1.    In pairing first round, seeds will be respected with the following order of priority:  full seeds, half seeds, and one free seed per school.

2.    In subsequent rounds, pairings will be power-matched among brackets (e.g., 1-0 teams hit 1-0 teams, 0-1 teams hit 0-1 teams), and power-protected within brackets (e.g., the highest 1-0 hits the lowest 1-0, second highest hits second lowest, etc.).  Total team speaker points will be used to rank teams within brackets, with total team speaker ranks used to break ties.

3.    When a pull-up is necessary to complete a bracket, the highest team in the upper bracket will hit the middle team in the next lower bracket.

4.    The following constraints will be respected, in descending order of priority:

• No team shall be pulled up or down more than one bracket.
• No team shall hit another team from its own school during in-rounds, unless that school’s teams fill more than one-half of a bracket.
• No two teams shall hit each other more than once during in-rounds.
• No team shall have more than three Gov rounds or more than three Opp rounds.
• No team shall be pulled up more than once.
• No team shall hit a pull-up more than once.

6.    In determining the rankings of speakers for purposes of awards, we will use the following order of priority:  speaks, ranks, adjusted speaks, adjusted ranks, double-adjusted speaks, double-adjusted ranks, team performance (as addressed in rule 5 above), coin flip.

7.    In any out-round, the team that has been Gov in the larger number of previous rounds (including both in-rounds and previous out-rounds) will have the choice of sides.  If both teams have had an equal number of Gov rounds, sides will be decided by coin flip.

8.    Any disputes about rulings or other matters related to tab should be addressed to the tab director, who will have final discretion.