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Power matching at the NDT

Note first that the Standing Rules have no provisions about how
rounds are paired at the NDT.  Instead they leave such procedures
to tournament director discretion.  Typically the Director has
asked for guidance from the NDT Committee, and then typically he/she
follows that guidance.  However, the Director could theoretically
pair rounds and place judges by whatever means they thought best at
the time.

The current procedures were adopted when Al Johnson was NDT Director.
The NDT Committee formed a subcommittee of folk interested in
tournament pairing procedures which then issued recommendations to
the committee and the Director (note that as with all of the NDT
subcommittees, membership on the NDT COmmittee was not a requirement).

Suggestions were as follows:

1) Shift from one preset to two preset debates.  

2) Since there would be two presets, the former method of doing one
   preset (1 vs. 78, 2 vs 77, etc) would no longer work.  Thus, the
   suggestion was to do a "median split" -- teams one through 39 are
   placed in one column, teams 40 through 78 are placed in a second
   column.  In one round 1 debates 39, 2 debates 38, and so on (high-
   low in that column).  In the other round 1 debates 40, 2 debates
   41, and so on (high-high across columns).

3) Move from three high-high debates to one high-high debate.  It used
   to be that there were high-high debates in rounds 3, 5, and 7.  Now
   there is only one high-high power match, and that is round 5.  

4) Change how brackets are adjusted.  It used to be that when there was
   an uneven bracket, a team (or teams) was pulled from the middle of
   the lower bracket and inserted into the next higher bracket (I can't
   recall if it was middle to middle, or middle to ballot count/points).

   Anyway, I BELIEVE the current system is to "pull down the leftovers
   from the next higher bracket" (note that I may be out of the loop on
   the exact current procedure -- I was last in the tabroom at the 
   Louisville NDT).  

   Say there are 6 aff teams in a WL bracket and 4 neg teams.  The teams
   are seeded in the bracket, and then teams 5 and 6 on the aff side of
   the bracket would be pulled DOWN and placed on the top of the aff side
   of the next lower WL bracket.

   The other constraint is that no team is pulled down (up) a second time
   if there is another team in the same bracket that has not been pulled
   down (up).

The proposal at the NDT meeting at San Diego will be to move from one
high-high to two high-highs.  This would be an advisory non-binding
suggestion to the tournament director, as with all other current pairing
constraints.  No other alterations to prelim pairing procedures have
been suggested at this time.
--
Arnie Madsen

arnie.madsen@uni.edu

Communication Studies, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, 
IA  50614-0357     (O) (319) 273-7200     (FAX) (319) 273-7356

410 Home Park Blvd, Waterloo, IA  50701  (319) 235-8866
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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