Re: ACF Midsouth Regionals: brief results

Charlie Steinhice <steinhic_at_steinhice.yahoo.invalid> <*steinhic_at_steinhice.yahoo.invalid*> · Mon, 17 Feb 2003 06:25:14 -0000

Sleep deprivation has rendered this quizmaster somewhat less genial 
than usual; apologies in advance to Matt or anyone else if I offend.

--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, Matt Weiner 
<darwins_bulldog1138_at_y...> wrote:
> <<As noted in Dan's post, Florida entered the finals
> one game down to Vanderbilt, but beat Vandy in a full
> round and then in a shootout, on tossup 20.  Vandy
> thus finished 2nd (duh);  Indiana was 3rd, and (by a
> tiebreaker shootout over Emory A) South Carolina A 
> finished 4th.  >>
> 
> I guess this is my day for negativity...does ACF have
> a policy about mutilating the fundamental nature of
> the packets in order to play these "shootouts"?
> 
> --M.W.

If ACF has any policy regarding tournament format, scheduling, 
seeding, tiebreakers, etc., I sure didn't find it on their website.  
However, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga DOES have a
policy -- that said we were to be out of their buildings by 11 PM.  
Even with the abbreviated method, we barely made it.  

I'd figured ACF Regionals rounds would take 5-10 minutes per round 
more than the norm for our own untimed tournaments, so I scheduled 
only 12 rounds plus two rounds of playoffs.  We still wound up 
starting playoffs about an hour and a half after I'd expected, and 
only 15 minutes of that was due to our late start (babysitting issues 
delayed my arrival, for which I take full responsibility.)  

What's more, since everyone hates tiebreakers other than record, we 
said in advance we wouldn't use them, and this forced a play-in game 
for the 4th playoff spot.  So we had four options:

1) Go back on what we stated in writing on the schedules, kill the 
playoffs altogether, award trophies based on record, and listen to 
those within striking distance of first complain (and justifiably.)

2) Hold single-elimination playoffs, about as popular as head lice.  

3) Hold double-elimination playoffs with advantage for better record, 
using full rounds.  That would have been the fairest system -- but 
very possibly would have been interrupted somewhere during the 
semifinals when the university would've turned off all the lights on 
us.  (Besides, with a play-in game for the 4th playoff spot, we 
*didn't have enough rounds.*)

4) Hold double-elimination playoffs with advantage for better record, 
using the tossup-only shootout for the 3rd match if necessary 
(and hoping that we wouldn't need shootouts for both the semis and
the finals 'cause we would have had to scavenge unread extra tossups 
from the ends of used packets to have enough!) 

I think we chose the best available option of the four.  But you know 
what?  Even if it wasn't the best option, or if the issues arose 
because our initial schedule was flawed to begin with, there was 
nothing on paper to tell us so.  I've good-naturedly complained from 
time to time about the extra level of detail NAQT gives in its 
instructions -- they're long enough that old guys like me with fading 
memories can't always keep 'em straight -- but ACF could learn a
thing or two.  Too much guidance is better than too little.

And as for the "fundamental nature of the packets," in one respect it 
forced the decision: Many of those questions were just too long.  I 
know I can be a wordy question writer myself, but few answers really 
require tossups that run seven or eight lines in 10 point type, or 
bonus parts that run three lines.