A fair protest resolution?

[DZ_LAMP]

During the quarterfinals of this past weekend's CHS invitational tournament, a questionable resolution to a protest was made. At the end of the game, LAMP and Dorman A were tied but Dorman had lodged a protest on one of the bonuses. Before time was up and the answer was prompted for, the captain of LAMP said "Re...White Dwarf." Because the first thing out of the captain's mouth was "Re," the answer was determined to be wrong and Dorman won by 10 points. My question is: Was this a fair call? My contention for LAMP is that the captain was not prompted and could have still been conferring when he studdered and said the wrong syllable. I thought that giving both teams a tie-breaker question would have been a fairer way to resolve the tie.

I have asked this question not to bash on Dorman or the tournament, which was excellent in every way, but because it really sucked to lose on a lousy protest.

[Tegan]

Going strictly off of what you said, I would not have accepted or prompted. "Re.." pretty clearly to me was "Red Dwarf", and I think you gotta take it. Its not like he was saying "Errr... or "Ummmm" or something like that.

I'm also not sure exactly what format this was under, so I'm not sure what the "in writing rules are". I always hate to see maches decided on technicalities, but these rules have sane reasons for being there. Without having been there, the player could have seen the expression on the moderators face, realized "Red" was wrong, and switched to "white" on a dime.

For what its worth, if there was a rebound on the bonus, and the moderator hemmed and hawed over whether to accept the answer, the team that initially answered might have protested that the moderator "gave away" the answer, and ask for a replacement on those grounds (depending on the local rules).

[First Chairman]

Again, I don't know what the strictness of an answer is in these circumstances, so I'm going by my own immediate response.

A moderator has full discretion to accept any syllable from the mouth of a captain as an official answer, including any "um's". Usually though, I usually give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to responses. If a student said, "Ruh... white", I accept "White" because I can NOT rule on my assumption of what the captain intended to say ("Red") if he/she did not actually say it. If the captain said, "Red, no white!!" then depending on the rule, this is a clearer situation in which moderator has discretion to take the first thing said instead of the corrected answer (unless so dictated in the rules).

[quizbowllee]

I would've ruled in favor of LAMP. It's obvious that the captain knew the answer and just began - and stopped himself - from misspeaking.

BTW - being tied with Dorman A is pretty impressive.

[NoahMinkCHS]

It's hard to say without knowing the exact tournament rules, but it seems to be fairly standard practice that the first answer clearly directed at the reader (prompted or not) is the team's answer. So if your only contention was that he might still have been conferring, I would rule against you.

But then the question could be, how much exactly did the captain say? A syllable makes it wrong, but mere hesitation/"um" type-thing would be OK (as far as I'm concerned). That's something that I'm not sure anybody can answer with perfect knowledge after the fact, so I would yield to the reader's discretion.

But again, I wasn't there, so it's hard for me or anyone else on here to judge beyond saying how we might rule on a similar situation. I think it's an interesting situation to discuss theoretically, though. I can't blame you for wanting a second opinion on such a close call.

[quizbowllee]

So... if a team said "Red... no, I mean, white" and the answer is "red," do they get it right?

[cvdwightw]

I think the issue here is that an answer was accepted as directed before the captain was prompted for an answer. If "white dwarf" was directed at the moderator, while the first syllable was not, I would say that "white dwarf" was the directed answer and award points. If "Re-" was also judged to be directed at the moderator, then it's wrong. If none of this was directed at the moderator, then it would still be considered conferring. I can think of no other scenarios that could arise.

Based on the description of the protest, I am inclined to believe that the moderator accepted "white dwarf" as the directed answer and awarded points, only to have them taken away by protest. Given that there is no discrepancy between the answer on the page and the answer accepted as directed, this instance smells entirely of moderator discretion, and therefore should not be protestable regardless of whether the moderator decided "white dwarf" (correct) or "Re-white dwarf" (incorrect) was the directed answer.

This would have been far more hilarious if a non-TD had made the decision and then compared himself to Zeus to justify his decision.

[Chico the Rainmaker]

This would have been far more hilarious if a non-TD had made the decision and then compared himself to Zeus to justify his decision.

You're bringing back some bad memories here....

[Tegan]

So... if a team said "Red... no, I mean, white" and the answer is "red," do they get it right?

I dunno because I don't know the rules here .....

In Illinois, a couple of years ago, we put in a clarifying rule and interpretation that says that the moderator needs to consider the entier answer ..... so in our state, we wouldn't take the answer under this circumstance. The issue is that mods need to be ready to judge quickly and not sit there and "entice" players into offering more information that invalidates the answer.

[grapesmoker]

This may not be the most popular view, but I'm personally in favor of allowing a player to "catch" themselves and correct their answer partway through. So if someone was in the middle of saying "Red Dwarf" but caught themeselves before completing the answer and went, "no, I mean 'White Dwarf'" I would be in favor of accepting that. Of course, I don't know what the rules are in this particular case but I don't really see any good reason to insist that the first wrong syllable to come out of a person's mouth invalidates the answer. Sometimes people stumble and I don't think they should be penalized for that if they are able to save it halfway through.

[Tegan]

very bad double post ......

[jrbarry]

Here is the rule that the Chattahooche Tournament played under on that point. (It is the GATA Georgia state rule)

"The first piece of information given by a recognized player will be considered his/her answer. No player will be allowed to change an answer even as that answer is being delivered. Readers may choose to prompt a player for more information, but the decision of the reader regarding the prompt is not protestable."

A close reading/interpretation of that rule would suggest the protest was decided correctly. Typically, as played in our State Tournament, that rule would be interpreted to mean that a player must stick with the first WORD he/she utters and the question we would have to decide is whether the player said the entire word RED or just said part of that word before finishing with White.

I am not a "Pharisee" and would probably have ruled against the protest IF the player did not fully pronounce the word red. But, I tend to NOT call games closely, even crucial games in playoffs.

That kind of protest makes it a tough call.

I wonder...did the reader decide that protest or did the Tournament Director?

[BuzzerZen]

As a reader, I don't think I've ever considered a partially-uttered word to be part of the first provided answer proper. I also allow non-verbal utterances to be discounted as long as the answer starts before two seconds have elapsed and contains no additional pauses for thought. I probably would have ruled "Re...White Dwarf" acceptable, whereas I would have rejected "Red--no! White Dwarf!"

[Matt Weiner]

I'll always let players correct themselves before I say anything in the absence of a rule, but the rule here seems to be pretty straightforward to the contrary.

[First Chairman]

I'm with Evan too. The question is whether a syllable would constitute "information" (agreeing with Matt). However, I would agree that it would fall to reader discretion, but the GATA rule certainly would side for the protest to stand. Again, the context is also an issue. I certainly would be more strict if I prompted the captain for an answer, ... but hey...

[CHSplayerRohan]

at the University of Mississippi Academic Invitational Tournament, the answer book had transitional elements as the answer. Clinton team A said transition elements. They ruled that incorrect. I really fail to understand the difference between the two. And that Clinton lost by only 3 points, so that question would have won it for them.

[First Chairman]

I would have a problem with that ruling.