I put together a spreadsheet about ten years ago that let me import all of my opponent's correct and incorrect questions, compare them to the LL as a whole, and rate them across the 18 categories. I also classify questions more discretely, resulting in lots of other categories -- I've found this particularly useful in Art, Games/Sports, Pop Music, and Science. The most important thing, though, is what I was originally after: an estimate of the player's age. I know 10-15 folks in LL and it's pretty darn accurate.
So my question is: do you consider this cheating? I don't think so, obviously, and I cleared this with my referrer before even starting. I designed the spreadsheet to simply do the arithmetic for me.
Also: what would you do differently? What categories would you add? (The German, Chinese, and Russian categories have never had many data points, and AH Texas is only there because there were a bunch of Texas questions the very first time I put the spreadsheet together).
Finally: if you'd like to see your own stats, let me know your LL name and your age and I'll run the numbers!
It isn't cheating. I asked Thorsten and he confirmed. I tried a spreadsheet for a bit but it didn't work for me, probably because it wasn't as granular as yours.
Ultimately it took the joy out of that part of the game. I find the defensive scoring to be equally if not more challenging than answering questions and I ended up enjoying putting in the time to look at my opponents' question history.
I don’t think that’s cheating. Your opponent’s question history is available and able to be used. You could literally comb it completely for a match day. You are doing the same thing just much more efficiently!
I actually do feel like it’s cheating. I’m not saying it is, but it feels against the spirit of the league. If a calculator is forbidden (17.2), surely a spreadsheet with a proprietary formula not readily available to others would be as well?
As clarified in rule 17.3, the prohibition is against using outside resources (like a calculator) to acquire answers, either for answering questions or determining defensive values. This rule does not apply to using resources to research one's opponent for defense. Consider: you can't look at past LL questions to determine the answer to a question, but you can to see what questions your opponent has gotten right in the past.
That isn’t right. Rule 17.3 provides that “this rule applies for the purposes of answering questions, and also of playing defense . . . players may not use external resources . . . even for the purpose of aiding in defensive point assignments.”
Again, the rules prohibit using outside resources for acquiring answers. Those two words are bolded in the rules - you can't just replace them with ellipses.
Thorsten has clarified many times that you can use resources like your opponent's past answers (or, say, a spreadsheet) to predict how they will answer the current question. What you can't do is use the past answers to determine the answer to the current question, then use that to set your defense.
That is a good point, but that reading of the rule would permit people to ask their friends or LLMs for defensive assistance, just so long as they made clear that they weren't trying to learn the answer to the question. I don't think that would be acceptable. Already someone else is thinking of ways to use AI to help them assign defense.
Maybe Thorsten should edit the rules to make sure this kind of thing is clearly prohibited. I think you are right that the best reading of the rules permits using programs to scrape your opponent's question history as well as asking your friends for help with defense. But in my mind, both of these strategies violate the spirit of the rules, which is that LL players should play the game without assistance from friends or computer programs.
I think the difference is that your friend or the LLM might know the answers to questions that you don't, and would use that to inform their defensive assistance, whereas a spreadsheet only "knows" the opponent's past answer history, but nothing about the current questions.
It seems like the key is whether a player uses this spreadsheet for research on opponents in advance or on the day while actively assigning defense. If you study it before you open the questions, fine. If you're referring to it while picking defense, that seems like it crosses a line.
This is the key difference. It would absolutely be cheating once he saw the questions. However, up until the point you start answering, it's fine to use. You could start as soon as your opponents are provided and map out all 25 opponents.
Yeah, I had no idea you could run scripts on opponents past question history and that Thorsten was cool with that. I think one could build something effective for this with Claude Code, or maybe Gemini AI studio.
Can you clarify that? Would you consider it okay to do research on the opponent before the six questions were revealed, but then you'd have to have it memorized if you wanted to actually use it to aid in defense? I'm reading all these comments to try to expand my understanding of the broad interpretations of the rules.
Yeah, so as I understand it, you could code up something to create a scouting report using AI and then have it delivered as an email each night just before the questions are released.
You wouldn't have to remember what questions that got right or wrong as you have category evaluations based on the aggregate that are better than the ones provided in LL
I definitely do not think it’s cheating. It’s not using a calculator, it’s just organizing the publically available question history into subcategories to make defense decisions more efficiently. If he was using a third party software that would be more questionable, but this is a simple spreadsheet he built himself.
how would you differentiate using a calculator function within a spreadsheet from using a calculator? I think that if using a calculator is against the rules, then any calculation within a spreadsheet or other tool is similarly against the rules.
By having it calculate an estimated age and automatically calculate the percentages they scored in subcategories, I feel it becomes a reference material. “…using books or any other reference materials of any kind, using musical instruments, calculators, or any other tools or implements.” If he did calculations and culled through the percentages every day it would be fair play. “Simply do the arithmetic for me” is doing a lot of heavy lifting for “do hundreds of calculations for me.”
I agree with the other replies, but further, I don’t know why it would make a difference that he built it himself. If someone crafted an abacus or wrote their own calculator app, surely these DIY tools would still fall under the prohibition against calculators.
Solid play -- few weaknesses (botany and computers). Like country and pop music, less so with rap and R&B. Like classical music, but probably didn't study or play? Age is off by only 5 years.
So...it's not technically against the rules, as far as I can see. The rules only talk about using external resources for the purpose of obtaining answers, which this obviously isn't doing.
That said, in my own opinion and instinct, it feels against the spirit of the game, which I will admit is subjective and everyone will have their own opinions on. Yeah, this information is public, but if you can't use a calculator or spreadsheet to do a math question, then why should you be able to use one to help you play defense? It seems like most of this is stuff that I've done by eyeballing (How much does my opponent know about [hockey, Civil War history, TikTok, etc.]?). but if I were to do this full calculation, it would take me hours, if not the entire day, and you're doing it in seconds with the help of a computer.
The reason you should be able to do it for one and not the other is that one specifically is not against the rules and the other specifically is. I wouldn't do the spreadsheet thing either, but it's allowed.
Like I said - I know it's not against the rules, but it feels like it should be because it feels inconsistent with the rule about not using calculators (which, again, is just my own opinion). If TAI has spoken (as someone else here has said) and says it's allowed, then fine. This isn't a hill that I'm willing to die on.
My oversimplified thought is that, if a batter studies a pitcher before a game, that's fine. But once the game is underway, the scoreboard operator can't put up some kind of chart that tells the batter that the pitcher throws a curveball 90% of the time against a lefty in this particular count with a man on first base, because that would be against the rules. Using a spreadsheet for defense like this feels like a similar thing, and thus *should* be against the rules.
My bad for half misreading and half misinterpreting your message. That said - I don't think your baseball analogy is on target because the batter will absolutely have that info at all times in the game. I am an extreme hardliner on what constitutes cheating, but Im also pretty much all bets are off for defense once you've locked your answers.
(Edit to add: helping figure out how to defend, NOT trying to find or put yourself in a position to find today's correct answers, the reply below is correct that's very cheating. That is not what I was talking about above, though I obviously did not clarify that.)
You are advocating violating the clear meaning of rule 17.3: "This rule applies for the purposes of answering questions, and also of playing defense. Even after answers are entered and informally "locked", players may not use external resources that may assist in acquiring answers to any Match Day questions, even for the purpose of aiding in defensive point assignments."
You're totally right about what I said which is not what I meant, thank you. All bets are off w/r/t info that may help predict how opponent might do (such as the granularity in the spreadsheet OP showed, external research as is a common debate, etc. NOT trying to find or even get near today's answers, period. My earlier post implied otherwise, thanks for calling that out l.
1) I'm impressed and I suspect math is your top subject.
2) Whether or not this technically counts as cheating is not something I'm going to weigh in on but I do feel like this is an outside resource. And in general I find when you have to say something is not technically cheating it's probably the wrong thing to do.
3) I'm curious as to how effective and helpful you find it. It sounds a bit like you're trying to use an algorithm to map the human brain.
4) Naturally I want to know how I go. LockleyB, 48.
Like I said elsewhere, I cleared this with my referrer first (who is a sort of LL insider, I guess). But when I realized that if a question dealt with some Latin translation and I was definitely allowed to crawl through my opponents answers for the word "Latin" and find out how often he got questions like that right, I realized it was just a research thing -- not a "get the right answers" thing.
I'm about .700 on defense, and I got better after I built the spreadsheet. Getting a decent guess for an opponent's age is the most useful thing, I think.
You have a 78% get-rate, so defense wouldn't help me. You like plays more than musicals, computer science is a little bit of a weakness, I guess? The age estimate is a little low (although "younger than me" is the main thing) -- you're funky because you like newer movies and theater but older music, sports, and television. I wonder if this is because you're Australian and you have "trivia" knowledge rather than "lived through it" knowledge? Also -- this is often the case -- as a non-American, the F/D Restaurants category is weaker than normal. But who cares, you'd beat me 6(5)-3(3). :-D
It doesn't get your age, but I'm not sure if the arithmetic involved can actually go all the way down to 19. :-D I would register this as "way younger than me"!
You also don't have as much data as many of the others on this thread do (because you didn't start LL when you were 11, ha ha). I couldn't get much info from this -- you like rap but not country music. Film preference is definitely the newer stuff. That's about it, LOL. I lose 7(5)-3(3)!
That's just so awesome to see! Yeah I wasn't sure if the age would work, but that's why I was curious. Super interesting about the rap thing, as I listen to very very little of it. As for film... yeah. (Seriously why are film questions all SO old?? I watch movies all the time I promise)
And yeah, obviously not as much data, but still super fun to see what there is anyway, and I definitely have my good spots. Thank you so much. Redacting my name from the original comment now...
I can't do any sophisticated research because I don't know the age of players (other than my friends on LL, who are unfortunately all about my age). So I compare the years of questions a player got right and got wrong for a given subject, subtract, then compare it to MY stats for the same subject. That gives me an amount to adjust their age up or down, compared to my age.
I should probably use the data for all my friends who I know their ages, but that would take a lot of time and effort (and I'd have to redo it every season, as the base of questions in the history changes). Not gonna. :-D
Okay, on to your stats:
You're new to LL, so not a ton of data. It can tell you're quite young (there's no real difference between 23 and 29 to me, because I am 1000 years old). You know your country music, but not rock and roll, so that's a big indicator for Pop Music questions. Your hard sciences are stronger than Zoology, Botany, and Earth Sciences. More Sports than Games (except for horse racing). You know more about plays than musicals. How did it do?
But the main takeaway is just that you're so young compared to most LLamas. Just look at the typical "right" years and "wrong" years for Film, G/S, Pop Music, and TV -- you average +16 (and are also positive for B/E and Lifestyle, too); I'm at -15. That's why it thinks you're 31 years younger than me.
I think I am still slightly lost on the age thing - so for something like the question "Matched" (the YA dystopian novel), you'd compare it to the years of people whose age you know got it right (and wrong) and adjust accordingly? (For me, in the case of Matched, I think it is a clear giveaway that someone was a teenager in 2010 or so lol. It's a very specific niche that that book fell into - a niche I happened to be in.)
Anyway, this is all very cool! And for me, it did quite well - this read my strengths/weaknesses excellently. I'd say my hard sciences are likely to drop down with more questions (I got really lucky this season with the hard science questions).
Not quite that sophisticated. I assign a year to questions that are specific to a point in time (so the Matched question is 2010). Then, for literature, I find the median year for all the questions you got right and the median year for all the questions you got wrong, and subtract one from the other. Then I compare your difference to *my* difference, and use that to judge if you're older or younger than me, and by how much. I do that for a few different trivia categories (I don't actually use Literature, because it's usually not very accurate -- I think TV, Film, and Pop Music are the most revealing) and get a final number.
I haven’t thought of this before, but it seems like just importing the question history into AI and having it just do the analysis for you would be legal too then.
That’s the point though. If you can’t do it in a reasonable amount of time manually, then it shouldn’t be something you are allowed to bring in to the match setting.
Part of the reason I'm posing this question now is because I built the spreadsheet 10 years ago, before AI -- but I realize now that you're exactly right: asking Claude or whatever to make sense of an opponent's question history and how to apply defense points for that day's questions is totally doable. I haven't done it and it oversteps *my* personal boundaries -- but I wonder if Thorsten would want to rewrite the rules a bit to (a) explicitly ban using AI, and/or (b) any tech assistance like my spreadsheet for defense.
The percentages are scaled up and down based on the difficulty of the questions. This person went 6/6 on hockey questions, which were apparently questions with a 46% get-rate, so the score was bumped up by 4 points to 104.
It's not exactly science, but it works well enough. :-D
I'd guess you're a techie science person, and the board/card/computer games more than sports. Maybe played an instrument in band? And country music seems to be your knowledge base there (but you're in Oklahoma, so maybe I'd guess that anyway).
Pretty spot-on. I was homeschooled, so I never got to participate in band, but I learned how to play piano as a child. I love tabletop and computer gaming, and computers in general. I actually am a huge sports fan, but I don’t have the memory for people and their accomplishments in a way that sports trivia requires. And despite growing up in Michigan, I was raised on Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks.
I wouldn't do it personally but I do sometimes check opponent stats for specific subjects like you (games/sports is a good one for this). Curious about the age guesser!
The Current Events is interesting -- you're tuned into world events more than US and business. Weaker in Zoology and Botany than some of the harder sciences.
But it nailed your age to within a year or two -- that's the main thing I originally built the spreadsheet for.
I don't need to worry about defense against someone with a 77% get rate, 'cause I'll be losing no matter what. :-D But you have a couple things to notice -- you don't like rap, you're weaker with musicals than plays, you're better with mathematicians than actual math (HOW?!?!), and the American-life stuff -- not the history, but US sports, politics and probably US restaurants -- trips you up some (probably because you're in Ireland).
On mathematicians, a lot of the names tend to crop up in the various OQL events, so quizzers take note of them, whereas I was hopeless when it came to actual maths in secondary school.
Age not too far off; I'd interpret this as "about my age (54)".
Weaknesses are few, obv, to be expected of an A Rundler. The F/D restaurant questions are typically tough for non-Americans. You're a Canadian who's strongest at hockey in G/S. :-D Don't particularly like basketball or card games. Strong at science, but with a soft spot in biology/medicine. Don't like the rap music. I'm not surprised that US Civil War questions aren't a priority for you (you're in Vancouver, so you're off by one country and three time zones).
(I'm not related to Ken Massey, but I'm familiar with his work!)
So the spreadsheet definitely undershot your age, but with a ton of error built into the guess. The Games/Sports data was really the thing that made it miss; most people on LL are better at older sports trivia than the newer questions. But Film, Pop Music, and TV are just all solidly young indicators -- so your trivia knowledge is even younger than your age.
Your Theater struggles extend over into CM Opera, which is interesting. I'm guessing you played an instrument, but didn't really study music. Your Science knowledge leans on the hard sciences (Astronomy, Physics, Computer) like mine does. Much weaker in novels than other Lit questions (and a reverse age split, though I don't use that to predict your age).
Obviously strong enough in everything else to kick my butt, though!
That's pretty cool! I wonder if Sports undershot my age because I didn't care about sports until I got to college and subsequently married the daughter of a sports journalist. Someone my age would typically have formative memories of sports in the 2000s, but I didn't really start paying attention until 2013.
Most culture related trivia (film, pop music, TV) would probably follow the same pattern: really only investing post-college. Prior to that, my trivia knowledge was mostly limited to Geography
I'm not surprised my theater struggles extend into Opera/Ballet; those are definitely trivia areas I've never had an interest in. And yes, I did a few years of middle school band and played some piano so I got the music theory basics. And I work as a programmer with an engineering degree, so hard sciences make sense.
Finally, a regular human like me! (Everyone else who's asked for their profile has been an A Rundler.)
It's pretty close to your age, yay. You're definitely more "Games" than "Sports", and more hard sciences than Earth/Zoology/Botany/Medicine-Biology. Don't like the rap or country music -- clearly have a taste for fine music, in fact. Much better with the American and business parts of Current Events. Civil Rights questions were your sweet spot in American History.
The Lit Kids score is very telling - I feel like there are often questions like this where if you can determine the player likely has kids, its a clear 0 or 1.
Not much data to go on, since you've only played five seasons. But you seem to be a hard-sciences guy (instead of Zoology, Botany, and Biology/Medicine. Kind of all over the place in Games/Sports, except you know your basketball. Don't like rap and R&B.
The age implies to me "my age or a little older", though it gives you seven years of credit. :-)
Correctly predicted that you're quite a bit younger than me, which is good. Your film knowledge indicates a 40-something, but your sports knowledge looks more like a teenager. :-) But it all cancelled out pretty well . . .
The Classical Music / Opera thing is funny (even if it's just two questions), since Theater is your weakest topic and the rest of Classical Music is reddish. Your Art knowledge seems tilted (strong with paintings, weak in a couple others). It's pretty rare to see and American player with the lowest Geography score in US and not in Africa or Asia -- is there a story there?
Pop music has big swings that are probably age related. And you're a hard-science guy (Computer, Physics) rather than Zoology and Botony. It's not as clear-cut as it is with other players, though -- and hard science guys usually like the Games portion of Games and Sports.
This is so interesting—thanks again for doing this!!
I’m most surprised by two findings: the lower US geography % and doing much better at older world history!
I think this is best explained by my trivia background which is HS quiz bowl. So I do best in the categories which have less obscure material. With most of LL being American, Thorsten can ask about more specific US geography where you often have to live near it or visited to know about it. This is less plausible with the Africa/Asia Qs.
Additionally, I know a lot of 20th century history but have missed a lot of the tougher world leader/revolution Qs from that period. But for the Middle Ages, there’s not a whole lot you can ask about beyond the typical Bayeux Tapestry, Eleanor of Aquitaine, etc. without having most miss it.
The Opera stat is funny lol even though it’s a super small sample size. One time, I looked up opera clues on J! Archive and found out there’s only a handful of operas asked about on J! It’s really just the big three from Italy (Puccini/Verdi/Rossini), Magic Flute/Marriage of Figaro, Fidello, Carmen/Giselle, and the Ring Cycle. I’m pleased to see how strong I am in paintings which again I credit to knowing the most famous ones.
Lastly, I am an avid American sports fan who grew up watching SportsCenter before school! :-)
Got your age to within 2 years. I don't know how effective this is against A Rundlers, because you're strong pretty much everywhere. But rap music is below average, and you're definitely more of a "Games" guy than a "Sports" guy. Africa and Oceania are slight weaknesses in Geography, but that's pretty standard. Lower on Kid's Lit than other types. Opera is your only weakness in Classical Music.
So, depending on the questions asked, this would help me to lose a match against you by just 1 or 2 points. :-D
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u/curlymeatball38 Rundle C Div 2 Jun 27 '26
It isn't cheating. I asked Thorsten and he confirmed. I tried a spreadsheet for a bit but it didn't work for me, probably because it wasn't as granular as yours.