Re: Coin-Flip Clue

• From: shamsoftabriz
• Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 20:17:45 -0700
• Message-ID: <000TRICEP.001GRU359.12170551-quizbowl_at_...>

I agree pretty much with Dave and Adam's disdain
for coin-flip questions, but people will probably
keep writing them anyway. IMO, here are some things to
think about when they come up:

I'll use Dave's
original example of Ismene or Antigone

1. What has
the rest of the round been like? Have the first 6
tossups been painfully bloody obvious?? If so, chances
are the answer is Antigone, which is a somewhat more
accesible answer than Ismene IMO (title character,
etc.)
But if the previous tossups have all been utterly
unanswerable, perhaps you're better off going with
Ismene.

2. Who are your opponents? If you are playing the
Legion of Superheroes, it doesn't really matter what you
do if you go ahead and answer, and you might be
better off letting one of them flip the coin, since they
are better than you anyway, and a question where you
have a 50/50 chance is probably better than the 10%
chance you would normally have on a given tossup against
such immortals. Besides, if one of them negs, all the
better...negs can sometimes discombobulate (read: piss off)
even the best players...sit back and hope they lose 5,
you gain 10+a bonus and they are whining about the
binary buzz.
BUT, if you are playing a bunch of raw
turnips, then by all means go right in with Antigone. A
bad team has probably HEARD of Antigone, but probably
not Ismene, so even if you are wrong with Antigone,
chances are they will not know Ismene.

So, against
better teams sit back, against poor teams go in with the
more obvious answer, and against teams about as good
as you...mmmph...flip a coin! :p

- Guy