Off the QB hiatus...
Neither of the last two tournaments I attended (Cardinal Classic and
Technophobia) used a full round robin; instead, they both used the following
format:
1) Random brackets
2) Round robin within each bracket
3) Re-seeding teams based on prelim's record
4) Round robin within each re-seeded bracket
With the logistic problems (packets, rooms, number of teams) Technophobia
did its best to figure out a system that more-or-less worked. But I didn't
understand why CC stayed away from a full round robin. There were 16 teams
and 8 rooms, which is perfect for a 15-game round robin. If we started earlier
(and on time...) we could squeeze in 6 rounds before lunch and 9 rounds
afterwards.
The main problem I had with the disuse of round-robin format is that I didn't get
a chance to play against certain teams and, instead, played a bunch of games
against repeat opponents.
I hope that future TD's can try to use the round robin as much as possible.
Otherwise, I thought that this year's CC was pretty nice--the facilities are MUCH
better than before.
Willie Chen
The dinosaur down at UCI