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Re: Rogers' response

	Notice that these two disads, while, I suppose, not entirely 
cancelling one another out, do pull in opposite directions.  The bigger 
the problem of "it's mutual A's, but only a guess-A for us," then, 
necessarily, the smaller the problem of "we're getting mutual C's."  And 
vice-versa.

	Precisely because (I think) each disad is partly true, neither 
disad will be terribly significant.

	Nor is either disad much unique.  It's always a disadvantage to 
not know as much of the judging pool as one's opponents do.  What's 
really going on, IMHO, is that the regional or newcomer programs manage 
to put it out of their heads how much of a disadvantage they are at.  But 
when they are slapped in the face with that preference sheet, then the 
full consciousness that they don't know very many of the judges is forced 
upon them.  They "know" in some not-quite-fully-conscious way that it's 
true, but they have tricked themselves into forgetting it.  But then that 
darn preference sheet ruins the trick.

	Mutual A, but yours is just a guess-A?  How could that be worse 
than random, where, since you don't know very much of the judging pool, 
you have a high probability of a judge that knows your opponents but 
never heard of you.

	Mutual C's?  At least the judge is a C for your opponent too. 
That seems surely better than random, where you risk getting a judge who 
would be a C for you but an A for your opponents.

	Maybe what's going on is that certain regional or newcomer 
programs are just hoping they'll get real lucky: they want to show up and 
hope against hope that they'll get judges that are A's for them but B's 
or C's for their opponents.  MPJ squashes the hope for that kind of 
luck.  But is that really a hope that shouldn't be squashed?

	- Meredith Garmon, Fisk U. (swore I'd never use that stupid 
"IMHO" thing . . . wonder what made me lapse . . . )
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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