If you take a few days off, you come back to find a ton of things waiting for you. For instance, my RSS reader has about 3000 messages waiting. Plan A: Read them all. Plan B: Erase them all.
No contest.
I did plug into the Tiggers once or twice over the Thanksgiving hiatus. First of all, we’ve now got the judges all plugged in, and the strikes and ratings are in progress. Then there was discussion about the schedule (which will probably be posted on the site today at some point). The big issue was the number of prelims in VLD. We started out with 6, going to double-octos, with a field of 160. Following the discussion on TVFT, CP wondered if we needed to amend things. First we kicked around the issue of the 24 non-breaking 4-2s and a possible runoff (i.e., a partial triple). I had some trouble getting this in my non-mathematical mind because of the sheer scope of it. That was more non-breaking than breaking4-2s. Something was wrong, somewhere. When I’ve ruminated on run-offs in the past, I’ve always been thinking a handful, like TOC, or a slightly bigger handful, like Big Jake. 24 is a bloody boatload. As a run-off, it just feels too big. It’s tantamount to another round altogether.
We could, of course, had simply said screw it and moved on as planned, but CP and I are not the type to say screw it. We’re more the type to say screw you, often to each other, but that’s another issue entirely. So we’ve nestled into the idea of a 7th prelim round. This sits nicely, I must say. A couple of 5-2s won’t break, but frankly, that’s life. It is a competition, after all, and that means there’s winners and losers. But with a field of 160, 7 rounds just seems right, so the balance of winners and losers is acceptable. If you win all but two, you’re pretty much guaranteed to break—not completely guaranteed but pretty much guaranteed. That’s not bad, sports fans. Probably the best solution possible short of infinite time with infinite judges. As I say, I’ve nestled into the idea. Then again, I’m quite the nestler.
One offshoot of this will be an almost guaranteed contagion to other tournaments. What hath we wrought? Normal high school tournaments won’t change much, but colleges and three-day octos-qual puppies are in deep doo-doo. If Princeton can hold 7 rounds for 160, then, fr’instance, what’s Yale’s excuse? You start seeing where this is leading. Whether players like Glenbrooks will come around or not remains to be seen, but you’ve got to look at the odds. Let’s say you’re looking for quals. You can go to a n-round tournament with a x-size field and know that you can lose two and survive, or not, and it costs $Z to go to that tournament for the chance at whatever number of bids. You’ll do the math and, unless you have more money than brains, you’ll act accordingly. In other words, Bietz’s casual tweet about money paid versus rounds offered takes on a life of its own.
And you thought Twitter was worthless. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
6 comments:
I think Princeton's move is highly commendable. Nice work.
gbrooks is 7 rounds
Screw you.
Charles is right. But how many 5-2s don't break? Honestly, I would want the perfect tournament to be the right number of rounds and then all with a certain record break. Absent that, then the math comes into play.
A commendable effort. While there is difference between the number of rounds that debaters think they won, and the difference between that and the number of rounds the JUDGES think the debaters won, this goes far in narrowing the ratio/function/sequence/associative property/imaginary numbers gap.
Next stop: Logarithms and the art of the tab.
Yes, it's well possible Glenbrooks' 7 rounds are not enough -- and it's not just a matter of whining about there not being enough time to schedule another. If a tournament can't handle scheduling in 7 rounds to fairly cut 160 down to 32, then perhaps they shouldn't have taken 160 debaters in the first place? The profit motive shouldn't be allowed to push these things beyond a certain natural capacity.
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