History Bee Playoffs Format at Nationals

Dormant threads from the high school sections are preserved here.
Locked
Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War
Wakka
Posts: 235
Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2017 6:12 pm

History Bee Playoffs Format at Nationals

Post by Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War »

Alright, I'm expecting to get a lot of flak, but I have been ruminating on this for 2 years, since it was first implemented, so here goes. The upcoming NHBB national tournament has reminded me of one of the aspects of the tournament that I take some issue with: the playoff format for individual events. I am IN NO WAY suggesting that the format be changed for this year's playoffs, with the understanding that everything has already be arranged (although I would certainly be happy if it occurred), but I just wanted to start a constructive discussion on the topic.

As a preface, I have been both greatly benefited and hurt by this format; for example, in its first year (my 9th grade year), I reached 4th place in US History Bee and 6th place in History Bee, advancing to the top 10 both times ONLY because a top seed in my first playoff room hadn't quite adjusted to the format, while then negging so much in the Geography Olympiad Quiz Bowl that I went from the 1 seed in prelims to getting 0 points in playoffs.

I understand the very obvious arguments for the system (powers reward knowledge, random guessing is discouraged, etc.), but have two major complaints against it:

1. The speed of changing format
Based on my short above narrative of my own experiences (in just one year of the format; I haven't even mentioned last year), it is quite clear that many upsets occur due to people not adjusting to the format fast enough. This is already an issue in itself; one should be rewarded on their actual ability to play the game, not the ability to switch play styles to a format as soon as one enters playoffs that is used for at most 3 rounds over the entire year. But a potentially equally large issue is how this affects playoff seeding and equivalently skilled rooms.

People are ranked in playoffs based on how well they play the normal bee format. Naturally, there are differences in the playoff game (generalists tend to do worse due to the abundance of great specialists, for example), but the format switch only exacerbates this significantly. It is perfectly possible, and it has happened, that some of the best players in the field get eliminated by the format switch by negging themselves out, resulting in rooms that are wildly different in playing level because players were placed into them based on their skill in playing one format, not the other. This was not limited to the first year of the format; similar things happened this past year.

2. Philosophically...
Let me make an analogy.
Imagine that the NBA has made a new change in its gameplay and scoring during playoffs. Instead of 2-pointers and 3-pointers, shots in the paint are worth 2, in mid-range are worth 3, and "three-pointers" are now worth 4, and let's imagine that each missed shot costs a team 1 point. In addition, this format will only be used in the NBA playoffs, not in college, the regular season, or international play. This is a reasonable analogy for the History Bee format switch, where usually each question is 1 point and there are no negs (excepting the third-buzz neg for now, for simplicity's sake), and which (at least up to now, and to the extent of my knowledge) has only applied to the US Nationals bee playoffs, not spreading to any other region of the world.

How would the players and fans react to this? I can reasonably assume that it would be near-universal outrage, even though it primarily serves the same purpose as the history bee format switch: reward more difficult shots and discourage players from randomly shooting bad shots and hurting their teammates. It would force all players to play pretty different styles between playoffs and all other times. This would be, quite reasonably, be seen as strange, unnecessary, and somewhat unfair.

What applies to basketball should also apply to History Bowl. There certainly has been a constant whirlwind of new competitions, new bracketing formats, and other new things, which is great for the game in every way, but the constant expansion and positive modification should not come at the expense of general consistency.

Overall, (to clarify) I HAVE NO QUALMS WITH THE FORMAT IN ITSELF, except that killing questions has become easier (i.e. killing a question before it is done is now worth -1/3 to -1/2 times the number of points one can get in the question, versus -1 in the normal bee format, meaning that killing questions can be legitimately beneficial). I think that a format rewarding knowledge and punishing complete guessing is a very good idea. My main issue is that the format is applied somewhat arbitrarily to only three rounds the entire year, potentially messing up people's customary play styles, playoff seeding, and overall experience. I am not alone in this sentiment; I have spoken to a good many parents and players who were equally or more annoyed, despite some of them having benefited from the new system. I am not in any way affiliated with NHBB except as a player, but I thought it would be good to start a discussion on an important issue that affects many players every year.
Daniel, Hunter College High School '19, Yale '23
Locked