After participating in Cornell's Big Red Royal Rumble on Saturday, I would like to thank Cornell for hosting a fun tournament. The atmosphere was relaxed and the competition enjoyable. That being said, I would like to offer some constructive criticism for the Cornell staff, and ANYONE who runs a tournament. Around 8:30, when registration was supposed to begin, ONE person from the Cornell team arrived and began setting up in a room different from where we were told to meet. He was confused as to where the rest of his team was, and indeed parts of the Cornell house teams arrived long before the tournament staff. Although the e-mail message said registration would begin at 8:30 and rounds hopefully at 9:00... it was after nine by the time all the tournament hosts actually arrived! No one expects tournaments to start on time, but the team itself didn't seem to care what time they had told everyone else to be there, and arrived quite late themselves. I noticed that there was no actual registration; no one paid at the beginning, and there were no rules, schedules or tournament info handed out. It was a small tournament, I understand not wanting to waste money on paper. However, it seemed that Cornell itself had not worked out any schedule at all! They began by randomly deciding who would play who, writing the info on the board, and then choosing a packet accordingly. This was okay for one round, considering that one of the teams arrived late, but the lack of organization and timing became apparent. The first six rounds took almost five hours! Moderating was my biggest sore point of the day. We were not told which style or rules the tournament would be following, save for the fact that "blitzing is allowed." This might have worked, had not each of the three moderators had an entirely different set of rules they seemed to be following! In one room, the moderator constantly interrupted the questions to give their own commentary on the material, despite many prompts from the teams to "please continue reading." To their benefit, however, this moderator actually counted to five on a bonus and then prompted the team for an answer. In another room, the moderator read way too fast and inarticulately, despite the polite request to "please read a little slower!" This moderator had their own strange way of running bonuses... sometimes they would prompt, sometimes they merely waited for the team to start to speak! They were clearly not counting the usual five seconds given to begin a bonus, which would have been okay, each tournament is allowed its own style, save for the fact that I counted on three successive bonuses: fifteen seconds, no prompt, eight seconds, no prompt, and then ten seconds and a prompt. The inconsistency was the most frustrating thing I have ever dealt with in playing. The general lack of tournament organization led to painful, drawn out rounds, poor moderating, and seemingly unedited and ridiculous packets. When what turn out to be the top two teams in the tournament get a COMBINED total of less than 100 points on a packet, something is wrong. That plus the fact that until five minutes before the round started, the hosts had no idea which packet they were using! I heard a moderator ask the director: "Such and such packet now? Okay, sounds good to me!" Despite all, we had a good time, punctuated unfortunately by some rounds which were as painful as pulling teeth! Extreme congratulations to the Maryland team, Maureen, Shaun, Alvin and Alan (?) who it was a pleasure to play against, and an honor to place second to. Also, the Rutgers team gave us quite a run for our money, and I was blown away by their knowledge. Thanks also to my team of Kathy, Joe, and James, who made the day enjoyable for me, and combined to be a lethal combination for most teams. Thanks again to Cornell, despite my bitching, for what turned out to be a fun day, and good tournament experience. Sincerely, ~ Dorri Friedman
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