Three Trails District Qualifier

for the 2024 National Tournament

Policy Debate Information

The Policy Debate Qualifier will be held on December 8-9, 2023 at Blue Valley North. A big thank you to Brian and his squad for hosting us. Below are the logistics and rules for the tournament.

1. Each school may enter up to 4 teams. We need 4 or more entries to qualify 2 teams to Nationals. We need 30 or more entries to qualify 3 teams to Nationals.
2. You must provide judges for this tournament. The judge requirement is one judge per team, plus 1 extra judge. So, a full entry of 4 teams would require 5 judges. Head coaches may not be one of the required judges as we like to hold head coaches back for emergencies. Assistant coaches may be in the judge pool. If your judges can judge your students, please mark them as such.
3. You must have your judge obligation covered for all rounds. Failure to have enough judges on hand for a round may result in a forfeit loss for one or more of your teams. Your judges are obligated one round past the elimination of your last team.
4. We will debate 4 prelim rounds. All 3-1 and 4-0 teams will advance. The tournament has 2 pre-set rounds and then is direct power-matched for rounds 3 & 4 using the SOP formula explained in the manual. (Edited on 12/8 to reflect what we must do according to the manual.)
5. All advancing teams will be placed in a DOUBLE ELIMINATION bracket this year. This is a change for us. From my research, it will only add 1 round to the tournament if we are qualifying 3 teams, which we should be.
6. The schedule is as follows:

   Friday, December 8

   Registration 3:00 p.m.

   Opening Assembly 3:30 p.m.

   Round 1 4:00 p.m.

   Round 2 6:00 p.m.

7. Round 3 8:00 p.m.

8. Saturday, December 9th

9. Round 4 9:00 AM

   Elim Round 1 11:00 AM

   Elim Round 2 1:15 PM

   Elim Round 3 3:30 PM

   Elim Round 4 5:15 PM

10. We will have 1 judge panels in prelims. All elim rounds will have 3 judge panels.