E.T. Chuck wrote: ...the last couple of years' data with Chicago clearly earning the "bye" would be a good argument. (end quote) It should be mentioned that while Chicago earned both byes last year, we did not earn either of them the year before that. Harvard (who had clearly been the best team through the first part of the tourney) received the first bye by beating Stanford in round 1 (I'm pretty sure this is what happened), and then Stanford beat Harvard in game #3 to earn the second bye. Chicago beat Harvard in round 4, and Stanford went on to beat us in the final for their well-earned national championship. (Jesse admitted to me later that Stanford was rooting hard for us to win that last ladder play game; that Harvard team was scary...) I remember complaining about that round before the tournament on the national list & how even if the #2 team had performed significantly better than the #3 team throughout the entire tourney, it would still come down to that one packet to decide between them for the finals. I'm still not sure I like this, though admittedly it worked in my favor 2 years ago. (I remember Eric H made some really good argument comparing this format to other ones that mostly convinced me that this was OK but I guess I never completely bought it.) Anyways, just wanted to clear up the history. (Obviously there was no ladder play at the first NAQT 3 years ago...) -Mike, sad that there will be an NAQT ICT final which doesn't include him... :)
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