🏆 Your First Tournament

How a tournament day works

1. Registration: your coach enters you ahead of time, usually on Tabroom.
2. Pairings: before each round, the tournament posts who you debate, which side you’re on (or that there will be a coin flip), the room, and the judge.
3. Preliminary rounds: often four to six rounds, against different opponents, on both sides of the topic.
4. Elimination rounds (“outrounds”): the debaters with the best records advance; from here, each loss ends your tournament.
5. Awards: for the top teams and the top speakers (by speaker points).

What to bring

• Your cases for both sides, printed or on a laptop if your league allows it, and a backup copy.
• Your evidence and answer files, organized so you can find anything in seconds.
• Plenty of flow paper and pens in two colors.
• A timer (a phone in airplane mode is fine where allowed; the debate timer works offline once loaded).
• Water, snacks, and something to do between rounds.
• Dress as your league expects; many expect business clothes.

Before each round

• Find your room early. Introduce yourself to your opponents and judge.
• Read your judge’s paradigm if one is posted, and adapt (see Judging and Ballots).
• Set up your flows with the other side’s likely arguments in mind.
• Agree with your opponent on who keeps time if the judge doesn’t.

Between rounds

• Write down what arguments you heard and how you answered them, while it’s fresh.
• Fix one thing in your case if a judge’s comment or a strong opponent exposed a hole.
• Don’t dwell on a loss. Every experienced debater has lost plenty of rounds; the next one starts fresh.
• Watch a teammate’s round if you have a free slot. You’ll learn as much as from your own.

Set the right goals

Your first tournament is for learning. Good goals are things you control: give every speech to the full time, answer every argument, ask three good cross-ex questions, weigh in every final speech. Wins follow skills, and most of the skills are built in rounds you lose.