My thanks to NAQT and UCLA for a good tournament. We (UF) had top-notch moderators (Hentzel, Bhan, Jennings, Hilleman, Waters, et al) in nearly every match, things ran pretty much on time, and the questions (I thought) were pretty good for the most part. I was glad to finally get a chance to take multiple shots at the top 3 teams, even though all 5 of those matches were losses (2 to Chicago, 2 to Michigan A, 1 to Berkeley A). After watching the final, I'm rather proud of our 500 or so total points while receiving our two Subashings. As for the final four rounds in Div I ... whether or not it is a better system than in previous years, I don't know. The ladder play system has its drawbacks. As an example, two years ago, my FAU team faced Florida (an exceedingly familiar opponent) 3 matches out of 4 late in the day, which was an unfortunate coincidence. By contrast, this year we entered the playoff rounds this year as the #5 team but never faced #4, Michigan B. I think the rankings thru 11 rounds were probably a better reflection of the relative strengths of the teams than were the rankings thru 15 rounds. Maryland's 3rd place finish (ahead of Michigan) was one oddity, and I think UF's 11th-place finish was another. We were never held under 200 points (for whatever that's worth), and five of our seven losses were to the aforementioned three strongest teams. We exchanged ~300-point blowouts with Yale (their win being in the playoffs, unfortunately for us), and a strong Maryland team beat us 385-355 in the last playoff round (with a combination of excellent playing, good clock strategy, and a little help from my 3 stupid negs). We had blowout wins over Harvard, UCLA, Texas A&M, and our other 4 opponents. As such, I think 11th is a bit artificially low, relative to the team's overall performance. [[Of course, it's entirely our own fault for slumping late in the day, or for not slumping earlier in the tournament.]] Regardless of that stuff, I had fun, and I thought it was a good tournament. I'd swear there was more pop culture and CBI-ish stuff late in the tournament, but I know it's probably my imagination. And of course it was an honor to watch Subash in action -- his performance was the best I've ever seen by an individual at any tournament ever. My congratulations as well to Berkeley and Valencia CC on a well-played Div II final. --Raj Dhuwalia
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