PFRR Format

This year, Strake Jesuit will introduce a new format to round robins that no tournament has done before. We will be using the World Cup format, to engineer a unique and more competitive debate experience, along with a holiday twist to the debate season.

There will be three stages to our round robin and four pods to begin the tournament.

Stage 1: Preliminary Stage

Rounds 1-4. There will be four pods with each having four teams. Each team will compete with the others in their pod for the first three rounds. For round four, each team will debate a team from their 'sister pod' based on current seed i.e. first seed from Pod A debates fourth seed from Pod B. These four rounds will conclude the final places from Stage 1.

Stage 2: Advancing Stage

Rounds 5-7. The top two teams from each the four pods from Stage 1 will be grouped into two new 'advancing' pods. The teams in these pods will compete for the opportunity to break. The non-advancing teams from Stage 1 will also be grouped into two new pods.

Stage 3: Knockout Stage

The top two teams from each of the two new 'advancing' pods will break to a single-elimination semis bracket.