Smart Phones & Table Quizzes

Slang_Tang

I used to love table quizzes. I can't be the only one who thinks they've been ruined by smartphones?

I was at a quiz last night. At €40 for a team of four, it was a little on the pricey side, but it was for charity so we didn't mind. But people used their phones to cheat. The quizmaster even joked at the end that all the tables with suspiciously high scores were the ones out of view.

I will never begrudge charity, but you can still expect a good night out if you pay for it. Most of the craic at our table was had arguing/debating over answers. What's the point of sitting there Googling?

But I've never been to a quiz where the organizers have made a deal out of using phones. Which is why I'm probably giving up going to them. Even if it's for charity, I'll help the charity out in other ways. Could they not announce at the start that phone usage is forbidden? Or have a pint glass on the tables to put phones into?

BostonB

You need to keep all the tables in open sight and ban people from leaving the table or using a phone, even holding one. Anyone breaks that, Disqualifies the table. Any quiz that doesn't do that is a waste of time.

skimpydoo

I was in a pub quiz a few years ago. It was run by concern in The Baggot Inn. The quiz was a contest where the winners go onto another quiz with winners of other pubs in dublins. The winners of this then battle other city/regional winners with the top prize been a place at the world pub quiz championships in Las Vegas representing Ireland. There was only 2 in my team and we ended up 2 points behind the leaders who won by using their Blackberrys. They should have not won but no one batted an eyelid.

Slang_Tang

Ronan Leonard wrote: »

They should have not won but no one batted an eyelid.

I know. And no one wants to seem like a begrudger or a bore, but it takes the fun out of it for everyone.

It's a bit like turning up at a 10K running race with a bike and then winning. What's the point?

Blisterman

I completely agree. I think the solution for pub quiz organisers is two things

1. Cryptic non googleable questions. (Odd one out, what do X and Y have in common)
2. Smaller prizes. My local used to have a pub quiz where it was a pound a person to play, prize was an 8 quid pitcher. Not really worth anyone's time to cheat on that one. Still had a fair crowd every week.

Sadly though, not many quiz organisers seem to care, as long as it gets people in the bar.

Almost makes me nostalgic for the old low tech ways of cheating, such as when my friend, prior to a christmas pub quiz, wrote down the names of all of santa's reindeer on a piece of paper, correctly predicting that it would be one of the questions.

MOH

If it's the kind of 2 round quiz to keep people in the pub after a football match, with a few beers as prize, everyone cheats anyway. They always have, either through texting or nicking answers from other tables.

If it's an organised, pay for entry quiz, for charity or for proper prozes, the last few I was at had a very simple solution: large transparent bag in the middle of the table, all phones go into it, it's tied and stays there for the duration.

You do still have the risk that someone in the far corner's going to sneak a phone out, but there's not much else you can do. People aren't going to let their phones out of sight.

Unless you have the quiz in a mineshaft.