ASDCA Speech Tiebreaker Rules

For maximum clarity, the tiebreakers for Speech events will use the following criteria for breaking ties:

In preliminary rounds:

1. Cumulative ranks from Preliminary rounds, truncated (normed) to 5 - This means that in rounds of 6 or 7, the lower ranks will be normed to 5 to balance any discrepancy in panel size.
2. Cumulative Reciprocal ranks (truncated/normed to 5) for preliminary rounds - Each rank, x, will be tabulated as 1/x and summed together (x will always be less than or equal to 5). The highest cumulative total advances.
3. If ties remain, cumulative speaker points from prelim rounds will be used to break the tie.
4. If ties still remain, the final tiebreak is a random number generation/conflip/roll of a d20 (Tabroom uses an automatic RNG).

The standard practice for advancing from prelim rounds to semifinal/elim rounds is to see if the break is clean (cumulative ranks for seed 12 are higher than cumulative ranks for seed 13) at the designated number (12 for semifinals, for example). If there is a tie at that number, we drop down such that it would make 7 entries per section (so, 14 for semifinals). If the break is clean at that number, we break that number. If there is a tie, we follow the tiebreak rules as listed above.

To advance from early elim rounds to final rounds in Speech:

Six contestants will always advance to the FInal Round of a speech event. Only in the event of an unbreakable tie will we advance a 7th entry.

If advancing from prelims straight to finals, the top 6 will advance based on the tiebreakers listed in the previous section.

If advancing from a quarterfinal to a semifinal or a semifinal to a final, three entries from each section will advance to the next round based on the following tiebreakers (per section):

1. Cumulative ranks for all rounds minus the best rank and worst rank.
2. Break three-way ties by removing the worst reciprocal rankings from the previous rounds.
3. Break the remaining two way tie using judge's preference (the student with the most higher comparative judge scores advances).
4. If the tie is simply a two-way tie, use reciprocal rankings to break it.

These tiebreakers also apply for determining final placings. If you have any questions, refer to the ASDCA rules manual, or get in touch with Richie for clarification.