At the risk of sounding not-so-genial: bullshit. And I can prove it. Our rounds did not last an hour; they lasted 45 minutes. I know; I was keeping close tabs on it all day long. We began play at 10:10 (due to two late teams), took a lunch break of just under an hour and a half, and finished the last round at almost exactly 11 PM. Guess what? 15 rounds at 45 min. per round = 11.25 hours, which fits almost exactly within the times stated. Say anything you like about me, but don't insult my moderators. We had a veteran crew, a house reader in every room, the least experienced of whom has been a full-time reader in at least 10 tournaments. I had exactly zero complaints about our readers Saturday. As one of the few people who has both this year's and last year's ACF Regionals questions on my computer, I checked. I used MS Word to do a word count of each round from both sets of regionals. Here are the stats (anyone who wants to see round by round numbers can e-mail me privately:) Mean words per round Tossups 1-20, 2003 Regionals: 1936.67 Tossups 1-20, 2004 Regionals: 2125.47 Bonuses 1-20, 2003 Regionals: 1923.47 Bonuses 1-20, 2004 Regionals: 2134.07 I leave it to others to debate whether the increased length was a good thing or a bad thing, but there's no denying its existence. Chris White wrote: > I thought that the tossups were mostly accessible, though I agree that > the boni were tougher than expected. Our team's bonus conversion this > year was virtually the same as last year, even though we've improved > quite a bit since then. It was frustrating for the first few rounds, > but then you just get used to it and know what to expect. > > But, (and this is the main reason I'm replying), I really have to > disagree with your condemnation of tossup length; your Regional's late > running time was not the fault of the questions. We played 12 rounds > at Rutgers and got to leave at 5:30, while it was still light out. If > rounds last an hour, it's the fault of the moderator, not the > questions. (Excellent job, Rutgers. Probably the smoothest-run > tournament I've ever attended.) > > -Chris, speaking only for himself -- ****************************************************************** Charlie Steinhice "Come, come! Why, they couldn't Chattanooga, TN hit an elephant at this dist..." (center of the known universe) -- Gen. John Sedgwick ******************************************************************
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