Macclesfield Quiz League |
News and Views |
1999–2000 Season |
Week 1: 19 October 1999 |
Week 2: 26 October 1999 |
Week 5: 23 November 1999 |
Week 6: 30 November 1999 |
Week 7: 14 December 1999 |
Week 12: 22 February 2000 |
Week 16: 4 April 2000 |
A League | B League | C League | D League |
Not a good start. The Cock Inn could provide only ONE question master – which has prompted the first written complaint in some time – and the George & Dragon 'A' provided three out of four.
Both teams did let me know in plenty of time and I am grateful for that. There were good reasons for the absences, but whilst finding the odd QM can be done, finding four is harder than a round of questions on the Formula 1 Rule Book.
All teams now know exactly when they have to ask the questions for the rest of the season. Please try and plan ahead so you can fulfil your commitments.
All the score sheets got back to the right pub – thank you all for that. I will now officially stop reminding everyone that Waters Green Tavern is the place to take them from now on.
There was one missing result in the D League: the score sheets for the Cock Inn v. Wharf (which resulted in a win for the Cock) were late getting to the pub. The match scores and League points were included in time for Week 3's News & Views, but individual scores for this particular match were not recorded for posterity.
One team is already having problems with Question Masters for next week. If you think you may have a spare man (sic) to ask the questions for your game, please ring me on the usual number.
After tonight [14 December] we take a break for a week longer than usual for Christmas and some end of year thing or other.
There seems to have been more than the usual share of problems so far this season with lack of Question Masters and all manner of other things I won't bore you with, but several people have helped at the last moment, and I am grateful to them for their efforts.
I would especially like to thank Marshall Barnard from Sutton Club, Shauna Barstow and the New Castle team and Steve Adshead from the Wharf, who have all helped out more often than they had planned for.
It only remains to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and New Year, and see you all, bugs permitting, in the next Millennium.
Welcome back after our extended Christmas break, and a Happy New Year to everyone.
Next week is Round 1 of the Plate ... the losers of the games at the Rising Sun and the Ivy House will be setting questions for the Cup and Plate rounds of 16, which follows only two weeks later on 1 February 2000. If you do lose one of these games, there are only a couple of weeks to prepare questions.
A reminder please to everyone setting the questions for the remainder of the season to please vet each other's questions for balance before you finalize them.
Several weeks over the season have shown an imbalance in games being won by teams who have had one 'half' of the questions as opposed to the other, so to speak. On one occasion 14 of the 16 games were won by teams who had the same questions. Normally the split is about equal.
I appreciate that it is very subjective judgement as to which questions are easy and which are hard, but please try and make the standard of difficulty as equal as it is possible to make it.
Since mentioning the 'balance of questions' issue in the News & Views a few weeks ago, several of you have spoken to me about it. There is no doubt it is a difficult act to achieve, and very subjective of course at best, but recent weeks have, broadly speaking, been balancing out quite evenly. Last week's questions broke down as follows:
Specialist – the team going 'first first' led in 12 of the 16 games
General Knowledge – the team going 'first second' led in 10 of the games
In overall scores, the team going 'first second' won in nine of the games, with seven wins to teams going 'first first' and no draws.
Therefore not much imbalance overall. The most imbalance was on the Specialist rounds, but negligible by comparison to some weeks we have had.
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