You could allow contestants to buzz in as soon as possible, but have the system wait until Alex has finished reading the answer (remember, it's Jeopardy! so the contestant gives the question ;-P) before it indicates which player buzzed in first. Yes, there might be an audible clicking sound in the background while he's talking, but it would make the game more about speed of recall rather than hand-eye coordination.
I think that would just encourage contestants to buzz in immediately, since I imagine that the risk of penalty of not knowing a question pales in comparison to the reward of getting to answer for a strong contestant. You effectively eliminate the only downside of buzzing early since contestants would get to hear the entire question regardless.
The traditional College Bowl <TM> / Quizbowl <not-TM> technique is (a) to assign a 50% penalty to the early buzz with an incorrect answer, and (b) since it's game with teams and has two teams, the rest of your team is disqualified from answering the question, leaving the opposite team with lots of time to think about it (and subsequently secure access to the 3x bonus question following every toss-up question.)
Which is lots of fun and very competitive, but a little bit less tele-savvy.
Ack, we ran up against a "celebrity" reader in the final rounds of a Quizbowl tournament who didn't stop reading reliably when the other team buzzed in. I don't know how, but the other team was really good at taking advantage of this, buzzing in before the reader had given enough information to answer the question, and then answering after he'd finished the sentence. Our team got steamrolled.
In Highschool Quizbowl, I'd take advantage of the fact that most untrained readers have a hard time stopping mid-syllable, or even mid-word, so any time there was a question that hinged on a single word, such as a world capital question, I'd buzz in on the first letter of the word, and they'd usually get out 2 syllables before stopping, providing enough information.
Q: What is the capital of L-(BUZZ)-ithu-- [stops reading].
A. Vilnius.
But if they had had really good reaction time and stopped on L--, I'd have been hosed. Latvia, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Libya, Liberia, etc...
You could allow contestants to buzz in as soon as possible, but have the system wait until Alex has finished reading the answer
I think one of the reasons Jeopardy! is so popular is that it makes the audience feel smart. I'm not amazing at trivia, but I know most of the Jeopardy! answers and having the contestants wait to buzz in creates the illusion that I'm doing as well / better than they are. Even though I'm intellectual aware of the importance of buzzer timing, it still feels good to watch and give the answers before the contestants have a chance to demonstrate they know. Compare that to a trivia show like University Challenge in the UK, where not only are the questions remarkably hard, the contestants buzz in before I've had a chance to parse, let alone answer, the questions.
I think allowing contestants to buzz in early, even if Alex finished reading the question before they could answer, would make Jeopardy! a better trivia game but a worse TV show.
This is spot on. Jeopardy is 100% a TV show. I also have to agree with you about University Challenge - you are doing well if you can answer a 1/4 of the questions. I have always wondered who is the audience for this show as it is more like a sporting event than a quiz show.
All this would do would change the timing of when the buzzer gets pressed. All of the players would start to buzz in as soon as Alex started reading, knowing that he would finish the answer and they would have a chance to think before he finished reading it.
The problem with this solution is it would then become the optimal strategy to simply buzz as soon as the answer is being read in the hopes you know the question once the host has finished reading the answer. That would make the game far less interesting for everyone involved.
Comments
You could allow contestants to buzz in as soon as possible, but have the system wait until Alex has finished reading the answer (remember, it's Jeopardy! so the contestant gives the question ;-P) before it indicates which player buzzed in first. Yes, there might be an audible clicking sound in the background while he's talking, but it would make the game more about speed of recall rather than hand-eye coordination.
I think that would just encourage contestants to buzz in immediately, since I imagine that the risk of penalty of not knowing a question pales in comparison to the reward of getting to answer for a strong contestant. You effectively eliminate the only downside of buzzing early since contestants would get to hear the entire question regardless.
The traditional College Bowl <TM> / Quizbowl <not-TM> technique is (a) to assign a 50% penalty to the early buzz with an incorrect answer, and (b) since it's game with teams and has two teams, the rest of your team is disqualified from answering the question, leaving the opposite team with lots of time to think about it (and subsequently secure access to the 3x bonus question following every toss-up question.)
Which is lots of fun and very competitive, but a little bit less tele-savvy.
Ack, we ran up against a "celebrity" reader in the final rounds of a Quizbowl tournament who didn't stop reading reliably when the other team buzzed in. I don't know how, but the other team was really good at taking advantage of this, buzzing in before the reader had given enough information to answer the question, and then answering after he'd finished the sentence. Our team got steamrolled.
In Highschool Quizbowl, I'd take advantage of the fact that most untrained readers have a hard time stopping mid-syllable, or even mid-word, so any time there was a question that hinged on a single word, such as a world capital question, I'd buzz in on the first letter of the word, and they'd usually get out 2 syllables before stopping, providing enough information.
Q: What is the capital of L-(BUZZ)-ithu-- [stops reading].
A. Vilnius.
But if they had had really good reaction time and stopped on L--, I'd have been hosed. Latvia, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Libya, Liberia, etc...
The team that beat us was doing more
Q: What is the capital of (BUZZ) Lithuania?
A: Vilnius.
Agreed that strong contestants would buzz in immediately.
One solution would be to display the text of the question slightly beforehand to the audience, but not the contestants.
I think one of the reasons Jeopardy! is so popular is that it makes the audience feel smart. I'm not amazing at trivia, but I know most of the Jeopardy! answers and having the contestants wait to buzz in creates the illusion that I'm doing as well / better than they are. Even though I'm intellectual aware of the importance of buzzer timing, it still feels good to watch and give the answers before the contestants have a chance to demonstrate they know. Compare that to a trivia show like University Challenge in the UK, where not only are the questions remarkably hard, the contestants buzz in before I've had a chance to parse, let alone answer, the questions.
I think allowing contestants to buzz in early, even if Alex finished reading the question before they could answer, would make Jeopardy! a better trivia game but a worse TV show.
This is spot on. Jeopardy is 100% a TV show. I also have to agree with you about University Challenge - you are doing well if you can answer a 1/4 of the questions. I have always wondered who is the audience for this show as it is more like a sporting event than a quiz show.
All this would do would change the timing of when the buzzer gets pressed. All of the players would start to buzz in as soon as Alex started reading, knowing that he would finish the answer and they would have a chance to think before he finished reading it.
"as soon as possible"? Because I guarantee if you did that, you'd have people buzzing in as soon as Alex opened his mouth.
Being first to buzz is a huge part of the game, and no matter when you turn the buzzers on, there will be people trying to buzz at that moment.
The problem with this solution is it would then become the optimal strategy to simply buzz as soon as the answer is being read in the hopes you know the question once the host has finished reading the answer. That would make the game far less interesting for everyone involved.