Offhand (and depending on format and question topics being reasonably in their areas), I'd say Brad, Ken, and Kevin should make it to the semis. I've no idea who'll make it out of the "bracket of death" of Ed, David, Leszek, and Frank. I understand they seeded by money amount won, but I think it would've made for some better early matches to distribute at least two of those to other brackets.

Here's my guesses:

Round 1:

Brad Rutter (over Amy Kelly)
Nancy Christy (over Ogi Ogas)
Ed Toutant (over Leszek Pawlowicz)
Frank Spangenberg (over David Legler -- there's always a 5/12 upset in the NCAA brackets. No reason it shouldn't hold here )
Ken Jennings (over Victor Lee)
Rahim Oberholtzer (over Phyllis Harris -- this is the only match-up in which I've heard of neither of the contestants)
Kevin Olmstead (over Michelle Kitt)
Thom McKee (over John Carpenter)

Round 2:

Brad over Nancy
Ed over Frank
Ken over Rahim
Thom over Kevin

Round 3:

Brad over Ed (sorry, Ed)
Ken over Thom

Round 4:
Brad misses FedEx question and Ken wins!

tyg wrote:

Offhand (and depending on format and question topics being reasonably in their areas), I'd say Brad, Ken, and Kevin should make it to the semis. I've no idea who'll make it out of the "bracket of death" of Ed, David, Leszek, and Frank. I understand they seeded by money amount won, but I think it would've made for some better early matches to distribute at least two of those to other brackets.

Now I'm scared. I didn't know I was in the "bracket of death," but it's good to to hear others' perspective. I don't disagree with your assessment, but I'm probably biased.

Televised brainiac tournaments don't always go according to predictions. I just watched the MBA Challenge on CNBC, which has eight teams of MBA students playing a form of quiz bowl on general business knowledge and current events. I don't know how they did their seedings, but the #8 seeded University of Texas knocked off #1 seeded MIT Sloan in the first round.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/19374823

The finals will be be broadcast live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square on August 22nd, which sounds like a big technical challenge. GE College Bowl was broadcast live, but that was a different era. Audience tickets for the finals are available, in case anyone is interested.

I didn't mean to get off topic. Let's hear some more Grand Slam chatter.

TheConfessor wrote:

I didn't mean to get off topic. Let's hear some more Grand Slam chatter.

The only other chatter I can really offer is my dang cable company doesn't offer GSN, so I won't be able to see any of the shows.

So, is there any money being wagered on this-or are the brackets being posted for "entertainment purposes only"


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Has my math gone nutty again, or were there 17 people in the photo? If there were, who was the alternate?

Oh, and my picks:

Elite 8 -- Brad, Ogi, Ed, Frank, Ken, Phyllis, Kevin, John

Final 4 -- Brad, Ed, Ken, John

Championship -- Ed Toutant over John Carpenter


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DadofTwins wrote:

Has my math gone nutty again, or were there 17 people in the photo? If there were, who was the alternate?

There are 17, indeed. Looks like the guy on the far left is the alternate. No clue who he is.

The 17th person in the photo is the alternate, who hung out with us for four days and had a good time, but was secretly hoping one of us would have a heart attack or be hit by a bus. I'm not sure if he wants to go public, so I'll just say that he won $250K on WWTBAM.

DadofTwins wrote:

Championship -- Ed Toutant over John Carpenter

I'm looking forward to that matchup. It should be a barnburner.

TheConfessor wrote:

tyg wrote:

Offhand (and depending on format and question topics being reasonably in their areas), I'd say Brad, Ken, and Kevin should make it to the semis. I've no idea who'll make it out of the "bracket of death" of Ed, David, Leszek, and Frank. I understand they seeded by money amount won, but I think it would've made for some better early matches to distribute at least two of those to other brackets.

Now I'm scared. I didn't know I was in the "bracket of death," but it's good to to hear others' perspective. I don't disagree with your assessment, but I'm probably biased.

Well, I'll admit to some bias from having played Quiz Bowl with Kevin and having met Ken and Leszek, but I find myself generally strongly biased towards the J! players here (and remember, Kevin was on J! as well as WWTBAM). If I were just ranking players by how I felt they'd do, it'd go something like:

1. Brad (Sorry Ken, but I have to consider the UTOC here : -))
2. Ken
3. Leszek
4. Ed
5. Frank
6. Kevin
7. David
8. John

The thing is, 3-6 are very close; depending on questions and format, my ranking could easily change completely (in particular, I put Frank over Kevin only because of relative J! success). John could surprise me, but I have about zero respect for the WWTBAM stack he won on, which I personally consider to have been close to rigging the game. (let me make clear I am not accusing John or any wrongdoing, or WWTBAM of trying to specifically let John win. I just find it very suspicious that right as WWTBAM's first real competition was airing (Greed), a very simple stack, clear up to the $1M question, pops up. I think WWTBAM wanted some person to win, and it is their right to set question difficulty; they just can't make a special case for a particular person).

I don't think many people would disagree that the Bracket of Death has four of the top eight in terms of general knowledge strength, thus my naming it such.

Bracket of Death! Ed, I think you've got your team name if you want to give WSOPC a shot in 2008!

After this tournament concludes, will Grand Slam continue as a regular game show?

I would guess that the people who have done well on faster-paced shows (J!) probably have a experience advantage over those who have been on slower-paced shows (WWTBAM, 21, TTD). It's not as if John Carpenter *can't* do well on a fast-paced show; we just haven't seen him do it (yet).

Also, judging from the promos I've seen and articles I've read, I'm guessing that one's mental math and wordplay abilities could have a huge effect on the outcome.

Some matches which I'm really looking forward to include Legler vs. Spangenberg and Carpenter vs. McKee. (And of course, I'm looking forward to seeing Ed and Ken play.)

I was at the taping of two of the first round matches.

My general impression from seeing those matches is that the trivia won't be the prime distinguisher amongst the players. I'm guessing that nearly all of the contestants will do fine in that section. Sure, I'd expect Rutter to know a bit more than most of the others, but it won't matter that much in this format (except maybe in his first round match).

The wordplay section could distinguish amongst the players. My expectation is that it will be more significant than the trivia, but won't be nearly as big as the math.

The math is where players will live or die. I'd expect the most variation amongst the individual players ability here. Remember, they weren't selected for this show based on their math abilities (other than some very minor effect in whatever game they played). I could easily see a bunch of 30+ second wins in this round. And a 30+ second win would be a big deal to carryover into the final round.

On another note, I feel really sorry for Amy Kelly having to go up against Brad Rutter in round 1. If Lingo weren't also a GSN show, she would never be here. Look what she had to do to qualify: Win a game of Lingo as part of a 2-person team, pick a lucky ball at the right time. As MFalk pointed out about John Carpenter, she "could" do well on this show, I just consider it extremely unlikely based on what got her here.

porpoise spit wrote:

After this tournament concludes, will Grand Slam continue as a regular game show?

From what I understand, the future of Grand Slam hinges on how it does ratings-wise. I know Michael Davies would like to continue it in future years, ratings permitting. He's mentioned setting up some kind of regional tournament structure, a la World Series of Pop Culture, to supplement the contestant pool.

slam wrote:

The math is where players will live or die. I'd expect the most variation amongst the individual players ability here. Remember, they weren't selected for this show based on their math abilities (other than some very minor effect in whatever game they played). I could easily see a bunch of 30+ second wins in this round. And a 30+ second win would be a big deal to carryover into the final round.

I was surprised to hear they carried the math round over. In Britain, I understand Countdown, which has a math round, is an institution. But I can't think of an American show that required any significant arithmetic skill from contestants since Square One Television went off the air. Yes, that makes it a novel addition (and the skill of the British finalists was impressive). As a decisive factor in a competition of trivia stars, though? Not too sure about that. Why not put the pop culture round in all matches instead?

Ken Jennings wrote:

porpoise spit wrote:

After this tournament concludes, will Grand Slam continue as a regular game show?

From what I understand, the future of Grand Slam hinges on how it does ratings-wise. I know Michael Davies would like to continue it in future years, ratings permitting. He's mentioned setting up some kind of regional tournament structure, a la World Series of Pop Culture, to supplement the contestant pool.

Ya know this is kind of an interesting point-I wonder what constitutes good ratings for GSN?-It's such aspecialized network-I can't see there being millions who watch "Lingo" or reruns of "What's My Line"-are ratings what keep thos unctious late night hosts on? You know the oens who beg people to call in to answer questions?


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pikeprof wrote:

Ya know this is kind of an interesting point-I wonder what constitutes good ratings for GSN?-It's such aspecialized network-I can't see there being millions who watch "Lingo" or reruns of "What's My Line"-are ratings what keep thos unctious late night hosts on? You know the oens who beg people to call in to answer questions?

I don't know what keeps them on. I just switched my cable tiers to get GSN specifically to see Grand Slam. I used to have it a while ago but to be honest mostly watched it late, late at night. Then they switched to all-night infomercials -- boo!

Hey, but I saw that the fellow running the network now is the same guy who was the CEO of the startup I worked for years ago. He always seemed like he knew what was going on. Maybe we'll get Late Night Black & White back.

I need some help here on a few explanations. Not sure if this is spoilage, so whiting out...


Why only three rounds before the final? Does this not give the person who went second twice a decided advantage? Face it, if your opponent's clock starts first, you're already ahead and you haven't even answered anything right yet! With that in mind, should there not be an equal number of prelim rounds so there are an equal number of who- goes- firsties?

Also...
Calling a right or wrong seems arbitrary. Examples... one time Ken realized he'd forgot to carry the 1 or something, and began his math answer, "6... then pretty much "uhd" and said "5.7"... clearly changing his mis-calculation to the correct one. Questioner blew him off and re-asked a "Ken" question.

Next match-- this one REALLY befuddles me. ...

Kevin, what famous battle is popularly known as Custer's Last Stand?
Bighorn.... Little Big Horn!

C O R R ECT... Michelle, the Hawaiian word for "quick" is prominently featured in the name of what online encyclopedia?
Wiki.... Wikipedia!

WIKIPEDIA... Michelle....

WTF?? That cost her 17 seconds! She said Wikipedia at 37, and didn't get another correct answer until 20.
That's awesome that she won anyway!

Paucle,
My understanding is that the answer you start (or the first one you finish) is the answer they take. Going into spoiler mode ...


The judgment on Ken's was very clear based on that rule.

For Michelle's, I did not hear that as a pause between Wiki and Wikipedia. It sounded like she had finished her answer, realized the mistake (re-read the question?) and corrected herself.

The ruling on Kevin's Bighorn/Little Bighorn made no sense. !!


On the GSN programming issues: Playmania is one of the most annoying things on TV. I have tried to watch it to see what the point is, but my ears start to bleed about 10 minutes in.

Paucle wrote:

I need some help here on a few explanations. Not sure if this is spoilage, so whiting out...


Why only three rounds before the final? Does this not give the person who went second twice a decided advantage? Face it, if your opponent's clock starts first, you're already ahead and you haven't even answered anything right yet! With that in mind, should there not be an equal number of prelim rounds so there are an equal number of who- goes- firsties?

There are four rounds, and the final score is the sum of all four rounds. All seconds have the same value. Calling it three rounds and a final is somewhat arbitrary.

Your other questions are mainly about split second judgment calls. I'm sure many of them could be argued one way or another. It's a very demanding show for everyone involved, and I thought they did a good job under the circumstances. It's also a show that's very susceptible to "what if" scenarios. If one early question in a stack is judged differently, all of the rest of the questions in the stack will be reversed, in terms of who gets which question.

Thanks for your reply- my first counter, is "duh" and I state that with a red face.
Of course-- each contestant goes first twice. The "final" round is still a round, and it's the other person's second turn to go first. So, thanks for pointing that out.


More whiting...
The other thing, though, I still contend seems odd. My transcript is "real time." The judge had just allowed Bighorn... Little Bighorn! To then immediately rule against Wiki... wikipedia? Yikes. Who's running this, Tim Donaghy?
Hope I got that name right, don't feel like looking it up now.

Yeah, that's right.

Anyone mind PMing me a recap of what's happened so far? I don't get GSN.


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What don't you understand about GSN, cadams? ::::Ducking::::

jaclyn- for some reason I did not see your reply before I saw the confessor's. Thanks for the explanation on how they judge an answer, and also thanks for backing up my befuddlement over Bighorn/ Little Bighorn.