How to Tab
Generating the draw of a debating tournament can be a thankless task. Here are some tips about how to do it well, but at the end of the day there is no substitute for experience.
The Basic Idea
Debating tournaments are generally power-paired (all AIDA tournaments are power-paired by rule), which is to say that teams should debate against other teams of (roughly) their own strength. In practice, that means that teams should meet other teams whose results at that tournament approximate their own. Most draw generation systems, including that required by the AIDA constitution, group all of the teams on the same number of wins (or, in four-team debates, the same number of points) and then allocate debates within them. The AIDA constitution requires that that allocation within groups occur by cutting the group in half and matching the groups side by side, so the top of the top half meets the top of the bottom half, subject to the ‘one up, one down’ rule.
British Parliamentary Tabs
There are a number of very good resources on draw generation for BP tournaments, such as Tabbie ( http://tabbie.wikidot.com/), which is a widely accepted tab program for large BP tournaments. There is no consensus for 3-on-3 tabs, but if anyone has a tab they would like to share with the community please contact us!
The Preliminary Rounds
In the first round of any tournament, the draw should be randomly drawn.
At the conclusion of each preliminary rounds, teams should be ranked in order of:
• the win – loss ratio of the team (or total points accumulated by a team in the case of a four team debate); then
• the aggregate points scored by a team, or in the case of a panel adjudication, the average points from concurring adjudicators; then
• some other tie breaking process, usually longest streak, followed by largest total margin, followed by tossing a coin.
Once teams are ranked in accordance by that process, teams should be divided into pools according to the win-loss ratio (or total points accumulated by a team in the case of a four team debate). If there is an odd number of teams in a pool, the highest ranked team from the pool below will be elevated to become the lowest ranked team in the higher pool.
For each pool, teams should be divided into two sub-pools of equal number.
The highest ranked team in the first sub-pool should debate the highest ranked team in the second sub-pool, subject to the ‘one up, one down’ rule. This rule states that if two teams have debated before in the preliminary rounds or are from the same university:
• the one up rule means that a team which is ranked second in the higher sub- pool may debate the first ranked team in the lower sub-pool – the team one up from the team that team would ordinarily debate;
• the one down rule means that a team which is ranked first in the higher sub-pool may debate the second ranked team in the lower sub-pool – the team one down from the team which that team would ordinarily debate.
If, after the application of the ‘one up, one down’ rule, teams from the same university will debate each other, then those teams may debate each other. If, on the other hand, after the application of the ‘one up, one down’ rule, teams which have previously debated each other would debate each other, then teams should debate each other as originally drawn.
If there are multiple conflicts such that the ‘one up, one down’ rule does not easily solve them, then those conflicts should be worked out by hand. There is no generally accepted process for dealing with multiple conflicts.
How to figure out who breaks
At the conclusion of the final debate in the preliminary rounds, teams should again be ranked in order of:
• the win – loss ratio of the team (or total points accumulated by a team in the case of a four team debate); then
• the aggregate points scored by a team, or in the case of a panel adjudication, the average points from concurring adjudicators; then
• some other tie breaking process, usually longest streak, followed by largest total margin, followed by tossing a coin.
The traditional system for organising a three-on-three finals series is to fold the draw, based on the seedings. That is:
Sixteen Finalists
The following draw should operate:
Octo Finals:
Debate A 1st ranked team vs. 16th ranked team
Debate B 8th ranked team vs. 9th ranked team
Debate C 5th ranked team vs. 12th ranked team
Debate D 4th ranked team vs. 13th ranked team
Debate E 3rd ranked team vs. 14th ranked team
Debate F 6th ranked team vs. 11th ranked team
Debate G 7th ranked team vs. 10th ranked team
Debate H 2nd ranked team vs. 15th ranked team
Quarter Finals:
Debate I Debate A winner vs. Debate B winner
Debate J Debate C winner vs. Debate D winner
Debate K Debate E winner vs. Debate F winner
Debate L Debate G winner vs. Debate H winner
Semi Finals:
Debate M Debate I winner vs. Debate J winner
Debate N Debate K winner vs. Debate L winner
Grand Final:
Debate O Debate M winner vs. Debate N winner
Eight team finals series
The following draw should operate:
Quarter Finals:
Debate A 1st ranked team vs. 8th ranked team
Debate B 4th ranked team vs. 5th ranked team
Debate C 3rd ranked team vs. 6th ranked team
Debate D 2nd ranked team vs. 7th ranked team
Semi Finals:
Debate E Debate A winner vs. Debate B winner
Debate F Debate C winner vs. Debate D winner
Grand Final:
Debate G Debate E winner vs. Debate F winner
Four team finals series
The following draw should operate:
Semi Finals:
Debate A 1st ranked team vs. 4th ranked team
Debate B 2nd ranked team vs. 3rd ranked team
Grand Final:
Debate C Debate A winner vs. Debate B winner
For most small tournaments, it will be easier to generate the draw in Excel than to worry about a customised program. A (very) basic draw generating spreadsheet can be found below.
At its simplest, draw generation in Excel simply consists of listing each team with the number of wins and speaker points, ranking them and then power-pairing. More sophisticated versions take into account the number of affirmatives/negatives and can carry out 'one up, one down' calculations automatically.
A work in progress. If you have a program you would like to share, please get in touch!