final thought on tie-break

• From: Matt Keller <mkeller99_at_mkvandy03.yahoo.invalid>
• Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 04:11:01 -0000
• Message-ID: <b853ol+ioca_at_...>

After reading Saurabh's and Raj's accounts of the tie-break 
procedure, I think I determined the root of the whole problem - 
Harvard lied to us.  They told us that Saurabh and Raj were in 
disagreement over which procedure (head to head or total points) 
should be used, when both of them have since said that they agreed 
that head to head should be used.  Raj actually never did tell us 
what was going on (except for maybe just confirming that we had 
agreed to the shootout, w/o mention of earlier thoughts)...we relied 
on what Harvard told us, which was that supposedly if we settled 
things ourselves that it would avoid Saurabh and Raj having to argue 
it out, and would make things go quicker.  After 10 rounds on 2 hours 
of sleep, I was apparently quite suggestible, and did what Harvard 
presented as the method to get things moving most quickly, when in 
actuality it seems like if Raj had talked to us and told us that both 
he and Saurabh were in favor of head to head but open to 
alternatives, I would have firmly stuck with the head to head.  
Anyway, I don't blame those in charge for this lack of communication, 
since they probably weren't aware of Harvard's misleading us either.  
Harvard was clearly the better team for the day as a whole too, so 
it's probably justified that they wound up above us.  I'm basically 
just posting this in the hopes that teams will be more careful of 
where their info comes from, and that similar things don't happen in 
the future.

On a completely different note, you can throw in Vanderbilt as 
another school for which ACF Nats already occurs during finals or 
right before them, which was why we only had three people, including 
one quite inexperienced freshman.

Matt