And Mike Burger spaketh, saying: <<It was distressing to get a tossup just to see another team go ahead and get more points.>> Thus, of course, the definition and purpose of the bounceback; to give all the players a crack at all the knowledge in a packet. <<Or, get a tossup and then have to sink it not necessarily on the fear that you are going to do poorly on the question, rather, that the other team will do better. I thought it brought an unnecessarily complicated part to the game that was very low on reward compared to the pain involved. And by guessing wrong, you gave the other team fodder for answers they may not have already have known.>> Those are valid points, yes, in that the game is made somewhat more complicated -- no more so, certainly, than high-school play, and certainly no more so than variant formats which were proposed and rejected in the planning stages, some of which would have required that the opposing team write down their answers. Certainly, while the fact of sinking adds a strategic element, the fact of bouncebacks does not, in itself, require one; it is not unreasonable to trust in players' good nature to resist the temptation to manipulate the rules in what, as we all are aware, is only a game. Furthermore, it certainly can't be said that the fact of the commingling of bouncebacks and sinks was in any way kept secret; they were included prominently in every official issue of the format. In short, every team knew what they were getting in to. Edmund
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