Holbrook,+Zach

tl;dr: i’m an idiot hyperconservative dinosaur and you should never give me the benefit of the doubt. For more information that a good judge would put down and I’ve neglected to, contact me at knifesalesman@outlook.com i debated 4 years at c.k. mcclatchy high school in sacramento, ca (’10-‘14), and now go to uc santa cruz, which has a mock trial program that I refuse to engage with. due to the fact that a massive wall of mountains and ocean separates me from the rest of the world (the bus to san jose is a massive hassle on its own), i’ve been somewhat cut off from the debate world, and haven’t kept track of what’s going on in either high school or college debate. I know what I’m doing more or less, but I just don’t have a lot of context to the present. I’ll keep it tab the best I can.

my ears were never that great, so if there’s some aspect to your debating style you can sacrifice for more clarity (slurring your words together for more speed, slightly lazy debating hoping the judge can make connections on his own) PLEASE DO. slow down on tags, etc. debate shouldn’t be a pissing contest for speed; a few tactical arguments are better than throwing eight off at a wall to see what sticks. Decoy args are lazy debating, c’mon, you should know better. If you spend more prep working on organizing some very good args rather than working to deploy a scattershot of half-baked ones, then sweet, you’re adapting to my comparative incompetence at hearing people speak at inhuman speeds. Prepare for me to either yell “clear” a lot or take my hands off my pen/keyboard because you’ve lost me if you haven’t adapted well enough. Also roadmaps before speeches would be greatly appreciated.

T? I have no idea what is topical or not these days. If it is tangentially related to the words in the topic, I’ll prolly be like “huh, this is prolly topical.” That said, T debates can be pretty fun and are relatively straightforward. Take that as you will.

cp’s, and da’s are obviously fine, so is the K I guess. i’m a bit of a dinosaur and was never totally comfortable with k-aff’s and 1-off neg strats (in that they terrified me) but hey, if you know what you’re doing and can explain it lucidly backwards and forward, feel free. Just don’t give me the benefit of the doubt when things get hairy, because like a horse, I can easily be spooked.

okay that was a lie there are some K’s that I’m more comfortable with than others; the more ubiquitous it is the more likely I’m gonna understand what you’re saying even if I can’t pick up on every word you read in the card, but if this is some super crazy gambit you’re pulling out suddenly that hasn’t been run before, you better know how to ride that bull because I will not and will probably generate some misunderstandings because you’ve confused me. Don’t namedrop and steam through spanos or d&g or something equally crazy unless you can explain it like you would to a relatively smart 12 year old, who is basically me at this point.

I have kind of a high threshold on theory (mostly because it generally runs the risk of being bogged down in highly specialized mumbo jumbo) – there needs to be obvious abuse in round to warrant its use, and you, the debater, need to articulate the issue and its consequences. Yeah severance perms are evil, but if you don’t articulate why well enough, I’m gonna give the jerkbags some leeway.

I have a soft spot in my heart for args that are generally considered classically bogus (wipeout, etc). imo there are no bad arguments, just arguments that are poorly deployed.

By the 2ar/2nr I like args that have a very clear path from the first speeches to the very end. Interpret that as you will. Most importantly, tell me a story. To me, debate is ultimately a form of story-telling that’s been coopted by the academy. All good stories told (read: not read) have a beginning, a middle, and an end

Prep begins after c-x, and ends once you throw that flash drive to the other team.