go to the Joshua consolation bracket. Those which get eliminated in the 5th round go to the Caleb consolation bracket. The Moses consolation bracket make sense, for it guarantees even the weakest quiz teams at least 4 quizmatches. The other 3 brackets do not need to be in the tournament, for all those quiz teams would have quizzed at least 4 times. Not to sound like a broken record, but these unnecessary quizmatches bring into question whether they are meaningful quizmatches.
Unique to the 2023 Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament was the Quizoff Playoffs. In rounds 6 to 11 of the 3rd chance bracket of the triple-elimination tournament, all the quiz teams eliminated from their respective round were put in a mini-playoff tree. These mini-playoff trees may have consisted of 2 quiz teams quizzing 1 quizmatch or 4 teams quizzing 3 matches, depending on how many quiz teams exited the tournament at that place in the tournament. The quiz team would then quiz each other as a tiebreaker to determine who finished higher in the tournament. For example, instead of having a 2-way tie for 7th place, the 2 quiz teams eliminated from the triple-elimination tournament in the 7th round of the 3rd chance bracket quizzed each other, with the winner declared 7th place overall and the loser named 8th place overall. As another example, instead of having a 2-way tie for 9th place, the 2 teams who exited the triple-elimination tournament in round 10 of the 3rd chance bracket quizzed each other, and the winner was declared 9th place overall, and the loser was named 10th place overall. To give just 1 more example, instead of having a 2-way tie for 11th place, the 2 removed from the tournament in the 9th round quizzed each other, making the winner 11th place overall and the loser 12th place overall. As a result, by the end of the tournament, everybody knew who finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th (2-way tie), 17th, 18th, 19th (2-way tie), 21st, 22nd and 23rd (2-way tie). Also as a result, Northwest Ohio recognized the top 22 quiz team with trophies, even going as far as writing on the trophy "___ place of 70 teams," to make sure future gazers of the trophy knew how impressive it was to finish in that place. All of this is way cool! The only question that remains is why this wasn't taken any further! 3 of the rounds had 4 quiz teams taken out at the same time. In each instance, the 4 quiz teams were paired off to quiz each other. The winners would advance to quiz each other. The winner of that quizmatch was (n)th place, the loser of that quizmatch was (n-1)th place, and the other 2 quiz teams were tied for (n-2)th place. For example, round 8 had 4 teams eliminated. The 4 quiz teams paired off, and the winners quizzed each other. The winner of that quizmatch finished 13th place, the loser of that quizmatch finished 14th place, and the other 2 quiz teams finished tied for 15th place. To give another example, round 7 also had 4 quiz teams exiting championship contention. These 4 quiz teams paired off to quiz each other, and the winners then quizzed each other. The winner of that quizmatch became 17th place, the loser became 18th place and the other 2 became tied for 19th place. As one last example, round 6 too had 4 quiz teams knocked out off the triple-elimination tournament. These 4 quiz teams paired off to quiz each, with the winners then quizzing each other. The winner went on to 21st place, the loser to 22nd place, and the other 2 tied for 23rd place. As already established, these quizoff playoffs worked well as tiebreakers. There should not be a 2-way tie for 15th, 19th and 23rd. Make the losing quiz team quiz each other, resulting in a 15th and a 16th, 19th and 20th, and a 23rd and 24th respectively. Come to think of it, that would make the champion of the Caleb consolation bracket 25th overall, the runner up of the Caleb bracket 26th overall, the 2 semifinalists of the bracket in a 2-way tie for 27th overall, and the 4 quarterfinalists in a 4-way tie for 29th overall. Repeat the process for all the consolation brackets. Don't think this gets the consolation brackets off the hook. Nobody thought of them in that way, so it doesn't work, but it could.
The triple-elimination championship bracket returns, but so does its problems. The single-elimination consolation brackets return, and with them, their problems. The positive improvement, however, comes in the form of the quizoff playoffs, getting rid of any large multi-way ties, allowing quiz teams to know exactly where they finished in the tournament.
2024: Double-Elimination Placement Brackets + Single-Elimination Championship Bracket + 3 Consolation Brackets
The 2024 Bible Quizzing Invitational in West Liberty, Ohio had 67 quiz teams participating. All 67 quiz teams were randomly (so it would seem, for it's hard to see any kind of seeding) placed in 1 of 4 brackets, simply labeled A to D, with no fancy name. If a quiz team lost in bracket A to D, that quiz team got sent to bracket E to F. More specifically, each bracket had a corresponding bracket. Losers of bracket A went to bracket E, losers of bracket B went to bracket F, losers of bracket C went to bracket G, and losers of bracket D went to bracket H. It should become apparent that that this makes it a double-elimination bracket. Yes, for the first time in the history of the Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament, the placement bracket was a double-elimination bracket, or more specifically, the placement bracketS were double-elimination bracketS. The top 4 teams of the 4 double-elimination brackets qualified for the single-elimination championship bracket, named the Sweet 16 Championship Bracket. Yes, for the first time in the history of the Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament, the championship would be determined via single elimination (Author's Note: Before the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled the 2020 Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament just 2 days short of the tournament, then-ACC Bible Quizzing posted the tournament format, which also would have determined the championship with a single-elimination bracket, but unfortunately, they took it down before I could save it, so I can't comment on it.). Quiz teams who did not make the top 4 of their double-elimination placement bracket got sent to 1 of 3 consolation brackets, named after 3 parable in this year's quizzing material: The Prodigal Son Bracket, The Good Samaritan Bracket and The Sower Bracket. Quiz teams eliminated in rounds 1 and 2 of their double-elimination placement bracket entered The Prodigal Son Bracket. Teams exiting in round 3 of their placement bracket moved to The Good Samaritan Bracket. Those knocked out during rounds 4 and 5 of the bracket got sent to The Sower Bracket.
Let's talk about the 3 consolation brackets first. As always, review the above conversations about whether consolation brackets really have value or worth in the first place. Also add that previous discussion on the fact the fewer consolation brackets feel more like a mini-tournament within a tournament, whereas more consolation brackets feel less like that, for having 3 consolation brackets in this specific Invitational Tournament does not feel like a mini-tournament within a tournament. More peculiar to the 3 consolation brackets in the 2024 Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament is the format. The Prodigal Son Bracket is the standard double-elimination bracket. The Good Samaritan Bracket and The Sower Bracket are modified single-elimination brackets. Both The Good Samaritan Bracket and The Sower Bracket had 16 entrants square off in 8 quizmatches. The winners would advance to quiz others winners, until 1 quiz team remained, and that quiz team was declared the champion of the bracket. What makes these single-elimination consolation brackets "modified" is that the 8 losers of the 8 first-round quizmatches get paired off to quiz each other for another round of quizzing. After 15 questions, the quiz team with the most points was declared the winner, and that was that. Both quiz teams, whether winner or loser, ended their tournament after the quizmatch. The reason why this quizmatch exists is baffling. The first thought may be that this quizmatch exists to make sure every quiz team quizzes their 4 guaranteed quizmatches. The only quiz teams that the tournament would have to worry about not getting their 4 promised quizmatches would be the teams who lost in the 1st round of their double-elimination placement bracket, for they would have only quizzed 2 quizmatches, and the quiz teams who lost in the 2nd round of the placement bracket, for they would have quizzed only 3 quizmatches. All the other quiz teams would have quizzed 4 quizmatches in the double-elimination placement bracket alone. That's why The Prodigal Son Consolation Bracket is a double-elimination bracket. It ensures that those quiz teams who lost their first 2 quizmatches get 2 more quizmatches to reach the minimum 4. Therefore, the other 2 consolation brackets don't need that extra round of quizzing to reach a minimum amount of quizmatches. The second guess is that maybe West Liberty desired to design a tournament in which all quiz teams were guaranteed 4 losses, in some way, shape or form, before being eliminated from the overall tournament. This theory too fall flat on its face, for the winners of the extra round have only 3 losses, yet the tournament is over for them. Somehow, West Liberty managed to take worthless quizmatches and give some even less value! It truly is quizzing for the sake of quizzing. The sad part is that this could have all been alleviated if West Liberty would have simply made all the consolation bracket double-elimination brackets. Then, indeed, it would have been a tournament that guaranteed 4 losses before elimination. (And for one last nitpick, if naming these 3 consolation brackets after parables in the material, they should have named them after the 3 related parables in the material: The parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son.)
Come to think of it, this conversation about single-elimination versus double-elimination begs the question of why the championship was determined by single-elimination and not double-elimination. Any bracketologist will tell anybody that the more elimination added to a playoff tree, the less feasible the playoff tree becomes, but the more fair the playoff tree becomes. It becomes less feasible because it multiply the number of matches, almost to explosive amounts, which invites fatigue to those participating and confusion to fans watching. In exchange, it becomes more fair because it reduces the chance of a random, unlucky upset, forcing participants to win multiple times to prove their worth. Single-elimination has feasibility because it's a simple as winner advances and loser is knocked out, but it has low fairness because bad teams can upset good team, just due to the bad team having good luck, and the good team having bad luck. Triple-elimination (or more) has a high fairness because teams need to lose multiple times to be eliminated, not just knocking teams out due to 1 unlucky match-up, but it has low feasability, due to the complexity of the bracket. Double-elimination seems to have the perfect balance, with both moderate fairness and moderate feasibility. Here in the 2024 Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament, though, a sweet 16 in a single-elimination bracket will determine the championship. At least, the sweet 16 is comprised of the top 4 teams in each of the double-elimination placement brackets, so at least in even the worst upset, 1 of the top 16 quiz teams will win the championship, not some quiz team that finished 60-something in the placement brackets. It did just so happen that, at the 2024 Bible Quizzing Invitational, the champion and runner-up both finished 1st place in their placement bracket, but 1 of the semifinalists finished 3rd place in their placement bracket. It all panned out, but a double-elimination would have reduced the likelihood of an unlucky upset. Besides, it's tradition.
Also, if the championship bracket would have become a double-elimination bracket, and all consolation brackets also double-elimination brackets, it would have resulted in a double-double elimination tournament, a true double-double elimination tournament, and a better double-double elimination tournament than 2017! That's a how good double-double elimination bracket should work. The first double-elimination bracket should determine whether the quiz team qualifies for the championship or gets placed in a consolation bracket. The second double-elimination bracket should determine whether the team becomes the tournament champion or wins the consolation bracket. The 2024 Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament came so close, yet it fell short. Hopefully, in the future, a coordinator will consider revisiting this new and improved double-double elimination tournament.
2025: Round Robin + Double-Elimination Championship Bracket + 2 Consolation Brackets
Ok, so technically, this format is a repeat of 2022, the first repeat Invitational Tournament format after the COVID-19 pandemic hiatus. Go figure it's repeated by the same conference that did it in the first place, AMEC, the first conference to repeat host the Invitational Tournament since the COVID-19 pandemic hiatus. AMEC did make 1 change from the format since 2022, however, which will be briefly discussed here. AMEC did indeed expand the mid-tier mini-tournament within the tournament to include the quiz teams that finished 8th place in their group, increasing the participating quiz teams from 24 quiz teams to 32 to quiz teams. This decision to increase the quiz teams in the mid-tier mini-tournament within a tournament may have come from the fact that the number of quiz teams participating in the tournament increased from 2022 to 2025, from 69 quiz teams to 73 teams. With 73 quiz teams, all 8 groups had at least 9 teams, and 1 group even had a 10th. The increase in the number of quiz teams does come across as an improvement, for it allows more teams to participate longer into the afternoon. Still, this bracket remained a single-elimination, and the fact remains to it should have been a double-elimination to enhance the feeling of really being a mini-tournament within a tournament for the mid-tier quiz teams who had no shot at the championship. In fact, what AMEC could have done, just like the 2022 revamping proposed, since the 2025 quizzing material covered the last third of the book of Luke and the first third of the books of Acts, AMEC could have called the championship bracket the Luke Bracket and the mid-tier mini-tournament the Acts Bracket. Instead, all brackets got named after 3 random places in the material: Damascus, Emmaus and Jerusalem. At least call them the Jerusalem Bracket, Judea & Samaria Bracket (save that one for the double-elimination championship bracket) and the Ends of the Earth Bracket, in accordance with Acts 1:8! AMEC did not takes the suggestion of adding 1 more single-elimination consolation bracket for the 9th place quiz teams, but that's fair. With 8th place quiz teams now added to the mid-tier mini-tournament within a tournament, qualifying for that bracket only take a couple wins. If a team can't muster up even a few wins, they probably don't deserve to continue quizzing. Besides those 9th place quiz teams (and that lone 10th place team) weren't eliminated until 3:30 p.m., so they quizzed well into the afternoon, making their trip worthwhile. More egregious, that consolation bracket for the quiz team losing twice in the championship bracket rears its ugly head again. Again, these quiz teams have quizzed plenty and won plenty. There's no reason to extend the tournament for them.
2026: Seeding Bracket + Double-Elimination Championship Bracket + 3 Consolation Brackets
For the 50th Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament, Wayne County would host, their first time hosting in 10 years (2016!), and their first time hosting after the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, as such, Wayne County wanted to bring their fresh and unique take on the Invitational Tournament format. Introducing the Seeding Bracket! Notice how this is not called a Placement Bracket. There is a reason for that. The Seeding Bracket works different from The Placement Bracket. For the Placement Bracket, winning shipped the quiz team off to the championship bracket, and losing advanced the team in the Placement Bracket. In the Seeding Bracket, winning advanced the quiz team in their bracket, and losing teams got sent to another Seeding Bracket. That is because each time a quiz team quizzed in the seeding bracket, they always quizzed a team with the same amount of losses. Therefore, if a quiz team won in their original seeding bracket, they advanced in their bracket to quiz another quiz team who also won in their original seeding bracket, for both teams had 0 losses. If the quiz lost in their original bracket, they got sent to a 1-loss seeding bracket, where they would quiz another team who lost in their original bracket and racked up 1 loss. Repeat the process again. Wining in the 1 loss bracket advanced the quiz team to quiz against another 1 loss team who just won because both teams had 1 loss, but losing in the bracket sent the quiz team to a 2-loss seeding bracket to quiz a team with 2 losses. Because the 2026 Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament had 66 quiz teams participating, 4 teams even had to go to a 3-loss seeding bracket! As a result, all 66 quiz teams had a specific seeding going into the championship bracket, and all 66 teams knew their seeding! This transparency of tournament seeding is pretty cool! Also as a result, the 2026 Bible Quizzing Invitational got some pretty funky seeding. For example, AMEC quiz team Hinkletown 3, who finished 7th place in their league and lost their 1 AMEC Tournament playoff quizmatch somehow ended up with the 2nd seed in the Invitational Tournament! Meanwhile, Weaverland 2, an average quiz team who finished 12th in their league, ends up with the 64th (3rd-to-last) seeding! As another plus, the seeding bracket takes care of the 4 guaranteed quizmatches, for even the quiz teams who only quiz 3 seeding bracket quizmatches make it to the championship bracket. Since every quizmatch plays a part in determining seeding, one could argue it also delivers the promise of 4 meaningful quizmatches. On the flip side, the Seeding Bracket seems to overcomplicate something that a round-robin does much more simply. Bracket seeding does not need to become that specific. No need to determine which group had the better nth place and which group had the worse nth place. Also, the funky seeding does bring into question the actual fairness. On top of that, it may become confusing whether a quiz team advances in a bracket or goes to another bracket (and which bracket).
All 66 quiz teams, no matter how they did in the Seeding Bracket, qualified for the championship bracket. The Seeding Bracket merely told them where they would be seeded in the bracket and which quiz team they quizzed. Wayne County decided to return the championship bracket to a double-elimination, and for the better, since double-elimination brackets have the right balance of fairness and feasibility. If Wayne County did improve on the double-elimination playoff bracket, they borrowed an idea from NorthWest Ohio, and they added 2 quizoff playoffs. The one quizoff playoff determined who finished 5th and who finished 6th. The other quizoff playoff figured out who was 7th place and who was 8th place. As stated above with the 2023 Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament in NorthWest Ohio, this is a bigger improvement than have a 2-way tie for 5th and 2-way tie for 7th.
Unfortunately, the consolation brackets rear their ugly head once again. For the 2026 Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament, 3 of them exist. They are named after the main character of this year's quizzing material, Paul, and his 2 closest traveling companions, Barnabas and Silas. Quiz teams eliminated from the championship in the 1st round of the 2nd chance bracket go to the Silas Bracket. The quiz teams exiting the championship in the 2nd and 3rd rounds of 2nd chance bracket get sent to the Barnabas Bracket. Those quiz teams out of the championship in rounds 4 to 6 of the 2nd chance bracket end up in the Paul Bracket. Sorry if this sounds like a broken record at this point, consolation brackets inherently have little to no value. Furthermore with this exact Invitational Tournament, the consolation brackets have even less worth, for between the seeding brackets and the double-elimination championship bracket, all the quiz teams should have already quizzed 5 to 6 quizmatches, meaning that, by the time a quiz teams reaches its consolation bracket, it has already quizzed its minimum guaranteed quizmatches. The only consolation bracket that could be justified is the Paul Bracket. Since the Paul Bracket has all the quiz teams out of championship contention in rounds 4 to 6, and the teams out of championship contention after that quiz quizoff playoffs, then, arguably, the "champion" of the Paul Bracket is 9th place overall and the "runner-up" is 10th overall, creating a nice top 10. Unfortunately, officially, it was never recognized as such, and unofficially, probably few to none of the quiz teams saw this, unless somebody paid careful attention to the brackets. Once again, apologies if this sounds repetitive.
There it is. A History of the Bible Quizzing Invitational Tournament Format. Instead of concluding by ranking the past formats, this conclusion will synthesize the most positive parts of the past formats to create the best (or at least, the most ideal) Invitational Tournament for the future. When it comes down to it, the best method for determining qualification for the championship comes down to a round robin. Round robins are the fairest, for every quiz team within a group quizzes the same opponents, each other. It becomes even more fair if seeding happens beforehand, for each group will have a good balance of above average teams, average teams and below average teams. While round robins are not the most feasible in terms of resources (e.g. staffing), they are still fairly feasible in terms of simplicity to understand, for both participating quiz teams and their fans. As long as a group has at least 5 quiz teams, each team will automatically receive its 4 guaranteed quizmatches. The promise of 4 meaningful quizmatches can be fulfilled in a round robin by simply adding more inclusivity in the playoffs, for every placing will result in a seeding, and the better the placing, the higher the seeding. Therefore, if an Invitational Tournament has 80 or more quiz teams, it should have 16 groups for the round robin, but if the Invitational has 79 or les teams, then it should have 8 groups, even if it results in quiz teams quizzing 8 times. If really dead set against round robins, the next best method for determining qualification for the championship would be double-elimination brackets. Double-elimination brackets have the perfect balance of fairness and feasibility. Single-elimination brackets are more feasible because they are easy to understand and take the least amount of resources, but they are less fair because a good team could be upset by a bad team by 1 bad match, which may simply be attributed to bad luck. Triple-elimination (or more eliminations) are more fair because teams need both skill and endurance over luck to survive, but they are less feasibly because scheduling gets long and complicated. Double-elimination brackets are moderately fair and moderately feasibly, hence the perfect balance. No matter whether a round robin or a double-elimination bracket, the championship bracket should always be determined by a double-elimination bracket, for the balance of fairness and feasible just mentioned and promoted throughout this history. Since a double-elimination bracket by nature has a sole team finished in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place, quizoff playoffs should determine a definite 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th place, to create a nice and even top 10. Ultimately a round robin + double-elimination championship bracket tournament does not need a consolation bracket, but if absolutely desired to have a consolation bracket (perhaps to avoid eliminating teams before the lunch break at noon), only 1 consolation bracket should be utilized, for keeping the consolation bracket to 1 makes the consolation bracket feel like a mini-tournament within the tournament. A single-elimination bracket will suffice, but a double-elimination is a nice bonus, for, again, fairness and feasibility. If going the route of double-elimination brackets for the qualifying round, however, a consolation bracket absolutely needs to exist, and it definitely needs to be a double-elimination consolation bracket, in order to keep the rule of 4 guaranteed quizmatches. By nature of the double-elimination playoff tree, these 4 quizmatches are by default meaningful, as promised. Still, keep it to 1 consolation bracket, for the sake of making it feel like a mini-tournament within a tournament. Hopefully the quizzing coordinators will see this post, reflect on the history, and come to the conclusion that this is the best (or most ideal) to format the Invitational Tournament, so it will be seen in the future.
