Re: 'Ideal' number of rounds?

Samer summarized:
" As Eric and Nathan have
pointed out, a lot of people do prefer to play as many
rounds as possible. "

Playing the Devil's
Advocate here, there are certain limits that determine
"what's possible" in terms of the number of rounds.
Though I like playing this game as much as the next
trivia-addict-who-spends-far-too-much-time-doing-this, there are advantages to a one-day
tournament:

-Saturday-only tournaments allow people to actually attend their
classes on Friday. 

-One day tournaments allow the
attending teams to spend possibly zero, probably 1 night in
a hotel (driving home Saturday night) - saving
money over tournaments requiring two nights
stay.

-Fewer days means fewer conflicts, essentially, so it is
easier to get more teams for a one day affair.

In
short, a multiple-day tournament will tend to be great
for the teams with a large enough budget, or for
those players who would gladly skip class in order to
play qb.

As far as going for 18 rounds in a
single day - this has disadvantages as well. This is
definitely a marathon for all concerned: players and
officials as well. I don't know about anyone else, but I
get exhausted playing qb, and often feel pretty awful
after about a dozen rounds. I've never played more than
15 rounds in a day, but if I wasn't having fun, I
wouldn't want to repeat it. 

As well, I've been to
several single-day tournaments that had FAR less than 18
rounds that still ended around 8pm (or later!). To
account for such things as the Penn Bowl tradition of
locked doors (and the delays that strike all
tournaments), you would probably want to plan on finishing at
an earlier hour, but ready to finish a couple of
hours later should disaster strike. 

Personally,
I still would love to try such things as the
24-hour qb tournament, and play as many games as
possible. However, when the tournament becomes so long as
to be inconvenient (or even unpleasant!) you'll lose
many of your customers.

Rob

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