Ah, I am reminded of a tournament where Carnegie Mellon beat the second place finisher in our bracket but had losses elsewhere and lost a circle of death tiebreaker. The end result: four rounds of 200+ point wins in a low-end playoff bracket. Until tournaments stop resisting using formats like power-matched records and ladder play, what do you expect? My degree in statistics tells me that all statistical tiebreakers are evil. *Especially* head-to-head, which only ends up punishing the team who lost to their equal and does not punish the team who lost to a lower-ranked opponent. In my opinion, if at all possible play some more questions. To the question at hand, I think multiple brackets had at least four good teams ('98s #2 Dwight was fourth in his group). So somebody had to miss the cut. It happens, and when tournament use playoff "brackets", it will always happen. A few other thoughts: I've learned to stop complaining about individual statistics -- because they're always off a little. TRASH was no exception. I am listed as the lowest player, but in fact I did not play 10 rounds. The reason I did not is because "Bill & Mike" was the 33rd team of the tournament. We were let off the waitlist, only to be put back on. This happened because a team said it wasn't coming, and then decided it was playing -- after we bought our plane tickets. Then we were allowed to play (with two non-CMU players, making a team of five) when it appeared that Witchita wasn't going to show. When they did show around tossup nine of round one, I spent that round in the hall wondering why I had even gone to the tournament at all. Everyone got to play--even if it wasn't with the teammates they expected, so TRASH did attempt to remedy these snafus. I guess the morals I'd like to leave are: - please don't change your mind multiple times about attending a tournament when others are hoping for a chance to play, and - please don't put teams back onto the waiting list, especially after travel arrangements are made. Don't take this to mean that I'm angry - because I did have a nice time seeing people and was exceptionally impressed by the game show round, which I got to play twice. I know that I'm never going to be a good trash player, because I don't pay attention to a lot of the topics that are covered (except tennis - which was great to hear for a change). I just go to have a good time -- and did regardless of anything above. Bill
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