Macclesfield Quiz League |
News & Views |
2019–20 Season |
Week 3 |
A League |
B League |
C League |
Cars & Vans 4U Trophy |
For a PDF version of this page, please click here.
Yet again there were some very close games this week, with two matches being decided by a single point and one by two points. But of the other seven games, six were won by 27 points or more.
Six games were won by the teams that went "first first", and four went the other way. While the Specialist questions were almost perfectly balanced (according to the spreadsheet), the General Knowledge seem to have been somewhat biased in favour of the teams that went second ("first first"). For more details, please refer to the foot of this page.
The Nags Head 'B', who didn't play this week, are now the only undefeated team in the A League. They lost their place at the top of the table to the Dolphin – but only on goal difference, and of course they have a game in hand.
There is no change at the top of the B League, where the Waters Green Rams continued their unbeaten start. The only other unbeaten team in this league are the Dolphin Dragons, who've only played one game so far.
In the C League, the top four remains the same. The top two – Park Taverners and Brewers Arms – have each played three and won three.
Scott Dawson (in his first game of the season) and Alice Walker both scored 54 this week. Alice got her first 18 questions right, and was on for a perfect score until the one about the host country for the 2022 Ryder Cup. She then got the one about the destination of the first Concorde flight out of Heathrow wrong as well.
Scott was on the same side of the questions, but went fourth rather than first. He missed out on one question in each half: the nationality of Egan Bernal (in Round 5, Sport) and the price of the ring in The Owl and the Pussycat (GK Q32).
Bad luck to both of them!
There was also a 51 for Ashton Davies. Top scorer in the C League was Andy Ridgway with 36.
Alice Walker has averaged 51 in her first three games, and has opened up a 24–point lead at the top of the A League individual table. Dave Partington and Keith Pointon are tied at the top of the B League table (with Dave having a slightly better highest score); and in the C League, Shauna Barstow is currently top but Wendy Brown is only 21 points behind with a game in hand.
Rushton Diamonds | 141 | 139 | Royal Oak |
Brian Bogie | 39 | 33 33 |
Rosalie James Alan James |
Dolphin | 152 | 153 | Church House Bollington |
Alan Hodgson | 42 | 51 | Ashton Davies |
Weaver | 146 | 177 | Queens |
Ian Grieve | 36 | 54 | Alice Walker |
Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Total | Points | |
Dolphin | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 476 | 4 |
Nags Head 'B' | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 358 | 4 |
Queens | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 512 | 2 |
Weaver | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 306 | 2 |
Church House Bollington | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 305 | 2 |
Rushton Diamonds | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 294 | 2 |
British Flag | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 293 | 2 |
Royal Oak | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 296 | 0 |
Team | Played | Total | Highest | Lowest | Week 3 | |
Alice Walker | Queens | 3 | 153 | 54 | 48 | 54 |
Alan Hodgson | Dolphin | 3 | 129 | 45 | 42 | 42 |
Haydn Thompson | Queens | 3 | 123 | 48 | 36 | 48 |
Peter McBride | Dolphin | 3 | 108 | 45 | 27 | 27 |
Mark Watson | Nags Head 'B' | 2 | 99 | 51 | 48 | |
Ashton Davies | Church House Bollington | 2 | 93 | 51 | 42 | 51 |
Brian Bogie | Rushton Diamonds | 2 | 81 | 42 | 39 | 39 |
Paul Morrissey | Nags Head 'B' | 2 | 78 | 42 | 36 | |
Alan James | Royal Oak | 2 | 75 | 42 | 33 | 33 |
Caroline Massey | Queens | 3 | 72 | 30 | 18 | 18 |
Tim Massey | Queens | 3 | 72 | 27 | 21 | 21 |
Plough Horntails | 124 | 133 | Harrington Academicals |
Malcolm Asquith | 33 | 36 | Rob Parkin |
Robin Hood | 127 | 128 | Nags Head |
Jim Kennelly | 30 | 27 | Andrew Wright |
Waters Green Rams | 173 | 110 | Waters Green Lemmings |
Scott Dawson | 54 | 27 | Jon Thompson |
Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Total | Points | |
Waters Green Rams | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 505 | 6 |
Nags Head | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 445 | 4 |
Harrington Academicals | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 421 | 2 |
Robin Hood | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 416 | 2 |
Waters Green Lemmings | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 238 | 2 |
Dolphin Dragons | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 190 | 2 |
Plough Horntails | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 272 | 0 |
Chester Road Tavern | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 102 | 0 |
Team | Played | Total | Highest | Lowest | Week 3 | |
Dave Partington | Harrington Academicals | 3 | 114 | 48 | 27 | 27 |
Keith Pointon | Waters Green Rams | 3 | 114 | 45 | 30 | 30 |
Jim Kennelly | Robin Hood | 3 | 105 | 42 | 30 | 30 |
Paul Prior | Nags Head | 3 | 102 | 42 | 24 | 24 |
Lorraine Hilton | Robin Hood | 3 | 93 | 39 | 24 | 24 |
Andy Johnson | Nags Head | 3 | 87 | 39 | 21 | 21 |
David Reynolds | Waters Green Rams | 3 | 81 | 30 | 24 | 27 |
Rob Parkin | Harrington Academicals | 2 | 75 | 39 | 36 | 36 |
Alasdair Reid | Nags Head | 2 | 69 | 36 | 33 | |
Adum Carr | Waters Green Rams | 3 | 69 | 30 | 18 | 18 |
Dave Pennington | Nags Head | 3 | 69 | 24 | 21 | 21 |
Broken Cross Club | 81 | 119 | Brewers Arms |
Peter Wilcox | 21 | 36 | Andy Ridgway |
Sutton Club | 128 | 101 | Sutton Mutton |
Chris Butler | 30 | 24 24 |
Mick Graves Mike Proctor |
Park Timers | 100 | 137 | Park Taverners |
John Poyser | 24 | 33 | Shauna Barstow |
Harrington 'B' | 137 | 69 | King's Gambit |
John Green | 30 | 18 | Susan Taylor |
Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Total | Points | |
Park Taverners | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 427 | 6 |
Brewers Arms | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 354 | 6 |
Sutton Club | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 404 | 4 |
Park Timers | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 366 | 2 |
Harrington 'B' | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 261 | 2 |
Sutton Mutton | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 255 | 2 |
King's Gambit | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 166 | 2 |
Pack Horse Bowling Club | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 243 | 0 |
Broken Cross Club | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 204 | 0 |
Team | Played | Total | Highest | Lowest | Week 3 | |
Shauna Barstow | Park Taverners | 3 | 102 | 36 | 33 | 33 |
John Poyser | Park Timers | 3 | 90 | 36 | 24 | 24 |
Wendy Brown | Sutton Club | 2 | 81 | 45 | 36 | |
Andy Ridgway | Brewers Arms | 3 | 75 | 36 | 18 | 36 |
Simon Rumsey | Sutton Club | 3 | 72 | 27 | 21 | 24 |
Tim Brewin | Park Timers | 3 | 72 | 27 | 21 | 21 |
Heather Wallace | Park Taverners | 3 | 66 | 27 | 18 | 18 |
Kenny Davenport–Slater | Brewers Arms | 3 | 63 | 27 | 15 | 15 |
Trisha Ridgway | Brewers Arms | 3 | 60 | 26 | 12 | 12 |
Graham Wallace | Park Taverners | 2 | 60 | 33 | 27 | 27 |
Pete Dykstra | Park Taverners | 3 | 60 | 33 | 12 | 15 |
Paul Heaven | Sutton Club | 3 | 60 | 27 | 12 | 21 |
Andrew Fenton | Park Timers | 3 | 60 | 24 | 15 | 15 |
Week | Setters | Difficulty | Balance | Ent'ment | Total | Last Yr | ||
1 | 1 | Spec | Rushton Diamonds | 6.24 | 5.05 | 6.67 | 17.96 | |
2 | 2 | GK | Dolphin Dragons | 4.03 | 8.04 | 5.65 | 17.72 | 17.65 |
3 | 3 | Spec | British Flag | 1.79 | 9.84 | 6.03 | 17.66 | 14.50 |
4 | 2 | Spec | Sutton Mutton | 5.04 | 6.23 | 4.11 | 15.38 | 8.61 |
5 | 1 | GK | Rushton Diamonds | 7.87 | 0.72 | 6.28 | 14.87 | 18.63 |
6 | 3 | GK | British Flag | 2.91 | 0.66 | 5.04 | 8.61 |
For the full spreadsheet, please click here.
Most teams found the British Flag's questions quite difficult, with only six of the twenty teams scoring more than their average scores. Consequently both sets scored poorly for Difficulty.
The two sets had sharply contrasting results for Balance. According to the spreadsheet, the Specialist questions were almost perfectly balanced, while the General Knowledge were heavily biased in favour of the teams that went second ("first first").
Overall, the teams that went "first first" scored 99% of their average scores, while those that went "second first" scored only 90%. On an average team score of just under 127, this would have made a difference of 11 or 12 points – possibly enough to affect the results of two matches.
However ... in view of the excellent balance detected in the Specialist questions, another way of looking at it would be to see how many games were won by the team that 'lost' in the first eight rounds. The answer is only one; this was the derby match at the Royal Oak, where the Oak team won the Specialist part of the match by four points but the Rushton Diamonds came out overall winners by just two points.
The Royal Oak may therefore be entitled to feel hard done by, as they were on what seems to have been the rough end of the General Knowledge questions.
There was also one match where the Specialist part of the contest was tied. This was between the Plough Horntails and the Harrington Academicals. In this match the Academicals, going "second first", won by nine points despite apparently having the harder General Knowledge questions.
The Entertainment scores were no better than average for either set, with the Specialists being slightly more popular than the General Knowledge. The overall scores would have put the General Knowledge questions in 16th place (out of 36) last season, and the Specialists 33rd.
© Macclesfield Quiz League 2019