Bouncebacks?

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Bouncebacks?

Post by Joshua Rutsky »

One of the current rules in Alabama quiz bowl sets our format as one that includes bounceback opportunities on the bonus questions asked. Most tournaments I have attended that follow "standard" quiz bowl format (2 halves, 30 points of bonus on each question, etc.) do not use bouncebacks. I have mixed views on this. On the one hand, quiz bowl is, as designed, a combination of speed and depth of knowledge, and awarding bonus opportunities to only the team that wins the toss-up rewards this. On the other hand, if depth of knowledge is important, then giving the team that may not be as quick to the buzzer a chance to pick up bonuses that the speedier team could not convert would seem to be a positive in general, as it would encourage both speed AND depth in a team.

What are your thoughts on bouncebacks? Is there a reason you are in favor or against them in general? As Alabama goes through the slow process of refining our system, I welcome the input of those with opinions on the matter.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Terrible Shorts Depot »

Joshua Rutsky wrote:On the one hand, quiz bowl is, as designed, a combination of speed and depth of knowledge, and awarding bonus opportunities to only the team that wins the toss-up rewards this. On the other hand, if depth of knowledge is important, then giving the team that may not be as quick to the buzzer a chance to pick up bonuses that the speedier team could not convert would seem to be a positive in general, as it would encourage both speed AND depth in a team.
This is simple: if you have deep enough knowledge, you'll get the tossup first. Speed shouldn't factor into that equation too much, though, obviously, having absurd reflexes helps. This is why questions are pyramidal, and not speedchecks.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Ondes Martenot »

I'm not a huge fan of bouncebacks because if you are up by a very small margin on the last tossup and the other team negs, it is safest to not answer the tossup. To me, any system that rewards a team for not answering a tossup is flawed.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Dresden_The_BIG_JERK »

aarcoh wrote:I'm not a huge fan of bouncebacks because if you are up by a very small margin on the last tossup and the other team negs, it is safest to not answer the tossup. To me, any system that rewards a team for not answering a tossup is flawed.
In this situation, wouldn't you probably just not answer anyway unless trying to pad tiebreakers/personal ppg stats? You've already won...
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Kouign Amann »

Dresden The Moderator wrote:
aarcoh wrote:I'm not a huge fan of bouncebacks because if you are up by a very small margin on the last tossup and the other team negs, it is safest to not answer the tossup. To me, any system that rewards a team for not answering a tossup is flawed.
In this situation, wouldn't you probably just not answer anyway unless trying to pad tiebreakers/personal ppg stats? You've already won...
I find this logic faulty. You do the best you can to answer each question, regardless of the situation. There's no mercy rule in quizbowl. If you win by a lot, you win by a lot.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Cheynem »

I see some good in bouncebacks--it keeps both teams focused and involved even if one team is playing well on tossups. On a pedantic scale, I suppose it rewards the team with the most knowledge, who conceivably could win by not getting a single tossup. But quiz bowl really isn't about rewarding the team with the most knowledge--otherwise we'd answer the questions on our own and compare scores. It's about having knowledge and having the right amount of confidence, skill, and nerve to buzz in on tossups. That's why I'm not a big fan of bouncebacks.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by centralhs »

I see absolutely no disadvantage to using bouncebacks other than that rounds take slightly longer to play. Yes, speed and knowledge are both important in quiz bowl but they shouldn't be equal; knowledge should carry more weight than speed. In my opinion, playing without bounceback bonuses rewards speed more than knowledge.

With bouncebacks, a team with a lot of knowledge who doesn't necessarily possess a lot of speed still has a chance to win a game if they have they have the opportunity to steal points on bouncebacks (especially if a set of questions is well-designed and the bonuses are more difficult than the tossups.)

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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

Dresden The Moderator wrote:
aarcoh wrote:I'm not a huge fan of bouncebacks because if you are up by a very small margin on the last tossup and the other team negs, it is safest to not answer the tossup. To me, any system that rewards a team for not answering a tossup is flawed.
In this situation, wouldn't you probably just not answer anyway unless trying to pad tiebreakers/personal ppg stats? You've already won...
See, he probably wouldn't say this piece if you'd already won. And indeed, even if you're up by fifteen, the other team can still tie you if they neg, then you bagel the bonus and they thirty it. (It's only safe to answer the last tossup, in fact, if you're already up by twenty or more.)
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Tegan »

If the only point of quizbowl is to reward the team that answers the tossup fastest, then I would argue that we should dispense with bonuses and up the number of tossups-per-match .... as a matter of fact, the bonuses potentially increases the chance of writing poor questions (too easy/too difficult) that swing the match (ie. the team that answers 10 tossups but gets much tougher bonuses vs the team that gets 8 tossups, but happens to get really easy ones). I suppose ideally, the bonuses are of all equal difficulty, but I have rarely found this to be the case, even in well written tournaments.

I like the bounceback system because it makes it less likely for one player to swing the outcome by introducing a wider swath of knowledge that is being tested in each match. My personal opinion has been that getting the tossup should only give the advantage in answering the bonus first, not the whole bonus itself. I know that is a minority opinion, but it is my own.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Matt Weiner »

Tegan wrote:I like the bounceback system because it makes it less likely for one player to swing the outcome by introducing a wider swath of knowledge that is being tested in each match.
No it doesn't. The questions being asked are literally the same regardless of whether bouncebacks are used, and the hypothetical player who can dominate tossups but doesn't know bonuses, against the very same team that he was beating to the tossups, does not exist.

Bouncebacks are fine for keeping everyone in the game or introducing variety; formats without bouncebacks are also fine. There are more important things to worry about and personally I can't imagine why people get hung up over either supporting or opposing bouncebacks when we still have math calculation, speed-check tossups, and head-to-head tiebreakers going on in quizbowl.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Bananaquit »

I approve of bouncebacks because I think they allow teams with very deep knowledge in some areas but not in others to still be rewarded.

Thus, they are useful even when the bonuses are of nearly the same difficulty.

For example, a team with poor science knowledge could play an almost-equally-matched team in a game where the tossups were split fairly evenly and many people were buzzing at nearly the same place in many tossups due to similar knowledge. Now, if Team A gets several science bonuses which they 10, and Team B gets several humanities bonuses which they 20, but which Team A would have 30ed easily, then Team A has clearly gotten shafted on bonuses and has a good chance of losing. If bouncebacks were in place, then Team A could have converted at least some of those points on the other bonuses and the outcome would show more effectively which team really knows more. (Perhaps Team B would have 20ed Team A's science bonuses and still won.)

But in reality, as Matt says, they aren't really a big issue.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by TheKingInYellow »

Matt Weiner wrote:
Tegan wrote:I like the bounceback system because it makes it less likely for one player to swing the outcome by introducing a wider swath of knowledge that is being tested in each match.
No it doesn't. The questions being asked are literally the same regardless of whether bouncebacks are used, and the hypothetical player who can dominate tossups but doesn't know bonuses, against the very same team that he was beating to the tossups, does not exist.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by rchschem »

Matt Weiner wrote:Bouncebacks are fine for keeping everyone in the game
Some areas of the country aren't rich with good teams, and building morale can be important. A more competitive field might not be so receptive to bouncebacks.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by AlphaQuizBowler »

I don't really have an opinion about bouncebacks, as I think the team that gets the most tossups and scores the best on bonuses will win either way. One thing I don't like about bouncebacks is that they make stats more complicated.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by the return of AHAN »

My team lost a sectional heartbreaker tonight (257-234) in a format with bonuceback bonus, despite holding a 11-9 TU advantage. But, alas, a look at rebounded bonus points shows an incosequential 5 point difference between the 2 teams rebounded totals. No, a bigger issue for my kids was losing on number wang bonuses. As Matt said, THAT'S our bigger problem.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by rjaguar3 »

Woody Paige wrote:My team lost a sectional heartbreaker tonight (257-234) in a format with bonuceback bonus, despite holding a 11-9 TU advantage. But, alas, a look at rebounded bonus points shows an incosequential 5 point difference between the 2 teams rebounded totals. No, a bigger issue for my kids was losing on number wang bonuses. As Matt said, THAT'S our bigger problem.
You mean your team can't approximate answers involving pi to the nearest hundredth? How on earth could you consider your team a potential state champion? :grin:
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by David Riley »

I am not a fan of bouncebacks (in most formats, especially Illinois').

1) If one or both teams are not competitive, they tend to make the match unnecessarily long.

2) If you didn't get the tossup, then why should you have a crack at a "bonus"?

3) It's been my experience that many who support bouncebacks do so only because of that hyphenated word that should be banned from the education vocabulary :shock:

Having said that, I agree with Matt's comment above, we have other priorities. And for some reason (pace of the game?), bouncebacks in PACE (no pun intended) format don't bother me as much.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by First Chairman »

For Riley, and based on observations and theory from NSC and other bounceback formats:

It's probably quality of teams at PACE NSC. I think for two strong teams, bouncebacks keep everyone involved and focused, though for the most part the game feels more like a standard toss/bonus style game. For two weaker teams, tossups are not converted as much, so bouncebacks don't happen so often unless a team happens to take a tossup or two. For a mismatch game, in all likelihood, bonuses are converted by the stronger team and very few bounceback opportunities would exist for either team.

At least at NSC, it appears that roughly 30-50 points are stolen on average per PACE NSC match. It is rather rare to have over 100 points in steal points, so many people who claim that there is some inherent unfairness with bouncebacks... well, it hasn't been my experience with NSC.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by the return of AHAN »

rjaguar3 wrote:
Woody Paige wrote:My team lost a sectional heartbreaker tonight (257-234) in a format with bonuceback bonus, despite holding a 11-9 TU advantage. But, alas, a look at rebounded bonus points shows an incosequential 5 point difference between the 2 teams rebounded totals. No, a bigger issue for my kids was losing on number wang bonuses. As Matt said, THAT'S our bigger problem.
You mean your team can't approximate answers involving pi to the nearest hundredth? How on earth could you consider your team a potential state champion? :grin:
grrrrr......

Laird told me that our situation is analogous to Wheaton North's 2008. Unstoppable in the regular season; upset in the playoffs. :sad:
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by rjaguar3 »

Woody Paige wrote:
rjaguar3 wrote:
Woody Paige wrote:My team lost a sectional heartbreaker tonight (257-234) in a format with bonuceback bonus, despite holding a 11-9 TU advantage. But, alas, a look at rebounded bonus points shows an incosequential 5 point difference between the 2 teams rebounded totals. No, a bigger issue for my kids was losing on number wang bonuses. As Matt said, THAT'S our bigger problem.
You mean your team can't approximate answers involving pi to the nearest hundredth? How on earth could you consider your team a potential state champion? :grin:
grrrrr......

Laird told me that our situation is analogous to Wheaton North's 2008. Unstoppable in the regular season; upset in the playoffs. :sad:
At least we were upset on decent questions. (2007 was the last year that Masonics were auktastic.)
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Broad-tailed Grassbird »

Is it really a bonus if it gets bounced back? Yeah, sure the team get the tossup correct gets the first stab at the bonus, but if it's something you're not familiar with, your team can get screwed.

Bouncebacks also bring gamesmanship into play. If you are up by 20, its the last question of the match, and you know the other team will not know the answer, then you don't answer the question. It seems dumb.

Bouncebacks should be used for middle school, maybe high school novice. Nothing else.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Tegan »

Woody Paige wrote:My team lost a sectional heartbreaker tonight (257-234) in a format with bonuceback bonus, despite holding a 11-9 TU advantage. But, alas, a look at rebounded bonus points shows an incosequential 5 point difference between the 2 teams rebounded totals. No, a bigger issue for my kids was losing on number wang bonuses. As Matt said, THAT'S our bigger problem.
Certainly, this was an illusion, because things like this can never actually happen.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by tiwonge »

Out of curiosity, typically, are bouncebacks awarded full value or half value? I'm not sure I've ever played a format with bouncebacks, except possibly the now-defunct NC Quiz Bowl tournament sponsored by the library system. In that system, bouncebacks were half value. (They couldn't properly be called bonus questions, since there were no tossups.)
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Matthew D »

Full number of points for each correct answer.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by at your pleasure »

In PACE format, bouncebacks are worth full value.
My personal feelings about bouncebacks are not strong, since the stronger team is presumably converting more bonus points. That said, in a year like this where the top teams are so close in ability, that 30-50 point difference is more likely to affect the outcome of important games.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by New York Undercover »

But why not consider rewarding bouncebacks at half of their value? This way the team who doesn't get the toss-up does get compensation for depth but loses some of the value as a result of not getting the toss-up.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by dtaylor4 »

klebian wrote:But why not consider rewarding bouncebacks at half of their value? This way the team who doesn't get the toss-up does get compensation for depth but loses some of the value as a result of not getting the toss-up.
This does not get rid of the strategy issue, which is the main beef I and others have with bouncebacks. There should not be any chance of a net loss of points by answering questions.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Strongside »

dtaylor4 wrote:
klebian wrote:But why not consider rewarding bouncebacks at half of their value? This way the team who doesn't get the toss-up does get compensation for depth but loses some of the value as a result of not getting the toss-up.
This does not get rid of the strategy issue, which is the main beef I and others have with bouncebacks. There should not be any chance of a net loss of points by answering questions.

Yeah. This is the problem I have with bouncebacks. For example: Let's say someone answers a tossup on a difficult subject like On Heroes and Tombs, and that they were the only person in the room who had any chance at getting that tossup. They got 10 points, but they get a bonus their team knows nothing about and zeros the bonus. Someone on the other team is an expert on that bonus subject, and easily 30s it.

The team with the guy who knew On Heroes and Tombs ended up losing a net of 20 points, which seems extremely unfair.

I pretty much agree with what Donald said, that the team that is the recipient of the bounceback should not be able to outscore the other team on that entire tossup-bonus cycle. In the situation I mentioned above, it would be best to only give the team that knew all the bouncebacks 10 points total (but ask them all the questions for consistency's sake), so they didn't get a net gain over the other team.

If the team that got the tossup 10ed the bonus, the other team should be allowed to get up to 20 on that bonus.

Another alternative would be to give the team receiving the bounceback a maximum of 10 bonus points on any tossup-bonus cycle, so that regardless of what happened, the team receiving the bounceback would never gain more 10 points on the tossup-bonus cycle.

The good thing about bouncebacks is that it can keep a team that is losing big time somewhat interested, and in the game. It can also give teams/individuals a chance to show off their knowledge of difficult bonus parts.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by dtaylor4 »

Strongside wrote:
dtaylor4 wrote:
klebian wrote:But why not consider rewarding bouncebacks at half of their value? This way the team who doesn't get the toss-up does get compensation for depth but loses some of the value as a result of not getting the toss-up.
This does not get rid of the strategy issue, which is the main beef I and others have with bouncebacks. There should not be any chance of a net loss of points by answering questions.

Yeah. This is the problem I have with bouncebacks. For example: Let's say someone answers a tossup on a difficult subject like On Heroes and Tombs, and that they were the only person in the room who had any chance at getting that tossup. They got 10 points, but they get a bonus their team knows nothing about and zeros the bonus. Someone on the other team is an expert on that bonus subject, and easily 30s it.

The team with the guy who knew On Heroes and Tombs ended up losing a net of 20 points, which seems extremely unfair.

I pretty much agree with what Donald said, that the team that is the recipient of the bounceback should not be able to outscore the other team on that entire tossup-bonus cycle. In the situation I mentioned above, it would be best to only give the team that knew all the bouncebacks 10 points total (but ask them all the questions for consistency's sake), so they didn't get a net gain over the other team.

If the team that got the tossup 10ed the bonus, the other team should be allowed to get up to 20 on that bonus.

Another alternative would be to give the team receiving the bounceback a maximum of 10 bonus points on any tossup-bonus cycle, so that regardless of what happened, the team receiving the bounceback would never gain more 10 points on the tossup-bonus cycle.

The good thing about bouncebacks is that it can keep a team that is losing big time somewhat interested, and in the game. It can also give teams/individuals a chance to show off their knowledge of difficult bonus parts.
Ultimately, the only way bouncebacks would be fair is if tossups were a lot more than bonuses, which just wouldn't work. If you know stuff on bonuses but get no points for it, I only have three words for you: GET THE TOSSUP. Quizbowl uses buzzers for a reason.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by quizbowllee »

Here is my issue with bounce backs: A team can potentially be rewarded for the other team's knowledge.

Consider this scenario: One team - we'll call them "Friendly Mountain" is playing another team that we'll call "Grissom." Now, Friendly Mountain is very knowledgeable in literature. Grissom is not. But, Grissom is awesome at math, whereas Brindlee... uh... I mean "Friendly" Mountain... is terrible at math. A tossup is asked about Gargantua and Pantagruel. Friendly Mountain easily gets the tossup because Grissom has never even heard of it. Then, there is a 30 point calculus bonus. Friendly Mountain gets zero points, and Grissom gets 30.

In this VERY REAL scenario, Grissom earned 30 points because THE OTHER TEAM knew a tossup that they didn't.

This is why bounce-backs stink.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Bouncebacks can be fun for the competitive nature of them, but generally i'm against them as well, because it makes tossups less important. The great part about 20TU/20B is those 20 tossups are intense; the teams know that if they don't get one, they don't have an opportunity to answer more questions and earn more points in the bonus clues. I don't want to make tossups less significant or devalue them in any way, and i feel like bouncebacks inherently do that a little bit.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Quantum Mushroom Billiard Hat »

Sorry if someone has pointed this out already, but bouncebacks are also much easier for inexperienced readers to mess up. It is much easier for a moderator to reveal an answer too early in a format with bouncebacks than one without. A perfect world, of course, would always have good readers who knew the format well, but that isn't the case. Places like the PACE NSC have very good readers who can remember not to give answers immediately; smaller tournaments are likely to have readers much newer to the game who might reveal an answer before the second team can answer it.

Fairness of course is most important, but if formats with and without bouncebacks are approximately equal, it seems reasonable to go with the format hardest to mess up.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Matt Weiner »

quizbowllee wrote:Here is my issue with bounce backs: A team can potentially be rewarded for the other team's knowledge.

Consider this scenario: One team - we'll call them "Friendly Mountain" is playing another team that we'll call "Grissom." Now, Friendly Mountain is very knowledgeable in literature. Grissom is not. But, Grissom is awesome at math, whereas Brindlee... uh... I mean "Friendly" Mountain... is terrible at math. A tossup is asked about Gargantua and Pantagruel. Friendly Mountain easily gets the tossup because Grissom has never even heard of it. Then, there is a 30 point calculus bonus. Friendly Mountain gets zero points, and Grissom gets 30.

In this VERY REAL scenario, Grissom earned 30 points because THE OTHER TEAM knew a tossup that they didn't.

This is why bounce-backs stink.
I don't buy this particular argument. Putting aside the math calculation subject matter, if a team loses points because it doesn't know something in the bonus and the other team does...welcome to quizbowl, learn more.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by AKKOLADE »

I'm with Matt on this. If you lose a match with bouncebacks, you don't lose because of the bouncebacks, you lose because the other team knows more.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Cheynem »

I'm still not a fan of bouncebacks, but I would have to guess at least some point in that scenario, with the two mismatched knowledge teams, at one point the math-calc team is going to get a math tossup that the lit-heavy team wouldn't know and then get a bonus on some humanities thing which they don't know and the lit-heavy team can get points. So in that case, it sort of evens out.

I guess I'm just something of a old grump--it's a bonus awarded to your team because you won the tossup. If the tossups are pyramidal and well-written, you showed you either have more knowledge or a better grasp of where to buzz or figured it out quicker. Thus, I like to think the bonus is your "reward" for doing so (of course, I guess you could rejoin that the opportunity to answer the bonus first is reward enough).
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by quizbowllee »

Matt Weiner wrote:
quizbowllee wrote:Here is my issue with bounce backs: A team can potentially be rewarded for the other team's knowledge.

Consider this scenario: One team - we'll call them "Friendly Mountain" is playing another team that we'll call "Grissom." Now, Friendly Mountain is very knowledgeable in literature. Grissom is not. But, Grissom is awesome at math, whereas Brindlee... uh... I mean "Friendly" Mountain... is terrible at math. A tossup is asked about Gargantua and Pantagruel. Friendly Mountain easily gets the tossup because Grissom has never even heard of it. Then, there is a 30 point calculus bonus. Friendly Mountain gets zero points, and Grissom gets 30.

In this VERY REAL scenario, Grissom earned 30 points because THE OTHER TEAM knew a tossup that they didn't.

This is why bounce-backs stink.
I don't buy this particular argument. Putting aside the math calculation subject matter, if a team loses points because it doesn't know something in the bonus and the other team does...welcome to quizbowl, learn more.
I see that to an extent. My problem arises when you consider that without hypothetical Team A knowing the lit question, then that bonus would never have been read in the first place, seeing as Team B didn't know the answer. I agree that "learn more" applies here. But, basically one team is still penalized for knowing something the other team didn't. Teams have strengths and weaknesses, regardless of how good they are.

I suppose this could be fixed by making bounce back bonuses directly related to the accompanying tossups.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by at your pleasure »

I suppose the effects on gameplay depend on how close in ability the teams are. For instance, if Grissom is significantly inferior to "Happy Mountain", then the bouncebacks will not help them as much because "Happy Mountain" should answer more tossups(and therfore get first crack at more bonuses), most of the bonus points available to "Happy Mountain" will get converted and Grissom will be not be able to convert as many of the uncoverted bonus points. Hence, the bulk of the available bonus points will still go to "Happy Mountain". If the teams are closer in ability, on the other hand, they will convert bonus points and get tossups at approximately the same rate and bouncebacks may begin to affect the game. Of course, this means that formats with bouncebacks should take especial care to make sure that questions(especially bonuses) are well-written. I suspect that this is why many people find bouncebacks problematic; with the exception of PACE format-events, I would guess that formats that use bouncebacks often use poor questions to begin with.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Not necessarily true, Douglas. There are lots of regular 20/20 tournaments that use rebounding bonuses. I have both directed and attended things on NAQT sets using rebounds, and I know that at lots of places around the country the local custom is to use rebounding bonuses, so local events using HSAPQ questions or very good housewritten questions like U of Illinois and Vanderbilt use rebounds. There are lots of places that use bad questions and rebounds, but that is a problem with bad questions, not rebounds, as evidenced by all the good tournaments that use them and are just fine.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by First Chairman »

Following late on the "full point value on bouncebacks" issue...

1. Technically many places just defer to calling bonuses "bonuses" because of the structure of the matches being similar to standard tossup/bonus.

2. Bouncebacks are not always at full-value, and there are issues with having bouncebacks be less than full value. OAC format has bouncebacks on their team questions that are decreased in value. Granted, it's not the best example: the original team that receives the team question gets TWO times to answer correctly (3 for the first try, 2 on the second, 1 for the opposing team to steal). There are many arguments that say that you should give less than full value because the original team will likely answer incorrectly and thus the stealing team can eliminate a possible answer. Well, that's true if you assume the original team just doesn't punt the question.

3. You can argue that bouncebacks should make somewhat better bonus questions. You cannot do "true/false" or either/or bonus parts for example, which were fairly prolific back in the 80's and 90's in HS quiz bowl.

4. Related tossup-bounceback bonuses: that's at least one good reason why we had this in PACE format (first part).

5. I don't completely agree that bounceback bonuses mess up readers. If you have inexperienced readers that are used to bouncing back bonus parts in not-so-great formats, this isn't a real issue to get them used to PACE NSC format. You just have to remind all the readers we bounceback bonus parts.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Dresden_The_BIG_JERK »

First Chairman wrote:5. I don't completely agree that bounceback bonuses mess up readers. If you have inexperienced readers that are used to bouncing back bonus parts in not-so-great formats, this isn't a real issue to get them used to PACE NSC format. You just have to remind all the readers we bounceback bonus parts.
I agree with you not agreeing. Since I read primarily in Illinois, it's about 50/50 for me as to rebounding and not. Switching back and forth is honestly probably more of a challenge for players than moderators. For Illinois students, its a completely different strategy since they are going from traditionally bouncing back to not, complicated by the fact that they are often dealing with variance between "all at once" style bonuses and the more national "one at a time" style.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by The Laughing Man »

I'm a fan of bouncebacks. I'll admit that they introduce some elements of gamesmanship into the game, like intentionally missing the last question and trying to mumble bonus answers to the moderator to avoid giving the other time a clue (I know this is an Andre Gide work, but if I say the Immoralist and I am wrong, the other team, which doesn't know it at this point, might just guess the Counterfeiters, sensing that I have some knowledge, and knowing that that is another famous Andre Gide work and get it right.)

Still, to say that close teams are likely to get screwed over by bouncebacks basically implies that you think that bonuses themselves decrease the differentiation of top teams due to difficulty fluctuation. If you get screwed by an inappropriately difficult bonus part, the fact that the other team had deep knowledge and got the bounceback doesn't really mean that you were more wronged than if there had been no bounceback. Over the long run, if we accept that bonuses have a positive influence in differentiating teams, it follows that bouncebacks should only increase this influence. I think that in high school bonuses are at least as good at differentiating top teams as tossups, which, even at higher level tournaments, reward the Freshmen method and result in a fair amount of buzzer races. Hence, any innovation which results in an increase of bonus importance is, in my opinion, a good thing, especially when top teams converting bonuses at 90% at regular season HSAPQ tournaments reduces the potential number of points one top team can gain over another on bonuses.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by dxdtdemon »

I'm a fan of the reduced-value bounceback just because the answer (or answers in OAC) that one team gave can often narrow down the answer space for the other team.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Terrible Shorts Depot »

quantumfootball wrote:I'm a fan of the reduced-value bounceback just because the answer (or answers in OAC) that one team gave can often narrow down the answer space for the other team.
We should never, ever base anything off of OAC. What a terrible format.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Reduced value rebounds are a terrible idea.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by New York Undercover »

why? To me, they seem to be solving both problems- giving teams the opportunity to garner some points that the other team missed (which is the purpose of normal bouncebacks, I'd presume), but still "penalizing" them for not getting the tossup (which would otherwise be solved by not having bouncebacks).
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

klebian wrote:why? To me, they seem to be solving both problems- giving teams the opportunity to garner some points that the other team missed (which is the purpose of normal bouncebacks, I'd presume), but still "penalizing" them for not getting the tossup (which would otherwise be solved by not having bouncebacks).
Seems silly and unnecessary. They've already been penalized for not getting the tossup (they don't get to answer the bonus question first). There's no pressing need for this intermediate solution. Moreover, the same knowledge should be worth the same to both teams; it feels wrong to give a team fewer points for demonstrating the same knowledge simply because they had the second, not the first, opportunity. Rather, it's having the second opportunity that's the penalty.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Mike Bentley »

Bouncebacks make it so that you have to keep discussion to your own team to minimize the other team picking up on what you were discussing, which is a bit annoying.

As I believe someone else got at, bouncebacks can also penalize a team with more knowledge of the subject. For instance, a bonus on "Name this works by Haruki Murakami, FTPE". The first part is on some hard Murakami work like Sputnik Sweetheart, and neither team really knows the answer. However, the team that did not get the tossup might know that South of the Border, West of the Sun is by Murakami and could conceivably be what is being asked for here. If the next part ends up being a question on South of the Border, West of the Sun (which the first team had never heard of) with a clue like "This Murakami work, named for a song and some directions...", then the first team can be rewarded for the second team's knowledge. To put it another way:

FTPE, name these Murakami works.
[10] This work is about Sumire... (ANS: Sputnik Sweetheart)
Team 1: No answer. (This team has no knowledge of hard Murakami works)
Team 2: South of the Border, West of the Sun (This team has some knowledge of hart Murakami works)
[10] This work named for a song and some directions... (ANS: South of the Border West of the Sun)
Team 1: "Oh, I bet this is the answer they just gave, South of the Border, West of the Sun" (This team otherwise would not have gotten this bonus part)
Team 2: I hate bounceback bonuses.
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Re: Bouncebacks?

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:Bouncebacks make it so that you have to keep discussion to your own team to minimize the other team picking up on what you were discussing, which is a bit annoying.

As I believe someone else got at, bouncebacks can also penalize a team with more knowledge of the subject. For instance, a bonus on "Name this works by Haruki Murakami, FTPE". The first part is on some hard Murakami work like Sputnik Sweetheart, and neither team really knows the answer. However, the team that did not get the tossup might know that South of the Border, West of the Sun is by Murakami and could conceivably be what is being asked for here. If the next part ends up being a question on South of the Border, West of the Sun (which the first team had never heard of) with a clue like "This Murakami work, named for a song and some directions...", then the first team can be rewarded for the second team's knowledge. To put it another way:

FTPE, name these Murakami works.
[10] This work is about Sumire... (ANS: Sputnik Sweetheart)
Team 1: No answer. (This team has no knowledge of hard Murakami works)
Team 2: South of the Border, West of the Sun (This team has some knowledge of hart Murakami works)
[10] This work named for a song and some directions... (ANS: South of the Border West of the Sun)
Team 1: "Oh, I bet this is the answer they just gave, South of the Border, West of the Sun" (This team otherwise would not have gotten this bonus part)
Team 2: I hate bounceback bonuses.
We've been practicing PACE/bouncebacks the last week or so in preparation for the 23rd/24th (i can't believe it's just two weeks away) and myself and the kids are noticing this same annoying pattern that Bentley is pointing out. In fact i played with the kids on Thursday (we have a rising star freshman who likes to read and have me play with the others) and i pretty much utilized this tactic at least once or twice a game on things i wasn't confident about.
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