The Quiz League of London

Quiz League of London (QLL) is one of the most, if not the most prominent quiz league in the U.K. Founded in 1990 as the Quiz League of South London, it was southern England's first independent self-administered Quiz League. The matches themselves often are hosted at pubs or social clubs although not exclusively.

History

The QLL has since incorprated many teams from the Greater London area and has two divisions, formed of 8 teams each, though many teams are still based in South London. The QLL runs the National Team Quiz Festival annually, with profits going to charity, as well as the President's Cup, which is a national competition against England's other premier league, the Merseyside Quiz League. The QLL also runs individual competitions, such as the Brain of London, having boasted previous Brain of Britain's, Mastermind winners and other television quiz winners. The league contains quiz teams formed from London Scottish and Rosslyn Park rugby clubs among others.

Team format

Two teams, one , one play each other, responding, perhaps alternately, often orally, to a questionmaster.

Many varying formats exist, one of the most widely played having been devised as a game used by soldiers when relaxing is usually known as the QLL format. It consists of 64 questions in 8 rounds of 8 questions each asked to individuals on the teams alternately. Correctly answering your own question scores 2 points though it can be passed within the team (if the player chooses not to answer) or over to the other team (if the player or team answer wrongly) for one point.

In the QLL format, there is no conferring as such. Where a player decides not to answer their question, the team captain will normally decide which other member of the team is to answer by assessing the hand signals made by the players on the team and his/her own judgement. The opposition will also use hand signals to decide who is to answer the question in the event of it being passed over. After 4 rounds, the order of answering changes so the team who began round 1 going first begin round 5 going second. This is done by switching each team's questions from A to B or from B to A depending on which questions they started with.

Other formats exist that involve more conferring within teams, list rounds and "pick a category" rounds. The QLL format is played by the main leagues in London and Merseyside.

Individual format

Many quiz leagues run individual competitions. The "Quiz League of London" is the MIMIR quiz (named after Mímir, a god of Norse mythology who was renowned for his knowledge and wisdom). Matches are played in groups of four with positions drawn at random and each person has 3 questions addressed to them, in each of 5 rounds.

Time to answer is at the discretion of the question master but a wrong answer or a pass gives any of the other three an opportunity to score a bonus point. The decision as to who gets the first chance to answer for a bonus is determined by offering the question to whoever, at that stage, has made least attempts to gain bonus points or, if there is more than one player who has made the least bonus attempts, the next player in line (e.g. if this happened on the first question, P2 would have the first option on a bonus attempt). As well as a scorekeeper, a bonus counter is needed to track each player's bonus attempts.

ee also

*Pub quiz

External links

* [http://www.qll.org.uk The Quiz League of London]
* [http://123quiz.net/w/QL Quiz Leagues] A listing of organisations with information on how to get involved
* [http://www.sfquiz.org.uk Southport and Formby Quiz League]
* [http://www.santa-ponsa.com/league.html Calvia Quiz League, Mallorca]