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Rebounding bonuses

Discussion of quizbowl topics not related to specific tournaments
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CentraliaCoach
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Rebounding bonuses

Post by CentraliaCoach »

Moderator note: split from 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discusion

What is the rationale for non-rebounding bonuses? It seems like first crack at a question is reward enough for getting a toss-up correct. And shouldn't a team be able to capitalize when the other team knows less and can't answer their own bonus?

Even reducing the value of rebounded bonuses (5 points instead of the full 10) would be better than denying a team a chance to flex their physics knowledge because they don't listen to bad pop music.

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socalcaptain
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Re: 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by socalcaptain »

I'm actually not sure on that. Anyone?

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Keith Moon
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Re: 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by Keith Moon »

CentraliaCoach wrote:What is the rationale for non-rebounding bonuses? It seems like first crack at a question is reward enough for getting a toss-up correct. And shouldn't a team be able to capitalize when the other team knows less and can't answer their own bonus?

Even reducing the value of rebounded bonuses (5 points instead of the full 10) would be better than denying a team a chance to flex their physics knowledge because they don't listen to bad pop music.
Personally, I'm against it. I'm not sure of the rationale for non-rebounds, but I can guarentee its frustrating when we see something like a bio question or such go to waste because we can't answer it due to missing the tossup. It can hurt you as well, but I would rather have the change to answer more questions. Also, rebounding bonsuses mean its easier for close games to stay close, as even if you miss a tossup, you have a chance for points. I would love to hear the reason behind this as well.

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scphilli
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Re: 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by scphilli »

Apart from the fact that this is just the way the game was always played (Non-rebounding bonuses being standard on the old G.E. College Bowl), the idea is basically as follows: You are playing the tossup in order to receive the bonus which is a reward for correctly identifying the tossup's answer. I'm guessing the reason for rebounding bonuses, which evolved later (since the college game which begat the high school one has never used rebounds), is basically a way to give high schoolers more positive reinforcement.

logic2718
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Re: 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by logic2718 »

Also, I think it makes sense with the term "bonus," which should signify some extra set of points you get for answering the TU. Rebounding bonuses are sort of halfway between a TU and a real bonus, since both teams can answer so the only bonus per se is who gets to answer first. Also, rebounding bonuses are a bit counter intuitive especially in close games. For example, if it's tied and one team gets the last TU, then they should win. However, they get 10 pts for that TU, and the other team may get 20 pts off of rebounded bonuses. So, in a way, rebounding bonuses can discourage answering TUs at the end of a close game.

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dividebyzero
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Re: 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by dividebyzero »

Ikshu makes a valid point. In a few close games with rebounding bonuses, you see teams purposely miss the last question in order to deny their opponent from potentially scraping together enough bonus points for a win (not a lot, but occasionally). Granted the opponent won't necessarily get all the points required, but it is a logical strategy in tournaments with the aforementioned format. I'm not sure if I see it as a smart thing to do or not. It certainly could be seen as "encouraging" missing a tossup on purpose, but it's not like refusing to answer one particular question is that big of a deal from the "quality learning from quizbowl" perspective. Then again, it's not a pleasant feeling to be on the short end of the proverbial stick in one of these situations...
But from a broader perspective, I don't think rebounding bonuses are as big of a problem in the MSHSAA format as many of the other issues present (especially since, in my opinion, a pretty decent argument can be made for or against them)

logic2718
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Re: 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by logic2718 »

dividebyzero wrote: But from a broader perspective, I don't think rebounding bonuses are as big of a problem in the MSHSAA format as many of the other issues present (especially since, in my opinion, a pretty decent argument can be made for or against them)
Agreed.

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Keith Moon
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Re: 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by Keith Moon »

I would say, if your going to rebound bonuses, you should make them a topic related to the question. Wouldn't this reward you better for answering the question correctly, and give you more of a chance to show off your knowledge on a subject?

CherryCokeStain
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Re: 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by CherryCokeStain »

I would say, if your going to rebound bonuses, you should make them a topic related to the question. Wouldn't this reward you better for answering the question correctly, and give you more of a chance to show off your knowledge on a subject?
This actually is bad in my opinion. Quizbowl is about the ability of a team to have knowledge in all subject areas, so if you say get chemistry question, and then the bonus is also chemistry, the team could potentially get 40 points just on chemistry, but are they showing as much overall knowledge as team that can get a chemistry tossup and 30 a literature bonus?

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Jeffrey Hill
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Re: 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by Jeffrey Hill »

Ikshu and Ammar mentioned the situation I was thinking of where a team will deliberately not buzz on the last tossup to avoid the possibility of the other team winning the game on their bonus. More generally, I think the main argument against rebounding bonuses is based on the possibility that the team that answers a tossup correctly could actually earn fewer points on the tossup/bonus cycle than the opposing team.

Illustrative example: Only Team A knows the answer to a tossup. Team A knows none of the bonus parts but Team B knows 2 of them.
  • If Team A answers the tossup, it earns 10 points on the tossup. If bonuses don't rebound, no points are scored on the bonus. Net result: Team A gains 10 points more than Team B.
  • However, if bonuses rebound and team A answers the tossup, Team B earns 20 points on the bonus. Net result: Team B gains 10 points more than Team A.
  • If neither team answers the tossup, the score doesn't change.
Thus, when rebounding bonuses are used, a team could possibly be at a disadvantage to answer a tossup, hence why teams might intentionally not buzz on something they know late in the game.

Of course, those in favor of rebounding bonuses would argue that Team B knew more about the topics asked in that tossup/bonus cycle and deserved the points.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each. Four MOQBA certified tournaments run on a 20 tossup/bonus format this year had rebounding bonuses (compared to seven that did not). Even the major forces in quizbowl differ on this: NAQT and ACF do not have rebounding bonuses, but PACE does.

As for me, I personally don't care whether bonuses rebound or not.
Keith Moon wrote:I would say, if your going to rebound bonuses, you should make them a topic related to the question. Wouldn't this reward you better for answering the question correctly, and give you more of a chance to show off your knowledge on a subject?
Grant already beat me to this, but to expand on his point: having bonuses be unrelated to tossups requires good teams to have a breadth of knowledge across all subject areas, which is just as important as depth of knowledge. If bonuses were the same subject as the preceding tossup, teams could win a bunch of games by dominating only a couple of categories and knowing absolutely nothing about the others. Depth of knowledge is already adequately rewarded by pyramidal tossups and the easy-medium-hard bonus part paradigm.

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ZhangC1459
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Re: 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by ZhangC1459 »

I remember you guys (specifically Ammar) raged at me at WUHSAC 11 for answering the last question correctly, getting a rebounding bonus that could've given Eureka the third-place win if they had gotten the bonus. So yes, it's a valid tactic.

And bonuses do decide the game, I believe at Missouri S&T, NKC lost to us by 5 points because they got the first bonus about the office but not the second more obscure one. Which admittedly sucks for them, since by all means they should have been rewarded for beating us on the last tossup at such a close score.

But I have to go against the NAQT for once on this one; I'd prefer rebounding bonuses on the NAQT format. While I understand the need for rounds to run on time, as Nick stated, it really is painful watching the other team get a bio (which our team is strong at, between me and Liron. Or so we're told) bonus, not know it, and watch those extra points go to waste when we could've easily scooped them up, or vice versa. Under the current method, all we can do is cross our fingers and hope they say something wrong. :D

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Charlie Dees
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Re: Rebounding bonuses

Post by Charlie Dees »

Honestly, whether or not a bonus rebounds is probably the lowest priority in trying to figure out the fairest format. My opinion is that both formats produce fair enough results to justify their use - Sean Phillips laid out the major argument for non-rebounding bonuses, which I can buy, and at the same time, I can also buy the idea that we should have rebounding bonuses in order to give teams more of a chance to score points and capitalize on weaknesses of the other teams at the high school level. I have even run tournaments with both rules in place. It's a very minor detail in the game, and going either way honestly does not make any results less fair as best as I can tell.

mujason
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Re: Rebounding bonuses

Post by mujason »

Other reasons to oppose rebounding bonuses are that the second team will have more time to think about the answer and gets another piece of information when the first team gives a reasonable but incorrect answer. The extra time especially comes into play in mathcomp bonuses; some teams immediately pass on mathcomp bonuses to avoid giving the second team extra time. As for the extra information from the first team's guess, this definitely exists on multiple-choice bonuses (which shouldn't exist anyway) and on topics with a limited answer space (such as wives of Henry VIII, Canadian provinces, etc). But as Charlie said, there are definitely bigger fish to fry in the format wars.

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dividebyzero
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Re: 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by dividebyzero »

ZhangC1459 wrote:I remember you guys (specifically Ammar) raged at me at WUHSAC 11 for answering the last question correctly, getting a rebounding bonus that could've given Eureka the third-place win if they had gotten the bonus. So yes, it's a valid tactic.
If I recall correctly, I was more annoyed that you nearly blanked on the tossup, even though it was something we had just learned in AP Chem :D
---------------------------

Like I said earlier, I don't really think rebounding bonuses are a very big issue either. As for all the other problems with the current format and distribution, are there any plans for a large-scale, collaborative effort to make MSHSSA do something about it? Or has that already been attempted to no avail?

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Charlie Dees
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Re: Rebounding bonuses

Post by Charlie Dees »

Well, unfortunately, its going to be exceptionally difficult to get the MSHSAA to scrap their current format until we reach the point where something like a majority of active teams (or functionally, advisory committee members) decide to start pushing that reform. To my mind, the most effective strategy is to realize that the current system is probably going to be stuck around for a while, and to then take all the energy people have about this and funnel it into organizing good tournaments and doing what you can to recruit new teams to said tournaments (which, fundamentally, is what most of what anybody does anyway. For example, me writing a post to argue that Questions Galore writes inferior questions to HSAPQ is implicitly an argument to all teams that read it to attend a tournament on better questions.)If we can reach a point where many different people are organizing many different high quality tournaments in many different places with many many many different teams choosing to attend, then we can be much closer to reasonably focusing in efforts to specifically force the MSHSAA to either change their policies in a wide reaching way or else to ship out. While I have strong confidence that in the long run, good quizbowl will win out (since, hate to break it to you everyone that thinks the traditional Missouri circuit is great, but that is exactly what has played out pretty much everywhere that people group together to make sure and run lots of good events), the unfortunate reality is that we are in the present, and that in the present only maybe something like 100? schools in the state have ever played a good tournament, and many fewer have attended multiple. With those kinds of numbers, sure, we're making a dent, but until we can hit a point where many more teams have not only played good quizbowl, but will play it at multiple tournaments per year willingly, it is unreasonable to think we have a very good chance of convincing MSHSAA that teams in Missouri empirically prefer playing good quizbowl. In the meantime though, I would strongly suggest writing the members of MSHSAA's advisory committee to let them know specific things you would like them to bring up. Even if that does not immediately get the job done, it at least makes it clearer to your Adco representative that some group of people they are supposed to represent holds this opinion, and if they don't at least consider that fact, then you can console yourself in the idea that they are a bad representative.

WillHack
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Re: Rebounding bonuses

Post by WillHack »

I remember when you got that toss-up, Chris, I was pissed... for about 20 seconds, until we won the game. :p But that's why in that one earlier round, I intentionally missed the last question before anyone else on our team had a chance to answer it.

Honestly, I feel like rebounding bonuses benefit the team which has the most overall knowledge, because they have more chances to show it. On the other hand, I kind of like upsets, so I am against rebounding bonuses. :D

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Re: 2010 MSHSAA Districts Discussion

Post by PenforPrez »

logic2718 wrote:Also, I think it makes sense with the term "bonus," which should signify some extra set of points you get for answering the TU. Rebounding bonuses are sort of halfway between a TU and a real bonus, since both teams can answer so the only bonus per se is who gets to answer first. Also, rebounding bonuses are a bit counter intuitive especially in close games. For example, if it's tied and one team gets the last TU, then they should win. However, they get 10 pts for that TU, and the other team may get 20 pts off of rebounded bonuses. So, in a way, rebounding bonuses can discourage answering TUs at the end of a close game.
I once won a huge tournament in high school against NKC in just that way.

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Re: Rebounding bonuses

Post by L-Town Expatriate »

My best guess is that so long as MSHSAA is running academic competition, bonuses will remain rebounding. Not only because you have to drag them across the length and breadth of CoMo with their fingernails scratching the pavement before they budge, but also because introducing something that encourages point-killing tactics could be seen as engendering negative sportsmanship.

Again, MSHSAA's paramount concern is "rekindling the spirit of citizenship", not "churning out the best athletes & minds Missouri has to offer". Oh, and saving money where they can.

My personal view: I prefer rebounding, and I've long been a supporter of related bonuses. I think related bonuses also encourage depth of knowledge, as by answering a question about, say, the musical A Chorus Line, you can show more of your knowledge about that (or French History, or simple machines, or pretty much anything) by getting the tossup correct.

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Charlie Dees
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Re: Rebounding bonuses

Post by Charlie Dees »

introducing something that encourages point-killing tactics could be seen as engendering negative sportsmanship.
Isn't this the argument against rebounding bonuses? Not that I think it is really that important either way, but I don't understand what point killing tactics there are with no rebounds.
Anyway, I don't mind not bringing up a change to bonus rebound policy. Missouri basically does that right, if you want rebounds, and so many coaches that haven't played anything else are going to completely despise not having the rebounds that I think we should just let the debate go when it comes to official MSHSAA policy. I think its fine to have some tournaments with no rebounds just to get teams exposed to other ways of thinking about the game, and also to make sure people have some experience in a nationals style format.

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L-Town Expatriate
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Re: Rebounding bonuses

Post by L-Town Expatriate »

It is strategic killing if you're ahead, answer the tossup, and then bagel the bonus. But yes, rebounding bonii does bring about a different form of strategic killing.

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Charlie Dees
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Re: Rebounding bonuses

Post by Charlie Dees »

What possible incentive could you have to not answer questions on a bonus that won't rebound?

WillHack
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Re: Rebounding bonuses

Post by WillHack »

I know that some people at HSNCT were discussing quick-passing boni they were unlikely to get in order to preserve time?

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Charlie Dees
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Re: Rebounding bonuses

Post by Charlie Dees »

That is true, but in that situation, if they quickly pass the answers they don't know, that's obviously not the same thing as not answering questions they do know.
Edit: Also, that's an argument against timers, not non-rebounding bonuses.

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