[Karthik]

There's been a lot of talk about the triplets ganging up together at regionals. I'd like to address this claim. By no means was it a certainty that 1114 & 1503 would pick each other. I'm the lead strategist for 1114, and I have final say on our pick list. At all three regionals we went to, there was debate over who would be at the top of our list. At GLR it was a decision between 469 & 1503. In Waterloo is was 68 & 1503, and in Toronto the choice was extremely difficult between 1503, 703 & 217. Our policy on 1114 is that we pick the best team, period. At both regionals where 1114 was the #1 seed, 1503 has been the pick, and the results speak for themselves.

Now, I'm sure many of you are saying, "Well, sure they were, that's awfully convenient". For those of you who feel that way, consider the GTR in 2005. Team 1114 was the number seed, and chose Team 1305, a non triplet, while 1503 and 1680 were still available. In the second round, 1680 was still available, but we chose 1511 instead. As has been said in the past, "compete like crazy, but co-operate the rest of the time." Team 1114 will always strive to put together the best possible alliance. We spend a lot of time strategizing, collecting data and scouting. We use this information to choose our alliance partner, the decision is not based on friendships or who we collaborated with.