Powermatching!?!?!

There is no question that I hate more from my own kids than – “Is this tournament powermatched?"  I mainly hate it because I give the same answer every single week (and then the same kids ask the next week as well).  I also hate the question, because unless you set up the tournament - than no one really knows for sure.  What I tell my kids is “what tournaments typically do.”  So let’s talk about that (and what it means).

First, the caveat that I always tell my kids:  There are two things that destroy power matching and make it irrelevant.  First is if it is a “small division.”  You really need around 20 entries or more for power-matching to be accurate.  Secondly, you need to not have 1 or 2 teams dominate the field (either because they have too many entries or because they have too many good (or bad) entries).  Because tournaments use school protect – either one of these can “mess it up.”  For instance, if “school A” has the only 4 entries that are unbeaten – then powermatching says that they should debate.  But team protect means that each of those 4 teams will instead debate someone that is 1-1 (instead of 2-0) because school protect has a higher value than powermatching. 

Also, remember that each round is a learning experience.  If you are facing someone that is good – that doesn’t mean that you are doing great (and the inverse is true as well).  Even though you are facing someone great, they may be having an off-week or have hit other really good teams and had some bad luck.  Always debate to the best of your abilities!

3 terms to understand. 

HIGH-LOW – ALL POWERMATCHING IS DONE IN BRACKETS.  High low means that the top ranked 2-0 debater faces the lowest 2-0 debater.  The second best 2-0 debater hits the second lowest ranked 2-0 debater.  The top 1-1 faces the lowest 1-1 and the top 0 – 2 debater faces the very worst debater in the field.

HIGH-HIGH – This is hardcore powermatching.  In this powermatched round, the top ranked debater faces the second highest ranked debater.  #3 faces #4, #5 faces #6, and so forth.

Lag-Powermatching – This means that the powermatching is one round behind.  This allows the tournament to get the rounds out before all of the ballots are counted.  Most of the rounds at this tournament are lag powermatched.  Meaning that round 3 is only based upon round 1.  Round 4 is based upon 1 and 2, etc.

This tournament:

LD and PFD Varsity/Novice:  Round 1 – Random; Round 2 – Random, Round 3 – High-Low; Round 4 – High-High; Round 5 – High-Low; Round 6 – High-High

LD JV – round robin – everyone hits everyone!

Policy – varsity/novice:  Round 1 – Random, Round 2 – Random, Round 3 – challenge, Round 4 – High-High

World School – Round 1 -Random, Round 2 – Random, Round 3 – High-Low, Round 4 – High-Low