Quizbowl Roundtable

[1992 in spaceflight]

Hello everyone,

So last year, there was the idea of roundtables talking about various aspects of quizbowl (the thread's here), and other than one on question writing (this) and maybe another discussion, they didn't happen. Is this something everyone is interested in reviving for the upcoming year?

[kdoss61]

I would like to see a discussion of "how to listen to tossups" because it is an under-examined skill that can have a steep learning curve for inexperienced players. This topic also relates to the idea of retaining players. If a brand-new quizbowler goes to a few practices (where most likely, he or she will answer hardly any questions unless playing only with other novices, and even then may be buzzer-shy for weeks) and then attends a tournament with no other experience or guidance, the frustration of listening to tossup after tossup with no idea of what is going on may cause that person to quit before he or she ever has the chance to get better.

When you are an experienced player who contributes on bonuses and is competitive on at least a handful of tossups per round, questions and matches often seem to zoom by. But when you are just starting out, there are several factors that can cause tossups to seem incredibly long and hard to understand. Moderators generally read faster than the average person speaks, often much faster, and are not always perfectly comprehensible. Additionally, tossups are filled with certain turns of phrase and sentence structures that are much less common in ordinary speech, proper names and titles out the wazoo, and subject-specific jargon (especially in science). Parsing this "quizbowl-ese" on the fly is an acquired skill that, to my knowledge, has never really been discussed in depth on the boards.

It is probably too much to ask, but I would really like to see a blow-by-blow analysis of two top teams playing against each other during a round from a past tournament. This would include the sequence of thoughts of each person who got a tossup (what they initially thought after hearing the lead-in, how they arrived at the answer, why they buzzed when they did, etc.), as well as general re-enactments of team conversations during bonuses. It may be an impossible task for eight people not only to try to remember an entire match as it happened, but to be willing to take the time to write it all down. However, I think this kind of detailed gameplay discussion could prove very enlightening to newer players or those who want to know the inner workings of quiz bowl at the highest level.

I would love to see the roundtable discussions happen this year, especially this topic. As a high-schooler who has never played at a national tournament (will be at SSNCT this year), I have never learned how to "play." Learning how to think through a question is a skill that will be necessary for me to continue playing quizbowl at the collegiate level. In fact, any of the topics in that thread would be beneficial. As of right now, there is not a team at the college I am hoping to attend in the fall. So, discussion on forming a new team and fundraising would help me start a program there.

I hope that these roundtable discussions will be revived in the near future, and I look forward to seeing what helpful information comes from them.

[grapesmoker]

It's worth noting that some matches were recorded, so potentially players would not have to try and recollect exactly how they played.

[1992 in spaceflight]

Perhaps we could do the roundtable talk on "how to play questions" in the leadtime after ACF Nationals?

[1992 in spaceflight]

Hey, I do apologize for putting this on the backburner (Writing NASAT and the road trip to NSC took up a lot of time), but I'd love to do some roundtables this summer, while people aren't completely busy with projects. Does anyone have any discussion topics from the previous thread/ones that they've thought of in the previous months?

[Sima Guang Hater]

We could potentially bring this back now, if people are interested.