Tom wrote, "At least back in 1998, Texas won the Panasonic tournament. Obviously many of the teams that I talked to had "sour grapes" complex when they said that clearly Maryland played "desperate" down the stretch, while Texas wound up getting less than 4 15-pt questions to win the game (if I recall that correctly). I don't discount Klein Forest winning Panasonic; they clearly played that game the best in the championship round. But many coaches felt a bit dissatisfied that a team can really win a quiz bowl tournament without being the best or most aggressive on the buzzer (i.e., win tossup questions). That is antithetical to the nature of qb as most of us play it." It was 1997 and it was Klein HS (ie Klein, TX)that won Panasonic but you are absolutely right Tom. Not only did they win in the final because of Maryland's mistakes, the same thing happened in the semifinals. I was lucky enough to be competing (ok, in truth I did more watching than playing) at PAC that year and we were even luckier to make the semifinals. In our group we had Klein, Detroit Catholic Central, NC School of Math and Science and all-star teams from Minnesota and Missouri. My memory is starting to fade on me, but if I recall correctly Missouri had a big lead going into the final round with Minnesota second and Texas third. Texas played well in the final round, but they only reached the championship (top two advance) because Missouri self-destructed in the final round. It is my opinion that the the combination of the severe penalty for incorrect answers (equal to the reward for correct answers) and the multiple teams playing at once really doctors the results. I'm totally unconviced about competitions were on multiple choice match questions teams have to take a 50/50 guess after the second clue just to get a chance to answer. I also agree with Tom that the random pairings (not to mention allowing all-star teams, but don't get me started there) makes for wildly unusual results. I like the style of the games and for the most part the questions are good (I do agree with Darren about the ridiculousness of their rules concerning multiple choice questions)but it does seem rather insane than last year you can end up with a Maryland, South Carolina, State College and P.L. Dunbar all in the same semifinal round.
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