In which we show how the ball bounced

And this is what we ended up with. (SPOILER ALERT: Go back to yesterday's post first, if you missed it.)

A-School AAAAA

B-School BBBBB

Judge 5 from Hired 3-5 

Judge 6 from Hired 1-1

Judge 13 from Hired 4-3 

C-School CCCCC

D-School DDDDD

Judge 7 from A 1-1

Judge 8 from Hired 3-3          

Judge 12 Hired 5-5 

E-School EEEEE

F-School FFFFF

Judge 9 from C 1-1

Judge 10 from B 1-1

Judge 11 from Hired 5-5

The first pairing is the best we could get. Even though it’s one off, both debaters have a 1 and a 3 and a perceived stinker. I strongly believe that the number of mutuals takes priority over the numbers adding up, that is, a 1-1-5 is a lot stronger than a 2-2-3, even though they both add up to 7. 

The second pairing is probably the most difficult to parse as a debater, but it’s absolutely even, so the difficulty in reading them is absolutely identical. 

The third pairing is the best of the bunch. But I would give the same advice to my teams if they were in the second or third pairing: go for the 5! So often in breaks, debaters ignore the stinker because they feel that the stinker is illegitimate and beneath the debater’s contempt. They forget that the illegit stinker gets to cast a ballot just like everybody else, and, if you think about it, is probably the easiest to pick up, especially if your opponent blows off said stinker as well. The moment you reach out to the stinker, you’ve won that ballot. And doing so will never lose the other ballots, inevitably from tired judges who want to go home and who are perfectly happy to have you do the work for them. We teach that to our novices, but we forget it in the varsity divisions, even though it’s no less true.

Tabroom does most of the judge assignments well enough, but it will not discrimiante between the 1-1-5 and 2-2-3 as I will. That's why humans were invented in the first place.

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