The Luck of NFL

[airpezman]

From my observations- luck plays a role at NFL, and this is nothing new. However, it might be interesting to discuss where/how you might think "luck" can play its biggest role at NFL..

My biggest observation: The quality of your break rounds, specifically, octos, are HUGE. There are 10 sections of 6 in OCTOS. How many of these 10 will have a future NFL SEMI or FINAL ROUND STUDENT? Possibly, all of them. On the other hand, possibly 5 or 6 of them will contain the 14 (semi + finalists) . If this is the case, there are 4-5 sections which will have no competitor in there that will make semis/finals... in essence, your break round quality of competitor is HUGE.


Here are two interesting stories that I heard.. dealing with this.


1. 1970s: Coach judged her first prelim at Nationals. She would later find out that 4 in the prelim would go on to make nfl finals.

2. 2000: I watched a duo round that had 3 NFL Finalists in an OCTO.

It is VERY bad luck to have 3 NFL Finalists in an OCTO.


PEZ

[Chewie]

Pez, you need to think about performances sometime.

[KrispyKreme]

dude, pez, that made zero sense... don't even think about luck when you go into a room, just make sure you are focused and you put your heart and soul into the performance and make sure that you enjoy the other performances there... I see it as free entertainment.

[justine]

KrispyKreme I completely agree with you, but I think what pez is mainly talking about is the randomness of how the TAB room splits up the competitors. Like, if TAB randomly pairs up the 6 people who WOULD have all made finals in an octos room. Then, that effectively takes out three of the best people, and lets three other people from other rooms catch a lucky break and go to finals instead. And, because sometimes the best people don't have the best scores coming out of prelims (because I think the power protect at NFLs, right?) , I agree that it can be the luck of the room you're stuck in that determines how well you do.

[AfRiCaNHI]

Pez, there are 7 in every outround at nationals except for finals.

Skill and luck both play a role. I mean, let's say you are a very talented performer but you have the 6 to-be finalists in your room and you are the seventh person. ****, that is unlucky. But that is very rare, so you must go in with your head up and do whatever damage you can.

-Tope

[airpezman]

I agree 100% that performers have control on performane only.

I agree 100% that it is vital to focus only on performance.

However, on a chat board, it is worthwhile to discuss many interesting aspects of forensics.

Does Luck have ANY ROLE in determining whether you go far? YES YES.
Is it a MAJOR Role? Sometimes. How frequent? NO IDEA.

Example: Josh Gad was at his hotel, when he received a phone call. Oops we made a mistake. We need you to come back to perform your OO, since you really did make the first break. Oh, ok, let me change and come back. He ends up winning the tournament. NAT CHAMP. What would have happened if Josh would have been MIA? What would have happened if the TAB ROOM did not realize their mistake?

To me- SO INTERESTING.

Pez

[Aelfric5578]

Example: Josh Gad was at his hotel, when he received a phone call. Oops we made a mistake. We need you to come back to perform your OO, since you really did make the first break. Oh, ok, let me change and come back.


Did that really happen? Wow.

I would say that luck plays a roll in any tournament. Let me use an example from personal experience at CFLs. After I broke out of prelims, I got one judge in each elim round that gave me a 5 for the same reason (apparently my OO was too performance oriented). It just so happened that in Semis, two judges were of similar opinions. If one of those judges had judged me earlier, I would not have been in Semis.

Likewise at NFLs, in almost every prelim round, one judge loved me (2,3) the other hated me (6,7). If only half those judges had judged me, I could have done significantly better or significantly worse.

[Nocturne]

Example: Josh Gad was at his hotel, when he received a phone call. Oops we made a mistake. We need you to come back to perform your OO, since you really did make the first break. Oh, ok, let me change and come back. He ends up winning the tournament. NAT CHAMP. What would have happened if Josh would have been MIA? What would have happened if the TAB ROOM did not realize their mistake?

To me- SO INTERESTING.

Pez
that reminds me of some final round I read about

how they messed up the tallying, and some kids who were said to be in finals shouldn't really have been there...and some girl flew back home that was technically supposted to have been there. sucky.

[LordoftheWings]

Harvard 2003.

[poonan]

That same thing happened to Max Friends in HI...I can't really tell you what year. It was the same year that he won Harvard. He was told he didn't break, but he really did. By the time he got back to the tournament, it was already in semis, so he got placed in a room. He ended up being 1 spot away from finals, so that kind of sucks.

I can't exactly give you any details on what happened, but it was something along those lines. He was my camp instructor, and he told me that, but he didn't go into detail.

By the way, this was nationals. The joy of well-run tournaments...

[AfRiCaNHI]

The joy of well-run tournaments...

hahahahaha.

-Tope

[Captainhook]

[quote="poonan"]He ended up being 1 spot away from finals, so that kind of sucks.

[quote]

He actually was 14th going into finals. People were outraged that they let him compete not having earned the spot. It's unfortunate though, because he was the favorite going into the tournament, and had he ACTUALLY broken, he probably would have made finals.

[LordoftheWings]

However, my understanding of the situation is that because he technically "missed" his Quarters rounds, having been mistakenly told that he did not break out of Octos, the tab room had to give him an automatic 6-6-6 for both Quarters rounds. Hence, if you check the 2002 Rostrum Semifinalist article, Max's cume from his two Octos and his two Quarters rounds is listed as XX, while his overall total from outrounds is a surprisingly high 96, the reason for his being ranked 14th overall.

Link (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:ylaPdK6jipAJ:www.nflonline.org/uploads/Rostrum/haspeechsemifinalists.pdf+%22Max+Friend%22%22Lydia +Nelson%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1)

Because of those default last-place finishes in his Quarters rooms, even had he picket-fenced Semis, he would have been one of the bottom seeds into Finals. As it was, he had the second-best Semis cume of the non-advancing Semifinalists, second only to the 7th place finisher, an indication that had he attended all his rounds as he was meant to, perhaps he would have finalled after all. I feel that the person who truly should have been "outraged" was Max for a) being told he didn't advance, and b) while still being allowed to advance, essentially being cut off from the possibility of finalling. But the NFL did what they could to justify the error.

All of the above information is hearsay, so I apologize for any erroneousness that may reveal itself when a person more wise to the situation chooses to reveal himself or herself.