Buzztime's Smartest Bar 2012 - MONDAY?

liljol · **Joined:** Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:41 pm **Posts:** 2497

Has anyone else noted that this promotion is scheduled for Mondays, instead of either of the usual Six days? Also, what happens to Sports IQ? :roll:

Jethro · **Posted:** Mon Apr 09, 2012 10:36 am

There are several issues with their page describing the tournament.

http://www.buzztime.com/smartest

"Get your brain in shape by competing in a Twitter trivia contest every Wednesdays in May at 12:30pm ET/ 9:30am PT @Buzztime before the real thing that evening! "

In addition to using the phrase "every Wednesdays," this is the only place it says Wednesday, as it says Monday on both the main Happenings page and at the top of Smartest Bar page. Also, the top section says the finals are in September, while the bottom section says they are in November. The schedule section has the game times listed on Mondays, and has the finals in September, so I'm guessing that is what will end up being the case, but who the hell knows for sure what will end up happening.

I also noticed that on the schedule page, the times conflict with what is listed on the main page. The schedule page shows separate East and West feed games, but implies they will both be available in at least the Pacific Time Zone. But the main page has one time listed, and it does not match either time listed on the schedule page.

As for Sports IQ, probably just getting the shaft again, for no apparent reason.

AARDVK · **Joined:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:30 pm **Posts:** 554

Exactly how does one have a Smartest Bar competition without including last year's winner, Mezzanine? I've been over the CST4 list several times now, which has all the Texas/Louisiana locations, and Mezz isn't on it; neither is SRO OT. Houston locations The Concert Pub and Catbirds are included. Is BT excluding any location that made the semi-finals last time?

Brooke/AARDVK

liljol · **Joined:** Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:41 pm **Posts:** 2497

AARDVK wrote:

Exactly how does one have a Smartest Bar competition without including last year's winner, Mezzanine? I've been over the CST4 list several times now, which has all the Texas/Louisiana locations, and Mezz isn't on it; neither is SRO OT. Houston locations The Concert Pub and Catbirds are included. Is BT excluding any location that made the semi-finals last time?

With respect to this issue, seems that those pages showed only the first 200 sites in each region, arranged alphabetically. Assuming that to be true, that would explain why all Black Angus sites with NTN Buzztime are in the Pacific region, while Pacific Beach Bar & Grill (another of last year's semi-finalists) was not.

pengwn · **Posted:** Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:44 am

Mezzanine is there, Brooke, complete with Eat Drink and Be Mezzy avatar. (PB shows up too)

It would be really nice if Buzztime provided a direct means of turning the page. For now, change the last digit in the URL from 1 to 2 to find the rest of the region list

Akbar71 · **Posted:** Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:49 am

At least the rules are pretty clear this time. Last year was a mess. Don't know if we'll participate this time, though, if it's on Mondays. BT really can't seem to grasp how little their players like change...

liljol · **Joined:** Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:41 pm **Posts:** 2497

Akbar71 wrote:

At least the rules are pretty clear this time. Last year was a mess. Don't know if we'll participate this time, though, if it's on Mondays. BT really can't seem to grasp how little their players like change...

Well, that, and...

NTN Buzztime not wanting to admit that what few of their employees bother to play their games at the sites (instead of the cozy confines of the NTN Test Bays) is nowhere near enough for them to make what have for the most part been godawful, horrible changes, most of which have been directly (if not deliberately) adverse to the desires of their longtime, core players.

Further, NTN Buzztime failing to understand that, even though we players are not their direct customers, that we, far more so than the preponderance of their direct customers, are in a far better position to let them know if proposed changes might be well received, instead of taking the apparent philosophy that if they throw enough crap on the wall, something will eventually stick.

-BO- · **Joined:** Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:20 pm **Posts:** 2291

Monday is of course an asinine choice for this promotion, but SIQ shouldn't be affected. It would air at it's current time immediately before in the east feed and immediately after in the west.

BO

AARDVK · **Joined:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:30 pm **Posts:** 554

-BO- wrote:

Monday is of course an asinine choice for this promotion, but SIQ shouldn't be affected. It would air at it's current time immediately before in the east feed and immediately after in the west.

BO

But won't the finals in September overlap with QB1? When we go out on Mondays, it's to play that, not trivia.

Brooke/AARDVK

AARDVK · **Joined:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:30 pm **Posts:** 554

pengwn wrote:

Mezzanine is there, Brooke, complete with Eat Drink and Be Mezzy avatar. (PB shows up too)

It would be really nice if Buzztime provided a direct means of turning the page. For now, change the last digit in the URL from 1 to 2 to find the rest of the region list

I tried that, but I got an "Invalid URL" response. Also this whole competition seems to have vanished from the "Current and Upcoming" Happenings sliding list (I got to the page with the first half of the list using my Today's history info).

At this point, I'm assuming the SRO OT is also on the second half of the list. But I can't believe the average player who is interested enough to participate in the competition, but doesn't participate on this board or BadBart, will know how to get to it. Much more likely the average player will assume that, in the same way that the Traveling Trophy and other competitions are BT-invitation only, the player's location isn't included.

Brooke/AARDVK

liljol · **Joined:** Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:41 pm **Posts:** 2497

AARDVK wrote:

Also this whole competition seems to have vanished from the "Current and Upcoming" Happenings sliding list (I got to the page with the first half of the list using my Today's history info).

Yep, and for now, seems like it was all yet another godawful, horrible NTN BT bungle. :roll:

AARDVK · **Joined:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:30 pm **Posts:** 554

liljol wrote:

Yep, and for now, seems like it was all yet another godawful, horrible NTN BT bungle. :roll:

Love to know if in Carlsbad someone is saying: "What?!!! You're saying you intended to move it to Monday? Doesn't that mean we'll have to write a third SIX game that week? And that a lot of the people who played last year will just write it off because they can't or won't make it on a different evening?"

Brooke/AARDVK

lewser · **Joined:** Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:25 pm **Posts:** 1028

AARDVK wrote:

Love to know if in Carlsbad someone is saying: "What?!!! You're saying you intended to move it to Monday? Doesn't that mean we'll have to write a third SIX game that week? And that a lot of the people who played last year will just write it off because they can't or won't make it on a different evening?"

Brooke/AARDVK

Probably not, everybody in that place is as dumb as a box of rocks.

BUD · **Posted:** Mon Apr 09, 2012 7:06 pm

This has to be Wed., those Monday references were typos I'll bet. BT won't switch SIX to Monday. The line about play on twitter on Wed. to warm up for later that night is the correct info.

lewser · **Joined:** Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:25 pm **Posts:** 1028

BUD wrote:

This has to be Wed., those Monday references were typos I'll bet. BT won't switch SIX to Monday. The line about play on twitter on Wed. to warm up for later that night is the correct info.

I am not so sure about that, when you went to the 'Happenings' part on their website it said "Smartest Bar" and underneath it said Mondays in May. Not just the dates on the schedule, but their headline also was a "typo?" I doubt it, very difficult to mistake Monday, for either Wednesday or Thursday. Then all of the dates listed Monday dates, so they 'typo-ed' the same day 11 times, and then in the rules as well. Never mind, you are probably correct they are stupid enough to do it..

AARDVK · **Joined:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:30 pm **Posts:** 554

Well, I see they still haven't restored the competition to their "Happenings" lineup, which suggests someone recognizes there was some problem. Hey, all it would take is for the person writing the hype about the tournament to not know when SIX is played. Which is of course what you get when BT employs people who have never been (and aren't interested in becoming) players. Because it makes so much sense to get people who neither consume nor understand your product to make decisions about it, while paying at most lip service to the people who use it and know it extremely well.

Brooke/AARDVK

Kendo · **Posted:** Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:07 am

Well, let's not blame Buzztime for this Smartest Bar fiasco. After all, getting a tournament's parameters correct in the advertising requires a little WORK. Anyone who has been around for the last several years knows for sure that Buzztime tries to get away with as little WORK as possible. I've seen them recycle questions from the past, that were no longer true. However, they were true when they were ran for the first time.

I guess I'm still sore that they got rid of the Academy Awards game after 20+ years. Their excuse for getting rid of it was that it required quite a bit of WORK.

AARDVK · **Joined:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:30 pm **Posts:** 554

For any of you not following the various Facebook conversations, BT says that Monday is not a glitch--it was chosen because they had to pick some time to run a non-split network game that didn't conflict with any of the split network premium games. As always, they are going to "pass along my feedback" about how crazy it is to think that people who played last year on Wednesdays, and normally play on Wednesdays, are going to be able to rearrange their schedules to go out on Mondays just because that "solves" a problem BT created by splitting the normal Wednesday SIX game.

I'm one of the fortunate few who don't have work or family obligations that prevent me from playing on Monday if I so choose. But the vast majority of players who participated last year are constrained by work schedules, family schedules (including having to arrange for baby sitting), monetary considerations that might force people to choose between playing SIX on Monday and SIX plus Sci-Files/PasTimes/Lexitopia on Wednesday (and no, the average SIX is not going to come early or stay later for Sports IQ), conflicting commitments to other leisure-time activities (including live trivia teams), lack of interest by Showdown players in going out three nights in a row, etc.

Also BT doesn't understand in box shortage problems that will pit QB1 players against SIX players--they probably don't even believe it exists. And of course one of the reasons it does is that the boxes that replace the boxes sent in fail soon need to be replaced themselves. Every single time we get what should be 15 working boxes together because replacements have just come in, one or more goes out within the week.

BT could have built on last year's success with this competition by not splitting the network so that the competition could have stayed on Wednesday. Many people playing last year would have returned, probably bringing new players with them to improve their chances. Now instead of the returning base, the player count will be based on whoever is both able and willing to come out on Monday, and whatever Sports IQ players can be lured into trying (minus the QB1 players). I predict the participation level will drop.

Brooke/AARDVK

-BO- · **Joined:** Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:20 pm **Posts:** 2291

We're assuming QB1 will be offered during the upcoming season. With some of the decisions coming out of Carlsbad lately, nothing can be taken for granted.

BO

pengwn · **Posted:** Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:16 am

-BO- wrote:

We're assuming QB1 will be offered during the upcoming season. With some of the decisions coming out of Carlsbad lately, nothing can be taken for granted.

BO

Only east feed players will get to play QB1 live. Those on the west feed will have to wait for the game to air on ESPN Classic

BUD · **Posted:** Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:46 pm

Having this on Monday is the stupidest idea, very few will play. Hardtimes won't play.

Just put SIX on Wed at 9pm eastern and move the other premiums to whatever time fits best.

scar · **Joined:** Sun Jan 10, 2010 6:57 pm **Posts:** 2218

Well, this seems rather silly, but trying to look on the brighter side of things:

1) If a bar has different Wednesday and Thursday Six devotees and they decide to play on Mondays, they'll have possibly experience a new team if they share and have enough boxes.

2) Maybe SIQ will get some new fans for those who play it before or after Monday Six, at least in May and July (good questions regards QB1).

scar · **Joined:** Sun Jan 10, 2010 6:57 pm **Posts:** 2218

Another issue with using Mondays as the dump to date is holidays, such as Memorial Day May 28 and Labor Day September 3rd, where I imagine lotsa folks might not head to their watering hole at the end of a 3 day weekend....

tchoiniere · **Posted:** Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:29 pm

scar wrote:

Another issue with using Mondays as the dump to date is holidays, such as Memorial Day May 28 and Labor Day September 3rd, where I imagine lotsa folks might not head to their watering hole at the end of a 3 day weekend....

Adam's Mill isn't open those days so even if we decided to play, we would not be able to.

AARDVK · **Joined:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:30 pm **Posts:** 554

BUD wrote:

Having this on Monday is the stupidest idea, very few will play. Hardtimes won't play.

Just put SIX on Wed at 9pm eastern and move the other premiums to whatever time fits best.

That's exactly what I also think BT should do (and by "premiums", BUD, I assume you mean the specialties such as Sci-Files). By moving the tournament to Mondays, BT is implictly acknowedging that it can't control cheating with the split network. It's very sad to see the tail wagging the dog, where to preserve the split network, BT has to gut a tournament that got BT media attention last year along with a high level of player interest/participation.

Also, do we take it that all BT tournaments in which all locations can play will now be held on Mondays? Yeah, that's gonna work. Because everyone wants to start out the work week by going out on Monday--when normally they do so on Tuesday (Showdown), Wednesday (normal day for SIX), etc.

It's just getting painful to watch BT make bad decision after bad decision--and as a player, to have to live with the consequences.

Brooke/AARDVK

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