Bump 2013

Having some time free over Labor Day, I set up Bump for 2013, starting with dropping off the trophy order, and then moving into updating and, finally, posting the new invitation.

You’d think that this would be a no-brainer, since I’ve been doing this since the Buchanan administration, but every year it’s something new, for one reason or the other. I kept a lot of notes from last year, and acted on all of them, except for the one where if someone didn’t show up to judge their round I’d feed them into the school guillotine (and this wasn’t out of compassion, but simply because the school guillotine is usually tied up with other business, which is why you can always get ahead at Hen Hud). So in many ways the tournament, however old, is new again.

We did get some more space back in the grammar school, but I’m sticking to my original decision to limit novice to LD only. This is a bad decision economically, but it’s better to have one robust fully subscribed event than to have two restricted events with a lot of people not getting into either of them. I still maintain that PF gets shafted in general for lack of novice/JV events, but I can only do what I can do. And God knows I push for Academy and the MHL. Still…

Secondly, I’m going entirely waitlist. There are just schools that have pissed me off so many times that I don’t want them around. If I get money hungry at the end, maybe I’ll let them in, but those teams that have repeatedly told me that their judges are leaving now even though they’re still obligated? Ta-ta. Keep in mind that this is an invitational; the nature of the internet makes it look like everyone is invited, but no, just some people.

Thirdly, last year we had no housing because of the hurricane, and adjusted the schedule accordingly. Given that housing is one of our biggest headaches because of the small size of our team, I’m limiting housing to schools out of commuting distance, i.e., beyond NYC, and holding on to that adjusted schedule. Get out around 9:30 Friday night. Catch the 7:43 train out of Grand Central Saturday morning and you’ll be walking through our doors at five minutes to nine. Not terrible. If you don’t like it, rent a motel room.

Fourth, five rounds of LD into a runoff of some sort. We don’t need 6 rounds for a semis bid.

There may be some other little things, but those are the biggies. Of course, the invitation itself sounds rather hysterical, because I’m responding to the miscreants with restrictions and judge fines and whatnot, whereas the overwhelming majority of folks are in fact very good debate citizens. But what can you do? The whole thing is posted on my site and at tabroom.com, and there you are. Registration opens October 1. May the Lord have mercy on your heathen souls.