In which we look at other upcoming events

There are some tournaments coming up. The problem with a couple of them is that they don’t have rooms yet, which means that it’s a crapshoot accepting entries. You don’t want to overdo it, and you don’t want to underdo it. It’s a pain in the neck.

We go through this every year with the Gem of Harlem. We’ve cleared the waitlists as much as we can, but until we know for sure where we are, we’re probably underbooked. That’s no big deal for local schools, but for those who have to travel, waiting is problematic. I’ll take one last look before the holiday, but I can’t really move much without confirmation. Sigh.

On the Penn front, at least there’s a little more time. But there’s a lot more entries (and I have no idea why). Again I’ve tried to accommodate the travelers, but one can only do so much in that direction. I’ve posted a deadline to remove TBAs (and, come to think of it, should do the same with the Gem). That’ll help. I know that with both schools, the lack of room confirmations is not from lack of trying on their part. The administrations simply don’t understand the complexity of the operation, and probably never will. I’m okay making room assumptions with Columbia because we’ve been there and done that, but with Penn on the new weekend, who knows?

Sigh.

On an easier front, I sent out a confirmation to folks that Bump will be the same as last year, a simple one-dayer. And I look forward to Bigle X because all I have to do there is show up and start tabbing. I’m still not sure if we’ll be in the middle school or the high school. I prefer the latter because of walking access to downtown, even though walking around in Lexington in January isn’t exactly a jaunt in the park. But there is that good ice cream place, and is there any joy so great as carrying an ice cream cone half a mile and not having it even think of melting?

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In which we debrief on our forensical weekend

There is something about running a little tournament with about 250 teams, all in one day, where everyone is captive because the weather is dreadful. Things just work. You post a round, people pick up their ballots (although you usually have to chase down one or two judges who don’t have phone numbers in tabroom) and students show up and there you are. That, in the proverbial nutshell, was this year’s “Kristmas Klassik at Regis Really at Stuyvesant, AKA the Christmas Classich.”

We did get nervous the middle of the week when we saw the weather prediction. It was pretty set: snow overnight on Friday. Most of the tournament attendees were city folk, so we agreed that there was no reason to think about cancelling. Catholic Charlie brought the medals over to my house. He had been heading up to Natick but, alas, they did cancel, so suddenly he was able to join us at his normal venue. We agreed that if it were horrible, I’d take the train with the hardware, and if the roads were okay, I’d pick him up and we’d drive down together. 

And snow it did, and I opted for the train. I slowly proceeded from home to depot way before the crack of dawn in serious snow but with the road to myself, managed to lug the eight thousand pounds of medals onto the train, checked to see who had cancelled (most of the suburbs) and then proceeded to fall asleep, waking up as we pulled into Harlem—the perfect train ride. From GCT it was an easy subway trek to Chambers Street and Stuyvesant, pleasantly marked by the presence of a quartet of obvious debaters from a school I will not mention who didn’t seem to understand the idea that the woman with the baby in the perambulator ought to get onto the subway car first, but, well, teens will be teens and this is the Age of Idiocy, after all. (I assume you follow my twitter account, which is where I spew most of my anti-Trumpie venom. Why should you have to suffer that jackass in a debate blog?)

Despite the storm, we got started almost on time, and things ran swell from there. Andrew G and his team headed up the policy side, and I did PF and LD with my own little team. There were a couple of judges who didn’t quite get the idea that they were there to do a job, and that whining about it to everyone from the principal down to the ordure removers wasn’t going to get him out of it. If I heard one more time from this one goober that he was filling in for his wife (the poor woman) I was going to throw him out the window. I always wonder why people insist on having sex sixteen years ago when the inevitable result will be having to take some responsibility for their children today. It goes with the territory, people. It's the price you have to pay when you fornicate. Jeesh.

We did the opening assembly in the theatre (yes, apparently with an r-e, as compared to an auditorium, which is so plebian and non-Stuyvesantian), but we did awards in the cafeteria. Frank R, who was helping me in tab, handed out the medals and trophies while I read the names. He was attacked like a wounded gnu laid on by lions and vultures, until there was nothing left of him but a ribcage and a few strips of flesh waving in the wind. I did manage to get away with my life, but only barely. Next time I’m going to bring a shark cage, the kind they put swimmers in, and toss the medals out like chum to the swirling predators. It will be safer all around.

Meanwhile we kept seeing bulletins from Blake complaining that it was cold in Minnesota in the winter. You’d think Facebook would have a button built in for that one. Just click on the frostbitten nose icon or something. Facebook should also have a standard button for people whose planes are delayed for umpty-ump hours on their way to tournaments. We all know it’s going to happen. Why is anyone surprised? If God had wanted humans to fly, He wouldn’t have created United Airlines.

And so the season goes into hibernation for a little while. But I still have some business to attend to, and attend to it I will. That’s just the kind of guy I am.

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In which, for the umpteenth time, we bemoan the loss of local events and hope the MHL can be rebuilt

I’m running a tournament with around 600 entrants this Saturday, mostly novices and JV. Could it be that there is a slight hunger abroad for rounds for the young ’uns? I mean, if you’re really on the hunt for TOC bids (in which case you should probably be summarily executed, but that’s just my opinion, and there are at least a dozen coaches and a lot of teenagers across the continent who disagree with me), you should start by getting a lot of rounds in your early years. Unfortunately, venues for those rounds are few and far between, at least around here.

The Paginator is talking about reviving the MHL. It can’t be repeated enough: the MHL disappeared not because of lack of people to run it, but because nobody was coming. Yes, Cruz and I were its guiding spirit, but there was already no one to guide when he met his particular fate and when I retired from coaching. MHLs were regularly cancelled for lack of interest, or barely viable if they did occur. A couple of local schools were stalwart, but most were unconcerned. How could a school that regularly appears at invitationals blow off the local educational league? Beats me, but that’s the way it was. New York City responded by building its own active league around the UDL, which is a good thing. And Jersey has its local contests. But that’s not enough. Yes, it is probably expensive to hire a bus for a one-day tournament, but I truly believe that it’s worth it, to mix it up away from familiar ground. (If nothing else, an activity that offers a lot of identity politics needs to be in an arena where the educational value of those politics can make a difference.)

Anyhow, I hope Marty can pull it off. He’s got interest from just about everybody he’s mentioned it to, but it will require a lot of pushing on his part. Most of the people who have expressed gunghoedness to the idea are the ones who didn’t show up back those couple of years ago. Talk, in other words, is cheap. So is offering your building on an open Saturday. What isn’t cheap? Turning up week after week with the greatest number of kids possible, not to get a TOC bid (FEH!) but to provide the greatest number possible the benefits of forensics beyond the competition. (And for that matter, as the TOC develops Silver Bids and Bronze Bids and MS Bids and Pre-K Bids and the like, how long will it survive—if it still even does—as the top branded debate tournament?)

Oh, well. I’ve got a tournament to run. I do hope there is no blizzard Friday night, as I have to drive down in the morning with a trunkful of mugs and medals because Catholic Charlie has to head up to Massachusetts with his team, leaving the rest of us alone and abaondoned and lugging his mugs and medals, the tattie howker!

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In which we show how the ball bounced

And this is what we ended up with. (SPOILER ALERT: Go back to yesterday's post first, if you missed it.)

A-School AAAAA

B-School BBBBB

Judge 5 from Hired 3-5 

Judge 6 from Hired 1-1

Judge 13 from Hired 4-3 

C-School CCCCC

D-School DDDDD

Judge 7 from A 1-1

Judge 8 from Hired 3-3          

Judge 12 Hired 5-5 

E-School EEEEE

F-School FFFFF

Judge 9 from C 1-1

Judge 10 from B 1-1

Judge 11 from Hired 5-5

The first pairing is the best we could get. Even though it’s one off, both debaters have a 1 and a 3 and a perceived stinker. I strongly believe that the number of mutuals takes priority over the numbers adding up, that is, a 1-1-5 is a lot stronger than a 2-2-3, even though they both add up to 7. 

The second pairing is probably the most difficult to parse as a debater, but it’s absolutely even, so the difficulty in reading them is absolutely identical. 

The third pairing is the best of the bunch. But I would give the same advice to my teams if they were in the second or third pairing: go for the 5! So often in breaks, debaters ignore the stinker because they feel that the stinker is illegitimate and beneath the debater’s contempt. They forget that the illegit stinker gets to cast a ballot just like everybody else, and, if you think about it, is probably the easiest to pick up, especially if your opponent blows off said stinker as well. The moment you reach out to the stinker, you’ve won that ballot. And doing so will never lose the other ballots, inevitably from tired judges who want to go home and who are perfectly happy to have you do the work for them. We teach that to our novices, but we forget it in the varsity divisions, even though it’s no less true.

Tabroom does most of the judge assignments well enough, but it will not discrimiante between the 1-1-5 and 2-2-3 as I will. That's why humans were invented in the first place.

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In which we offer to let you assign the judges

Someone complained about the assignment in this round. So let's play a game. I'll give you the options, you play around with it and see what you come up with. You can only use each judge once, and you can't have a judge seeing their own school. I've listed the available judges after each pairing; the reason all judges aren't listed equally is strikes and conflicts. 

Have fun. I'll tell you tomorrow what we did. 

A-School AAAAA

B-School BBBBB

Judge 4 from F 2-1

Judge 5 from Hired 3-5 

Judge 6 from Hired 1-1

Judge 8 from Hired 5-5

Judge 9 from C 4-1

Judge 11 from Hired 1-5 

Judge 13 from Hired 4-3 

C-School CCCCC

D-School DDDDD

Judge 1 from A-School 5-4

Judge 3 from A 4-2

Judge 4 from F 1-3

Judge 5 from Hired 5-3 

Judge 6 from Hired 1-1

Judge 7 from A 1-1

Judge 8 from Hired 3-3          

Judge 10 from B 2-5 

Judge 11 from Hired 3-1 

Judge 12 Hired 5-5 

E-School EEEEE

F-School FFFFF

Judge 1 from A-School 4-5

Judge 2 from D 2-1

Judge 6 from Hired 1-1

Judge 7 from A 2-1

Judge 8 from Hired 5-5

Judge 9 from C 1-1

Judge 10 from B 1-1

Judge 11 from Hired 5-5