The Quizbowl Resource Center

http://www.jeopardy.com/announcement_co ... 080327.php

OK, so I see that College Jeopardy is at Wisconsin-Madison this year, so I think to myself, "Hmm, that would be fun to go." So I look at the date... April 11th and 12th. That's brilliant. By holding the tournament on the date of ICT, they manage to find a way to avoid quizbowlers without just saying, "We don't like it when Cliff Galiher takes our money and then does well the in ToC."

But congrats to hug girl Meredith Johnson. Are there any other quizbowlers on the list that I just don't recognize?

I dunno, do you really think Jeopardy cares that much about when ICT is? I mean, I'm willing to believe that it was just an unintentional scheduling and doesn't have as much to do with Cliff Galiher or whatever.

No Charlie it's a conspiracy. Shun the non-believer etc etc

Ridiculous thread spotted.

WOAH! A Mississippi State student who ISNT in the quiz bowl club in going on Jeopardy!?
I better message him quick and sign him up...

I'm not shocked that there are not any more quizbowlers than Meredith competing this year. I am sure that more quizbowl players were in the talent pool, but weren't selected for various reasons. I am also sure that the Jeopardy people do some background research about potential players, which is expected for any game show. Also, the questions about any affiliation with quizbowl and people who have been on Jeopardy that you know might also be a factor.

Best of luck to Meredith in a couple weeks.

According to CBI's website, Tara Franey is a member of Michigan State's "College Bowl and maybe one circuit tournament a year" team. So that's two, I suppose.

I'd bet that circuit tournament is TTGT11, which I still don't understand why Michigan State goes to almost exclusively.

I'm serious, though... Jeopardy DOES make actual efforts to avoid people associated with quizbowl. On the form you have to fill out at your audition, right between "do you know anyone who works for Sony" and "have you ever met Trebek," there's a spot for "are you in any way affiliated with (or have you played a tournament) run by NAQT."

Yes, it's not a Cliff Galiher issue (if anything, it's a issue,) but it's a known fact on the Jeopardy circuit that they try to avoid quizbowlers.

This stigma isn't as big for the tournaments, but it's definitely true - and at the teen/college level, the quizbowlers do tend to dominate.

cornfused wrote:I'm serious, though... Jeopardy DOES make actual efforts to avoid people associated with quizbowl. On the form you have to fill out at your audition, right between "do you know anyone who works for Sony" and "have you ever met Trebek," there's a spot for "are you in any way affiliated with (or have you played a tournament) run by NAQT."

Yes, it's not a Cliff Galiher issue (if anything, it's a issue,) but it's a known fact on the Jeopardy circuit that they try to avoid quizbowlers.

This stigma isn't as big for the tournaments, but it's definitely true - and at the teen/college level, the quizbowlers do tend to dominate.

Yes, they do. But the thought of scheduling College Jeopardy against ICT intentionally is pretty absurd and that's what people were reacting to. For one, as you mentioned they have better ways of screening out quizbowlers, and it would also assume that people would choose ICT over getting at least a free $5000 (and likely more for decent qb players) and a chance to appear on national television.

The show judges potential contestants by all kinds of criteria. Over the years there have been a lot of quiz bowlers on the regular show and a lot of them haven't done well. I am not convinced the J! people avoid quiz bowlers for any one reason. It would be pretty boring if there were nothing but quiz bowl players on the show so part of it is probably to make sure they get a variety of people. If they do avoid quiz bowlers for their quiz bowl talent then that's stupid because quiz bowl and J! are two very different things and being good at one doesn't mean you will be good at the other.

MiltonPlayer47 wrote:quiz bowl and J! are two very different things and being good at one doesn't mean you will be good at the other.

Just ask Kevin Marshall

Hey, Steve Hanley's on this board? Hi.

Anyway, I'm not saying quizbowl skill = Jeopardy skill. But taking last year's Teen Tournament as an example: there were four quizbowl players: Amy (Aiken, SC,) Kriti (Centennial, MD,) Meryl (Livington, NJ,) and myself (Greg, Maine South, IL.)

Amy was beaten by Kriti and eliminated in the quarterfinals, $3721 out of making the semifinals as a wildcard.
Kriti was eliminated in the single-elim semifinals by me.
I finished in second.
Meryl finished in first.

In other words, quizbowl players finished within $3721 of a perfect performance (depending of course on which semi Amy would've been put into.)

---

I'll admit, though, that the scheduling against ICT thing was unintentional - that was only half-serious. I started this thread mostly to find out if any of the players other than Meredith were at least partly active on the quizbowl circuit.

The issue isn't so much about avoiding quiz players as it is that Jeopardy is beyond paranoid about question security. The reason for "are you affiliated with NAQT?" is probably that since writes for NAQT, you might know Ken personally, and he might have told you some of the answers that could somehow appear in your Jeopardy appearance. If this sounds like a massive unrealistic stretch, I did say "beyond paranoid" --and if they also ask, "Have you ever played an NAQT event?", I can't defend that .

But if you've read Ken's book, he talks about having said little to Alex off-camera even during 75 games, as they keep Alex sequestered from the players--and even from the clues as long as possible. So personally, I think it's only a security issue.

Yeah probably not. Keep up the bad work though!

Bryce, does Ken now write for the show? That's the only way your response makes sense...

Unless you think Jeopardy! repeats questions, and that some that appeared on the Jennings episodes (which were also on national TV) might recur. But unlike crappy HS question writers, I don't believe Jeopardy! uses repeats.

Jennings is not a writer for Jeopardy!

I don't know if it's intentional, but if you watch J! religiously you will see a lot of the same stuff come up. Here are examples of a couple of Final Jeopardy clues:

http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?g ... irn+island

http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?g ... irn+island

Heh, if question security were a problem then jeopardy would have shut down that website a long time ago. Nicely played, Avery!

Yep, every Jeopardy! question from the last...while... not sure of the specifics... is documented online.

They repeat stuff, sure: I have yet to see a question on Vitamin K that doesn't refer to it as "special."

They have a student from HCASC (Gabrielle McMahan).

Ah, but has she ever played quizbowl?

wd4gdz wrote:

MiltonPlayer47 wrote:quiz bowl and J! are two very different things and being good at one doesn't mean you will be good at the other.

Just ask Kevin Marshall

Does that mean I suck at Jeopardy! or quiz bowl?

(I'm guessing the latter.)

Caltech Quizbowl's Brandon Hensley will be competing on College Jeopardy.