Best National Tournament
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- Lulu
- Posts: 65
- Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2004 2:16 pm
- Location: Gainesville, FL
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Best National Tournament
see question above. feel free to elaborate as to why you made the choice you did.
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- Wakka
- Posts: 131
- Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2003 10:18 am
- Location: Burke, VA
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Picking one is tough.
I voted NAQT, basically for reasons of consistency.
NAQT readers are rather consistently great, and NAQT also has more consistent and unambiguous questions. These factors boost NAQT a hair over PACE despite the trash and a few inconceivable leadins ("It begins in the forest primeval..."). PACE's questions are all on solid academic subjects, and generally very well written, but the style is sometimes confusing. The appearance of the same off-the-wall negs in different rooms, and the prevalence of such negs over all, while amusing, may have something to do with question phrasing.
It's kind of pointless to compare, since we will do all we can for the foreseeable future to attend both.
I voted NAQT, basically for reasons of consistency.
NAQT readers are rather consistently great, and NAQT also has more consistent and unambiguous questions. These factors boost NAQT a hair over PACE despite the trash and a few inconceivable leadins ("It begins in the forest primeval..."). PACE's questions are all on solid academic subjects, and generally very well written, but the style is sometimes confusing. The appearance of the same off-the-wall negs in different rooms, and the prevalence of such negs over all, while amusing, may have something to do with question phrasing.
It's kind of pointless to compare, since we will do all we can for the foreseeable future to attend both.
Perhaps it is just my own "problem," but I see no BEST National. All have their pluses and minuses and my opinions are limited to what I have actually experienced myself at these nationals.
ASCN---14 times
NAC---6 times
PACE---2 times
NAQT---5 times
Beta---5 times
Panasonic---5 times
A few superlatives based on my limited experience...
Best questions I ever heard at a Nationals...NAQT any year
Worst questions I ever heard at Nationals...NAC in 1995
Best tournament organization and flow...any NAC or any ASCN
Worst organization and flow...PACE at Furman in SC
Best match format...PACE
Worst match format...Panasonic
Best rules...ASCN
Worst rules...tie between NAQT and Panasonic
Tournament staff my players complained the most about...PACE in year 1 and at Furman
Tournament staff my players complained the least about...ASCN
Most annoying thing to me personally...TIMED matches, speedreading, and no bounce-backs bonuses
Most important factors in choosing a national...dates and locations
ASCN---14 times
NAC---6 times
PACE---2 times
NAQT---5 times
Beta---5 times
Panasonic---5 times
A few superlatives based on my limited experience...
Best questions I ever heard at a Nationals...NAQT any year
Worst questions I ever heard at Nationals...NAC in 1995
Best tournament organization and flow...any NAC or any ASCN
Worst organization and flow...PACE at Furman in SC
Best match format...PACE
Worst match format...Panasonic
Best rules...ASCN
Worst rules...tie between NAQT and Panasonic
Tournament staff my players complained the most about...PACE in year 1 and at Furman
Tournament staff my players complained the least about...ASCN
Most annoying thing to me personally...TIMED matches, speedreading, and no bounce-backs bonuses
Most important factors in choosing a national...dates and locations
- Dan Greenstein
- Yuna
- Posts: 848
- Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2003 8:26 pm
- Location: Takoma Park, MD
PACE and NAQT are both at least a step above the others if your primary concern is the quantity and quality of competition. PACE has the best questions--albeit with some negative aspects mentioned by JewTemplar that can be corrected--while NAQT has the better tournament organization among the two. If your thing is sight-seeing, NAC and ASCN may be your cup of tea, but that argument loses some of its strength when the two "widely recognized" national championships are held in vacation destinations, as NAQT has been the past two years and PACE next year. Finally, both NAQT and PACE are the least costly tournaments when you factor out location-variable costs such as transportation.