In which we scrub the TBAs

The whole TBA thing is a bit fuzzy. Or more to the point, I think those of us who run tournaments don’t all think of it the same way. This is my thinking on the subject. 

As a general rule, I open all tournaments as waitlist only. This does a couple of things. First, if you wait a while before accepting entries, it removes the onus of teams having to get in under a very arbitrary clock. Giving people a couple of weeks to sign up makes a lot more sense than rewarding the person who got in a minute before you did. Early birditude is not a warrant for acceptance into a tournament. Back when Big Bronx used to open at midnight, and fill up before dawn, too many legitimate teams were left in the dust while some student who was up late stole as many slots as possible regardless of the intention to fill them all. Obviously this was not a good situation. So there’s the balance of opening registration and shortly thereafter accepting entries in the fairest way possible.

The other main reason for opening waitlist-only is to cut out the independent entries. It is easier to gatekeep people coming in than pulling people out. Legitimate entries will do their due diligence, and there will be no problem. Mavericks who think the world owes them a debate tournament, not so much.

In any case, when you start letting people in, there are a lot of TBAs, especially at an event like Big Bronx which opens registration about a month before the northeast even goes back to school. We don’t really start until after Labor Day, so it would be a total fiction to list actual entries, while at the same time most schools know pretty well that they will come, and will want a certain number of slots. Given the pressures of the big numbers at this sort of event, usually that’s as many slots as they can get.

But now, it’s a month before the tournament. You ought to know by this point who you’re sending. If you don’t, it’s on you. Meanwhile, I’ve got 246 teams waitlisted, primarily in PF. I want to let in as many legitimate entries as possible. So, I’ll scrub the TBAs. This won’t do much, though. First of all, it only automatically scrubs them from the waitlists, but that’s a start. Then I’ll go in and pull them out by hand if they’re already registered. Most people will have put in names. The ones that didn’t won’t be that many, but it will open up some slots for others. Yes, I know, some people will put in dummy names, but if someone goes to that much trouble, it means they really do plan to come. They can change those names later.

And finally, scrubbing the TBAs starts to make the tournament seem real. It’s not all hopes and dreams anymore. It’s real people, going to a real event.

One more month.