Learned League

My first time on this year; would love a place to kibbitz on prior days questions and brag and bitch.
I'm 3-0 but I'm chalking that up to beginner's luck and a rookie rundle.
how about you?

Riding the bottom of A babee. Did we not have a thread already?

nope.

this is really making me use some muscles that have long been neglected. I've always prided myself on fast reference google-fu. LL is just about information that you've been exposed to or otherwise can puzzle out from your memory. You don't generally seem to be able to "figure out" clues logically or utilize your skillset to uncover information... you just have to remember it! I'm approaching it where I read the questions late night, answer whatever i know immediately and sleep on the rest till the morning and that seems to help a bit.

Oh hey! I remember James Redd and the Blecchs and I talked about starting a LL thread on ILX a few years ago, but we clearly never got around to it.

I'm 1-2-0 so far this season in A Keystone.

I occasionally post on the LL message board, too.

You don't generally seem to be able to "figure out" clues logically or utilize your skillset to uncover information... you just have to remember it!

I don't actually think this is true! I don't know that the first few questions this season have necessarily been representative, but one of the things I like about LL is that you often can puzzle things out if you read the question closely.

Actually, the Vaseline question from the other day might be a good example of this. I'd never heard of the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, but I kept focusing on "Titusville, Pennsylvania" and thought, is it related to the coal industry? If I'd thought harder, I might have landed on oil instead, which could conceivably have led me to petroleum jelly. (It didn't happen, but it could have!)

You're right, though, that a fair amount is dredging stuff up from memory. I always read the questions when I wake up in the morning and then usually let them rattle around my noggin for a while before submitting answers. Sometimes an answer will come to the surface in the interim. For instance, one time, on my way to work, I suddenly and inexplicably recalled the name Zamfir.

Anyway I never use my invites so hmu ilxors. Word is league growth will be capped eventually at which point I guess it becomes one in one out, so get in while getting is good.

Baffling

for the confused:
https://learnedleague.com/

Some other useful links:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-coolest-weirdest-internet-community-youll-never-be-able-to-join/2014/08/20/3c3f565e-26eb-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-learned-league.html

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mick-mulvaney-learned-league-trivia_n_5c941573e4b0a6329e147a61

Thanks

3 of 6 correct today, 2 that i kinda thought i coulda got right and 1 that was just no chance at all

Hey don’t post about questions until the results are in, even obliquely! You don’t know who’s submitted yet.

well sure, but how is saying what i think i got right by the numbers revealing anything?

I’m sure there is some ruling from the Commissioner on this on the site, pro or con.

i challenge jaymc to 'smith' a one-day about ilx

forks if I were to know you intimately I could derive third-order insight into the answers by analyzing how well you thought you did, imo. Best to avoid even the appearance of etc.

Makes sense

i've been doing learned league for a few years on an invite from jaymc. i'm in C rundle, which seems to be about right since i almost always end up right in the middle of the rankings at the end of each season. i've had a strong start to this season so far but i'm sure i'll hit a rut and end up back in the middle again.

my ongoing minor issue with the main learned league is the "classical music" category, which seems very specific for a stand-alone category (that i suck at). i wish they just had a "music" category that spanned all genres.

silby OTM about not posting *anything* about a Match Day until it's over

U guys are playing 3D chess but whatever works is fine. Meet you back here at 1 in the morning to discuss.

I can't immediately find anything from the Commissioner about this, though it is a widely accepted norm within the LL community. On the LL board, whenever anyone posts even the most innocuous thing about a question while the Match Day is live, the post gets deleted.

Also, here's someone in a Learned League thread on the Jeopardy! message board:

With the new season and new players, it is a good time to remind everyone of the rule about discussing matches on this board. Please do not make any comment about the questions until that day's results have been posted on the LL board. Do not say how many you got right or wrong. Do not say if you thought they were hard or easy. Just do not say anything at all about the questions until the LL day has ended and the next day's questions are up.

As extreme as it may seem, I think it makes sense to stick with that rule here, too.

Oh, it's also in WestJ's LL84 welcome post:

Please remember, do not post anything here or elsewhere about any LL questions while a match day is underway. Not with a spoiler warning, not with oblique references, not asking if a question has an error in it, not anything. Period.

Well it's tomorrow now and I can reveal the secret that a plurality LL'ers are not fans of Bhad Bhabie

Haha. That was actually my route in, and I almost thought the answer was "Bad" until I remembered that "Suge" was the name of a song by Da Baby.

I lost 8(5)-7(5). Always disappointing to get the same number of questions right but lose on defense.

I am averaging about three right per game, but in the rookie league with some judicious defense, that seems to be enough to stay fairly competitive.

damn i almost missed this thread. u can find me having terrible defense to start, i'm 2-2 :/ i'm usually decent on defense? but i have been getting steadily worse somehow season over season. idk why.

also there was a thread but like a fool i smushed the words together LearnedLeague - any iLLx0rs out there?

i was gonna give a cryptic clue to my name since i don't like saying it on here (i mean i guess it's already too late to run for office due to my history on this site, i would guess) but then i realized i put it in the other thread so go look there!

also yes i haven't used an invite in ages so if anyone needs, hit silby up and then hit me up

and i 100% got that q yesterday on account of bhad bhabie (almost went with lil on account of yes indeed, until i read closer lol) (also i feel like lil was a question super recently???)

and yeah esp if this is a public board, no talk on today's results is always a good move. also no talking abt the random comedians u found and you're like "wow no way they're just like me!" and you sometimes check in to see what they got. its bad form

Completely new to this, but really like the idea. It seems like it's too late to join this season--is that correct?

yeah you have to join in between seasons

or you might be able to join but you wouldn't be able to play this season.

also no talking abt the random comedians u found and you're like "wow no way they're just like me!" and you sometimes check in to see what they got. its bad form

What about high-ranking White House officials

I too would like to join! Will M, silby, or any other kind ilxor have a spare invite?

theo von is a beast at learned league guys

Oh wait $30 for membership, gotta think about this.

What about high-ranking White House officials

Actually, I am going to answer my own post and note that the Commish has laid down the law about this, so I am going to respect that decision, but I still find the whole thing amazing sometimes.

@Leee: You only have to pay after you've completed a full rookie season, so you can try it out and decide if you like it. I have plenty of invites to spare, too.

can one of you kind individuals send me an invite, please? ilx webmail reaches me :)

Ah ok, that sounds reasonable. You can ilx mail me, and thanks!

Suge was one of the year’s biggest rap hits; surprised that didn’t give away that clue. I guess people aren’t much listening to that world unless they are specialists.

the 30 also covers a full year, which is i believe 3 or 4 seasons, so if you like the first season you're not paying too much to keep going!

i don't see where to send invites tho, is it possible to do so during the season or do we have to wait a month?

also if we have this many ppl i am definitely thinking ilxor private rundle next go around

Okay, I just looked, and you can only give out 1 invite per season (unless you are a Premier or Commissioner's Circle member). Pretty sure there were more at one point, but I don't blame Thorsten for wanting to put some controls on growth.

I'll give mine to you, Leee, since we've actually met IRL!

Oh, and Will, the referral page is here:
https://www.learnedleague.com/thorsten/referral.php

if my quick scan is right, leee, unctious, and jim want invites? and jaymc has leee? so i will send one to Unc & someone else get jim? (lmk if i missed any. i am so tired rn)

Unc contacted me, I will take care of ‘em

ok jim i'll send you a message then!

Why the low get rate on Q4 yesterday, Charles Pathé? This was the flaw in my defense, since I thought everybody must know this, especially an opponent with .761 in Film so assigned it a zero, allowing him to tie me 4(4)-4(3). Note: really don’t care that much, long ago gave up agonizing on defense, valuing speed over accuracy, having long ago settled down into C Rundle, most of my enjoyment now coming from the occasional 1DS or ML.

HI DERE

Also I was in the 6% who put Friendly instead of Howard Johnson the other day.

I got it right, but I wasn't 100% sure about it.

(Pathé, that is.)

I have found the less I overthink defense and the more I just go with my gut, the better my defensive performance is. I have never heard of Charles Pathé before, even after seeing the answer it is totally unfamiliar to me and my lifetime film score is .776

dang, i somehow got to 5 and 0. pride goeth before a fall, i imagine i'm gonna get ganked now.

for every music nerd who's like "i'm surprised hardly anyone got this question about dababy" there's a math dork who's like "i'm surprised hardly anyone got this question about fundamental calculus concepts" etc. also "why did everyone else get this question wrong that i got right" inevitably comes off as bragging

on defense, i think 'age of opponent' is probably a more important factor than any particular subject percentage

lol, i seem to keep hitting the "most common wrong answer;" would not have thought a third of the missing group would've also gone with cornet!

also, i learned something on the "massif" question but holy shit are some of these questions ever posed in the most convoluted way possible

i don't worry too much about defense, i mostly focus on which questions seem hard/easy to me, factored through a glance at their strongest/weakest categories.

i went with cornet too. i overthought the "related to" aspect and the most trumpet-adjacent instruments i could think of were bugle and cornet.

Early in my LL career, I tried to figure out defense by researching my opponent, which is not against the rules (though some people think it should be). These days, I don't have time for that, so I mostly just glance at the info on their profile and occasionally look into their question history to see if their strengths lie more in Games or Sports.

also, i learned something on the "massif" question but holy shit are some of these questions ever posed in the most convoluted way possible

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Wednesday, February 26, 2020 9:25 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This one didn't seem particularly convoluted? I think sometimes he just tries to provide a lot of information, to give players multiple ways to get to the right answer. ("Vinson" triggered "Vinson Massif" for me, so I didn't even read the second sentence.)

hey now's a good a time to ask as any. so cornet, 32%. does that mean 32% of people wrote that? or 32% of the 74% who got it wrong? either way i also wrote it lol and that's a remarkable mcwa

I also answered "cornet"!

For a MCWA, the percentage is of *all* players. In other words, more people answered "cornet" (32%) than "tuba" (26%).

A MCWA that's more common than the actual correct answer is not totally uncommon; it usually happens a few times a season. AFAIK, the most extreme example is still this question, in which the MCWA had 71% and the correct answer had 11%.

ok that is straight up a cruel question hahahaha

I think this was before MCWAs but I remember this question being very tricky - https://www.learnedleague.com/ll52/questions/md15/md15q2.php

I don’t want to do too much research against my opponent but if I have a history of any kind with them and remember to click on the appropriate button I find that useful.

Damn right I put "cornet," cornu is the one 5th declension noun I remember from high-school Latin! I was like "it's a horn, cornu, I GOT this."

I'm also in the "Pavlovian response to Vinson = Massif" crowd.

I'll give mine to you, Leee, since we've actually met IRL!

Thanks! My time in Chicago finally paying off!

“Age of opponent” is indeed useful info, but never noticed it in the profile.

for every music nerd who's like "i'm surprised hardly anyone got this question about dababy" there's a math dork who's like "i'm surprised hardly anyone got this question about fundamental calculus concepts" etc. also "why did everyone else get this question wrong that i got right" inevitably comes off as bragging

i had a clean sheet on a one-day once -- i don't even remember what -- and still finished like 23rd due to subpar moneyball choices

i've had a couple of clean sheets on one days! and i had a mini league where i was perfect through 7 or 8 days.

i have a niche.

I...
have...
a...
niche.

I've done 12/12 on a 1DS three times: Poetic Women, New Jack Swing, and Mystery Theme 22. But the first one is the only one where I actually finished on top (and it was a tie).

xp Ha, I always get the regular-season questions about video games wrong.

the regular season video games questions are usually pretty damn hard!! i think it's because they're written by someone who's like "uhhh i need a video game question" and asks about, like, the most popular free app in the apple store in 2018 or something lol

wow, i remembered that pretty precisely

i feel like there is/was a way to check what your wrong answer was on questions you blew. is that still hidden somewhere on the site?

https://learnedleague.com/thorsten/pastanswers.php

Yes, that’s always good for the current/past season. Keep meaning to train myself to review it but don’t quite care enough.

best i've done in a one-day was a clean sheet and 6th place overall in "rock 'n roll oddities"
best i've done in a minileage was 11 wins 0 losses, 1st place in my division, and 23rd place in the championship for "rock 'n roll." though i lost one day of the "indie rock" minileague but ended up in 7th place in the championship, so maybe that's better.
i also have a niche

at least when i get 9-6'd i don't have to worry about my defense

I got 9-6'd yesterday. :( Could've been a tie, but I second-guessed myself on "tomato" and went with "eggplant."

haha! i went with tomato in a total "there's no way it's right but whatever" kinda guess. haven't they been eating tomatoes in like italy for hundreds of years?

also was stunned to see vaudeville with a higher average defense/lower get rate than lyme. i for sure was guessing when i wrote lyme, but what other than vaudeville could q3 have been?!

i guessed "burlesque" :( i was so sure i had gotten it right and then i saw the answer and felt pretty dumb

on the other hand i was sure about lyme disease because it's crazy to me that it's only been around basically in my lifetime

"Vaudeville" was an almost perfect LL question in that once you think of it you say "aha, "ville," that's why they told us it was named after his hometown, I know I'm right" -- (or for that matter "massif," where the strange phrase "mountain MASS demarcated by FISSIONS and FRACTURES" was right there in the question.

I've noticed that a lot of LL questions are variations on "How did this thing get its name?" (often backwards: "This is the origin story for what thing?") They are satisfying because even if you don't know the answer, you feel like you've learned something. And they can often be puzzled out.

ohhhhhh i didn't even think of burlesque, if i had, that would've fucked me up!

and yes as someone who does a lot of trivia things (badly) and writes his own quiz weekly (not too badly) i am always VVVVV impressed by thorsten's writing. real good questions, multiple points of entry, feels like learning. top tier stuff

Also went with burlesque. I was pleased I remembered that Kwanzaa was a recent invention. 6-0! Though I think my reign of terror is about to end.

jaymc, did you send the invite? I don't see it yet. Might have to email me directly at leeeee at gmail.

i don't think the emails are actually sent out until april, although you can enter them now

Yeah, I sent you a message via ILX mail, but the message was just to confirm that that was still your email address! I'll go ahead and submit the referral, and then you should receive an official invite "no sooner than April 28." (The next season doesn't start until May 20.)

per the referral page

First rookie invitations sent:April 28, 2020
LL85 registration deadline:May 13, 2020
LL85 Opening Day:May 20, 2020

oops xp lol

jeez yesterday was TOUGH

Welcome to my world

1 of 6, only the gimme "lemon" question right... but i tied 1(0)!

IIRC, Thorsten has said that he aims for an average 50% correct rate across all questions on any given day. I'm consistently impressed that he actually achieves it most of the time. Looking at last season, the toughest day had 35% correct and the easiest had 59% correct, working out to 48% for the whole season.

When I have a particularly bad LL day, it makes me feel better to remember that it's actively designed to be difficult.

fucking musicals

yeah. and i feel like i knew that one somewhere!

I'm not participating this season, since we had to unexpectedly replace our furnace for more than $5,000, but a friend is fronting my registration for next season.

I had never even heard of that musical. Luckily, I have a weirdly high Theatre score, so my opponent assigned me a 0.

get morrisp in here stat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFSoSZTPIO4

oh hey, didn't notice this thread

having my usual run of good results and terrible luck = middle of the pack in my A rundle so far, but i've already qualified for the championship next summer, so it's kinda playing out the string. i like the format change to top three qualify in terms of discouraging blatant cheating (somebody i won't name in my rundle got kicked out for having a bad habit of leading the entire season and mysteriously forfeiting MD24/MD25), but it removes a little bit of the drama of the last couple days of the season if you're usually in contention

anybody going to chicago for geek bowl next weekend? i'm not gonna be at the thursday night thing but i'll be at the friday trivia triathlon/j! alum mixer/geek bowl proper

I live in Chicago but don't know anything about Geek Bowl.

Is the J! alum mixer open to any J! alum? Where is it?

beat the guy who won our rundle the last two times (and whom our branch is named after)

thank u oklahoma drill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOCxplCFYCE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erIxsjOAKc4

Is the J! alum mixer open to any J! alum? Where is it?

i'll DM you the details

my defense is 25th out of 26 : /

I'm 5th in DE, somewhat acceptably middling in UfPA, and currently 24th of 26, in the relegation zone. Bad season for me. (Not that I've ever done better than "middling" in A rundle)

After winning the first six matches in a row, I promptly ran up a 1-3-1 record over the next five. Went from #1 to #9.
I'm currently 30 right and 36 wrong with 13 most correct wrong answers. I have common thoughts.

i'm putting up middling correct answers numbers in my d rundle but miserable defense + the highest caa in the rundle = guess who's knocking on E rundle's door :(

I’ve been sinking like a stone this season, but I managed to drink the beer last night for the first time in a while which was nice.

5 of 6 yesterday, which is my best yet! You know which one i missed.

was not expecting the mitfords to be so poorly known

Nor I.

Was wondering how well Irving Berlin was known.

this is why my defense sucks, i guess

Defense is overrated.

had no idea on the mitford but no worries with irving berlin

I knew Mitfords would play hard. (Honestly, I'm not sure I would've known it if I hadn't recently learned that both of them wrote for my former employer.) Unfortunately, my opponent was British, which I figured gave him an advantage on both that question and the Fleabag one. He drank the beer; I missed Cootie.

I feel like you could write a much harder Irving Berlin question by not mentioning "God Bless America" and "White Christmas." Like if those were replaced with "Puttin' on the Ritz" and "There's No Business Like Show Business," which are still fairly widely known songs but not (I don't think) as closely associated with Berlin.

i should probably already have gotten this, what does "drank the beer" mean?

Got all six answers correctly

Learned League lingo for going 6-for-6 (i.e., a six-pack). See the glossary.

ah! i live in hope!

Aargh, don’t like the way I worded that

Just checked my stats, and I hit a 9(6) 9.4% of the time, so about twice per season. Not yet this season, though.

anybody on this thread got a six yet?

"drank the beer"

embarrassed to be involved with this

anybody on this thread got a six yet?

days 9 and 10 this season so far for me

embarrassed to be involved with this

― mookieproof, Saturday, March 7, 2020 11:04 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not as embarrassing as the Best Wrong Answers crowd

Otm, unfortunately. Stopped participating in that long ago. Seem to recall that a friend of ours started thread about that on LL message board.

i got a 9(6) on match day 6

home movies forever

see i thought "Space" but apparently SG: CtC wasn't adult swim yet

also hey maura!

hah, I said "Coast"

I love Best Wrong Answers and I will not apologize

(But I never go for BWA myself because I'm too competitive and if I can think of something I think has even a 1% chance of being right I put that)

same

Finally got my first 9(6) of the season, although I arguably shouldn't have been credited for "taro" instead of "toro."

(But I never go for BWA myself because I'm too competitive and if I can think of something I think has even a 1% chance of being right I put that)

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, March 8, 2020 12:23 PM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Same for me, too.

I find the Commissioner-selected BWAs mostly amusing. What I roll my eyes at is the thread of people bragging about their horribly formed jokes and saying "No love from the Commish??"

hell yes i got a musical right

did anyone guess CO-OP?

Not me. Annoyed at myself for putting “A Chorus Line.”

Hm, Company is currently, or was, I guess it’s dark right now due to the disease, running on Broadway.

I should probably adopt the all-caps title convention as used by jaymc and others.

did anyone guess CO-OP?

― jaymc, Friday, March 13, 2020 9:58 AM (fifty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ha, someone did: https://learnedleague.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&p=172400#p172381

5 out of 6, went Utopianism instead of Transcendentalism

company was also crucial to MARRIAGE STORY

Finally got my first 9(6) of the season, although I arguably shouldn't have been credited for "taro" instead of "toro."

As someone who got "toro" I too object to you getting credit for this

What, I said I was competitive

tbf, taro is a root not a tuna belly

i am, in a purely unearned stroke of amazing luck (61 out of 120 correct answers versus 33 correct answers and 1.27 points allowed per correct answer), first in my rookie rundle which has me inordinately excited.

the degree of pride i had for getting the Cliff Hangers question right is just embarrassing

Ha, I was totally stumped on that one. Nice work on 1st place!

thanks! i have taken to letting things percolate A LOT longer than i would've thought i needed to and my subconscious pieces answers together over the day much more effectively than i could have thought. "Gulf of Tonkin" took two hours but popped out when I was brushing my teeth.

okay, how'd you place?

right in the middle of the pack. all i really wanted tbh.

same

ninth, although i should have been a bit lower. weirdly, i beat each of the 2-8 finishers

terrible, 25th of 26! Brutal season. Will be bounced out of A Rundle for the first time in 3 years.

Middle of the rundle, with a record of 10-12-3. That's par for the course for me: my career line is 294-302-104. As long as it keeps me in A, I'm happy. I'm also pleased whenever I hit 100+ correct answers in the season, and I got 103 this time.

I won my rookie rundle btw! Pure luck. Level B is gonna kick my ass.

Excited for the One-Days tomorrow on Steely Dan and Tiki Culture.

anybody else doing world cuisine?

i never responded but i am also doing world cuisine! and getting completely shellacked. managed to get a 9(6) on the most recent one though which was nice. almost everyone in my bracket has like a .800+ in food (and a lot of them it's their best/only good category), lucky me. :/

side note, bc i don't know where else to post it: since everything closed, i moved my weekly pub quiz trivia night to twitch, and i'm now telling y'all in case you're interested! mondays 8pm ET at twitch slash 0n3m1ll1am (except turn the numbers into letters). i was originally doing it for friends and people who come to my bar, but then all of a sudden i made affiliate, so i can make a few bucks while doing it? you should come and play! (and if you have amazon prime you should "subscribe" to me so i can make back a fraction of the cash i'm losing by not running it in a place that marks up the price of beer and wings for profit lol) (but seriously i'm not hurting for money or anything so if you wanna use it well, look for shelters and food banks in your city to donate to instead)

is there a "pub trivia" thread i should post this in?

i've been doing the '70s music minileague. it plays harder than i expected! i'm usually pretty strong in the pop music categories but i'm around 3-3 so far i think.

I have had a similar experience. Also been making some unforced errors, including forfeiting on one of the days I would have had a win. I'm 3-2-1 now.

I chucked LL about a year ago because I'm too lazy and I kept forgetting about it and was probably going to get ejected for repeated forfeiting anyway. I do still go in and look at the questions from time to time. Didn't realise there was an ILX contingent on there.

...and we're back!

I got my invite! I am now fully registered AFAICT.

LET'S GET LEARNING.

ooh a hair metal one day on thursday

lol

i'm doing okay on the theater! i did shitty on the food one.

I ended up a close third in the my MiniLeague 70s Group, did reasonably well on the final which didn't matter I guess but it's over. Not doing badly on the theater so far.

I'm all set up for my rookie rundle this season, super excited to give it a go even though the sample questions regularly kick my ass.

Grats on the 3rd place finish @James Redd

Thanks. I see jaymc finished a close fourth in his group.

How much does spelling count in your answers?

Generally it doesn't! I've gotten a lot of slack.

Any ILX0rs need a referral for next season?

Also: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/science/llama-coronavirus-antibodies.html

I was doing well in Theatre -- even scored a 9(6) tie against crossword champ (and off-Broadway pianist) D@n F3yer -- and then I spaced yesterday and forfeited, dropping me from 2nd to 5th in my group.

Wow, sorry. D@n was always really nice, I used to seem to always run into him getting off the subway on the way to the tournament when it was back in Brooklyn.

It's funny how he and the other most-winning champion, Jon D, both have the same job.

317 out of 2184 in the Theater minileague, 85 out of 2494 in portmanteau. "epipen" eluded me.

i had a couple of real good one days lately! 94th percentile in video game business which was shockingly hard (i would've placed 5th overall if i had had a little more confidence in my tougher correct answers). however i did finish 5th overall on stand up comedy audio! the canadian content question gave me 99 points lol

I got to #168 on standup. Had never heard of Melissa Villasenor before!

oh, and i got 100% robbed on portmanteaus, i spelled smize wrong and didn't get points (even though i thought there was a "sounds like" rule?). i was sure it was smize but the portmanteau thing had me second-guessing the spelling, i knew it was "smile with your eyes" so i wrote smeyes.

...and as i read this complaint i go back and look and it was given to me after the fact, lol. still only 314th placement, even though i scored on 11/12! one bad money away from top 100, shame.

don't know melissa villasenor?! you should be watching snl! just kidding you shouldn't idk why i still do

New season! Welcome to rookies (and remember, no discussion of questions while the match is still live).

Also, there's an article about LL in The Ringer today:
https://www.theringer.com/2020/5/20/21264342/online-trivia-learned-league

I think I'm going to get 1 point today, these questions are hard!

sshh!

There's no penalty for wrong answers, right?

we back baby

leee, as i was told upthread: no discussion about the current day's questions no matter how innocuous until the next day
and no penalty for wrong answers, guess away

Ack sorry! And thanks.

I will comment that I like the new mobile-friendly interface.

same

Won my first match in my rookie rundle! I like that the questions (somewhat like Jeopardy questions) give you enough information to point you towards an answer, even if you don't directly know what it is.

I won my match! I only got two answers but me opponent's point scheme gave me 2 points, whereas they answered the same questions correctly but I have them 1 total.

love to get a hockey question on day one

At least for the rookie Rundle, the easiest and most difficult questions seem too be reversed in the standings page?

I bombed my day one.

btw leee, it's the same questions for everyone.

I tied my first day. My opponent and I both got Q2, 3 and 4 correct and had assigned similar points; they got Q5 and I got Q6.

Are we allowed to share which rundles we're in?

sure!
I'm in horizon.

I'm in R Keystone -- I assume R signifies Rookie?

man i can't believe i missed out on this again

Oh no! Ilxmail me your email and I’ll get u for next time.

oh cool ! thanks !

I'm in Rundle C Metro Div I

pretty annoyed i got 5/6 questions right on each of the first two days and lost both

Apropos of one yesterday's questions, it's nice to see that I can leave off a leading article (e.g. "the") and still get the answer counted correctly.

I assigned 3 points to a question about James I when my opponent was Scottish. Oops.

blew the ♂♀ question because i misread it as asking for zodiac signs; stole a win thanks to some curious defense by the friend who invited me to ll

I don't get why the answer to the Holi question was "fitting"

Is it good or bad to have a higher MCW? Or is it just a fun statistic for no real purpose besides amusement?

the latter, give or take 'fun'

I don't get why the answer to the Holi question was "fitting"

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Saturday, May 23, 2020 12:54 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think just because it's just so blatantly colorful. Like, yes, "Festival of Colors" is an appropriate name for something that looks like this:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b8/8f/07/b88f07b28b2fdb410d0b48b11130fe7c.jpg

Oh something about the phrasing made me think it was supposed to be a play on the word "Holi." Anyway, I had no idea and I'm impressed such a high % of people got it!

I'm in R Keystone -- I assume R signifies Rookie?

― Gazelle Bundchen (Leee), Thursday, May 21, 2020 5:36 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yep, R is Rookie. After your rookie season, you'll be placed in an A-, B-, C-, D-, or E-level rundle, depending on how you finish in your rookie rundle. Also note that the league that you're placed in as a rookie is the same as your referrer, so you're in R Keystone because I'm in A Keystone. (For a long time, I was in Coastal, but the leagues get realigned every so often, and the branch that we're in was moved a couple of seasons ago.)

once you're placed in your sophomore season, you can move up or down in the rundles based on how you play in that given season.

Can someone explain yesterday's math question to me?

zero to the fouth power + two, one to the fourth power + 2, etc.

It’s not a fun question.

oh hm

I got pwned yesterday, but I'm pleased with myself that I got the math question.

I spent a long time trying to figure it out, both before and after answering. Kind of kicking myself because it occurred to me that 258 was 256+2, but I was just thinking of 256 as a number obtained by repeatedly doubling 2 (rather than specifically 4^4), so I didn't see the connection to the other integers in the sequence.

i am absolutely belly flopping this season

I recognized the use of exponents, but it took me actually writing out the power tables to see it more clearly. That was the giveaway for me, physically writing down a grid of powers 0-5 for each integer.

I'm getting into the habit of fucking up the very easy questions, and therefor not being penalized because my opponent gives that question a 0. Made two silly mistakes MD4: answered "murder wasp" instead of "murder hornet" because of the word "Vespa" in the name, and guessed Kennedy instead of Johnson because I thought, "1963, that's Kennedy!" When obviously, that's uh...that's the wrong Kennedy year.

An odd match for me yesterday: a 8(4)-8(4) tie. Both my opponent and I missed two questions, but in each case, they were worth 0 and 1 point.

(I was assigned 0 on the TV question, presumably because that's one of my strongest categories, but I've never heard of the Danny Thomas show and couldn't remember which '90s legal drama starred Dylan McDermott. Meanwhile, I assigned my opponent a 0 on the emulsion question, because I figured if it was a science question that even *I* knew, then it must be easy. Apparently not for him.)

I made a critical error on my defense points yesterday and it resulted in a tie, and today, I'm up against our rundle leader. Oh boy.

defense is difficult in general, but especially in rookie rundles when you have no history to look at

Whoa! I pulled off a bit of an upset yesterday when I hadn't been sure of any of my answers! Though in all honesty I wouldn't have given myself credit for the Chagall question because I spelled it Mark (my reasoning was that no German surname would end in a C).

I was a little miffed in the previous match that my opponent only assigned
1 point to the calculus question. I had genuine trouble remembering if the answer should've been negative, and for some dumb reason they gave me only 1 point for it. I wonder if they saw my last name and assumed that I was some kind of math whiz.

spelling rarely counts

14 players (out of 28) scored 9 in my rundle yesterday

yeah, i am dead last and thought my 5 out 6 would win me yesterday but nope

is there a greater pleasure than being ahead of someone who has way higher TMP than you

I saw a PerryDJ on the message board and thought "Whoa!" before I saw their locale.

Does the long interregnum between submitting answers and the announcement of match day results get easier to manage over time? Because I've found myself obsessively reloading the message board over there several times an hour and reviewing my past questions.

i guess that’s healthier than obsessively reloading most other things these days, but

god bless the abbasids

Couldn’t quite summon up their name, but yeah

I miraculously got that after having binged a bunch of history videos on YouTube.

Yay, i am now dead last in my rundle.
(the guy who invited me is #1...)

Mon: W 3(1)-2(2)
Tue: W 1(1)-0(1)

this_is_how_i_win.gif

for real i have not been killing on questions but seems like my entire rundle is eating it (D Lyceum 2) and i've allowed a grand total of 3 UFPA which feels like its own kinda victory. playing some italian style football in LL

nobody knows who they were, or what they were doing, but their legacy lives on -- hewn into the living rock . . . of stonehenge

Whenever I play one of the leaders, I seem to catch them on an off-day, like yesterday vs. the third place who only answered two questions correctly. Hopefully that trend continues as I'm up against someone who's been a perfect 10-0-0 so far.

Dumb question time: learnèd or learned?

I did this for a month and did ok but I didn’t sign up because a lot of the questions were US stuff that I didn’t have a chance with. Ok that’s my post,thanks for reading.

yeah that's what i thought when i looked at sample questions.

Dumb question time: learnèd or learned?

learnèd

I did this for a month and did ok but I didn’t sign up because a lot of the questions were US stuff that I didn’t have a chance with. Ok that’s my post,thanks for reading.

http://www.worldquizzing.com/

you may want to check out the world quizzing championships, which have been pushed back this year from june to december - it's a big 240-question annual written quiz, and they do smaller monthly events as well.

the material is (significantly) harder than LL but written by a british team and designed for a mostly european audience, so it's like the inverse of LL in terms of its approachability to americans; the best i've ever done is around 50% correct on a WQC test (which is still an excellent score), vs .831 lifetime in LL. they also have a LL clone that tries to be a little less NA-specific, but it's invitation-only.

one of today's questions is Bad, imo

My opponent today has missed 3 questions all season, so I guess this match day will be relatively low pressure for me!

Ha, know how that goes.

96% in a rookie rundle = I look forward to great things in the future from this dude I've never heard of!

one of today's questions is Bad, imo

― mookieproof, Monday, June 8, 2020 1:48 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Which one did you mean?

very nitpicky, but a 'royal flush' is just an ace-high straight flush; it's not a fundamentally different hand imo. we don't put an aces-over-kings full house in a different, uh, rundle than jacks-over-nines or whatever

i clearly have no business being in a B-level. I am kinda consistently needing 4 out of 6 and it's more often 3.

xp Ha, I don't know shit about poker and was pleased to get that one right on a wild guess.

i'm a poker player and when I wrote out the hand strengths I forgot quads D:

i clearly have no business being in a B-level. I am kinda consistently needing 4 out of 6 and it's more often 3.

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Wednesday, June 10, 2020 9:58 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think it sometimes takes a few seasons to get sorted correctly. After my rookie season, I was promoted to B, but then bounced back and forth between B and C for a few seasons before eventually winding up in A, where I've more or less stayed for the last few years. (I also think I just got better at LL over time.)

haha ppl are of course arguing the poker question on the message boards but the mason-dixon line argument is even more nitpicky

'the susquehanna river (among other things) crosses that parallel; does the width of the river not constitute a "section"?'

does anyone have a spare invite for bored of Hull here please? I quite fancy giving this a go.

i don't think you can join midseason unfortunately.

Don't think so either. Next season is second half of August, looks like, so when the call for recommendations goes out we can help you then.

I didn't realise, thanks both, I'll keep an eye out for it in a couple of months

I have become unexpectedly good at defensive scoring, to the point I am now 3rd in my rundle with an 8-2-3 record and 16(!) UFPA. This despite badly muffing several questions. I was so pissed at myself for missing the India/Pakistan answer the other day.

there is a guy in my rundle with 7 ufpa

i am very much not that guy

Hah, nearly twinsies, Eliza: I'm 8-3-2 with 17 UFPA! However, I'm in 8th place, and I currently have the highest CAA among the top 9.

Also, my defense was bad yesterday, though my opponent's was worse and I was able to edge them by a point. Three points for WILD STRAWBERRIES? I'll take it of course, but really?

Well, it was the hardest question of the day across the league (23%). Arguably your opponent should've noticed that you're 5-for-5 on film questions so far, though it's still a small sample size.

i have 7 ufpa this season so far! my defense has been sick. verrry lucky. are we in the same rundle? is it me lol? (d lyc 2)

i have the same problem w/ the royal flush as a separate hand thing but it is pretty much "accepted" that it's its own hand. i also wrote em all out and got that one, i don't play much but i used to work for a poker website like 10 years ago so i'd feel quite the fool if i had missed that one.

im somehow in first in my rundle (im guessing the 7 ufpa helped... in fact i know it does. i have won so many days on just defense this season). i am almost 100% sure that'll change by tmrw tho

broken record here but 21 UFPA and only 29 TCA means I am out of my element.

having reached a certain stasis over a few years, my theory is that, apart from the true polymaths and the *very* occasional overachieving defender, what really produces your ranking is CAA, and there's nothing you can do about that

Got 5(!) questions right, played perfect defense, and still lost -- as expected.

4 right, lost

Got all 6 yesterday, woke up worried they were not going to accept Krohn with a K but in my heart I knew Thorsten would allow it.

it's safe to assume spelling only counts when it's explicitly stated that spelling counts or when your misspelling yields an answer to the question that is the name of a real thing that is a plausible incorrect answer. (Monet will never count for Manet, to use the classic quiz bowl example about vowel pronunciation rules)

I believe there's sound-alike rule. Correct spelling not required but the pronunciation has to be fairly close. So a K instead of a hard C would always be marked correct (even, presumably, "Hillary Klinton").

SOOO glad that stupid bits of trivia like "neap tides" stick in my brain for decades. Even though I lost the match.

Why are people so smart when they play against me

My first win of the month!

I kind of resent the idea that I might have to pay closer attention to Trump in case of another hydroxychloroquine-type question.

Not worth it tbh

I GOT EVERY QUESTION WRONG YESTERDAY FFFFFFFFFFFFFU.

Why are people so smart when they play against me

PS I even lost by a point.

You mean your opponent got one point?

Yes.

When are the results for the midseason classic usually posted?

shouldn't be much longer! usually a few hours after it closes.

up now!

Hah there it is. Don't know why I was so anxious to see myself in the 63rd percentile.

Just noticed that I came in 6th in my rundle for the midseason -- so close to repping (which would've been accomplished with optimized moneying)!

I'm inordinately proud of myself for deducing The Bodyguard yesterday.

Good on you! I was trying to go through Alan Silvestri scores in my head and it just would not come to me, and of course specifying the songwriters rather than the performers planted an obvious land mine.

a) there are really only two possible nick lowe songs
b) i picked the wrong one
c) neither would have helped me anyway

ashford and simpson and dolly parton seemed like the giveaways to me

yeah i guessed it based solely on dolly parton

i wasn't sure it was right but it was the only logical choice that came to mind

Wonder if people got credit if they put My Bodyguard.

And glad I got credit for writing Davies for Q5.

I put Farraday for Q5 knowing darned well it was wrong.

At first, for some reason, I wanted to put Colette for Q1 until I remembered it wasn't a pseudonym. But then I got it right.

I ended up putting the MCWA for that one.

lol, i also put Farraday knowing it was wrong! It's weird how our brains work!

Yeah, Dolly was the only person in the Bodyguard question that I recognized.

Apparently Davy was an assistant to Faraday (sez the person who answered "pilot").

I cannot *believe* I got Q3, 5 and 6 right today but muffed a layup like Q1.

it was my understanding that all noteworthy scottish british inventions of the 18th and 19th centuries were made by either watt or macadam

Davy was Cornish, apparently.

Also glad I didn't accidentally put Humphrey Ocean.

Apparently Davy was an assistant to Faraday (sez the person who answered "pilot").

Wow, I won yesterday's match 7-0. I think that's my first perfect defensive scoring. Pretty amazing considering I only answered three questions, but I got all three correct (3, 5 and 6).

i finally got my first 9(6) of the season yesterday

Cool. Are you deliberately shying away from using llama lingo for that?

i don't remember the llama lingo tbh.

Drinking the beer.

hmm

I have never heard of William Wegman and assigned 3 points, cost me the match.

tbh you should feel a certain pride in that

never learn who anne geddes is either

I have never heard of William Wegman and assigned 3 points, cost me the match.

I figured the W was important and the only W-breed I could think of was "wiener dog", so I guess dachschund.

In response to the Valorant question, my ex texted me, "Glad I listened when you talked about video games"

never learn who anne geddes is either

Against all advice I googled. I should've listened to you.

I usually have a couple of 9(6) days per season, but I actually had a streak of five straight from MD11-MD15. Definitely got lucky on a few questions. It ended on Friday when I went 1(2). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

big 6(3)-5(4) win yesterday

After having the highest CAA among the top 10, I'm facing only one opponent with a win % over 0.500 in this last week. Top 3 is out of the question (third place is 11 points ahead of me), but after being borderline C/D all season, my spot in the C Rundle for next season should be reasonably assured.

i'll be joining you in c shortly; i'd need to win out to get out of the basement in B and that ain't happening.

three forfeits this season! where's my head at.

currently in fifth but i don't think i got it done today

friend who invited me is in first, but at least i beat him this season

i'll be joining you in c shortly; i'd need to win out to get out of the basement in B and that ain't happening.

i'll be joining you in c shortly

Are you in Keystone?

Horizon

i have a question.

Put it on the Comish's desk!

i went for "bullish" instead of "sanguine" and feel like that's a fair estimate

Actually I may vacate a spot for you in C as I may be demoted to D.

i am unconvinced that the good, the bad and the ugly is a prequel

i would agree with you!

second "the good the bad and the ugly" question this season!

Right, was wondering about that.

*phew*

I also guessed "bullish" and thought it was a decent guess, but Thorsten had other ideas.

A string of losses at the end dropped me into the E range for my rookie rundle. Despite hopes to maintain my position in the D range, I couldn't clinch it.

This was such a nice experience. Every morning, I looked forward to checking yesterday's match results, current standings, and puzzling over questions. Even felt a little disappointed when there weren't questions to answer on weekends. Really looking forward to next season.

i had the feeling that i always end up right near the middle of the pack by the end of each season, so i checked and i have a .501 career winning percentage

can't believe I'm crashing into C on account of my 3 forfeits this season, somewhat grumpy with myself

i had the feeling that i always end up right near the middle of the pack by the end of each season, so i checked and i have a .501 career winning percentage

― na (NA), Friday, June 26, 2020 9:20 AM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Samesies! Mine is .497.

Based on my performance in the first two-thirds of the season, I thought I was going to have a career-high QPct this season, but I didn't do nearly as well in the final stretch. I gather from the message board that this was not an uncommon experience.

I feel like I got more correct as the season went, terrible beginning better muddle/ending.

Getting promoted to C! One point away from first in my rundle.

I'm really pleased with how I did (as I expected, I solidified my standing and will move to C), especially considering that I stumbled out of the gate. I had the hardest schedule among the top 10 for much of the season (except at the end, where the combined winning percentage of my opponents was under 0.400), though I still had a winning record against players above 0.500 (7-5-3).

absolute belly flop, will pretend this season never happened.

beat the top two finishers, lost to the last-place person. so it goes

last four seasons i've finished 10th, 7th, 9th, 8th

I miss it :(

Same! At least some new ODSes start this weekend.

Anyway, I've submitted my member dues and eagerly await my flag becoming visible.

MUAHAHAHA: https://learnedleague.com/profiles.php?41687

So the 1DS (1DSes?) start up on the 4h?

Yup. I'm looking forward to the General Knowledge Book Club ML, too. Seems like a neat premise.

Not going to say anything more for a few hours, but there are still two hours left to do the 1DS Cryptic Clues 2.

Going up against A-rundlers is going to be a rude awakening!

Are you in A now?

Haha no way, but my opponent in the book club ML is. His lowest subject CA% is 72%.

I actually have come to find that situation somewhat relaxing, there’s nothing to lose.

Oh, no doubt. Why bother overthinking your defense when they're probably going to 9(6) the match?

I know everyone has different knowledge but the person I was against for day one of General Knowledge Book Club has a 76% get rate in Theater but didn’t get Six Degrees of Separation.

Which seemed easy to me, who has a 54% in Theater and was honestly surprised it was that high.

To be fair, movie trivia is my strongest category but I totally flubbed the Movie Pairs One Day.

That is weird about Six Degrees of Separation.

Turns out I am competing with a Type A today as well.

i am enjoying the GKBook Club stuff so far.

I am enjoying as well

You'd think an English degree would help in this ML but not really! Moby Dick aside, anyway.

After a total whiff on the first day of the MCU ML, I think I'm going to regret registering for that one.

Gave that one a wide berth, not in my wheelhouse.

How's everybody doing in the Book Club? I am in third, I think.

But I have a match coming up on Monday against jaymc's distant relative, so I am a little worried.

Four one days coming due tomorrow, I have yet to peep out
Florida Man (Mon)
Salmon (Mon)
The Art World (Mon)
The French Revolution (Mon)
Maybe I will have a look-see now

not-quite-jaymc has a knowledge profile similar to mine and is in A Rundle, so I will proceed with cation.

Caution, even

Also just registered for School of Rock.

not doing well but really enjoying book club! 3-4-1

Synchronicity continues as I too am 3-4-1.

Anyone need a referral? ‘Tis the off-season.

Instead of Fred Willard I put Bob Odenkirk.

I got my first 9(6) AND 12/12 yesterday!

Anyone need a referral? ‘Tis the off-season.

― Left Eye Frizzell (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 22 July 2020 00:39 (nineteen hours ago)

yes please!

Can you send me ILX robomail with your contact info?

i was doing really well on the general knowledge book club (bouncing between 2nd and 1st place until i got my first loss on the last day and dropped into third) but i totally bombed the final. it didn't really seem to match up with the rest of the minileague since it was all book excerpts and no general knowledge.

also apparently i forgot to register for school of rock. ugh.

I didn't look at the final yet. I finished 4th or something, can't remember. And I am in School of Rock no further comment. Oh yeah, I am helping smith a music mini-league which is due in October. I think my name is on the page over there so jaymc could have figured it out anyway.

I finished 1st in my group for Book Club but also didn't do very well in the championship. In a few cases I recognized the author/book but couldn't get to what the question was actually asking. Like, I knew Chuck Barris but not Gong Show, Phyllis Wheatley but not YWCA, and Fun Home but not "Ring of Keys."

Oh yeah, I am helping smith a music mini-league which is due in October. I think my name is on the page over there so jaymc could have figured it out anyway.

Is it '60s Music? It doesn't look like there's a dedicated page for that ML yet.

Yes, that’s it. If you click through to contributors I am there along with Tony Hightower and others. Do you know him?

extreme lol at the mountain goats controversy from school of rock day 1

Is it in the Message Board over there? Looked for a second and didn't find.

Oh, wait, never mind.

HAHA meanwhile, John Darnielle has no idea about the unexpected fruit of his songwriting labor. Somewhere in a private corner of the internet, big fuckin nerds are arguing about a trivia question that *references* a song he wrote 25 years ago.

Yes, that’s it. If you click through to contributors I am there along with Tony Hightower and others. Do you know him?

― Time Will Show Leo Weiser (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, July 24, 2020 10:52 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Oh, I see it now. Tony's flag looks familiar, so perhaps I've seen him on the LL message board, but I don't otherwise know him.

my school of rock opponent today went 0-for-6 on friday; now gearing up to be 96ed

i have an obvious comment about today's school of rock questions

We will see you tomorrow about that

TFW you confidently submit your answers and then see that half of them are wrong.

So many times I’ve replaced my first, correct guess with my second, wrong guess

hee hee hee on the AP question, ILX ftw

You know what that is called in LL jargon, don't you, siby?

I've forgotten, all the jargon is too contrived :)

my school of rock opponent today went 0-for-6 on friday

he is now 0-for-18 and i'm wondering if it's some sort of art project

Hey forks/ulysses, have you ever smithed a 1DS? I have an idea for one if other potential collabs fall through, and we share a certain interest in a particular subject.

i'd love to!

Sweet! I just saw that it's been done before, but I've PMed the smith for that to see if they're interested in a sequel.

OK I just heard back from the OG smith who said that a sequel is fine, can I ilxmail you to work out the details?

I've never smithed an official Learned League 1DS or ML, but I've posted a couple of quizzes on the Alpaca Farm.

Leee, please do; want to hear what your topic is to see if i can contribute.
if it's alt-comics or cemeteries, I'm good to go.

Leee, send me your email address so i can respond!

Sent!

Will reply shortly!

i've written a couple 1DSes ("pirates" and "vaporware" iirc), happy to help if you have any questions about the process

I've played over 1,000 LL matches, including Mini Leagues, and I'm pretty sure that yesterday was the first time I've lost 0(0)-9(6). It was in the Spain ML, and my opponent not only has a .775 lifetime QPct, he also lives in Madrid.

Forgot to sign up for that one but can imagine

lol that is brutal

led my school of rock minileague in TCA, allowed exactly one UfPA in 11 matches for a .962 DE . . . and finished third. it's all in the CAA

heh, i also got third. didn't play as good as you!

Did okay not super on PKD 1DS but Top Ten finish on Oulipo, woo-hoo!

Looks like Leee and n/a are in the same rundle for this upcoming season, along with another one of my referrals (my brother's friend SiegelbaumS).

MD18 showdown!

Is there a branch named after you now, jaymc?

Oh no. still named after our friend.

No, those are my only three active referrals, and it doesn't look like they've referred anybody. So I have merely a twig.

BUH, forgot to scrutinize all of my opponent's category %s today.

Two match days, no unforced points given, hell yeah

It's kind of a bitter taste when you get the exact same answers right as your opponent and still lose.

My first experience out of the rookie league has been pretty rude: 0-3, MPD of -3. Looking at the rest of my division, I see that other people who have the same TCA (or worse!) as me are above me in the standings, so I'm trying not to get too down on myself as far as the knowledge side of things go (I definitely could improve on my defense, though at 0.636, even THAT's not the worst). So, mostly bad luck to kick things off.

i think i need to square myself with being a 3 out of 6 average guy and not expecting much more.

i honoured the fire last week but not so much today

this would all be a lot easier if i just gave into the little voice that says
juuuuuuuuust goooooogle iiiiiiiiiit

okay things are not looking great for the young Unctious on these first few match days, I am definitely the heaviest leaf on the silby branch

Does anybody else feel this season has been really hard so far

I have been doing poorly (0-4, baby!), but I've also whiffed a few questions that I should have gotten right had I just spent a little more time with them. (My longtime conflation of Jhumpa Lahiri and Arundhati Roy did me no favors on MD1.)

The other one I'm mad at myself about was the Yasmina Reza question, because I saw "one-word title" and just wrote "Art" and didn't read the rest, which was stupid.

i always do better at this when i write in the answers, hide the tab and then come back a few hours later to re-check.

Except when I forget and go to bed and forfeit on a day when I had all the answers filled in

yeah, calendar reminders are required in tandem with this strategy

Yeah, I usually take more time and ponder. Think I've just been distracted lately.

i've started off this season unusually hot (i usually do pretty bad for the first week). there have been a lot of film/TV/literature/pop culture questions so far, which is to my benefit. we'll see what happens as the topics balance out.

i've found that the vast majority of the time, i either know the answer within a few minutes or i'm never going to get it, so i don't usually bother with taking a break and coming back to my answers. though it's probably a good strategy.

The other one I'm mad at myself about was the Yasmina Reza question, because I saw "one-word title" and just wrote "Art" and didn't read the rest, which was stupid.

I used to ponder a bit and once in a while I get an extra answer or two, but don’t want to spend that much time on it. Just want to rip the band aid off.

For defense I try not agonize either, just sort of try to group the answers into 0-1 or 2-3, the easy half and the hard half.

Heh, so I pondered a bit yesterday and then I did have an aha moment.

For defense I try not agonize either, just sort of try to group the answers into 0-1 or 2-3, the easy half and the hard half.

This is exactly what I do. I assign all questions either 1 or 2 at first, and then figure out which 1 to bump down to 0 and which 2 to bump up to 3.

Can’t really speak about this ML I am currently pitching in on but maybe I will be inspired afterward to try to smith a 1DS or two.

i definitely overthought today's music question

Lol same

So far, I've turned two ties into losses already. It's going to be a long season, and I'm probably going to be serving a cupcake to NA when we face off.

Wonder if it would be fun to post links of old 1DSs or even MLs here on even on the wider board. Not sure, flipping the Kosman Koin to decide.

This 1DS, written by someone familiar to us, was excellent: https://www.learnedleague.com/oneday.php?deathbyopera

Not the one I did the best in, but think this is the ML I enjoyed the most: https://www.learnedleague.com/mini/poetry/

i definitely overthought today's music question

― maura, Thursday, August 27, 2020 12:54 PM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lol same

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Thursday, August 27, 2020 12:55 PM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I would wag my finger at the reference to today's questions, but this reminded me that I hadn't submitted yet.

Think it’s worth a wag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYdVAs18jCg

i mean i only gave the subject matter, nothing else. but point taken.

got the elusive 9(5) yesterday lol

the baconator was one of those answers where i realized 'everyone is going to know this except me'

My A rundle did worse than the league average on that one. Both my opponent and I missed it.

Yesterday's tiny slip might have actually helped me narrow it down. I lost anyway so not going to lose sleep over it but yeah, for future reference.

I have a friend who I sometimes talk to about questions on the day of after we have both submitted. I *believe* that is legit, please correct me if I am wrong.

Ha, was wondering about the baconator get rate, I couldn't remember it and figured "everyone else" would know as well.

As for the KISS question, I was pleasantly surprised to get it right since "Paul Stanley" was a wild guess. (I thought it was possible that at least one of them was self-titled and for some reason Stanley seemed more likely than the others.)

i owe getting that (and so much more) to 'back in the new york groove'

I could picture the album covers and was thinking they’ve got to have their names in the title, could it be “Ace Alive”? “Ace Solo”? which wasn’t converging but then I stumbled upon the obvious. I guess I might have figured it out anyway, even without the tiny boost.

I went with "Criss Live" which was probably not the most likely answer in any case.

Somewhere else yesterday I was reminded that he was a good friend of Jerry Nolan of The New York Dolls (maybe one was best man at the other’s wedding) and almost played drums for them himself instead.

the baconator was one of those answers where i realized 'everyone is going to know this except me'

Not me, I was startled that so many people knew the name of a random sandwich, but I live in an area where there's not a ton of Wendy's, maybe it has more penetration elsewhere.

BTW I also strongly endorse the "never say anything no matter how vague and seemingly innocuous about today's questions" policy

"baconator" was a late night talk show punchline for awhile

Realistically there was no way we would be expected to know the names of KISS solo albums so I assumed it had to be some sort of trick.

See I just put the only thing I could think of but didn't think there was a meaningful probability of being right

I went with Live Frehley which I assume would be followed up by ...Or Die Hardley

lol

i answered “the demon”

i am not that knowledgeable about kiss but decades of skimming through used records was all i needed to get that one

I’m old enough to remember when it came out and seem to recall valuable candy store record section real estate being taken up to display all four.

Really convinced myself a Dalmatian was a toy breed

I guessed Friesland (which I misspelled as "Frisland"), thinking of a Bichon Frise. Too far west, and "frise" is apparently just French for "curly."

Totally feel for Dalmatian as well.

tried to pretend borzhoi was something it wasn't

Remote coworker has a pom that he showed off on Slack to much adulation, so the breed definitely came to me quickly, but I wasn't sure about deriving the region so just entered the breed and got credit.

tongue kiss is not the name of a 1979 kiss member solo album

and that bright, shiny burrowing flop monster is a caterpillar, not a worm.

who knew.

I wouldn't worry too much about not getting the Kiss question right, a certain Rock Star didn't get it either, I just saw on the Message Board.

a certain Rock Star

?

jaymc pointed that out. That's what her flag is.

https://www.learnedleague.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=12886&p=190265#p190265

DO U SEE?

I don't know about the etiquette about talking about other players, but said player is high-profile enough in a couple different ways that you can connect the dots relatively easily.

I don't know the etiquette totally either so don't want to talk too readily, but that link is only visible with a login so hopefully I am showing showing some discretion.

lol, that's awesome

Think the finals first reveal happens now

Oh no, 10PM PDT.

Ken Jennings in the top ten of round one I think

i'm in 58th, seven points ahead of some rutter guy

not surprised so many people got 11/12 right on round 1, it was definitely the easiest of the four - i'm very curious to see what happens in round 2 (to say nothing of round 3, which was a fucking nightmare)

I am in 110th place, in honor of Bobby Womack. I too have an embarrassing performance in R3 to reckon with, assuming that I qualify.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOg_8hCC4u4
Learned League Championship is a helluva tester

to say nothing of round 3, which was a fucking nightmare)
So I have heard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjwzTSOwUC0
Thorsten wont let contestants go free

I've never finished higher than 7th (in an A rundle), so I've never really paid much attention to the championship.

Wonder how many more participants will show up on this thread today..

Wow, good work.

I'm not sure how to feel about how much of my high score was due to my knowledge of pro wrestling and crappy comic strips, but there we are. My reckoning is coming in Round 3 (spoiler alert)

now i wanna know the crappy comic strip questions

"Most comic strip characters never age. Notable exceptions include those in Frank King's Gasoline Alley, Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury, and the Patterson family in what strip written and drawn by Lynn Johnston from 1979 to 2008?"

ah, that would've been my moment to shine too.

boxcar!

lol, i still have a boxcar coffee mug somewhere

The other guy rode his boxcar all the way to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ajzQ2fRLM

Would've been 50/50 for me on the strips question because I can never remember if it's For Better Or Worse or For Better Or For Worse (I think it's the former).

It's "For Better of For Worse", and "For Better or Worse" wasn't accepted which probably accounts for a lot of the low get rate.

Have you heard this one before? A LLama walks into a bar, the bartender says "Why the low get rate?"

made the cut!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8josOPbNb8

So you made it past "I Can't Drive 255"? Congrats!

Are you guys all so good you won A rundles? Isn't that who's in this final?

You only have to make top 3, which is good because I only barely snuck in at 3rd place in 1 of the 4 seasons.

ahhh i get the rock star ref now. v cool

had william tell written in all morning, second guessed myself right before I clicked submit and changed my answer and lost the match because of it lmao

B-b-but did you make the cut?

40th place, in honor of U2.

Uno(s), dos, tres, cuarenta!

82nd overall - not moneying Candace Cameron and incorrectly moneying TWICE in round 3 killed me, as did round 3 in general. Nice work, Greg!

Nice work, fellas! B-b-but what about the third man, Harry LLima, how did he do?

Not really a question specific to this thread, but has anyone been doing the Spelling Bee?

Not the one in the NYT?

if it is, i have

Same, I play it every day, and enough to have noticed its recent changes.

Squeaked out a win yesterday thanks to my middling theater score, which I think may have prompted my opponent to assign 3 for the very earnest question.

Meanwhile, I got 0 points for the hardest league-wide question that I ever got right.

Thanks to my middling score, I knew that if *I* knew "earnest" everybody was gonna know.

Same, I play it every day, and enough to have noticed its recent changes.

It used to limit itself to two vowels (not counting y), now it has up to 3.
It used to never have ED or ING among its letters.

Oh so many more words possible now?

So even harder to be Queen Bee?

Yes and probably yes (I only ever Queen when the genius level point total is < 100 points).

I haven't seen or reached 300 points yet, but 200 is much more common.

won 8(4) - 4(4) yesterday #defense

I’ve got 88 points today so far, guess Queen Bee is 108, but I’ve run dry.

spelling bee yesterday wouldn't accept "cope" as an answer, despite using the middle letter.

I am getting absolutely crushed this LL season, and I miss my rookie rundle.

Yeah, that was a big issue.

Spelling Bee talk probably makes more sense in the xwords puzzle thread.

I'm on a 3-match winning streak and am crawling away from the relegation zone! I thought the last match that I might've defended extremely poorly and although I narrowly eked out a win, thanks to being gifted 3 points for Venus.

gonna be lucky if i can hold on in c tbh

got credit for aphrodite yesterday, which was probably undeserved

Win streak at 4! Which is probably going to end today as I'm facing off against our rundle leader.

Streak ended as expected, but I had TWO chances to win and blew them both miserably. So any right now.

a player in my rundle has allowed just 3 UfPA in 16 matches

wtf

Some people take a lot of time on defense?

Sometimes my defense gets on a hot streak but I really don't like to spend a lot of effort on it at this pont.

My first 9/5 yesterday

Cool! I believe in LL lingo - LLingo! - that is called a Dolly Parton.

j/k

Someone else had your name and initial when you joined? Also, a little extra-impressive since you missed the easiest question of the season thus far.

I'm on track to have my 2nd-highest TCA this season, but I'm languishing in the relegation zone with a record of 3-9-4.

I did just notice that I have my own branch now, even though there are only 4 people in it!

Wondering if it is because our friend who recruited you is inactive.

Actually some people HAVE called that a Dolly Parton, but not sure if that is Commissioner-approved.

I see people on the same Branch are also all in the same Rundle.

Same league (Keystone, in my case), if not same rundle.

Oh right, that's what I was trying to say.

Seems like your Branch can also affect your Division.

So all the people who are in your branch who are not you are in C Keystone Div 1

Just noticed something else. I believe the Past Answers page on the the Commissioner's Desk used to only give the current season or prior season in the off-season but now it has lots of seasons along with MLs.

you missed the easiest question of the season thus far.

It took me a microsecond to retrieve it.

I guess no one has to leave for a new branch to formed, I just saw in my lineage.

I'm a respectable 7-8-2 now, so my upcoming match vs NA might actually be interesting.

Things i never thought i would say: gee, i am glad i listened to that dj khaled/drake song twice yesterday

I'm a respectable 7-8-2 now, so my upcoming match vs NA might actually be interesting.

managed a tie only because 'cabaret' was on tv on sunday

Okay, I see.

I'm a respectable 7-8-2 now, so my upcoming match vs NA might actually be interesting.

Are you on the jaymc branch?

Yes I am.

leeee was that you that destroyed me a couple of days ago?

for those of you concerned about my unusually hot start to the season, be reassured that i'm sliding back down into my typical exact middle of the group rank

Yeah, but if it's any consolation, I've been on an inexplicable hot streak for the last couple weeks by getting 4 or 5 right answers nearly every match (of course I'm probably jinxing myself now).

I've stumbled again recently (1-3-0), but getting lucky on Estonia + my opponent giving 2 points for it got me the win and guarantees that I will avoid relegation (my one goal for this season).

i am squarely in the middle of my C rundle and i think that may be where i'm staying: average amongst the intelligentsia but not much more

No comment. Thinking of signing up for Stuff... or ELSE! ML, looks like fun. Did not do the precursor, Bird Nerds... or ELSE!

Finished 10th and right at 0.500 thanks to a gift of a 5(2)-4(3) win! Pleased as hell that I'm right in the middle after a horrific start and that I ended with a non-losing record.

I finished just below the promotion zone in my C rundle after hovering above that line for a little while. But the bloom has been off the rose for a while now so no biggie.

I managed to escape relegation, so I'm happy with that. I just checked, and my rundle had the highest QPct across all of LL (.797). Which means I had a bunch of matches where I thought I did pretty well, but my opponent did just a bit better.

best finish ever -- second, behind the fucker who won for the fourth time -- and finally made the tourney. fortunately our QPct was nowhere near that of jaymc's rundle

My QPct is one correct question from being division-average, so my actual performance mostly ended up matching my Pythagorean.

that's the guy who invented the steam engine, right?

With his nine pound hammer and anvil, yeah.

In other news: https://www.learnedleague.com/register.php?1960smusic

How did everyone do on Biblical Phrases in Common Usage?

I learned a lot of people paid more attention in Sunday school than I did

I've been doing pretty well in this current crop of One Days by finishing above the median on almost all of them, and the one where I wasn't I was in the 43rd %ile. My usual milieu has been in 20s-30s.

Kicking myself for forgetting to sign up for the Presidents in Pop Culture ML, which seems like it'd be in my wheelhouse.

it's pretty good, more challenging than I expected so far

Looks like my branch has been moved to a new league for next season: Sakura.

Cherry Blossom Time!

I do prefer the name Sakura (which I voted for along with Wakanda) over Keystone, so that's fun!

I actually find it interesting to track you guys once in a while since most of you are in the same division, hope that’s not crepey.

n/a has a match against KosmanJ tomorrow!

Maybe I shouldn't even say that, according to one of jaymc's earlier posts, sorry.

i didn't even know that was somebody. their pop music get rate is not great so maybe i can pull it out.

If anyone needs to send someone a referral, lmk - I have one to use.

He’s the classical music critic out of SF and namesake of the Kosman Koin.

A (the?) classical music critic for the SF Chronicle and SFGate

Partly worried that I breaking a rule saying even that, but even if in this case it is not too bad, I will tread carefully.

Did you guys receive the 60s Music ML notification on time on Thursday?

Faulkner 1DS looks intriguing.

my notification came too late for me to play actually

my notification came too late for me to play actually

i have notched two forfeit wins in the 60s music minileague

I have benefited from some generous scoring and a ton of luck in the STUFF ML, where I'm currently in fourth but which I expect to fall from very quickly.

I did the Faulkner ODS and finished at a VERY pedestrian 39th %ile.

Pee Wee Herman today

OMG at today's STUFF Or Else!

yeah it was shall we say a bit of a short putt

god thakn u thread for reminding me, i have been 100% spacing on this LL minileague, i forfeited twice last week :(

I did the Faulkner ODS and finished at a VERY pedestrian 39th %ile.

(Do you guys know how to check that?)

Yeah, just click on the ME tab under Results.

Yes. I noticed it a while back. Wondering when it first appeared.

I overthought and put IRON VALKYRIE instead of IRON MAIDEN but still won 8(5)-6(5)

Fuck me for stupidly writing “kick beats”, i know better. Otherwise, yeah 8 5

The only one I didn't get was Mountain King and I lost, apparently I was up against a metalhead.

Yes. I noticed it a while back. Wondering when it first appeared.

― Here Comes a Slightly Irregular (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, October 19, 2020 11:39 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I think about a year ago, maybe? Someone had created a Chrome extension that showed it, and Thorsten must've thought it was worth incorporating into the site.

Somebody drank the beer.

got my ass handed to me in the finals of the 60s music minileague

Wait you were in the finals?

Oh, I see, I think. Not too bad really.

at least i didn't have to worry too much about picking money questions!

Hey we're doing a one day special!

Really? Congrats. I just looked and didn’t notice you there. I did see a few other ILX0rs though.

Oh wait now I see. Cool!

Hot damn!

Have you clicked on your Smith’s page yet?

yep! looks complicated!

Is there a list of the newly accepted 1DSes somewhere, or do I need to go through each month on the calendar?

Oh, never mind--found it!

I just clicked, which I didn't realize meant that it confirmed the date, which I hope is OK with forks.