First of all, I think Caltech should be congratulated for pulling off one of the most fabulous, splendid, excellent juggling acts ever performed in scheduling a quiz bowl tournament. Given the confusing packet situation, the awful room logistics (we lost three rooms by 4 PM), and the fact the tournament started almost an hour late, it's amazing how well things went at Technophobia considering how many things could have gone wrong. People could have easily showed up at the wrong room and the moderators could have easily read the wrong packet (which did happen once, to my knowledge). I think all the participants deserve credit for sticking to the schedule and, more importantly, for being patient when things didn't go exactly right the first time. And I know Jordan would agree with this--the fact we had a plethora of "blind" packets saved the day. Much much much thanks to all the people who worked behind the scene to make this tournament a success!! I just have a few suggestions for future tournaments: (1) Even though I trust the integrity of the teams involved, I don't think it's a good idea to have to play the same packet at different times of the day--especially before and after lunch. (2) It might be a good idea to mandate teams to submit their packets at least two weeks before the tournament. Some packets sounded like they were slapped together at the last minute; several questions from the same categories were left in their consecutive order; a moderator was editing the packet as he was reading. (3) If possible, I'd like to be able to play against as many opponents as possible. Because of the scheduling difficulties, we ended up playing against the same team 4 times! Yet we didn't get to play against at least three other teams that we _wanted_ to compete with. (4) It might be nice to expand the awards system so that more new players receive recognition for various achievements. Just a thought...good job, Caltech!! Willie Chen
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