INTRODUCTIONThe trivia god sighed. He did that often these days.
Not because he needed to administer the Sandbagger tournament. That was just another welcome seasonal festival of jovial competition.
No, what troubled him was not the tournament or its possible outcome, but the darkness that now shadowed the place where they played. All was not well in Trivalhalla.
It was empty compared to the past. Only a fraction of the deities remained; the rest had mysteriously slipped away over the years, and few had sprouted up to replace them. Instead, herds of winged wild buffalo now wandered about the vacant lands, and few were happy campers. Some of the head buffalo even promised to lead a stampede out of the place, soon, and the trivia god was not alone in fearing that such a stampede would stomp Trivalhalla out of existence.
Where do the gods go when their home dies?
Yes, the surviving Nordic gods found other places after Ragnorak, but where could we trivia gods go? The answer is as obvious as it is awful: the live local bar trivia games that bloomed as Trivalhalla shriveled. But really, being a trivia god in a local bar is like being one of those Roman penates; a god of the cupboard who is nothing outside the container. Who would want that rather than the chance to shine on a binational stage? Apparently, most people, selling a chance for trivinity for a shot at some beer money.
What troubled the trivia god most was a nagging sense that the young were somehow right, that they and their game was the future and he and his game was the past, as dated as doo-wop and disco. He already knew that his trivine power to know what mere man found unknowable was weakened in this new world, that he was often less trivia god and more like Rip van Winkle.
For him, a life of only bar trivia would be an afterlife, a ghost from a different place and a different time giving the kids an occasional answer from the glory days and annoying them with endless tales about those good old days.
Sigh.
Oh well. If the end is near, perhaps it would be best to savor each special moment all the more. I hereby announce the 13th Annual Sandbag Tournament.
OFFICIAL RULESFrom its inception, this 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). Using the Buzztime Playmaker app on electronic devices such as iPhones, iPads, or Droid 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.
All teams that abide by this primary rule are welcome to play, either by signing up on ScaRatings (you may copy this post and place it on Badbart) or otherwise contacting STRO at
1957ecs@gmail.com. All teams must register no later than 4:00 PM (EDT) ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. 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 September 3 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 September 24 game.
This year, both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur can potentially affect the ability of players to attend Showdown (that is the case at Mad River). Therefore, the second phase will begin on October 15. 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). 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 responsibility of running the 14th annual tournament next fall. How they will celebrate the win is up to them, of course, but I recommend that they drink some mead.
And yes, Mad River is in.
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, such as what happened during the McCarthy Cup. Teams faced with a sudden close or loss of Buzztime at their home location may play at another location as long as they notify STRO by email/text at
1957ecs@gmail.com 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.
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