As both a minor tournament official and coach of a novice team at COTKU and BigLots this week, I would like to "chip in" on the recent comments concerning the tournament. First, the logistics: there were delays between matches, especially the first two or three. After that, things seemed to me to run smoothly, but as those of you who have run such tournaments before know, the potential for delays between rounds increases as the size of the field increases. There were a few protests to resolve here and there, one team had vehicle trouble and requested a revision of the schedule to allow them to address the problem, there were a couple of rounds where no bye teams could be tapped to provide readers, and so on. I don't think I could point to any one cause of the tournament's delays--instead, I'd say it was a case of all the "usual" things that _can_ go wrong stacking up. Lose five minutes here, five minutes there, and it can add up to a late night. On the subject of the questions: I'd say degree of difficulty was about right--accessible without being oversimplified. Naturally, when you try to write questions that will both reward superior knowledge _and_ encourage the novice teams with gettable clues at the end, the questions end up being a bit long sometimes, but I didn't find these objectionable in general--yes, perhaps a bit sharper cutting knife could've been used on a few boni, but overall I thought the editing was well done given the parameters of the tournament. Big Lots was terrifically well done despite a half-hour power outage. If I were looking for room to complain, I could note that we had bad weather on Sunday, a traffic jam in Fort Oglethorpe, GA (!) on the way home, and a hotel room with bizarre fluctuations in both power supply and water temperature. Our school van had lousy shocks, tires, brakes, and stereo. But I had a good time. My players had a good time. Most of the teams I saw had a good time. That's the purpose of the game, right? Stephen Taylor tgallows <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com> wrote:I don't like to be critical of any tournament, especially of one run by the good folks at UTC, but I did want to make a few comments about the COTKU tournament. Although I still enjoyed the tournament and I'm still glad I made the trip, it was by far the ... least successful of the half-dozen or so Chattanooga tournaments I've attended. The delays were much longer than at past UTC tournaments I've attended. It took (I think) about 9 hours to run 9 rounds of the RR (not including the half-hour delay at the beginning), and it was another two hours before the Div I semis and finals were complete. The tournament was understaffed, and the level of organization was not that of a typical UTC tournament. The questions were also in definite need of better editing (or better writing before that). Stephen Webb mentioned the difficulty level, but I had no problem with that. The bonuses were a bit easy for a strong Div I field, and most of our matches had total scores of about 525-625 points, but as long as the bonuses are relatively consistent in their difficulty (as they were), then it's fair for both teams. Two particular problems spring to mind -- the length of the bonuses, and the organization of the tossups. The bonuses in the tournament were WAY WAY WAY too long. An occasional long bonus part is fine in an untimed tournament, if there's some amusing or interesting note which must be thrown in. But a 3-part bonus with each part having 3-4 sentences? Collectively, the bonuses just went on way too long, generally without providing any new or useful information. Long bonus parts should NOT be the norm -- if there's some particular reason to do it, fine, but otherwise keep it somewhat concise. I only moderated one round (during a bye), and those bonuses wore me down -- I'd hate to read a dozen rounds like that. The tossup topics were (I thought) OK, but the organization of the tossups generally needed work. Stephen Webb noted that the tossups were OK for Div II but not Div I, but I think I'd phrase it another way -- many of the tossups had organizational problems which were less likely to be exposed in Div II than in Div I. Just to choose one entirely at random, a tossup on Main Street should not have Carol Kennicott (the novel's main character) as the very first clue, no more so than a tossup about Moby Dick should have Captain Ahab as the first clue. The Main Street tossup began with Carol Kennicott, then went on to some plot elements before mentioning Gopher Prairie and Sinclair Lewis at the end. The material in the question was fine, but it was simply out of order, and I'm sure that was a buzzer-race question in most of the Div I matches, and a couple of Div II matches as well. As a general piece of advice on question writing, I'd advise young (and old) question writers to think about how a question will go when it is actually used in competition. (Reading the round in a team practice before sending it out may help you catch some of the problems.) Long bonus parts may be well-intentioned, but a round of 3-sentence bonus parts is miserable for both players and moderators. Tossups which have easier clues at the beginning are less likely to give any advantage to the player with better knowledge of the subject, such that (to cite the same example) someone who knows Main Street inside and out would have little advantage on that tossup. It can be tough to determine which clues are easy, but a novel's main character is more likely to be an 'easier' clue than most plot elements of the novel. Think about whether your question will favor the better player. Think about whether a moderator will be able to pronounce the scientific name of a platypus, and if not, put in a pronuncation for it. Think of whether a team really needs or wants to hear 9 titles for an author in a bonus part if one of the 9 is going to be A Farewell to Arms. (Et cetera.) Just wanted to mention those things. All that said, I do thank UTC for continuing to host tournaments, though I hope future ones run a bit better than this one did. I also congratulate Emory on their fine performance, finishing an extremely close second in Div I and (if I remember correctly) winning Div II. --Raj Dhuwalia, UF Yahoo! Groups SponsorADVERTISEMENT To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: quizbowl-unsubscribe_at_yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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