Re: Round Robin, please...

mayefsky_at_bobbyoderek.yahoo.invalid · Fri, 06 Feb 2004 02:59:28 -0000

Since I don't think Eric Smith (or reads it, anyway) is on this list 
I'll speak up for Stanford...

I ran ACF Fall at Stanford this year.  It was an 8 team event.  I 
thought a double round robin was a great idea.  We ran 14 rounds, 
with the intention to play a final in the fifteenth round if 
necessary.  Due to any number of things--some our fault (a late 
start), others not (teams coming back very late from lunch, a sudden 
power outage)--it ran late, as quizbowl tournaments often due.  The 
point is that by round 14, nobody looked like they were enjoying 
themselves and everyone was wondering why anyone was stupid enough 
to run such a long event.

Even after 12 rounds of Cardinal Classic, I heard complaints about 
why the tournament was so long.  Especially with untimed rounds, the 
general consensus seems to be that for a one day event, 12 or 13 
rounds is plenty.  And at CC that would have fallen short of a round 
robin.

So, yes, in short, we could have run a round robin.  But I think 
tacking on 3 more rounds with the possibility of a final thereafter 
would have garnered more complaints than praise.  And with so many 
teams from SoCal running a two day event is often difficult.

You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the 
people some of the time...you know the rest.  

I'm glad Willie liked the location better this year :)

Eric Mayefsky

Stanford Quizbowl

--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "Samer Ismail" <samer_ismail_at_y...> 
wrote:
> --- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, james_g_blaine_4prez 
> <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> > I don't think Cardinal Classic had 15 blind packets--a bunch of 
> > Penn Bowl packets came out of the West Coast, and I think CC 
> > didn't use any of the West Coast packets.
> > 
> > I second the call for more 15+ round tournaments.
> 
> In all, Stanford had 19 packets to work with (13 East Coast, four 
> Berkeley A packets, and two freelance packets, one of which 
contained 
> a small number of questions from a different set of Berkeley 
players) . 
> It would only have taken a slight bit of 'jigging', as it were 
(using a 
> replacement round in one room in one round), to do a full round 
robin in 
> 15 rounds--but that would have also required running the risk of 
not 
> being able to play a finals match because one of the teams had 
written 
> the questions.
> 
> --STI