A bit of an agreement here; I might preface this all by mentioning that the recent TRASHionals was in fact the very first TRASH tournament in which I ever played. Mention is made that there is something to be said for playing against the dinosaurs, but this is made less important than I believe it to be. For me, part of the allure of playing TRASH (in addition to that the tournaments tend to be a helluva lot more entertaining) is the chance to play against these veterans of the format. It's not so much of a learning experience as it is just a chance to watch (somewhat in awe) a performance by some of the most knowledgeable people around. I think anybody that watched the MKEA - BATTLEPLANET!!! final can see what I'm talking about here. I mean, certainly, I'm not going to get any titles any time soon, but to be quite honest, if I want a tournament that's going to be both accessible and balanced, I'll play NAQT. Keep TRASH like it is. I know that while the team I was on possibly lost two or three games due solely to bonus feng shui, one has to realize that this is an inevitable consequence of having boni in the first place. And no, even having played my high school quiz bowl in Illinois, I'm not going to suggest adding bonus bounceback. All that does is pad the better team's ego. I found the difficulty level entirely appropriate at TRASHionals; remember, this is coming from a first-time player of the format. Ratcheting difficulty up is a thought, but then again, that would generally only widen the divide that this whole debate was meant to fix. Perhaps I'm just blinded by how incredibly good of a tournament TRASHionals was, but I'd say that any major changes would be overkill. Jim Puls still in awe after spending a tournament sitting next to Carey Clevenger On Monday, April 21, 2003, at 10:55 PM, allythin wrote: > --- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "Samer Ismail" <stipenn_at_y...> wrote: >> >> I'll simply throw this out to the floor-- >> >> Much as there is something to be said for playing against the > grizzly >> dinosaurs, do you think TRASH would be better off splitting the > field >> into two divisions ("Open" and "Collegiate")? > > As a relative trash neophyte, I don't particularly find this idea > attractive. Over the three years I have competed, I have found that > the only way I or my team has gotten better has been through playing > the players and teams which are significantly better than ourselves. > Sort of taking our licks and learning from it kind of philosophy. > Splitting it off would not necessarily correct the problem because if > the effort is to cater to younger players by a "collegiate" division, > how does this account for older graduate students who are not > necessarily new, can be extremely experienced, and can administer the > smackdown just as effectively as the "dinos" ? > >> I think that by splitting the field into two smaller divisions, > there >> would be more time to differentiate among the top teams, and fewer >> clobberings as well; also, it would be possibly to ratchet the >> difficulty--either up or down--to make the questions suitably >> challenging for the more experienced teams and suitably accessible >> for the younger teams. >> >> --STI > > I think if you just fiddled with the boni so that there wasn't 4 ppb > between the top team and the 28th ranked team then THAT would be a > more appropriate solution than denying the younger teams and players > the ability to compete against the best teams in the country. > Looking at the stats from this year when 31 of 34 teams got more than > 15 ppb, I don't see how you can ratchet difficulty down any more, > without reducing the tournament to below-national caliber. It seems > to me that a lot of these problems would not be addressed with > breaking up the feild, which is part of the reason I personally look > forward to TRASHionals. > > Sean Phillips > Irked that the first instinct some people have is to keep people like > me from getting my ass kicked by someone who is *gasp* experienced.
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