Shawn: << I find it a cold reward indeed to be able to get a tossup ahead of another and to bagel the bonus. Now with bouncebacks, I can even get outgunned for my quicker knowledge. Chances of upsets are reduced, GREATLY. Why don't we just decide tournaments ahead of time via computer simulations? >> Well, I disagree that the chances for upsets are reduced that much. The PACE NSC data don't suggest that, provided that the teams play up to their potential. Tell me you weren't at least shocked with Aiken HS's performance at PACE NSC last year when they lost to a "second" team from Troy MI, and this was on reboundable bonuses too. Computer rankings and simulations certainly couldn't have predicted for us how the PACE NSC wound up with the quarterfinal rounds tiebreaker rounds with 6 teams vying for 3 semifinal spots last year. Voicing Samer's opinion as well, whether having a larger probability for upsets is good is arguable, but that's also not the point for playing either. Sure, some of us play to pull the upset, but thinking in this vein already supposes that you are already on the weaker team. If a team is outscored on bonus questions than on tossups, there is to me no difference in how you recall that information, just the rules in how the team must play to recall it. If a team knows more stuff than another team, it ought to win the game. It's not about winning the tossups though getting more tossups is certainly a significant factor in playing. As for the other game format (50 consulting tossup) matches so that everyone competes on the same questions, I personally haven't tried it, but there will be many people who would scream about having consulting tossups simply because you'd render individual stats obsolete. Which is fine with me. :) The only problem is that allowing consultation on tossups doesn't necessarily reward team play. It can reward a team with one dominant uberplayer to win over the proverbial well-balanced team. Nothing necessarily wrong with that except that many of us don't consider that to be cricket. As for dynamic one: one team gets easier boni than the other... one can argue that already happens though not intentionally. In a packet, there are varying degrees of difficulty in each series of bonuses. We've all been in matches where at least in our perception the other team got the easier bonus while we got screwed. I think in the end we are just saying we have different views for what the "point" is in playing the game, and hence, this is the rationale one must have when deciding upon or formulating a game format. Do you reward individual play over team play or vice versa? How do you change that emphasis by introducing reboundable boni, consulting tossups, a written-worksheet round... etc.? If the question is how to keep weaker teams interested in competing longer in a matchup in which they are potentially blown out, then I'm not sure if any improvement to the game would do that. I do say that upsets will happen based on what the questions cover in a said packet; in any given match, who knows. --- etc.
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