News and Views: 2018–19 Season – Week 10 – 15 January 2019

By Haydn Thompson, with input from Mark Watson.

Results

This week we had our second draw of the season, between the Park Timers and the Pack Horse Bowling Club. As the Park Timers were third before this week and the Pack Horse were seventh, this would have to be seen as a good result for the latter. Another good result in the C League was a victory for the Cock Inn (previously 6th in the table) over the Chester Road Tavern (previously second).

In the A League, a 'relegation six pointer' (sorry, four pointer) between the Church House Bollington and the Dolphin Dragons was won comfortably by the former. A similar battle in the B League went the way of the Plough Horntails against the Sutton Mutton.

Tables

There were no major movers this week. The same three teams (Dolphin, Harrington Academicals and Robin Hood) remain at the top of their respective Leagues; the British Flag moved above the Nags Head (who didn't play) into the second promotion spot in the B League, but the latter of course now have a game in hand. In the C League, the Park Timers' one point was enough to take them above the Chester Road Tavern into second place.

Individual

Top scorer this week was Alice Walker with 45; Ashton Davies's 42 was the only other score over 40, and only four people managed 39. There were only six personal bests – four of them in the A League, and two of them for the Church House Bollington – and as many as 24 people (fairly evenly spread about the three Divisions) failed to beat their previous personal worsts.

In the C League, where none of the top three played, Andrew Fenton moved up from sixth place to become the new leader. But only 27 points separate the top eight, and several of them have games in hand, so things are likely to change in the coming weeks.

A League

Results

Table

Individual Top Ten

B League

Results

Table

Individual Top Ten

C League

Results

Table

Individual Top Ten

Cars & Vans 4U Question Setters' Trophy

For the full spreadsheet, please click here.

Four games this week were won by the teams that went "first first"; four went the other way, and there was one draw. This suggests that the questions were well balanced, and the spreadsheet bears this out – although like last week, it was a case of the biases in each set cancelling each other out.

The bias in the General Knowledge questions, according to the spreadsheet, was towards the teams that went first (second in the Specialists) but was not excessive. In the Specialist questions there was a more pronounced bias, which was also towards the teams that went first. Overall, the spreadsheet suggests a minimal bias (92% as opposed to 91%) towards the teams that went "first first".

Unfortunately, that's the end of the good news. Neither of this week's sets scored highly for Entertainment; the General Knowledge rounds (set by the Robin Hood) got comfortably the worst score of the season so far, while the Specialists (set by the Nags Head) currently sit 14th out of 20. According to the spreadsheet these were the most difficult questions we've had so far this season, in both classifications. On the Specialist questions teams scored on average 91% of their average scores; in the General Knowledge the figure was 93%.

© Macclesfield Quiz League 2019