HISTONE: Report

The sun was shining in Manchester on the 21st March, where the one-off quizbowl tournament HISTONE was held. Offering a rare opportunity for open players to participate in some 1.5-dot quiz, it’s a nice break between the recently held British Student Quiz Championships and the much harder tournaments of ICT and Chicago Open that are still yet to come this summer!

We had 16 teams playing throughout the day. Harry Sexton, Ted Harrison, Lovel Hearn, and Greg Myles, familiar faces within the student quizbowl circuit, formed the Edinburgh team. Other teams were formed as combinations of multiple universities and our open players. Dennis Wang, Alex Antao, Jon Violet, and Eoin Neale formed the delightfully named team ‘histone of the entire world, i guess’. There were plenty of memorable team names on display throughout the day; other personal favourites included ‘Queens of HISTONE Age’ and ‘Four Neggings and a Funeral’.

Based on the fact that we finished on time with little to no delays throughout the whole day, I’d say the tournament was very well organised. That smooth running was thanks in large part to not one, but two tournament directors, the wonderful Izzy Dobbie and Kai Madgwick. I asked Izzy about how she felt the day had gone:

Izzy: HISTONE was a great experience as a first time TD, especially because Manchester was such an easy venue to host at. My co-TD and co-mod were both incredibly helpful and made the day run much smoother than I could have done alone, and it also felt incredible to get out at lunch to a sunny and bright day.”

And even though you didn’t play, did you have any favourite tossups throughout the day?:

Izzy: I really liked the tossup on Strange Fruit, which I thought was super interesting, and of course my favourite artistic movement, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.”

The team known as Great Supine Protoplasmic Invertebrate Jellies were our Birmingham University representatives, consisting of Mikey Brown, Teddy Fogel, Sam Hastings, and Dan Millington. They accomplished what so many teams dream of, beating every team they faced and going 11-0. Against many teams, it was a comfortable win, but a tough competition against Manchester A came down to the final tossup and the game in 280 against 275 in favour of Great Supine. I asked Mikey how he found the day:

Mikey: Winning HISTONE was the culmination of a great year for us at Birmingham Quiz Soc and it was a pleasure to watch my teammates win their first tournament. It was a tremendously well-organised event that was smooth throughout, and a welcome change of pace to have a less difficult open tournament but against fierce competition, especially in the play-offs.

Mikey: My personal highlights were my top-scoring categories being VFA and Philosophy after a lean run in those subjects, and a first buzz on the philosophy of law which meant my interminable jurisprudence tutorials actually came in handy.”

We also have to give some love to our open community, many of whom are former students who remain a valued part of the quizbowl circuit. The… interestingly named team “Is that a Grandpa in your Pocket or are you just happy to see me?” featured Adam Bentley in the Sheffield quizzing scene, Rhys Lewis, former Cambridge and Sheffield student; Matt Sheldon, our Oxford quiz representative, and Tom Roberts, a former Sheffield student. I asked Tom how he found the day:

Tom: I found HISTONE to be a thoroughly enjoyable tournament and many thanks must go out to the tournament organisers and mods on the day. As someone who has not been particularly confident at my quizzing abilities previously, HISTONE provided a great opportunity to boost some of my confidence and get me to consider playing some harder tournaments in the future.

I have found as an open player this year the prospect of mostly only having 3dot+ tournaments available is a little daunting so I heavily supported the opportunity for a more accessible open tournament. Manchester proved to be an excellent hosting location with the site being a fairly comfortable walk from the station with many food outlets nearby and the tournament directors and moderators ensured the day ran very smoothly.

Tom achieved a PPG of 41.82 and finished joint second on the day, an excellent achievement and a well-deserved reward for such a strong performance.

My own involvement in HISTONE ended up being slightly more improvised than I’d expected. I wasn’t originally scheduled to moderate, but after flying back from Paris on the morning of the tournament and landing at Manchester Airport, I asked if any help was needed. As it turned out, it was, so I rather abruptly went from arriving back in the country to jumping straight into modding by round 4.

It was a fun way to experience the day, even if I miss what would almost certainly have been my favourite tossup in the set, on the Nixon family from John Adams’ Nixon in China. Still, it was nice to be able to step in like that, and I’m thankful to co-tournament directors Izzy and Kai for it.

And that’s a wrap for HISTONE (get it? Histone, DNA wrapping? I’m not a science player as you can tell). Stay tuned for future tournaments, four upcoming ones are open to non-students much like this one!