TEXT VERSION
BUZZER Volume 2 The Original Journal of Academic Buzzer Competitions Number 2
Is College Bowl Inc. Still a Mickey Mouse Operation?
The Year in Review
Over the course of publication of this journal, significant changes have occurred throughout the academic buzzer community. Most significant was the coup d'etat at the College Bowl Company Inc. headquarters, in which because of tainted regionals, the ACUI placed one of its own, Ms. Chris Golde, in the position of director. Many potentially positive events followed, with the assurance of new, challenging questions in the 1989 Regionals. CBCI, following the lead of BUZZER, established its own newsletter, providing news and gossip from their trademarked brand of academic buzzer competition. On the darker side however, the same organization attempted to exact licensing fees from public and private non-profit institutions of higher learning who are generally in fact playing what is a drastically different game. "Sanctions" were threatened against non-complying schools. What some people fail to realize is that a game format can NOT be copyrighted. Yet, for her newsworthiness in the year past, BUZZER names Chris Golde planet, er Woman of the Year in 1988.
RESULTS &emdash; Fall 1988 Buzzer Season
Berry College Early Bird Invitational 1st Georgia Institute of Technology 2nd University of Tennessee 3rd Florida State University MVP-Robert Trent -UT All Stars - Albert Whited - GT Steve Johnson- Auburn Scott Hersey- Berry
SUBSCRIPTIONSThe two year subscription rate for BUZZER is $5.00. If you are moving, please contact the Publisher-in-Chief. If you know someone who would like to receive BUZZER send their address along. And if you would like a copy of the current address list, contact our circulation department.
Make all correspondences to:
David M. Levinson Publisher-in-Chief of BUZZER PO Box 30158 Atlanta, GA 30332
© 1989 Intercollegiate Buzzer Associationpart of the Independent Buzzer Association family
Contents:Announcements ...
News:
-CBCI Threatens IBA, Independents
-BUZZER Takes Stand Against Threat
-Public Service Notices
Features:
-Sweethearts: A Television Review
-On Fairness
-SERIES: Stochastic and probabalistic methodologies for analyses of statistics in question and answer buzzer games: Part 1: Towards a Better Measure of PlayerPerformance.
-SERIES: Question Tips
-Official IBA Rules
Reproductive Notes
Buzzer Competitor and attorney-at-law Greg Hanthorn has had yet another child, name of Steven, who was seen answering questions at Berry College this past October.
BUZZER FOUNDED 1987 by Albert Whited & David Levinson Publisher - in - Chief David M. Levinson Contributing Editors: Robert Forsythe Chelsea Katz Mr. Academic Buzzer Competition #1 Principals of IBA David M. Levinson W. Albert Whited Mr. Academic Buzzer Competition #1 Robert A. Forsythe III Board of Advisors Dr. Gordon Carper Carol Guthrie Don Windham Frank E. Brown Tom Waters Unnamed Sources Will Remain Unnamed
They Are Not We
Several companies have sprung up recently, merchandising questions for use by collegiate academic buzzer teams. While schools are free to use any questions for practice purposes, only IBA sanctioned questions shall be used at IBA sanctioned tournaments. An old television organization has been contacting schools throughout the nation promoting a new game "College Bowl". This company has in the past had a poor business record, has sold old questions as new questions, abandoned the market for many years, and is returning and threatining legal action against those who have disputes with them. The format is one of very simple single part "Tossups" and very simple single or multiple part "Bonuses". This IS IN NO WAY affiliated with the Intercollegiate Buzzer Association, nor do we recommend participation.
1989 Buzzer Season(all dates tentative)
SOUTHERN CIRCUIT
January 14,15 Sunshine State Invitational contact:Lohse Beeland J Wayne Reitz Union Rm 330 at U. Florida Gainesville FL 32611 April 8 & 9, 1989 Allen Ludden Memorial defending Champion: Emory I previous champions: 1987 - Georgia Tech I 1986 - Vanderbilt 1984 - Georgia Tech I
THE UNDERGRADUATE CIRCUIT
Emory Junior Bird originally announced for January 21, 1989 defending Champion: Georgia Tech Vanderbilt Tournament for information, contact the host Sturm und Drang Tournament for information, contact the publisher Tennessee Tournament contact: Carol Guthrie 211 Green Street Athens, TN 37303 NORTHERN CIRCUIT
February 3-5, 1989 Nittany Lion Invitational contact Mark Murphy: 35 Atherton Hall University Park, PA 16802 Elvis Aaron Presley Invitational defending champion: Emory contact: Phil Schumacher 1013 Milton St. #105 Madison, WI 53703 New York University Invitational contact: Kim LaFond 4 Washington Square Village New York, NY 10003
NATIONAL TOURNAMENTS
February 17,1989 The Washington Post USOpen:ProAm National Championship of Academic Buzzer Competitions *tournament entry notification deadline is January 18, 1989. *rounds from Question Writers are due January 25, 1989 contact the publisher for information. Then, That Sunday, again in Atlanta, GA The Gunslingers &emdash; one on one competition between the best. Contact Chris Moody for information. _________________
Historical Abstract
The need for an Historical Buzzer Abstract, a record of all tournaments held, their results, and comparisons of teams and players across tournaments and seasons. Stabs at something similar to this have been made, but nothing has been finished. Any budding Bill James out there contact the publisher for guidance.
How to avoid recycling questions(and make money by doing so)
CBCI owns thousands of questions, if it were to sell those questions in some sort of book form, e.g. as balanced rounds or by category or by year or by difficulty, or in any other form, it could make money from thousands of high schools and colleges eager to have additional practice questions. And once published, CBCI's bad guys would be more restrained from recycling questions in the future. If I were like CBCI, I would ask for a royalty on every book sold due to this brilliant suggestion, but I won't.
A non-palmarious imitation of Buzzer, our suggested name in the name the newsletter contest is
A Cheap Ten Points
Vote No on Proposition $10.00
CBCI
StatKeeperA Useful Tournament Stat Program:
Programming Deity Steve Johnson of Auburn has developed a package called StatKeeper which is a Shareware Program for the Mac, it maintains individual and team stats throughout a tournament as well as permitting the Swiss Pairing of a tournament. For more information, contact Steve Johnson, 309 Foy Union, Auburn University, Auburn AL 36849On CBCI's Newsrag______________________
Sweethearts: A Television Review
WWOR-TV, Secacus NJ, 1:30 Weekdays
by Chelsea Katz
This is the show for which Richard Reid gave up College Bowl. A combination of To Tell the Truth and The Newlywed Game, Charles Nelson Reilly bumbles through as host (while the ever popular Jim Mackrell serves as announcer) of this hybrid in which a three member panel asks questions to three different couples in order to determine which pair are really Sweethearts, and which are fake. The fake couples try to act real in order to obtain minimal amounts of money,$250.00. With a total of $750.00 available + a vacation, this game with the inanity of the Dating Game will never make the Network. The one time I forced myself to watch, one of the fake couples had a John Denver lookalike, while one of the others had a professional model. How hard is it to determine the real couple with Hollywood types like that around. In the opinion of this columnist, individuals with the kind of production ethic that results in an abomination called Sweethearts ought not be permitted to run a game of intellect, or even College Bowl.
HIGH SCHOOLYou may have noticed that the Intercollegiate Buzzer Association is a member of the Independent Buzzer Association Family. One of the other members of that family is the High School Buzzer Association, under the Directorship of Albert Whited. In order to broaden the game, Albert is seeking the addresses of High Schools with active academic teams. If you host High School tournaments and have such a list, please pass it along to
Albert Whited PO Box 35317, Atlanta GA 30332Your cooperation is most appreciated.
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BUZZER is taking nominations for Legends of the Game. If you would like to nominate someone , please pass their name(s) along to the publisher.
On Fairness
by: Albert Whited
The issue of fairness is a vital one in Academic Buzzer Competitions, more vital in fact than most may realize. Considering the question of equity in the playing of other games is very basic. When one bowls or throws darts, one need only stay behind a certain line--everything else is legal. Most board games have a very definite set of rules, the abrogation of which is a cut and dried offense with which the other players can deal easily. Academic Buzzer Competitions, however, are much more complex. One must determine pairings which will yeild an equitable champion; questions must be both blind to the competing teams, and not misleading so as to unfairly evoke an incorrect response; readers must be unbiased or sufficiently submerge any biases they might hold toward the teams to which they are reading; protest situations must be dealt with equitably and uniformly; and, some fair means of determing a winner in the event of a tie--whether in a match or the tournament as a whole--must be determined beforehand. These are the major points to which standards of fairness must be applied, and I am sure that there are more minor ones which could be considered. Let us, then, discuss each of these points briefly.
The first topic--equitable pairing systems--is a major bone of contention to many teams, especially in the Southeast. In nearly two decades of competition, teams in this area have determined that the best type of tournament is that which relies on the round robin format. In such a tournament, every team plays every other, and little doubt is left as to which team is the best, since it has been pitted against all the others. For larger tournaments, those in which the number of teams would make a round robin tournament prohibitively long, the Swiss pairing format has been found to produce an equitable champion. In such a format, teams with similar records play one another through a predetermined number of rounds--that number of rounds being sufficient to insure a clearly superior team. Other formats which are frequently encountered, especially in competitions sponsored by CBCI, are the single and double eliminations. To illustrate their inadequacy, consider the following examples. Three of the nation's top four teams are competing in a single elimination tournament. Since they are in the same bracket, two of them play one another in the first round, and because of pairings, the winner of that match must play the third in the second round. Clearly, two teams have been cheated out of their rightful opportunity to place in the final four and win the tournament. Despite which one of the three teams survives, the other two do not have a chance to get anywhere near the championship while lesser teams do. I do not discount the chance that a perceived lesser team might be able to triumph over the field in a given tournament, only that that event is unlikely and should not be insured. The problems with double elimination tournaments are similar.
Despite any extravagent accouterments such as free meals, treasure hunts, and amusement park passes, the piece de resistance of a tournament is the questions. Regardless of their level of difficulty, the rounds of questions should provide an equitable winner to a given match. Again, I do not suggest that that winner must always be the favorite team, but that the round should not be skewed toward one team or the other--whether that skewing be the result of foreknowledge of the questions, or the writing of questions which the author knows to be overly disadvantageous to one team or the other. Furthermore, the individual questions should be fair as units. To begin a question with a misleading phrase (do not read ambiguous phrase) is to cheat the team which innocently answers early. Finally, all questions should be sufficiently researched so as to allow credit for equally correct answers.
The individuals chosen as readers for a tournament are much more than their name implies; they actually adjudicate the match, and must be familiar with the tournament rules, both in letter and in spirit. It is vital that readers not let any personal prejudice or bias get in the way of moderating a fair match. Also, a reader should be prepared to take control of the match. Should she allow herself to be intimidated by a team, the other team is put at an immediate disadvantage.
One of the most hotly disputed points in Academic Buzzer Competitions over the past few years is what to do in the event of a protest. The question over which the protest has been lodged is over, and cannot be used again. Furthermore, points which have been added or subtracted or points which were awarded for a subsequent bonus question become dubious. What to do? One school of though suggests that any and all points which might be accrued in a given toss-up/bonus pair are held in protest, while another contends that only the points associated with the specific disputed question or answer should be held in limbo. There are good arguments to both sides of this issue, and it is not my purpose to espouse or extoll either one of them. I suggest, however, that in the future that such situations be resolved by application of the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Protest Procedure, the particulars of which will be discussed in the IBA rules, supplemental to this issue of BUZZER.
Finally, there is the question as to how an equitable champion may be named in the event of a tie. This is rather easy in the case of an individual match: sudden death questions can be inserted at the matches end till one team breaks the tie, either by answering correctly or interrupting. It is not as easy, however, to determine an overall champion. If two teams are tied, a championship match can be played. But on occasion, three or more teams could be tied, making it difficult to determine the participants in such a championship round. This situation can be resolved by looking at total or average points, but since all teams do not usually play on the exact same rounds, nor against the same opponents on said rounds, point totals may vary. Records against common opponents could be considered, but in overall play, one team may have show itself vastly superior in points accumulation. Also, head to head records could be considered, but it may be that this too results in a tie (as it did in the 1985 Emory Junior Bird). What then is the most equitable solution? This is hard to say, but should be spelled out one way or the other in the tournament rules before the beginning of competiton.
The topic of fairness, then, is a difficult one. There are alternative ways of dealing with just about any situation in Academic Buzzer Competitions, and these, I am sure, will continue to be disputed. When hosting a tournament, though, one overriding concern should govern all such situations: will this rule or decision be equitable to any and all teams involved?
Towards a Better Measure of Player Performance
by Robert Forsythe
The recent expansion of the use of statistics in academic buzzer competitions makes this an opportune time to take a careful look at what is being measured and how it is done. The history of most of the measures in use at present is somewhat clouded and there certainly exists the temptation to continue using them since "that's how we've always done it". However, as these statistics begin to play a more prominent role in the game we all know and love, for example the determination of all-star teams based on toss-up averages, equity dictates that we seek to use the most valid measures practical. A careful analysis of the characteristics we seek to measure may well reveal statistical methods that are both more equitable and easy to employ.
In this article I will seek to analyze the concept of player performance in tournaments and to present what I believe to be an improved measure of this concept which may replace the player toss-up average as it is generally calculated today.
While there are many intangible factors which a player may contribute to his team - leadership, intimidation, sparkling personality, etc - his primary task must remain the answering of questions and it is on this alone that I will consider player performance to be based. The primary question then becomes one of determining who provided the answer and what value that answer had. Certainly not all questions are of equal difficulty, and while one may argue that "points is points," I would maintain that the circumstances under which a question was answered do affect the value of the answer and should be figured in to any accurate performance measure. For example, an answer given to a question which had already been interrupted, and which by that point in the question could have been answered by anyone in the room, has less value than an answer in which the opposition was still playing. The analysis which follows will be based around the various distinctions in circumstances which I believe to be potentially significant in the value of an answer given.
The most obvious distinction which can be made is between instances where only the answering player knew the answer at the point he buzzed in or whether multiple players knew the answer. During "normal" play - ie; when the question has not yet been incorrectly answer by the opposing team - this distinction loses most of its significance as both speed and depth of knowledge are esteemed qualities in a player. During "dead ducks" - questions which have been interrupted by the opposition - speed is no longer a factor, however, and an answer which can be provided by only one player is of more value than one which two or more players on the team could have given. In general though, this is not an easy distinction to make based upon a scoresheet. What we can say at this point is that this is probably not a significant factor in the value of an answer to a normal toss-up; however, the value of a dead duck may sometimes be lessened. One means of assessing the likelihood that the value would be lessened is through a measure of the difficulty of the question for those players concerned - more on this later.
The distinction between normal toss-ups and dead ducks has already been essentially noted. An answer provided when the other team cannot answer is less valuable than one in which both sides may still respond. The question remains how much less valuable? The answer would seem to have to do with the probability the answering team would have gotten the question anyway and the difficulty of the question.
Some have also made the distinction between regular toss-ups and "lame ducks" - ie; questions which have been read in their entirety but which neither team has attempted to answer. The logic is that these responses are often guesses. The educated guess, in my view, is a significant part of the game, though, since it is not a question between certainty and uncertainty in the response but merely one of degree of uncertainty. I see little difference in value between the two.
Next we come to the question of the value of what I have thus far used as a standard, the "normal" toss-up. Ten points are awarded for successfully answering a toss-up, but the majority of points in most rounds come from the bonus points which a team may earn as a result of answering toss-ups. Thus a large part of the value of a toss-up answer is in the opportunity for further points and also in the denial of the opportunity for further points for the opposition. The same number of bonus points will likely be earned by a team no matter which member answered the question, so it seems reasonable to me to include the bonus points in the value of a toss-up answer. Therefore, to quantify things, we can assign a point value equal to 10 points plus bonus points earned to a successful toss-up answer. Alternatively one could also add in the points that the opposition would have earned if they had answered the toss-up. This would generally only serve to double the value of all answers, though, and since hypothetical points are rather difficult to assess, I will use only points earned by the answering team. Further, since playing with stronger teammates or opposition generally can be expected to "water down" the contribution of any player, the strength of the teams as a whole should be figured into the value, perhaps as a coefficient.
Interrupts I will exempt from the above by including the negative five points assessed to the interrupting team as well as the points actually earned by the opposition in figure the value - or negative value actually - of this incorrect response.
Similarly, an incorrect response which is not an interrupt may also have negative value if another player on the same team knew the correct answer but was beaten to the buzzer.
Based on this valuation system, excusing some of the obvious problems which it presents and which will be discussed later, it should be possible to construct an equation expressing the value of a player's contribution to the team. For the sake of comparison, however, let us first look at the formula most commonly used for player performance and see how it fits into this system.
The present system of player valuation may expressed by the equation
Player Avg. = Toss-ups ans. - 0.5(Interrupts).
This equation makes no differentiation between our "normal" toss-ups and dead ducks and assigns an interrupt one half the value of a toss-up. Presumably the value of an interrupt relative to a toss-up was arrived at because an interrupt's penalty is half the value of a toss-up when bonus points are not considered. Also no account is taken of the varying levels of competition involved in the round or the bonus points the team realizes as a result of the answered toss-up. These and the other less significant differences between the present formula and the valuation system outlined lead me to believe a substanially more valid equation may be developed.
In looking at the system above with an eye towards quantification, it is obvious that there are many problems. How do you know if the opposition was about to buzz in on a toss-up or not? How do you measure the difficulty of a dead duck? How to you gauge the level of the competition? And there are others. In developing the formula which follows I have provided responses to these questions which I believe to valid, though likely not the only solutions, and which lead to a manageable equation.
Player Perf. = TU + x(DD) - y(I)
OpTU + x(OpDD) - y(OpI)
where the numerator contains the toss-up, dead duck, and interrupt totals for the player for a round and the denominator the opposing team's toss-up, dead duck, and interrupt totals. The purpose of the denominator is to account to some degree for the strength of a player's teammates. This does not account for the strength of the opposition but over the course of a tournament this should average out if each team plays all the others.
While the coefficients still require more research and testing I will present premliminary values which seem to be optimal.
x = 1.5 - (Toss-ups answered by both teams)
(Total toss-ups in the round)
Basically this implies a dead duck is always worth at least half of a toss-up but that it could be worth more if the round is difficult - difficulty being measured by the fraction of questions answered. The mathematically astute will notice that there exists the possibility - if fewer than 10 toss-ups were answered - that a dead duck could be worth more than a toss-up. While the obvious solution is to set a limit on the relative value of the dead duck it is still rare that so few questions will be unanswered so this is not likely to be a problem.
y = (OpDD)/(Player's team's interrupts)
In English, this implies that an interrupt is equivalent to a negative toss-up multiplied by the probability that the opposing team will answer the dead duck correctly. In the numerator of the full formula y would equal the player's team's dead ducks divided by the opposing team's interrupts.
This formula is intended to be used on a round-by-round basis with each score being averaged in to the the player's score for previous rounds to obtain a final tournament average. It is also possible to employ the formula only once for each player for the entire tournament but this will yield less valid results as the player's toss-ups etc will not be accounted for relative to the opposition of the particular round in which they were earned.
Stay tuned for later BUZZER articles on other statistical inovations and further refinements on the player performance measure.
Avoiding false lead-ins
by Mr. Academic Buzzer Competition #1
One of the goals of the good question writer is to avoid a false lead-in to a toss-up question. In this and future issues of BUZZER, some of the game's older players will address the most common problems faced by the author of questions. This issue's column is concerned with the improper use of pronouns at the beginning of a question.
It is quite common when a question about a noun is being written that the writer will, in the course of the question, refer to the noun that is the answer with a pronoun. In writing a question that utilizes this form, it is imperative that the question writer take care that the first identifible pronou in the question agrees in gender and number with the noun that is the answer. Otherwise, the author runs the risk of generating unfair interrupts by mis-identifying to the players the type of answer that is required by the question.
One of the most common question types in which you see this type of false lead-in is in one in which an author is the answer and the question attempts to identify the author by describing one of his works. How this happens can be seen in the following simple examples:
First published in 1851, it tells the story of a man obsessed with a monster from his past and is its author's most famous book. For 10 points, who wrote Moby Dick ?
Answer: Herman Melville
While this is a rathers simple illustration, you can clearly see that the intention of the author was not to mislead players, but merely to avoid placing the title "Moby Dick" early in the question.
To further illustrate this point, I recall an example from competition in which a very knowledgeable player earned a minus five penalty for an answer that should have been richly rewarded. The scene proceeded in approximately the following manner:
Moderator - "His most famous work was orchestrated by (some composer whose name slips my mind) " ... BUZZ ... player - "Grofe", moderator - "incorrect," question continues ... "and contains the name of a U.S. landmark. For 10 points, identify this work by composer Ferde Grofe."
Answer: Grand Canyon Suite
While it might be argued that the player who earned that ill-fated penalty should have blitzed, most of the blame must be placed with the writer of the question for using the pronoun he so early in the question. To prevent such misuse of pronouns and the generation of unnecessary penalties, a simple technique may be used - that of using general nouns rather than pronouns. This technique is illustrated in the following rewrites of our examples:
This author's most famous book was published in 1851 and tells the story of a man osessed with a monster from his past. For 10 points, identify this man, the author of the novel, Moby Dick.
Answer: Herman Melville
It was orchestrated by blank blank and is a musical suite inspired by a famous U.S. landmark. For 10 points, identify this most famous work by Ferde Grofe.
Answer: Grand Canyon Suite
until the next issue ...
[We believe the real life example occured in the televised 1987 National Championship with Cornell being penalized- Ed.]
NEWS PAGECBCI threatens IBA, Independents
by Mr. Academic Buzzer Competition #1
In the fall of 1988, the College Bowl Company began sending letters to hosts of prospective tournaments asserting that is has "the legal right to the College Bowl name and game format, both of which are protected under International Copyright and Service Mark law." Based on the research of BUZZER magazine at a U.S. depository library, CBCI holds only registered trademarks on the two word phrase "College Bowl" and what has been called "that fool assinine symbol" on the cover of thier rule book. Furthermore, the company claims that its company lawyers get involved with blatant copyright infractions and that schools have been banned from Regional and National ACUI competitions for copyright infringement. (It is rumored that the only banned school is Virginia Commonwealth which was banned not for hosting a tournament but for using the copyrighted questions of the company in their tournament without permission,) Also included in with these letters are six page licensing agreements that essentially concede that the College Bowl Company, in spite of restrictions of U.S. Copyright law that prohibit registering formats or systems, owns the format of two college teams getting together to play question and answer games. Furthermore, no information substantiating the alleged but "almost certainly fallacious" claims of the College Bowl Company to be the sole U.S. holder of any format copyright has, to the knowledge of this publication, ever been provided to anyone by the company. College Bowl Incorporated was asked to respond but declined.
BUZZER takes stand against threat
by Mr. Academic Buzzer Competition #1
BUZZER magazine announces for the general information of the Academic Buzzer World that it has adopted the official stance that while ABC is not the same game as College Bowl, this is in fact, irrelevant. According to the 1976 U.S. Copyright At and previous U.S Copyright laws, formats and systems cannot be copyrighted. Furthermore, legal research has uncovered no precedents in which the format of a game has been found to be protected. As publishing magnate David Levinson has said, "Why does the company own its game when there are multiple versions of Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, and Win, Lose or Draw type games on the market? After all, if Parker Brothers can't protect its products, how can a Mickey Mouse organization like CBCI BUZZER wishes the ABC public to be informed that it advises that anyone wishing to host an ABC event without using the "C" and "B" words should do so without fear of legal action. Until the company provides someone with information establishing its claim over games involving the answering of questions by groups of people, no one should capitulate to the scare-tactics employed by the company. Anyone interested in more details of the legal aspects of this issue should contact the publisher of BUZZER.
CBCI was invited to respond to this article but failed to exercise this option.
Public Announcement
The IBA, after having been unfavorably compared to the College Bowel Company, wishes to announce that its sole purpose is to assist anyone who wishes to host any form of ABC tournament, free of charge. The IBA also sanctions tournaments to help assure entrants of a high quality event just as AAA rates Hotels. The IBA now and forevermore renounces any claim of its ability to restrict anything other than the use of the "Independent Buzzer Association", "Intercollegiate Buzzer Association", "High School Buzzer Association", or the phrase "BUZZER, the Original Journal of Academic Buzzer Competitions" names. Rest assured that the IBA will not be threatening tournament hosts with legal action nor demanding the signing, in blood, of multi-page licensing agreements.
Reference of the Season:
The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy by Hirsch is an excellent reference to find question ideas, but unfortunately the entries are too brief to write multipart question with declining level of difficulty.
Class Action Suit?
Anyone interested in exploring the possibility of filing a class action suit on behalf of all participants in the 1987 and 1988 Regional Competitions, wherein the promise of new questions was broken, should contact the publisher of BUZZER.
Official IBA Rules © 1989 Intercollegiate Buzzer Association, Inc.
1.0.0 The number of players on a team is limited by the size of the buzzer systems available and may range from one player. The number of active players may also be limited by the rules meeting, while the number of alternates is limited by the capacity of the statistical software.
1.0.1 At the beginning of each round of play, one player shall be designated captain, if the team cannot agree on whom shall be designated captain, then the reader shall make the designation.
1.0.2 Teams may substitute players between rounds, but not during a round unless it shall be agreed upon beforehand by both teams playing that given round.
1.1.x Tournament Eligibility Rules.
1.2.0 The reader shall be the reader and timer and scorekeeper and judge, unless other individuals are provided to do those tasks.
2.0.0 A round shall consist of twenty "individual questions" (IQs) [or Toss-ups] worth a stated number of points, and twenty "consultation questions" (CQs) [or Bonuses] worth a stated number of points.
2.0.1 Unless it has been agreed otherwise by the majority of competing teams and the tournament director, all IQs shall be worth ten points.
2.0.1.1 OPTIONAL RULE. IQs 16,17,18,19 and 20 in a given round shall be worth fifteen points.
2.0.1.2 OPTIONAL RULE Certain IQs will be worth fifteen points if answered before an established point, and ten points if answered thereafter.
2.0.2 Unless it has been noted otherwise, all CQs are worth up to thirty points.
2.1.0 A player may interrupt the reading of an IQ.
2.1.0.1 If the player interrupts the question and answers it correctly, then ten (10) points (see above) will be awarded his team and a CQ shall be read to his team.
2.1.0.2 If the player interrupts the question and answers it incorrectly, then a score of negative five (-5) points shall be awarded to his team, and the IQ will be continued- from a grammatically sensible point- for the other team to answer.
2.2.0 A player will have five seconds to begin to answer a IQ after buzzing in and being recognized. No penalty shall be assessed for answering before being recognized, unless that player was not the first to buzz in.
2.2.0.1 If a player answers, and he was not the player who buzzed in, a score of negative five (-5) points shall be awarded to his team, regardless of whether the player who did buzz in was on his or the opposing team.
2.2.0.2 Any consultation: verbal, written, physical communication, or communication by any other means, during the reading of an Individual Question shall result in a score of negative five (-5) points being awarded his team on the first occurance, and ejection for that player on the second occurance in a round, and forfeiture by the team on the third occurance in a given round, as per the judgement of the reader. Consultation is any behavior by which a player indicates to other members of his team that he knows or suspects an answer.
2.2.1 After an IQ is completed, a team will have five seconds to buzz in and five seconds to begin an answer.
2.2.2 After an IQ is completed and one team has buzzed in and answered incorrectly, then the other team has an additional five seconds to buzz in and five seconds to begin an answer.
2.3.0 Once an answer is begun, it must be completed in a concise, continuous flow of information in an essentially grammatically correct fashion. At the first obvious pause the answer is considered finished. Two pieces of related information given without pause need not be grammatically correct.
2.3.1 If a question begins "Call me Ishmael ..." it is acceptable to buzz in and respond "Moby Dick, Melville". If an IQ begins "The Seven Hills of Rome are famous ..." it is not acceptable to buzz in and respond "In Rome the seven hills were the Aventine, Palatine, Quirinal, Veminal, Esquiline, Capitoline and Caelian, and in fact Cincinnati and Istanbul are also built on seven hills." unless the answer was the Aventine, if it was the Palatine, note that although the sentence was grammatical, it was not concise and Palatine was not given first. The response "In Rome one of the seven hills was the Aventine" would be acceptable if Aventine were the correct answer. In all such cases the reader's judgement is final and not protestable.
2.3.2 On any response where more than one answer is possible, for example player responds "King Henry of England", the reader shall ask for "more information" regardless of whether the correct answer is a King Henry or a King Fred.
2.3.3 On any response where the player slurs consonants, the reader shall ask the player once to "enunciate", regardless of whether the correct answer is remotely similar to the slurred response. If the answer is still not sufficiently clear for the reader to make a determination, it shall be ruled incorrect. The reader's judgement in this case is not protestable.
2.3.4 Vowels may be "schwaed" with no penalty if they are not necessary to distinguish potential answers, e.g Quantrull, Quantrill, and Quantrell are acceptable for the Civil War raider, but Monet and Manet must be distinguished.
3.0.0 A CQ question shall be read to a team that correctly answers an IQ, unless the team captain chooses to waive its reading.
3.1.0 Each CQ shall be read only once.
3.1.1 If the CQ calls for a single answer of one word or phrase, ten seconds shall be allotted to answer the question.
3.1.2 If the CQ is a calculation, time shall be allotted as the calculation specifically requests, or thirty seconds if unstated.
3.1.3 If the CQ calls for a single list, fifteen seconds shall be allotted to answer the question. The reader shall wait for an obvious pause in the answer before assessing its validity.
3.1.4 If the CQ is multiple parts, five seconds shall be allotted to answer each part.
3.2.0 The team captain shall give his team's answer on all CQ questions, or shall designate the player who shall do so.
3.2.1 The team captain may answer at any time within the allotted time, if he does not do so by the end of which time, the reader shall ask the captain "what is your answer?" and the captain shall respond within one second. If it is not clear if the captain is answering or discussing with his team, the reader shall ask "is ____ your answer?".
4.0.0 Before individual questions 6,11,16, and 20 the reader shall total, read, and verify the scores of each team. In the event of an incongruity between the official score and an individual team's unofficial score which cannot be easily and amicably settled, the official score shall stand.
4.0.1 A team may request a scorecheck before any IQ is read.
5.0.0 (The McEnroe Rule) Any player whose conduct is unsportsmanlike shall be warned once. If the conduct continues, that player shall be ejected from the match (and not replaced). If any other member of his team then behaves in an unsportsmanlike manner, the match shall be considered forfeit, and a score of the average of the winning team's scores in earlier matches shall be awarded them, while the forfeit team shall have zero points for the match.
[ The McEnroe Rule was invented by Don Windham in 1984 and is used with permission]
5.0.1 (Earl Weaver Clause)If a player is ejected from two matches, he shall be ejected from the tournament. He may be substituted for in later matches.
6.0.0 In the event that a reader gives away the answer to a question before either team has a chance to answer it, then the question will be discarded, and replaced. 20 questions will be read.
6.1.0 (Dick Cavett Rule) In the event that a reader discloses the answer to a question after one team has incorrectly buzzed in but before the other team has had a chance to answer it, the question will be discarded, all penalties will stand, and a new question will be read to both teams. 20 questions will be read.
6.1.1 OPTIONAL RULE Replace all penalties will stand in rule (6.0.1) to all penalties will be stricken
6.1.2 OPTIONAL RULE Replace a new question will be read to both teams to a new question will be read to the team that did not interrupt the IQ.
7.0.0 (Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Protest Procedure) If a player or a coach believes an Individual Question asked is in error, or that an answer has been wrongly disallowed, or an opposing team's answer has been wrongly allowed, he is given the opportunity to protest before the next IQ or CQ is begun (whichever is next). The reader will note the relevant information concerning the protest. If the protest involves which team will receive the CQ, then the CQ will be read to both teams, who will submit written responses to each part. Those responses will be scored independently, and the scores will be noted and announced. Once the protest on the IQ has been decided, the outcome of the question will be known, as the team "Winning" the protest will be awarded their CQ points.
7.0.1 If after the twentieth IQ is read, the protests can change the outcome of the match, such that a tie is mathematically possible, a twenty-first IQ shall be read following the summation and verification of the scores and before the outcome of the protest is resolved. If the outcome of the match is still in doubt, the protest shall be resolved by a committee consisting of a tournament director, two disinterested coaches or readers, and suitable reference sources. All points earned (and not earned) by the teams involved on the affected questions are considered when determining the outcome of a protest. If the resolution of the protests on questions one to twenty result in a tie, then the question 21 will count. If the resolution of those protests results in a clear victor, question 21 will not count.
7.0.2 Protests involving CQs shall be noted and decided after the match should they be relevant, if the possibility exists for a tie on question 20, question 21 shall be read to both teams, and then if necessary, the protest will be resolved.
8.0.0 If a match is tied after 20 individual questions, a twenty-first IQ shall be read following the summation and verification of the scores. A correct answer wins the match, an interrupt loses the match. If the question is unanswered by either team, a twenty-second IQ shall be read and so-on. No match shall end in a tie.
9.0.0 The team with the sole best overall record and the most points shall be declared champion of his division. If the team with the sole best overall record and the team with the most points are not the same, they shall play in a playoff match to determine the champion. If two teams are tied for best overall record, they shall play in a playoff match to determine the champion, regardless of which of any team has the most points. If three or more teams are tied for best overall record, the two with the most points shall face each other in a playoff match to determine the champion.
