New Scaratings

ROTFLMAO!!! How can you do this with a straight face? Red Fox gets more votes than everyone else combined. Teasers gets one vote, Red Fox gets twenty. Have you ever heard of stuffing the ballot box?

‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’

As for the rest of those votes, again, all these alleged Red Fox votes come from a private group no one outside the group can see. Show us. I've asked several times for full disclosure, you gave me part of three votes cast after they heard only one side of the argument.

This is how it should be handled: You let the participants in the tournament vote on the matter? Every team gets a message containing
a short piece from each of us (say 250 words each). Each team votes in a PM/email sent to a neutral third party. Fair enough?

_________________
“When I see the right and the ability to do everything granted to any power whatsoever, whether it is called people or king, democracy or aristocracy . . ., I say: there is the seed of tyranny, and I seek to go live under other laws.” --de Tocqueville

For posterity, what makes you think your team gets 20 votes? If a team had 100 players they could then win every vote regardless of subject.

If you want to accurately tally a vote in a TEAM competition, every team gets 1 vote and 1 vote only regardless of members. The best team wins this tournament, therefore you count every team as one vote.

We can find Carmen Santiago easily enough, but where, oh where is ANON.
He has so much work to do! Wouldn't want to think he has gone AWOL or deserted/resigned his post without telling anyone.

Really, if you don't have the time to answer questions about this tournament, you don't have the time to run this tournament, either. These aren't personal questions that affect just me or my team; they affect every team playing in this tournament.

I raised questions and made a request per seeing the Badbart votes. Please provide the information or explain your basis for not doing so.

I asked repeatedly why you unilaterally sought the opinion of people in a private group, but not ask for an impartial vote of those directly affected by your decision: the tournament participants. Please indicate either your agreement or explain why you believe the votes on Badbart have greater validity than those of the tournament participants.

Finally, and this is new, what rights do you believe teams participating in this tournament have regarding the operation of this tournament?

Your prompt response will be appreciated.

_________________
“When I see the right and the ability to do everything granted to any power whatsoever, whether it is called people or king, democracy or aristocracy . . ., I say: there is the seed of tyranny, and I seek to go live under other laws.” --de Tocqueville

With one more day to sign up, here is the field of the tournament so far:

The Fellowship/Red Fox/Punts & Pints, Cuyahoga Falls, OH
Primetime Sports Grill, Tampa, FL
Alien Bar, Albuquerque, NM
Danny K’s, Orange, CA
Time Out West, Hanover Park, IL
Hanko’s Sports Bar and Grill, Lake Oswego, OR
Teaser’s, Chicago, IL
Blue Horn Lounge, Chapel Hill, NC
Moose McGuire’s, Ottawa, ON
Big Guys, Winnipeg, MB
Phat Turtle, Cave Creek, AZ
Oak Tree Lanes, Diamond Bar, CA
Wallaby's, Lenexa, KS
The Market at John Hall Store, Cecil, AL
Corner Pocket, Montgomery, AL
Alabama’s Little Bit of Texas, Wetumpka, AL

Just a reminder, the deadline to sign up is noon tomorrow.

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

Also, it has come to my attention that someone here has been flagrantly disregarding what someone else has written. This can be extremely frustrating. I am, of course, talking about STRO’s unwillingness to acknowledge that I made my final and definitive response to him almost two weeks ago on February 22. Whether he forgot about it, did not read it carefully, thought I was not serious, or is willfully ignoring it I cannot say, but it was clear, straightforward, and self-explanatory. I should not have to do this, but as a favor to him I will repost it here in its entirety:

“Reread what I said, STRO: I said that I would tell the team that you insisted that we were obliged to reconsider our rules. I did as I promised. They unanimously disagreed with you. This, of course, is absolutely their right—this is a basic fact, and a fact that you seem to refuse to understand. One last time, and just to be clear:

No matter how much you really, really, REALLY want it to be otherwise, the fact is that the previous year’s winner gets to choose how the tournament is run the next year. Always. If we wanted to, we could choose you to run the tournament. We don’t want to. In this, we are exercising the same right as every other tournament host team ever, including yourself. Also like every other tournament host, including yourself, we are under absolutely no obligation to amend our rules upon demand. There is no volume of words you can write that can alter this fundamental fact. Whatever else you may have to say about the tournament from here on out, I encourage you to return to and reread this paragraph as our team’s official response.

While you are at it, reread what GUNDAM wrote last night, too. It is not that we have ignored what you had to say. We were willing to hear your arguments. We listened, and we found them unpersuasive. We found them increasingly less persuasive as you became increasingly more like whatever-the-opposite-of-Dale-Carnegie-is. Your behavior here has not done yourself or your team any favors. I know that in this whole drama you think that I am your enemy, but I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you again. To find him, I’m afraid you are going to have to look in the mirror.

A person is free to choose to act in an uncivil and belligerent manner, casting aspersions and embracing ad hominem attacks. However, by so doing, that person forfeits the expectation that anyone should respect or respond to what he says. To my great regret, you have made this choice and its consequent forfeiture.

In closing, I wish to reiterate what I said before in another thread. I bear you no personal animosity or ill will, Ed—quite the contrary. I said it before, and I will say it again: I wish you well, and I wish you peace.”

I meant—and still mean—every word of this from the beginning to, yes, the very end. I have nothing more to add.

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

Your "definitive response" was about my specific feedback. My recent questions
have nothing to do with that feedback. I asked you to document whatever you
did to get that vote and the comments made by those voting, since they are not publicly available.
I also asked you to explain why you did not seek the opinion and votes of those most directly
affected by a decision: the tournament participants.

If you still refuse to answer these questions, please state your basis for that refusal. It appears that you
believe you have absolute discretion to answer or not answer questions related to your performance as
gamerunner, regardless of the circumstances. Is that so? If not, then since you did not previously have
these questions to answer, what is your basis for not answering them?

P.S. Not to forget, what rights do you believe teams participating in this tournament have regarding the
operation of this tournament?

_________________
“When I see the right and the ability to do everything granted to any power whatsoever, whether it is called people or king, democracy or aristocracy . . ., I say: there is the seed of tyranny, and I seek to go live under other laws.” --de Tocqueville

Tower Pub is in

This is certainly a sad state of affairs. Through no fault of their own, a team that has competed for 30+ years will not be allowed to compete in a player run tournament. They offered up a possible solution, one that offered them no advantage over other teams, and were denied by the organizers of this year's event. I'm honestly trying to figure out why this would be, because it makes no logical sense. But in the end, I think that's my issue. It doesn't make any logical sense because it's become obvious that the organizers have no logical and/or common sense.

Yes, the organizers have the right to make the rules and run the event how they see fit. They have the right to include or exclude whoever they want. But just because they have the right to do so doesn't mean that they should. But that's exactly the reason they are making for this travesty, they can do whatever they want and if others don't like it they can take their ball and go home.

I only see this forum, none of the others used to share information on this tournament. But I have only seen one team, other than the two principals involved, state an opinion. And that's just beyond sad. It makes me want to call them a bunch of gutless cowards who are scared to upset the apple cart in fear of not being allowed to play as well. And course nobody wants to cross post any definitive statements about such. Are there actually other posted opinions? I don't know one way or the other.

Of course in polling these things one can trick the people into giving whatever opinion is desired. From what I've read here, the question was whether or not any team can use Zoom or the like as a method of incorporating more team members into the mix. And of course that is going to get voted down real quick. But what if the question was, there's one long-standing team that has no way of incorporating enough players to compete due to a site poor area. Should this one trustworthy team be allowed to use Zoom to get enough players together to compete. This team has never done anything to make others think that they would attempt to cheat the system. Then the results would look quite different.

And of course there's the fact that all teams are expected to be honest and play by the rules because there is no policing this. And these teams are just blindly trusted to do so even if nothing is known about them. Heck, the NYC team could have just signed up and competed using their hybrid system and nobody would have been the wiser. But they chose to do the right thing in asking for an exemption and they were rewarding for this by taking it right in the ass. What a great way to treat a team that has been around since before any of you could spell Buzztime.

Of course it's downright hilarious that the members of the organizing team think they get more votes than all the other teams combined. And when asked about such nothing but crickets. I don't blame them, not much else to say about something so outlandish other than they get to make the rules so piss off. It truly seems like a cult where everybody's busy drinking the Kool-Aid so they can't think for themselves.

In the end, the organizers are going to get what they want because they can. But something to consider, long time members of two teams that have been around for more than 10 years than your cult, are firmly against what you are doing. But if you drink the Kool-Aid you think you can do no wrong. Well you know what? You have, and you can't take it back. And it won't be forgotten.

On this we agree.



We agree on this, too.



Perhaps to your surprise, we agree on this, too. If a team that had agreed to abide by the rules asked to play and we excluded them, that would absolutely be wrong. But that is not the situation we have here—excluding teams which do not agree to follow the rules is exactly what we should be doing.



This from the person who said, “I made the decisions. I didn't ask my teammates, I didn't ask members of other teams what to do. Why? Because the vast majority of players don't know dick when it comes to doing so.” Your sudden sensitivity to the opinions of other teams is breathtaking.



As mentioned earlier, the Facebook posts were cross-linked to the ScaRatings discussion thread, and I encouraged folks to read the conversation there and then to weigh in. They were easily able to see multiple opinions on this.



Yes, because that is exactly what STRO has been demanding (and I do mean demanding): His position, going back to last fall, was not that his team should be granted an exemption, but rather that the rules somehow must allow Zoom play when they clearly don’t. And make no mistake, this IS demanding a rule change. We are not banning anything, he is demanding that we unban something that has been banned from tournaments going back more than ten years, INCLUDING THE ONE HE RAN. No matter how much he may want it to be otherwise, no telecommunications means no telecommunications, and receiving answers from elsewhere means receiving answers from elsewhere. To claim otherwise defies any kind of standard definition or understanding of these concepts.

Furthermore, more recently (in case you were not paying attention), he came up with an entirely new set of complicated draft rules that he demanded we adopt as our own, lest we be haunted by them (somehow). This, too, is not asking for an exemption. It is a demand for a wholesale scrapping of our rules in favor of his. We said no, as I believe just about any self-respecting team/commissioner would do under the same circumstances.



And long-time members of other teams in places like Kansas, Arizona, Illinois, and California (not to mention Ohio) are firmly in favor of it. I know you think your opinion matters more than theirs, but I am really not sure that you have the pulse of the current playership on this matter.



I dare you to find a single place where anyone from my team has ever said or even intimated that we could do no wrong. Entirely to the contrary, we were willing to accept the possibility that our opinion on this matter was out of step with the general playership. This is exactly why we (unlike you when you were commissioner, or pretty much any other host team for that matter) went to the effort of surveying—on three different platforms—what folks outside of NY and Cuyahoga Falls had to say. If there had been a groundswell of support for changing long-standing rules on the matter, we would have reconsidered. But There. Was. Not. In this context “doing wrong” would be to change long-standing rules on demand to placate a single team when there was no discernable general support for it. If we had taken that radical move, I’m sure that that definitely would not be forgotten either.

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

I am pleased to announce the final field for the 23rd Annual McCarthy Cup:

Alabama’s Little Bit of Texas, Wetumpka, AL
Alien Bar, Albuquerque, NM
Big Guys, Winnipeg, MB
Blue Horn Lounge, Chapel Hill, NC
Corner Pocket, Montgomery, AL
Danny K’s, Orange, CA
The Fellowship/Red Fox/Punts & Pints, Cuyahoga Falls, OH
Hanko’s Sports Bar and Grill, Lake Oswego, OR
The Market at John Hall Store, Cecil, AL
Moose McGuire’s, Ottawa, ON
Oak Tree Lanes, Diamond Bar, CA
Phat Turtle, Cave Creek, AZ
Primetime Sports Grill, Tampa, FL
Teaser’s, Chicago, IL
Tower Pub, St. Louis, MO
Time Out West, Hanover Park, IL
Wallaby's, Lenexa, KS

At seventeen teams, it is now the largest field for any tournament held since the pandemic started. Thanks to all who signed up, and good skill to all tonight!

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

I still don't really care what the opinions of most are. My curiosity about such is because I've heard that almost all players were against this but I have yet to see this in print. I don't do FB nor am I am member of any other BT related board. And again, nobody other than one team outside the two combatants seems willing to post an opinion here one way or the other.

And yes, the possibility does exist that I don't have the pulse of the current playership. Does my opinion matter more than others? Probably not. Do I have more BT experience than basically anybody to base an opinion on? Yes.

In the end, I cannot understand why many longtime players would take such a hard line towards a team with zero demerits who just want to compete the only way they can and with no advantage. Perhaps my brain has lost it's edge. Perhaps not.

First, enough with the royal umbrage. You are no king; your team is no court. Again, let's go over the history of this rule. Was it part of the original rules? No. Did it come from God, or the Founding Fathers? No. Where did it come from? It came from you. Did you ask for comment on it? No, you just slipped it in. Did you ever use it prior to Lighthouse's request to play in the Brainbuster tournament? No. Did you use it when Lighthouse made that request? No, your first use of the rule was to break it. You still have not yet used this rule, though you finally seemed ready to do that this time. So this is the sacred rule that has never been used.

Per "demanding a rule change," you make that sound like it's a bad thing. "Demand" seems a little strong for I did, "advocate" fits the activity better, but I certainly did not beg for the indulgence of Your Royal Majesty. But there is more than a poor choice of words here, there's a sense of sacrilege or blashphemy here, as in "How dare you question or doubt us?" What makes this even more ludicrous is what is in dispute: I wanted one of the rules in a trivia contest discarded, not one of the Ten Commandments.

Per your attempt at feedback in a dispute, the normal way of doing this is to present both sides of the argument. Of the three forums, I had no access to two. An important part of my side of the argument was the portion of draft rules that placed heavy restrictions on who could play this way (only site-poor areas) or how extensively they could recruit (no wholesale recruitment of strangers). This was the part that was considered too complicated, even though it addressed their concerns. People could see that here, but not elsewhere. Perhaps that is the reason why your strongest support seem to always come from places we can't see. I have repeatedly asked for you to document that, but you have ignored that request.

The other part of the draft rules stated in writing the responsibilities of the gamerunner to the players, and provided for his removal and override of decisions. Here they are:

Transparency Rules:

General Principle #1: The gamerunner must make all his actions, decisions and rule changes as gamerunner public.

• The gamerunner must always make all his decisions public and must publicly explain his reasoning for making those decisions in a designated public forum (Scaratings.com).
• New and modified rules must be written in clear and unambiguous terms, and a separate explanation of what the rule means and why it was changed/added must be provided at the time it is issued. No rule can take effect until it has been posted at the designated public forum.
• All new/modified rules must allow at least a week for public comments. Emergency rules can be issued to take place immediately, but they will not become permanent until they have gone through the public comment period.
• The participants of a tournament can remove a gamerunner on the grounds of misconduct (whether within or without the duties of gamerunner) or inability to adequately perform the duties of gamerunner by a two-thirds vote of all teams registered to play in the tournament. Before doing so, they must give the gamerunner the opportunity to defend himself and they must publicly post the reasons for the removal.
• Decisions of the gamerunner can be overridden by the tournament participants, but they can only do so by a unanimous vote.

Basically, it's a Bill of Rights for the players. Folks, how bad does this look to you?

I still await your answer to my questions asked yesterday. It's part of your job.

_________________
“When I see the right and the ability to do everything granted to any power whatsoever, whether it is called people or king, democracy or aristocracy . . ., I say: there is the seed of tyranny, and I seek to go live under other laws.” --de Tocqueville

We learned a lot in the first week of the 23rd Annual McCarthy Cup Tournament. One thing is that, as one player has pointed out elsewhere, “radiation” is apparently not a nine-letter word. More importantly, though, we learned who the early leaders in the preliminary round are. Here are the current standings:

56,783 The Fellowship
48,224 Danny K’s
46,068 Wallaby’s
45,189 Phat Turtle BBQ
45,168 The Market at John Hall Store
45,146 Teaser’s
43,428 Primetime Sports Grill
43,390 Alien Bar
43,183 Tower Pub
41,509 Hanko’s Sports Bar
41,437 Moose McGuires
39,595 Time Out West
39,464 Corner Pocket
38,218 Blue Horn Lounge
38,180 Big Guys
33,244 Alabama’s Little Bit of Texas
22,923 Oak Tree Lanes

There are a lot of tight races here, best exemplified by the mere 43 points that separate the three teams in 5th-7th place.

We also learned that the tournament garnered an exceptionally strong field this year: the entire top ten non-computer using teams last night were all tournament teams, and most of the rest were in the top 20.

Just a friendly reminder: as everyone gets to drop a low score, all of the teams are very much still in the race so far. Good skill to all next week!

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

Remaining points:



There's an implication here that I should have requested an exemption from a rule rather than a rule change, and that rules cannot be changed. That might not have been a bad idea: if it had existed, that is, and how can any rule be used by others if it isn't put down in writing so they can know about it? This is how he unfortunately operates, with rules that exist only in his head.
My draft rules essentially do the same thing he is implying here and actually did a year ago: create a hardship exemption. I drafted them to meet the reasonable concerns voiced about this method of play.

Here's a more succinct version of them:

General principle: People should play in bars:

Exception: People who live more than an hour away from the Buzztime location that has the game can play remotely.

I also added a further restriction to keep the likes of Ken Jennings and Company off my team, by restricting recruitment to former team members and family members.

So I wrote rules even more restrictive than the ones actually used by this team a year ago, and they unanimously rejected them. To be fair, they may not have understood them; their only comment about them was they thought a restriction that would only apply to teams like mine applied to them. Did they reconsider after this was pointed out to them? Of course not, but this was a team that fought the idea that if you ask for feedback, you're supposed to consider it.


Two can play this game Let me rephrase that, "He is demanding that we unban something that has been banned from tournaments going back more than ten years, EXCEPT FOR THE TIME WE LET IT IN." You can huff and puff and blow the house down, but you can't escape that. I've said repeatedly I would have changed the rule on the spot if I knew what you thought you said, but you're especially slow on picking up inconvenient facts.



I reposted the Players' Bill of Rights earlier in this thread, this is what they found terrible, which from their perspective I can understand because it contains a removal provision. But a wholesale scrapping of our rules? What rules??? It's because you don't have any written or unwritten rules governing how you handle matters. and you desperately need to have some and follow them.
"My rules?" I can hardly claim credit for saying things "You need to make your decisions public." That's what you rejected. Why?



With the honorable exception of Teaser's, where are they? Are they in Anon's Witness Protection Program in Badbart,too? Show us. Better yet, have them come over here. I would like to hear them and maybe tell them a thing or two.



Have an impartial ballot of the tournament teams, as I've described repeatedly. Why not? Does the man with the invisible rules has invisible supporters, too?

_________________
“When I see the right and the ability to do everything granted to any power whatsoever, whether it is called people or king, democracy or aristocracy . . ., I say: there is the seed of tyranny, and I seek to go live under other laws.” --de Tocqueville

Week 2 of the McCarthy Cup is now in the books, and it turned out to be a better week than last for most teams. As usual, Don Denton is tracking the tournament on an interactive tournament page that allows you to sort by total score, one dropped score, best possible score, and worst possible score. Thanks to him for all of his work on this:

https://ntn.donrdenton.com/contest.php? ... contest=89

A few observations on this week's results:

1) Blue Horn did not report any scores this morning. Sometimes this is due to a computer issue and scores report later, but sometimes it is because the game was not played for some reason. If their score reports out in the next day or two, it will be added to their total. Otherwise, this week will count as their dropped score.

2) This week's scores will be "keepers" for most teams. Eleven of the seventeen teams scored better than they did last week, which means either Week 1 or a lower later score will be their dropped score.

3) After dropping low scores, there continues to be an extremely tight and exciting race around the bubble. The six teams ranked 7-12 are all within less than 500 points from each other, including margins of 21 points between #9 and #10, and 22 points between #10 and #11.

Good skill to all teams in the penultimate preliminary game this week!

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

The Blue Horn Lounge seems to have had no game play since Saturday March 11th. The Tuesday group of Boggie/Roller and co always plays on Tues so something has gone bad.

However, the Blue Horn is showing on the closest 6 bars list shown on the 1st page of a location search by zip code. So, that would mean they are connected to the system.

Maybe someone will make the call to BT and get it figured out by next Tues.

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

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

I contacted MADMAX, and apparently things are OK. A good chunk of the team took a trip to Vegas, so they decided not to play and use this week as their dropped score.

I hope they are having good luck out there, and we look forward to seeing them back on the boards on Tuesday.

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

Week Three of the McCarthy Cup showed proved just how strong and competitive the field is. Only two teams (The Fellowship and Danny K's) have clinched a spot in the knockout round, and only two others have been mathematically eliminated. Thanks, as always, to Don Denton for his incredibly useful interactive Tournament Page:

https://ntn.donrdenton.com/contest.php? ... contest=89

There is still a battle around the bubble, with less than 400 points separating 8th and 9th place.

Even if your team does not make it past the preliminary round, though, there is a way to keep competing. The Oak Tree Lanes team has proposed holding a kind "Best of the Rest" tournament to be run concurrently with the knockout rounds for the other teams. Don Denton has volunteered to track this on a separate tournament page if there is enough interest. Please let me know if your team would be interested in joining them in their proposed tournament.

There is going to be a lot on the line on Tuesday as the brackets get settled. Good skill to all this week!

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

Awesome, participation trophies for every team. Well, not every team. Every team that abides by a narrow minded rule set.

But hey, if this tournament goes, would that be 3 tournaments being run simultaneously that the NYC team (the most veteran team among all of you all) would not be allowed to participate in? Pretty cool.

If someone wants to run a tournament that will result in more people gathering in Buzztime establishments and playing Buzztime for more weeks, I think that is objectively a good thing, both for those establishments and for Buzztime.

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

The Roman Catholic Mass had something to say about this today

From the Book of Wisdom:

The wicked said among themselves,
thinking not aright:
"Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;
he sets himself against our doings,
Reproaches us for transgressions of the law
and charges us with violations of our training. . . .
To us he is the censure of our thoughts;
merely to see him is a hardship for us,
Because his life is not like that of others,
and different are his ways.
He judges us debased;
he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure. . . .
Let us see whether his words be true;
let us find out what will happen to him. . . .
With revilement and torture let us put him to the test
. . . ."
These were their thoughts, but they erred;
for their wickedness blinded them. . . .

_________________
“When I see the right and the ability to do everything granted to any power whatsoever, whether it is called people or king, democracy or aristocracy . . ., I say: there is the seed of tyranny, and I seek to go live under other laws.” --de Tocqueville

The final night of the McCarthy Cup preliminary round turned out to be as exciting as advertised: There was a lot of jockeying for position, especially around the bubble. The final total cumulative scores were as follows:

226,506 Fellowship
216,102 Danny K’s
205,003 Alien Bar
197,403 Moose McGuires
176,966 Primetime Sports Grill
170,769 Teasers
168,371 Big Guys
167,441 Hanko’s
166,722 Corner Pocket
162,790 The Market
162,111 Wallaby’s
134,036 Time Out West
132,713 Phat Turtle
129,166 Tower Pub
128,308 Alabama’s Little Bit of Texas
95,704 Blue Horn Lounge
82,845 Oak Tree Lanes

However, of course the figure that counts is the total after dropping low scores. Here are those results:

173,237 Fellowship
167,878 Danny K’s
161,613 Alien Bar
155,966 Moose McGuires
144,864 Teasers
144,841 Hanko’s
143,686 Primetime
132,439 Corner Pocket
130,791 Big Guys
129,166 Tower Pub
129,039 The Market
125,514 Wallaby’s
118,529 Phat Turtle
116,665 Time Out West
108,731 Alabama’s Little Bit of Texas
95,704 Blue Horn
82,845 Oak Tree Lanes

Thus, Corner Pocket just nosed out Big Guys for the last spot in the knockout round. Thanks, as always, to Don Denton for keeping the tournament page with complete results—click on the “Drop 1” column to find the final standings: https://ntn.donrdenton.com/contest.php?contest=89

First, before announcing the brackets, I would like to thank all the teams who will not be advancing. It was great to have you in the tournament, and I hope you will consider participating in the “Best of the Rest”/Second Tier tournament that will be running concurrently with the knockout round starting this week. Please contact me if you would like to like to participate.

Now, it gives me great pleasure to congratulate the teams that will be advancing: The Fellowship, Danny K’s, Alien Bar, Moose McGuires, Primetime Sports Grill, Teaser’s, Hanko’s Sports Bar, and Corner Pocket. You have shown your teams to be among the best in a strong field. The brackets for this week will be as follows:

#1 The Fellowship
#8 Corner Pocket

#4 Moose McGuires
#5 Teaser’s

#3 Alien Bar
#6 Hanko’s

#2 Danny K’s
#7 Primetime

Once again, this is an extremely strong field: nearly all of these eight teams currently rank among the top ten in average score for this year. Accordingly, any one of them is a legitimate threat to go all the way. Good skill to everyone this week!

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

McCarthy Cup Quarterfinal Results:

I think it is a telling indication of how strong the McCarthy Cup field is that seven of the eight quarterfinal teams ended up in the top ten last night. With a field that strong, perhaps it was inevitable that we would have some upsets. After the dust settled, the top two seeds advanced, but the next two did not:

57,000 (1) Fellowship
20,844 (8) Corner Pocket

53,173 (5) Teaser’s
49,550 (4) Moose McGuire’s

50,539 (6) Hanko’s
44,698 (3) Alien Bar

53,608 (2) Danny K’s
47,445 (7) Primetime

Before moving on to the semifinal matchups, I would like to express my sincerest thanks and admiration to Corner Pocket, Moose McGuire’s, Alien Bar, and Primetime for providing top-notch competition in this tournament. To have made the quarterfinals in this tournament is a strong testament to your skill. Congratulations, and thanks again!

So, the semifinal matchups this week will be as follows:

(1) Fellowship
(5) Teaser’s

(2) Danny K’s
(6) Hanko’s

As always, thanks to Don Denton for keeping the tournament bracket page for us: https://ntn.donrdenton.com/elimination8.php?KeyCol=21

Congrats to the teams who have advanced, all of which finished in the top five this week. Good skill to all this week!

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

Unlike last week, there were no upsets in this week’ semifinal games:

60,177 (1) The Fellowship
54,242 (5) Teasers

61,435 (2) Danny K’s
46,867 (6) Hanko’s Sports Bar

First of all, I’d like to express my sincerest congrats to Teasers and Hanko’s for making it to the Final Four in a stacked field. It was a great tournament run for both teams.

Of course this means that next week’s final will pit two of the most prolific tournament teams in NTN/Buzztime history against each other. Danny K’s has made it to a major tournament (Sandbag and McCarthy) final game eight times, and this will be The Fellowship’s nineteenth finals appearance. In addition, it will be the third consecutive time they have faced each other in the finals: The Fellowship won last year’s McCarthy Cup, and Danny K’s won last year’s Sandbag Tournament, so this will be the rubber match. The Fellowship sends its best wishes to our friends and worthy opponents at Danny K’s for the big game on Tuesday.

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

Congratulations Fellowship and Danny K's. Look out Hanko's, Teasers is mad now!

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Merkin