New Scaratings

Le Morte d’Acer
Book VI, Chapter 1

Verily, that year deep in the mists of time—the one the scribes call 2007—was a winter of discontent for the defenders of chivalrous competition. These were dark times in the Kingdom of Trivia. The land was beset by the scourge of the Borg, treacherous barbarians who laid waste to Ranking Nobles of Triviadom and the Halls of Fame. The faithful players of the land cried out for deliverance from them and their minions Acer, Intel, and Google. Could the fellowship of trivia players overcome this threat, or would honorable play be buried under a car park?

Then didst a call go out to the trivia royalty from throughout the land—from the Charles River to the East, to the Queen Elizabeth Ranges to the West, from James Bay in the North to the King William Historic District in the south—to gather around the table of justice and equity to plan their defense of fair play. And there they sippethed the exotic beverages whose names were called Bloody Marys, Queen Anne and Prince Edward Cocktails, and Poor Richard Punch whilst discussing whether King Canute of Buzztime ordering back the rising tide of the Borg was a statement of piety and humility or a belief in his own supernatural powers.

And Lo! A vision did appear unto them: A Shining Silver Grail set on a black marble and mahogany base - a true grail, and not a false grail light designed to lure pure-hearted knights into the Castle Anthrax. And a voice from the clouds spake unto them, saying, “Go ye and create a tournament for all the noblest knights with the most arcane knowledge in the land to compete for me. Only those who rely on their assembled wits and reasoning may participate. In so doing shall ye set an example in these dark times.”

“By George!” exclaimed one of the nobles there assembled, “This is truly the answer! The champion will stand as a veritable John Henry, The Conqueror of the machine, reigning Victoria-s!” And so the nobles around the table contributed equally to the cause, and dispatched Sir Stephen of Jordan to acquire the Grail. Then didst they Harold[sic] the news both near and far, and within weeks they assembled a great throng to compete: The Elder and The Great throughout the land. The tournament was a success, rewarding the well-advised teams over The Unræd. The Borg invasion was defeated, and the finest nobles in all of Triviadom still compete for the Grail to this very day.


Hear Ye the OFFICIAL RULES:

From its inception, this Showdown tournament has been by, of, and for those teams dedicated to wetware play. Thus, the main qualification for entering this tournament is that teams must be those that have committed themselves to use assembled brainpower only as a general rule. This means no computers and no references of any kind during gameplay, either paper or electronic (or telecommunication from outside the location). This also means no using of electronic devices such as iPhones, iPads, Android, etc., devices to look up or receive answers from elsewhere. Just to be clear, if a team engages in these activities or any form of cheating, it is a disqualifying offense.

All teams that abide by this primary rule are welcome to play, either by signing up on ScaRatings, BadBart, Friends Who Like Buzztime, or otherwise contacting me via PM. All teams must register no later than NOON ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, the day the tournament starts. We reserve the right to personally invite additional qualified teams after the deadline to round out the field and/or include teams that have previously played in the tournament.

There will be two phases to the tournament. First, a four-game qualifying phase will start on October 11 in which the total points for each team will be tracked. Each team will be able to drop one low score for the final cumulative total after the November 1 game.

The second phase will begin on November 8. It will be a standard bracketed elimination phase. The number of teams in the knockout round will depend on how many teams sign up (for example, if only 18 teams sign up, we would be more likely to have 8 rather than 16 in the final round. If only 12 sign up, we may have a 6-team knockout round with a bye for the top two). Seedings for the brackets will be determined by the cumulative score described above, and will remain in place for the rest of the tournament.

The winning team will receive not just the glory of being the brainiest bunch out there, but also the custody for one year of the beautiful Sandbag Trophy, the right to have a plaque with its team name and date inscribed on it placed on the base, and the solemn responsibility of running the 15th annual tournament next fall, and so continue its noble purpose to make the winter of trivial discontent into glorious summer unto the next generation.


Caveats:

Should Buzztime have a system-wide repeat game during the tournament, that week’s scores will be ignored and I will post rescheduled rounds. We reserve the right to cancel the results of a week and reschedule the remainder of the tournament if a significant percentage or more of teams suffer from outages, as has happened in the past. Teams faced with a sudden close or loss of Buzztime at their home location may play at another location as long as they notify me in advance of the game and continue to follow contest rules in the new location. In general, we take no responsibility for and offer no solution nor redress for localized problems (i.e. power outages, lack of players due to illness or vacation, etc.) with one possible exception: If a team in the semi-finals or finals suffers a documentable and unavoidable mid-game crash, its victorious opponent may invite that team to a rematch, but is under no obligation to do so.

Verily, The Red Fox is in.

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

Danny K's is in for the challenge.

_________________
Middle age is when a broad mind and a slim waist exchange places.

Teasers

_________________
Merkin

By the way, Stephen of Jordan reminds us all that, "Squire El Puko of DooDah astride his Love Goat Pepe deserves credit for putting out the initial clarion call across the land for the first assembly of the righteous into this Tournament."

He is, of course, entirely correct, so praise be unto El Puko for his role in gathering the Knights of Trivia!

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

King Anon wrote: "Using the Buzztime Playmaker app on electronic devices such as iPhones, iPads, or Android phones is fine, of course, as long as the device is not also being used to look up or receive answers from elsewhere, and it is being used in and for the location of the team. Just to be clear, if a team engages in these activities or any form of cheating, it is a disqualifying offense."

I'm confused here, this Sandbag Cup is for Showdown right or is it Brainbuster? I didn't see either game name mentioned in the post but I do know what game it always has been. I ask because as far as I know, and I haven't tried, but the BT app does not support Showdown so no one could possibly use the app to play or to cheat or whatever. Brainbuster is supported by the app.

So what's up Anon the joking Jester?

_________________
BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Caps and Os!!!!

Good catch, Bud. In answer :

1) Yes, it's for Showdown.
2) Yes, I just copied and pasted boilerplate from previous rules.
3) No, I did not reread the boilerplate carefully.
4) Yes, the rule about receiving answers from elsewhere outside the location--either from looking up answers or getting them from people on the other end of the phone/device--still applies.
5) Yes, I am abashed about, and apologize for, the mistake. I shall make the corrections to remove any confusion.
6) Yes, I thank you for bringing this to my attention.

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

Now I'm confused, what are 2-3 ans 5-6 the answers for?

_________________
Merkin

The implicit unasked questions that Bud was too nice to ask.

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

I'll be updating this irregularly over the next few weeks to keep tabs on who has signed up over all platforms:

The Fellowship at Red Fox in Cuyahoga Falls, OH
Danny K's in Orange, CA
Teaser's in Chicago, IL
Wallaby's in Lenexa, KS
Hanko's Sports Bar in Lake Oswego, OR
Phat Turtle Bar-B-Q in Cave Creek, AZ
Time Out West in Hanover Park, IL
Alien Bar in Albuquerque, NM
Moose McGuires in Ottawa, ON
Big Guys in Winnipeg, MB
Okie Tonk Cafe in Moore, OK
Blue Horn in Chapel Hill, NC
Team Coot at K.C.'s Time Out in Evansville, IN
Primetime Sports Grill in Tampa, FL
Zack's Place in Little Rock, AR
Corner Pocket in Montgomery, AL

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

The newly constituted group playing at Herrill Lanes, a combination of portions of two teams
that formerly played Showdown and Showdown tournaments at Mad River and Houlihans,
requests inclusion in the Sandbag Tournament. This group has initiated a novel method of
playing, which is described in the Scaratings post "Say "Hello" to Hybrid Showdown." I have
described why we believe our method of playing is an acceptable method of play in "Can Hybrid
Showdown play well with others?"

We believe that if our request is denied, the reason for the denial would be due to this rule:
"From its inception, this Showdown tournament has been by, of, and for those teams dedicated
to wetware play. Thus, the main qualification for entering this tournament is that teams must be
those that have committed themselves to use assembled brainpower only as a general rule. This
means no computers and no references of any kind during gameplay, either paper or electronic
(or telecommunication from outside the location). This also means no using of electronic devices
such as iPhones, iPads, Android, etc., devices to look up or receive answers from elsewhere. Just
to be clear, if a team engages in these activities or any form of cheating, it is a disqualifying offense."

We do not believe this style of play constitutes cheating in any generally accepted definition of the word
and there is no objective reason for disallowing this form of play on the grounds of fair competition. We
have reviewed the history of this rule and have found no incident or historical reason for the revision of this
rule beginning in 2011. (A full discussion is found in "A History of A Rule" below). Given this along with the
disastrous decline in locations, allowing alternative means of play creates the opportunity to increase competition
from those geographically disabled by the enormous drop in Buzztime locations, which include not only us but
the DC/N.Va team, past winners of more than a few Showdown tournaments.

Should you decide to deny our request, please answer the following questions:

1) Prior to McCarthy 2011, there were no rules specifically disallowing answers from outside sources, probably
because there was no effective way to do so at the time. Nonetheless, you wrote specific rules against them.
What incident(s) led you to do so? If there were no incidents, then what was the need that led you to write
them? Why did you not explain the need for the new rules or invite discussion of them? Since 2011, have there
been any incidents that have called your rule into play before us?

2) The various versions of your rule express the principle that getting an answer from outside the bar. no matter
what the circumstances, is inherently cheating. Why? Would you not agree that the situation has changed drastically
since 2011? Have not the events of the past few years blurred the difference between "in" and "out" for many societal
pursuits? Is not the situation today much different than that in 2011? Should a rule from 2011 stating, "You must be
in the bar" be mindlessly applied after ironclad rules like "You must be in the office" or "You must be in the classroom"
were tossed out the window and alternatives found? If realities change, shouldn't the rules? What makes hearing an
answer from a person in a bar good, but an answer from the same person from a video screen cheating? What good
is achieved by denying that person the chance to play at all? We have specifically described what we are doing. Tell
us exactly what we are doing that creates unfair competition in your eyes.

3) Beginning in late 2014, you added this phrase to your rules, "Just to be clear, if a team engages in these activities
or any form of cheating, it is a disqualifying offense," yet you never define "cheating" in even general terms. This term
needs to be defined. It's implied but not clear that the enumerated disqualifying offenses are forms of cheating. Are they?
Is cheating defined as activities which give unfair advantages to the cheater, or is your definition broader than that?
What is your definition of cheating as it applies here?

4) The Mad River players play more than Hybrid Showdown; we've only done that a few times. What we have been doing
the past 2 1/2 years have been playing those premium games available on the Buzztime app Tuesday through Thursday.
We have made no secret of the fact that we have been playing the only way we have been able to play: remotely.
There was a Brainbuster tournament this year. I just looked at the rules for that; they ban that, too. But we're not alone,
Buzztime has broken that rule, too.

So why did you send me this?



A History of A Rule

I have reviewed the Scaratings.com records since its creation as it pertained to rules of various private competitions and will
reference them as needed.

The issue of computer use in Showdown began in the late 1990s, when National West Covina began using desktop and laptop
computers to access reference materials to help answer questions, which enabled them to become the dominant Showdown
team at that time. I was heavily involved in that conversation, see the badbart archives. NTN has never prohibited computer
play, and they were well aware of it at that time. Indeed, an NTN official called me to ask me to restore NWC to the first
compilation of Showdown statistics after I had thrown them out for computer play (the Denton website began as a reaction
to what I had done).

Despite NTN's position, those setting up private tournaments have almost always prohibited use of reference materials/computers.
This tells me that NTN/Buzztime's position or lack thereof has never been a determining authority in the rules of a private competition.

The rules governing the use of references have been often if not usually imprecise. They have been as short as one sentence long.
The term "wetware" is often used as an all-purpose descriptor of how a team must get answers. Many do not distinguish between
use of a computer as a source of answers and use of a computer as purely a communication device. This is understandable because
remote use of a computer or for that matter a phone to play Buzztime has been deeply impractical until fairly recently. There was no
specific reference to banning out-of-bar communication until the current gamemaster set forth the following for McCarthy 2011:

Rule 3: No Other References. All answers must be solely provided by the collective brainpower of the assembled team at the location
without the use of any reference materials of any kind (or telecommunication from outside the location). Using the Buzztime Playmaker
app on electronic devices such as iPhones, iPads, or Droid phones is fine, of course, as long as this is the only purpose for which the
device is being used, and it is being used in and for the location of the team.

This new rule created a new category of cheating besides the original "no computer as reference" rule. Read one way, it defines all people
(previously known as "wetware") outside the location as "reference material." Read another way, outside humans are instead considered to
be an outside telecommunication that cannot be used, but if that's so, then the transmitted game of Showdown itself is a "telecommunication
from outside the location" that cannot be used. After all, you have to use the question to come up with the answer.

Phrasing notwithstanding, for 2011, this seems to be a solution in search of a problem. From no mention at all, the possibility of getting
answers from "outside" suddenly became a threat equal to computer reference use, yet there seems to have no incident which showed
a use of outside assistance which could threaten the integrity of a tournament. There was no explanation of the rule when it was first
used, and no discussion. Playmaker apps became available around this time, but since they didn't provide questions at that time; the only
feasible uses of them at that time in this situation would be use with a telephone contact at the location. Zoom didn't even exist as a
company in 2011. Video conferencing did exist back then, but the cost and hardware requirements made it a nonstarter for a Buzztime environment.

Other people ran McCarthy in 2012 and 2013, and when they issued their set of rules, they didn't mention any of this at all. For a period,
it seemed that whether this rule was in play or not depended on whether the current gamerunner was running the contest or not, then it
seemed to have become a mindless copy-and-paste. That was the case with me; I thought the reference to telecommunications meant the Internet.

For most of the time since 2011, this remained a solution in search of a problem. There were many locations and no practical means to let
outsiders provide answers. Then life happened:

1) BWW said sayonara to Buzztime, removing almost half the locations.
2) The COVID pandemic and lockdowns killed hundreds more locations.
3) Cheap, easy video conferencing became available and popular
4) For a time, even Buzztime opened up remote play to keep people playing.

Buzztime locations once numbered 4,000. Now there is 800. For many, the choice is either use the technology or don't play at all. Unfortunately,
many don't even know about the technology, or they heard from someone that it was cheating. As I've said elsewhere, if Buzztime had the brains
that any streaming service has, we remote players would either be paying Buzztime directly or not be able to play. As of now, they have the worst
of all worlds: they won't collect money from us and they can't/won't stop us from playing.

The antebellum world is gone. We have survived the COVID war, and it is time for Reconstruction. Time to reexamine and revise some rules.

I would like to preface this by thanking STRO for his thoughtful posts on this and the other threads. He has given us all a lot to think about.

The easiest response for me to make as Tournament Commissioner would be to state simply, “Them’s the rules, the rules that have been in place for most of the tournament’s existence and under which the other teams have agreed to play. It would be unfair for all of the other teams who have signed up under these rules to change them at (almost literally) the eleventh hour.” But a thoughtful post deserves a thoughtful response. So here it is:

STRO is correct that the sticking point of in the rules is the following: “This means no computers and no references of any kind during gameplay, either paper or electronic (or telecommunication from outside the location). This also means no using of electronic devices such as iPhones, iPads, Android, etc., devices to look up or receive answers from elsewhere." (emphasis added). Hybrid play as STRO describes it is manifestly dependent on telecommunications from outside and receiving answers from elsewhere.

Where I would quibble with STRO is the contention that we also believe hybrid play necessarily constitutes cheating. We don’t. When the pandemic hit and Red Fox closed we, like his team, also played remotely (we used Discord rather than Zoom to communicate, but the principle is the same). I can’t say we preferred it to in-person play, but as was true with his experience, it helped keep the team together until we could play in person again. I can’t speak for everyone on my team, but I personally don’t think it falls into the same category as borging, exploiting lags, etc. Still, we also chose not to hold any tournaments again until a critical mass of teams started playing live again, in part because of this very rule.

Now certainly such a set-up could be abused: for example, it would be relatively easy for an unscrupulous player to look up answers on another device surreptitiously without his/her teammates being the wiser (something that would be much more difficult to pull off in on-location play). Because of the NY team’s long and well-documented reputation for above-board play, I trust that they would never do this. Is the same true for all other teams that might play this way in this or any future tournament? I don’t know, but for the purposes of argument, let’s hypothetically give them the benefit of the doubt and assume every player on every team is scrupulous in this regard. It can still be argued that, in addition to clearly violating the letter of this particular competition, it also has the potential of undermining the spirit of it as well. Some of this bears on the first question STRO asks:



I don’t think I need to tell you that (with perhaps a few exceptions) it has not been the tradition of these tournaments for the hosting teams to invite discussion of the rules. But beyond that, I do not remember this one being at all controversial at the time. While my age-addled brain cannot remember the granular particulars of something I wrote 11 years ago, I am pretty sure that this mostly was meant to close a loophole prompted by the “cell phone gambit.” You may recall that there had been instances in which a team found out one local location lagged another, and stationed a member at the “faster” location to call in the correct answers to someone at the “slower” location. While this could save hundreds of points in early rounds, it was a particularly potent tool during the pyramid round, in which a phoned-in answer could be relayed in time for everyone at the other location to get every answer without penalty and run the table for full points. In other words, it was not “a solution in search of a problem,” there was a demonstrated problem that closing this loophole addressed (and theoretically still addresses, in localities with multiple sites).

Notice, though, I said “mostly.” There is another potential issue this rule addresses that, while it might not be considered “cheating” by everybody, seems to stretch the definition of fair play. It bears on your second question, and one could argue that the first team to be disadvantaged by it was actually The Fellowship back in 2011, long before COVID:



Back in early 2011, one of our star players was FROG. He was the first Jeopardy! champion to play with us, and he played a huge role in our ascent as a team. He retired that spring and moved to the French Alps (grenouille chanceuse!). He let it be known that he would miss playing with us, and (as a guy who routinely kept late hours) that he would be happy to play with us virtually from time to time over the phone (reading him the questions when they came up) for old time’s sake, even though it would be the wee hours of the morning for him in France. It would have been so easy for us to rewrite the rules of later tournaments to allow us to bring in a Jeopardy! champ to help us especially with pyramid and final questions, but we didn’t. We all agreed that it violated the spirit of fair play, and that external communication easily could be abused if it were allowed. We never took him up on the offer—even in non-tournament games—for that reason.

This is not just an academic, moldy historical argument, either. Believe it or not, we will be disadvantaged by this rule significantly this year, too. One of our star players for the last few years has been DROLL, who routinely tops The Fellowship’s weekly “Napkin Of Fame.” In the middle of this year’s tournament (before the elimination rounds) he will be moving to Chicago. There is little doubt that we will not be as good without him. Don’t you think we would LOVE to have DROLL (and heck, FROG and VICTOR for that matter, too!) online with us when it gets to the elimination rounds? If we rewrote the rules now, we could, but I suspect that a lot of other teams—I think quite justly—would question the motives and fairness of doing so.

Extrapolating this out to another hypothetical: If everyone is allowed to play via Zoom (or whatever), then that would open up some other possibilities that seem to violate the principle of fair play on which this tournament was founded (as well as what constitutes a “team”). Suppose for a moment that the two teams in the final game are Danny K’s and Teaser’s. What’s to stop Teaser’s, say, from asking a bunch of people from The Fellowship and other eliminated teams to gang up with them against Danny K’s in the final? The “only in the bar” rule does not preclude people from physically travelling to another location to help out (something that a number of teams have done in the past), but such help is at least significantly limited by geography. (It also actually helps the host location’s bottom line by bringing more business there, but while that is not an inconsequential consideration, it does not bear on the larger issue of fairness). There are many fewer limits to who or how many folks from around the world one could bring to bear against another team in any given game using hybrid play. I have my doubts that most teams would consider this (or Zooming in Ken Jennings or James Holzhauer, which would also be allowed) to be consistent with the spirit of fair play.



This will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, but there are a lot of people out there who are smarter than me. I realized that there may be other clever ways I could not imagine for people to somehow evade the “only assembled wetware in the bar” principle, and I certainly could not enumerate every possible way, so I put this in to cover those if they were discovered. I’m not sure what the specific inspiration was, but I suspect it may have had to do with the questionable activity at End Zone in Ironton in an earlier tournament.

I am glad you brought up the significance of the word “or,” though. One may debate whether or not hybrid Showdown is cheating in general terms, but whichever way one falls on the question, it is still against the rules.



I’m glad you brought this up, too. As I think you know, we agreed to grant your team an exemption for the Brainbuster tournament based entirely on the fact that it—alone among all of the other teams—had no actual brick-and-mortar location in NY at which to play. However inconvenient Herrill Lanes may be for some of you, it is an actual brick-and-mortar location at which a quorum of people play. As the basis for the exemption no longer exists, so does the exemption.



This may be true, but the day before the start of a tournament founded on the principles of assembled wetware only and the spirit of fair play is not that time. You have brought up some important points worth considering and/or seeking consensus on. We will be hosting the McCarthy Cup in the spring--a tournament that even allowed borg teams to play in its early days. There is plenty of time for robust discussions and debates on these issues in the months before that tournament starts.

But as for now, having tried to give a thoughtful response for your post, I really think the only thing I can say as Sandbag Tournament Commissioner is, “Them’s the rules, the rules that have been in place for most of the tournament’s existence and under which the other teams have agreed to play. It would be unfair for all of the other teams who have signed up under these rules to change them at (almost literally) the eleventh hour.”

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

As an aside, I suppose, Teasers welcomes DROLL with open arms.

_________________
Merkin

I will shortly prepare a reply. There is . . . much to dispute.

But let me now dispense of the fiction that all must be set in place by this evening. This is running out the
clock at the beginning of the game.

The first four weeks are merely score accumulation; it does not affect the play in the tournament
in any way. If you are worried about use of time lag, simply substitute something like "Any practice a team uses
to see the game in more than one site is a disqualifying practice," which covers the issue and not the entire surrounding
region. As far as fairness to the other teams are concerned, they have brains and mouths, too. Why don't you ask them
for their opinions here?

I would expect nothing less. I look forward to reading your reply.



Actually, it seems the fiction that needs to be dispensed with is that this is some sort of negotiation or democracy. You know as well as I do how this works: From the earliest days of the McCarthy Cup, the rule has been the previous winner runs and sets the rules for the next tournament. The Sandbag has followed the same rule. Every. Single. Time. You also know that while in the past there have been. . . let's say "spirited". . .debates about the nature of the rules, ways in which the rules would be much better, the marital status of the commissioner's parents and his possible canine ancestry, etc., in the end the host team/commissioner has always been the final arbiter.

I hope you can see that what you seem to be asking for--a substantive change of the tournament rules at the last minute after all of the other teams have signed up--would be an extraordinary step, and one that would also be unfair to all of the other teams involved. The reason we have rules for these tournaments is precisely to avoid arbitrariness and capriciousness in their administration. I would be an extremely bad and irresponsible commissioner if I did this, ESPECIALLY if the rule change could be demonstrated to benefit my team in the contest. Whatever merits your arguments may have, however objectively awesome it might be for us to have DROLL, FROG et al. play with us virtually, I am not about to take such an extraordinary, unfair, arbitrary, capricious, and irresponsible step. As the rules clearly state, the tournament starts this evening.

This does not mean the larger conversation ends here, though. I sincerely believe that this is a conversation worth having, and that it would be good to get input from the player community regarding these and other issues before making the rules for the next tournament. I know I can count on you to participate in those discussions.

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

With Week 1 now in the books, the Sandbag Tournament is already a barnburner: the top three teams all sit within 800 points of each other. Results can be found at the Sandbag Tournament standings page hosted on Don Denton's Buzztime Stats site:

https://ntn.donrdenton.com/contest.php?contest=56

These results also demonstrate the strength of this year's field. Excluding Stavro's and Spectators (unfortunately computer-enhanced) scores at the top of the board, Sandbag Tournament teams occupied eight of the top ten places last night, and twelve of the top twenty. It was a great start to the first Sandbag Tournament since 2019.

Remember, everyone gets to drop a low score, so all the teams are still very much in the chase for the eight quarterfinal spots in the knockout round.

Good skill to all next week!

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

Week 2 of the Sandbag Tournament qualifying round was better for most teams than Week 1, and caused a big shake-up at the top of the rankings. By virtue of its near-perfect score of 63,420, Teaser's vaulted into 1st place, followed closely by Danny K's and Phat Turtle. Week 1 leader Red Fox sank to 4th. Current standings, as always, can be found at Don Denton's tournament page:

https://ntn.donrdenton.com/contest.php? ... contest=56

We are now halfway through the qualifying round, with the bubble sitting between Time Out West and Big Guys in total score, and between Moose McGuire's and Corner Pocket after dropping low scores. There is still plenty of time and room for a lot more movement, so good skill to all teams this week!

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

Before I can respond in entirety to your reply, these points must first be addressed.



No, I don't know. There is no record of this in Scaratings, where all decisions like this needs to be posted to inform the other participating teams. There is also no record of this in my emails, or PMs or memory. Where is it?



There is also no record of this, though you did not claim to have said this in the past. Is this something new, or did you say so in the past? If the latter, where is it?

Your prompt response is appreciated.

I literally meant "I think you know" when I wrote that. I thought that because
1) You have been very open about playing by Zoom and signed up for the tournament as "Somewhere in New Jersey," and
2) You could read the rules which forbid this, and
3) We let you in the tournament anyway,

That you could put 1+2+3 together. Apparently I was wrong in making that assumption. The truth is that I did not explicitly mention it in the forum because I did not want to draw attention to it to A) insulate your team from attacks or criticism that may occur as a result, and B) not encourage other teams that have a physical location to play (literally every other team that signed up) to insist that they be allowed to do the same. I did have one email exchange from someone from another team about this, which I am going to paste below to show how I explained it at the time (March 31):

Query: "One question and please correct if I'm remembering wrong. I thought in one rules notice, you specified that all players must be present in the same place to qualify the Brainbuster tournament. No problem for us, but where does that leave the New York team, which to my knowledge, still gathers from various sites to play at Lighthouse, NJ?"

Answer: "The team has discussed this very issue, though; and because the New York folks 1) have literally no physical location to play anywhere near them, and 2) have a 20-year record of both clean play and virulent anti-borgism, we have carved out an exemption for them. That being said, I have encouraged Dave Peters (the new Buzztime Ambassador, or whatever his title is) to put a priority on finding a NY location, post-haste."

Perhaps it was a mistake to carve out an exemption for you, but I/we thought it was the right thing to do at the time. I definitely should have let you know at least privately why we were making the exemption and should not have assumed you would figure it out. I do apologize for that.

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

After the third week of qualifying, we have a third team to lead the standings. Danny K's proved they are the current Showdown monarchs with a solid win that vaulted them into the overall lead. Current standings, as always, can be found on the tournament page at Don Denton's site:

https://ntn.donrdenton.com/contest.php? ... contest=56

In total score, Danny K's holds a solid lead of nearly 4,800 points over The Fellowship, but when low scores are dropped, they hold an even more commanding 7,200-point lead over Teaser's. With only one week to go in qualifying, they have already clinched no worse than the sixth seed in the knockout round, and have to be the favorites to clinch the top seed. Other teams that have clinched a spot in the elimination round are Teaser's and The Fellowship.

Currently the bubble sits between Corner Pocket and Alien Bar in total score, and between Time Out West and Big Guys after dropping low scores. Only one team is mathematically eliminated from a spot in the next round, so a lot of movement is still possible.

Good skill to all teams this week!

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

Question:

The top 8 teams will be in the knockout round, I assume seeded based on their previous performance. If, in the knockout round, there is an 'upset' and the lower seed wins a match, will the brackets stay the same or will there be reseeding after every round? Thanks.

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Merkin

Thanks for the question. There will be no re-seeding. As the rules say, "Seedings for the brackets will be determined by the cumulative score described above, and will remain in place for the rest of the tournament."(emphasis added)

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

Thanks for the answer. Apparently, I am too dense to scroll up and read the rules.

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Merkin

Of the many adjectives that might be used to describe you, MERKIN, "dense" is not one of them.

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

A big move by Time-Out West last night.
Coming after Teaser's next week.

Ray J.

Congrats to Danny Ks on getting the number 1 seed and to the Aliens in NM on holding on to the final 8th seed. Also 2 Chicago area teams making the top 8, way to go Ray J.

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BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Caps and Os!!!!