A very weird edge case about bouncebacks and replacements, and a proposal to fix it

This forum is for discussing tournament formats, question styles, strategy, and such.
Post Reply
User avatar
CPiGuy
Auron
Posts: 1070
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2016 8:19 pm
Location: Ames, Iowa

A very weird edge case about bouncebacks and replacements, and a proposal to fix it

Post by CPiGuy »

I had meant to make this post shortly after NSC, because it is inspired by a match in which I screwed up on a bounceback and this changed the outcome of the game. The current PACE rules for replacing bouncebacks have the potential to significantly penalize teams for knowing things. Specifically at issue is rule EX.4 (emphasis mine):
PACE Gameplay Rules EX.4 wrote:In the event that the answer of a bonus part is revealed before an expected bounceback
opportunity for the non-controlling team, the scorekeeper shall note the issue and the match will
continue. If, as of the end of regulation play, the amount of points which would have been
available to the losing team due to moderator error could affect the win-loss outcome of the
match, a replacement bonus will be read to the same controlling team (See Section E.10), but
with the following modification: if the controlling team gives correct answers to enough parts of
the replacement bonus to obtain the amount of points that it scored on the original bonus, any
remaining bonus parts thereafter are read immediately to the non-controlling team as though the
controlling team had already answered each such bonus part incorrectly.
What happened in the game I was reading:
-- The controlling team got the easy part of the bonus.
-- The controlling team missed the medium part of the bonus, and I incorrectly revealed the answer, denying a bounceback opportunity.
-- The controlling team missed the hard part of the bonus, and the non-controlling team failed to convert the bounceback.

The game was tied after regulation so a replacement bonus had to be read. The order of the parts in the replacement bonus ended up being critical to the game's outcome.

When I read the replacement bonus, the hard part came first and was missed by both teams. The medium part was converted by the controlling team, meaning that they had met their total 10 points from the original bonus, and the third part would be bounced back by default. The third part was, however, the easy part of the bonus, and was thus converted easily on the bounceback, and so the non-controlling team won.

In my opinion this procedure is palpably unfair -- due to an error by me (the moderator), a much more difficult bounceback was replaced by a significantly easier bounceback. Furthermore, it was clearly in the controlling team's interest to intentionally fail to convert the medium part of the bonus -- even if they knew it -- because converting it would not increase their score and would significantly increase their opponents' ability to increase their score. This is a highly unintuitive perverse incentive that I think is clearly undesirable.

To be clear -- and especially given some of my notable forums posting about weird rules edge cases at national tournaments in the past -- I want to make it known that I don't think there was any sort of malice or incompetence on PACE's part in setting up these rules. This is a sufficiently niche issue that I doubt I would have ever thought of if it hadn't happened to me. I do, however, feel really bad about the fact that my failure to remember a bounceback resulted in this ending to a game, and wanted to bring it up because I think there is actually a pretty simple fix.

Specifically, I think in the future, PACE should label bonus parts for the NSC as [H], [M], and [E] (a step many sets have in fact already taken). This would allow the bounceback replacement procedure to be considerably simplified -- if a team was unfairly deprived of a bounceback opportunity on the medium part of a bonus, they could be read a replacement bonus in which specifically the medium part was bounced back to them. (If the medium part didn't come first, the other parts would likely still need to be read in case they provided context, but the moderator could reveal the answers immediately.)

For non-NSC tournaments that use bouncebacks, I would also endorse such a rule. However since such tournaments do not usually write their own sets, I would also encourage a provision to be added to the rules to allow a protest committee to adjudge which parts of the original and replacement bonuses were the easy, medium, and hard parts, and perform the replacement accordingly. Obviously this judgement would not always be perfect but I suspect it would still be significantly more fair than the current situation.
Conor Thompson (he/it)
Bangor High School '16
University of Michigan '20
Iowa State University '25
Tournament Format Database
User avatar
Atlashill
Wakka
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2014 4:52 pm
Location: Sedalia, MO

Re: A very weird edge case about bouncebacks and replacements, and a proposal to fix it

Post by Atlashill »

I'll start by noting this item in PACE rules that I hadn't previously seen practiced:
PACE Gameplay Rules EX.4, emphasis added wrote:In the event that the answer of a bonus part is revealed before an expected bounceback opportunity for the non-controlling team, the scorekeeper shall note the issue and the match will continue.
At regular season invitationals I've staffed, when a bonus part was spoiled, we immediately threw out the entire bonus and replaced it, with any scores and opportunities to answer retained from the spoilt bonus. As I've put it on my rules handout at tournaments that use bouncebacks:
Example on handling spoilt bonus sets with bouncebacks wrote:Example: the team answering a tossup answered the first bonus part correct and second part incorrect, but the moderator reveals the answer before the rebounding team has a chance to respond. Both teams will receive the replacement bonus. The first team will receive a minimum of 10 points, even if it scores no points on the replacement bonus, and a maximum of 20. The rebounding team will only have a chance to claim a maximum of 20 points, as the first team is assured of 10 points. If the first team answers the first two bonus parts correctly, because they are unable to claim 30 points, the last part will only be asked to the rebounding team.
Replacing the bonus immediately would have preserved both teams' potential to score 20 points, rather than having the last part of the already spoilt bonus limit both teams' opportunities. Ideally the packet would have a backup tossup/bonus combo at the end, which would also cut down on the time waiting to break a tie.

However, if PACE prefers to simply zero out spoilt bonus parts (which could marginally adversely affect a team's placement after the prelims, as PACE goes straight to PPB for reseeding), I should note that we have already have a provision in the MSHSAA state format, where individual bonus parts are required to be replaced rather than the entire set, absent of difficulty. I'd honestly prefer this rule to go away, as that's real wonky to go from reading one bonus part about the Berlin Conference to the remaining two parts about the Han Dynasty. That said, such a rule would be far less wonky were bonus part difficulties labelled, and I agree that the suggestion that we might want to make this standard going forward. Such a rules rewrite should require the lead-in to be read prior to the specific bonus part.
Kyle Hill—Liberty (Mo.) '03—Truman State '07
Moderator for hire based in Sedalia, Mo.
User avatar
CPiGuy
Auron
Posts: 1070
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2016 8:19 pm
Location: Ames, Iowa

Re: A very weird edge case about bouncebacks and replacements, and a proposal to fix it

Post by CPiGuy »

Atlashill wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 12:09 pm I'll start by noting this item in PACE rules that I hadn't previously seen practiced:
PACE Gameplay Rules EX.4, emphasis added wrote:In the event that the answer of a bonus part is revealed before an expected bounceback opportunity for the non-controlling team, the scorekeeper shall note the issue and the match will continue.
At regular season invitationals I've staffed, when a bonus part was spoiled, we immediately threw out the entire bonus and replaced it, with any scores and opportunities to answer retained from the spoilt bonus.
I do actually like this provision of the rules -- spoilt bouncebacks are fairly rare and bounceback replacement is onerous, so it makes sense to treat it like a protest and only replace it if needed.

Also, PACE reseeds by PPB, which does not include bounceback points, so this doesn't affect reseeding.
Conor Thompson (he/it)
Bangor High School '16
University of Michigan '20
Iowa State University '25
Tournament Format Database
User avatar
CPiGuy
Auron
Posts: 1070
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2016 8:19 pm
Location: Ames, Iowa

Re: A very weird edge case about bouncebacks and replacements, and a proposal to fix it

Post by CPiGuy »

Well, abolishing bouncebacks was certainly a straightforward way to resolve this issue.

Yes, I know my post probably wasn't responsible for it. But I'll take the credit anyway :)
Conor Thompson (he/it)
Bangor High School '16
University of Michigan '20
Iowa State University '25
Tournament Format Database
Post Reply