I'm feeling much more like my genial self tonight, and I hope the tone of what I'm about to say reflects it. No disrespect is intended for Chris, with whom we've always enjoyed friendly dealings re question trades, etc. Also, I don't want to convey the impression that I'm blasting Raj's editing work. I did think the questions were longer than they needed to be, and one side effect I noted is that less experienced teams sometimes tuned out a tossup after the first four or five lines, only to be caught napping when the answer turned out to be Venus or Rachmaninoff or something else they knew by question's end. But all in all I thought the 2004 questions, especially the tossups, were (while still tougher than I'd prefer) less esoteric and more gettable than the last couple of years' ACF Regionals. Now to tonight's sermon: I'd like to say a few words in defense of chatter between questions. Within reason, it helps the game, in at least three ways: 1) If you've been to a UTC tournament, you've heard, ad nauseum, Charlie's Three Rules of Competition ("Rule #1: Winning beats losing. Rule #2: Losing beats getting stomped. Rule #3: Getting stomped still beats not playing.") and Eileen's Corollary ("If you can't be right, be funny".) I believe this attitude contributes a lot to the success of the UTC program. ACF Southeast Regionals (even with late cancellations by the only two schools planning to come up from Florida) had this year's biggest field, 14 teams -- more than double the average for the other six regionals -- from 10 different schools. And I don't think mere geography explains it. Like it or not, there is a social aspect to the game. At every tournament, half the matches will be losses, and often those losses aren't pretty. Sometimes the bad puns and stray strange facts thrown in between questions provide the only enjoyment the losing team gets, and as long as it's within reason, there's no harm done to the winners. One of the highlights of Saturday for me was hearing the two UTC players still playing at the end of the evening give a series of three bonus answers that made the team steamrolling them, Kentucky's Seth Kendall et al., laugh out loud. (Their answers for the three knights from the Faerie Queen were Bobby Knight, Jordan Knight and -- once they heard the third was female -- Gladys Knight.) Looking at it from the anti-chatter perspective, that laughter wasted maybe 15-30 seconds. Me, I think it was worth it. I don't know if it's true in other regions, but a lot of our teams pay out of their own pockets to come to tournaments. So I hate to tell paying customers to shut up and stick to the game exactly as written. We grimace at the phrase "it's only a game," but if it's not enjoyable, most of us have better things to do with our weekends. Which brings us to... 2) We are dependent upon volunteer moderators. In our case most come from at least two hours' drive away, on their own time. Yes, we buy them dinner, but there are other ways to get to eat out. So I hate to tell volunteer *readers* to shut up and stick to the game exactly as written. Saturday evening I did just that with 5 rounds to go, and the remaining rounds were each only 2-3 minutes shorter. 3) Finally, the chatter often contributes to the development of players' future playing success. As I was reminded by several specific instances at our practice tonight, the questions the UTC players are most likely to get are the ones about stuff they've heard stories or bad jokes about before. So even if you don't see the point of enjoying the moment more, you can at least view the chatter as a memory aid. Hey, where else in this life do we get to repeat our best Augusto Pinochet joke, whinny whenever someone mentions Field Marshall Blucher, or hear a whole room laugh when someone says, "Mmmm..... Doenitz"*? I'm not saying to let the chatter go on and on -- unless it's a trash tournament, where as I see it that's a MAJOR reason we're all there. But please don't get so concerned with the formal game process that you squeeze out one of the best things it engenders. P.S. Re round speed: In general, except when we host a timed tournament like NAQT, the people who read at UTC tournaments don't read as absolutely fast as they could. I deliberately don't, because when I do, people complain that they can't catch the words -- once upon a time I was a DJ, and I'm fond of Gilbert and Sullivan patter numbers, so I can really spit 'em out once I'm warmed up. Besides, we're still talking much faster than most Southerners. (* For the record, that was Jason King, former Georgia Tech and Georgia standout.) Chris White wrote: > Eh, perhaps I was a bit harsher/more unclear than I could have been. > > My main point wasn't that I prefer 9-line tossups (6 or 7 is plenty > long enough for even the most gradually sloping pyramid), nor did I > wish simply to heap opprobrium on a Regional I didn't attend (though I > did wish to single out Rutgers for praise). With 3 more rounds, and > many more teams, you could hardly expect to be done as early as we were. > > It's just that, after attending a tournament with virtually half-hour > rounds on long questions, I find it hard to believe that those extra > words were the only factor. Perhaps the "chatter in between > questions" alluded to can be targeted as the culprit, rather than the > moderators themselves. I don't know. > -- ****************************************************************** Charlie Steinhice "Come, come! Why, they couldn't Chattanooga, TN hit an elephant at this dist..." (center of the known universe) -- Gen. John Sedgwick ******************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:47 AM EST EST