CP2 Review

mikeburger5 · Tue, 18 Jul 2000 08:17:51 -0700

I generally believe one should wait 48 hours
before posting a review of a tournament to let any
seething rage or heat-of-the-moment thoughts to escape and
let a more level-headed and fair examination be
disseminated. That run-on sentence behind us, I can now vent my
spleen ("spleen" Copyright 1984 CBCI) in regards to
Capitol Punishment II:

1. For the time frame
given, the tournament was on time. However, starting a
tournament at 2 PM is a bad thing.

2. The
bounceback/sink was not a good idea. For those of you who are
unfamiliar with what occurred, if you received a tossup, you
heard the lead-in for a bonus, and then had the
opportunity to decide whether to sink it (and take a 0) or
hear it and risk giving points to the other team. This
did not reward knowledge, which I think is the point
of the game. In one instance, we negged a question
yet received 30 points off the other team's bonus. In
another instance in which we were behind, we had to sink
a bonus late because we were afraid to give points
to the other team, even though we won the tossup. I
think we calculated that we ended up being a donor team
(giving more points to the other team on bonuses than we
received on theirs) just because we answered more
tossups.

3. The questions were adequate at best. You can't
complain about the consistency, because they were very
consistent. Most sports questions were straight out of an
almanac. Most movie questions followed a MadLib format
(Released by [studio], this [year] film was directed by
[blank] and starred [blank]). Most music questions
required a knowledge of lyrics before a giveaway.
Basically, there was a sameness to the questions that made
the games more tedious as the day continued.
Pronounciation guides are good as well. My team lost a tossup
because a name was butchered beyond
recognition.

4. The distribution was off. Mike Burger is about to
make the following statements. Yes, Mike Burger is
about to make the following statements. There was too
much hockey (at least 2 per packet). There was no auto
racing. There wasn't enough lit.

5. The staff, for
the most part, was great. Tempers started to go quick
towards the end, but that was understandable considering
the conditions. The complicated scoring system seemed
to tax the abilities of some of the
scorekeepers.

6. The complicated standings format turned out to be
pointless. There are reasons why most competitions use wins
and losses as the only determination. The object of
quiz bowl is to win the game.

7. The pyramid
was a little off. The power marks seemed arbitrary at
best. And, for those of you who will be writing trash
packets for the Burns or some future tournament, the
following are examples of bad lead-ins:
--He's married
to Sarah Jessica Parker...
--Joel Queneville is
not that well known...
--This Heisman Trophy
winner from Navy didn't go directly into the
NFL...
--She donated another trophy when this New York
Ranger...

This wasn't a common occurrence, but just enough to be
annoying. Two of the above occurred in the
finals.

Overall, I had a good time. I would come again. Shawn, for
the amount of work he assumed, did fantastic.
However, there were too many extras that were trying to be
attempted that prevented an OK tournament from being a
great tournament.

--Mike Burger