Eric wrote: "Adam's idea of totalling the scores from the first two rounds is a fine variant, especially since Round 1 (with unequalized rooms) is much shorter than the roughly-equalized Round 2, so Round 2 would still retain a weightier weight. Bill's idea of actually weighting these two rounds equally is NOT a good idea, unless you change the whole approach, seed the field by hand for Round 1, and make the two rounds of equal length." Actually, both the singles events this weekend used rounds of equal length for all seeding rounds. I like the idea of adding the scores, just to give the appearance that round 1 counts for more than a reshuffling of the players. I have no rigorous defense of my suggestion, other than its been used in speech competitions forever, and I never heard anyone complain about it. There is never any attempt at seeding, except to keep speakers from the same school (hs or college) from being in the same room when possible. Contestants get some randomly paired rounds (often 3) and the n lowest totals (often a multiple of 6) proceed to the outrounds. I'm not convinced that the Hilleman round 2 will make all rooms equal, as if rooms in round 1 are grossly more/less talented than the others, there will be a residual effect in round 2. Having moderated both of Adam's round in FOIST, I would have to say that Round 2 was on balance a much more challenging round for Adam, even though if had players who finished lower than him in the previous round. I guess what I'm really advocating here is for somebody to propose something that doesn't eliminate a player from the playoff based on a single round. We've heard an endless chorus against single-elim playoffs, so I guess my and others' comments are just a variant on the refrain. Bill
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