Heaneyland!

Excellent, excellent, excellent idea. I certainly hope the tournament administrators are listening.

I'm all for this, myself. So long as they also do something about the logistical/recordkeeping/whatever problems that led to the situation.

But yes, I think a rematch next year would be an excellent plan.

Hi, I just heard from Willz. They found my puzzle, which just didn't get entered into the computer. He said that with all the puzzle 6 problems, they didn't do a thorough check of the zeroes. My tournament fee is being refunded, and Will says he'll think about a make-up C final at next year's tournament.

-- Saph

Thanks for the update, Saphir (aka Jennifer Turney for any non-NPL readers out there). Now there's the other problem which I don't envy Will for having to think about -- if there is a rematch, who gets the #3 position? The actual #3 finisher in the C division wasn't there for the playoffs, but did he leave because of the delay (in which case he should clearly retain his spot), or did he leave before 11:00, the time at which results are usually announced? If he left before 11:00, I kinda feel the 3rd playoff rematch spot should go to 4th place C-division finisher Arthur Schulman (who left to catch a train at 11:30, which would have given him time to compete at 11:00 had things run hitch-free), because people clearly have a responsibility to, you know, actually make an attempt to show up for the playoff round or their spot should clearly be forfeited.

Dan points out that it would just cause more controversy to have a rematch be anyone other than the top three in C, for any reason, which is almost certainly true. Well, you know, that's thinking out loud for you -- sometimes you think of dumb ideas.

you described getting to the Bs without getting to participate in the C final "a situation which they've deliberately tried to avoid having."

this actually happens to tons of Cs moving into B - you're right that you can't be an A anymore without being on stage unless, as with you, four or more Bs finish in the top 10, but any C finishing in the top 20% is a B. it's an interesting question whether that 20% cutoff should be increased, since it now means that it's a lot easier to get into B than it used to be, because 20% is so much more after the recent attendance explosion.

Oh, whoops, I was under the mistaken impression that the process of going from C to B was the same as going from B to A. Thanks for the correction. The larger point that it wouldn't be cool to finish in first place in C division and move to the B division without getting to compete in a playoff still applies, though.

yeah, to a lot of people, including me. these days, the D winner usually goes straight to B. (Jeff/Jangler will, Lance did, etc). I took a great interest in that in 2002, as i knew that (a) i could definitely contend for the C finals, and (b) given my performances historically, it was very unlikely that i would finish outside of the 20% cutoff given the number of competitors that year.

PS, Saphir, that all sucks, sorry it happened. One would think that they'd make extra sure to check all the zeros in a year with scoring problems, but who knows. Will is usually pretty stressed around that time.