Ok, so no murder, and not really that much mayhem, but there was controversy at the Rendezvous last night. The Jams had a perfect score when, in round three, I asked the question, “What train was Casey Jones the engineer of, a train whose name sounds similar to a Burt Reynolds movie?” The correct answer was Cannonball Express. They answered, simply, “Cannonball”. I had taken off a point the night before for teams that had simply written Cannonball, and did so again. They then ran the tables in Round Four and finished one point away from a perfect score, with a 118. So the question I pose to you is, “Was I grading too harshly? Should I have given them full credit for cannonball?” Let me know in the poll below.
You graded that one perfectly especially when you consider that a perfect score ended up being on the line. If you gave The Jams full credit and then they closed out Round 4 and ended with a perfect score, it would be a tainted perfect score. It would be like giving a pitcher a no-hitter when there is a questionable play ruled an error.
Also, The Jams were clearly guessing with Cannonball. My team received 2 out of 3 for “Cannonball” on Tuesday and we were thrilled. We knew Burt Reynolds was in a movie called “Cannonball Run” and we assumed Cannonball was a cute name for a train and we were hoping we'd get partial credit. This is clearly what The Jams were doing. I'm surprised they didn't get it right since scores are always higher on Wednesday since teams spend their Tuesday nights in disguise at O'Neals stealing answers. A perfect score on a Wednesday is like dunking on a miniature basketball hoop. Unless you do it at the first game of the week, the premiere launch at 8pm on a Tuesday night, you are just some fraud who hangs out at Center City bars like all the other wannabe socialities in this town. That's why Where's John's Rum is clearly the best team on the circuit and JGT continues to dog them in the power rankings.
Now for some facts: The highest score from JGT's first quiz of the week has been achieved 18 times on Wednesdays and 11 times on Tuesdays. Advantage Wednesday, but clearly not enough to prove any sort of misbehavior. Regarding the claim that Where's John's Rum? is being cheated, having zero of those 11 overall Tuesday wins sort of taints the claim to No. 1. Lastly, for the geographically challenged, The Ugly American is not precisely in Center City and should the John's Rum team like to step up, it is the first new quiz on Thursdays. There's at least a couple of teams that would like to see you there.
ok, just for the record whys johns rum gone is not challenging the power ratings, in fact as far as i am concerned johnny could take us off the power rankings. also, i have never asserted that any team “cheated” by going to games early in the week to get answers. as far as perfect scores are concerned, scoring a perfect score on a pub quiz does not make you intelligent.
i have been playing quizzo in some form or other for over 10 years at a lot of different places, dickens inn before it became the dark horse, the dark horse, fergies twice a week and others. i like oneals. thank you for the offer tho.
i am the john whose rum is always gone.
The difference between showing up on Tuesday or Wednesday is less important that how often a wikipedia app is used on an iPhone during a round. Getting called out by a bartender for cheating means not only that you're not good at quizzo but that you're not especially good at cheating either.
While I agree with you on taking away the point, I hope this is the result of learning a lesson for accepting “Wilson” as a correct answer in your “Dead Drummers” Wild Card Round a couple of weeks ago.
You didn't give an option in your poll for those who think they should have gotten zero points.
I love seeing a bunch of trivia nerds get their panties all in a twist over stuff like this.
I am wondering, from an outsiders perspective, someone who is mearly a fan of your website…How can you be sure that people who play on Tuesday don't give people that play on Wednesday the answers?…Do you ask all the same questions or just some from the night before?
There's a pretty decent code of ethics among frequent players that seems to ensure the effect of cheating is more or less inconsequential. Competitive Wednesday teams don't do any better or worse (on average) when they play Tuesdays or Thursdays, when the questions are new, and there aren't enough one-off victories for new teams to raise significant suspicion. In the end, it's probably just not worth it for people to go to great lengths to cheat consistently.
Maybe there should be a penalty for guessing like they have in the SAT. Don't they knock off a quarter point for an incorrect answer to discourage guessing? I suppose JGT might have some trouble handling all those fractions, particularly under time stress. But we do have calculators and computers these days. Just saying.
As a member of the Jams I would say that Johnny was consistent in how he marked the quiz from game to game and also had no idea at the time he marked it a perfect game was on the line. I would request that noone vote yes above. It's always fun to give Johnny a hard time in the midst of the game, but he was not being too harsh in his grading.