In the interest of qb-related theory discussions, I thought I'd submit what I think would be a solid concept in the realm of quizbowl variants. I can see it being a good idea for singles tournaments or for teams that are stuck in no-quiz-land. I apologize in advance if someone's already attempted this and thought it was really lame or whatever. One team/player is read an entire packet, with the timing of any buzzes (specifically on what word they buzzed) noted, along with whether or not the buzz was correct (duh). With enough teams hearing the same packet(s), a significant amount of head-to-head results can be (more or less) simulated by comparing the results from each team's hearing to those of every other team. As expected, a team that correctly answered a tossup at an earlier point/word than another would get the points for that question. The actual logistics of which bonus a team gets would need to be decided, although giving them the next "unheard" one from the packet seems to make sense. Doing head-to-head simulations could be very easily done with the help of a spreadsheet, and with some fancy formula work (paging Matt Bruce), results of these matches could be spat out immediately upon stats entry. One slight problem with this idea is that, if the opp. negs, a team almost always waits until the end of the question before buzzing in. However, since the solitary method doesn't let you know whether or not your opponent negged, it's quite possible that two or more teams neg on the same question. To remedy this, a team that negs during their hearing could also be given a chance to answer after the question is finished. While they'd have the advantage of knowing one answer that is incorrect, I believe this to be of negligible value, especially because, while they know their answer is incorrect, they do not know what their opponent negged with (unless the two are the same, which would be ideal). In other words, if Team W negged at word 14 and Team X negged at word 19, during their simulated match, Team W would get hit with the neg. If, during their hearing, Team X knew the answer by the end of the question, they would receive ten points and a bonus question. If Team X didn't know it...well, then Team W would just get a neg. Two other nuisances come to mind in this system. One is the obvious case of two teams buzzing in at what (on paper) looks like the same time. I'm not sure what would be appropriate recourse in that case. The other nuisance is more strategic...like, when playing a team that you feel doesn't know anything about a certain category, you may sit on an answer much longer than if you were playing a more capable team. This could either cause teams to get tossups at a later point during their hearing than they would have in a regular game vs. a good team OR could have them buzzing in early with an incorrect answer, thereby giving the team that hardly knew that subject an easy -5/+10 swing during the simulated match between those two. This last hypothetical could legitimately be considered an aspect of strategy, IMHO. I suppose any solitary quizbowl would make "reading" the opponents difficult, but that's not the most reliable indicator of much of anything anyways. OTOH, the fabulous concept of bragging-rights would take on even further meaning. I think even bonus-laming could be worked into the system without much difficulty. I think the advantages of this concept are plentiful. Most notably, there is the vast amount of matchups that one could simulate through the use of an individual packet. This would soften the hurt felt by a good team who loses to an inferior team on a packet that happens to be right up the inferior team's alley; the good team would still probably beat most of the other squads in the tournament, and losing one simulated match isn't nearly as bad as losing a regular match. Taking it all into account, I think this idea, when using a few superbly-written pyramidal and balanced packets, would be wonderful for seeding-rounds of tournaments. Moreover, teams with no opponents around could conceivably get their performance on a packet and compare it with others from around the globe. Yeah, ok, so it's not quite the same as playing in a tournament, but it might be cool to compare results from hearings, even if just for grins. I submit that the above concept and the resulting simulations would be 98+% reflective of a head-to-head matchup on those same questions by two participating teams, and thereby makes it a valuable (and viable?) concept in quizbowl. Anyone have any comments? Jason P.S. I realize the above is sort of reminiscent of the program that David Levinson (I believe) wrote that would reward points based on the number of words a player needed to get a correct answer. As such, it's very possible that this solitary concept has already been done. If so, how'd it go? P. P. S. Down with 5-10-15. Up with 5-10-20-30.
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