Playing under a pseudonym

This term is largely self-explanatory: Sometimes, quizbowl teams play under pseudonyms, using fake names in hopes of preventing their schools from realizing they are violating school rules and/or in hopes of reducing or eliminating their school's liability for problems at tournaments at which they are improperly supervised. Occasionally the purpose is just to be "funny" (in this case, an in-joke of some kind is often involved).

In the early and mid-2000s, sometimes individual players played under pseudonyms to be "funny", to help facilitate cheating, or for other reasons. Sometimes player pseudonyms were rotated among teammates within a tournament to render individual statistics irrelevant. Both of these practices have largely died out. Some members of the QB community dislike/oppose the use of pseudonyms by individual players because it damages the completeness and reliability of certain players' total career statistics.

Generally speaking, both of these practices are considered hallmarks of bad quizbowl (although the use of pseudonyms by individuals is generally looked down upon more than teams doing it).