New Scaratings

A good scouting report takes into consideration a player's strengths and weaknesses, and may include some personal remark by the scout regarding his personal biases, especially if those biases have been overturned.

I was seated at the short rail above the theater seating at B-52, formerly a Damon's, this Sunday night past. A perfect evening, half the clientele were on the patio upstairs. A man and woman were soon seated almost directly in front of me. The woman briefly excused herself, and returned a minute later with a Buzztime playmaker.

She played one or two questions before the game ended, but there were two salient features to which I wish to draw your attention. The woman, who may have been in her mid-30's, weighed far nearer 300 than 200 pounds. And she was seated at a table where her view of the Buzztime screen was split by a pillar, which pillar had been introduced into the dining room for the purpose of sustaining the patio on the roof. Certainly the pillar hadn't been installed to block her full reading of the questions being posed in Countdown. But that was, in fact, a practical effect. My immediate impression is that her Buzztime experience would not end well.

The dining room was half-empty, and the table on that particular tier, directly in front of me and with perfect sightlines, was open. So I went down to speak with her and her husband/date.

"Hi! I'm your competition," I introduced myself. "I can't help but notice that you're sitting with an obscured view. You should ask to be moved to the next table over. Trust me, I'm not a player you need to offer a handicap."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," she replied, cheerfully. Holding up the playmaker, she added, "We're just trying to figure out how this thing works."

Their meals hadn't arrived. I signaled to the host and got them moved to a table directly in front of me, one with perfect sightlines.

Their meals arrived about the same time as the next Countdown started. SHARK was collecting 800-950 points on every second or third question, while chomping down her hamburger and lifting forkfuls of pasta or broccoli from her companion's plate. But when she wasn't getting 800 or more, she was collecting 0's. After two five-question rounds, I'd seen enough, and fighting off my incipient despair, went down again to offer a brief seminar on how the clues worked.

She ended the quiz with about 6,000 points.

Two rounds into the subsequent Countdown, and without further coaching, she had a tick more than 8,500 points. And many of those questions were obscure.

Again I went down to her, and said, quite truthfully, "I've been playing here for five years, and I've never seen a guest player collect a 13 thousand. Give me a thrill."

She got tripped by a geography question, but still finished with a 12.7. There were only about 430 players for that quiz. If I hadn't been ahead of her, she would have made the Final Top 20.

"That's still top five in my book, SHARK," I assured her. "I hope we see more of you in the future."

She was much pleased by the attention, and her male companion was beaming with pride. But I think you'll agree, SHARK deserved it. She went from 0 and clueless to a nationally competitive 12.7 in less than an hour. That is no mean achievement.