Tab Policy

Below is a comprehensive listing of MIT-TAB's Tab Policy. Many of these are configurable, especially the constraints within brackets, so if you need something special just let me know.

Note that anything in italics are encouraged tab policy that is not currently implemented by the program.

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Pairing

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Pullups

• Pull up from the bottom of the next lowest bracket by win-loss ratio, and pair in by speaks.
• No team will be the pulled up more than once.
• No team will be pulled up more than one bracket.
• No team will debate the pullup more than once.

Forfeits

• Winning teams get average speaks and ranks that are recalculated with every round.
• Losing teams get speaks of 0 and ranks of 7.

Byes

If a bye is needed to make the lowest bracket whole, a bye will be selected as follows:

• In the first round the bye is selected randomly.
• In all preceding rounds the bye is selected as the lowest speaking team of the all down bracket.
• No team will get the bye more than once.
• Byes are tabbed as a win with debaters receiving average speaks.

Bracketing

• Teams will only ever debate other teams of equivalent win-loss ratio, with the exception of the pullup.
• If a pullup is needed, the lowest speaking team in the bracket directly below is pulled up and paired in by speaks.
• If in the all-down bracket there is an odd number of teams, the lowest speaking team gets the Bye. If this is the first round a random team gets the Bye.

MIT-TAB pairs from the top down, meaning that it will generate the top bracket, make it whole, then generate the one own bracket, make it whole, etc ... This has the following implications:

• Pull ups are chosen before the Bye
• There is no cross bracket optimization, we follow a strict set of rules to generate the brackets and then pair within those brackets.

Pairing constraints within a bracket

MIT-TAB attempts to preserve the following constraints in order of severity. The number in parenthesis is the default score if violated and the chosen pairing is the minimized total score over all possible pairings.

1. You will not hit someone you have hit before. (penalty = 100,000)
2. You will not hit the pullup more than once. (penalty = 10,000)
3. You will not hit someone from your school. (penalty = 1,000)
4. No team shall have 4+ govs or 5+ opps. (penalty = 100 for 4+ govs, and 10 for 5+ opps)
5. Power pairing will be preserved as much as possible (penalty = the difference between the optimal power pairing positions of the teams in the pairing and where they actually are)

Judge Assignment

• In round 1, highest ranked judges are assigned to rounds in the following order:

1. Rounds containing a full-seed
2. Rounds containing a half-seed
3. Rounds containing a free-seed
4. Rounds containing only un-seeded teams

• In all other rounds, highest ranked judges are assigned to the rounds with the highest speaking teams, respecting scratches. Paneling is not currently supported but I'm working on it.

Rankings

Speaker Ranking

1. Speaks [Who has higher average speaks]
2. Ranks [Who has lower average ranks]
3. Single adjusted speaks [Who has higher average speaks sans one high and low outlier]
4. Single adjusted ranks [Who has lower average ranks sans one high and low outliar]
5. Double adjusted speaks [Who has higher median speaks]
6. Double adjusted ranks [Who has lower median ranks]
7. Head-to-head performance [Who had lower ranks if/when they debated before in that tournament]
8. Team strength which would include team head-to-head performance and opposition strength. [Which debater was on the better performing team]
9. Simulated Coin Toss

###Team Ranking:

1. Team Speaks [Who has higher average speaks]
2. Team Ranks [Who has lower average ranks]
3. Team Single adjusted speaks [Who has higher average speaks sans one high and low outlier]
4. Team Single adjusted ranks [Who has lower average ranks sans one high and low outliar]
5. Team Double adjusted speaks [Who has higher median speaks]
6. Team Double adjusted ranks [Who has lower median ranks]
7. Head-to-head performance [Who won if/when they debated before in that tournament]
8. Opposition strength. [Total number of wins of all opposing teams]
9. Simulated Coin Toss