Official DBSTAlk Amazing Race Contest Season 7 Rules

Presenting The Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest sponsored by DBSTalk.com, Dish Depot and Danny R and hosted at DBSTalk.com.

ABSTRACT: Each week you will be directed to a website. Once there, you are timed on how long it takes you to submit the answers to various questions. Some of the questions require you to look up information elsewhere on the web. You can choose to avoid such questions but your time will be graded against others who also choose such a path. Person with the least amount of time at the end of the game is the winner. Grand Prize is a $200 gift certificate for anything at Dish Depot. 2nd place is a $50 gift certificate for any online store (Best Buy/Amazon/etc).

LINK TO THIS WEEKS FIRST QUESTIONS

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Legal Matters:

The Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Official Rules of Play:

1. The Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest is sponsored by DBSTalk, Dish Depot and Danny R. Danny R is to be considered the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator unless otherwise specified. Use the DBSTalk.com forum for email questions and other correspondence.

CBS and Bruckheimer Productions, are in no way affiliated with the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest. All trademarks are property of their respective companies.

2. All rules concerning game play of the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest are subject to modification. If modification of the rules becomes necessary, the rule changes will be posted at DBSTalk.com.

3. All decisions made by the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator are final.

4. All DBSTalk.com contest participants are required to be registered members of DBSTalk.com in good standing to enter the contest. While participants outside the United States are welcome to play, prizes will be only awarded to legal residents of the United States of America (USA).

5. Winners of any DBSTalk.Com contests may win only once in a running 12 month period. Non-winning entrants may continue to enter other official DBSTalk.Com contests.

6. Prizes:
First Prize: $200 gift certificate from Dish Depot
Second Prize: $50 gift certificate to any online store (Amazon/Best Buy/etc)
Third Prize: With two great prizes for 1st and 2nd, how pathetic are you to aim for 3rd place?

7. Odds of winning depend on how well participants answer weekly questions, and on the number of participants in the Contest. Prize will be awarded when The Amazing Race ends its season on CBS in 2005. Prize winners will be notified via forum PM, email or forum posting. The contest sponsors will pay any shipping charges for prizes. There will be no substitution of prizes by the Contest Winners allowed. Game sponsors reserve the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value. No purchase is necessary to participate or win.

8. In the event The Amazing Race ends before its complete run on CBS (i.e. network cancellation), the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest participants leading at the time of The Amazing Race end will be awarded the prizes.

Should current world events lead CBS to pull The Amazing Race from the current schedule for a limited period of time, the contest will be "put on hold" until such time as The Amazing Race resumes on CBS. The Official DBSTalk The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator shall be the sole judge of the definition of the term "limited".

Should events outside of the DBSTalk.com Administrators' control cause DBSTalk.com to cease operations during the contest for a temporary time, the contest shall be put on hold until such time when DBSTalk.com becomes operational again. Any weeks missed will not be counted in the overall results, but the Contest Coordinator might revise scoring awards and poll values to attempt to make up for lost time. Should events outside of DBSTalk.com control force the closure of DBSTalk.com permanently, the contest will end at that point, and the prizes shall be awarded to the current leaders at the time of the closure.

9. In the event of a tie, the tiebreakers will be as follows: Tiebreaker #1 – the participant with the greatest participation level (didn't miss any weeks of play, etc) in the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest will be awarded the prize.

Tiebreaker #2 – the participant with the greater number of correct picks for weekly question asking "Which Team placed first" over the course of the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest will be awarded the prize.

Tiebreaker #3 – the prize will be awarded to the participant picked in a random drawing by the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator.

10. The Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator is not eligible to win any of the prizes for this game. Employees of Bruckheimer Productions, CBS, and CBS affiliates also are not eligible to win prizes. Participants who fall under these conditions are required to inform the DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator of their status before entering the Contest.

11. The Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest will be conducted partially online at DBSTalk.com, offsite on a separate contest website and partially via email to the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator. Once votes are cast, they will not be changed, so vote carefully!

12. DBSTalk.com or the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator are not responsible for weather incidents (such as ice storms) or any other acts of God that may prevent the participants from entering. DBSTalk.com and the DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator are not responsible for entry errors or for transmission errors.

13. DBSTalk.com or the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator are in no way responsible for any problems, technical malfunctions or traffic congestion on the Internet, email latency or delay, or on the DBSTalk.com or other game web sites which may limit entries into the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race contest. In the event of a problem with web collection resulting in a loss of entries for any given week, the game will continue from a backup source file if possible. After the data is restored, any votes entered after the backup point and before restoration will need to be reentered. If such an event occurs, full details of procedure will be provided in the DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest forum.

14. By entering the DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race contest, participants release DBSTalk.com and the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator from liability for any technical malfunction of prizes awarded, and for any damage and/or injury incurred from prizes. Prize winners agree to allow DBSTalk.com and the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator to use their name and or likeness on DBSTalk.com and/or in advertisements. Winners will provide or the Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator with a photograph (preferably digital) of themselves with their prize.

15. Any attempt by a participant to deliberately damage the DBSTalk.com web site or undermine the legitimate operation of the DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race contest is a violation of criminal and civil laws. Should such an attempt be made, DBSTalk.com reserves the right to seek damages from the offending participant to the fullest extent of the law.

16. Contest void where prohibited by law.



The "Real" Rules, or How to Play:

1. Notice of Questions will be posted on DBSTalk.com. Participants will find a link to a webpage where they are presented with a START button. After entering their name and email, they can press this button and START their clock. Once their time has started, they will be directed to a new website revealing this week's questions and offering a web form to reply with. Once they have finished their questions, they hit the SUBMIT button, and their entry is stored. The time it took between pressing START and SUBMIT is used to score. Faster times are better.

2. Each week's questions are of various types. Some are simple multiple choice. Some may require more than one answer. Some may require you to find an answer and type it in. The direction for how to answer each week's questions will be posted with those questions.

Each question will have various times associated with it. Generally the first few questions will be multiple choice or multiple answer, and if you get them right, you lose time from your score or gain no time. If you miss them, you are penalized with time. (Remember this is a race and the LEAST time at the end wins).

The final questions each week will generally require you to hunt for an answer on the internet. There are two of these questions and you may choose which to attempt. These are called the DETOUR questions. These are scored based on how long it takes you to answer. You will be given a choice of several questions, but are only competing against other contestants who answer the same question you do.

The DETOUR questions will be judged based on the difference in time it take you to solve them versus the time it takes other contestants in the game to solve them. The first person to respond will most often lose time off their clock. Those who answer with slower times will be grouped into quarters, and given a day of time depending on which quarter they reside in. In the event of uneven sizes for the quarters, people will be grouped with those with slower times, and thus will gain more time.

If you give a wrong answer, you will still be judged by your response time, but will be scored BEHIND those who got the question correct.

NEW: In order to reward those who take harder detour routes, or at least think differently, a BONUS will be added to all players scores equal to the difference between the number of players for both detours. Thus if one detour has 5 players, and the other has only 3, the three will have an additional 2 days subtracted from their respective scores, so that the winner will have -3, and 2nd and 3rd will score -1 and 0 respectively. The upper limit for this bonus is 5 points except for the final week's legs which will have no limit. Only CORRECT answers will be eligible for receiving this bonus.

Those who choose NOT to answer any DETOUR questions will be judged in time versus others who do the same. However they will never gain a bonus off their time and thus will always gain at least a day for that question. Likewise they are not eligible for a less traveled detour bonus.

If a poll question is rendered invalid by events that occur in the show, the Official DBSTalk The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator will make the decision as how to score the poll.

3. In addition to the questions above, a Fast Forward poll will exist which may be used ONCE during the contest for each participant. If you are the FIRST to answer this poll correctly, your time will be equalized with the current contest leader at the end of that week (incorrect answers in other weekly polls won't incur a time penalty either), thus putting you tied for the lead. This Fast Forward will only be available FOUR times throughout the course of the season. You will have no warning when it may show up.

If you choose the Fast Forward, you may or may not choose to answer other questions that week, including one of the Detour questions. If you fail to win the FF, and chose not to answer other questions, you will be judged as having those wrong and grouped with others who got those questions wrong. If you win the FF, your scores on other questions will not matter since you'll still jump to the lead.

4. Questions will be posted one day after the airing of the week’s The Amazing Race episode in a DBSTalk forum. Initial questions will be posted one week before the contest begins.

5. Weekly Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race answer period will close at or after 12:00 Midnight Eastern Time the day before the weekly The Amazing Race episode airs on CBS unless otherwise posted on the forum. Participants are encouraged to cast their votes early, not waiting until the last minute. The time as stamped on the submissions will be used as the official time for the Contest. Whenever any time deadline is mentioned, it should be assumed to mean EASTERN time.

6. At midnight (Eastern) prior to the show's airing, voting is closed. The Official DBSTalk The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator will not accept late entries, or vote changes after the polls have closed. As long as your submission is stamped prior to the deadline, it will be accepted. If a player fails to cast their votes before the polls close, their votes will not be accepted for that week. If a player casts a vote incorrectly, and does not inform the DBSTalk The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator prior to the polls closing, that vote will not be changed.

7. Votes are stored in the Game Coordinator's database. If a player thinks the cast vote was different than the vote stored in the database for a particular poll, the vote in the database will be used. If a player thinks that (s)he cast votes in all of the polls for a week, and the database shows that (s)he did not cast votes in one or more polls, only the votes in the database will be used. The Official DBSTalk The Amazing Race Contest Coordinator will not accept late votes that are not in the database.

8. Weekly Official DBSTalk.com The Amazing Race Contest results will be updated and posted in the DBSTalk.com forums on or before the second day after the airing of the week’s The Amazing Race episode. Players will not be notified of weekly results via any other method.

9. Some questions will allow you to add time to another contestant. This power is called the YIELD, and may be used by a contestant only once during the life of the contest. Once you have used your YIELD power, you can no longer wield it again, but you can prevent other players from using it by being the correct winner of that particular question (assuming there can be only one winner... some yields will have multiple winners). A player may receive any number of yields however. A YIELD may also take the form of additional time added to a person's "real" clock.

CLARIFICATIONS: If you win the yield, and select to yield the leader... you can potentially yield yourself if you jump into the lead.

Yields penalty points are scored AFTER all other questions and bonus points are given that week, including yield bonus points and apply to the contestants at the time prior to them being scored.

10. Each week that you participate, if the time it takes you to answer the questions is SLOWER than the person behind you, they catch up and are given a bonus that would put them tied with the score you had prior to any other questions that week being answered. Two people who are tied in rank are competing against the person ahead of them for this bonus, not each other. This score cascades, so that if several lower ranked contestants are faster than higher ranked contestants, they can all tie up. If the people ranked higher than you are likewise tied and you are faster than one but slower than the other, you do not cascade past the one you are slower than.

Those choosing not to take the Detour have an advantage with this rule. Therefore for purposes of scoring this bonus, a NO DETOUR contestant will have his time ADDED to the fastest Detour contestant's time for the purposes of comparing. This does means a NO DETOUR player can never jump into a tie the DETOUR leader, but otherwise has a fair shot with slower contestants.

11. New participants entering the contest after the start shall be given a time equal to the current last place contestant's time. In order for a newcomer to succeed they will need to answer questions very quickly to jump ahead using the response bonus.

12. Not answering a poll or answering it incorrectly adds time to your clock, unless otherwise stated in the question. Failing to enter the contest for a week is equivalent to getting every question wrong, and will be scored as having the slowest participation compared to others who submitted an entry that week.

13. Participants do not have to enter every week to be eligible to win. Of course, your odds of winning prizes are better if you play each week. Good Luck!

14. A preliminary poll was taken prior to the start of this contest asking who you thought would win. This poll serves as a bonus/penalty. You may claim this bonus at any time during the contest (but only once). A field to do so will appear in your weekly questions.

This poll will be scored this game as follows: Opting out prior to your team being eliminated gains you 15 days off your time the Leg you use it.

For each leg your team remains in the game past the point you opted out, you gain 2 days each week. This includes the leg they eventually get eliminated.

If you fail to opt out prior to your team being eliminated, you gain 10 days the leg they are eliminated, and receive no further bonus or penalty.

Failing to participate in the bonus poll results in a 5 day penalty.

If you do not invoke your bonus, and your pick continues on to win The Amazing Race, you will receive a 20 day bonus from your score.

For clarification, maximum points are earned by successfully picking the Amazing Race winner and not opting out. After that, maximum points are earned by invoking your bonus the week your team is eliminated. Invoking it earlier gives lesser points. Invoking it too early could result in a penalty. Failing to invoke it and being late just gives a penalty.

15: NEW: A perfect score on all standard questions (obtaining best possible score for these questions) AND coming in first place on your detour ("No Detour" players are excluded) also wins you a Fast Forward. Remember, you can only win a Fast Foward once during the game. Winning this one, even accidentally, will disqualify you from winning another later in the game.

 

Rule changes from last season:

Preliminary poll is scored differently. This time around you want to invoke it as close as possible, without going over, to the leg your contestant is eliminated. Invoking your bonus the week your contestant is eliminated subtracts 15 days from your score. Invoke it too early and your bonus could disappear and you actually take a penalty, as 2 days are added for each leg your contestants survive past the point you invoke your bonus. Failing to invoke it always gets a 10 day penalty if your team is eliminated. Failure to participate in the poll also has a small 5 day penalty. This won't be assessed for those who join the contest late.

Also detours are scored slightly differently. Those taking the road less travelled will score better than those taking the majority route.

During any leg, a perfect score on all standard questions (obtaining best possible score for these questions) AND coming in first place on your detour also wins you a Fast Forward. These Fast Forwards are in addition to the four found during the tournament, and multiple ones can be won each week by different players. This is the "trifecta" prize for a perfect week. Looking over past results, I do not think it would ever have been won. An individual can only win 1 Fast Forward during the contest of any type, this one included, and it can not be declined if won accidentally.

 

Added one more rule. We'll see if it ever gets invoked.

 

Nope... I guess I'd best rewrite that. Failing to invoke it prior to your team being eliminated penalized you. If you think your team will go all the way and they actually do, you get a -20 day bonus.

Now the question is... will people be brave and try and hold out till the end, risking a 10 day penalty, or opt out earlier and take a lesser bonus?

With group points and fast forwards, a big jump at the end is worth more than a big jump earlier in the game... but a 10 day penalty at the end is likewise not something you want. And of course last season nobody chose to go all the way.

A point leader would be taking a big chance going into the final episode without opting out... the difference between -13 guaranteed points and +10 if they are wrong. The extra 7 for holding out might not be worth the risk.

 

Can I presume that you cannot accidentally yield yourself with a roll of the dice?

That would be a bad presumption. !danger:

I guess there could be that option in the new season. I haven't entered yet.


Since its impossible to say who will be playing for the first move, I threw in an extra option this week. It will appear only this week and will be replaced next week with the usual player name field.

 

Oops... can you delete my entry?

You may play, but you aren't eligible to win. I'll edit the rule. (I copied it over from the other contest)

Mind if I make the suggestion that the FF only kick in if you're not already in first place after the scoring of the week, thereby taking you into the first place tie? Seems to me that you should never penalize a perfect week...

I'm going to leave the rule as it is. If it requires leaders to use a bit more strategy to avoid wasting a FF, then thats a bonus in my opinion.

 

For contests run exclusively here with our database, it makes sense to exlude all of us, but with yours, I'm not sure that it does.

Ok, makes sense to me.

In that case staff ARE now eligible. I'll edit the rule again.

I just really dislike a rule that actively encourages a dumbed down performance because if you do your best, you will be penalized for it.

Noted.

But I don't see it that way myself. Doing one's "best" isn't just giving correct answers for any singular event, but using strategy over the entire contest.

There are plenty of contests where one has to avoid giving the best answer for any singular event in order to put themselves in better position for the endgame. In Survivor the leader often finds themself targetted. In The Mole, most players often purposely sabotaged legs to draw attention away from someone else.

This rule just adds simular strategy to this game. If its not 100% in tune with what we see on the show, it does however help equalize players who venture to spoiler sites against those who don't.

*shrug* Just my opinion on it.

 

RULE PROPOSAL: Depending on how this first leg turns out, I may be reinstituting the penalty for submitting answers past a certain point in time for future legs.

Wednesday/Thursday would not have a penalty.
Friday would add 1 minute
Saturday would add 2 minutes
Sunday would add 5 minutes
Monday would add 10 minutes.

This penalty would be adjusted if for some reason I can't get the questions up on Wednesday.

These times are added to the amount of time it takes you to submit your answer, and thus directly impact your response bonus and detour scores.

The purpose of this is to counter spoiler sites, as I've discovered that extremely detailed spoiler information has been released about the first episode.

Its possible that only the 1st episode is thus spoiled, but if more turn up, be prepared for this change, which should even the odds.