Wrapping up

UPDATE: Madhav's in the finals!!! Hooray for NTU adjudicators!

SECOND UPDATE: Champions of this year's Australs are Monash 1, who beat MMU 1 in a 5-2 split.




Semi finals were this morning. In the Monash 1 vs Sydney 1 debate, Monash won, much to our surprise, in a unanimous decision. In the MMU 1 vs ANU 1 debate, MMU is through to the finals - it was a 5-2 split.

Madhav adjudicated in the semis. We don't know yet if he's through to the finals but he will probably be, because he's been a good boy and hasn't dissented at all, unless the chair (who happened to be the chief adjudicator, in that round) also dissented.

It's been a less than satisfactory run at this Australs for NTU. But in response to Amit's dry summary in the previous post's comments section, I should explain why we truly deserved to do better.

NTU 2 (Ani, NMK, Ankit Bahri) had the worst run of bad luck ever. They were on 4-1 at the end of the second day, and then they came up against MMU 1, the eventual finalist of this tournament. The sixth round was silent, and so they didn't know whether or not they'd won it, but when the draws for the seventh round came up and we saw they were up against Monash 1, we thought they HAD to be on 5-1 (and therefore, already through). Turns out they were actually at the top of the 4-2 pool, and were bumped up to meet the top of the 5-1 pool - and how unfair is that! But the worst of it is that they weren't given any good adjudicators, as near-breaking teams deserve. The thinking of the chief adjudicator and her minions seems to have stopped at - "Monash 1 is at 5-1, therefore this is not a crucial round for them. We don't need to put good people in that room." Pathetic.

The octo finals were a real pity. I suppose the entire team was suffering from a real case of nerves. They had fabuluos matter and argumentation, but they were very strategically flawed, going for an out-and-out matter-dump instead of being consciously persuasive. It cost them the debate against ANU 1 (broke first), who are certainly highly takeable (esp by NMK and co) and who, in that debate, definitely didn't have an unbreakable case. What they did have on their side, though, was clarity, coherence and a firm, simple line that came across impressively. When our team started responding to that in like, notably when Ani came up, they were brilliant (kudos to Ani, honest) but it was a little too late. I would have given the debate against them by a point or so. Still, it was a 2-1 split decision. It was that close.

Look at it this way. The debates that NTU 2 lost, barring a freak adjudication on the very first day, were to both the finalists and one other semi-finalist (ANU 1).

NTU 1 (Aditi, Ankit Agarwala and me) put up an average performance overall. No significant screw ups, a few moments of brilliance, but nothing really special. We were certainly short changed by adjudicators, though, even adhering to Amit's rule of winning against Aussie teams by 6 points in order to win. The last debate rankes especially... It was an Iraq case against Otago 1, we really did thrash them. Their first opp speaker was *absolute* crap, disdn't say anything at all! The debate was in the bag right from the start, and our team did marvellously... and yet, Fitch (whom Ani has great regard for, God knows why) went right ahead and misrepresented Ankit, concluded we had a team slide in our case even though nothing of that sort was ever alleged by the opp team, and gave it against us - by a point. Otago 1 broke 14th.

Aaaanyway. Sydney's still great. Ani's freezing, I'm celebrating my last couple of days of crisp cool weather, NMK's doing his letting-go-and-getting-drunk thing (all senti, what, since he's graduating etc etc). Fun.