I also add my praise to the heap o' praise for ACF Nationals and the editing work of my fellow Raj. While challenging, the questions were more accessible than I'd expected, and the bonuses were well written for separating teams of different strength. In response to Nathan's message, I don't think the brackets were really that unbalanced, though the (I think unexpected) absence of Robert Trent of Vandy and Steve Perry of UVa weakened the other two brackets a bit. The X bracket included Michigan A, Princeton A, FAU, and Maryland A as its top four, while the Y bracket had Virginia, Berkeley, Pitt, Florida, and Swarthmore as its top 5, compared to Kentucky, FSU, Texas A&M, Harvard, and Chicago A in the Z bracket, so it's hard to say that any bracket was weak. FSU and Texas A&M may have simply outperformed expectations in the Z bracket -- I don't think many folks would have picked FSU and Texas A&M to both finish ahead of Harvard and Chicago A in the round robin. Speaking of which, FSU has indeed had a strong team all year, and I'm glad to see them place in the top bracket. I've faced them 7 or 8 times this year, and their strong showing here, especially on solid ACF questions, was certainly not a fluke. Nathan, Luke, David, and Osei are worthy of those mad props I hear so much about. Also, good job of running things by the GW and Maryland folks -- we had good moderators all day, and there were no big delays. And thanks for the donuts. --Raj Dhuwalia, FAU
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