Stat74 wrote:Live blog:
Charter has played one round, and I've already protested twice, equal to about the number of times I protested through the entire HSNCT and NSC.
"Jonathan" was not OK for a literary chracter named "Jonathan Livingston", a question that did not ask for the last name.
"Polar graphs" was not OK for "polar curves".
Our lightning round was 'splendid'. All the answers rhymed with that word and the category was appropriate for the middle school tournament I write.
I am already more mad than I care to be, and we won 405-225.
If this semantics game continues, I will be actively looking for a way for us to divorce the "college money" from "go to Chip nationals" that comes with the TV tournament.
And our moderator for this round? The esteemed winner of who wants to be a game show host. Her response for denying my protests is "that what's on the paper".
More fun to follow!
I was at the rounds from 1:00 through the 3:30 sessoin, at which point I'd had more than enough Chip-tastica. This did include the two Wilmington Charter contest, and I can vouch for the consternation (and the justification for such) by the team's coach.
Here are my notes (and I'm assuming it's okay now to chat about questions on the main forum because they're not going to be reused, assuming there isn't somebody desperate enough to use the NAC questions for a "mirror" tournament):
I passed right by Mr. Laudermith as I was entering the Holiday Inn, bedrenched with sweat even from the short walk from the Cumberland CTA station to the hotel, but I don't think he noticed me.
1:00 round: The entire list of cheeses in the Monty Python "Cheese Shop" sketch was listed as the clue.
A blatant swerve in stating that chimpanzees and bonobos shared a common ancestor in the first sentence, and the in the second sentence, asked what river separated the two (or something like that). Uhh, yeah. [EDIT: because this sentence didn't come out quite right the first time around]
A blatant hose on the Apostle's Creed question--"Give the name IN LATIN" (Credo).
1:30 round: Concur with what was mentioned in the previous post.
You know, if you're smrt enough to know the ten words in the English language that rhyme with splendid, I say that pack of choco cigarettes is -well- earned.
The 60 seconds category for the other team was equally as lame--"Modern Language", with the initials for each two-word phrase given as the clue.
2:00 session, in Chip's room, St. Thomas from Minnesota v. Mannheim Township:
Actual question: "Define conscription".
Chip rattled off the, um, impressive history of both the schools in the NAC prior to the game. Chip also soliliquyed prior to the fourth quarter about how he was at Texas Stadium in 1977 to see the Denver Broncos and the Dallas Cowboys and how that was a rematch to the eventual Super Bowl, and how perhaps this game would be a rematch to a potential NAC final.
There was some question in the warmup round which stumped both teams, and so he prompted the audience, and somebody got it.
Now, actually, I don't mind that so much, except the policy about prompting audience participation is not well-defined, as on the next question, some coach just sitting in had a question about the audio tossup (whether "bass" would be accepted for "Double Bass") and Chip advised that that's an audience no-no, though at the end of the period he did confirm "Bass" would have been accepted.
And I'm sure the Wilmington Charter peeps will be most pleased to know that Chip accepted "Quantum Physics" for a question whose given answer was "Quantum Mechanics."
Holy bad question, Batman: "What is the traditional English spelling of 'Medieval'"?
........significa, not trivia..........
Holy lazy question, Batman: "What is the official langage of the Sudan?"
2:30 round: Holman A-Center Grove
On the 60 second round, the category was "Country where the film was set", and a team gave "Italy" for "Gladiator", and that was ruled incorrect. The other team on the bounceback, confused by the illogic, gave "Greece", and that was incorrect as well. "Roman Empire" was the given answer, but ......... well, who knows.
3:00 round: Hamilton SE (which is apparently a north suburb of Indianapolis) vs. Plano
Leadin to question in the Stump the Expr3ts round: "Which wacky world leader...."
EDIT: FWIW the answer was "Ahmadinejad". The mod. in Superior C (was that Brick Barrientos?) commented, upon one of the teams guessing incorrectly on, I think "Fidel Castro" or some such, that it was in fact "The
other wacky world leader".
3:30 round: Mannheim Township v. Wilmington Charter
(in which "Township" won 320-305 on getting the last tossup of the match...)
I don't have any notes on this one because it was actually pretty well-played, and Mannheim is a solid team that, on a very cursory glance, I think could get at least into the playoff elimination rounds at the HSNCT.
And the questions, in and of themselves, were probably the best of the six rounds that I witnessed this afternoon--but even still, far too many "buzzer-race" type showdowns on essentially one-clue questions.
But this game shows the inherent flaws of the Four Quarter system much more explicitly than any other I observed.
Witness the 60 second round, in which the categories were New York (I forget if it was explicitly just "New York" or "New York City"), Texas, Hawaii, and Mystery Category.
Mannheim Township, down 120-105 after the bonus rounds, has first choice, and they take New York, and it's basically 10 questions about "In which Borough...". MT gets 80, and WC gets 10 on the bounceback.
Now, basically, the point at which match was decided was when WC went for "Mystery Category", instead of Texas or Hawaii. It's one thing for a game-show to be decided on the mercurial aspect of category choice by a contestant. It's another thing for a Quiz Bowl match to be decided on such a choice, insofar as the legitimate Quiz Bowl world has evolved far beyond Game Show luck-of-the-draw aspects.
So the "Mystery Category" is "The Year 2007". It was much tougher than the layup-drill that the Five Boroughs category was for Mannheim Township, and Charter only got 50, and I think MT got 20 on bounceback.
So that's a 40 point swing, totally due to luck-of-the-draw, in a format where trying to -minimize- and not -enhance- the luck-of-the-draw aspect is a very central issue, in a game decided by 15 points.
And so the match ended, MT won, and I was left wondering, "Exactly how does this 320 for Mannheim Township and 305 for Wilmington Charter assess, with anything close to what would be an acceptable degree of accuracy to those experienced with Good Quizbowl, really how good MT and WC are as teams??"
This is not to take away from Mannheim Township, and their own players, whom I'm sure have put in much work themselves. I just wonder, from a game theory standpoint, that if WC had tanked a 10 point question (and let MT score) in the Warmup Round, they would have trailed going into the 60 seconds round, and almost for sure would have chosen for themselves the New York category, and would have gotten at least 80, maybe 90 on it.
Just from a game theory standpoint, and not even considering the quality or lack thereof of the questions, the design of the four quarters format is simply, undeniably, and ultimately confusing and bizarre.