Scoring and the art of a useful answer

Six finds, six fixed scores

Values are assigned in advance in the question bank. They are not measured percentages of players who gave an answer, and your result does not change as more people play. A less obvious accepted answer can earn more, but obscurity alone does not guarantee a diamond.

Seven rounds can total at most 700 points. A skipped, missed or expired round gives zero. A Duel compares the two players’ totals after the same seven questions; matching totals produce a draw.

One accepted answer is your decision

When an answer is accepted, its score is locked for that round. You cannot first bank a safe answer and then swap it for a higher-scoring one. Before submitting, make a quick choice between the answer you know and a less familiar candidate you can still defend.

An unrecognized answer is different: if the response allows a retry and time remains, you can enter another. Retrying does not extend the deadline. The safest response to uncertainty is a short answer that clearly meets every part of the question.

Use the question as a boundary

Before searching your memory, identify what kind of thing is requested. A country is different from a city; a performer is different from a song; a winning team is different from a finalist. Then look for dates, geographical limits and exclusions.

For example, a prompt restricted to a particular decade does not accept an otherwise relevant answer from the following year. Familiarity with the subject helps, but reading the boundary correctly often saves more time than trying to recall the most obscure fact you know.

An accepted list has limits

Questions use a curated set of accepted answers and aliases. Some categories have many more possible members than a practical answer bank can list. “Not recognized” therefore tells you what the game could confirm, rather than proving that the answer is factually wrong.

AI-assisted judging is disabled by default. Only specifically approved questions can use a configured fallback to check an answer outside the local list. A fallback can still be unavailable or uncertain. Do not rely on it as a guarantee that any plausible answer will be accepted.

If you spot a missing valid answer, send the question wording, the entered answer and the theme to Contact. A useful correction report explains how the answer fits the exact restriction, ideally with a reference you can check.

A choice you can practise

Use this invented exercise: a question has three eligible answers, labelled A, B and C. The teaching key assigns A 15 points, B 60 points and C 100 points. You know A meets the rule, think B meets it, and cannot explain why C belongs.

The highest possible score is C, but its point value does not make your guess correct. Ask one question about B: what fact makes it eligible? If you can recall the relevant fact, B is a reasoned choice. If not, A is a dependable answer. The exercise is about confidence and fit; these labels and values do not reveal a live question’s answers.

Review one decision after the game

Choose one round to revisit: a misread restriction, an answer you could not recall, or a candidate the game did not recognize. Identify which problem occurred before changing your strategy. Learning a fact, reading more carefully and reporting a missing alias are three different next steps.

Keep practice focused. One clear lesson from an expedition is more useful than a list of obscure answers with no explanation of where they belong. When you are ready, start an expedition.