New Scaratings

Every year, on the Tuesday night before the American Mensa Annual Gathering, the NTN SIG (Special Interest Group) descends on a local Buzztime site, hoping to get enough brainpower together to win Showdown. While we've come close (and won some games before/afterward), I don't believe we've ever actually succeeded in winning Showdown.

This year's Annual Gathering is in Phoenix, AZ. Last I know, the specific site is still to be finally decided. I may not get anything posted before then, so if you see a surprise high-scoring site in Phoenix, it's probably us, not a new borg.

--Rick Magnus
RickM, Blue Goose Sports Cafe

Current information is that we'll likely be at the BWW in Tempe.

--Rick Magnus
RickM, Blue Goose

That's July 2, isn't it? RICKM, you might do us the favor of providing a date.

Having won last week's quiz with a 58, I'm dusting off my telescope in the hope of viewing some really high 60's.

We did alright. We had 20 players--but not that many working tablets (I think 14). 16th in Showdown and 8th in Brainbuster were slightly disappointing. 1st in Glory Daze was our highlight of the evening. We also had one 1st in Countdown (but it was late enough that many ETZ sites were probably on The Late Shift, meaning easier competition).

Next year we'll be in Kansas City; I think the date will be 6/30/20.

--Rick Magnus
RickM, Blue Goose

The distinctive formatting of Buzztime quizzes, which are not merely general knowledge but also twitch games, might put some of the Special Interest Group at a disadvantage. For one who only plays occasionally, that player'll be at tick slower against someone like me or Deathdealer, who play more or less daily, and perhaps are a little quicker in salvaging points on a faulty conjecture. Then again, if one has a super-thick mental Rolodex, paging through all that information might require a little extra time as well.

If nothing else, the Special Interest Group helped to validate the self-esteem of certain lesser talent, such as myself. Playing at the Mall of America, we got 3rd in Brainbuster and 5th in Showdown. The Mall of America, by the way, is reputedly the largest unfenced insane asylum on the continent.

I haven't been able to verify that, but it *looks* plausible.

Mall of America of course is a tourist destination.It opens early for those that want to walk.It has easy access both to and from.If one goes early to mid morning plenty of free close parking.When BWW opened I happened to be first customer. I was first player to play buzztime trivia .Radio Row was there for Super Bowl between New England and Philadelphia.People from all over the United States and world were there.It was first time in Super Bowl history Radio Row had almost total free access to the public.It was awesome.It was there for several days.I go Mall of America occasionally.Usually,it is not all that crowded. It provides a warm, pleasant experience.

The SIG isn't at a disadvantage because of quickness. There are tons of everyday CD players who are slow as snot. Quickness is mostly due to each individual's proclivities rather than amount of play.

What so many players fail to realize is that it's rarely about the number of players at a site, rather who the players are. There's a reason why most years the 50 strong TP group gets beat at premium games by groups of 3 or 4. You get the right couple of players together for a premium game and 100 good players aren't going to beat them.

Every premium game has been won (location score) by groups of no more than 3. SL and STC have been won by groups of 2. I would assume PB has as well. Pretty sure PP was also. SIQ has been won by a group of 1. As far as non-premiums, it's not overly difficult for a group of 1 to win any CD style game. Those are bare minimums, games could have been won with fewer players than mentioned here.

In fairness, it was a pretty tough Showdown game. According to Don Denton's site, it had the second-lowest average score this year (not including the lightly-played New Year's Day game), and the lowest winning score since the infamous Huckleberry-Finn-Hot-Air-Balloon game last April (not counting either Christmas or New Year's Day).

Our performance on this already-difficult game was not helped by the fact that all players got kicked out before the first pyramid question, and only a fraction of the team was able to exit and get back in in time to get credit for the question. Ah, well, the fortunes of trivia.

_________________
Anon
"He may seem like Mr. Rogers but a dark spirit lies beneath."

I'm sitting in my office in Cincinnati, not in Kansas City. In what shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, the Mensa Annual Gathering this year was canceled in May (and it was obvious enough it would happen that we made no effort to look for a Buzztime site in KC).

Next year we're scheduled to be in Houston in August (it coordinates better with European vacation dates, and worldwide attendees are being actively brought in). If gatherings are possible, and if Buzztime still exists, we'd be playing on Tuesday August 24 at a site TBD.

If anyone cares, we should be back at the beginning of July in Reno in 2022, Baltimore in 2023, and Kansas City in 2024 (the best way to get out of a hotel contract was to replace it with one 4 years later).

--Rick Magnus
RickM, Blue Goose

It's looking like we'll be joining the locals at Coaches Pub on August 24.

--Rick Magnus
RickM, BlueGoose