Daniel Moerner Wins Stanford
Palo Alto's Avi Arfin Wins J.V. Title
Paul Tyger and Daniel Moerner
STANFORD, Cali. — The Stanford National Invitational came to a close in the early hours of Monday morning with a final round that featured Los Altos High School’s Daniel Moerner and Strake Jesuit College Preparatory School’s Paul Tyger; the two very talented debaters competed through six preliminary rounds that included over two hundred debaters and through an elimination round bracket that began with the top forty-eight debaters in the field. In the final round, Daniel defeated Paul on a 3-0 decision to win the Stanford title. Congratulations to both debaters!
Daniel is coached by Eric Palmer and Stephen Hess; Paul is coached by Jerry Crist, Gary Johnson, and Murvin Auzenne.
Congratulations are also in order for the two finalists in the tournament’s competitive junior varsity division: Palo Alto High School’s Avi Arfin and Redlands High School’s Jessica Kaushal! The J.V. division began with just over one hundred debaters and cleared the top twenty-four debaters into the elimination rounds. In the final round, Avi defeated Jessica on a 3-0 to win the title.
Avi is coached by Jennie Savage and Daniel Sheehan; Jessica is coached by Michael Newbold and Stephen Caperton.
—
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE
DOUBLES
Los Altos DM def. Lynbrook RR (Rohit Ramkumar)
Mountain View JM def. Rancho Bernardo TN (Tara Norris)
Monta Vista OA is forfeited to by Archer MS (Melissa Schall)
Hockaday JG def. Presentation NA (Nadia Arid)
Hockaday SV def. Strake Jesuit DD (David Donatti)
Analy CC def. Altamont SA (Sasha Arijanto)
Strake Jesuit PT def. Lynbrook GG (Gaurav Gupta)
Collegiate MW def. Hockaday LD (Lindsay Dolan)
Mountain View NP def. Gonzaga Prep AF (Augie Faller)
San Dieguito MS def. Strake Jesuit TL (Todd Liipfert)
St. Louis Park CT def. Meadows AK (Adrienne Keamy)
Palo Alto RR def. Mountain View DK (Daniel Khalessi)
Blake JS def. Mountain View DG (Daniel Garber)
Hopkins CD def. De La Salle TF (Tim Frank)
Rancho Bernardo CB def. Granada Hills ZA (Zita Aradi)
Monte Vista AW def. Carnegie Vanguard RV (Rachel Vogel)
OCTAS
Los Altos DM def. Mountain View NP (Natalee Pei)
Mountain View JM def. San Dieguito MS (Matt Slemon)
St. Louis Park CT def. Monta Vista OM (Om Alladi)
Palo Alto RR def. Hockaday JG (Joan Gass)
Blake JS def. Hockaday SV (Shivani Vohra)
Analy CC def. Hopkins CD (Conor Doherty)
Strake Jesuit PT def. Rancho Bernardo CB (Cameron Baghai)
Monte Vista AW is forfeited to by Collegiate MW (Marc Wallach)
QUARTERS
Strake Jesuit PT def. Monte Vista AW (Anna Ward)
Los Altos DM def. Mountain View JM (Jeff Merrill)
Palo Alto RR def. St. Louis Park CT (Catherine Tarsney)
Blake JS def. Analy CC (Chris Catterton)
SEMIS
Strake Jesuit PT def. Blake JS (John Scoggin)
Los Altos DM def. Palo Alto RR (Rahul Ramakrishnan)
FINALS
Los Altos DM def. Strake Jesuit PT (Paul Tyger)
CHAMPION
Los Altos DM (Daniel Moerner)
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Posted from: 205.134.251.132
February 8th, 2008 06:47
[...] Coverage Scarsdale: [...]
Posted from: 128.36.68.164
February 8th, 2008 16:13
i havent been to vbd in awhile but i couldnt help but notice that it resembles espn.com now
Posted from: 66.27.90.134
February 8th, 2008 17:09
good luck tara and cameron:D
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 8th, 2008 21:38
meadows as 1-0
analy cc 1-0
lynbrook ns 0-1
Posted from: 68.196.204.206
February 8th, 2008 21:49
Good luck to all those representing the fabulous state of New Jersey
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
February 8th, 2008 22:25
spirtos gotta be honest I never saw the point of updating after rd. 1, but I can’t rag on you for your efforts though.
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 9th, 2008 01:08
i mean as a debater when i wasn’t at a tournament i was always curious so i try my best
lynbrook ns 0-2
analy cc 2-0
meadows as 2-0
lynbrook rr 1-1
Posted from: 72.254.5.50
February 9th, 2008 01:29
Blake PO 1-1
I think John’s up at least 1, he didn’t get any disclosures.
Posted from: 72.254.55.97
February 9th, 2008 01:39
http://hs.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1010429022453&ref=share
if you have the means of viewing that i highly recommend it. (a glimpse into Phelan’s goals for the tourney)
Posted from: 72.254.5.50
February 9th, 2008 01:55
Matt and/or John (I’m guesing Matt by the email address but I’m not convinced Scoggin didn’t give you the idea). Please stop posting that link. It’s getting to the point where I find it harassment.
Posted from: 128.101.49.15
February 9th, 2008 01:59
in case you cant see the video you can use my facebook account:
email: julian.switala@gmail.com
password: wallri$goblin
Posted from: 38.114.142.192
February 9th, 2008 13:23
mvla jw- 2-1
mvla dk- 3-0
mvla dm- 3-0
lhs rr- 2-1
slp ct- 2-1
Hockaday jg-3-0
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 9th, 2008 13:24
analy cc: 3-0
Pres SG: 2-1
Meadows AK: 3-0
Meadows NB: 1-1
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 9th, 2008 13:39
Presentation NA: 3-0 (i thinK)
Meadows AS: 2-1
Meadows NB: 2-1
Posted from: 68.196.117.93
February 9th, 2008 16:11
Good luck Tara!
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
February 9th, 2008 16:42
gogo catterbaby racer
Posted from: 71.167.189.179
February 9th, 2008 17:58
garbert will win the tournament
Posted from: 38.114.142.116
February 9th, 2008 18:06
lhs gg- 3-1
lhs rr- 3-1
lhs cs- 3-1
lhs ns- 2-2
mvla dg- 3-1
pres na- 4-0
mvla dk- 4-0
mvla np- 4-0
mvla jw- 3-1
palo alto rr- 3-1
slp ct- 3-1
meadows nb-2-2
Posted from: 74.70.112.133
February 9th, 2008 20:14
ROHEEZY!
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
February 9th, 2008 20:52
I’m calling it for RAHUL
Posted from: 75.72.51.82
February 9th, 2008 22:09
hopkins cd: 4-1
Posted from: 72.254.14.68
February 9th, 2008 22:32
Millburn GB: 3-2
Millburn US: 3-2 (i’m not 100% sure)
Millburn KJ: 3-2 (also not 100% sure, missing a disclosure)
Posted from: 71.139.10.115
February 9th, 2008 22:33
Los Altos DM 5-0
Mountain View NP 5-0
Strake Jesuit PT 5-0
Mountain View JM 4-1
Mountain View MM 4-1
Mountain View DK 4-1
Mountain View JW 4-1
Hockaday LD 4-1
Posted from: 72.254.14.80
February 9th, 2008 22:40
todd is 5-0
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 9th, 2008 23:08
nick b: 3-2
amanda s: 2-2 no disclosure
chris catterton 5-0
Posted from: 69.228.187.235
February 10th, 2008 00:07
Hockaday JG 5-0
New Orleans Jesuit WS 4-1
New Orleans Jesuit AM 3-2
New Orleans Jesuit IJ 3-2
Posted from: 72.254.19.22
February 10th, 2008 01:25
Blake PO 5-0
Blake JS 0-5
Posted from: 72.254.21.212
February 10th, 2008 01:37
carnegie vanguard rv is 4-1
so are 1000000 other people
Posted from: 74.72.3.221
February 10th, 2008 08:37
Rachel, EMPLOY MY STRAT. IT’S NO FAIL.
Posted from: 74.68.51.212
February 10th, 2008 10:49
fish
Posted from: 38.114.142.88
February 10th, 2008 11:19
San Dieguito Acad ms 5-1
Rancho Bernardo TN 4-2
Rancho Bernardo CB 5-1
Posted from: 38.114.142.159
February 10th, 2008 11:47
Brentwood:
Brentwood MSh 4-2
Brentwood JL 4-2
Brentwood MSo 4-2
Brentwood MA 4-2
Brentwood BA 4-2
Archer:
Archer MS 5-1
Archer HR- 3-3
Posted from: 38.114.142.169
February 10th, 2008 12:39
lhs gg, rr, ns, cs are 4-2
Posted from: 38.114.142.96
February 10th, 2008 12:40
correction: lhs gg is 5-1
Posted from: 71.198.40.174
February 10th, 2008 12:57
Monta Vista OA: 6-0
Posted from: 76.175.197.13
February 10th, 2008 13:18
lets go brentwood.. hell yea
Posted from: 38.114.142.73
February 10th, 2008 14:15
lhs rr, lhs gg, los altos dm, hockaday jr, dinaddi (sp)
Posted from: 38.114.142.73
February 10th, 2008 14:15
those people broke
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 10th, 2008 14:20
Analy CC
MV DG
Palo Atlo RR
Hockaday db and jm i think
granda hills ZA
2 collegiate kids mw and a novice
rancho tn
hopkins
these are what i remember from someone reading the posting quickly to me
Posted from: 38.114.142.73
February 10th, 2008 14:24
lynbrook ns broke [it was put as 'mn' realier]
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 10th, 2008 14:30
the collegiate ‘novice’ is daniel straus, and hes not really a novice
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
February 10th, 2008 15:31
does someone have even partial parings?
Posted from: 38.114.142.73
February 10th, 2008 15:39
dinatti’s 2NR was BEAUTIFUL (says a friend)
dinatti def. jessie something from hockaday 3-0 judge decision
Posted from: 38.114.142.73
February 10th, 2008 15:40
judges also liked the 2NR a lot
Posted from: 128.135.224.166
February 10th, 2008 15:43
meadows ak won in partl trips
Posted from: 38.114.142.73
February 10th, 2008 15:55
lhs rr wins
Posted from: 70.56.7.18
February 10th, 2008 16:13
go rohit
Posted from: 128.135.224.166
February 10th, 2008 16:21
archer ms over brentwood jl
Posted from: 69.249.94.118
February 10th, 2008 16:41
did any millburn break?
Posted from: 150.108.232.25
February 10th, 2008 16:46
Everything about David Donatti is beautiful
Posted from: 38.114.142.73
February 10th, 2008 16:59
Hopkins CD def. Hockaday CF, 2-1 judge decision.
random highlight of the round: jkwan flowing 1NC/1NR while lying on the ground.
Posted from: 66.27.52.166
February 10th, 2008 17:07
how r Rancho Bernardo CB and TN doin?
thanks
Posted from: 76.17.212.97
February 10th, 2008 17:35
Who is Hockaday CF?
Congrats, Conor!
Posted from: 66.27.52.166
February 10th, 2008 17:36
??
Posted from: 206.171.73.50
February 10th, 2008 17:42
Good job Brentwood JL
Posted from: 70.231.144.139
February 10th, 2008 17:51
lhs rr picked up on a 3-0
lhs gg picked up on a 2-1
lhs ns dropped
Posted from: 75.72.81.194
February 10th, 2008 17:55
Go Hopkins!
Posted from: 70.56.7.18
February 10th, 2008 17:57
YES ROHIT
Posted from: 74.70.112.133
February 10th, 2008 18:52
Rohit, you got this shit in the bag
Marc, go for bid #5
Posted from: 38.114.142.177
February 10th, 2008 19:14
doubles:
rachel vogel is debating anna ward in front of ashan, marie manley, and greg hertz.
i am judging donatti v. shivani with jon kwan and adam torson; flight b will be john scoggin v. daniel garber
Posted from: 38.114.142.177
February 10th, 2008 19:27
also,
rancho bernardo tn is debating mountain view jm
and
mountain view dk is debating palo alto rr
and collegiate mw is debating hockaday ld
Posted from: 128.135.224.166
February 10th, 2008 19:31
analy cc v sash a (dont remember school)
pinto, dan s, and someone
Posted from: 38.114.142.87
February 10th, 2008 19:41
Collegiate MW picks up octas over Hockaday LD on a 3-0.
Posted from: 140.247.103.44
February 10th, 2008 19:49
MVLA’s Jeff Merrill and Daniel Moerner won on 3-0 decisions
Posted from: 128.135.224.166
February 10th, 2008 19:51
Analy CC def. Altamont SA
2-1
Pinto, ?, Sheehan*
GO CHRIS
YOU’re QUALLED
Posted from: 76.212.198.36
February 10th, 2008 20:13
go slemon!
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 10th, 2008 20:30
slp ct def meadows ak
2-1
Posted from: 76.17.212.97
February 10th, 2008 20:34
Congrats, Catherine!
Posted from: 38.114.142.177
February 10th, 2008 20:41
joan gass also won, in addition to shivani, congrats hockaday! iheard they also did really well in jvld.
Posted from: 24.22.251.42
February 10th, 2008 20:44
chris catterton finally breaks through that white wall which oppresses him.
Posted from: 63.225.146.107
February 10th, 2008 20:56
As related via Switala who was in contact with people at Stanford: Scoggin wins against Garber in a 3-0 decision
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 10th, 2008 20:56
i love im proviidng most results and im halfway across the country from the tournament
Posted from: 140.247.103.44
February 10th, 2008 20:58
Heavy congrats to Natalee Pei, who won on a 3-0 and completed her TOC qual…Daniels Garber and Khalessi dropped. Congrats to Rahul, though, on ending the struggle.
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 10th, 2008 21:02
so octas competitors so far:
Analy CC
Hockaday JG
Hockaday SV
Collegiate MW
SLP CT
MV NP
Los altos DM
MV JM
Palo alto RR
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 10th, 2008 21:03
blake JS
Posted from: 75.72.51.82
February 10th, 2008 21:12
Congrats to hopkins cd on his second bid!
Way to go Conor!
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
February 10th, 2008 21:22
win diz cattert0nz0rz
Posted from: 74.68.51.212
February 10th, 2008 21:22
Congrats Marc!
Posted from: 72.24.136.181
February 10th, 2008 21:24
Congrats Connor.. Fargo
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
February 10th, 2008 21:25
RAHULLLL
Posted from: 74.70.112.133
February 10th, 2008 21:29
March Wallach is a beast
Congrats to Rohit, got a tough dubz draw dude :(
Posted from: 12.216.111.70
February 10th, 2008 21:31
NICE rahul
Posted from: 69.111.193.139
February 10th, 2008 21:36
Monta Vista OA is in octas. CONGRATS OM ON QUALLING!
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 10th, 2008 21:42
hopkins cd v analy cc
nelson
jay
todd n
Posted from: 128.237.252.238
February 10th, 2008 21:47
Congratulations OM alladi :)!
infinite congrats on making it so far in this tournament, this season, and thus far in general.
Also first person to qual from monta vista in 6 years so huge accomplishment
Posted from: 38.114.142.127
February 10th, 2008 21:47
the few doubles rounds i know:
palo alto rr def mountain view dk 3-0 (weeks, cass, mandhania)
blake js def mountain view dg 3-0 (kwan, torson, olivarez)
collegiate mw def hockaday ld
hockaday sv def strake jesuit dd 2-1 (kwan, mcgrath, *olivarez)
hockaday jg def presentation na
analy cc def altamont sa
congrats rahul. you are a warrior.
Posted from: 140.247.103.44
February 10th, 2008 21:55
Los Altos DM over MV NP
Posted from: 140.247.103.44
February 10th, 2008 21:55
By the way, congrats to Om!
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
February 10th, 2008 22:14
YE RAHUL
Posted from: 99.145.19.135
February 10th, 2008 22:34
Just before I go to sleep I definitely need to congratulate both Chris and Rahul on qualing and bidding respectively.
Congrats to both of you.
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 10th, 2008 22:45
Analy CC def. Hopkins CD
3-0, Nelson Jay Todd
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 10th, 2008 23:01
Quarters:
Analy CC v Blake JS ( i think)
Los Altos DM over Jeff Merrill
Posted from: 71.134.239.57
February 10th, 2008 23:10
Catterton finally got his second bid…
MANLY
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
February 10th, 2008 23:23
catterton v scoggin is going to be a rager.
Posted from: 76.175.197.13
February 10th, 2008 23:32
scoggin let’s go
Posted from: 69.228.187.235
February 10th, 2008 23:34
mike, you’re so lame for not being here bc u can’t miss school
Palo Alto RR def. Hockaday JG (2-1)
congrats catterton
Go Rahul!
Paul Tyger hits Anna Ward in quarters
Rahul hits Catherine
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 10th, 2008 23:40
if i am guessing correctly
PT v AW
CC v JS
RR v CT
DM v JM
Posted from: 38.114.142.177
February 10th, 2008 23:42
spirtos guessed correctly
congrats to those who bid, and congrats to rachel on another bid round, way to ball hard at this tournament.
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 11th, 2008 00:18
moerner v rahul
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 11th, 2008 00:20
js def cc
2-1
nelson on bottom
hertz and jay on top
Posted from: 71.142.83.143
February 11th, 2008 00:35
congrats catterbaby and jeff on quarters
congrats to rahul for being a baller
bring it home moerner
Posted from: 24.7.127.124
February 11th, 2008 00:37
so whos left now?
Posted from: 71.142.83.143
February 11th, 2008 00:41
moerner, rahul, scoggs, and the winner of paul vs anna ward
Posted from: 38.114.142.154
February 11th, 2008 00:44
Paul won,so it’s Moerner v. Rahul and Scagga v. Paul
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
February 11th, 2008 00:47
go rah00l and scogzalicious
Posted from: 38.114.142.154
February 11th, 2008 00:48
as Midnight approaches on the West Coast, we still have yet to finish semis.
Stanford needs to make sure we don’t all fall asleep in the middle of rounds next year
Posted from: 38.114.142.154
February 11th, 2008 01:22
2-1 for Paul over Scagga. Dunno the other round
Posted from: 140.247.103.44
February 11th, 2008 01:22
Moerner on a 2-1
Posted from: 76.102.128.144
February 11th, 2008 01:27
Doubles:
Los Altos DM def. Lynbrook RR
Mountain View JM def. Rancho Bernardo TN
Monta Vista OA def. Melissa Schall (concession)
Hockaday JG def. Presentation NA
Hockaday SV def. Strake Jesuit DD
Analy CC def. Altamont SA
Strake Jesuit PT def. Lynbrook GG
Collegiate MW def. Hockaday LD (3-0: Manley, Peiris, Hertz)
Mountain View NP def. St. Mary’s AR
San Dieguito MS def. Strake Jesuit TL
St. Louis Park CT def. Meadows AK
Palo Alto RR def. Mountain View D(F)K
Blake JS def. Mountain View DG
Hopkins CD def. De La Salle TF
Rancho Bernardo CB def. Granada Hills ZA
Monte Vista AW def. Carnegie Vanguard RV (2-1: Hertz*, Manley, Peiris)
Some octas rounds:
Los Altos DM def. Mountain View NP
Monte Vista AW def. Collegiate MW (concession; Marc had to catch his flight)
Blake JS def. Hockaday SV
Strake Jesuit PT def. Rancho Bernardo CB
Some quarters rounds:
Strake Jesuit PT def. Monte Vista AW (3-0: Smitty, Kimball, Lawrence)
Los Altos DM def. Mountain View JM
Semis:
Strake Jesuit PT vs. ?
Los Altos DM vs. Palo Alto RR
Posted from: 207.207.127.254
February 11th, 2008 01:40
well i guess it’s not your birthday anymore since this tournament has taken so long, so i cant say win a tourney on your birthday… but still, rep the bay and win the round
Posted from: 207.207.127.254
February 11th, 2008 01:41
oh, and of course, rep the lincoln and douglas are dead memorial debate series… i’d just like to say that alumni have owned this tournament =)
Posted from: 38.114.142.127
February 11th, 2008 02:24
moerner def. paul tyger in finals on a 3-0. (adam nelson, alex smith, greg hertz)
Posted from: 140.247.103.44
February 11th, 2008 02:34
Daniel Moerner wins on a 3-0…some congrats:
Jeff Merrill on a well-deserved breakout. You will see more of this guy.
Natalee Pei for extending the streak and the qual.
Catterton on the qual.
Om on the qual.
Rahul for ending the struggle and breaking out in a major way.
Catherine on another solid showing.
Moerner for the title. Happy birthday sir.
Props to Michael O’Connell for some nice work with Jeff
Posted from: 72.254.37.66
February 11th, 2008 02:35
om alladi actually didn’t qual i don’t think. he went 6-0, didn’t debate doubles (concession), and lost octas. i don’t know, but i think that winning an outround is necessary to the bid. someone please address this issue, because if om didn’t bid, then only 14 people bid this weekend.
Posted from: 24.4.205.201
February 11th, 2008 03:06
congrats to all who did well! moerner got himself a great birthday present, and many others (rahul, paul, etc etc) proved they really deserve to shine at the TOC come May.
Congrats, too, to Anna for a huge breakout tournament. I’d love to take credit, but her hard work and dedication is really why she’s finally getting some of the success she’s long deserved!
Finally, while I don’t wish to detract in any way from the successes of those who advanced to late elims, I was frankly shocked by some of the decisions of the tab room. Strikes not applying for the bid round, a top-top pull-up round 6, breaking the top 48 kids (for no reason related to the bracket…just 48, at random) to outrounds…any and all of these are problematic, and taken as a whole they represent serious issues with the administration of the tournament. While we were lucky enough not to be overly affected by these issues, that’s really luck of the draw more than anything else. I know that many (including myself) were rather explicitly critical of the tournament while it was happening; I sincerely hope that criticism translates into improvement for the tournament in the future, because the current state of affairs is bordering on the ridiculous.
Posted from: 72.254.37.198
February 11th, 2008 03:37
i think the poor administration of the tournament was epitomized by a certain octas round where one competitor was forced to lose the coin toss for arriving two minutes late. that kind of shit should not occur. just a thought.
but on a brighter note congrats to moerner on the win, paul on finals, rahul on the breakout, catterton on the qual, etc.
Posted from: 66.108.88.254
February 11th, 2008 05:59
Big congratulations to Daniel and Paul, and to their coaches! Did they award iPods again this year?
.
To answer your post, Quinn — while it is obviously J.W.’s call, based on the policy bids awarded at St. Mark’s, I think Om’s bid will be recognized.
Posted from: 70.162.186.168
February 11th, 2008 06:16
Big congrats to Conor Doherty and Jeff Merrill and OMMMM on the bids!
Posted from: 66.233.57.238
February 11th, 2008 06:20
i called this. corgratiz to peeps who qual’d.
Posted from: 128.237.252.238
February 11th, 2008 07:31
and wow good job to all the kids from the bay..
Posted from: 165.123.229.181
February 11th, 2008 07:32
“om alladi actually didn’t qual i don’t think. he went 6-0, didn’t debate doubles (concession), and lost octas. i don’t know, but i think that winning an outround is necessary to the bid. someone please address this issue, because if om didn’t bid, then only 14 people bid this weekend.”
.
I am actually fairly certain that it’s *debating* an outround, not winning one. Last year at Manchester, Andrew Harris walked over Scarsdale people until finals, and then lost in finals, but still received a bid.
Posted from: 167.206.203.14
February 11th, 2008 07:40
RAHUUUUUUULLLLLL
Posted from: 216.220.216.162
February 11th, 2008 08:20
Good job to chriscatterton on the qual and RAHUL on an amazing job and pwning good job Vogel on another bid round
sorry that joan gass “forfeited” her ability to flip, that wasnt right
Posted from: 24.6.64.186
February 11th, 2008 08:39
Congrats to Moerner for winning the tourney, RAHUUUL for breaking out (I told you it would happen), Anna and Jeff for bidding, and Natalee and Chris for completing the qual!
Posted from: 69.181.125.125
February 11th, 2008 10:11
Yea the rule about deating the bid round was actually instituted when i was a debater to prevent walkovers in outs from multiplying bids. the person who didnt debate outs and ws walked over, ie two ppl from the same team hitting in doubles of an octos bid. Also, I’m not sure he should be penalized for a concession, if you concede the bid round you probably deserve to lose. But even then the rule I think doesnt affect people who byed through an earlier round and then walked over, i think according to the records a bye is considered a win, ie two Meadows kids bid at Alta without debating. All in all I’m pretty sure his bid is legit. He was 6-0 anyway, gotta be some testament to his legitimacy.
Posted from: 160.94.28.166
February 11th, 2008 10:56
WHOA! congrats to daniel, daniel, daniel, rohit, CONOR, natalee, jeff, daniel, catherine, chris, john, daniel, rahul…
Posted from: 24.4.205.201
February 11th, 2008 11:04
oh wow i somehow missed this earlier – congrats to jessica on finals of JV!
Posted from: 66.193.126.2
February 11th, 2008 11:09
To Post 121 (Ali Huberlie)
How many people did Scarsdale break that year?
And what did Manchester break to?
Because that’s redonculous.
Posted from: 71.139.10.115
February 11th, 2008 11:16
We got 80GB iPod classics with adhesive plaques.
The final picture that Todd took of Paul and I is pretty struggin…that was about representative of how we were debating at 1:30 am.
Posted from: 129.99.132.59
February 11th, 2008 11:31
As one of the judges in the octas round where the toss was “forfeited”, I would like to add my objection. Poor tournament administration is not a reason for punishing debaters. The tournament was running 3 hours late at that point, and the problem with getting rounds started was that they were scrambling to put together panels because people had to catch flights. The panel was finally assembled for that round less than five minutes before both debaters were assembled. The LD rounds started at 8:00 AM, and the tab needed to get 1 prelim and two elim rounds completed by 5:30 PM to get that octas round off on time. Pairings for octas were released during the awards ceremony at 8:40 PM. Panel substitutions weren’t final until 9:00 PM. For the tournament director to walk in and demand that the debater forfeit the toss because she not in the room the minute the panel was finalized was audacious.
Posted from: 66.167.126.130
February 11th, 2008 11:36
lynbrook rr= rohit ramkumar
palo alto rr= rahul ramakrishnan
just fyi
congrats are in order to- moerner, rahul for getting number 1 and chris for completing the qual, nat for competing her qual, and anna for getting her bid! awesome job guys!
Posted from: 74.73.42.55
February 11th, 2008 11:44
Congrats to everyone that did well.
While I appreciate the Stanford Debate team for putting on a tournament that must be a nightmare to run, there were some glaring issues that hopefully the tournament could overcome in future years.
1. Lateness – While being RIDICULOUSlY late is sort of a hallmark of the Stanford tournament, something seriously needs to be done. It is confusing to me how round 6 can end sometime near 10am and triples does not start until about FIVE HOURS LATER.
Usually when I schedule a flight for 11pm on the final night of the tournament, we are able to debate more than just doubleoctofinals. It’s sad considering the Stanford reg fee’s are incredibly sky-high, yet we miss out on a large part of the tournament due to poor scheduling.
2. I quote from the pairing “strikes do not apply in doubleoctofinals.”
Wait, what? Of all times to ignore strikes. There were doubles rounds where 2/3 of the panel had been struck, which is just outrageous. In the HOURS between outrounds I’m sure some attention could have been paid to assigning non-struck judges to the right rounds.
As always, fun time and thanks all around. Hopefully some of these issues are fixed.
Posted from: 67.40.155.155
February 11th, 2008 11:47
Jeff Merrill and Conor Doherty holding it down for Delta Force Debate. Nice job, guys.
Michelin Massey
Posted from: 66.108.88.254
February 11th, 2008 11:49
Wait — the sixth round is on Sunday? Does the tournament start on Friday or Saturday?
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 11th, 2008 11:59
friday 2 rounds 3 on saturday 1 prelim and all outs on sunday
Posted from: 134.173.93.226
February 11th, 2008 12:15
Congrats Catterbaby.
I would like to say that Palo Alto RR was fantastic when I judged him in doubles.
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 11th, 2008 12:28
i know
los altos dm was 2nd speaker
analy cc was 3rd
Posted from: 66.108.88.254
February 11th, 2008 12:29
“friday 2 rounds 3 on saturday 1 prelim and all outs on sunday”
.
This is a really surprising schedule to me. Is there not enough room availability for running all the divisions? What time do things start on Saturday? The split schedule with policy debate has always ruled this out for us — not to mention that there is an increasingly strong local tournament on the same weekend — but I never realized there was so much downtime in the schedule.
.
Was there a round robin this year?
.
Daniel: I trust the iPods are in the photograph? :o)
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 11th, 2008 12:34
re: quinn’s question
the relevant rule as far as i can tell:
A team or a LD debater must win at least one elimination round to be eligible for a ghost bid. For example, if a tournament breaks at the double-octas level and is a TOC qualifier at the octos level, if two people or teams from the same school met in octos round, a ghost bid would be awarded. If a tournament breaks at the octos level and is a TOC qualifier at the quarters level, if two people or teams from the same school met in the quarters, a ghost bid would be awarded.
two things to note: i couldnt find any other similar restriction for non-ghost bids, and the rule still hasnt been changed to reflect the way that its really used (those examples place the bid round 1 round too early based on how the rule has been used in the past few years).
the rule for a regular bid is just:
A âqualifying leg is earned when an L-D debater, Policy Debate team, Student Congress debater or Public Forum team reaches or surpasses the designated elimination round at a TOC-approved tournament.
no qualifications on how you get there, just get to the round and youre good.
look for yourself: http://www.uky.edu/Provost/ChellgrenCenter/Debate/champions.htm
congratulations to marc and daniel from collegiate for a good showing this weekend. props also to moerner for his pre-tournament prediction.
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
February 11th, 2008 12:40
saturday started at 10am, friday started at 530pm, sunday started at 8am. i have to also echo the concerns of mumper, ankur, et al. this being carnegie vanguard’s first time at stanford, we were frankly befuddled as to why the tournament schedule was the way it was off the bat. 2 rounds on friday, only 3 on saturday, and then 7 total on sunday seems a bit crazy. also, the ’strikes don’t apply to double-octafinals’. . . that, i must say, is particularly angering when we paid thousands of dollars to come to a tournament for a bid, and the bid round happens to be the one with the least amount of management. while i am not a fan of ‘the boy who cried illegit at tournaments,’ i found it even more frustrating to have one of my kid’s doubles judges to say earlier in the tournament “i’m not qualified to be judging.”
that being said, the tournament was a fun experience insofar as seeing a lot of people, and there were some good rounds (our prelims judge draws actually were pretty good [mumper, larry mcgrath, greg hertz, etc]), but the outrounds paneling was just, a let-down to say the least.
and jon, no, there was no round robin.
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 11th, 2008 12:40
ps: a related rules question
i had long thought that there was a rule in place which required debaters to participate in the round where the bid is awarded (to prevent people from leaving as soon as they have bids i suppose). i can find no such rule online; has it been changed, or did it ever even exist?
Posted from: 69.134.16.205
February 11th, 2008 12:48
Whats with all the forfeits?
Posted from: 71.139.10.115
February 11th, 2008 12:51
Marc Wallach had to leave due to a plane flight. The schedule on Sunday broke down about like this.
Round 6: 8:00 AM
Triples: 2:30 PM
Doubles: 5:30 PM
Octas: 9:00 PM
Quarters: 10:30 PM
Sems: 11:45 PM
Finals: 12:40 AM
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 11th, 2008 12:58
The tournament schedule was bad enough even had it run on time. The fact that only TWO rounds took place between 8am and 5:30pm on Sunday is absurd. There are a number of reasons things went wrong, but it is frankly embarassing for a tournament with an Octas bid to end up like this. The TOC illuminati would lose a good deal of credibility by awarding this tournament an octas bid again next year.
Posted from: 67.168.66.202
February 11th, 2008 13:04
I just want to say congrats to Anna on the bid! I really enjoyed the round (which I lost) with you and you have this way of sounding really clear/polite/upbeat and being confident without being rude. I was going to say congrats after your round w/ Rachael, but I had a feelng that RFD was going to take a little while.
Congrats to Rachael, too. Seriously, is it possible for you not to break? =D
Posted from: 209.98.146.245
February 11th, 2008 13:09
Congrats to Catherine on another bid, Daniel and Paul on finals, Rahul, Scogs, Catterton and Merrill on some extremely well-deserved breakouts (especially Rahul, who seems to have worked his ass off for this tournament and was blowing away everyone who watched him debate as a result), and Conor on completing the qual.
That said, I’d like to echo a lot of what’s been said about the way the tournament was run. An absurdly relaxed schedule (e.g. three rounds over the course of the entire day Saturday) is fine if you actually make some effort to stick to it, but when the information provided before the tournament about when it begins and ends turns out to be off by several hours, it ends up screwing a lot of people over. Marc Wallach may or may not have a bid because octos was running so late that he had to forfeit to make his flight. We went into quarters knowing the even if Catherine won, we would have to forfeit the next round to catch our own flight. That’s not what debaters should have to worry about when they pay however many hundred dollars in the hopes of going deep at a tournament.
Judge assignment was also a big issue. Aside from the decision to disregard strikes in the bid round, decisions about judge placement in prelims often seemed totally unintelligible. After being told that the community preference sheets would determine judge prioritization in prelims, we got a judge in a 4-1 round who had never seen a debate round before this tournament and whom no one in the tab room had heard of. Earlier we got a judge who barely spoke English. And even though strikes were due at something like 1:30 on Friday, they didn’t go into effect for presets starting at 5 and 7 respectively, meaning that we got a couple of struck judges in those rounds as well.
That said, I do think Stanford is a great tournament in a ton of ways, and I hope they manage to solve some of the organizational problems they were dealing with for next year. My suggestion would be to compartmentalize the tournament more, meaning keep LD localized in a particular part of campus rather than having rounds all over the place and have a separate LD tab room in that area. A lot of the delay seemed to be caused by judges and competitors not being able to find their rooms or having to walk 15 minutes to get to them, and more of it seemed to be caused by tab getting overwhelmed with so many different events that they couldn’t attend to very simple tasks like pairing doubles after triples results came in.
Posted from: 24.4.205.201
February 11th, 2008 13:18
if anyone cares:
doubles,
palo alto RR > MVLA DK
hockaday JG > presentation NA
both 3-0 (mandhania, cass, weeks)
octas
slp CT > MV OA 2-1 (werner, mandhania, *mcgrath)
quarters
palo alto RR > SLP CT on a 3-0 (hess, mandhania, peiris)
Posted from: 74.73.42.55
February 11th, 2008 13:44
Agree with Babb. This tournament should be a quarters bid (maximum). They should increase Harker or other west coast tournaments to make up for it.
Or just fix this.
Posted from: 69.12.136.2
February 11th, 2008 14:54
congrats to (i started to write a list here, but there are way too many) everyone who did well.
on the scheduling/delays, I agree with Christian when he says we should “compartmentalize the tournament more, meaning keep LD localized in a particular part of campus rather than having rounds all over the place and have a separate LD tab room in that area.”
I think they moved the tournament away from tab to the 200 building after doubles was such a struggle. Once that happened, the tournament ran pretty well if you look at what DM posted.
Doubles: 5:30 PM
Octas: 9:00 PM
Quarters: 10:30 PM
Sems: 11:45 PM
Finals: 12:40 AM
That schedule seems permissible (in terms of time between rounds, not time of day), even if it doesn’t have the frightening efficiency of apple valley.
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 11th, 2008 15:07
re: christians point about marc
sean tells me that there was a debate but marc had agreed to concede. in other words, he was both polite (willing to let someone else advance since he couldnt debate the next round) and made sure he was covered from the unwritten rule i asked about above.
Posted from: 76.30.71.86
February 11th, 2008 15:09
i left early on sunday (noon) because like apparently spirtos i have to go to class, so i missed out on the sunday scheduling drama despite having my flight delayed 7 hours out of san jose – a totally different story.
for a tournament that prided itself so much on its attempts at legit-ness (per the welcoming assembly by the director), i have never seen a tournament near this caliber run so poorly. not only was sunday ridiculously behind schedule, they could not even start the first prelims on friday and saturday on time. looking at the panels on vbd, i see that strikes did not apply for any of the outrounds (not only doubles). for a tournament that required a judge for every 2 debaters (?), the tournament was doing an awful job placing judges. there should have been a massive surplus of judges where the judges in the pool actually got rounds off. this was not the case. what happened to all the judging fees? did stanford just eat them all as profit in addition to $80 entry fees? why aren’t the less experienced judges and random stanford students judging all of the 2-3 and 1-4 rounds? my complaints could continue but it seems others have addressed similar issues.
the problem with the tournament? NOT CAPPING ENTRIES. 240 varsity LD entries. stanford did not have the rooms or the people to tab all the debates that were happening. Stanford has become the new Harvard where the only goal is to make as much money as possible off of entry fees by letting the tournament and judging go down the drain. At least don’t put on the facade of quality.
Posted from: 67.8.227.203
February 11th, 2008 15:12
Congrats to Gauruv, Catterton, Marc, JScog, Rahul, Daniel, and Paul
Posted from: 76.30.71.86
February 11th, 2008 15:16
congrats to moerner.
and to scoggin, rahul, and catterton – all of who were debating very well this weekend.
and to anna ward on quarters.
Posted from: 128.12.77.243
February 11th, 2008 15:30
congrats moerner – this is a big win. you might have to start coaching me soon.
big ups to natalee for completing the qual (now the fourth to do so from MVLA) and to Merill for getting his first bid.
rahul man. how was that like rogue? and catterton you’ve been working hard since camp to get this, congrats.
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 11th, 2008 15:37
To answer the question about forfeits, Melissa Schall (Archer) also decided it would be better for the team to catch its flight than pursue the ordeal of getting a later flight (none of which were even available on our airline for that night). It was an impressive and selfless decision for a senior who may not compete again at a national/travel tournament.
As Sean and Tarsney have said, this kind of stress should never be placed on teams and their debaters. Sunday was absolutely miserable for us, attempting to determine our options with airlines, parents, and hotels at the last minute because the tournament was over two hours late in posting only the THIRD round of the day.
The tournament’s inability to stick even remotely to its own schedule was a bit ironic given the list of 10 problems for which students would be held responsible if they didn’t immediately contact the help desk (which was incidently, by no fault of their own, sometimes of very little help). I suppose it is one thing for the tournament to disavow responsibility for judges not showing up and the like–but if they’re going to hold students to such a high standard of proficiency, they should hold themselves to similar standards.
Almost two hours into the wait for double-octas pairings, a friend and I visited the help desk to ask where tab was and what was going on. Having been told the tab room was open (or partially open), this seemed a reasonable request. We were denied that information however, and told that by “open tab” the tournament meant coaches could rate the judges prior to the tournament. Good luck figuring that one out.
So, we stealthily followed one of the runners to what we assumed was the tab room, and jackpot. Again, after having waited almost two hours for doubles, the tab room said they were still waiting on some ballots. There appeared to be next to nothing being done about it.
We were also frustrated by the staggering of rounds, which in conjunction with rampant lateness (even round 1 started at least 30 minutes late) precluded any meaningful or recreational use of time. Had the tournament divided the schedule in half (e.g. policy in the A.M. and LD in the P.M.), many schools would at least have had half a day to enjoy the Bay Area. As it was, there was so little certainty as to when the next round would start that leaving campus was too risky.
Likewise, rounds didn’t get out until so late that having a team dinner out was either unfeasible or inconvenient. Someone jokingly surmised that this was all part of an elaborate conspiracy to inject business into the school’s greasy spoon eatery, The Treehouse.
I have never seen a schedule that was so thoroughly indifferent to the interests of its participants. In light of this, I can’t help but laugh that the invitation virtually begged schools to wait through Sunday evening an attend the awards ceremony. I’m assuming the LD award ceremony got off by 2am or so, but needless to say, we did not wait around to find out.
Among reasons for this tournament’s problems:
-It let too many damn people in. Cap it. And cap what schools can bring in. One reason for the inconsistent judging (we were pleased with our judges but have heard some horror stories from others..) is that when schools can bring 20 debaters, PENALIZED for bringing fewer than 10, charged outrageous fees for hiring out judging obligations, and explicitly discouraged from doing so… parents are going to end up in the pool. This might be alright in California’s unceasingly hysterical “Leagues,” but it is unacceptable for a tournament of such TOC caliber.
-Too many events. There’s a reason Greenhill never runs a bad tournament. It specializes in debate and gets the job done well. It knows how much space it has and doesn’t penalize people attending the tournament in order to satisfy some expansionary ambitions.
-Even with space constraints, the schedule seems to have been developed by a team of either sadists or knuckle-draggers.
*** There seems to be LITTLE DOUBT that financial motivations have contributed to a tournament that was neither “good” nor “great” as predicted by Mr. Frasier. While a number of high school tournaments put on phenomenal tournaments without any significant financial gain, the trend of massive and poorly run college-sponsored tournaments continues. Sean is right–the consumers deserve a better alternative. It may be up to them ultimately to simply NOT GO TO THE TOURNAMENT. BUT, we are put into a difficult position when the TOC conflates a terribly run tournament with a valuable bid-opportunity. This distorts the market and artificially inflates the tournament’s value despite its failure to merit such vast patronage.
We paid Stanford our fees with the expectation that we could theoretically compete in a bid round with plenty of time before our flight. Instead, we had to forfeit that bid round. We waited through three days of a tournament that dragged on and on inexplicably and foreclosed any opportunity to enjoy the Bay Area without unnecessarily missing school only to be faced with a stressful and disappointing climax.
Perhaps the shittiest part of all this… the poor Stanford debaters stationed at the help desk… the friendly gentleman working in tab who kindly apoligized when we had to leave. Obviously, so many of the hard-working and friendly folks at Stanford deserve absolutely no blame for what took place. I was impressed time and again, in fact, but how polite and friendly many of the Stanford students were. They deserve much recognition for being put on the firing line by a tournament that was structurally and inevitably doomed to fail. My thanks and appreciation go out to a lot of the folks who had to work within a severely flawed system.
In any case, I don’t think there’s any need for blame. But there is a need for consequences. The tournament should be awarded the status of other tournaments that can’t run on time… typically local tournaments with no bid and inept administration… or perhaps CHSSA league tournaments.
Where’s my refund.
b
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 11th, 2008 15:41
WOW–I didn’t realize octas didn’t start until 9… and Finals at 12:40am. If it weren’t so pathetic, it would be hilarious.
… Glad we left when we did. Had we changed flights, and had Melissa Schall won her doubles round, we would have had to CHANGE FLIGHTS AGAIN!!!
Posted from: 140.247.103.44
February 11th, 2008 15:51
This tournament was infamously bad when I was a student. The turning point happened in my first year coaching, when Cherian and Seth Halvorson starting running tab. For the next couple years the tournament was fantastic. Last year the APDA team (I think?) decided they wanted to run the tournament themselves and it massively declined. If indeed this is the situation, then someone should let this team know that there is no shame in farming out their tournament to people who know how to schedule for the event and run a big tournament. YDA farms out Yale to knowledgable tab people every year and my impression is that this solution works. I don’t think the issue is “Stanford is a bad tournament take its bids” – it’s obviously a more competitive tournament than many quarters tournaments and one other octos bid. When the rr was running strong it was arguably one of the toughest octos bids. There just needs to be a change in leadership, and it is in the interest of the Stanford team to make it happen.
Posted from: 140.247.103.44
February 11th, 2008 15:54
Correction – I think Stanford is better than virtually all quarters bids (some times Blake and Valley have monster years) and is at least as good as Harvard, Berkeley and AV in terms of competition.
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 11th, 2008 16:04
Obviously octas bid tournaments will have better competition. Competition tends to be a function of where the bid is rather than how well a tournament is run. People fly out to get bids… not to patronize well-run tournaments. My point is that Patterson & Co. would be better serving the community by giving bids to the tournaments that are well run. Then THOSE tournament will have more competitive fields and Stanford will have a less competitive field.
I don’t think saying Stanford has a similar level of competition to other octas bid tournaments says anything uniquely about Stanford. It just means when tournaments have octas bids, they’re always going to have a roughly similar level of competition (obviously more so than quarters bid tournaments). If Harker had an octas bid this year instead of a semis bid, I bet it’d have a great field of debaters too…
Posted from: 74.73.42.55
February 11th, 2008 16:09
I hate to keep beating the dead (dying) horse, but people keep posting things that I cant help but agree with
“*** There seems to be LITTLE DOUBT that financial motivations have contributed to a tournament that was neither “good” nor “great” as predicted by Mr. Frasier. While a number of high school tournaments put on phenomenal tournaments without any significant financial gain, the trend of massive and poorly run college-sponsored tournaments continues…we are put into a difficult position when the TOC conflates a terribly run tournament with a valuable bid-opportunity. This distorts the market and artificially inflates the tournament’s value despite its failure to merit such vast patronage..
This is so phenomnally true. As someone who participated in College debate, I understand how difficult it is to have an administration supportive enough to fund debate endeavors. Tournaments like Stanford/Berkeley/Harvard/etc are all necessary for programs that exist because of the money they make from the tournaments they put on.
But seriously, give something back. You have a RESPONSBILITY to the consumers that purchase your product. Unfortunately, bids are inelastic, and until people start actively not showing up (never going to happen) or the bid is reduced, the tournament has no incentive to correct it’s misgivings.
Stanford fee’s were outrageous. Nobody part of the tournament would disagree – our overall fee’s were DOUBLE what they are at most other tournaments with the same amount of entires/uncovered judges. And again, I understand, this funds your program. But an obligation exists for you to provide us with something worth our money, and Stanford failed miserably.
The greatest irony was the opening speech where Matt Fraizer openly prided the tournament on listening to criticism and constantly improving the event. Sorry, but that just fell ond deaf ears.
Posted from: 207.111.117.1
February 11th, 2008 16:16
Were community judges recruited from the student body? This has been a problem that has plagued college tournaments before.
.
Eric is right that the YDA brings in a very experienced tab staff — Chris Palmer, Jim Menick, Joe Vaughan — and has improved considerably. Columbia also deserves recognition for this.
Posted from: 140.247.103.44
February 11th, 2008 16:43
The problem with Babb’s argument is that bid allocation seems partly determined by inertia. With few exceptions, bids aren’t rapidly reallocated. There are plenty of tournaments that have their bid level set way too high and others which have been plausible octos bid candidates for years (Blake and Valley come to mind) both in terms of the excellence of the tab staff and competition. My point is just that there’s a very plausible solution to the issue available to the Stanford team (if they are in fact the agent in question) which works for other tournaments and which doesn’t require that the TOC committee set a precedent for massive yearly reallocation.
I also think that any proposal to cut back the bid level of California should be carefully scrutinized. Californians have won TOC in ‘03, ‘06, and ‘07, reached finals in ‘05, and reached semifinals in ‘04, ‘05, and ‘06. As a state, only Texas has a resume like that from the past five years (champ in ‘05, finalists in ‘06 and ‘07, semifinalists in ‘03, ‘04, ‘06 and ‘07). My point isn’t California is the best debate or something silly like that; I’m just saying that if you give TOC track record any weight, this region matters.
If Sean is right, though, that the Stanford team will not listen to reason, then I think swapping some bids to Harker might make sense. That is still a net loss of 4 bids to the NorCal region though, which seems unfair given the sheer number of tournaments that have too many bids in some other regions.
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 11th, 2008 17:10
Agreed on keeping the bids in Cali.
I’m sympathetic to Eric’s point that an easy solution would be for Stanford to just have someone capable run it. And maybe that can happen, at which point I wouldn’t complain.
I guess my concern is with the prevalence of problems this year and the extent to which some of them just weren’t tab’s fault. The schedule, size, lack of hired judges (note the call for judges on VBD didn’t go out until Feb 5) weren’t tab’s fault. Ridiculous policies like penalizing a team $50 for not bringing a shit slew of debaters, for example, seems to be a policy purely designed to drive up profits (at the expense of the tournament’s quality).
I also agree with Eric that a precdent of shifiting bids around quickly might become problematic. But other than appealing to historic trends, I guess I’m interested in what exactly the disadvantage would be for a world that held tournaments to high standards, even if that required quick shifts in bid. Maybe one bad year would be too harsh of a criterion for removing a bid level. But, frankly, the risk of losing a bid seems a perfect incentive for encouraging top notch tournaments. The historic reality of intertia doesn’t seem to have much good reason behind it–my guess (and partially my understanding based on heresay) is that this intertia has more to do with politics and/or a lack of understanding or interest in what’s going on at tournaments by the TOC folks. I’ve heard that despite significant clamor last year about how bad a particular bid tournament was, Patterson basically said, “alright so X’s bid stays where it is, moving on.”
Sure, there’s a gray area between responsiveness and hyper-responsiveness, but the post Koshy years at Stanford are quickly demanding a change IMHO.
b
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 11th, 2008 17:17
Is there a way this discussion could be moved to a thread that doesn’t detract from the congratulations/etc to the debaters who rocked at this tournament?
Posted from: 67.177.225.35
February 11th, 2008 17:19
The Stanford tournament has been notoriously late for many years, especially when they chose not to employ highly qualified tabulation room staff. There are many reasons for this. The primary one is that the members of the Stanford Debate Society have no culture of running a tournament in an efficient manner. Out of the blue, when they made the decision to allow Cherian and his crew run the thing, it was beautiful. That’s because they were penalized. For years, the Stanford tournament had an Octofinal bid. Then, it was reduced and they had to listen. They ran a wonderful tournament, hosted some incredibly competitive round robins, and reestablished their name. Then, for some reason, they decided to go back to the way things used to be. Fair enough.
Tournaments are going to be well run and poorly run. Tournaments like Stanford will respond when their money is at stake. If it’s not, then they won’t. As debate people, the choice is yours. From what I understand, the tournament down at CHHS is extremely well run every year. I know that Colleyville ain’t as pretty as Palo Alto, but the tournament does run on time.
Michelin Massey
Posted from: 24.23.195.189
February 11th, 2008 17:29
In response to Stephen’s comment:
“If Harker had an octas bid this year instead of a semis bid, I bet it’d have a great field of debaters too…”
I’d like to weigh in. The Harker LD tournament has had one of the most outrageously qualified and competitive field of debaters of any tournament in the country for at least the last 3 years. And the judging is phenomenal as well. Plus it’s got some world-class perks: a top-notch round robin, copious amounts of free delicious food for debaters and judges, free housing for debaters flying in, wonderful tab, helpful student ballot runners, great awards, and a small, intimate setting. It’s the best kept “not so secret” of the TOC circuit and this year’s structure is going to make it that much better.
See you there!
Posted from: 24.90.20.221
February 11th, 2008 17:39
congrats paul. i think you have a thing for california tournaments
Posted from: 67.119.14.50
February 11th, 2008 17:39
big ups to scoggin and the tyger for such beastly domination.
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 11th, 2008 17:40
1. Ditto to Michelin’s sentiments entirely. The historical analysis seems to suggest that Eric’s similar accounts of the once and future great Stanford tourney may indeed be reasons bid allocation is a strong incentive.
2.
And just to clarify re: Jennie’s point… my comment was not to say Harker doesn’t already have a great field of debaters. My guess is just that if it had an octas bid, the level of competition would rival other octas bid tourneys. It seems as though the only factor that attracts travelling debaters other than bid level might be the host’s name recognition (e.g. “Stanford” and “Harvard” sound like the best tourneys in the country to people who know nothing about debate… such as college admissions departments ;-) ).
But yes, Harker sounds amazing, and we look forward to bringing a pretty big group out this year and in years to come!
b
Posted from: 24.23.195.189
February 11th, 2008 17:41
I’d also like to echo Stephen’s comments about the consistently friendly and helpful ballot table staffers. Stanford U debate team member Ben Picozzi was awesome (as always), as were Erik Holland, and Ranjeet Sidhu. They had a *lot* to deal with and did so with excellent humor and grace.
Posted from: 71.106.83.38
February 11th, 2008 17:42
While Babb already addressed everything I would have said, I do have to say the comment by Ashan of “if you concede the bid round you probably deserve to lose” is totally ludicrous in this situation. The tournament was running so late that rather than force my team to miss our flight, I decided we should leave the tournament. The idea that I “deserve to lose” for something that wasn’t my fault in the least is actually quite insulting.
That said, congrats to everyone who did well this weekend, but especially to Laura Bomes and the two Brentwood boys who debated triples.
Posted from: 24.23.195.189
February 11th, 2008 18:08
Stephen — I totally know you didn’t mean your comment in any negative way. I’m inarticulately (thanks to adjudicating Stanford semi’s at midnight last night) trying to say that Harker’s tournament has rivaled or beaten the octas bid tournaments I’ve been to in terms of competition and judging quality for the last 3 years. This year’s tournament will undoubtedly be at least as good as in year’s past, and we’re looking forward to seeing Archer and all the rest there at the end of the month.
Jen
Posted from: 72.254.24.216
February 11th, 2008 18:23
oh also, it was kind of hilarious that they let me judge jv quarters, but that’s neither here nor there. i enjoyed it. needless to say avi arfin from palo alto has a pretty good future in debate to look forward to.
Posted from: 140.247.103.44
February 11th, 2008 18:49
Babb is right, there’s really no great objection to holding tournaments accountable, and the entry requirements et al sound ridiculous. The only issue is as a practical matter it seems like the TOC committee will not be consistent in enforcement (nothing happens to even routinely terrible tournaments as is). I guess I just hope the Stanford APDA team sees the light.
Posted from: 75.71.25.178
February 11th, 2008 19:01
can someone explain what happened in the two forfeits? no shows? straight out concessions?
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 11th, 2008 19:17
flight catch i assume
Posted from: 69.151.221.178
February 11th, 2008 19:59
This tournament was a joke. A long, painful, expensive, poorly executed joke.
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
February 11th, 2008 20:18
I won’t add much, but I think it was brought up earlier, and it rings true to me. When they gave up on the software and just ran a separate tab in the building, things were tons more efficient. Daryl’s ballot got pushed in quarters because we had to drop someone off @ SFO, and although we were gone for maybe 30-45 minutes, the rounds had already started, and his ballot was handed off to another judge that was there. That type of efficiency where the outrounds are spread apart with just enough time to breath was something that wasn’t seen in the rest of the tournament. Props to the Stanford debaters that took over runing LD tab and got it turned around.
Posted from: 66.41.255.202
February 11th, 2008 20:33
the level of incompetence that existed with people who were running the tab room this weekend was mind boggling. it seemed like the people who did have a clue were busting their ass to make things happen(ranjeet/erik holland) but for whatever reason there seemed to be a disconnect with the ultimate people in charge. Read: babb/dan meyers/myself went into tab about an hour after triples had ended trying to figure out the delay and they apparently hadnt received ballots from ~4 of the rounds… dan then told them the decisions of those 4 rounds.
Frankly, the problem seemed to be that the tournament was horribly understaffed and why there werent runners hounding judges at the end of every flight a and b from all 6 prelims and outrounds is beyond me.
but, that being said, it was fun to see some of the rounds i saw this weekend so props to all who did well.
Posted from: 24.155.229.81
February 11th, 2008 20:43
What I don’t understand if this is such an awful tournament, why do people keep going back in huge numbers? In all other markets competition leads to quality. If something is produced poorly, its not the producer’s fault, its the consumers for purchasing it. If next year, if this chorus of complaints gets translated into nobody going to Stanford, I guarantee that they will get their act together.
Posted from: 69.154.176.194
February 11th, 2008 20:47
I am terribly disappointed in the strike situation. I spoke with the tournament director about the strikes and was told that I was lucky that the tournament even used strikes at all. Finding this answer unsatisfactory, I plan to take my business elsewhere next year.
Posted from: 74.73.42.55
February 11th, 2008 20:58
“What I don’t understand if this is such an awful tournament, why do people keep going back in huge numbers? In all other markets competition leads to quality. If something is produced poorly, its not the producer’s fault, its the consumers for purchasing it. If next year, if this chorus of complaints gets translated into nobody going to Stanford, I guarantee that they will get their act together.”
That is such a myopic view of the situation. Yes, if the product is bad the consumers switch, but in this case their is no alternative. Until a tournament is proactively punished and has its bid reduced, debaters will go considering the lack of octos and quarters bids, especially this late in the year.
Posted from: 24.155.229.81
February 11th, 2008 21:23
Obviously, I’m sympathetic to people who are trying to get bids at the end of the year and have no choice. But the reality is nobody goes to every bid tournament. There are alternatives, ie other bid tournaments. Everyone makes choices about what tournaments they go to. Plus, there are tons of people who attended this tournament who are already qualled and didn’t need the bid. So for them, the alternative is just not to go. An easy way to get bids redistributed to better run tournaments is to vote with your feet and go to different tournaments. Many tournaments are poorly run every year, but every year they get their bids back, precisely because people keep going and the fields remain huge and competitive. People continue to complain and demand the bid be changed, but its hard to justify taking a bid away from a tournament that has hundreds of debaters including many of the best in the nation. If people were just to stop attending Stanford, I’m sure both the committee that assigns bids and the tournament directors will notice extremely quickly. However, I highly doubt a chorus of complaints on a message board will be noticed by anyone.
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 11th, 2008 21:25
and people went back this year since the previous few years it has been a very well run tournament so no indication to stop supporting it. no one could have predicted this epic of a meltdown
Posted from: 66.167.126.130
February 11th, 2008 21:31
spirit is right, for the last two years stanford has been pretty well run in terms of strikes and rounds/ outrounds running on time.
Posted from: 24.155.229.81
February 11th, 2008 21:35
Oh, well, that makes sense then. There is no way to predict a sudden implosion.
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
February 11th, 2008 22:25
Re: Jerry
That’s down right appalling. They said they prided themselves in their judges and their efficiency. Neither of which were the case this weekend.
How can they honestly expect to remain an Octas bid while at the same time telling people that they might have to remove strikes from the tournament.
They need to stop hiring students, and start hiring actual debate judges. There were literally hundreds of ads around campus advertising for people to sign up to judge, and prior experience was only “encouraged”.
Re: Pinto
How can that happen? To have an hour pass without even getting all the ballots in is unexplainable. Speaking from my brief experience watching how the tab room worked @ Blake, the only reason we were able to stay relatively on time is because of everyone who went to every floor and checked each room as often as they could after each round and/or flight. We were able to pick up several ballots, and the ones we weren’t able to get picked up were picked up soon after the round was over. Stanford was understaffed outside of the tab room as well as in the tab room. It appeared as if not enough people were working at the computers, and I could only imagine the amount of work those few individuals had to do.
Additionally, the schedule itself was bizzare. Having a scheduled half hour break between the 2 pre sets which turned into over an hour, and then having 3 rounds over the course of 10 hours, especially when it meant that there were 3 days of prelim rounds. Triples should not have been delayed so long, even with the missing ballots. Jeff Dilger suggested that they should have had all of the rounds that mattered for outrounds in flight A and have someone collect all of those ballots so that the triples pairing would be almost complete already by the time flight B was over.
Posted from: 128.192.223.134
February 11th, 2008 22:41
really late congrats since i’ve been travelling since 4am this morning (looking at the clock, make that yesterday morning):
congrats to chris for qualling, rahul for being a beast (i told you you’d have a breakout eventually, man), and paul for taking over as strake’s new A-team (you heard me, david and todd).
congrats also to will simoneaux for putting up his best prelims showing of the year before dropping in triples 2-1. you’ve come a long way from 1-5 at greenhill dude.
Posted from: 207.207.127.254
February 11th, 2008 22:56
i disagree with rohit and spirtos… i went to the 2004-2007 stanford tournaments, and pretty much every year it was impossible to predict when the rounds were going to be posted. if you wanted food, you had to hope that the rounds wouldn’t be posted while you were gone, because the schedule they had was rarely followed. now to comment on something else…
some people have expressed sentiment that bids should be moved to the harker tournament. to some extent i strongly agree with this… the harker tournament was always one of my favorite tournaments (very well run, great judging, excellent competition), and over the past couple years, it has become insanely competitive. however, i do see one glaring problem with this idea: the harker school has a very small campus, and simply doesn’t have the capacity (from what i can tell) to host an octos bid tournament. i think they regularly cap entires in VLD at around 60ish debaters (someone correct me if i’m wrong), which makes it impossible to break to anything higher than octos without running partials. I’m pretty sure that the TOC committee would not allow some debaters to bye to a bid.
Posted from: 207.207.127.254
February 11th, 2008 23:50
one more thought…
although i don’t foresee this happening anytime soon if at all, i think the best system for toc qualification is the format college parli debate uses for qualling to the npte. it is point-based, with bonus points for better tournaments. the bonus points are determined based on certain factors that change every year (number of teams that travel 400 miles, total teams, etc). in this system, the quality of the tournament truly determines its competition, since it doesn’t matter where or when the tournament is; if it is run well, good competition will follow, and competitors will be rewarded with bonus points. i think this is very preferable to the current backwards method of the expected competition determining real competition, but with tournament directors having very little incentive to run a good tournament. as a result, i’ve found that the college parli tourneys i’ve been to are extremely well-run, although the point system isnt the only reason this is true.
Posted from: 24.4.205.201
February 12th, 2008 00:06
rob,
the ndca uses a system much like the one you describe.
Posted from: 128.135.98.247
February 12th, 2008 00:15
to swanson:
i mean you knew it was going to be 2 hours in between rounds, and the out-rounds were mostly on time. and last year it didn’t run nearly as long. also the main difference and the reason the delays didn’t matter the last few years was due to the proper placement of judges and fantastic out-round panels. so maybe your rounds were starting really late, but overall the experience was positive for most people between 2004-2007 especially the 05-06 season if you remember that one specifically.
Posted from: 75.25.130.115
February 12th, 2008 00:34
First of all, props to Moerner for finalling at two octas bid tourneys in three weeks, to Cameron and Chris for qualing, to Rahul for a major breakthrough, and to Lynbrook for having two kids break to a bid round and drop to the finalists, which sucks.
Second, joyoftournaments says Bilal Malik was 5-1, why don’t I see him the the break list?
Third, in response to Rob, I am not very familiar with the points system, but from what I understand, it favors people who go to a lot of tournaments. Also, the bid system allows the TOC director to influence debate in a positive manner, by making sure that bids are allocated to the areas that do not deserve them at the moment, but might improve after there are bids in the area, meaning that debate is not as concentrated in a few powerhouse regions, and thus becomes more accessible for talented people in debate-wise backward states who can’t travel (not that this is happening today).
Also, if you want the importance of the tournament be determined solely by its quality, something similar to the NDR is a better idea than the points system. However, using it might mean that people with high rankings will not attend more tournaments out of fear of their ranks going down, which doesn’t happen with the bid and the points system (you can’t lose a bid). On a totally unrelated note, I think that the NDR-like ranking systems are the most fair, and even if they won’t work at determining the TOC participants, they should be implemented to determine the seeds at individual tournaments, since they eliminate the luck factor.
Once again, props to everybody who did well at Stanford.
Posted from: 70.189.168.180
February 12th, 2008 00:37
I <3 Rahuuul
Posted from: 24.4.205.201
February 12th, 2008 00:50
a,
bilal broke to triples, a round not posted on VBD for some reason. he lost on a 2-1 to rancho bernardo TN (mandhania, sheehan, *manley)
Posted from: 207.207.127.254
February 12th, 2008 01:11
spirtos: i think you definitely have a point, especially with the outround panels and efficiency, but i still remember ridiculous delays/judges for prelim rounds… although yes, i did definitely enjoy the tournament, but i think that was more a consequence of liking to debate and enjoying stanford’s campus/atmosphere
a: the npte points system only counts your best five tournaments, so it puts a limit on favoring people that go to lots of tournaments. also, i don’t see why the toc committee can’t change that to your best 3 tournaments, or whatever it sees appropriate. in response to the argument that the current system allows the committee to help underdeveloped areas, 1. the point system allows ALL tournaments that satisfy a few general requirements to count, instead of just a few with the bid system, and 2. if there truly are underdeveloped areas, the point system would allow tournaments in those areas to gain some reputation because points are awarded for those tournaments, and other, more established teams might then start traveling to those areas. i think that is highly preferable to the current system where tournaments like alta are, in my opinion, undeservedly getting high bid levels, which is just causing out-of-area teams to spend more money to travel to those tournaments, where they take almost all the bids from the local participants. in addition, the point system encourages debate everywhere without penalizing already established debate regions.
finally, i think the ndr, while cool, is highly problematic because it is difficult to objectively determine which tournaments are better than others, but more importantly, it counts ALL tournaments, so it gives a huge advantage to teams that have the ability to travel extensively. it also certainly hurts teams in underdeveloped areas, b/c they don’t have the access to the bigger tournaments that the ndr gives more weight to. this is my interpretation of how the ndr works, i am in no way an expert, so please correct me if i misunderstand the ndr
Posted from: 76.102.128.144
February 12th, 2008 02:28
Ankur: I think that the reason why partial trips isn’t posted is because it isn’t on JOT–they just posted results starting from doubles.
Posted from: 75.67.192.249
February 12th, 2008 04:56
Congrats Dan and Paul! Good job on clearly a difficult tournament (it seems from reading above there were other factors making it tough!)
Posted from: 66.108.88.254
February 12th, 2008 06:22
Ankur — to be honest, I was unable to post anything from this tournament because there’s a three-hour time difference in New York. I was out during triples and asleep by the time octas started. I used Joy of Tournaments to fill in the blanks from what was posted personally. Unfortunately, they didn’t post the partial triples round. As soon as I have the pairings I’ll definitely post them.
Posted from: 207.47.44.155
February 12th, 2008 09:11
So, I’ve finally recovered from Stanford, after having gotten home from judging finals at about 2:00am, and I wanted to share my thoughts:
Congratulations to the finalists! Moerner, you continue to impress me with your debating. And you obviously know how to win my ballot. Paul, I am consistently impressed by your performance in rounds were you are either sick or unbelievably tired. I can’t wait to judge you when you’re healthy and well-rested!
Also, congratulations to Rahul! Your hard work this year has finally paid off!
Finally, thank you to everyone for your kind references to the Harker tournament. We strive to put together an event that features outstanding competition, fantastic judging, transparency in administration, and phenomenal hospitality. We hope to see you in San Jose at the end of the month!
As for Stanford, barring radical structural changes, Harker LD will not be going back. After one poor tournament administration decision after another, I kept telling people the last was the straw that broke the camel’s back. That poor camel now has some horrific spinal injuries. I expect more from an octas bid that charges such high entry fees. At least the campus is gorgeous. But, now that I live here, I can, and do, visit regularly, and don’t need a debate tournament to do so. I look forward to having this weekend off next year.
Posted from: 128.54.57.99
February 12th, 2008 10:48
I just wanted to congratulate Moerner for finally winning an Octos bid (and on your birthday too, kind of…)!
Also, huge congrats to Conor Doherty and Chris Catterton for an impressive showing. Both of you were really awesome in octos and I could easily see both of you in late outrounds of other tournaments.
More congrats to JScoggs for getting to Semis and being a balla doing it and to Catherine for yet another impressive performance.
Posted from: 128.36.76.42
February 12th, 2008 11:13
I used to go to the Stanford tournament a lot, a for a few times helped in tab (in the pre-koshy days) and for one year coached kids to stanford. I’d say there is a bit of historical consistency with this tournament that made the complaints I heard sounds very familiar.
From my past experience, the way stanford’s tournament is run is from an ad-hoc fashion. Things like forfeiting the coin toss or giving students struck judges in the bid round, or from what I hear having a no-experience person in 2 flights of a bid round indicate to me one thing:
*LD is not a priority at this tournament and is not cared about, and will not be unless there is a direct and quick consequence of such faults.* Just saying “let’s give them another chance and hope they fix it” at least from my experience with this touranment means nothing will be done. People ask me why Harker didn’t attend for 2 years beforehand—it’s because I strongly pushed the team not to waste its money/effort for a tournament that didn’t care about LD and being fair to its students. I’m upset that once we gave the tournament a chance again, it went back to the same actions which compelled us not to go when it had a quarters bid..
The schedule says it all–Stanford is a tournament that tries to have every event, and hence it cannot quickly turnover rooms because other events are happening.
But perhaps the most disgusting thing I heard that I have not heard discussed so far is the inequity of breaking procedures. Breaking ALL down 2s in varaity *and* JV policy, but not doing the same in LD indicates that LD is taken for granted, and as a result, the students are too.
Put frankly, a tournament which breaks so few down 2s should not be doing so when they randomly push break rounds to parents who do not speak english, or fraternity brothers who have never judged LD before. As was present the year before I pushed the team to skip Stanford, there is no concern or effort to protect break rounds (Harker this year had a student in a 3-2/4-1 who had a ballot pushed to someone with 0 experience).
Sadly these activities were common when I attended Stanford and this year they showed up again. Although there is some discussion about the problem of taking bids from the West Coast, I don’t see it as much of a problem—there’s a decent number of bid tournaments which I think are undervalued (I’ll toss in a non-harker school as an example: CPS ) which contrary to what this weekend showed, care about the welfare of LD students, quality of judging, and the integrity of the competition. As long
as tournaments like Stanford abuse its LD competitiors and keep its huge amass of bids, places like CPS/Harker will continue to have the bid levels that they do. Reallocation of bids among West Coast tournaments is a relatively easy solution which would award all aspects from what I understand are criteria for bid distribution. Stanford just shouldn’t have an octos bid based on the fact it has a lot of people who feel trapped that they have to go. If that’s the tournament philosophy, why shouldn’t every touranment remove entry caps and deal with judging in a random, reckless manner?
So what can people on this forum do?
1. Go elsewhere, but this option is insufficient unless done on a mass scale.
However, there are plenty of tournaments at other weekends which are worthwhile on jan-feb (pinecrest is an example that comes to mind) ,
which when I pressed my team to skip stanford, (for all of the reasons mentioned above) we attended.
But the sad reality is that as long as people keep going to stanford (at whatever bid level), I’m very confident there will be few if any substantive changes in either the schedule or
judging or rules enforcement. If people “vote with their feet” and keep going to such a bad tournament, what that tells the people managing the tournament is that their “bottom line” will not be hurt by screwing over LDers. Enough people for example, in policy were ticked off that the tournament actually cared enough to break down 2s… LDers should be just as in arms.
If people talk to JW, and other coaches at TOC about what happened at this touranment, that would mean this discussion has more utility than another VB rant.
2. Talk to people who you know are highly involved in tournament administration about what happened at this tournament. Discourse in this context does matter if people continue talking about this (especially around the TCO)
People who work with tournaments and are involved with the TOC discuss (a lot), and travesties like students having to give up bids because of incompetent management.
3. E-mail stanford tab/ the management directly. If Mr. Frazier said that he values tournament input in his openining, then test that theory, by e-mailing him your specific objections. If you don’t do this, then from their point of view, most people (at the end of the day) had a fine experience and put up with the problems. Lack of direct contact translates to and easy excuse for the group to say “well in every other way it worked out). This too is insufficient, (I tried this with harker, and stanford for the most part didn’t listen years ago) but if people are this serious about their dismay, they should take every option.
4. Hope that the committee brings swift and quick declaration of the fact that there are standards for bid distribution when tournaments break rules, and are apathetic toward tournament quality. This has been discussed before so I needn’t go into detail.
The events at stanford from what I hear are disturbing, but given my past historical experience with this tournament, are far from surprising. If I wasn’t a poor phd. student I’d bet my TA money on this: Stanford is a tournament that acts almost entirely on loss aversion, not on proactive concern for LD students and competition. Unless that loss aversion is given, we’ll have another VB discussion of people sad that nothing has changed.
I’m glad that Adam gets his weekend off next year.
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 12th, 2008 11:57
Someone should go ahead and have this thread sent both to Frazier and to the TOC committee.
Posted from: 69.151.221.178
February 12th, 2008 12:31
I like Babbs suggestion.
Congrats to Moerner on winning, Paul on being in finals, Rahul and Scoggin on great showings, Catterton, Connor, Cameron and everyone else who got their second bid.
And congrats to Sasha on her first bid round of the year.
Posted from: 155.97.238.238
February 12th, 2008 12:48
Thanx a bunch to the great Stanford staff who were always really nice and helped out unfailingly. It was kind of annoying that everything ran late, but seriously, this was a huuge tournament–I think the LD pool was something like 240 people or whatever. Anyways, one thing that I wanted to point out, I hope next year there’ll be better judges even for prelims, especially rounds that determine breaking…i.e., when you’re down 2, there should be a good judge!! But anyways, California was amazing as always, and this was fun overall.
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
February 12th, 2008 12:56
Joanna, they’re not the only tournament with 200+ entrants, yet they end up finishing semis after midnight. The students/debaters from Stanford that I saw were willing to help as much as possible. That’s not the problem. The people that were in charge took an already poorly scheduled tournament, and got behind schedule on friday, despite the fact that everything should have been ready to go before the tournament began.
Posted from: 169.199.168.148
February 12th, 2008 14:29
jon:
here are some trips results; hopefully others will contribute what they know if nobody has a copy of the pairings that they’ll type up.
Collegiate MW def. Brentwood MA (3-0: Hess, O’Connell, ?)
Monte Vista AW def. Lynbrook NS (2-1: ?*, Hess, O’Connell)
San Dieguito MS def. Hopkins GS (3-0)
Mountain View DG def. Collegiate DS (3-0)
Rancho Bernardo TN def. James Logan BM (2-1: *Manley, Sheehan, Mandhania)
Strake Jesuit DD def. Hockaday JR (3-0)
Meadows AK def. CPS LS (3-0)
some people who byed through trips:
Carnegie Vanguard RV
Strake Jesuit PT
Strake Jesuit TL
Analy CC
Mountain View NP
Mountain View JM (I think)
Monta Vista OA
Rancho Bernardo CB
hope that helps
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
February 12th, 2008 15:15
some other partial trips rounds:
Lynbrook GG def. Mountain View MM
2-1 (weeks, olivarez, pinto*)
Lynbrook RR def. Hockaday JM
3-0 (weeks, olivarez, pinto)
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
February 12th, 2008 15:17
oh, and i never voiced some congrats, so congrats to all of those who did awesome at this tournament (paul, moerner, rahul, scoggin, marc, shivani, joan, etc), congrats again to rachel on bid round #3 (you’ll get em next year).
Posted from: 68.11.25.35
February 12th, 2008 15:34
Other trips:
Monte Vista ZA def. New Orleans Jesuit WS 2-1 (Bhatnagar, Savage, Hertz*)
Congrats, Will, for going 5-1 in prelims and avoiding the 4-2 punch-in-the-gut. And gratz Sasha A. for the strong showing and bid round appearance, Andrew Marquis for being a 4-2 cheetah in a submarine, and to Paul Tyger for being a, uh, tiger.
p.s. I’ll post the full trips tomorrow if no one does so by then. I left the pairings at school today.
Posted from: 169.199.168.148
February 12th, 2008 15:45
Monte Vista doesn’t have a ZA…I think you might mean Granada Hills ZA?
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 12th, 2008 15:51
if judge placement is going to be a concern voiced to the toc committee about this tournament, it might be helpful to find a way to document who judged what rounds. the results on JOT are not your standard TRPC print out but actually produced from the JOT software. that means you have no way to know who judged what. judges are missing from elim data too. i didnt go to the tournament, but hopefully those who did can piece together enough hard data to make a meaningful case for change. anecdotal proof is readily dismissed.
Posted from: 128.135.188.229
February 12th, 2008 15:57
im wasnt there but due to all the judge substitutions after octas because judges were leaving i doubt there will be any copy of the pairings that is accurate
Posted from: 68.11.25.35
February 12th, 2008 15:59
totally. my bad. sorry, zita. you were great.
Posted from: 128.54.165.135
February 12th, 2008 16:38
oh, somebody who deserves a post all to himself is most definitely Merill for finally getting his much struggled for bid. That was a really awesome showing and bodes well for ToC.
Posted from: 76.173.160.254
February 12th, 2008 17:46
So I actually *borrowed* a copy of pairings for trips. I’m just copying what was on the original sheet though so I’m not sure if judges are accurate…
Lynbrook RR vs. Hockaday JM (Cass, Olivarez, Pinto)
Lynbrook GG vs. Mountain View MM (Cass, Olivarez, Pinto)
St. Mary’s AR vs. Hockaday DB (Sheehan, Mandhania, Manley)
James Logan BM vs. Rancho Bernardo TN (Sheehan, Mandhania, Manley)
San Dieguito MS vs. Hopkins GS (Lawrence, Tarsney, Satish)
Presenation NA vs. Loyola CG (Lawrence, Tarsney, Satish)
Archer MS vs. Brentwood JL (Nelson, Meyer, Woerner)
Mountain View DG vs. Collegiate DS (Nelson, Meyer, Woerner)
Meadows AK vs. Coll Prep LS (Kwan, McGrath, Yoo)
Hockaday KF vs. Hopkins CD (Kwan, McGrath, Yoo)
Archer LB vs. Palo Alto RR (S Jain, Kimball, Torson)
Altamont SA vs. Strake Jesuit RH (S Jain, Kimball, Torson)
Strake Jesuit DD vs. Hockaday JR (Hertz, H. Jain, Savage)
N.O.Jesuit WS vs. Granada Hills ZA (Hertz, H. Jain, Savage)
Collegiate MW vs. Brentwood MA (T. Smith, Watters, Hess)
Monte Vista AW vs. Lynbrook MN (T. Smith, Watters, Hess)
Posted from: 24.242.139.162
February 12th, 2008 19:48
in triples:
collegiate mw (aff) def. brentwood ma
3-0 (hess, o’connell, wernecke)
monte vista aw (neg) def. lynbrook ns (narayan subramanian) <— this code was incorrect on the postings
2-1 (hess, o’connell, *wernecke)
Posted from: 69.181.125.125
February 12th, 2008 20:03
a few i can contribute:
doubles–slp ct def meadows ak 2-1 (hess empey *smith)
octos–los altos dm def mv np 2-1 (smith torson *tarsney)
octos–mv jm def sda ms 2-1 (peiris smith *bryan)
quarters–strake pt def monte vista aw 3-0 (lawrence kimball smith)
semis–los altos dm def palo alto rr 2-1 (pinto nelson *smith)
Posted from: 171.66.38.243
February 12th, 2008 20:51
Dear Friends, Colleagues and Participants of the LD Community,
This is Rich Boltizar and Matthew Fraser, and we are the tournament directors for the Stanford Invitational. Rich is the Site Director for the Stanford campus proper, and Matthew Fraser is the Executive Director and Program Director for the Stanford Debate Society. There are a number of legitimate issues that are being raised on this board in regards to this year’s Stanford Invitational, and a few misstatements or confusions, and we strongly feel that all of this needs to be properly addressed, and stand ready to do exactly that.
First, we extend our sincere apologies on behalf of the Stanford Invitational and ourselves to anyone who feels that the tournament was not up to their expectations, be that for schedule issues or judge quality issues. It is ultimately our responsibility to make sure that the tournament is exemplary in these areas and in all others, and that certainly was our goal, although for some that goal was clearly not accomplished. For anyone who feels that this year’s tournament was substandard in any way, again, we sincerely apologize.
Second, we absolutely take Lincoln-Douglas very seriously, and those who have observed the tournament over the course of many years will know that we have increasingly dedicated more and more resources toward the end of steadily improving the tournament. This is not to say that there were not some important quality issues in this particular year, in the main those being adherence to the schedule on Sunday afternoon and evening, and judge placement issues (in one outround in particular), which we will address in much greater detail in a statement which will follow tomorrow (Wednesday).
Third, we are currently reviewing the issues that have been raised on this board, basically all of which we were aware of. We will be posting a much more thorough response explaining the decisions that we made at the time they were made, and why they were made given the circumstances we faced at the time, again, with posting planned for tomorrow. Finally, we will detail the concrete measures that we will be taking to address the issues which we feel are legitimate and will similarly address the issues where we do not feel change is appropriate, so that LD debaters and coaches can have clear expectations for next year’s tournament. In short, we’ve already begun to take measures to ensure that the tournament next year will at the very least return to the highest standards of quality which we have been able to reach over the past few years, and in fact we will do all that we can to exceed those quality standards.
We feel it only fair to point out that unfortunately there are occasionally agendas in the debate community that are not always apparent, often from folks who post the most and post the longest, ranging from people who are seeking bids for their own tournaments to people who simply have long standing issues which are known only to them, and this board in particular has been pointed to by some as a hotbed for people with those sorts of issues. All that we would ask from the vast majority of fair minded students and coaches, who are only seeking the best tournaments to attend and firmly desire progress and improvement for Lincoln Douglas debate, is that you fully consider our detailed statement when we post it for you tomorrow.
For those of you who have already communicated to us that the 2008 Stanford Invitational actually met your expectations and that you found it worthwhile or even one of the best experiences of your year thus far, our sincere thanks for your support! Once we have posted our more detailed statement tomorrow, we will welcome any and all serious communications, and will personally respond to anyone who wishes to address communications to us on the issue of Lincoln-Douglas debate at the Stanford Invitational. Best regards to all of you.
Most sincerely,
Matthew Fraser
Executive Director, Stanford Invitational
Program Director, Stanford Debate Society
Rich Boltizar
Site Director, Stanford Campus, Stanford Invitational
Posted from: 24.242.139.162
February 12th, 2008 21:31
also:
octafinals –
strake jesuit pt def. rancho bernardo cb (cameron baghai)
2-1 (o’connell, torson, *sheehan)
Posted from: 75.209.161.113
February 12th, 2008 22:09
Mr. Fraser and Mr Boltizar,
I don’t run a tournament, I don’t work for an LD company, and I don’t have any agenda, so maybe you can take this post as one that is unbiased. Many tournaments have issues with large participant pools, but after a history of running said tournaments groups figure out how to make accommodations. I’m sure tournaments like Harvard and Glenbrooks have issues, but they manage to resolve them, and have become tournaments known for their quality and their attentiveness to fix these issues. Sure, Harvard may have some judging issues, and Glenbrooks has caps on entrants, but these are issues that they disclose up front or are well known and ultimately something that the debate community has come to accept..
———-
There is nothing acceptable about a tournament that’s known to run late and into the early hours of the morning while having few rounds on Sunday. I;m not here to get bids to other tournaments, I’m just here to express how entirely unacceptable it is to have a tournament that’s known for making finals in the wee hours of the morning. This isn’t a new issue – it’s been the cornerstone of the tournament from back when I was debating. So to call this a “new issue” that has to be resolved or brought to your attention is ridiculous. Excuse me and the rest of the debate community if we don’t believe that these are “issues you’re working on”.
—–
I just have one question to ask that I’d like a response to, and it’s not one that involves Harker getting bids or you losing them. Why is your tournament the only one that continually is unable to get finals rounds done at a reasonable hour? Why is it the only tournament that can’t put together rounds on Sunday in a reasonable matter?
—–
These aren’t unreasonable assumptions, and they certainly aren’t impossible feats. You can’t blame it on this year, because this has been a historical hallmark of your tournament, and I’d love to hear the reasonable explanation behind it.
—-
Sincerely,
Michael Boyle
Posted from: 75.73.217.69
February 12th, 2008 22:11
My panels:
doubles: kwan torson olivarez
octas: kimball, olivarez, hess
quarters: nelson hertz bhatnagar
semis: hess hertz savage
I found the judging to be as good as I expected and frankly even better, but I obviously don’t speak for everyone.
When I left after semis the finals panel was set to be: nelson hess hertz
Posted from: 71.139.10.115
February 12th, 2008 22:40
Judging was sexy. Erik Holland did an excellent job. Before he took over the tournament had serious problems.
Posted from: 67.127.185.162
February 12th, 2008 22:41
“We feel it only fair to point out that unfortunately there are occasionally agendas in the debate community that are not always apparent, often from folks who post the most and post the longest, ranging from people who are seeking bids for their own tournaments to people who simply have long standing issues which are known only to them, and this board in particular has been pointed to by some as a hotbed for people with those sorts of issues.”
Awwww c’mon Matt… at least name the names of the people you want to call out. Really, if you can’t handle the heat get out of the kitchen, or name the names of the people you think are plotting against you.
With regards to Harker, which is the only school that has been continually mentioned, I notice that Adam doesn’t comment at all about his school’s tournament. Unless you are talking about CPS… which bhill mentions. But I don’t see those coaches here.
In any case, our school stopped going to Stanford back before the bid punishment and has never looked back. As a former student and now assistant coach, I can say I had a fabulous weekend chilling in the snow!
Posted from: 171.66.38.243
February 12th, 2008 23:15
Dear Friends, Colleagues and Participants of the LD Community,
We want to be clear that our response tomorrow will engage only the key issues raised with regard to the quality, scheduling, and future operation of the Stanford Invitational. We have no interest in getting involved in an in-depth discussion about personalities, conflicts or agendas. We are very interested in explaining why the tournament has run the way that it has over the years and how it will run in the future, and we will respond in depth to serious questions in regards to those substantive issues.
Most sincerely,
Matthew Fraser
Executive Director, Stanford Invitational
Program Director, Stanford Debate Society
Rich Boltizar
Site Director, Stanford Campus, Stanford Invitational
Posted from: 128.36.76.42
February 12th, 2008 23:44
It’s probably not the best response to say
that the reason people are making tournaments comparisons is that it’s an “agenda.”
(I made reference to tournaments that I get
nothing from, ie non-harker tournaments for a reason) …and tournaments which I’m not likely to coach students any time in the near future.
Octos bid tournaments, I assume, (and maybe I’m completely wrong here b/c I’m no TOC committee member) get the highest mark because they should indicate a standard of competition, tournament adminstration, fairness, blah blah.
Given some of the issues I and others bring up, I don’t think people are being unreasonable to be angry about why things happened the way they did, esp. given the sacrifices many people put in to attend Stanford (and the subsequent expectations they have).
A better response would deal with the criticisms that MANY coaches have put…not to dismiss them quickly under an appearance of self-rationalization. That’s not good for anyone–either the Stanford officials, or the LD community as a whole.
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
February 12th, 2008 23:45
i think one issue that also ought be ‘addressed’ is how aggressive mr. fraser was being during outrounds; he came in during rounds demanding debaters start speaking or that they would forfeit. while the tournament was running behind, i did notice debaters feel uncomfortable and pressured, which was unfair to the students. one good example of this was the round i judged between shivani vohra and john scoggin, in which he glared at shivani and threatened her until she started reading the 1AC. i thought it was ridiculously a. unnecessary, and b. unfair of him to pressure her into speaking. that was totally uncalled for, and i personally think she deserves an apology, as well as any other debater who had to deal with that. it wasn’t her fault that octas was started after 9pm, nor was it any of the other student’s.
Posted from: 169.229.81.189
February 13th, 2008 03:14
I think that given 6 prelims, breaking all 4-2’s was neither advisable nor possible. The triples panels would have been atrocious, and I’m not sure they could have even had that many judges physically there.
The best question, I think, is why Policy, with half the entries of LD, had 7 prelims. A 7th Prelim fixes a lot of the problems with the LD break, and could have zero effect on their schedule if they remove the 7th Policy Prelim.
New Schedule:
2 LD rounds Friday,
Saturday:
8AM LD Rd 3
10AM Policy Rd 1
12PM LD 4
2PM Policy 2
4PM LD 5
6PM Policy 3
8PM LD 6
Sunday:
8AM: LD 7
10AM: Policy 4
12PM: LD Trips (all 5-2’s clear)
2PM: Policy 5 / LD Doubles (should have enough rooms given policy is smaller than LD)
4PM Policy 6/LD Octos
6PM Policy Outround one/ LD quarters (single Flight)
7:30PM LD Sems (single)
9 PM LD Finals
Vastly better in theory. Obviously, all the other issues that hurt the tournament are still relevant, but at least, I’d like to see this schedule on paper next year.
Losing Policy round 7 wouldn’t hurt much given the number of teams.
Posted from: 71.103.123.183
February 13th, 2008 04:38
Hi folks,
I don’t generally participate in these threads, nor quite frankly do I even read them, but one of my students brought this to my attention, and I felt that some of this was so grossly unfair I had to say something.
During the year I am involved in the administration and running of many big tournaments throughout California including being the director of the California State Tournament, and for many years I was incharge of many of the logistical components of the Victory Briefs Insitute. In each of these roles I have learned one very important fundamental thing: No matter how organized a tournament director is sometimes things are outside of their control.
In this instance, I can offer that while working at the Logan Tournament I personally observed Matt Fraser and Condi Creek speak extensively with Brent Hinkle about every detail of the tournament. Great care was spent in going over how to assign rounds the best judging panels possible, and how to perferctly pair the tournament. The priority was that the Joy of Tournaments would allow the tournament to more carefully pair the tournament and avoid many of the problems that I have heard people complain about over the years with TRPC. I can honestly say that in all of my years of running touranments I have NEVER seen anyone take so much care, or cover so many specific details to protect kids. The work that they did behind the scenes was really groundbreaking in terms of developing more specific software that will allow debate administrators to better protect kids in the future.
In addition the tournament did provide for some very good judges. I do know that the tournament paid out CONSIDERABLY more money in judges fees than it collected. During Matt’s original conversations with Brent they spent a great deal of time discussing the importance of providing GREAT judging and how to distribute their “A” and “A-” judges so as to best protect kids. No one can imagine the almost nausiating focus on detail that went into that initial planning meeting and I can imagine into subsequent discussions. I know that the Stanford folks were on campus until 6am on Friday night making sure everything was in place and ready to go for Saturday.
I was not really involved in the debate administration on Saturday as I was running the IE tournament on another site, but I can attest to the fact that when I arrived on campus on Sunday morning I spoke to several coaches and students who told me A) the tournament ran basically seemlessly on Friday and Saturday, and B) the judges that they had were very good. A couple of these people are ironically the same folks who are now publically blasting the tournament.
So, what happened on Sunday? Having been in and out of the tabroom, I will tell you that the software hit a wall. Anyone who has ever run a major tournament on computers will tell you that this is ANY tournament directors biggest nightmare. We first used Joy of Tournaments to run the state tournament three years ago. The first year, I had to keep reminding folks that there would be a learning curve and that it would take time to get the software to do what we wanted it to do, but that in time, the investment that we were making would make for better tournaments for everyone. We ran the tournament with cards as a backup, and at many points in the touranment had to abandon the computer and go to the cards. Many told me then that we shouldn’t utilize the computer, but I felt that the end product was valuable enough to warrant the struggles that we would have to endure to get there. Today, most folks couldn’t imagine the state touranment going back to cards.
Likewise, Stanford was the first major LD tournament to utalize the Joy of Tournaments software. Brent wrote a great deal of code to do what the tournament wanted to do, and quite frankly was able to offer a great many protections to students in the ways the pairings were done and judges were assigned that TRPC can’t even come close to. TRPC is a great program, but I think anyone who has used it knows that it it VERY limited in its options as far as pairings and judge assignments. The work that Brent and Matt did with this Joy of Tournaments software will in time be truly groundbreaking. No one outside of the general tabroom can even begin to imagine the high level of care that was taken to ensure that the students had the most fair and highly competitive experience possible. From those earliest planning meetings into the late hours of the night if there was one thing that was insisted upon over and over it was that things be done fairly and correctly. I think both Brent and Stanford debate should be commended for this work.
The second thing I want to comment about on that front is the cool head Matt Fraser kept in the midst of what could have been a much bigger disaster had someone less experienced been in charge. When the computer had problems at state some of the people in the tabrooms lost their patience very quickly. Under stress it seems easy to pass the blame. Having talked to Brent at the conclusion of the touranment he was incredibly complimentary of the fact that Matt never did this. Rather than placing blame he said that his focus was on how to make decisions that would best protect kids. Obviously, they did have to make some difficult decisions regarding strikes in later rounds, but even then they kept with what they promised in their invitation which was to honor strikes through the first elim round. Every effort was made to “catch up” without sacrificing the integrity of the tournament. I imagine it would have been possible for them to “catch up” by not taking as much care to make sure the pairings were correct, or to just assign random judging panels–I for one am glad that is not the road they chose. I would much rather the tournament have ended late than for them to have rushed and sacrificed the integrity of the competition.
And I think that is another fundamental point to be made here. None of these posts accuse the tournament of doing anything wrong in the way of how the tournament was paired etc. Rather, they focus on two issues, 1) it ran late and 2) Matt Fraser walking around rushing rounds to get started. The first I have already discussed. The second, I find ironic. How can people critize him legitamitely for this. The tournament was a couple of hours behind. It was not only ok for him, but incumbent on him to do everything he could to get the rounds going. As for Matt being in the doorway rushing things along: I was in the tabroom when they were radioing in earlier about kids being late for rounds and and what they should do. Matt always erred on the side of protecting the kids and giving them every possible chance. If he was walking around from roomto room trying to get the kids to start he was doing the only responsible thing a tournament director could do at that point. Given the fact that most of these posts are criticizing the tournament for being late, I think this is at least one place where we can safely say he was doing what he could to keep those who were at rounds on time and ready tostart from having to wait any further. To just sit back in the tabroom and hope that the rounds were starting would have been irresponsible and disrespectful to those who were there on time and wanted to start. There is no reason why kids should not have been ready to start the rounds right away.
Look, I’m not saying that this was a perfect tournament. I am saying that
1. Great care was put in ahead of time to create groundbreaking software that will provide better, more legitimate tournaments for kids in the future — and Stanford Debate should be commended for that.
2. None of these complaints raise ANY substantive issues about the running of the tournament in terms of fairness or legitimacy — the only real concern is that it was late which given the computer difficulties could have happened to any of us
3. These people have made many good faith effort, and have shown good will — Let’s hear them out and give them a fair hearing. Why are we always so quick to jump on the negative instead of priasing the tournament for the great things it is doing.
4. As noted in the other posts, the Stanford students are to be commended for the cool head and kind way that they handled themselves during the tournament. They were understanding and thoughtful in the way that they treated their guests.
TOC bids should be given to tournaments which A) Draw large pools of competitive students B) provide excellent judging C) do everything in their power to ensure accurate/fair pairings and judge placement. Stanford debate has succeeded on all of these fronts.
Mixed into the complaints from coaches above about the tournament running late I read lots of very positive comments from kids about good judging and an over all good touranment experience. At the end of the day this tournament brought together some of the best debaters in the nation and provided them with fair pairings (much more fair then they would have gotten with TRPC) and good judging. These two things, at least to me, in terms of what determines a “well-run tournament” seem much more important in the grand scheme of things than the fact that the tournament ran a couple of hours late.
This is a great tournament that provides exceptional opportunities for kids. Running a tournament for this many students at this many sites is a TREMENDOUS undertaking. I would be interested to know how many of the people who have criticize the tournament director have even come close to running an event of this magnitude. It is easy to point fingers and assign blame, but it is much more beneficial to offer suggestions and be understanding. I realize that most folks prior to this post were not aware of all of the things that were happening behind the scenes and just thought the tournament was late. I am hoping that now that you are more aware of what wasoccuring behind the scenes we can as a community be more understanding and appreciative of the good work they were doing.
Respectfully,
Nermin Kamel
Posted from: 71.103.123.183
February 13th, 2008 05:35
PS
I do have one more short thing to add, and I do believe this is the greatest injustice of all and that is the two or so people above who make comments about Stanford just being in this for the money. First, I think it is important to note that they paid out more in judge fees than they collected, and second all weekend long every time something came up Matt’s answer was always of course spend whatever you need to make the tournament good. When I asked him about a budget for judge food for the IE judges he just told me to spend whatever I needed and to make sure that they were comfortable. He paid a premium rate for extemp judges to improve the IE site, and was more than generous with attending schools. He was very insistent with me that we made sure we had accurate records on all the judges so that we didn’t accidentally paying anyone.
When I contacted him about a small program from my league that was having problems he made concessions to help her out without flinching. In addition, thorughout the IE touranment I would call him with schools that were having one minor problem or another, and he always erred on the side of being accommodating and helpful. He was NEVER punitive in assigning penalities — even when the invitation would clearly have allowed for that. His constant montra was that we are doing this as a service, and he doesnt want to unnecessarily penalize anyone as long as it isn’t hurting the overall tournament.
In addition, I know that he proactively contacted at least one school when he noticed they had a huge amount of drop fees and asked if there had been some problem. When the coach explained the situation he offered, without being asked, to cut their drop fees more than in half. If there is one thing that I can unequivocaly say about Matt and the Stanford tournament it is that they are far more generous and giving to the high school community than most college tournaments. I can guarantee that there is at least one other second-semester college run invitational in California which is not nearly as generous or as flexible. Stanford is not showy about the many ways that they help small programs, but I have never contacted Matt and asked him to help a school out and had him say “no”.
Criticize them for being late if you feel it necessary, but I think it is grossly unfair to say that they are in it for the money especially when you don’t know the many generous things they do behind the scenes.
Posted from: 71.103.123.183
February 13th, 2008 05:37
correction to above ** Accidentally MISS paying anyone
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
February 13th, 2008 07:25
Nermin, here’s the thing: It was in their control to make sure the tournament ran according to schedule. Every other large tournament is able to stay relatively on track despite scheduling less time between rounds. Stanford scheduled a tremendously long break between each round (over an hour in most cases), and they still weren’t able to stay on track. 2. I think there are several concerns about the judging. They hired a tremendous amount of students to come judge, and Christian pointed out how they got a judge who barely spoke english. That’s not something that is understandable. Judges need to be able to understand what debaters are saying, and if they struggle with english, that’s not the case. Third, if you read Daryl’s message above, they were incompetent at tracking down ballots. There were coaches that had figured out the triples bracket before tab did. Fourth, as far as strikes go, they were in effect for 4 prelim rounds. That means the bid round had no strikes. That’s shameful, especially when they take pride in their ability to have good judging. On top of that, they did not seem to value the community consensus as much as you tend to think, especially considering that the 4-1 bracket had parents and people still not completely fluent with english.
Posted from: 128.36.76.42
February 13th, 2008 08:39
I have a class to teach but in response to Nermin’s comments, I think there’s a bit of selective hearing going on..
As Pwneill pounts out… there are a LOT of concerns about fairness and legitimacy that haven’t been addressed in Nermin’s post, not to mention issues of judge assignment (which has commonly been a very big concern), etc.
To suggest that as Mr. Frazier points out, people unhappy with the tournament are not “fair minded” and “have agendas” is exactly the kind of rhetoric that indicates an unwillingness to listen fully to the complaints levied here from coaches on both sides of the coast, from both small and big schools. I think there should be an apology for this kind of rhetoric because there are a lot of coaches who believed in this tournament and did as much as they could from their end to help things along.
Again, I’m thankful I wasn’t on the receiving end this year, but I can’t help but feel empathy when students and coaches leave a tournament promising never to return.
Nor is it responsive to continually remark about how many people said the tournament was great, or the ‘time of their lives’ or whatever. Continually reposting that indicates an unwillingness to weigh seriously, the many concerns people have levied. It’s almost as if such an assertion “discounts” or “outweighs” the problems people are hoping get addressed.
That’s still NOT listening.
What I think people are looking for are not
attacks on the integrity of those people asking probing questions of the Stanford tournament, or blind dismissal of concerns people have made about the tournament pointing to the size of the event as an explanation for people losing bids because a touranment ran late, or
justifications for having a bid round without strikes at a tournament that offered the option.
Sure, when the “fair case” is made I’m sure people will listen to it, but I’m afraid Nermin’s response indicates what is needed in such a response–not rationalizations, not attacks on very dedicated coaches who spent thousands and trusted the tournament–but an open hand to people to assure them that the things which made so many people (students, coaches, etc.) upset are being *fully* listened to and implemented– and not just criticized or dismissed as irrational.
Again, pointing to happy customers as an excuse or insulting coaches (who may I add, run very big tournaments themselves) is not want I think many people want to hear. We’ve heard that all before with this tournament in past years, and such rhetoric in Mr. Nermin and Mr. Frazier’s posts will not serve the ends they desire.
Posted from: 66.193.5.99
February 13th, 2008 08:43
Nermin- would you mind explaining what problems in the way TRPC pairs rounds that the new JOT program has corrected.
The only comment I would add to this discussion is that I think the major difference between Stanford and other tournaments its size and number of rounds is that it attempts to run in a little more than 2 days (Friday afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday), what other tournaments attempt to do in 3 full days. That to me seems an exceptionally difficult task and I am not sure anyone could overcome that limitation fully. The Yale tournament had similar problems in past years when it tried to run such a schedule in a comparable time frame. Anyone who chooses to attend Stanford needs to understand that you can’t really compare it to some of these other tournaments who have more time in their schedules to work with.
Posted from: 156.3.163.99
February 13th, 2008 09:13
Hi,
Thank you for clarifying some of the issues. I think the things you discuss here are indeed important, and I am not saying (nor do I think Stanford would say) that their aren’t things they could have done better. I think each of us after running a large event has a list of at least 100 things we wish we had done differently. All I am saying is that we should be balanced in our evaluation. There are many things that they did well, and at the end of the day this was far from an easy undertaking. I also think that we need to acknowledge the fact that they were acting in good faith.
I don’t know anything about the judge that didn’t speak English, but I can say fairly confidently that if Matt had known about it that judge would have been pulled immediately. He was fairly visible throughout the tournament and I know he was more than open to talking to concerned coaches. Did anyone approach him about this judge? I think at least some responsiblity also has to be placed with the school that brought that judge. The invitation clearly asks schools to bring qualified judges and even specifically says that the judges must be fluent in English. (I am assuming here thatyou are not insinuating that Stanford hired this judge). How much can a tournament really be expected to do when schools are irresponsible about filling their commitments and no one brings the issue to the attention of the tournament director. Remembering that there were hundreds of judges utalized this past weekend I don’t think the existence of one ill qualified judge is a reasonalbe standard by which to condemn the tourament. What about the large number of A and A- judges that were hired? The judging panels that are referenced above seem very strong to me.
I do agree that the tournament was at fault in not tracking down ballots. I imagine that being understaffed was the biggest issue all weekend. I know they were trying to put as many of their qualified judges as possible inthe judging pool. I think it is a tough balance, but I would venture toguess that had they to do it over again that is definatley something they would do differently.
Again, however, I do think the thing that put them behind on Sunday was the computer issue which yes could have been resolved had they used TRPC, but then again how are we ever going to develop better more specific software if someone isn’t willing to take the risk to develop it. The code on the software was developed a great deal because of this tournament and the state tournament and other major tournaments will benefit from that work. I don’t think this is a service we should dismiss.
Certainly they made mistakes, but we all have. It is always easier to be on the outside looking in. Each year after state I have a long list of things I wish I could have done differently. I have been fortunate in the fact that people have been VERY kind in and forgiving of me in their post tournament evaluations. I am only asking that we afford the Stanford group the same courtesy of the belief in their good faith effort, and a willingness to hear them out.
Respectfully,
Nermin
Posted from: 12.215.129.141
February 13th, 2008 09:20
If they used JOT software that explains a lot. The TRPC software, in my experience, is vastly superior in terms of debate (I know nothing about speech). We started running the valley tournament a few years ago on joy of tournaments and it was a disaster; we switched to trpc after round two.
Posted from: 12.215.129.141
February 13th, 2008 09:24
To clarify-the majority of the problems we had with the JOT program were with placing judges/moving them around. It became incredibly difficult, particularly for round 2, to figure out who could go where. After using both, I found TRPC to be much more user friendly. I understand that the JOT software is often used for local tournaments that need not worry about judge preferencing/strikes, but I found running a national circuit program on that software to be quite difficult.
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 13th, 2008 10:01
I’m sure Matt and his staff aren’t monolithically bad people. The opening statement assembly speech was well-intentioned, and Friday ran more or less on time.
.
I do want to address a few other things, beginning with a couple of Nermin’s comments and then moving on to Fraser’s.
.
-Judging Fees: Nermin says Fraser paid out way more in judging fees than he took back. (1) This seems plausible insofar as there weren’t that many hired judges, due largely to the tournament’s massive judging fees and explicit request not to hire out–the result, needless to say, was programs briging large numbers of students and using parents to judge. (2) Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t judges being paid like $300? I don’t think I recognized a single hired judge’s name. Now maybe they were OK judges, but they did not seem to be mainstays of the LD judging community… prolly not worth what they were paid. (3) Nermin’s posts says nothing of the straight-up tournament fees, the fee for not bringing a busload of debaters, or any concrete numbers–the anecdote about Fraser’s generosity is heart-warming, but is little consolation for those paying the fees and getting stiffed by the service.
.
-Unavoidable Tourney Woes: The post is a Fraser puff piece coming from someone who worked for the tournament. Talk about “other agendas”… I’m not sure how/why this should be about Fraser’s effort. He may be a saint, and I’ve never had a problem with him. This is a results-based discussion. Schools paying for an experience are paying for results, not the good intentions and hard work of people behind the curtains. There are plenty of tournaments that produce those results year after year, even with software difficulties.
.
-”I can attest to the fact that when I arrived on campus on Sunday morning I spoke to several coaches and students who told me A) the tournament ran basically seemlessly on Friday and Saturday, and B) the judges that they had were very good. A couple of these people are ironically the same folks who are now publically blasting the tournament.”
…This is probably because very few people blasting the tournament are complaining about Friday or Saturday. That said, many have complained about Saturday’s schedule, which was absurd to begin with and worsened by some very late running round 3s (I had two debaters in round 3, flight b with rounds at least 30 minutes late). And even if Friday/Saturday were perfect (which is not the case), that’s irrelevant to Sunday’s disaster.
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-As to the repeated assertion that the way this tournament was tabbed was ‘groundbreaking’, perhaps the tabbing community should express their thanks. And, perhaps Stanford shouldn’t use its tournament participants in experimental
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-”The second thing I want to comment about on that front is the cool head Matt Fraser kept in the midst of what could have been a much bigger disaster had someone less experienced been in charge.”
…Good, great, grand. WHY DID IT TAKE DAN MEYERS RANDOMLY WONDERING INTO THE TAB ROOM FOR THEM TO FIND OUT RESULTS FOR THE LAST 3 OR 4 TRIPPLES ROUNDS? Cool head or not, tab was not on top of results… for hours.
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-”None of these posts accuse the tournament of doing anything wrong in the way of how the tournament was paired etc. Rather, they focus on two issues, 1) it ran late and 2) Matt Fraser walking around rushing rounds to get started.”
…Nermin, I know you’ve never been the biggest fan of the line-by-line, but if you read through all of these posts and only managed to distill those two issues, I recommend a second and maybe third read-through. The second issue you mentioned was only brought up once–I’d hardly count it as one of the major grievances out of what are in fact several grievances expressed by many. As to your defense of his treatment of the students (which I did not witness), when a tournament screws up and proceeds to pressure the kids as a result, that’s just stupid. It might be his “duty” to get things moving in a vaccuum, but when it’s the tournament’s fault, give me a break.
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-”2. None of these complaints raise ANY substantive issues about the running of the tournament in terms of fairness or legitimacy — the only real concern is that it was late which given the computer difficulties could have happened to any of us”
…I’d say running elims SO late that at least two students had to miss rounds (one of which a bid round) says something about the substantive legitimacy of the tournament. And the lateness is NOT the ONLY issue. Re-read the posts; there are so many different issues detailed that it would seriously be exhausting for me to find and re-type them all. And it is not my job to read for you anyway, but before becoming so dismissive of what is a consensus of opinion expressed on these boards, READ THE POSTS, slowly if need be.
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-”Running a tournament for this many students at this many sites is a TREMENDOUS undertaking. I would be interested to know how many of the people who have criticize the tournament director have even come close to running an event of this magnitude.”
…Exactly, the tournament would have been much better if Stanford had capped and/or NOT offered so many events. Several people have made exactly this point, and that’s why you should read before you write. One way not to avoid tournaments with unfriendly schedules and administrative difficulty is DONT UNDERTAKE SOMETHING QUITE SO TREMENDOUS. When most tournaments have space issues, they cap entries to fit into that space (rather than make people wait and wait and wait…).
…It should also be pointed out that throughout the tournament LD and Policy rounds were running late because of one another (since we were sharing rooms with little to no lag time). The ripple effect caused by a few late rounds in this scenario predictably frustrates the schedule. This had nothing to do with software running into walls. The lack of transparent tab had nothing to do with uncontrollable circumstances. The lack of communication with debaters and coaches was also a problem. An hour and 45 minutes after tripples ended, the help desk was only equipped to say, “We’re working on it, and it should be soon.” We waited another 45 minutes before anything came out.
I actually think people have been pretty charitable with criticism. The are some things that were ridiculous about the tournament (5-1’s having to debate a partial tripples?!) that people aren’t complaining about, because it’s a structural feature of a tournament that massive.
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“Criticize them for being late if you feel it necessary, but I think it is grossly unfair to say that they are in it for the money especially when you don’t know the many generous things they do behind the scenes.”
-You probably don’t know what they do with all the money either. Until people see some kind of documentation that this tournament doesn’t make a lot of money, why would they have any reason to doubt a profit motive. It’s policies point toward a profit motive 100%, and your 3 anecdotes are prolly insufficient on this issue. But hey, if they don’t want the money, we will happily accept a refund. And as for Nermin’s claims about Stanford helping small programs, a nuisance fee for schools that bring few debaters is objectively NOT helpful to small programs.
b
Posted from: 156.3.163.99
February 13th, 2008 10:24
Hi,
1.Barryhill
A) I’m a gal not a guy *wink :)
B)Stanford folks have already said that the detailed explanation you are asking for is forth coming. I think it is only fair that if we are asking them for a detailed explanation we give them enough time to do a good/thoughtful job.
C)Do you really think it is a stretch to say that sometimes people on different sides of the fence tend to push an agenda on these threads rather than provide fair/balanced analysis of a situation. I think Matt’s response simply says, yes there were problems, and we will discuss those in detail, but please be fair minded when you consider who is posting the criticisms. Listen to both sides fairly and then make an evaluation. I don’t think that is unreasonable. Dont’ we all want a fair hearing. Honestly after running an event like this I would want to be in recovery mode. I am sure the last thing any of these folks want to do is turn around immediately and focus on addressing these attacks. Let’s give them some time and patience… after all we have a whole year before we have to really make a decision about this. I certainly don’t want to be in their shoes, and knowing that the state tournament is around the corner I certainly will be the last one to throw the “first stone”.
2. RJ thank you for pointing out the difference in the length of the touranment – that is an important point I had not considered.
3. Ernie yes I agree to this point the TRPC software has been superior to Joy for debate. The JOT IE software is excellent and well developed bacause many tournaments piloted it until it got that way. Now it allows for many wonderful options and has been a life saving asset to the state tournament and is used by many large invitationals.
The same work needs to be done with the debate software. It will take time, but in the end it will give tournament directors a great many more options. I will leave explaining the differences to Brent, Matt and others who are far more qualified than I. I think I can safely say that will be a large part of their email.
Thank you for giving them a fair hearing.
Respectfully,
Nermin
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
February 13th, 2008 10:27
I agree Ernie, no tournament deserves to take credit for a good tournament when they run so far behind that people are forced to forfeit bid rounds to catch flights. It’s unacceptable
Posted from: 156.3.163.99
February 13th, 2008 10:35
I’ve offered all I can on this. At this point all I ask is that people reserve judgment until Stanford has a chance to respond to these issues.
I’m going back to IE world :)
Posted from: 207.47.45.155
February 13th, 2008 11:11
I would hope that those who know me would agree that I am generally a fairly easy-going and forgiving person. As someone who has run a number of tournaments, I understand all the myriad issues that need to be addressed in order to have a successful event. And, as long as the tournament is working hard to address any concerns that do arise, I would like to think I am fairly forgiving, and relatively supportive, of that tournament. ASU, for example, has had more than its share of issues in the past, but I continue to support the tournament because of the tireless effort I see its LD staff put into making it a better tournament.
But I do not necessarily see that same effort put into this year’s Stanford tournament. Don’t get me wrong: the Stanford students I interacted with were unbelievably friendly. But, as college students, they’re not the most experienced tournament administrators, and the number of tab staff was distressingly small for a tournament of this size. I understand that once a schedule is set, there is little, if anything, that can be done to change it. So, in my conversations with Matt, I understood that our discussions about the desirability of a seventh prelim or a full tripples could only be a discussion about what to do next year. But my concerns with judge assignments were treated as though they were the essentially the fault solely of those schools who brought inexperienced judges.
But, as has been pointed out a number of times, there were a significant number of extremely qualified judges in the pool. Unfortunately for my team, most of my debaters did not have the opportunity to debate in front of those judges until they were effectively out of the tournament, because they had two losses and inexperienced judges had given them inexcusably low speaks. There was supposed to be community preferencing and strikes, but those didn’t go into effect until round 3, when it was effectively too late for too many students: they were now 1-1 with low speaks, getting pulled up to face the top undefeated debaters. Then, when they lost those rounds, they were out of the tournament having had an experienced judge in only one of their rounds. And while it seems some students were pleased with their judging, this precise scenario happened to my students far too often. One or two students having generally inexperienced judging is one thing. But when most of a nine person varsity squad has at least three inexperienced judges, even though the entirety of that squad is in critical (down 1 or down 2) rounds, that gets my attention and is simply inexcusable.
And then came the round 6 pairings. Going into that round, I had several students who were 3-2. But, instead of having the very highest quality judging in all those rounds (we did, thankfully, have that caliber of judging in some), we had several ballots pushed to less experienced critics. And one of those ballots, which featured one of my students yet again pulled up to the down 1 bracket, was assigned to a judge, without a school code and so therefore presumably hired by the tournament, that no one I spoke to, including tournament staff, had heard of. That ballot was then pushed to someone who had no judging experience prior to the Stanford tournament. Schools may have brought inexperienced judging, but there were more than enough extremely qualified judges at the tournament to cover all the down 2 rounds in round 6. That didn’t happen, and that’s a poor decision on the part of the tournament administration.
But the fun didn’t end there. One of our round 6 pairings in which one of our 3-2s was pulled up to debate a 4-1 pulled that debater up, not from the bottom or middle of the down 2 bracket, but from nearly the top. And he was not pulled up to debate the bottom or middle of the down 1 bracket, but, yet again, the top. A top-to-top pull-up!? Are you serious? I know we lost that round, as that was one of the few round 6 pairings in which we got a highly experienced judge, but my debater should not have been forced to defeat the top of the 4-1 bracket in order to clear, when he was at the top of the 3-2 bracket himself.
I discussed all these issues with members of the tournament staff, but apparently, based on some of the comments on this thread, they are not “substantive.” Maybe I was the only coach to experience these concerns, but I doubt it. Regardless, I don’t think anyone would accuse a coach complaining of this comedy of errors to be “hiding an agenda.” And I don’t think anyone will blame me for taking the response to the concerns raised on this thread as further proof of the unwillingness of this tournament to truly listen to, and address, the concerns of those who spend thousands of dollars to attend. And I don’t think anyone will blame me for skipping this tournament next year. It’s just not worth it to me, and I live just down the road.
Adam
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 13th, 2008 11:24
Let’s take a look at this claim about “agendas”. Fraser and Friends brought it up, and Nermin piggybacked. It’s easy to throw stuff like that out there while offering ZERO evidence and naming no names. So, here’s an honest assessment. We’ll go one by one through each name that has voiced criticism of this year’s tournament (that is, I won’t even discuss people who didn’t attend the tournament or who are remarking on past Stanford tournaments). This should be in more or less chronological order:
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Ankur Manhandia (coach for Monte Vista, no imaginable agenda)
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Wade Huston (student at Oak Mountain, no imaginable agenda)
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Barbara (I think a judge, don’t know her, so can’t vouch… but no evidence of an agenda as far as I’m aware)
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Sean Mumper (coach for Collegiate in New York, no imaginable agenda)
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Stephen Babb (coach for Archer in L.A.–is friends with people who run Harker, VBT, and Blake but has no direct interest in those tournaments getting more bids; my interest is in having more quality octas bid opportunities for my students and for other students; I don’t really care where those bids are.)
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Quinn Olivarez (coach for Carnegie Vanguard in Houston, no imaginable agenda)
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Christian Tarsney (coach for St. Louis Park, no imaginable agenda)
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Gary Johnson (coach for Strake Jesuit, no imaginable agenda)
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Jerry Crist (coach for Strake Jesuit, no imaginable agenda)
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Chris Castillo (coach for Altamont, no imaginable agenda)
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Daryl Pinto (coach for Blake, could conceivably want another bid for Blake, but I honestly can’t imagine Daryl caring that much… especially when in all likelihood the bids, if taken from Stanford, would remain in California)
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Adam Nelson (coach for Harker, could conceivably want another bid for Harker… and given the wealth of praise for Harker, I guess I’m not sure why that would be a problematic agenda)
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Even assuming the worst about intentions, it’s hard to believe this much criticism could be the product of ulterior motive.
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What’s more, though, the “agenda” insinuation is 100% without impact. Even if it were true, it would remain to be known what’s wrong with people arguing on behalf of their product over and against another product.
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In reality, though, there has been near consensus among coaches who frequently travel about this tournament’s problems. This consensus comes almost exclusively from people who either don’t run tournaments or aren’t trying to acquire bids for their tournaments. Conversely, the ONLY defenses of this year’s Stanford invitational have come from the directors of the tournament and Nermin, who directed IE at the tournament and was not coaching debaters at the tournament. The only other voices represented are those placing this year’s tournament in a historical context–it should be noted that the prevailing opinion in that respect is that this is not the first year Stanford has had major issues (according to several past coaches and competitors), that Stanford has historically given LD second-rate attention (Berryhill), and that Stanford has historically responded pretty directly to bid incenvites (Massey).
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I hope that clears up any assertions about agendas. I have absolutely nothing personal against the people who ran this tournament. Maybe in other circumstances we’d be bestest of pals–don’t know them. My only interest is in getting my money’s worth when going through the trouble of attending a tournament. I think students and coaches should get a fair return on their investment.
Posted from: 165.123.230.44
February 13th, 2008 12:08
I wasn’t at Stanford, but I’ve been reading this thread because I find a lot of the issues interesting. I have just two quick things to say:
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1. I actually find the “agenda” argument really, really insulting. Yes, most of the people complaining on this thread are coaches/judges, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that we have (at least) two examples of kids who *forfeited rounds to catch flights*. This isn’t about posts that may or may not have agendas, this is about kids who spent $300 on airplane tickets and much more on other fees, who didn’t get to debate past octos.
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To dismiss the concerns about those rounds by arguing that people have “agendas” is infuriating. A lot of kids’ parents/schools save up money so that they can debate and maybe bid. I know that my parents would be absolutely furious if they sent me to California so that I could forfeit.
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2. Many people have been defending Stanford by saying that it was just too big. Now, again, I wasn’t there, but I know for a fact that the Harvard tournament is much, much bigger. Now, say what you want about Harvard, but in my four years of experience there, finals has *always* ended when it was supposed to.
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Additionally, it sounds as though this tournament failed to use common sense. Even if it was understaffed, it only takes 1-2 Parli debaters or even other random college kids to poke their heads into triples rounds, get the decisions, and phone them back to the tab room…
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 13th, 2008 12:19
Dealing with some more bad arguments…
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“I don’t know anything about the judge that didn’t speak English, but I can say fairly confidently that if Matt had known about it that judge would have been pulled immediately. He was fairly visible throughout the tournament and I know he was more than open to talking to concerned coaches. Did anyone approach him about this judge? I think at least some responsiblity also has to be placed with the school that brought that judge. The invitation clearly asks schools to bring qualified judges and even specifically says that the judges must be fluent in English. (I am assuming here thatyou are not insinuating that Stanford hired this judge). How much can a tournament really be expected to do when schools are irresponsible about filling their commitments and no one brings the issue to the attention of the tournament director.”
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What do you expect schools to do when they’re allowed to bring massive entries and threatened with massive fees if they don’t bring their own judges? Sure, shame on the schools for not knowing what “qualified” means, but shame on the tournament for expecting anything better. Many schools either don’t know or don’t care about bringing good judges. And, they have zero competitive interest in doing so (after all, the bad judge they bring will only screw over other schools). When a tournament structurally incentivizes the provision of bad judges, it should probably take responsibility for that. As for “bringing it to Fraser’s attention,” what is a kid supposed to do… leave in the middle of the round to tell the help desk they don’t like their judge?
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“Remembering that there were hundreds of judges utalized this past weekend I don’t think the existence of one ill qualified judge is a reasonalbe standard by which to condemn the tourament.”
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Given that people can only judge what they experienced, commenting about more than one or two judges would probably be outside their jurisdiction. But, given that several have communicated several experiences (and keep in mind that not even everyone with judging complaints have posted), your reply assumes that the one issue your discussing is the only one of its kind.
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“Again, however, I do think the thing that put them behind on Sunday was the computer issue which yes could have been resolved had they used TRPC, but then again how are we ever going to develop better more specific software if someone isn’t willing to take the risk to develop it.”
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Sure, then experiment with smaller tournaments or practice with mock tournaments, whatever… don’t try it out on 220 unsuspecting participants at one of only 8 octas bid tournaments in the country. That is not the time nor place for untested experimentation.
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“It is always easier to be on the outside looking in. Each year after state I have a long list of things I wish I could have done differently. I have been fortunate in the fact that people have been VERY kind in and forgiving of me in their post tournament evaluations. I am only asking that we afford the Stanford group the same courtesy of the belief in their good faith effort, and a willingness to hear them out.”
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What world is it in which the organization/company selling a seriously warped service deserves extensive patience/forigveness/understanding??? If you find a finger in your Egg McMuffin, it probably isn’t OK for McDonald’s to say, ‘Oh we’re really sorry, we were trying out a new flavor. We worked really hard. Your next Egg McMuffin will be much better. We are really nice people, seriously. Why are you being such a downer? It was only one finger flavored Egg McMuffin–the other ones were fine.’ The customers got a raw deal. It may be somewhat easier to be on the outside looking in, but it wasn’t especially pleasant on Sunday. I do feel bad for the people running the tournament–I’m sure they went through a lot of stress and had a pretty bad time. That sucks. But, it is ultimately irrelevant to the fact that consistently better tournaments have lesser bids and to the fact that a lot of people spent a lot of money and time on a tournament that miserably short-changed them.
b
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 13th, 2008 12:28
Ditto to Ali’s comments.
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And to make one more point re: Nermin’s question about people finding tab to tell them about bad judges… THE HELP DESK REFUSED TO TELL PEOPLE WHERE TAB WAS!
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In general, I find it baffling that responsibility is being projected on to schools for bringing bad judges, debaters for not rectifying the judges who judged them, debaters for not starting already-late rounds as soon as the tourney would like.
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Our fees don’t go to other schools. God knows that if we had to rely on the good judgement of every single school attending the tournament, we wouldn’t go to the tournament. Quality control, schedule, tabbing software, and lateness are a tournament’s responsibility.
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 13th, 2008 12:36
I’d love to hear a real explanation about what the limits of TRPC are compared to the JOT software. I’ve never tried JOT, but TRPC is pretty much the standard by which all other tab software is measured. It is not the easiest software in the world to learn, but I’ve never had a problem moving judges (sometimes it takes a little creativity, but thats half the fun). If you’re tired of TRPC, why not go to something like STA-XL+? it has the power of gary larson’s MJP algorithm inside. even from the competitors/coaches perspective, they deserve something better than the sparse cumulative print-outs that JOT slaps together (which makes it impossible to tell who judged what rounds and cumbersome to determine the opponent).
Posted from: 67.165.106.132
February 13th, 2008 12:41
(ps: the other message here is ’screw proprietary software’)
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
February 13th, 2008 12:45
Re:Michael
I would be interested as well. The coding system and the printouts were very bizzare, as were the schems. If they honestly can show that there was a good reason for deviating from standard practice to use JOT, I’m more than willing to listen, I just find it bizzare that they’re one of only a few major tournaments that use it.
Posted from: 24.4.205.201
February 13th, 2008 13:48
i will wait to comment further till after mr. fraser and company post the promised explanation. briefly, however, to respond to a comment I find troubling: I’d like to think that my only agenda is making sure my students have fun, stay safe, and learn something when they go to tournaments…and I think my comments on this thread reflect that agenda, and that agenda only. If you disagree, I invite you to find any comments of mine that spring from other, hidden motives.
with regards to that explanation…one of the above comments referenced it as an email. if that is, in fact, the form it will take, could someone please post it here (as a separate entry, perhaps) so all of us can see it? the students who have been raising concerns deserve, I think, no less of an explanation than those coaches whose email IDs Mr. Fraser may possess. I’d post it myself, but my email ID isn’t the one we used to register for Stanford, so I won’t be able to…
Posted from: 76.205.203.123
February 13th, 2008 13:52
I believe it is incumbent upon me to personally respond to some of the criticisms of the Stanford tournament from this past weekend. There were a number of issues that arose at the tournament, and many of those issues were directly my responsibility. I think some of the criticism that is aimed at the Stanford folks is not entirely aimed the right direction.
There have been a few occasions where new opportunities have been presented to me and the Stanford L-D tournament was one of those. I have had numerous conversations with Matt Fraser over the past year discussing modifications to the Joy of Tournaments software to accommodate both some missing elements within the existing software and additional capabilities that he desired to bring to the tournament. I can assure you that he is serious about L-D debate, about hosting a quality tournament, and about quality judging. In every conversation he was clear on these priorities for the tournament. He took what many of you probably consider either a huge gamble or poor choice of staffing and entrusted those responsibilities to me. In many ways, those fears have proven to be well founded as I failed to have the appropriate software ready for this tournament. Many of the issues that are being raised ultimately rest solely with me and were beyond the control of the Stanford staff once the tournament began.
I’m incredibly appreciative of new opportunities. Several years ago, there were few tournaments that registered online. When the idea was first floated to a number of tournaments, there were few that were willing to take that leap. A few did. Now there are a large number of tournaments using an option that didn’t exist a few years ago. I sincerely appreciate the opportunity I’ve had to work with a growing number of tournaments. Those few tournaments that did use the website for registration in the early days were at one time viewed as taking significant risk trying something new. Many tournaments simply refused to even try. In the first year I offered the website registration option, I literally couldn’t give my services away. Stanford took a risk to give me a unique opportunity – one that few other tournaments of their size will even consider. I’m grateful to the Stanford staff for exploring partially uncharted territory; without some brave first adopters, the very existence of Joy of Tournaments would never have been possible. Matt Fraser and his crew asked me to make a number of modifications and I failed to deliver – plain and simple. In hindsight, perhaps a more gradual approach would have been more appropriate, but whenever the ultimate switch is made, there is always the “first time”
I assume full responsibility for any tabulation errors which occurred. If you want to criticize them for being early adopters or for trying something new, perhaps that is legitimate, but please don’t blame them for my failure to deliver. Ask them to never invite me back again if your estimation is that this step was too ambitious. I take seriously the responsibility that was entrusted me and apologize sincerely for not meeting expectations.
Also, in terms of the tournament delays: for the partial triples round, I’ll take full responsibility here as well. The software did hold up fairly well thru prelims; however, when it came time to create the partial triples round and assign judges, there were a number of software issues that arose. I attempted to make several changes on the fly and was unsuccessful. In retrospect, I should have made a call to go to cards much sooner, but there was definitely a case of not seeing the forest for the trees on my part. As a result, the tournament did grind to a halt essentially waiting on me. When the tournament ultimately moved to cards, things began to move again. That decision certainly wasn’t made soon enough and that delay primarily rests on my shoulders. The doubles round was also delayed and after that point, Matt Fraser stepped in and directed us to abandon the computer and as witnessed, things began to move much more quickly as he took over.. I take full responsibility for the delay in triples and doubles and apologize to everyone involved.
In terms of judge quality, I’ve already mentioned that I had numerous conversations with the Stanford crew regarding how they wanted to place judges. I think they are truly attempting something revolutionary here and I agreed to try and pilot an attempt with them. Two items were high on their list of priorities to try to add to the software that represent new capabilities:
a) add an option to optimize flights of debates so that like-seeded teams are in both flights (thus optimizing the ability to automatically place A judges into two 3-1 debates in the 5th round for example).
b) add an option which allows for splitting the bracket when assigning judges (for example, to prioritize the top 1/3 or 2/3 of the down 2 bracket when assigning a certain quality of judges, and then move to another priority bracket with the remaining judges of that quality before filling in the bottom portion of the down 2 bracket (again, allowing the best judges to be used in truly critical debates) This option has yet to be fully realized, but is one we’ve discussed and one that I’ve begun working to implement..
One other innovation that Stanford asked me to work on which I think was delivered was to change the way the first two preset rounds were paired. The goal was to deliver ‘perfectly symmetrical 6 level power seeding”. Each of the teams was assigned a seeding from 1 to 6. In 100% of the debates scheduled in rounds 1 and 2, we had #1 seeds hitting #6 seeds, #2 seeds hitting #5 seeds, and #3 seeds hitting #4 seeds. This was an alternative I’ve heard many coaches voice as desirable over the years and when Stanford added this to the list of changes, I was able to deliver on that front. My understanding is that the Policy tab was unable to match this same goal in the preset rounds using TRPC.
As I have worked over the past year with Stanford, one of the goals for this year was to establish a baseline. The intention all along has been that the baseline be a starting point for even more refinements and improvements. I’ve worked on several customizations to the pairings, the judge assignments, and the overall operation of the software to accommodate specific requests of the Stanford staff. Some were certainly more successful than others and some are still what I consider works in progress. There are also still several items that we’ve discussed that are still on the to-do list. For example, we have discussed adding a “hi/lo judge variance” option in addition to simply “judge variance” for one of the team ranking criteria. This was not a priority item for this year as Stanford had not advertised this in their invitation, but it is something that we’ve discussed for possible future implementation.
The process of customizing the software for all eventualities is a continuous process and given another opportunity, I certainly intend to continue working to improve the software. Whether or not that opportunity is afforded me is entirely up to not just Stanford, but to the larger community in general. If this effort is to continue, I’ll need opportunities to try out the new features. Ultimately the market will speak and I’m entirely comfortable with that. If the services I’m providing aren’t acceptable, then I’m entirely on board that the community will (and should) look elsewhere.
In terms of disclosure, at the request of Matt Fraser, I have added an additional report to the results listings for Varsity L-D which includes all judging information for the elimination rounds in L-D. As the elim rounds were handled outside of tab, I have back-entered the judging information and that information is now available online.
One last point in terms of overall fairness: I work with a large number of tournaments now – some small and some large – some directly in tab and some only marginally by way of web registration, but I rank the Stanford tournament as one of the best in terms of overall philosophy and their ability to clearly articulate their goals and expectations. In my opinion, their stated objectives and their conduct throughout the tournament demonstrate an amazing commitment to fairness that is clearly a priority. The conversations that I’ve had the privilege of having with the Stanford folks over the past year have been some of the most thoughtful and insightful conversations. Their ultimate goal is very lofty and they are working diligently to achieve even higher levels of quality and efficiency. This year the software made some advances in that grand scheme but wasn’t able to deliver fully.
In closing, I am well aware that the Stanford tournament highlighted some very serious deficiencies in the software. I apologize to those of you that left the tournament with a bad impression and take responsibility for my failures. Stanford has been more than fair in their dealings with me; were things reversed, I’m not sure that I would even want to speak with the author of the software given some of the glaring failures, but Stanford has continued to dialog with me. Where these discussions will ultimately lead is still somewhat uncertain at this point, but I can assure you that the same mistakes won’t be made again.
Respectfully
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
February 13th, 2008 14:22
Re: Brent
I think I can say with relative certainty that all of us who have voice concerns and criticism about the tournament are not so much bothered by the attempts and goals. but rather the timing and the implementation of them.
For instance, while testing new software is great and critical to both your success and the success of the debate community as a whole, a Octas bid TOC tournament with 200+ entries is not where the tests should be done. Just like in a debate round, you don’t test out the brand new strat in the down 2 bracket of the 6th round when you’re in the top half of the bracket, you shouldn’t test these things in a large field tournament with a TOC ocats bid. When debaters show up to a big tournament, they are generally well prepared and not using the tournament as a “warm-up” or “test run”, and neither should the tab room. Alternatives would be to try it either on a smaller tournament, using the results of a previous tournament, or side by side with a more reliable process.
Second, While the tournament had great goals, and still remains one of the better tournaments in the nation (if only for being an Octas bid one), that doesn’t mean that they either A. didn’t have a lot of problems that they should have been able to control, or b. had major struggles to meet their goals.
All in all, I appreciate your willingness to step up and take responsibility for your actions, and for the tournament, but a lot of it still remains unexplained.
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 13th, 2008 15:20
Hinkle, you seem like a super nice guy, and I’m pretty sure you were the one in tab who was so friendly and apologetic. It’s truly admirable of you to take some of the responsibility in this. That said, JOT is such an amazing, amazing resource, and I don’t know where we would be without it.
At the end of the day, I really think software was only a part of the problem. And I think everyone is sympathetic to accidents happening and mistakes happening… that goes for Hinkle and the Stanford Society too. I seriously doubt anyone is furious that a mistake happened. I think, however, that to the extent some of those mistakes were compounded by some decisions and structural features of the tournament that decreased margins for error from the starting point, this is what people are more concerned with.
Posted from: 128.36.76.42
February 13th, 2008 15:21
Ms. Kamel,
I think we learned from about a year or so ago how “fair and balanced” is often code for “only if you agree with us.” Unfortunately, and I don’t think you addressed this point as I said earlier– the use of the “agendas” excuse by Mr. Frazier (and your own post) I think ruins the credibility of your comments, and as many others have posted is frankly insulting. I’d like to know which coaches are you referring to, myself? Babb’s right even if there is an agenda, that still doesn’t mitigate the severity of the concerns which many, many people have pointed out here. To suggest such a thing is both horrible strategy (from the interest of the tournament directors) and a slap in the face to those people who trusted the tournament not to end up the way it did.
The “agenda” can of worms was opened by Mr. Frazier et al’s post, and I haven’t yet heard either a retraction or apology for it-and in fact your post seems to suggest some kind of support.
My point still holds–when the first response from a tournament director after so many students got shortchanged includes “well some of these comments are motivated by agendas”
that indicates the total opposite of a full willingness to give the criticizers a “fair and balanced” hearing. Maybe this means, strategically, choosing one’s words more carefully,and perhaps even not shfiting blame to the victims, but that stone was thrown, sadly before you posted.
In terms of the rest of the stuff Babb, Ali, Adam, etc. say it all perfectly.
Posted from: 156.3.163.99
February 13th, 2008 16:03
Barry,
I don’t know you, or quite frankly most of the people on here… I generally make a pretty concerted effort to remove myself from speech politics. I do know Babb, Adam, Castillo, Daryl et al from having run the administrative part of VBI for several years. To the best of my knowledge those who know me in the speech community view me as someone who is generally very hardworking, committed to quality, kind and fairminded. Likewise, I have gained a great deal of respect over the years for many of the people who have posted here.
I have seen Babb tirelessly pour over curriculum at VBI, and witnessed Adam, Castillo and Daryl working with students late into the night. They have all always treated me with a great deal of kindness and respect. I truly believe that their posts have nothing but the best intentions and arise from frustration with what they know could be an amazing experience for kids. I am not at all questioning their motives here. Nor, am I questioning yours or others as I do not know you well enough to even come close to reasonably making those statements. I, however, am not a member of this community, nor do I understand the inter-workings of its politics. I can say with certainty, that these forums have in the past become breeding grounds for some pretty vicious debates, and I imagine from what you have said here of your disdain for that sort of thing that you would be the first to agree that politics do not play a positive roll in these types of discussions for anyone.
I am generally pleased that the conversation here has largely focused on specific and substantive issues rather than ad homonym attacks and generalizations. I generally have no problem with most of the posts here, and am making no accusations or implications that an “agenda” is being forwarded either explicitly or implicitly. On the contrary I feel like people have raised good issues that need to be addressed and which will likely lead to the improvement of the tournament as a whole.
Likewise, I also don’t think anyone is trying to shift blame here. I think Stanford and Joy of Tournaments readily acknowledge that there were problems that need to be addressed and I would imagine they are drafting a rather lengthy response. I don’t envy them, because once the state tournament is over the last thing I would want to do is draft a response to these types of issues. All I was asking was that people give them a fair hearing, and take into account the many positive things alongside the negative ones when evaluating the tournament. I also wanted to offer my observations as someone outside of the debate community of some of the preparations that I saw going on that maybe others might not have been aware of. At the end of the day I still firmly believe that the Stanford tournament offered kids a great opportunity, and that the organizers of the tournament acted in good faith to provide that opportunity.
I find it at least somewhat interesting that no one has chosen to acknowledge the many things that Brent lays out in his email about what he and Stanford debate did to make the tournament better.
Many of you are canonized in the debate community. Your opinions will ultimately hold far more weight than mine because students know and trust your opinions on issues of debate. It is certainly within your power to continue to cast stones. I was simply trying to appeal to your sense of fairness in asking you to hear Stanford and J of T out before rendering judgment. I certainly hope that were the roles reversed Matt et al would afford you the same courtesy.
I just don’t know what it would hurt to give them a day or two to respond.
Posted from: 128.36.76.42
February 13th, 2008 16:37
Ms. Patel,
Since we are being nitpicky about names, it’s not “bArry” it’s “berry”…but that’s besides the point.
On this quote:
“I generally have no problem with most of the posts here, and am making no accusations or implications that an “agenda” is being forwarded either explicitly or implicitly.”
Yes, you are not making implications that there is an agenda, however, that was made elsewhere. I hope in that response from the tournament directors that’s coming “in a day or two” there will be an included apology for the thoughtless suggestion I have talked about ad nauseaum, but I’m betting it’s not coming, and that’s dumb.
Nevertheless, what is needed is a concilliatory response to the upset people here. Mr. Frazier’s initial response was not that, it was the completely opposite of it…. it’s pretty clear to everyone on this forum it wasn’t the best way to alleviate angry feelings (as Adam points out), and I don’t know how much continued denial will help your cause–it certainly won’t in any future responses that come later.
Either way I’m tired of trying to give your group hints about common sense strategy for this situation (as I’m sure many other coaches are too), and I have a midterm to write for my students, so good luck.
Posted from: 128.36.76.42
February 13th, 2008 16:44
that should be “kamel” not “patel” sorry…too much marxist theory lately.
Posted from: 156.3.163.99
February 13th, 2008 16:56
haha that’s funny. Sorry I messed up your name as well Berry. PS. Fraser not Frazier…hey if nothing else is gained from all this at least we’ll know each others names :)
Posted from: 65.112.165.162
February 13th, 2008 17:19
If I’m not mistaken, I think these posts are neither from Berry nor Barry, but Anthony Berryhill. Although, if there’s another Berry Hill with a history at Stanford and Harker, that would be amazing coincidence.
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To set the record straight, the only reason I thought Nermin was piggybacking on the agenda comment was when she said:
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“Do you really think it is a stretch to say that sometimes people on different sides of the fence tend to push an agenda on these threads rather than provide fair/balanced analysis of a situation.”
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But to be fair, she wasn’t really calling anyone out so much as saying the possibility exists. Fair enough. While Fraser & Friends are perhaps alone in speculating about agendas, I think part of the problem with such a speculative and non-specific strategy is that is plants seeds of doubt without offering any information that could be readily contested. Sure, maybe “SOMEONE” has agendas, but without a name or face that can defend itself, that “someone” could become anyone or nobody at all… ultimately an entirely meaningless sentiment that falls woefully short of persuasively indicting any of the criticism offered thus far.
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I don’t think there’s anything wrong with giving Stanford another chance and forgiving and all that business. It’s not like I go to bed at night all angry at Stanford, wondering how I can crush the Debate Society. I just don’t see why being forgiving and reducing to a quarters bid to incentivize attendance at better tournaments are mutually exclusive. No one should take that personally. I’ve always sucked at math, and the consequence is I didn’t get many A’s in it. I didn’t take that personally. Stanford sucked at hosting LD this year and there should be consequences one way or the other as it just doesn’t make sense to issue a free pass every time a tournament messes up. If they redeem themselves next year, then we can talk. But I think it’s worth waiting for sustainable and meaningful change to be demonstrated rather than just imagined.
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But hey, if there are concrete changes that create a very low probability of tourney failure, than I wouldn’t rule out going back. It arguably makes more sense, however, to allocate bids to tournaments with proven track records where success merely requires repeating this year’s performance.
Posted from: 70.141.115.163
February 13th, 2008 20:15
babb speaks so much truth, it’s ridiculous.
accusing me, or anyone else, of an agenda is beyond ridiculous. never mind, i take that back, everyone here has an agenda: make the stanford tournament not suck in terms of its scheduling, out-round judging, and treatment of students who invest a lot of money to travel to said tournament. ms. camel, or whatever, are downright rude to assert that those of us remaining critical are doing so for the sake of being critical.
also, where is this alleged post from the stanford tournament people that was supposed to be posted today?
Posted from: 209.98.146.245
February 13th, 2008 20:36
Brent: Thank you! Your post was exactly the sort of thing that I’ve been waiting to see since the tournament ended: An acknowledgment that something when seriously wrong, a detailed explanation of how it happened, and an acceptance of responsibility for its happening. Whether Matt’s statement tomorrow follows suit will play a big role in helping us decide whether to return to the tournament next year. Even from my meager experience of running a single dinky local tournament, I know how exhausting it can be, so I can’t imagine how burnt out all the people involved in the administration of the tournament must be at this point, and having to deal with this flood of criticism after putting in so much effort has to be fairly dispiriting. Based on my limited interaction with Matt over the course of the weekend, he seems like a great guy who works very hard with the best of intentions to put on a great tournament and try out new things to make the tournament better. So even though I think the substance of the criticisms being leveled on this thread by myself and others is accurate, I think the tone’s become somewhat over-personal in places, especially after Matt’s initial post, and I would also suggest that people at least suspend judgment on the insinuation that the tournament’s problems resulted from ulterior financial motives on the part of the directors or general indifference or malice towards the competitors. While I certainly think that Stanford’s bid status should receive some scrutiny this year, I also think that status should remain unchanged if Matt et al take responsibility for what happened and outline a real plan for fixing things next year.
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In terms of what the content of that plan should be: First off, I’m not sure that I like the seeding system for presets. The biggest problem, at least with how the system was implemented this year, was that everyone whose coach didn’t enter their record ended up as a 6 by default, which ended up punishing some of the top kids in the pool with difficult presets draws. In particular, I know Lynbrook’s records didn’t get entered, meaning that, e.g., Rohit and Narayan, who should almost certainly be 1’s, ended up being dropped to the bottom (which we found out when Catherine hit Narayan round 2). Beyond that, I don’t know what it accomplishes. If the tournament clears down-2’s anyway, the biggest risk of not having the system in place is in the very unlikely event that one of the top people in the pool hits two others in presets, loses both rounds, and has to submarine with good speaks to clear. The top people are going to end up hitting each other anyway, so I don’t see why it matters whether it’s in the 5-0 round or the 0-0 round. Either way, one wins and the other loses. More to the point, I have never heard anyone complain about random pairings in presets. Maybe there’s a silent majority out there that’s not making itself heard, but as far as I can tell it’s not really an issue.
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Second, strikes should be taken way more seriously. Strikes were due around 1:30 on Friday but weren’t used for round 1 at 5:00 or round 2 at 7:30. We got two struck judges in those rounds between our two debaters. And then there were no strikes in the bid round or beyond. Part of having “top-quality judging” is giving the competitors some say who their judges are–the quality of a judge is partly debater-relative, e.g. I’m a much better judge for debaters who like spewing dumb a prioris than for debaters who like spewing dumb Spanos cards. Ideally, I’d also say there should be MJP’s instead of communal prefs. But I don’t know how hard that would be to implement.
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Third, the overall quality of the judging pool is a worry. Signs all over campus advertising $25 a round to anyone who will show up and take a ballot are not the best way to encourage confidence in the judging pool on the part of coaches and debaters. Meaning, DON’T HIRE STANFORD STUDENTS!!! I’m sure they’re smart, hardworking, ambitious little grade-grubbers (sorry), but odds are they have no clue how to adjudicate a debate round. And I know that at least one of them ended up on a bid round panel. It defeats the purpose of strikes if you give each debater 10 and then hire 20 judges whom no one’s ever heard of. Judge assignment is also an issue, though maybe that was just a product of the software meltdown. No-experience judges in bump rounds should not happen. At that point, it’s no longer the fault of the school that brought them, even excluding the possibility that they were hired. Community prefs (this judge can’t have gotten anything but C’s, given that there was no way for anyone to know who he was) coupled with the judgment of the tab staff should by that point be either keeping him out of the pool entirely or putting him in the 0-5 round.
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Fourth, barring a really radical revamping of the JOT software and successful tests at other large tournaments beforehand, I would strongly recommend switching back to TRPC. In several years of attending tournaments that use it, I’ve only ever heard one complaint about that software (namely that in fields where a lot of schools have only one or two entries, it pairs the schools with more entries against each other excessively) which wouldn’t be an issue at Stanford. Early adoption is fine, but it should happen at smaller tournaments that (a) aren’t so important for so many people (at this point in the season, getting a bid at Stanford is a very, very important goal for a lot of people) and (b) can more easily switch back to cards or some other backup system.
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Fifth, break to full trips, or even ideally break all 4-2’s (partial quadruples would just be really, really fun to say). 4-2 screws suck, especially with speaks as wildly variant and arbitrary as they were here (see below). The rationale this year was that there weren’t enough rooms, but given that trips were being flighted anyway, full trips would have required barely 2/3’s as many rooms as prelims did, so either someone in tab sucks at math or speech was stealing our rooms. Maybe the solution is to cap, but I sort of like the idea of letting whoever wants to compete compete. Either way, the screw was brutal this year.
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Fifth, get a better ballot. The lay judging problem was exacerbated by instructions on the ballot to award the “average” debater 16-19 speaks, and an “excellent” debater 20-23. I remember Adam mentioning that Harker got one judge three times who gave all three students 17’s. That’s annoying.
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Sixth, I’d renew my suggestion to compartmentalize the tournament more. Have an LD tab in one corner of campus, keep all the LD rounds in that corner, and eliminate the 30 minutes per round of drag on the schedule caused by having to walk half a mile to find your room.
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Seventh and finally, to man said LD tab room, BRING BACK CHERIAN AND SETH!! I mean, assuming they’re available and interested and such, but that alone strikes me as the single quickest fix for everything that went wrong this year.
Posted from: 134.173.93.226
February 13th, 2008 20:45
Another issue:
Round one I informed Tab that I could not judge the team that I had coached last year, Lynbrook. So of course, round 2, 3, 5 and triples had me also judging Lynbrook. In triples it was even both flights. I feel like this could have easily been addressed because after each error I informed Tab. They were even very rude to me once.
Posted from: 128.12.126.62
February 13th, 2008 21:16
Two things:
First, comments like “Ms. Camel, or whatever” are pretty unhelpful.
Second, I had dinner with Rich Boltizar earlier today. He and Matt have literally been spending hours on this reply. It’s definitely coming, and they’re doing their best to make it as thoughtful and responsive as possible.
As a Stanford debater and former LDer (hopefully at least some people reading these boards remember me), I’ll be happy to offer my two cents once everyone has a chance to see what Matt and Rich have to say.
-Michael
Posted from: 76.3.156.21
February 13th, 2008 21:48
Fittingly the formal statement seems to be late.
Posted from: 70.1.19.26
February 13th, 2008 23:45
Stanford Debate’s statement has been sent to Mike Bietz, who suggested that he’d like to start a new thread on this matter.
Matthew Fraser
Posted from: 24.6.159.5
February 14th, 2008 17:34
Here’s a pretty belated post, but I’d like to congratulate everyone on my team (MVLA) for an excellent weekend performance.
Also, special congrats to Rahul, who gave an awesome 1AR against me in our dubs round made it to semis of the tournament. Your hard work paid off here and will hopefully pay off even more at TOC :-).
Posted from: 205.188.116.76
February 14th, 2008 18:59
Random comment and certainly not in defense of anything or in support of anything.
As someone who tabs tournaments fairly often, I would like to make an appeal for people to understand that round 1 schems are generally always late if the tournament starts on the same day as registration. Some tournaments like Greenhill and Glenbrooks (amazing amazing tournaments!) have the luxury of doing registration the day before they begin which is great.
The reason why round one is late often is that it always seems that a few teams miss registration and, for whatever reason, they are teams with a lot of entries and judges. Therefore you wait for them or do the pairing knowing that there will be a TON of changes and byes in the first round, which isn’t ideal. So round one being late is generally a function of people not registering on time (which I’m not blaming them for at all, because things happen, but just so people know the effect).
From this, round 2 is late. The reason is that at the larger tournaments, sometimes you don’t actually know who is IN the tournament until the middle to end of round 1. People might think “there is plenty of time during round 1 to pair round 2!.” My experience is that if you don’t wait, once again, you will assign judges that don’t actually exist and pair competitors that never left their homes. And, for some magical reason, many teams will register and then “forget” to tell you about their drops (some of this might be honest mistakes, especially for the huge teams with legions but for others, they think they can dodge paying drop fees at the table). So you schedule them and find out later they don’t exist. Fun. I’m glad that most tournaments I tab at now have very large unreported drop fines. It’s better to suck up the 10 dollars at the table than the 50 later on.
I just wanted to offer the community a bit of a insider’s view on why there is a slow start to most big tournaments. Usually though, after round 2, things stabilize and should run swimmingly.
I also must say that many of these college tournaments should farm their tabbing out to experienced tabbers who can create an institutional memory. Part of the problem with college tournaments is that the staff changes every year so they don’t know what works and what is horrific. Schools such as yale, columbia and harvard (I can only speak for the east coast but I’m sure there are others) have people brought in specifically to provide that stabilization and institutional memory.
Another thought…at Yale when we were spread all over the known universe, we instituted a “phone or text your results in” option which greatly sped things up, especially in outrounds. Granted, some poor kid whose phone number was given out for the tournament’s use was not a happy camper but man was that a great help to us tabbing. We’d get results back 20 to 30 minutes before we’d get ballots. free advice, yay
Posted from: 130.58.195.82
February 18th, 2008 16:20
You know, I’ve been a debate nerd and vb checker since like 2002 and I have never seen people complain so much about a single tourn. I think this is reflective of the degree to which this past weekend was so awful compared to other bad tourns.
nermin, I’m pretty sure berryhill is right here. I think the changes instituted by the tourn arent being addressed because you’re assuming that’s what we want to hear. They’re pissed off that they functionally got jacked 2-5 k worth of money that could have been spent at a tournament that was way better less this year. Also, the rudeness of Frasier and some of the utterly incompetant workers at the tourn only fuels this sense of ire. In short, we’re angry. Appoligizing the second after they do something bad doesnt make the person who got wronged less mad.
the origninal letter was a stupid idea. The admin should have posted something like
“Good god, we fu$ked up on so many levels, we need two days to process everyone’s input and answer them satisfactorily” instead of this stupid agenda stuff.
Im gonna go ahead and take what michelin said (i think it was him who initially mentioned it) up a notch. When Cherian Koshy left this tourn, it began to suck. Before i say any more, 1. I am not saying cherian is the only way out of this mess or that cherian had no reason to not do it anymore. 2. I am not saying Frasier, et al. are evil/incompetant/lame/gimp. I am saying that what they allowed to happen, compared to what cherian allowed, is really awful. Last year was a very overtly noticable drop-off from the two to three years previous in terms of judging, competition, administration, scheduling, etc. Plus the 1000 other things people have mentioned in terms far more articulate than my own. borrowing from cherians playbook might be a smart call.
How about you not obsess over compiling A/T: EVERYONE and just refund the schools that got especially ripped off from the absurd reg fee?
eh, whatever, until i hear better news next year, I will see yall at berkeley 09 instead.
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
February 20th, 2008 20:34
omg guyz i just thought of a delicious turn of phrase: StanFRAUD!!1OMG!111ONE!