Fred Morlan

International Quiz Bowl Tournaments, LLC is pleased to tentatively announce an online tournament for new quiz bowl teams and players on October 3, 2026.

Teams can register for this tournament using this form.

The opening meeting will begin at 9:45 AM Eastern and gameplay will begin at 10:00 AM Eastern. This tournament will aim to last for around eight rounds. It will be held over Zoom.

The tournament director will be announced.

This event will use IQBT RSS #7. This is a high school regular difficulty set. A list of mirrors can be found here. Anyone who played at, staffed, or speculated at one of these tournaments is ineligible to play in this tournament.

The field will be initially be capped at 10 teams.

Fees

Base Fee: $100
Staff Discount: -$75 per approved staffer (should be able to solo staff a room effectively)
New team discount: -$40
Minimum Entry Fee: $60

If a team only has one or two players, they can contact me to discuss a discount.

Rules

This tournament will use ACF’s gameplay rules with their addendum for the inclusion of powermarks.

Eligibility

Any player that has previously met at least one of these criteria are ineligible to compete at a IQBT University Novice site.

• Scored more than 40 PPG in the prelims of a high school or college tournament
• Were the top scorer (highest overall PPG) on a team that finished in the top 15% of the field, rounded up, at a non-novice college tournament
• Scored more than 30 PP20TUH in the prelims of HSNCT or 30 PPG in the prelims of PACE NSC
• Were the top scorer (highest overall PPG) on a team that reached the playoffs at HSNCT or finished in the top half at PACE NSC
• Finished in the top third of IPNCT
• Scored more than 20 PPG in the prelims of ACF Nationals or equivalent at NAQT ICT

Tournament Information

IQBT thanks our sponsors!

The Duncliffe Law Office

Tournament Information

International Quiz Bowl Tournaments, LLC. is pleased to announce that we will be hosting the inaugural Kentucky School Scrabble Invitational in Lexington, Kentucky on November 14, 2026.

This will be a one day, eight-round tournament. Registration will be held on Saturday from 8:30-9 a.m. An opening announcement will follow, with play beginning shortly thereafter. There will be eight rounds of play on that day, with an hour for lunch; we expect the tournament to conclude by approximately 6 p.m.

All players will compete in a single division. This tournament is open exclusively to current students up to the twelfth grade. Future tournaments will explore having a specific middle school division if there is sufficient demand.

Two-time national champion Mack Meller will be in attendance as a judge.

This tournament will be held at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Lexington North at 2100 Hackney Place, Lexington, KY, 40511.

Depending on the number of players, we’ll have either a modified Swiss pairs format or a round robin potentially with king of the hill rounds at the end.

The Gibsonization rule will be in place in either case, based on number of games plus 1000 points per game remaining.

The field for this tournament will initially be capped at 60 competitors, but it will be expanded as interest, space, and staffing allows.

Entry Fees

The entry fee for this tournament is $60 per player, which includes sales tax.

A portion of entry fees will be go towards the prize pool for this tournament.

Tournament rules & lexicon

This tournament will use the NSWL2023 lexicon.

Players who live outside of Kentucky are welcome to attend.

The tournament will be held using the NASSC rules, with the modification that only 1 vs. 1 play will be used in this tournament.

Entry fees

All entry fees must be paid by November 13. Please contact Fred Morlan at fred@iqbtnasat.com regarding payment flexibility if necessary.

Prizes

There will be a prize pool of at least $500 for this tournament. Further information on prizes will be announced in the near future.

Player Eligibility

Players must currently be enrolled in school as the twelfth grade or below to be eligible to play. Players from outside of Kentucky are eligible to compete.

Study Tips

This tournament is meant to partially attract new competitive Scrabble players. If you are in this group, the following resources will be of use to you.

• Zyzzyva – Software with word look-up, cardbox, and quizzing features.
• Wordwalls – A web application that has new quizzes each day, as well as other study tools.
• Play Scrabble – A web-based platform that allows you to play Scrabble remotely, as well as a couple of daily puzzles.
• Woogles – another web platform for playing against other people or computer opponents. There is also a Puzzle mode.
• Mack Meller’s YouTube page – Mack is the #1 player in North America as of September 2024, and won the 2024 Scrabble Players Championship. He has two particularly helpful playlists regarding studying: How to Get Better at Scrabble Without Memorizing Tons of Words, and Word Study.
• Will Anderson’s YouTube page – Will won the 2017 Scrabble Players Championship. His YouTube breaks down high profile games and the strategy used in them, as well as some theory with his “Better Know a Letter” series.
• NASPA Club Roster – A list of all NASPA-affiliated Scrabble clubs that meet on a regular basis.

Sponsorship

IQBT is searching for sponsors for this tournament, including those who are interested in contributing to the prize pool. If you are interested in sponsoring this event, please contact Fred Morlan at fred@iqbtnasat.com.

Additional Tournaments

We aim to hold a state championship in March 2027.

There are additional open tournaments where anyone, regardless of age, can compete in Lexington. The weekend of September 25-27 will have three one-day tournaments hosted. There will also be a one-day tournament on November 15, the day after this School Scrabble tournament.

The Bluegrass Scrabble Club meets weekly at Sedona Taphouse on Palomar Centre Drive in Lexington, Kentucky. Please contact Fred Morlan at fred@iqbtnasat.com if you plan on attending, particularly if you’re bringing several people. This is a public restaurant and space is somewhat limited.

The North American School Scrabble Championship is scheduled for April 10-11, 2027 at the Planet Word Museum in Washington, D.C.

Additional Information

Anyone that has additional questions may contact Fred Morlan at fred@iqbtnasat.com.

Scrabble is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. IQBT makes no claims to any Scrabble-related trademark or other intellectual property.

International Quiz Bowl Tournaments, LLC (IQBT) is pleased to announce the 2025 National All-Star Academic Tournament (NASAT). This will be the sixteenth NASAT.

NASAT will be hosted on June 27 & 28. It will be held in person on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.

This tournament will once again be open to all-star teams representing all states, the District of Columbia, all US territories, and all Canadian provinces and equivalents (as well as state or province-equivalent divisions of any other countries). Each state or equivalent may enter multiple teams, with up to six players on its roster, up to four of whom may be playing at any one time. Any player who was enrolled in the 12th grade or below in a school physically located in that state during the 2025-2026 academic year is eligible to play on his or her state’s team. Generally speaking, home school students are also eligible; any questions about eligibility will be answered by IQBT as needed.

This tournament is intended for states seeking an all-star event. We encourage single-school teams interested in competing to reach out to other teams in their state to partner together.

As always, we will use a normal format comparable to regular-season events: games will consist of twenty tossups, with a thirty-point bonus being played after each correct tossup answer. Teams will play head-to-head, two at a time.

The set’s head editor will be announced in the near future.

We will again be downconverting questions from this year’s Undergraduate Championship for use in NASAT.

The entry fee is $600 per team.

Each entry fee has a 6% Kentucky sales tax added to it. Payments that come directly from a tax-exempt organization have the sales tax waived.

Each state is welcome and encouraged to register additional (B and on) teams for NASAT.

Teams can receive a discount of $100 per staffer per day if the staffer is accepted and if they agreed to provide their pay towards the team’s entry fee. Tournament director approval is required for any staffers.

All teams must submit an application to IQBT for entry into the tournament. In the vast majority of these cases, applications will be accepted outright. However, if more than one contingent from a state seeks to enter this tournament, IQBT will evaluate applications from each potential team and determine who may represent their state at the National All-Star Academic Tournament. The only criterion that will be used in this decision is our assessment, based on a review of the players’ achievements in the 2025-26 competition year, of which team is likely to perform the best at the tournament.

IQBT will once again use a rolling application procedure: teams who submit applications to IQBT will normally be notified of IQBT’s decision no later than one week later. Team applications and recruitment will be handled by me, Fred Morlan; you can email me at fred@iqbtnasat.com.

The tournament will be directed by Fred Morlan.

I’m very excited for this tournament and am looking forward to another wonderful competition!

IQBT is holding an online quiz bowl tournament as a fundraiser for New American Pathways on Sunday, May 3 using IQBT Regular Season Set #5. This set is at “normal” high school difficulty, so it’d be a great introduction to any players new to quiz bowl. This is an open tournament – anyone can participate regardless of education level.

Quiz bowl is a team-based academic competition game where teams of up to four compete to answer questions in various academic subjects, including history, science, literature, fine arts, world religions, mythology, philosophy, current events, pop culture, geography, and beyond. You can watch this YouTube video to see how a game of quiz bowl works.

The tournament will start at 10 a.m. Eastern. Teams will play approximately 7-9 rounds, depending on scheduling and the number of teams signed up.

New American Pathways is an Atlanta-based 501(c)(3) charity that helps refugees adjust to moving to the United States. You can read more about their mission here.

This charity is supported annually by the Charity Bowl, organized by the hosts of the Shutdown Fullcast podcast, the internet’s only college football podcast. People donate to money under the name of their college, or their rival college, or Protect Trans Kids University. The Charity Bowl raised over a million dollars for NAP last year.

To play, please make a donation to New American Pathways of at least $20.

Note that there will be a specific Charity Bowl donation link that will go live on April 20. Donations at other times are welcome, but they won’t count towards the bragging rights of the Charity Bowl.

Players will need a webcam, a microphone, and a Zoom account.

All inquiries regarding this tournament can be directed to me at fred@iqbtnasat.com.

If you would be interested in volunteering as a moderator for this event, please email me.

To sign up to play as part of a team or as a free agent, please do so here.

Registration is now open for the 2025-26 IQBT Undergraduate Championship. The full announcement is available here.

IQBT’s next Regular Season Set, #7, will be available for use starting September 20, 2025. This is a regular difficulty high school set.

If you’re interested in mirroring this set, please contact Fred Morlan at fred@iqbtnasat.com.