[quote="BryanLogan":2zx7otld]Leave the B-Final in. It's up to the organizer if they want to have it or not, and even if competitors aren't the fastest, they still want another chance to improve their PR's.[/quote:2zx7otld] How is a B final any better than simply letting more people go to the next round?

[quote="StefanPochmann":12surtc7][quote="BryanLogan":12surtc7]Leave the B-Final in. It's up to the organizer if they want to have it or not, and even if competitors aren't the fastest, they still want another chance to improve their PR's.[/quote:12surtc7] How is a B final any better than simply letting more people go to the next round?[/quote:12surtc7] It gives those slower people a second chance, but it doesn't have slow people in the final round, so from a spectator's point of view, the final is a small number of people that are extremely fast.

[quote:2s2186nc]>How is a B final any better than simply letting more people go to the =>>next round? It gives those slower people a second chance, but it doesn't have slow people in the final round, so from a spectator's point of view, the final is a small number of people that are extremely fast.[/quote:2s2186nc] I am not sure about the B final. On one hand I want ALL people to have as much fun as possible. On the other hand I do not want to give too much attention to tourists (with all respect and fun that they deserve). Everyone who practices seriously should have a lot of fun (=many attempts). The good thing about having more people in second round is that you can let all serious cubers have at least two rounds, whereas the tourists have only one.

Cornell's competition this spring had a prize for the first place person of the B Final. In this case, I think it's fine, since there was a prize for it. B finals without prizes are worthless, in my opinion, for the reasons Stefan posted. Why not just have a second round instead of two finals? I only see theree competitions this year where three rounds would have been impossible (if I am reading the regulations correctly) - Finnish Open, Florida Open, Helsinki Open.

[quote="JChoi":c5wu93fa]Cornell's competition this spring had a prize for the first place person of the B Final.[/quote:c5wu93fa] So the 20th or so place got a prize while places 4-19 or so presumably didn't? Right... that makes sense. In my opinion that prize makes it worse, not better.

B Finals without a prize are fine. People still like a chance to break their PR's. So here's two scenarios for a 20 person competition. Scenario 1: Round 1 is average of 5, with 19 competitors moving to Round 2. Round 2 is average of 5 with 12 competitors moving to Round 3. Round 3 is the finals and an average of 5. Scenario 2: Round 1 is average of 5 with 12 competitors moving to Round 2. Round 2 is the finals and an average of 5. There is a B-Final for those who didn't make it to the finals. Scenario 3: Round 1 is average of 5 with 19 competitors moving to Round 2. Round 2 is the finals with an average of 5. Now, everyone seems to think that Scenario 1 is better and the alternative to removing the B-Final. However, the downside to this is that this takes much longer to fit into the schedule, because there's a whole new round. Well, Scenario 3 handles this well, but the Finals is very "dilluted" and spectators watching might wonder why some of these people are in the finals. Scenario 2 is the best option. It's equal in execution time to Scenario 3 and gives everyone 2 chances to beat their PR's, and doesn't dillute the final. Also, the B-final is handy for having a preliminary qualification with a "Best Of", but still giving people a chance later to get a chance at an average. At the US Open, I missed the qualify by .2 seconds (the cutoff was 24 seconds). However, because of the B-Final, I got a chance to establish an actual average. It would have sucked to travel and not be able to get an average PR. Again, I'll reiterate, the B-Final is an option for the competition organizer, not a requirement.