I disagree with there being only six teams that
can win the whole thing (for those going to CBI
nationals, I wish you good luck with Providence...) as there
are enough CBI qustions taking unusual turns near the
end of them that depth of knowledge is not as
important. Buzzer speed is certainly much more important in
CBI than in any other format and that is not limited
to teams with quiz bowl experience.
As far
as decent teams who have abandoned the CBI format, I
can say that Yale and Harvard have not attended CBI
regionals in a while, which has made Division 1 less
imbalanced of a region, but still difficult
enough.
And finally, the questions are not the best because
of the multiple choice questions and questions that
are only buzzer races, but we tend to do better on
CBI then other formats, so I can't be too negative
towards them. Still, they seemed a little lower quality
this year then in past years.
Michael