The trouble with Quidditch

[career advisor]

No: HPFGUIDX 169023

What a lot of people forget when analyzing Quidditch scores is that Quidditch is a game in which score are added together. So  that when Bulgaria plays Ireland they came in already down points, lets say 160. 
   
  I think there is some incidental evidence that the world cup teams are grouped into fours just as the school Quidditch and groups of 3 games are added together just as in Hogwarts.
  150 is about the right number of points for a set of six games (4 teams).
   
  Below are relevant portion from an old post of mine 11261, which I've cleaned up and amended from it's orignal condition to try to make it more readable. 
   
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  Quidditch is not a sport in which the individual game matters much. It is a
series of games in which the points are added together. In other words the
points from one game are added to another to determine the winner and while
catching the snitch is important a seeker could catch and win the snitch in all
three games of the house cup and the team could still lose it. It is the point
differentile that matters, so part of catching the snitch is timing.

For instance I'm making up these scores to illustrate the point.
   
  Round 1

G1 Gryffindor vs Hufflepuff G 160- H 60 
   
  G Snith Harry beats Cedric. 
   
  H chases beat G chasers 6-1

  G2 Ravenclaw vs. Slytheirn S 240 R 10
   S Snitch Draco beats Cho.

  S chasers pound R chasers 9-1

Total points after Round 1
   
  1. Slytherin 240 
  2. Gryffindor 160 
  3. Hufflepuff  60 
  4. Ravenclaw 10

  snitch catches: G 1 S 1
   
  Round 2
   
  G3 Hufflepuff vs. Slytherin H 160 S 150 H 
   
  Snitch: Cedric beats Draco.
  
Slytherin chasers pound H chasers 15-1

G4 Gyffindor vs. Ravenclaw R 330 G 270 
   
  Snitch: Gryffindor  Harry beats Cho, but R
wins anway. 
   
  R chasers pound G chasers 33-12

Total points after Round 2
   
  1. Gryffindor: 430 
  2. Slytherin 390 
  3. Ravenclaw 340 
  4. Hufflepuff 220

  Snitch catches: Gryff 2 Huffle 1 Sly 1 Raven  0

Note: Ravenclaw is ahead of Hufflepuff even though they haven't caught a
snitch yet. When Harry catches snitch score was R 330- G 120 (33-12 since goals
are worth 10). Harry catching snitch was defensive because 480-120 puts
Gryffindor prob out of cup hunt. 
   
  So sometime catching a snitch can be defensive. Perhaps Krum catch was meant by JKR to be defensive. One explantion is that the seeding for the next world cup is determined by point deferntial.  

G5 Hufflepuff vs. Raveclaw R 300 H 280 
   
  H Snitch (poor timing, Cedric was a bit
distracted by Cho, and unintentially caught the snitch to early .) 
   
  R wins. R chasers beat H chasers 30-13.

G6 Gryffindor vs. Slytherin. G 170 S 150 
   
  G snitch. Harry beats Draco but

  Slytherin Chasers pound Gryffindor Chasers. (15-2)

Final standings:
   
  1.Ravenclaw 640 
  2. Gryffindor 600 
  3. Slytherin 540
  4. Hufflepuff 500

  snitch catches: G3 H2 S1 R 0
   
  Ravenclaw won the cup by its chaser scoring 64 goals versus 15 for Gryffindor, 20 for Hufflepuff and 39 for Slytherin and never cathing the snitch.

The play of the chasers is a lot like basketball where there is a lot of back
and forth, momentum swings and fast breaks and where it it fairly easy at any
time to be up 3 to 1. The key to Quidditch seems to be grabbing the Snitch when
your are up at least 3-1 on points or if down less then 3-1 grabbing it before
you opponent does to win. The 150 point snitch score allows you to win even when down 3 -1 for instance your down 150-50. You catch the snitch you win 200-150.

You need 600-700 points overall to win the cup so you can't just grab the 
snitch and take 150 points form each game, and win each one 150-0 you'd only end
up with 450 points. At least one opponent would at a minimum 300 points (2 snitch questions) and be within snitch distance in the last round.

Could you imagine how basketball would work if a 3/4 court shot was worth 30
points and ended the game and you added the points of at least 3 games together
to determine the winner? And an individual game couldn't end until one were
made. That is what Quidditch is like.

Since you play 3 games the most you can be up is 1 snitch catches going into the
final round plus minus chaser points. Probably the range is usualy within 100-200
points in the final game. So the seeker is really impotant in the last round, 
 but the cushion he or she has or lacks is mainly due to the chasers. It is
very important for the seeker to always know the score. For instance in the last
Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff game above Cedric the Hufflepuff seeker caught the snitch 20 points two late or twenty to early. 
   
  Basically chaser/keeper defense and seeker timing is how you win cups.

Wow that was a lot to write for a fictional game. I do think JKR made on mistake
in the scoring system of the game, making the center hoop 30 points instead of
10 would have made goal strategy more interesting for the keeper and made the
chasers even more more important, but she wanted to empasize the seeker since it
is Harry's spot.


 
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