Tab Policy

1. SEEDING. Any qualled debater is seeded. Teams with two seeded debaters are full seeds; teams with one seeded debater are half seeds. Each school can designate one team as a free seed.

2. SCRATCHES. Teams may scratch two judges each. Additional judge scratches may be granted at the discretion of the Tab Director/Observer. Scratches will be respected for all rounds.

3. ROUND 1 PAIRINGS. Round 1 will be paired randomly within the following constraints, in descending priority: no two full seeds hit, no full seed hits a half seed, no full seed hits a free seed, no two half seeds hit, no half seed hits a free seed, no two free seeds hit. If there is an odd number of teams, a randomly chosen team gets the bye.

4. ROUNDS 2-5 PAIRINGS. Pairings will be power-matched among brackets (e.g., 1-0 teams hit 1-0 teams, 0-1 teams hit 0-1 teams) and power-protected within brackets (e.g., the highest ranked 1-0 team hits the lowest ranked 1-0 team, the second highest hits the second lowest, etc.). If there is an odd number of teams, the lowest seeded team gets a bye. If there is an odd number of teams in a bracket, the lowest seeded team from the next lower bracket will be pulled up. Team seeding will be determined by the following, in descending priority: team wins, team speaker points, team ranks, adjusted team speaker points, adjusted team ranks, double adjusted team speaker points, double adjusted team ranks, head-to-head performance, strength of opposition, random order. The following constraints will be respected, in descending order of priority: no team will be pulled up more than one bracket, no two teams will hit each other more than once, no team shall be pulled up more than once, no team shall hit the pull-up more than once, teams shall hit teams with the same record, no team shall hit another team from the same school, no team shall have more than four Gov or Opp rounds, no team shall have more than 3 Gov or Opp rounds. 

5. INROUNDS JUDGING. No judge shall be assigned to judge a team more than once. Judges will be assigned according to rank in descending bracket or seed order. Judges may assign speaker points in increments of .25. No low-point or high-rank wins are allowed. Judges must justify all scores of 23.25 (and lower) and 26.75 (and higher) to the tab staff, who will have final authority to adjust the scores to within that range.

6. IRONPERSONS. Ironpersons may only win rounds in the case of significant extenuating circumstances, as determined by the Tab Director/Observer.

7. LATENESS. After pairings have been released, teams have 15 minutes to begin their rounds. Any team that has not arrived within those 15 minutes will forfeit and receive no speaker points.

8. OUTROUNDS. After round 5, the top eight teams will break to single-elimination quarterfinals. The top four novice teams that do not qualify for the open quarterfinals will break to single-elimination novice semifinals. Teams will be paired according to seeding, and brackets will be maintained throughout outrounds. All decisions in outrounds will be made my judges' vote without conferral. Side selection will be determined by the following priorities, in descending order: reverse sides if the two teams hit during inrounds, "fewest choices chooses", coin flip. Teams can defer choice if they win the coin flip; this will not count as having choice.

9. AWARDS. Speaker rankings will be determined by the following, in descending order: points, ranks, adjusted points, adjusted ranks, double-adjusted points, double-adjusted ranks, team performance, random.

10. MISCELLANEOUS. All disputes regarding these policies will be resolved at the discretion of the Tab Director. If significant extenuating circumstances arise, the Tab Director reserves the right to make exceptions to the above policies; all such exceptions will be revealed to the Tab Observer and/or to all competitors.