Ridiculously hilarious protests/protest arguments

[DumbJaques]

After a recent discussion with a teammate, I figured we could all use the laugh. . .

Post your best ridiculous protest stories. Extra points if you committed said protest. Name names/teams at your own risk, though I encourage this practice. But I'm not a good person.

Anyway, to briefly start us off:

During a game against RM two or three years ago, Quince Orchard's infamous one-man team Akshay protested 6/20 naqt questions. The score difference was such that he would have to have been awarded every single protest in order for the game outcome to be changed. As I recall, he was awarded none of them.

Also, I believe a player of European background once attempted to protest a question because it gave a mountain's heigh in feet and threw him off. This possibly may have been at PACE NSC two years ago, but it's entirely hearsay. I sincerely hope Dr. Chuck never had to be called into that room. . .

[DVader]

At the Austin High Invitational last December we had a bonus question that asked "What was the first country to have permanent colonies in North America" and we said Spain. The answer in the packet said England so I protested it, saying that Spain had an empire in North America by the time the English set up Jamestown but the moderator argued that an empire did not qualify as a permanent colony, and the answer on the paper is always right. We lost the protest, but in a fit of anger I answered 7 of the 10 tossups in the final round and won the game.

[David Riley]

Ugh! You Alabama ppl have to get that "on the paper is right" changed!

[quizbowllee]

Several times this year we have had to protest because moderators were accepting answers from players who never buzzed in....

Of course, we were in the right, but the fact that we HAD to protest in order to remind teams (and moderators) that buzzing is actually quite crucial to the answering of tossups is pretty sad.

[dtaylor4]

Overtime at Streator Rotary. The rule at the time was that no recognition, no correct answer. An opponent answered w/o recognition and I immediately and vehemently protested, won the protest, and ended up getting the next tossup on 5 words to win.

[Captain Sinico]

I... think you guys are missing the point of this thread. To get back to it:

At the singles event following the Chicago Open in, I believe, 2001, a certain player with the initials N. F. protested after negging on the lead-in of a question on deja vu with the phi phenomenon. His reasoning was (and this is an actual quote) "That's the classic lead-in for the phi phenomenon!" Subash, being both moderator at the time and director of the tournament, took the liberty of denying the protest right then and there by saying "No..." much to my amusement.

MaS

[quizbowllee]

OK, how's this?

At a tournament earlier this year, a coach protested after we beat them. She claimed that a girl on our team was actually playing for a different team earlier in the tournament. She obviously WASN'T, but I never did convince this other coach of that...

At a tournament one year, a coach protested against my kids because they "weren't playing fair." Apparently, my students were answering "all the questions way too fast and not giving the other team a chance to answer." Clearly, we should've been disqualified...

[ezubaric]

Back in high school, a team answered some silly translation bonus that "Tierra" meant "Land" in Spanish; the sheet said "Earth." Anyhow, due to Arkansas rules, they had to prove that it was wrong with published, physical source even though the moderator spoke Spanish. So, even though the points didn't matter, they stole a Spanish book that they saw in an unlocked locker, tore out the appropriate page from the glossary, and brought it into the room. That team won the game by over 200 points ... 20 points were in play on that question.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

In high school, a team we were playing once protested that Bahrain should have been acceptable for a question asking for a country in the Middle East surrounded by water on three sides. Their argument was that since Bahrain is surrounded by water on 4 sides, it is by definition also surrounded by water on three sides.

They actually pulled down a world map in the game room to prove their point.

[radiantradon]

This is hearsay, but my coach tells me that at the Science Bowl competition last year in North Carolina, their opposing team had a math bonus. They got the math bonus wrong, and then the captain protested that the moderator had read the question wrong, because "If she had read the question correctly, then we would've gotten it right." Basically, they were saying that there was no possible way that they could've missed a math question.

I was a local quiz show two years ago and buzzed in early on "This French author living in Algeria." Of course, I said Albert Camus, pronouncing it as "camooh." I think the moderator didn't quite hear me. He looked at the judges, looked at me, stared at the camera for a bit, and said "No, I'm sorry, it's CAMOOSE." During the commercial break I had to protest that Camus does not rhyme with Caboose, and yes my answer was correct.

Another one we should've protested on that show was in 2003 or 2004 when when we said that Sharon was the current prime minister of Israel, and the moderator said "No I'm sorry, the correct answer is Rabin." I guess the cards hadn't been updated in a while...

[STPickrell]

At a VHSL Regional tournament two years ago, the answer to one directed question was "Pepin the Short." One team decided to demonstrate their knowledge of French and answered "pay-pan" the Short. This was declared incorrect. The other team then answered "pep-pin" the Short, which, apparently, proved correct. The first team protested, but the protest was denied. I got to hear about it since a Longwood professor decided to write the VHSL and complain about the judges' decision.

At states last year, one team protested the assertion that cats and dogs were members of the mammalian family Carnivora. There was another, more legitimate protest, and once that was decided, said coach withdrew her protest.

At states many years ago, one team answered 90 degrees, where the answer on the paper was pi/2 radians. The question never asked for the unit of measurement and the losing team decided to protest.

Another time, I had to convince a team that "their" as in "their chairs" was indeed an adjective.

[Stained Diviner]

Several years ago, I had a coach complain because my students did not put their pencils down when the moderator said "Pencils Down". My students weren't writing, but they were still holding their pencils.

After losing the protest, the coach told me after the match that if my students ever pulled that at State they would be disqualified. I pointed out that the students he was complaining about had in fact played in the State Quarterfinals the year before without being disqualified.

[Tegan]

At a tournament one year, a coach protested against my kids because they "weren't playing fair." Apparently, my students were answering "all the questions way too fast and not giving the other team a chance to answer." Clearly, we should've been disqualified...

WOW!! LOL!! You have got to be kidding.....

That's like "They're scoring all the touchdowns and making my kids fumble.....give us a chance!

Yeesh!

[Stained Diviner]

When I was a first-year coach, the person I coached with protested about something during most matches, especially if there was astronomy (his area of expertise) involved. We were in the Sweet 16 at State, and our team answered Hubble instead of Hubble Constant. Based on the way the question was written, it was clear that our answer was acceptable, but it did not match the page and was not accepted. Our protest was not allowed.

We went on to win the match by almost 100 points, and my co-coach continued his protest after the match. (It was single elimination, so the score did not matter.) It created a very awkward situation, as the opposing coach was giving a speech to a team about how they had a great season and he was proud of them for making it so far, while our coach was talking about his Master's Degree in Astronomy and the expansion of the universe, neither of which were very relevant at the time.

One other time, there was a very simple question (about 8 words in total), and my team buzzed in with the answer Transition Metals. The moderator did not accept it, stating that Transition Elements was the answer on the page. When my team protested, the moderator said he wouldn't accept it because Scandium sometimes bonds covalently. For the next year, whenever anybody protested anything, my team would say "Scandium sometimes bonds covalently."

[David Riley]

At one tournament several years ago, my team was playing Mr. Reinstein's team at a local tournament. One of my team members buzzed in on a math tossup. The moderator said the answer was wrong; the answer given was not printed on the page.

1) my team member insisted that his answer was correct
2) Mr. Reinstein's team insisted that the answer was correct
3) Mr. Reinstein proceeded to solve the problem on the board and proved the given answer was correct

4) the moderator still would not accept the answer

So much for proof.

[Tegan]

Last year, my frosh-soph team rang in on a question that was a tad ambiguous, answering "Ferris"...they were prompted and said "Ferris Wheel" which was the correct answer.

The other coach protested saying that "Ferris" the inventor and "Ferris Wheel" the invention were two different things, and should not have been prompted. He got the moderator to toss the question, and my team lost by less than 20 points...

This year in a very close match agasint Wheaton North, the question is "Give the Latin phrase that is the motto of the Marine Corps"...G to the 2 rings in and says "Semper Fidelis ex Machina". The moderator, who had written the questions, said "That's correct", and before the "t" was out of his mouth I was up asking him politely to verify this. he replied "I am certain there is more to the motto than "Semper Fidelis". I asked "are you sure it is what he said....if you say you're sure, I'll sit down (a lie because if he said he's sure, I would have reminded him that "ex machina" was Greek on top of being just plain wrong...but I was trying to be nice!). He finally admitted that he wasn't sure, and that he should throw it out.

In a match agaisnt Fenwick last year we get a bonus "Name the mascots of hte following colleges...." My team starts taking potshots "Jimmy the Tree for Stanford was the funniest....they were all wrong, and the other team gives just the nicknames, and is ruled correct. I protested and said that was not what the question asked for. The moderator said "well, the other team knew what it was asking for." and moved on. We lose by 25.

[rchschem]

I was a local quiz show two years ago and buzzed in early on "This French author living in Algeria." During the commercial break I had to protest that Camus does not rhyme with Caboose, and yes my answer was correct...

Picking on the "local NC quiz show" host's pronunciation...That's the low-hanging fruit...

At our Public Library Quiz Bowl regionals 3 years ago, one of my players gave the wrong name for Guantanamo Bay, but whatever he said sounded kinda like Guantanamo. The other team challenged, and when the judges asked our player to defend himself, another of our players chimed in and said "That's how it's pronounced in Spanish." She was so earnest that the judges just about gave it to him--then they came to their senses and asked him to spell it.

Is this story the algebraic inverse of the thread? We inform, you decide.

Eric

[DrakeRQB]

I was a local quiz show two years ago and buzzed in early on "This French author living in Algeria." During the commercial break I had to protest that Camus does not rhyme with Caboose, and yes my answer was correct...

Picking on the "local NC quiz show" host's pronunciation...That's the low-hanging fruit...

At our Public Library Quiz Bowl regionals 3 years ago, one of my players gave the wrong name for Guantanamo Bay, but whatever he said sounded kinda like Guantanamo. The other team challenged, and when the judges asked our player to defend himself, another of our players chimed in and said "That's how it's pronounced in Spanish." She was so earnest that the judges just about gave it to him--then they came to their senses and asked him to spell it.

Is this story the algebraic inverse of the thread? We inform, you decide.

Eric

Oh, PLQB... if it's not in those illustrious World Books, their judges are LOST.

Local library competition, when I was a player, back in 1999 or 2000... the question was, "What material is the cover of a baseball made of?" I gave the obvious answer - leather - only to be told that it was incorrect. The other team said "nylon" or something stupid like that... at which time, the moderator says, "The correct answer was 'rawhide.'" I threw a hissy fit, but since they couldn't find it in the World Book they wouldn't take the protest. We won anyway, but that was pretty brutal.

[grapesmoker]

It seems like the "not what's on paper = wrong" thing is quite common at the high-school level; this was true in my days as well. Hasn't there been some kind of clamor for reform? I'm just wondering, because when the answer on paper is obviously wrong and you can prove it by reference to textbooks or whatever, shouldn't moderators be required to accept it? I mean, at the collegiate level that would never fly.

[Dan Greenstein]

During a game against RM two or three years ago, Quince Orchard's infamous one-man team Akshay protested 6/20 naqt questions. The score difference was such that he would have to have been awarded every single protest in order for the game outcome to be changed. As I recall, he was awarded none of them.

Speaking of Akshay...

I was moderating a game between Akshay's Johns Hopkins team and some other team at the NAQT Sectional Championship Tournament last year. The score was tied with about ten seconds left. Correct answer wins the game; incorrect answer loses the game; and no answer sends the game to overtime. Just before time ran out, Akshay (it could have been one of his teammates, but I seem to remember it being him) buzzed in and negged, thus losing the game for JHU by 5 points. He then protested that he did not know the score, and that he had buzzed AFTER time had run out. His protest was denied because timing is moderator discretion, and he clearly buzzed before the clock started beeping.

There is another fun story involving Akshay from that tournament, but you can ask him about it.

[David Riley]

Grapesmoker: In Illinois, since the time I spoke of, at MOST tournaments (including our State Series, but not some local tournaments--mostly in the southern part of the state--there, I said it) protests are considered. The offiicial rules say we have 3 minutes to find the answer if a protest is lodged--just enough time to pull out a reference book and consult it. Even better if your coach is a librarian

[Matt Weiner]

Last year, my frosh-soph team rang in on a question that was a tad ambiguous, answering "Ferris"...they were prompted and said "Ferris Wheel" which was the correct answer.

The other coach protested saying that "Ferris" the inventor and "Ferris Wheel" the invention were two different things, and should not have been prompted. He got the moderator to toss the question, and my team lost by less than 20 points...

Was this on a question set? This exact answer/situation happened to me in high school way back in 1998 or so on the last set I ever played (and that's part of the reason it was the last one I ever played...) so I wonder if he's recycling his own questions in addition to stealing other people's.

[mlaird]

Was this on a question set? This exact answer/situation happened to me in high school way back in 1998 or so on the last set I ever played (and that's part of the reason it was the last one I ever played...) so I wonder if he's recycling his own questions in addition to stealing other people's.

Ahem. No. It was not.

[cvdwightw]

At CBI Regionals two years ago we protested that William III and William of Orange were the same person (I believe we answered William III, the less ambiguous of the two answers, but I don't remember for certain), on a bonus part in the first half. Upon this, we were informed that there are no actual protests in CBI, there are only "requests for review" of the validity of a given answer. It furthermore took over 20 minutes for them to verify this, in a game we were then leading by a little over 200 and ended up winning by about 500. We later remarked that, had we known CBI's rule about handling any first-half protests after the first half, regardless of score, we would have neglected to protest, thus saving 20 minutes over 10 meaningless points.

And in the reverse of the "what's right on paper is the only right answer" syndrome, I recall a protest last year or the year before in which the moderator accepted an alternative answer that was not given on paper. The other team's coach protested that because it was not on the paper, it was not the right answer.

Finally, in an intermural tournament last year, the question was "What country did Jamaica gain independence from?" and I answered with United Kingdom, upon which the moderator immediately said "Great Britain." I protested that these were equivalent answers, and a fellow club member on the opposing team agreed. However, bizzarely, the moderator decided to throw the question out, because clearly, revealing the answer before the other team has a chance to buzz invalidates any protest that the given answer was correct.

[NotBhan]

I remember reading for one match where a question asked about a family and ended something like "Name this family whose most notorious member was Osama." The newbie team which was getting crushed by over 200 buzzes in with "bin Laden," earning their second tossup of the match. A guy from the other team immediately complains, "It's LADEN, it's just Laden, they're wrong, bin means son, it's just Laden!!" They had another stupid protest about pronunciation in that game, something like the other team's pronunciation of New Orleans as "new orlins" instead of "new orLEENS."

Later in the same tournament, that team was playing Valencia, and a tossup was asking about some literary figure. Amy Harvey of Valencia finally buzzes in and says with exasperation, "god ... Polyanna." The team protests that "God" is the given answer and that it should counted as a neg. I was scorekeeping ... I think the moderator and I both rolled our eyes simultaneously.

One I recall from my first year coaching at the CC level was a guy complaining that "Alexander the Great" should have been acceptable for Russia's tsar Alexander I. That one was stupid not so much for the protest itself but for his teammate's decision to continue to yell (obscenities included) at the moderator and judges as they walked to the next match, thus bringing a new "conduct" rule into our CC circuit.

One of my favourites from a high school tournament (where there seem to be a lot more of them) was at some tournament in South Florida using questions that I think were written by people who worked in the school board office. Team A is about to play, and the scorekeeper is from school B -- team A insists that they want a neutral scorekeeper. At the time there were about 20 people in the audience, all from either one school or the other, so I suggested they keep score as well, a suggestion which they found unsatisfactory. Team A goes on to trail at halftime by a score of something like 370-25 at the half. They complain that their buzzers must not be working right ... after some continued complaining, the other team volunteers to switch sides with them. They do. And team A goes on to lose the second half by about 400.

I don't remember seeing too many superfluous protests from the collegiate level. Oddly, most protests I remember seem to be from either Ben Gross of Yale or Vik Vaz of Harvard, even though I rarely played those guys.

Just thought of another, along the same lines as Lee's anecdote above. Broward CC hosted an HS tournament some years ago where, in my room, one clearly inexperienced team was getting clobbered. Their coach asks, "How are you guys getting these questions so fast? Did you see them in advance??" (They didn't, of course.) I kind of laughed, thinking she was joking, and the other team did the same. Two weeks later we get a letter from the school's vice principal (I think) saying that it was very unfair for his school's team to play in a competition where the other teams got to see the questions in advance.

--Raj Dhuwalia

[Tegan]

Hasn't there been some kind of clamor for reform?

We have reformed it in Illinois....but since the crows take a meal break going through the cornfields, the news usually takes a while to reach the isolated parts of the state.

Another thing we put in our case manual is the recommendation to moderators: if you are about to read a question, or are about to hear answers on a question that you know has some alternative that's not on paper (or are pretty sure there's an alternative), stop the match, and consult the coaches to verfy, or at least to let them know that there is an alternative that may come up and that you will accept it (it keeps the follow up protests to a minimum).

Our newest rules explicitly grant moderators the right to permit alternatives, as long as the right is naturally extended to both teams.

[ProsperoSMS]

One time at PLQB, the captain of my team said "Defer to Clay" so that Clay could answer. The other team argued that "Defer to Clay" was our answer, and we were thus wrong on that question, since that was the first thing said. The judges did just laugh at that one.

[STPickrell]

Raj, you've got me thinking along the same line. My one year of coaching, we schedule a home and home scrimmage against our arch-rivals. Well, we get our rears handed back to us down there. My players were thinking there had to be foul play involved. I attempted to tell them that no, maybe they just beat us fair and square (my school regards itself as being academically better than our rivals).

So for their visit up here, I get a call that day saying they had cancelled. Bummer, I think. Then, a few days later, I get a call (in class, with one of my team members present) from them. Apparently, they objected to the fact that I had written the questions. I attempted to explain to them that I hadn't let me players see the questions and could try to find a neutral source.

It turns out that the questions they used had been copied from a Patrick's Press book. No problem, except until they told me the book had gone through team members' hands. With no assurances that the team had not seen the chapters we had used at our scrimmage. Apparently, it was perfectly OK for them to read over the questions before the first scrimmage (and not tell us about this) but not OK for me to write questions for the second scrimmage.

[David Riley]

New OrLEENS?!!? Everyone knows it SHOULD be New Or-lay-AWN.


--So says my mastair, Guy de la Loimbard

[Zip Zap Rap Pants]

One time at VHSL regionals, I buzzed in early on a tossup and said oxbow and negged, but the end of the question was "...name this river feature, synonomous with oxbow" and the answer was meander. I protested but was denied because of the whole "the answer must be what it says on paper" philosophy. the protest never got beyond the room, but it didn't matter anyway b/c it was late in the round and we were winning by a blowout so I just dropped it....

[bdavery]

Back in the Stone Age (1986), CBI divided the 15 regional winners that year into 4 sectional groups. One group was Utah, UC Irvine and Alaska-Anchorage. As I was the only spectator with a clue who was not affiliated with one of the 3 teams, I ended up as the judge.

The first tossup answer of one game was "Rupert Murdoch". Utah negged, and after the question was done, Alaska buzzed and said, "Robert Murdoch." I said "wrong". They protested (and made me stop the clock) while I explained that those 2 are not the same.

After my explanation, the Alaska captain claimed that I should have prompted them somehow--because, had they said "Robert Murdoch" back home, they would have been prompted to give more information. I'm still trying to understand that 20 years later.

[Stained Diviner]

A few years ago, my team advanced far at Science Bowl Nationals. I didn't travel with my team, but they made it to about 10th place. When you make it to Science Bowl Nationals, you are well taken care of--the Regional sponsors give away nice prizes, and the Department of Energy pays all transportation and hotel costs to and in Washington, DC. They also provide tours of the city and bring in speakers that include some powerful pols and Nobel Prize winners.

In one of our final matches, I think it was our last victory, the opposing team challenged about half the questions. For each protest, somebody in the room would phone the tournament headquarters, and the person at headquarters would make a ruling. A few of the questions were turkeys, but this team challenged the good and the bad.

A few days later, using Google, I found an article in a local paper (not a school paper) covering the team we had beaten. The focus of the article was how unfair National Science Bowl had been in making rulings against the team.

[STPickrell]

One time at VHSL regionals, I buzzed in early on a tossup and said oxbow and negged, but the end of the question was "...name this river feature, synonomous with oxbow" and the answer was meander. I protested but was denied because of the whole "the answer must be what it says on paper" philosophy. the protest never got beyond the room, but it didn't matter anyway b/c it was late in the round and we were winning by a blowout so I just dropped it....

This falls under the heading of "quizbowl niceness I would always allow if I were on the scene, but neglected to etch into stone so everyone else knows they need to do this."

So, the most recent edition of my Interpretations includes (I didn't put this in until this year) this. It applies to 126-9-10.

"Questions used in VHSL competition should provide both alternative answers that are correct (e.g. Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens and answers players might give that are close but incorrect. However, the answers printed on the question sheet should not be regarded as infallible. If the judges feel that a player has given an answer that is equivalent to the answer on the question sheet, they are allowed to accept it as correct, but an opposing coach or active player may choose to make a formal protest. Likewise, if the judges feel that an answer on the question sheet is incorrect, they should feel free to disregard that."

Sorry about that I wrote a nice mini-pyramidal question but forgot to put in to "accept oxbow before it is said."

Now, looking Since the question said that oxbow lake and meander are equivalent, the judges should be allowed to accept it. Now, the other team could try and protest that decision, but then they'd have to show that oxbow lake and meander are *not* equivalent.

[Zip Zap Rap Pants]

Well thats nice to hear that the rules have been adjusted. I really appreciate it (as I'm sure my fellow VHSL competitors do as well). Yea that tossup didn't really matter that much, it was no big deal, but I suppose if you had one of those epic battles between Spotswood and C-ville and something like that came up in the finals, then it would matter.

[bigtrain]

At a tournament one year, a coach protested against my kids because they "weren't playing fair." Apparently, my students were answering "all the questions way too fast and not giving the other team a chance to answer." Clearly, we should've been disqualified...

Something like this happens in almost every first or second round "It's Academic" game every year by a parent from one of the teams we play. It most frequently happens with the parents from private schools.

[jonpin]

At a high school tournament, after five rounds of preliminaries there was a close call for the #1 playoff seed and the #2 playoff seed. The coach of the #2 team then said he wanted to protest a math bonus from round 3 (which they won by almost 200 points). Granted the question was painfully wrong, but the absurdly late protest which would've been dismissed anyway, having no bearing on the winner of the game, was made simply to attempt to get his team the #1 seed and avoid some of the teams on that side of the bracket.

[thepowerofche]

I guess this would go under the "Paper Infallibility" protest section, but this is too hilarious to pass up:

Throughout the year, I've been lambasted by my coach for not knowing enough music. But, at this particular tournament, he decides to watch our freshman team in the JV division. The A-team is thus coachless, and we play very well, feeling somewhat freer to take chances on tossups (risks that I say paid off quite well in the grand scheme of things). Anyways, this older guy is reading for us, and we've been clobbering questions this round against some school's D team or something. So, when this music question comes up and I hear "The Pearlfishers," I buzz in and say Bizet. The reader tells me it's incorrect and I'm left second-guessing myself the rest of the question, which details this French composer who wrote Carmen as the giveaway clue. My entire team is dumbfounded by this question, to which the reader gives the answer as "Vivaldi." Everybody's eyes bug out (even those on other team), and I say, "Hold on; I think I'd like to protest that." The reader looks absolutely shocked and demands of me, "On what grounds would you like to protest?" to which I reply, "The entire question describes the life and works of George Bizet, and Vivaldi is clearly an Italian name." The other team is still sitting there looking at headlights when the reader looks me in the eye and says in the gravest manner possible, "I cannot allow this protest because it is not procedural. I have to go by what is on the page and there are no alternative answers given. You can take it up with the tournament director if you like."

I don't think I ever blinked that much or that quickly before in my life previously or since.

[Stained Diviner]

"I cannot allow this protest because it is not procedural. I have to go by what is on the page and there are no alternative answers given. You can take it up with the tournament director if you like."

It's too bad the packet didn't say Vivaldi (also accept Bizet)!

At my tournament a few years ago, I had a question where the answer was Zawahiri. Because Zarqawi had been in the news a lot, and a lot of people aren't that knowledgeable about Al Qaeda once you get past their #1, there were several people who answered Zarqawi and then protested that it was probably the same person.

[David Riley]

This is secondhand but worthy of this forum's topic:


In the early 1980s, quiz bowl was not very well organized: there were a few teams scattered throghout the state, and the "once-a-year" contest here and there.

At one such gathering, the question was along the lines of "mid eighteenth century. . .art. . .spirals and scrolls. .. at which point a player buzzes in and says (the correct answer) "rococo". The moderator hesitates for a moment, then says "Well, I'll accept that, but down here we say 'baroque' (!)."

[No Sollositing On Premise]

When I was in HS the most-protesting teams I faced always seemed to be QO and Dorman. I remember in one game we were playing Dorman at NAQT nationals, and they buzzed in with cacao (pronounced cake-o) when the answer was Cola, and then vehemently insisted that their answer was close enough. I remember that was a close game, but I don't remember how the resolution of the protest went.

I also remember one really crazy game at one of the UMD tournaments ages ago when we were playing Akshay and friends. At the end of the game, we were up by I think 25 points, and Akshay had four protests and we had one protest. None of them were cleared, so we still won, but I remember the moderator being really frustrated with us.

[bigtrain]

I have not once faced an opponent that was even half as annoying as Akshay. Between the yelling, the somewhat violent smacking of teammates for buzzing and incessant protests made him unbearable. QO as a team is not really bad at all with protesting now that Akshay is gone.

[insaneindian]

I gave an answer to a math tossup involving area, and I had to protest that my answer was right because I didnt give units. (I had the right number of square feet, but never said "square feet" after the number)

Also, I have a question about NAQT rules. I know fractional answers must be simplified, but if the answer is a probability, do you need to reduce it?

I.E. there are 6 red socks in a drawer with 10 total socks. What is the probability I pick a sock that is red.

is 6/10 acceptable?

[DumbJaques]

Do the words "thread jack" mean anything to you? I was worried that this thread would mutate into a "let's complain about silly rules in backwards regions of the quizbowl world" rant until Sorice stepped in, but jesus insaneindian, a question about NAQT computation rules? And it wouldn't bother me, really, except that there like 20 people on this board who would likely answer you if I didn't say anything (and very will might still/already have). Then the other 19 of them would debate the reply and. . . do you get the picture?


Returning, hopefully for the last time, to a topic which I had hoped would consist merely of funny stories and us laughing at Akshay:

At the Hammond high school (MD) tournament, I buzzed in on a question about Wat Tyler's rebellion with, surprise, "Wat Tyler's rebellion." The moderator gave me a look, so I said "Peasants' revolt." I was then negged. The question went on to ask for the revolt that took place 600 years before Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. I protested with the always fun sequence of whiney, distressed noises that such a horrible situation calls for. Granted, I probably should have been a bit more articulate than "GAH!!!," since the other team (Dematha, DC) immediately challenged my protest. They argued that because it had mentioned the Reagan thing at the end, the answer HAD to be (the actually erroneous) "Revolt of 1381" the paper listed. I pretty much made the continued argument of "I gave the right answer," but they got really creative. At various points they asserted "that's the risk you take by buzzing in early" and that "just because you were right when you buzzed doesn't change how the rest of the question went." This, ladies and gentlemen, is why we must kill Chip Beall. But I digress. The other team also stated "I don't know what sport you're playing, but we're playing quizbowl." I feel bound to mention that this team also, during a directed question round category of "answers that don't have R, A, or T in them" (I'm not making this up), answered "trivial pursuit" to a question that asked them what activity they were participating in (note me NOT complaining about the tournament itself; I went knowing full well they would have a question along the lines of "where are you?"). I'd like to say that this unfortunate matter was ended right there and then, after my teammate responded with "We're playing BASKETBALL!" But they went on to insist that our answer was comparable to both buzzing in after "this author" and naming any author and claiming it was correct at that point and buzzing in after "this author" and naming every author who ever wrote anything, ever, despite the fact that blitzing was entirely irrelevant to the protest. After that, they declared that they'd been to "a lot" of tournaments and that "this is always the rule." They cited three tournaments. One was two years ago, and one was our own house-written tournament. The opposing captain actually insisted briefly that he knew the rules of a tournament we wrote better than we did. As an aside, I am now seriously considering using this exact example in our tournament's rule sheet this year, just to spite them. I mean, to better enlighten the quizbowl community.

Anyway, somewhere around then the ridiculous argument was ended when the TD came in, took one look at the protest (and an equally no-brain, similar protest we had also made), and awarded us all the points. I credit the good call of the Hammond TD as the reason I look back on this with laughter, not a shotgun.

[AKKOLADE]

At various points they asserted "that's the risk you take by buzzing in early" and that "just because you were right when you buzzed doesn't change how the rest of the question went." This, ladies and gentlemen, is why we must kill Chip Beall. But I digress. The other team also stated "I don't know what sport you're playing, but we're playing quizbowl." I feel bound to mention that this team also, during a directed question round category of "answers that don't have R, A, or T in them" (I'm not making this up), answered "trivial pursuit" to a question that asked them what activity they were participating in (note me NOT complaining about the tournament itself; I went knowing full well they would have a question along the lines of "where are you?"). I'd like to say that this unfortunate matter was ended right there and then, after my teammate responded with "We're playing BASKETBALL!" But they went on to insist that our answer was comparable to both buzzing in after "this author" and naming any author and claiming it was correct at that point and buzzing in after "this author" and naming every author who ever wrote anything, ever, despite the fact that blitzing was entirely irrelevant to the protest. After that, they declared that they'd been to "a lot" of tournaments and that "this is always the rule." They cited three tournaments. One was two years ago, and one was our own house-written tournament. The opposing captain actually insisted briefly that he knew the rules of a tournament we wrote better than we did. As an aside, I am now seriously considering using this exact example in our tournament's rule sheet this year, just to spite them. I mean, to better enlighten the quizbowl community.

Anyway, somewhere around then the ridiculous argument was ended when the TD came in, took one look at the protest (and an equally no-brain, similar protest we had also made), and awarded us all the points. I credit the good call of the Hammond TD as the reason I look back on this with laughter, not a shotgun.

I think I love you. Just sayin'.

[bigtrain]

The other team also stated "I don't know what sport you're playing, but we're playing quizbowl."

Thats very ironic considering that this team is from a school that has the Sports Illustrated #2 high school athletic programs in the country and who has had their former basketball coach actually come up in questions. This team once complained to me that NAQT questions are "boring" because "they're too long" and whose coach countered my protest of their verbal conferring with "well they're allowed to talk to eachother on It's Academic!"

[ok_quizbowl]

Best protest I've ever had to adjudicate:

Caney Valley vs. Washington (not Booker T., this is Washington High from south of Norman) in the 2A championship game couple of years ago. After the first quarter I ask if there are any protests, and the Washington coach protests the Caney Valley PENS. CV had three girls starting and all four team members were using bright pink pens with little pink fluffy things on the end of them. The WHS coach protested that the rules say that you must use the OSSAA-provided writing materials and that I should have made CV use regular pencils.

Of course, there is no such rule in OSSAA. I ruled that the CV pens were acceptable, although I did later feel obliged to confirm this with Ginger Coleman.

I'm not biased as a moderator, but I can say I was pretty happy when CV rallied in the fourth quarter and won the state title.

[First Chairman]

I'm just wondering... does anyone (aside from Ohio) have a rule that has a mandated penalty for frivolous protests? Ohio's state championship has a penalty of a forfeit if a protest is ruled against you, thus eliminating frivolous protests but also quelching bonafide protests.

[quizbowllee]

I'm just wondering... does anyone (aside from Ohio) have a rule that has a mandated penalty for frivolous protests? Ohio's state championship has a penalty of a forfeit if a protest is ruled against you, thus eliminating frivolous protests but also quelching bonafide protests.

That sounds way too strict. There have been quite a few protests that I have been involved in in which I was in the right, but was still ruled against. It was bad enough to have been shafted on a legit protest, but to have to forfeit the whole game because of it is absolutely ridiculous.

[Tegan]

I'm just wondering... does anyone (aside from Ohio) have a rule that has a mandated penalty for frivolous protests?

Illinois does not have a rule per se, but there is a specific reference under the "elastic clause for moderators" which addresses repeated and frivolous protests. If in the mod's opinion, a coach is abusing the protest rule to slow down the match, intimidate the other team, etc, the mod may inform the coach that future protests can result in a team penalty (out of the next toss-up) or possible ejection, depending on the nature of the problem. I've never had to exercise any of this in all my years.

[Stained Diviner]

If I was a coach in Ohio, I would lodge a protest against the protest rule. If I lost that protest, I would switch to coaching Math Team.

Worst. Rule. Ever.