I find the following fascinating. It is far from scientifically certain, but I would expect that further exploration along this line, if someone had the time and some really good Excel skills, would confirm these conclusions.
My hypothesis is simply that MJP, or more to the point, judges in general, don’t matter that much. I’ve sensed glimmers of this in the past (and reported on it), but the more I think about it, the more true it seems. Obviously there’s exceptions, but we’re talking the rule here. And I think I can safely say that as a rule, good debaters can pick up just about any judge. MJP is nice, but it may turn out to be a more important tool for lesser debaters in the long run.
People use MJP as a tool for determining their judges. That’s a good idea, and I’m in favor of it. But of course, there are some rules of engagement in the tab room. First and foremost, teams on the bubbles get first priority for their prefs, moving up the win/loss scale to the undefeateds and then going down to the out-of-contention folk. What this means is that the people who will get their highest preferences at a tournament are the ones who need them most. The opposite is also true: the people who don’t get their highest preferences at a tournament are the ones who need them the least.
The Bump tournament had a small judge pool, ranked across 5 levels + strikes. With 83 VLDers over 5 rounds, the average pref was 1.7. That seems about the way it should be.
Of course, I was not tabbing my own tournament, but I was in the tab room often enough to watch the sausage being made. One round in particular stood out, round 4, where 8 out of the 10 of the undefeateds got 3s or 4s. As explained above, this is because there were a lot of people ahead of them in the line for the most desired judges. Meanwhile, there were times in the day when people came by to query a placement of a judge that seemed low. This got the little grey cells a-glowing.
Today I looked at the top four debaters at Bump, the semifinalists, and poked around on a spreadsheet. In prelims, they won 19 of 20 rounds. The one loss was in front of a 4 judge. But here’s the interesting part. The average pref for the tournament overall in prelims was 1.7. For these four folks, their averages in prelims were 2, 2, 2.4 and 2.6. One of them, who did not drop a ballot all day, got judges preffed 1,3,3,3,3! Another one of them, also undefeated in prelims, got two 4s.
What’s the unifying factor here? I would suggest that it’s not prejudicially favorable judge placement, but damned good debating despite the judge. I know way too many coaches who question placements. I’ve already reported on my unhappy experiences on Yale when we were forced to put out less than desirable placements and people stormed the proverbial barricades. My response was that maybe you should spend more time teaching your debaters how to appeal to a broad base of judges rather than complaining that you’re not getting your preferred narrow base.
The four top debaters at Bump (and I promise you their elim rounds were no picnic either) demonstrate—if not with statistical certainty then at least with anecdotal evidence that suggests that statistical certainty is possible—that good debating, winning the ballots from the judges you get, is the key to success. Trust me: the tab room has already done its best for you, but tab can only do so much. It’s the debaters who win rounds, not the pref sheets.
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