CBI Reg 15 stuff...

williechen7 · Wed, 21 Feb 2001 22:30:53 -0800

Hello, everyone!

In CBI Region 15, UCLA
beat USC to win the region. UC Irvine came in third
(yeah!) and UC San Diego came in fourth. Nine teams
played a full round robin followed by a bracketed
playoff: The top 4 teams played double-elimination and the
bottom 5 played single-elimination.

After a few
days of thinking about the tournament, here are some
of my thoughts:

1. I applaud CBI for writing
*much* better questions this year and for continuing to
strive to write better, more academic packets. I
previously thought Southey belonged to ACF Regionals. With
the dramatic decrease in spelling, matching, and
multiple-guessing questions, CBI definitely raised the bar this
year on question quality. Congratulations!

2.
Region 15 Tournament Director Don Tucker of CSU
Sacramento showed much professionalism in running the
tournament, complete with up-do-the-minute stats and fabulous
facilities.

3. The moderators (Trevor, Ron, Mark, Mr. Tuttle,
et. al) were first-rate QB veterans. They were simply
outstanding.

Here're some suggestions for future CBI
tournaments:

1. Avoid down time and maximize game play. There
were too many byes and breaks. If somehow we could get
four rooms going (like, we don't really need 5 people
to staff a room, do we?), the 9 teams could have
easily played a *double* round robin followed by a
playoff. Considering how much our school had to pay for
entry fee, to play 16+ rounds in two days isn't asking
for too much.

2. Non-verbal communication and
recognition rules. It struck me how seriously CBI takes
offense at non-verbal communication on tossups! If we
really wanted to cheat, we could have kicked each other
to signal--the tables were skirted perfectly to
allow such covert operation!! As far as recognition
rule goes, that is a thing of the past. When College
Bowl was on radio, they had to recognize players to
answer; otherwise, how would the listener know who buzzed
in? The rule still made sense when College Bowl was
on TV--just as Alex Trebec continues to recognize
contestants. It works as a sound bridge to the insert shot of
the contestant answering the question. But, now,
College Bowl is neither on radio nor on TV, so why does
CBI continue to embrace this ancient rule? (On a
personal note, my team got jabbed by the recognition rule
twice, which actually cost us one game in the round
robin against USC.)

3. Long bonuses. In a timed
format, long, convoluted, and non-pyramidal lead-in clues
on bonuses can be very frustrating, particularly to
team that is trailing. It's good that we get to
interrupt on pyramidal ones, but on the non-pyramidal ones
we're just sitting there wondering what the heck was
the question asking for. In the future, please make
the bonuses concise and
to-the-point.

Otherwise, I thought the tournament was well-run and
provided much fun for all participants, despite the
mysterious disappearance of Stanford, Pomona, and all the
Hawaii teams. I'd also like to apologize--to Mary and to
Ron--for the few inadvertantly blunt remarks I made during
the tournament. I realize that ACUI and CBI people
are sincerely trying to run a good tournament, and it
is the intent that counts.

Yours
truly,

Willie Chen
UC Irvine College Bowl