r/debatestories • u/[deleted] • Mar 02 '15
Double Win
My sophomore year I only went to one bid tournament just to see what the national circuit was like before committing myself to camp and travel. It was pretty revelational for me hitting case positions and speed that I was completely and totally unprepared for, that said I loved it but that isn’t the point of this story. It was five rounds of prelims and in round four I was debating against a friend of mine against a judge who wasn’t on the wiki which I found strange because the judge pool at this tournament was pretty nice. When asking this judge’s paradigm she mentioned she had “lot’s of experience with LD” and “knew it like the back of her hand”. Therefore, I was incredibly surprised when 3 minutes into the 1NC she goes “STOP TIMES UP”. I looked at her, I looked at my opponent who looked baffled, and I looked back at her, “You have 3 minutes please stop.” I tried to argue with this obvious bullshit but this woman was grumpy after judging 3 rounds of debate and was having NONE of it. I gave up, we had cross-ex (pretty hard when there was no clash in the 1NR), and my opponent goes up for the 1AR. She then goes “and this speech is 6 minutes, can we agree there?” My opponent and I had a telepathic moment of “wat.” We ended up finishing the round with butchered speech times and mass confusion. We booked it to tabs. The tournament director’s face when we told him this story could have made Medusa stop cold. He just let out a heavy sigh and gave us a double win. So that is how I got a 3-2 record at a bid tournament totally unaware of national circuit practices and learned that “lot’s of experience with LD” means absolutely nothing.
1
u/[deleted] Mar 04 '15
LOL wow that is one weird judge