I know I may be resurrecting a thread that already died here, but I thought about this over the weekend and came up with a little different angle on the whole format wars thing. Many people this time around have pointed out that, whether you're playing CBI, NAQT, ACF or other, there are a very limited number of teams who have a legitimate chance to win the tournament. So how do you determine the best team and still keep everyone else interested? Every format which runs a national championship faces this issue, and every one deals with it in a different way. ACF, being some sort of amorphous not-for-profit collection of disembodied brains, does not have to worry about customers, and so, basically ignores this question. (Actually, I think it can ignore the question since the customers write the questions themselves, and are ultimately responsible for them.) NAQT uses questions on which one of the very best teams will almost definitely win. They keep the rest of their customers happy by creating a proliferation of titles so that a number of other school can think they won something. This is one perfectly good way of addressing the issue. CBI, on the other hand, addresses it by creating a game (question difficulty and format both factor into this) in which upsets are possible and more teams believe they have a shot at doing well. In addition, they placate teams who finish poorly with food, sightseeing, and basically as Jason Keller said, a conference atmosphere. IMHO, while this does not justify their prices, it is also a legitimate way of dealing with the issue at hand. Unfortunately I have never played in a TRASH tournament, (though I have often wanted to) so I can't comment there, but I would guess they also have some sort of strategy thought out. just my bucket of drachma, Dargan
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