Grail
In quiz bowl, a grail is a term used to refer to the rare feat where one team correctly answers all tossups heard in a game. Generally, this implies a team answering 20 correct tossups, though in a timed match this can vary. The team does not need to answer all of the bonus parts correctly to achieve a grail - achieving 30 points per bonus over a non-trivial number of questions is called an Andrew Hart Grail and is much rarer.
Grails necessarily occur in situations where the teams playing are heavily mismatched - this may be due to one team being shorthanded, but the most common reason is an established team playing a newer one. Even for strong teams, grails almost always happen on easier questions and are limited by chance.
Grails of note
This page will attempt to focus on the memorable games where a team faced another team of non-negligible skill on non-trivial questions, for which converting every tossup first was truly an achievement.
Open
| Grailer | Score | Grailee | Tournament |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jonathan Magin and Rom Masrour | ? – ? | ??? | 2008 Illinois Open Literature |
| Jerry Vinokurov, Eric Mukherjee, Andrew Hart, and Dennis Jang | ? – ? | Berkeley | Cardinal Classic 2008 |
College
| Grailer | Score | Grailee | Tournament |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virginia A | 680 – -5 (23 toss-ups heard) |
Virginia Tech | 2011 SCT East Carolina site |
| Virginia A | 660 – -5 | Stanford | 2014 ACF Nationals |
| Stanford B | 720 – -5 | UC Davis | 2015 DII Berkeley SCT |
| Minnesota A | 845 – -30 (22 toss-ups heard) |
Grinnell | 2018 SCT (combined DI/DII field) |
Virginia A (Matt Bollinger, Evan Adams, Tommy Casalaspi, Dennis Loo) grailing top bracket team Stanford (Benji Nguyen, James Bradbury, Nikhil Desai, Kyle Sutherlin) en route to winning 2014 ACF Nationals undefeated is perhaps the most impressive grail that has ever happened.
Minnesota A's grail against Grinnell at the North site of the 2018 SCT is a glaring reminder of the problems with combining fields between Division I and Division II.
High School
| Grailer | Score | Grailee | Tournament |
|---|---|---|---|
| St. Anselm's | 810 – 0 | Seven Lakes B | 2010 NSC |
| Torrey Pines | 630 – -5 | Canyon Crest | UCSD mirror of 2009 HFT |
| Hunter | 765 – 0 | Bergen County Academies | finals of 2010 Princeton High School Tournament |
| Hallsville | 695 – 0 (22 tossups heard) |
Miami Community Charter | 2014 SSNCT |
| Souderton | 690 – -5 | Renaissance Academy | Great Valley's 2015 winter tournament (Souderton's first pyramidal tournament ever) |
| Glasgow | 765 – -5 (23 tossups heard) |
Woodland | 2015 SSNCT |
| Detroit Catholic Central A | 660 – 30 | Del Norte | 2015 PACE NSC |
| Miami Valley A | 870 – -5 (24 tossups heard) |
Doral Red Rock B | 2017 SSNCT |
Among the national championships, grails are much more common at SSNCT: the range in preparedness between teams in the Open Division is comparable to HSNCT, but the much smaller field size allows more opportunities for teams to take advantage of the lower difficulty questions.
Middle School
| Grailer | Score | Grailee | Tournament |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miami Valley School A | 700 – 0 | St. Mary B | 2015 Ohio Middle School State Championship |
| John Adams | 690 – -5 | Morristown-Beard | 2021 New Jersey Middle State Championships |
Individual Grails of Note
An individual grail (or solo grail) occurs when a single individual, playing solo or with teammates, answers every tossup in a regulation match. The more difficult nature of this feat means that almost all documented instances were examples of the previously-mentioned situation of strong players on easy questions against new teams and have not been recorded here.
R. Hentzel legendarily had an attempt at an individual grail foiled when he failed to identify an "Easy-Bake Oven."
John John Groger of Miami Valley School grailed Auburn by himself at the highschool-only UChicago mirror of 2019 ACF Fall.