Re: On Unpredictability II (was Re:Score

>>So, basically, you felt out of it because
you were having your collective asses handed to you
in that game. Did you go in overestimating yourself
or underestimating your
opponents?<<

Yes, that's what I was saying. Underestimating the
opponents would be the answer to the question, although we
should all concentrate on doing the best
<i>we</i> can and not thinking about our expectations of
our opponents.

Honestly, you don't expect to
be down by 190 at the half after beating them by 405
points the same day. I'm not whining in any way; I'm
saying that I've never experienced a drastic shift like
that (in other words, that was the first one in my
<2 years of quiz bowl), and I think the eclectic
questions (we're less able to predict what type of
questions we'll be answering) have something to do with it.
The results of the tournament aren't less valid
because of that.

<<The good teams can stop
someone every once in a while. The great teams are the
ones who can come from behind when they're down big at
the half to a good team.>>

That's right.
We did outscore them in the second half, but not
significantly.

It was, honestly, a very strange feeling, though.
Something I'd liken to some mental frameshift in a sci-fi
show, if I could think of an example. "Has...has...has
my world turned inside-out? CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME? Do
you see these strange things too? Am I really alive,
or am I a figure in their dreams?"

But enough
about Pitt's sensitivity and fallibility. What did
other people think about the questions?

I
thought there were less art ones than Penn Bowl, and the
history was way more American than other recent
tournaments. And there were more current events and fewer
things that nobody has ever heard of. Tournaments have
different styles, and they're not even predictable by
organization, although we try.

OSU was a good
team.

All my posts seem to be in the first person. I assume
this is some sort of self-absorption that dissipates
with age.

Time for fantasy baseball!
Michael
davies
mld6_at_...

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:45 AM EST EST