Yeah the game reduces to this among people with similar knowledge or even disparate levels of knowledge but all above a certain threshold. In quiz bowl, it was all about jumping the question with limited information. So if a question started with “On November 22nd…” our team would buzz in and guess Oswald because JFK is too obvious for a high school cup event. Basically just gambling on which direction the question writers would take which our coaches tried to figure out by studying the question banks from all previous events. That’s a dumb sub-game but so is timing out some dude who is clearing the buzzer locks.
Yeah, that how the responses work on The Chase as well, and while its fun for a change of pace from time to time, for people actually watching at home for the trivia, it makes for a pretty poor spectator game, which is exactly why Jeopardy has the longevity that it does.
Getting to hear the full question every clue is a very satisfying viewing experience.
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S1 under Trebek (and I assume the old Art Fleming version) let contestants ring in anytime during the question, although the question would always be read completely before the contestant got called on.
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Yeah you should see the state finals / cup matches for quiz bowl between talented squads. I was experienced at operating the buzzer system that our state used and ended up working a few of those matches. This was in a hotel ballroom with a large audience and I honestly wondered what the people in attendance could possibly be getting out of it. Nearly every question is cut short when good teams are playing, and many jarringly so.
One thing I observed multiple times: the only buzzer lock occurs after an incorrect answer which opens it up to the other team, and several of those teams got into huge arguments over it. They were audibly jamming the buzzers before I cleared the lock to get in first which is dumb since you get to hear the entire question for free. One team I distinctly remember getting into a huge shouting match, and their coach had to call time and sub people lol.
Is the show footage heavily edited (read: condensed)? It always seemed to me like it has to be because the pace and short space between responses feels impossible.
I got killed on the buzzer. You can’t entirely tell just by watching it, but in the semifinal I choked I would have had them doubled by FJ if I had gotten my fair share of buzzes in. I was just cleaning them up on the harder questions that they were not trying to ring in on.
The footage is not condensed. The show takes 30 minutes to tape, the contestants experience the rough equivalent of the commercial breaks.
Is there a source for this? I should clarify what I mean by heavily edited: I’m not suggesting that they remove a lot of time in absolute terms, just the number of cuts to chop a second or two of dead air here and there. Sometimes it feels like the space between people talking is unnaturally brief, like
What is Nyan Cat?
Correct. Pick again.
Internet Cats 800.
with almost no air between.
Since the game is timed, contestants (the good ones) are very quick to pick their next category, especially if they are confident they are correct. They will often call their next clue while the host is giving an affirmative response
I get that but just saying it’s something I would want confirmation on before being a contestant on the actual show. If you mastered the pace by watching TV and it turns out they were trimming fractions of a second off here and there, the timing would feel weird in person.
I would totally fail at the buzzer thing because I am a fast reader and am done before the host gets to the second or third word. Add on being nervous, I’d probably buzz in too early on every clue I knew.
In his book, Trebek said changing this rule (in his capacity as executive producer) was the best thing he ever did for the show.
It’s a better game if people can ring in early and when they ring in they don’t get to hear any more of the response, but it’s just awful television. I’ve seen quiz bowl on TV, and there’s no way it could be any fun for a normie when the only stuff they hear is the half of the question that doesn’t lead an ignoramus to the answer.
Wheel and J! Both excellent games that you can play along at home.
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it’s also complicated by the fact that you can see the question.
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I am looking at the J! FAQ now and if I’m reading this right, the correct play would be to always buzz in early (I’ll explain in more detail later). So maybe you’d have an advantage if you could can speed through the question and focus on the buzzer timing.
I mean if the first season rules were in play if you were top tier trivia master the clear play is snap buzz in the second the clue comes up. Then the best way to counter that if you were not that good…is actually to still snap buzz in second comes up. This is not a fun game to watch though.
At least when questions are read you dont snap buzz in hoping you know it
Holy shit that episode
The official FAQ says that an early buzz will lock out for 250 ms. If that’s true, the best technique is likely one where you always attempt to buzz early and often. An extremely fast reaction time to a simple cue would be 200 ms, but I would expect 250 ms to more in the “realistic lightning fast” range given the level of stress and concentration required for J!. The types of reaction tests where people can post those amazing times are ones where they aren’t required to think at a complex level (i.e., click immediately when red light turns green vs. the type of mental processing you’d be doing while deciding to ring in for a J! clue).
https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime
(I have no idea how accurate this; due to computer latency it’s not a calibrated system. But try it a few times and think about how closely you think it matches the conditions you’d be facing during a live taping of J!)
It would not surprise me if the “average” time of a J! contestant simply reacting to the lights with all of the pressure and mental processing is closer to 400 or even 500 ms.
If you’ve ever practiced double clicking a timing device like a stop watch, you’ll know about what a 250 ms delay feels like. So let’s say you have that pulse timing more or less mastered for double clicking to the extent that you can form a distribution that’s mostly above 250 ms and mostly below 400 ms. I would expect this style of pulse clicking to win virtually always against two people with average reaction times who are merely reacting to the lights.
Random question: Is every single person named Matt ineligible for next season?
I’ve never seen anyone with the same first name on the same episode. If they have another Matt after the current champion’s reign ends, they run the risk of multiple Matts in the Tournament of Champions.