ChGK in the Prairie

Chapter 11: The Death of Dark Horses

The team spent all afternoon touring the city rather than play brain ring. They took photos strategically across the city. They also proceed to eat cuisines they didn't have the opportunity to eat in Kansas City.

The following day, all 50 teams invited to compete check in along with their rosters so they can be entered properly into the IAMG's system. Once check-in is done:

"Despite our performance at tournaments such as the International League, the Slavyanka Grand Prix and the Ivy League, to the rest of the country, we are still the underdogs. Kansas shall take the ChGK world by storm!" Patricia harangues the team before taking up positions in the Haggett Cascade Room.

The Ivy League, as a ChGK conference, has 3 schools qualified for Nationals: Harvard, the Massachusetts state champions, Brown and Dartmouth, the latter being de facto the Rhode Island and New Hampshire state champions respectively. From what I heard, the latter two have erudition but no team chemistry, a Crimson player muses upon seeing the Brown and Dartmouth teams getting seated. He also realizes that there really is no such thing as intercollegiate ChGK in the US the way there is for quiz bowl.

When all 50 teams are seated in the room, the tournament director delivers his speech to the teams in attendance, standing on the lectern:

"Privet. On behalf of the organizing committee of the National Chto, gde, kogda Championship, I trust that you understand what the grand prize is: the United States berth at the ChGK World Cup, held in Saint Petersburg this November. And may the winner stick it to the Russians on their own turf, and the Chinese as well! I cannot stress enough just how far China and Russia will go in using intellectual games for political gain!" The tournament director harangues the players as if he was an electoral candidate on the campaign trail.

"Make no mistake. For far too long, our intellectual games circuit was propped up by players from Asian ethnicities. A fact that RT and Xinhua will remind us at every major international intellectual games tourney! Quiz Bowl World Cup, ChGK Worlds, and so on, so forth. So, whoever represents the US at the ChGK Worlds, you understand that you must play your best in St. Petersburg" the head of the appeals committee speaks, with a heavy Russian accent.

Once the speeches from the tournament organizers end, several first-timers at Nats are dumbfounded by just how politicized ChGK really is on the world stage. But the first game begins in earnest. After the first blitz question is asked in Russian:

"Blood, guess, party, wall, column, sense, heaven. The answer must be related to an eighth something, and that something is the answer" Vira then explains the reasoning behind the answer.

"I would say wonder" Patricia adds in while her mind races against the clock.

"That makes sense, and we're going with wonder" Yakiv then nods.

The other two blitz sub-questions still come fairly easily to them, with Patricia's mental speed serving them well. Much better: this is what I am accustomed to from my brain. I really hope I can function like this for all 4 games, Patricia muses while her state of mind is quite different between the svoya igra tournament and the ChGK one.

And, of course, the 3-column scoreboard is shown on one of the screens, showing where each team stands relative to each other. With the state flags next to the team names. Patricia's seat is angled in such a way that she can keep an eye on it at all times, while the other scoreboard has the current question as well as the timer on that question. Which is angled more for Bohdan, who is on Patricia's left. They seem to be on track to be in the top bracket, at least top-4.

So it seems that they fight tooth and nail to remain in contention for the national title and hence for the ChGK Worlds. No protests of any kind, at least for now. But for one of the questions during the second game, it appears they are stuck between multiple possibilities. And, as Patricia listens to both sides arguing about the role of local purchasing and supply chains in inflation...