Thursday, March 17, 2016

15th March–Beached by the Dolphin Dragons

 

The Lemmings were at home this week to the Dolphin Dragons with none of the distractions of last week (Mark was more forthright than I was!!) as they settled down to a leisurely game with the friendly Dolphin Dragons. Sunil again stood in for Wendy and whilst expectations of winning were not high the Lemmings were determined to make a fight of it.

The Specialist rounds looked promising from the titles but the Lemmings got off to a worrying start in the first round, only Tomo managing to get a 3 in the Arts and Entertainment; but we thought that was just a glitch – we’d do well in subsequent rounds. But it was not to be – at the end of the Specialist rounds the Dragons had a commanding lead with 50 to 25 – but the Lemmings have made up deficits of that size before in the General Knowledge. But no, the Dragons increased their lead by another 23 points with 70 to 47, final score 120 to 72.

The Lemmings generally take a dim view of blaming a defeat on lack of balance in the questions but it must be said that there were many occasions where one or other of the Lemmings could answer questions put to the Dragons whilst really struggling with their own. This is reflected in the pass-overs .

Nevertheless spirits remained high during the evening and a question about the Grand National gave Bob the opportunity to tell of the couple who were found having sex under Beechers Brook – they asked for 27 other fences to be taken into account.

Individual scores were Bob 6/6, Sunil 0/6, Nick 0/6 and Tomo 6/12; conferred points were 7/10 and 6/7 pass-overs. The Dragons collected 12/13 pass-overs.

The evening was rounded off with very tasty sandwiches including Brian’s remarkable roast beef, many thanks to Brian, to Haydn for his patient question asking and the Dragons for the usual good-spirited game.

11 comments:

AAD said...

An interesting night. I found myself asking questions at the Cock Inn in a very tightly fought C league battle that added a slightly surprising twist to the Park Tavern internecine promotion race. In doing so I missed out on what is probably the Robin’s finest hour as they executed a smash and grab at The Weaver. My game was played out in a very calm and good-spirited manner; the questions were tolerated rather than enjoyed. I suspect that a similarly languid response was not to be found across all fixtures.
As regards questions, perhaps one shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you (or, more appropriately, starves your enemy). Nick has addressed balance – I didn’t spot obvious team-level bias in my fixture – both teams were picking up pass-overs a plenty and there were a lot of questions that just one person in the room knew. Afterwards, I tried to simulate how I would have performed (an obviously dubious exercise) – I did do better by four questions first-first (not a huge margin) but internal differences were large – there were a couple of seats where I would have backed myself to get 33, but first-first player 4 would have been a nightmare experience (9 probably) and first-second P2 not much better. All credit to the player who won my game on the final question after the kind of night that would have left one doubting one’s own existence, let alone knowledge. I ran through that person’s questions again, no real armadillos, but lots that would rely on a bit of a punt.
This quiz was very dissimilar to the previous one for this and other reasons. On a continuum between questions that test very established quiz knowledge and the random acquisition of peculiar titbits/employment of lateral thinking, the Dolphin leant a little to the former, the Flag (following the CHB and last-years Knot-Know Alls effort) over-compensated to the extreme. My gut-feel is that this acted as a big “leveller”, rather than helping the team on either set. Obscure sports ran rampant and some bizarre current affairs questions got in.
A few rogue elements also slipped through which surprised a few of us. Strictly speaking, my true love received birds on all 12 days of Christmas, given the re-issuing of previous presents; Accrington (not Stanley, as I would have answered) played in the first football league and won very little, the Eagle sisters are twins but I was very glad when the recipient did not offer “sisters” and Mountbatten certainly wasn’t the first Governor General.
All in all, a better night for asking than answering – at my venue at least.

Dave Cooper said...

At the risk of entering pedantry corner:

(GK61) was Forth Rail Bridge not the Forth Road Bridge which opened in 1964.
(GK supplementary 9) was 1988 not 1998, otherwise Roy Orbison wouldn't have featured.

Despite knowing the cabinet ministers to be sisters & getting their surname right this wasn't considered quite specific enough [no disrespect to Haydn as QM]. Methinks I smell a gorgon here...

Lord Flame said...

Following the great debate a couple of weeks ago as to how to handle disputed answers, when an academicall answered Forth Rail Bridge to the question about a Scottish unesco site, the question was passed over and road bridge marked correct. We queried this and agreed to accept the given answer.
The bollington team googled the answer during a beer break and insisted we took the points for our correct answer.
Fortunately it didn't affect the result of a close but relatively low scoring match
The Mountbatten question mentioned by AAD was interesting. When I heard first governor of India, I thought Clive - I should have thought warren Hastings , but then 1948 and it had to be Mountbatten, who was the first governor of the dominion of India. Hastings was governor of Bengal - it's complicated
We had an excellent evening with a good humoured quiz master and sporting opposition
Good luck to them in the A leagu

Jon Thompson said...

I think our game was actually more an act of surrealism than a quiz match.

Haydn said...

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to apologise again over the twins issue Dave ... and yes, to restate my case. I was under the impression (false, it seems) that as vetters we had asked if we should accept "Sisters". Either way, the answer on the question sheet was "twin sisters". This is why I prefixed the question on the night with "Specifically ... ". Having asked for a specific answer, I didn't feel able to accept "sisters" - and although "twin sisters" was offered fairly quickly when I hesitated, I was obliged (as you know) to take the first answer. I accept that, particularly in the circumstances of this low-scoring game, this could be seen as being a bit harsh. Fortunately for me this was only a passed-over and not a three-pointer (and it didn't affect the overall result).

I'd also like to apologise on behalf of all the vetters for missing the other three errors mentioned by AAD (two of which were spotted in the Waters Green - the Accrington issue having escaped all of us.)

And finally, on the subject of pedantry ... I'd just like to remind Nick (as Dave has refrained from doing) that the Lemmings were playing the Dolphin Dragons, not the Dolphin!

AAD said...

I'm starting to feel for Dave C - after relativity it seems that he is destined to sit in the chair where a correct answer is worth nothing for being not quite specific enough. A good general rule is that any question that even begs the word "specifically" is bad news (says he, still in his glass house)

I may be a pedant, but I'm quite proud to have spent many years in my day jobs pedantically arguing that someone has done enough to gain credit rather than to find a reason to withhold it. No criticism of Haydn intended, any situation where the QM has to make a judgment call that can be avoided should be - I had decided that the "sister" answer was worth three because it was not wrong. In the environment I was in, this would have been accepted with grace, I appreciate that other QMs (not the one that has responded) may have faced a more tricky atmosphere.

Indeed, I feel inclined to absolve the vetters completely. My response, leafing through the qs before my quiz was one of giddy amnesic euphoria that I was not going to have them asked to me. In fairness, whoever set GK 74-96 set a very decent set of questions that may not have been appreciated at that point.

Dave C said...

Just to avoid misinterpretation (GK 14) 'Twin Sisters' didn't fall to me, it was a passed over which Liz H knew. Admittedly having romped to a less than spectacular 3 in the Specialist Round, I was struggling to find my "happy place" so the relativity cord was lit so to speak.

Nick said...

Thanks Haydn - now corrected - names are always a problem for me but apologies to the Dolphin Dragons (I think I may have made the same mistake in the first round!)

AAD said...

No, I think you got it right last time Nick. However, I'm not so sure about the "Kings Head" who are credited with the specialists a few weeks back. It was a blast from the past in terms of the old Chestergate boozer though.

MW said...

We played the Royal Oak in a very convivial game, albeit played in extremely hot surroundings. The boiler repair of a few weeks ago at the Ox-fford has clearly worked wonders and a pair of shorts turned out to be very appropriate dress for the evening!

The questions were tough – a couple of 36s being the only scores over 30 in the game. Communal “will to live” was slightly ebbing away by the end and although a lot of the questions did get answered by someone, there will certainly be no record scores from this round of games. There lots of “passed overs” which is something we normally pride ourselves on, i.e. not giving much away. We passed over 17 points to the Royal Oak – mainly because we didn’t know the answers and they did!

The questions were an unusual assortment. Our game actually took a long time to finish - certainly after 10.30pm by the time we’d done, and not because we kept having breaks etc - or no more than we normally do anyway.

We generally thought the questions seemed very “wordy”, packed full of (often unnecessary) detail and we thought you could have asked the same question a lot more simply much of the time. Ideally, you could have lost some of them altogether.

Now, I am not known for using half a dozen words when a dozen will do, so I might be shattering the irony barrier here by talking about something being too “wordy”, but I think the same view was held by both sides in our game. Another interesting week, though, as it always is!

Anonymous said...

On the question of specificity (horrible word) I fear Haydn's approach doesn't work in this case. The Eagles are sisters, quite specifically; just as specifically as they are twins. (I confess that I got this Q, but didn't listen properly, so failed to hear the word "shadow", and was desperately trying to identify two related members of the present cabinet; though many might be considered to share the traditional word for "illegitimate"). There are many Qs which can produce unexpected problems for the QM. I set the Q about the head of the god Horus, and had an interesting debate with the assiduous vetter Lord Flame about falcons and hawks. None of this prepared me for the answer "a bird" - not wrong, but not what I wanted. My approach in such situations is to pause and give the player what I hope is a meaningful look, allowing them to expand on the answer. I don't see how you can immediately reject an answer that isn't actually wrong, without allowing time for a fuller response. I consider it even legitimate, if they can't find a better answer, to allow a confer for 1 point in such situations. This illustrates the potential pitfalls of question setting, and the need for vetters to try and think of the various possible answers.
Peter McB