Warning: The following comments are from a man who has played in exactly one tournament in the last 3 years, and who, even in his peak, was never considered anything other than a role player. People love to bitch. Man, do they love to bitch. 1. Buzzer races are the price you pay for a timed match. If you want a question with finely-researched clues, the first of which only is familiar to 5% of the teams playing on it, why don't you try ACF? NAQT's mission is to get through a lot of questions. All the more so, as Joon pointed out, at a championship-level tournament. 2. "The questions at this tournament in my area of expertise were too easy." It seems like this comment is made on a monthly basis, at least... especially after a big tournament like a Penn Bowl or a national tournament. People love to criticize the questions that seem to them to be too easy. We hear about this most often when the area in question is a large one -- in this case, Math. For some reason people seem to expect that question-writers' knowledge of their field be at least as high as theirs. It happens to all of us, even me, although it only happened once to me that I recall. "How can you mention that the main seminary of this movement of Judaism is based in Cincinnatti in the first question?" Then I thought a moment and said, "You know, not one other person at this tournament is applying at this very moment to that school. I guess the question is ok." At a tournament with so many outstanding players (and quite a few mediocre players like I used to be), there are bound to be few questions that seem easy to absolutely no one. In conclusion, chill out. Sure, go ahead and complain about the answers. I too have trouble that a tournament that has, as it's aim, to have most of its questions answered, would ask about something most people have studied, like the Peloppenesian War (that's my spelling and I'm sticking to it). But don't complain about your field.
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