New Scaratings

The only games PTs consistently appears on the ENCORE Feed rankings are Spotlight and Showdown. Spotlight they are legit, Showdown is the same hack monkey borgs from Tuesdays at Aces and Eights (Mike and Lorelei-I actually put a BORG reference in their Bar review, BT deleted it and the account I posted with-seems as though someone for PTs complained-pussies). Last Wednesday was Megumi at PTs, you won't see them again for a long time..

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

Actually, some of the Coyote Maverick team played at Sliders in Plantsville (part of Southington), CT. This really surprised me as that is about a 40-mile drive from Danbury, where Coyote Maverick is and where these people live. Are they going to regularly make a 40-mile drive every tournament Monday? I can tell you that Southington is about halfway from Danbury to Manchester (where Adams Mill is)...

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

Hardtimes isn't playing this one. Very little interest in Monday, we'll stick with Wed. SIX. See all you Easterns on the boards tonight. (that are fixed as of these last 2 weeks, after a month+ of nothing) I assume everyone is now getting Wed SIX rankings in full?

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

LET'S GO ....Orioles!!!!

I am pretty sure not a single person has seen 'rankings in full' for any premium game since Feb. 28th...

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

Agreed.

Not much of a Smartest Bar if the playing field isn't inclusive of all...which it isn't since the split.

No interest in this promotion from my site.

Anybody want to throw out some odds on tomorrow's supposed Smartest Bar game coming on at the correct time and going off without at hitch?

The Vegas line has been on the move the last few weeks; +800 no problems, -18750 that the game goes without a hitch, -1875500550 that tomorrow BT has the line on Facebook, "Thank you for your payshentz, we have informed our editors."

For the layman: someone can lay nearly 2billion dollars to win $1.

P.S. Buzztime you suck ass..

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

The sharps are pounding the over on "Number of questions with typos and/or factual errors: 8.5".

There's a rumor that there's a question about the new show "XIII".
When news of possible BT Roman numeral usage hit Vegas they pulled the line completely from the board.

Plus it looks like Buzztime is giving bars credit for playing repeat games. BWW South Strip played a repeat on July 9th and never showed up on the rankings because of the repeat. Now they are getting credit for their score and we dropped to 3rd, my only goal was to beat them and make the finals. If bars now get credit for repeats in competitions, I am making this very simple. I will be unplugging my sites computer after the first week and playing the same game the rest of the tourny and plugging it in the day after it ends to get full perfects across the board. Buzztime has set precedent, they also deleted the cheating douche ROGUE's P+ and handles, but they are all back including his P+, what a deterrent to stop cheating, you get credit for repeats and you zone jump in Lunchtime? Anyone want to send me the answers for tonight's Showdown game? You better not delete shit of mine, since you don't stick to it, unless it is my P+....

Buzztime, you want us to stop badmouthing you, yet you keep pulling this stupid shit?

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

Curious. Do you know, did BWW South Strip specifically appeal to Buzztime to have their July 9 looked at or is Buzztime just finding this on their own? It could get reversed again if the circumstances can be flushed out. Did South Strip make a claim that it was not a repeat, or that the repeat is not their fault? Was their July 9 flagged as a *repeat at the time or just not show up at all?
We can make Buzztime answer to this on their own blog if we get wonky with details and educate the rest of the playership in the process. They apparently laid off their blogger, and now the blog topics are few and far between, which compresses more comments and more subjects and more readers into fewer locations over there.

Buffalo Wild Wings South Strip (BWW SS) had a computer issue July 9th. Their site had not been reporting scores for a few days, according to another post by Mr. Lew on this site (see the thread in this category for the Smartest Bar Six of July 9). It appears the site was not receiving new game content, either. On July 9th BWW SS played a game presented under the "Smartest Bar" logo that was totally different from the game experienced at any other site that night.

Subsequent information determined that BWW SS Smartest Bar game they played that night, as well as Countdown games played before and the sports game played after, were games pre-loaded (and perhaps stored, as the sports game was a recent repeat) into the site's computers to be used as backups in the event of communication failure. So far as is known, no other site played this game content on that night.

The likeliest explanation seems (to me, anyway) to be that a communications failure caused BWW SS to play backup games, while the rest of the nation received different content.

Their is some public comment on this issue in Buzztime's Facebook page, under "Recent Posts by Others" scrolling down to Eric Bell on July 10. Buzztime does offer a noncomittal response to the issue. The thread ends without a formal final reply from Buzztime, but with Eric reporting an automated email from Buzztime that included the score, although the score didn't appear at that time in the official results on the Buzztime page. His final public comment on the matter from July 15th:

"Not surprisingly, we never got an answer on this issue, but meanwhile we all got emails saying we finished 2nd in the Pacific Time Zone last week despite having a 0 score. Thanks for the feedback, we're working on it, and we've notified the editors."

The BWW South Strip score has since been listed on the official results page for July 9 as 62,483.

http://www.buzztime.com/smartest/rank/? ... ode=scores

The (possibly) relevant part of the rules are excerpted below from Rule 8 - General:

"Buzztime is not responsible for lost, interrupted or unavailable network server or other connections, miscommunications, failed telephone or computer transmissions, or technical failure, jumbled, scrambled or misdirected transmissions or other errors of any kind whether human, mechanical or electronic. Any Buzztime location whose VSAT connection, DSL connection or telephone line is not working properly may forfeit its chances to enter."

The rule does not specifically state that Buzztime will discount scores occuring due to computer issues, but does say that you can't complain if they decide not to count it. Another (possibly) relevant part of the same rules section reads:

"In the event that the operation of the Promotion is compromised due to virus, bugs, non-authorized human intervention or any other causes beyond the control of Buzztime which corrupts, or impairs administration, security, fairness or proper conduct of the Promotion, Buzztime reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to suspend, modify or terminate the Promotion in its entirety and to disqualify any individual who tampers with the entry process."

It seems to me this rule may give Buzztime the discretion to count the score, as modifying the promotion in the interest of fairness for a computer transmission issue beyond its control. But the question is, should they choose to use their discretion on that way?

With all due respect to BWW SS, I think Buzztime has appeared to have made the wrong call by allowing the July 9 score to stand. The content was completely different from what everyone else played. The questions may have been easier. The questions may have included repeat content from the previous Smartest Bar competition - several of the other games BWW SS saw that night were repeats.

But it matters most that the questions were different from those that everyone else played. When a competition has been set up to have everyone to play at the same time on the same questions, to allow one site to play a totally different set violates any precepts of "fairness," imo.

I have no dog in this hunt - Steel Pit finishes fourth whether the BWW SS score stands, or is reduced to zero and becomes their low. But if this July 9 score stands, I think it sets a very dangerous precedent with great potential for abuse.

TFM

BTW. they posted updates winners and gave BWW South Strip 2nd place.

FUCK FUCK FUCK You Buzztime, this is such fucking Bullshit. I hope your company dies a quick death and everyone gets turned down for unemployment benefits. You all are fucking retards. If you don't get how pissed I am here it is again, FUCK YOU you assholes.

I'm Done.

P.S. Fuck You.

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

As a non-member of Facebook, and using only mobile Safari to visit over there, I do not have access to the feature, "recent posts by others"; I can only read threads initiated by Buzztime itself on their Wall.

Did it seem like Eric Bell of BWW South Strip was making an appeal in good faith on July 10 to have the July 9 62,000 score counted; was he asserting it was not a rerun and/or that they should get the points in some invocation of a sense of fairness? Does it seem like he publicly pushed Buzztime toward a ruling they would not otherwise have made?

I don't know Eric Bell at all. I certainly would call out Buzztime in public the next day to get my points if I thought I had played the same game as everyone else. But then I would withdraw if I knew later that it wasn't. He could just as publicly initiate to give the points back if he chose.

Is it worth speculating whether going out of his way to publicly ask for the points (if true) was in good faith or disingenuous? And what he could do now that he has them?

Eric is a friend of mine. He is straight up, i figured out they played a repeat after he posted a comment asking two questions on Bill Clintin. We didn't have the same questions and their score didn't pass the sniff test. There were several matching questions that there was no way they got if we played the same game. I have nothing against anybody at BWW(they are the Scooter's group), what i have a problem with is an unattainable score, by way of a repeat, counting when it shouldn't. They still qualified and so did we, but we beat them. Everybody should be wondering why repeats are counting.

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

Eric didn't directly ask for the points. He did ask how Buzztime was going to resolve it, and never received a public response.

TFM

It's one thing if a repeat game score is counted in a qualifying round where the outcome in terms of who moves on to the final round and who receives the top prize in the league would be the same either way (which is my understanding of this situation). It's quite another if the same thing happens during the final round, and counting a repeat game score affects who wins what.

Perhaps this is the question Buzztime should be asked: is Buzztime setting a precedent that it will be counting repeat game scores throughout the rest of the competition?

My take is that BT screwed up (again) by failing to give BWW South Strip the game everyone else was playing. Rather than accept responsibility for this error and all the heat that would go with it from major chain customer BWW when the location score on the alternate game was excluded, BT wants to keep the major customer happy by wrongfully including the score. Would BT have done the same for a non-chain location in identical circumstances? Probably not--but because it's done it this time, it's set the precedent. And especially with their really screwed up approach to try and handle the Monday Night Football complications by having a game sent only to the 80 finalists, I see a lot of chance that one or more locations are also going to get a wrong game, and if the precedent is followed and those scores are counted, the tournament is meaningless.

Brooke/AARDVK

Buzztime fixed it.

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

In the interest of fairness, shouldn't the above post look like:

I'd pay good money to witness him utter those words face to face to a BT employee. Might even go so far as to cover his bar tab for that night.

Nope, the split is still here. Do people still play trivia in Dallas and Indianapolis? I haven't seen you on the rankings for what seems like forever.

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Buzztime is a company full of dumbshits.

Good playing to all the finalists. Now let's just keep our fingers crossed that all eighty locations that are supposed to get the game tonight actually do so, because we know no one is going to be around in Carlsbad after hours on a holiday to help any location where the game doesn't come up.

Brooke/AARDVK

It didn't matter for us at the Blue Goose. The Goose was locked tight for Labor Day. (And with no drop, it appears we won't even try the next 3 weeks.)

--Rick Magnus
RickM, Blue Goose

Mike's Place was open, but some of the regulars who had ended up playing with us in the qualification round weren't around. The wait staff person who is in charge of box maintenance and therefore interested in the games and sorry we were down to a two-person effort asked, "Why would anyone schedule a tournament so it starts on a holiday?"

I told her it was an excellent question and that because of it, some teams couldn't even participate because they'd be 25% behind every other team that could play on Labor Day, and that's not a handicap any team can overcome in a highly competitive field.

Brooke/AARDVK