Most Improbable Last-Second Winning Answers

[Warbourne]

Anyone experience this? Say you're leading by say 5 points or any point that can be overtaken by a toss-up plus a bonus combo. There's 5 seconds left on the clock. Then the moderator gives you the last toss-up of the day and you're thinking, man, we are so going to win, there's no way the other team's going to get this next one! And sure enough the moderators spews out the most mind-bendingly confusing and/or difficult question that has ever been invented.

5 words into the question, the other team buzzes in, and you have to keep in mind that there's only so much information that can be imparted in 5 seconds, and....they get it right. Doesn't that stink when it happens? And they usually get the right amounts of points to overtake your score too.

[Red-necked Phalarope]

At SCT my freshman year, we were down by about 30 points with 15 seconds or so left on the clock. Some guy on the other team buzzes in halfway through the question, stalls to kill time... but stops with 2 seconds left.

Meanwhile, in the time it took him to reel off "The Federated Republic of Micronesia" I've figured out that the answer was actually Our Town. I buzz in with the right answer just as time expires. To add to the improbability, our team--with noted geographer Kevin Clair and a Canadian--gets a bonus on... Canadian geography.

That anecdote probably summarizes the arguments both for and against timed play as succinctly as one could.

[evilmonkey]

Last year at HSNCT we were in the final prelim round at 4-5. At that point, we knew it was impossible to make the playoffs, but we didn't want a losing record. We went into the final question down 25, but we thought we were down 20. We got the tossup (I can remember what it was on), and then we got a bonus on something that was definitely not functionalism. I was about to say functionalism, but then I remembered a practice packet we had done the previous night, and pulled the correct answer out. At this point, we thought we were safe. The second bonus part we got wrong. The third bonus part was about some Polish dude who came up with the concept that wasn't functionalism, and we were about to give up, when our beast frosh, recalling the same packet, pulled the guy's name out of nowhere. We went ecstatic, knowing we had won. It was only when we heard the final score that we realized that had we gotten that last part wrong we would have lost.

[First Chairman]

I think we should expand the reference to include untimed rounds. At least the last toss/bonus cycle of a match to tie or win the game.

[STPickrell]

GW tournament in 1997:
In the game against Georgetown Gray, Randolph-Macon team managed to blow a 100 point halftime lead with a stellar -25 performance in the second half, losing by 25.

Now, fast-forward to Georgetown Blue, the last game of the day. Randolph-Macon gets a tossup and is up by 10 points with 6 seconds to play. Georgetown calls a time out and I publicly discuss with my teammates how we should kill the clock. We decide we need to wait a couple seconds before buzzing in.

The moderator gets out, 'Alan Silvestri composed the music ...'

A Georgetown player buzzes in with Forrest Gump before we even think to buzz in. Overtime. The OT question goes blah blah blah, from which someone else on the team manages to extract Nicholas Biddle. End of game, Randolph-Macon loses.

[geekjohnson]

When I was at Faulkner State we played in Berry College's CC tournament. We and Northwest Shoals were undefeated and our match would decide the champion. Going into the last question they are down by 20. Before the question Josh Clanton (of the other team) says, in a mocking funny manner, "please Jesus, let us get this question, they have Thompson." He was referring to Jonathan Thompson by the way. My reply, in the same faux pray out loud manner was, "please Jesus, let us get the question, they have Jews," which they didn't. Having known the other team really well, combined with the "Passion of the Christ" controversy over anti-antisemitism, we all laughed and waited for the toss-up. Midway through the question, Pace (also on the other team) buzzed in and gave the correct answer....Touchdown Jesus. Ouch. Well, irony aside, they 10ed the bonus and we went to OT. The question read as follows, "They can be very large animals, and they have also been known to be hungry, hungry..." To which a buzzer race ensued, with Northwest Shoals winning the race and the match on f'ing hippos. This taught my team to never make any jokes about ANY religion, and, to always expect the dumbest questions in important situations.

[wd4gdz]

The question read as follows, "They can be very large animals, and they have also been known to be hungry, hungry..." ... This taught my team to never make any jokes about ANY religion, and, to expect the dumbest questions in important situations at Berry tournaments in the 21st century.

fixed

[Captain Sinico]

Please read this post before posting in this thread.

MaS

[No Sollositing On Premise]

We were down by 25 points with about ten seconds on the clock at the SCT in 2005, and Mike buzzes in on less than a sentence with something like "he composed his first piano concerto," guesses Liszt, gets it right, and then up comes a bonus in which we get 20 points. This was right after we had a rather embarrassing neg-filled loss to the team that ended up winning our bracket, but after that we didn't lose any more matches.

[swwFCqb]

During my junior year (2005-6), we were facing Tippecanoe in the finals of the Ohio NAQT State Championship. As the clock approached zero we had only time for one more question, with my team, Fisher Catholic behind Tippecanoe by something like 220-180. As the question is read, it goes for a while then has a give away clue for the "United Nations." The other team's captain gets in on the buzzer race, and I bow my head knowing we had lost as I only heard the answer's last word, "nations," coming from the other kid. To my surprise, however, a neg 5 was called. Apparently he had said "League of Nations," which gave our team the tossup. Then we got a bonus on Russian spacecrafts or some bull shit like that, but somehow we were able to 30 the bonus, bringing the final score to Fisher Catholic 220 Tippecanoe 215. I felt really shitty for the guy, cause he's a great player and a nice guy, but he was able to get some revenge the next year when he beat us in the 2007 Ohio NAQT State Championship.

[Maxwell Sniffingwell]

United Nations, after the giveaway, is an Improbable... er, sorry, improbabe... winning answer?

[AKKOLADE]

United Nations, after the giveaway, is an Improbable... er, sorry, improbabe... winning answer?

I think the improbable part was the neg by the opposing team!

[swwFCqb]

United Nations, after the giveaway, is an Improbable... er, sorry, improbabe... winning answer?

I think the improbable part was the neg by the opposing team!

Well, yes, that and the fact that we thirtied a bonus on Russian spacecrafts. When our team heard the bonus we all groaned because we knew we had to thirty it, but surprisingly we were able to.

[evilmonkey]

During my junior year (2005-6), we were facing Tippecanoe

Oddly enough, my first experience in such situation also happened against Tippecanoe.

The score was tied going into the final question. The question was being read, and it was not clear at all what the question was talking about. Gradually, it became apparent that it was an object in the solar system. All of a sudden, the room heard "Sea of Tranquility", and the room exploded into a buzzer race. My heart sunk as I saw the other team had rung in first, but then the other dude said "Titan". Count the neg, and we had made the championship bracket in one of our first tournaments. (Of course, immediately after, the entire room cracked up because it was such a bad neg)

[mavstats]

Last prelim round of the 2008 HSNCT...

we're playing some team from connecticut and they're up 20 with 10 seconds on the clock. We've just erased a 190 point deficit in this half, and we're trying to tie and/or win to make the playoffs. Anyhow, tossup starts, and its some science crap, and with about 3 seconds left the moderator says something along the lines of "tasteless, odorless, white powder".

Side note: we'd had a similar clue in practice, and some guy on our team buzzed in and said "Iocane Powder!" which, while hilarious was a neg. Turned out the answer was arsenic.

Continuing the story, right at that clue, the same guy buzzes in and says "Arsenic!" Right as the buzzer expires. We 10 the bonus, go to overtime, and win.

[Maxwell Sniffingwell]

Dude... not sure you can talk HSNCT here yet.

[Matt Weiner]

Dude... not sure you can talk HSNCT here yet.

Of course you can.

[cdcarter]

Dude... not sure you can talk HSNCT here yet.

Of course you can.

I, as a potential mirror player, would prefer it isn't discussed in other threads yet, so I can at least try to not see answers ahead of time.