Patrick- Don't feel bad about playing by the rules. What I believe is unsportsmanlike is the tournament organizers changing the rules after the fact. Let me expound on why your strategy was not unsportsmanlike: If it were unsportsmanlike, then several commonly accepted sports strategies would also be unsportsmanlike: Basketball: If Team A is up by three with very little time on the clock, A will often foul Team B before they can shoot a three-pointer, as B only gets two free throws then and it is highly unlikely they will be able to tie. Football: If Team A is up by 6 with seconds on the clock, and they have fourth down near their own end-zone, Team A will often choose not to punt but instead take a safety, preferably running the clock out at the same time. There is even an analogy from Quiz Bowl: This happened to my team in 2001 at the Illinois State Championships. We were down by 2 before the last question. We buzzed in and missed the toss-up. The other team then employed a common strategy: They decided not to buzz in, no matter whether any of them knew the answer or not, as we might be able to still win the game on the bonus bounce-back. I don't believe any of these strategies constitute unsportsmanlike conduct. It constitutes teams knowing the rules really well (and possibly exploiting loop holes that the rules writers hadn't considered...) Where the problem lies is in the rules: The rule that nobody else can buzz only makes sense if there are only two teams in a toss-up only match and you lose as many points on a wrong answer as you would gain if you answered correctly. Otherwise this rule is unfair and should never have been put in. But the rule cannot be changed after the fact... that's definitely against everything this country stands for- life, liberty and the pursuit of winning in any way the rules allow! I hope you can sleep better now! Phil -----Original Message----- From: Patrick King [mailto:pakman044_at_...] Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 7:10 AM To: quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com Subject: [quizbowl] Sportsmanship or Legal Strategy? Thursday, I was participating in a competition by a technology company that had a quiz bowl event. The final game was 4-team game. Naturally, I was in it. The scoring was: 1st half: 10 tossups, +5/-0/-5 negs. 2nd half: 10 tossup/bonusses, +5/-0/-5 tossups, +9/-0 bonii. The important rule was that only one could team could give an answer for a question (if they missed, no one else could try to answer). Going into the last question, my team was up 20-14, with the other 2 teams immaterial. So what I decided to do was to interrupt, make a decent guess, and if I got it wrong, we still win because our score would only drop to 15, with no one else being able to answer. I don't think anyone actually could've gotten the question right, but after I admitted that that was what I had done, the organizers decided to do one more final question (although they did not restore the 5 points to us), which was immaterial, and so we won 15-14. My question is, was this a legitimate strategy or was this unsportsmanlike? I've been pummeling my brain for the answer to this question, and I still sort've feel bad about it. Comments welcomed. Patrick King __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more http://tax.yahoo.com Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT <http://rd.yahoo.com/M=245454.3115308.4434529.1728375/D=egroupweb/S=1705 059196:HM/A=1457554/R=0/*http:/ipunda.com/clk/beibunmaisuiyuiwabei> <http://us.adserver.yahoo.com/l?M=245454.3115308.4434529.1728375/D=egrou pmail/S=:HM/A=1457554/rand=668117358> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: quizbowl-unsubscribe_at_yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> . [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:47 AM EST EST