Re: ACF Fall thoughts (long) -- part I

ratatosk22 <*no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com*> · Mon, 04 Nov 2002 19:13:35 -0000

Warning:  as it says in the subject, this is a long message... please 
skip if you don't care about detailed question analysis/criticism.

First, I want to thank and congratulate Case Western Reserve 
University and tournament director Allison Manzuk for running a 
logistically flawless ACF Great Lakes Fall tournament.  The crew 
handled being kicked out of their original control room excellently, 
the rounds ran on time, and the moderators ranged from good to 
outstanding (special thanks to Kevin Olmstead, Dwight Kidder, and 
Stephanie Walker).  I'd recommend everyone to attend tournaments held 
there in the future, provided you can brave the insanely low wind 
chills (brrr!).

Now this message is a bit difficult for me to write, because I 
realize that over the years I have developed a well-earned reputation 
for being a complainer, so this may seem like sour grapes.  However, 
at least on some points, I am going to take what appears to be a 
minority position, and disagree with the near-unanimous praise for 
Kelly's ACF Fall set.

Let me make this disclaimer as well:  in no way am I saying that 
Kelly's questions were poor.  In my opinion, they were fair to good; 
thus I was disappointed because I expected them to be excellent. 

Also, there were a couple of aspects that I found were outstanding.  
First, I liked the fact that writers and editors were not afraid to 
return to some more traditional question subjects, such as presidents 
or chemical elements.  More importantly, these stock questions were 
written with a lot more substance than they used to be, so that good 
players could answer them before the formulaic "atomic number" 
or "election year" giveaway.  Only one of the name the element 
questions reached the atomic number, because good clues, as opposed 
to boiling points or discoverers or "silvery-white metal" were 
included.

I also agree with Nathan in that Kelly did a good job in finding new 
clues for accessible answers.  I didn't like it while I was playing, 
because it caused me to sit on toss-ups a lot more than usual, but 
afterward I realized that this was an effective format to give 
younger players a fairer chance against crusty dinosaurs such as 
myself.

That's the positive side; now I don the proverbial asbestos suit in 
preparation for the second part of my post:  criticisms.