Me: Part 2

camthecheater · Thu, 08 Nov 2001 15:11:28 -0800

Third, although the ACF apologists reading this
will probably be
offended, ACF really does cater to
my style of playing. Although it
is true that the
two tournaments I excelled in were played at home,
it
is more important (at least in my eyes), that both
tournaments were
ACF. If I cheated, then I did so by
taking advantage of a system that
panders to my sort
of knowledge. And again not trying to incite
the
ACF people, this method is, quite frankly,
list-memorization. As
anyone who knows me will tell you, I've
written a simplistic Java code
that tests Work-Author
relationships. I have roughly 2,500 works on
the list, most
of which I can identify on the spot. ACF often
begins
questions "Although earlier works include BLAH, BLAH, and
BLAH", of
which one of the three is very often on my
list. I find that NAQT
more often starts with
stories from the author's childhood and the
like.
Clearly, these are less memorizable. I have similar lists
for
world capitals, almost all cabinet members, famous
dates, etc. I can
even often get the "This river is
the 7th longest in the world"-type
questions
(Lena, which appeared in last year's ACF packets)
because of
list memorization. NAQT rarely gives me the
chance. For a last
defense on this topic, I can only
offer that you ask my teammates. It
is pretty
standard knowledge on my team that at practice, I will
score
3 to 5 tossups on an ACF packet, and only 1 or 2 on
a NAQT packet (and
-3 to -5 on a trash packet).
These scores are not unusual for me on
ACF packets,
especially considering that I had heard MANY of
the
questions the day before in playing old ACF packets:
Naipaul, the
Creek War, Pelops, and seveal others began
exactly the same in
previous years' packets. Look it
up. (Note: I mean no offense to the
editors by
this last comment. I think the packets were
well-edited
and, in general, free from repeats and errors. It's
hard to catch
them all, though, and maybe those
questions didn't get used in the
tuornament last time?).
And, if you must disturb them, use my
teammates as
"character witnesses" to my consistent trent to be
WAY
better at ACF than at any other format. For what it's
worth,
tournaments classified as "easier" than others (by people who
claim to
know what they're talking about) are often
more difficult for me. I
grew up in Canada, so was
just exposed to way different kinds of
information
(news, trivia, history classes) than many of you. I
often
don't find your "easy" questions easy, and have often
never even heard
of the answer.

As another
minor point, it has been suggested that I hacked into
Nancy's email account and read the files. I can honestly
say that I have no idea how to go about doing this. I
don't have the faintest idea how to go about "hacking."
But more to the point (in my eyes, again), I would
cheat in an ACF tournament before violating a friend's
right to privacy. This, more than any other contention,
angers me to no end. I would not do that. On the other
hand, I would be lying if I said there was NO WAY for
me to get hold of the packets before the tournament,
so I can't really deny that I had the means with
which to cheat.

Another minor error is the
contention that I play with roughly the same team each time:
Between my 56 and 77 point games, there was only one
person overlap between the two teams. The teams for the
other tournaments have varied, but even then, the
strength of my teammates also fluctuates greatly depending
on whether or not we are playing ACF or not. Ask
them if need be.