Another Penn is in the history books. And it’s still one of
my favorite tournaments.
Driving down relatively early in the afternoon on Friday
meant that for the very first time, the traffic was fairly light. I always
think of Philadelphia as one of those traffic vortices that are impossible to
navigate, but the next thing I knew, I was pulling up to the hotel and some
helpful workers were grabbing my car and taking the key and hustling me inside.
It happened so fast I almost forgot to grab a hat, a mistake that would have
been costly over the ensuing days. Check in took half a sec, because I now have
an app that unlocks my doors via iPhone at this brand of hotel. Oh, the wonders
of science. (I realize that this would be a better story if I had discovered a
headless corpse in my room, but no such luck. You can’t win ‘em all.)
Penn is a crowded tabroom, but a fun one. Kaz and I once
again decided on judge calls, this time for PF, while letting the LD divisions
go electronic. This worked well, just like it did at the Tiggers. This time Kaz
took over the barker duties, since her voice carries better than mine, and she
seriously got into it. It is fun to run a room, if you like that sort of thing,
and most of us do, or we probably wouldn’t be so involved in public speaking
activities. Attendance was strong, and we pushed very few ballots and marked up
very few fines. Once people realize that you mean it, they do the right thing.
And on my end, I’m getting better at being nice in advance and assuming that
everyone will be on their best behavior, rather than cursing their very
existence before we even get there. I guess that pays off.
I was surprised and disappointed that the food court was
closed for the weekend. Apparently there was some sort of union action, but by
whom and for what reason I have no idea. I highly doubt that it had anything to
do with the tournament. This meant that the crepe place, which was open, did an
even more land office boom business than usual. I think the Penn tournament is
to them what Valentine’s Day is to Godiva, with lines out the door. The tab
room sent a myrmidon down to secure crepeage for the group in one swell foop.
Bananas and walnuts and strawberries and honey… Ahhhhh! Of course, Kaz and I
did fit in our annual cheesesteaks at a place not too far from the hub. A
little fresh air never hurt anyone. The tournament does have a tradition of
offering cheesesteaks delivered to the participants, but Kaz and I are choosy
that way.
Everything ran fine, except for one ridiculous glitch, where
tabroom wouldn’t assign judges in VLD. I have no idea why. So I’d quickly do it
by hand and then we’d all improve on the rankings. That was annoying.
Fortunately it wasn’t a humongous field, otherwise we would still be there. But
everything pretty much ran on time. There was also some confusion over room
assignments, which was my fault, but that was solved quickly and efficiently.
Here’s the deal: it’s a debate tournament, and some things are going to go wrong.
That’s what the tab room staff is there for. If the software and the wetware
all ran perfectly, we could let the computer do everything and order another
round of sake mojitos. So when something goes wrong, the ability to stay cool
and fix it is the key requirement of a tabber. Since no headless corpses were
discovered in the tab room after the tournament ended, I think we all fulfilled
that requirement. In fact, the only time I had to stop and count to ten was
when the Paginator started complaining long-distance about how we were doing things, while he
was up in Cambridge doing other things entirely. Apparently I didn’t publish
the brackets quickly enough for his tastes.
Feh!
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