Group Stage Matches
These matches will be contested in rapid play format. The rapid play format is as follows.
Matches feature two teams meeting face-to-face. Each team must be composed of three to five members. The team members must be selected and seated at the table before the timekeeper opens the match. Timekeepers run the room. They keep time and move the match through its various components while ensuring that all participants and spectators comply with the rules.
Each match will begin with a coin toss, either with a physical coin or the use of a coin flip application. The team that wins the coin toss may elect to present first (and thereby be designated ‘Team A’) or to have the other team present first (in which case the team that wins the toss is designated ‘Team B’).
To open the first half of the match, copies of the first case and question will be distributed to the judges and teams. The timekeeper will then read the case title and question. Neither the judges nor the teams will know in advance which case will be used. The case will be from the published case set, but the accompanying question will not be one of the ones that accompanied that case as it appeared in the case set. Rather, it will feature a surprise question on the theme of the case.
Team A will have up to three minutes to confer and then three minutes to lay out the Team’s view regarding the question. This is known as the Presentation Period.
Next, Team B will have up to one-and-a-half minutes to confer, after which Team B will have one minute to speak, in which they may raise at most one question for Team A. Then, each judge will ask one question of Team A. This is known as the Question Period.
Team A will then have up to two minutes to confer, followed by three minutes to respond to all four questions. This is known as the Response Period.
Judges then evaluate the Presentation and Response by Team A and the Question by Team B, and assess the teams based on the scoring rubric. The rubric provides for a maximum of 30 points to be awarded to Team A and a maximum of 15 points to be awarded to Team B.
The second half of the match will mirror the first, with Team B doing a Presentation and Response and Team a doing a Question.
At the end of the match, the timekeeper will ask all the judges to individually announce the number of points they awarded to each team, along with a brief explanation of how they arrived at their judgment. The timekeeper will then announce the result of the match (see Match Scoring on the Scoring page).
Championship Match
For the championship match the regionals match format will be used, but with one difference: As with the rapid play format (see above), the question accompanying each case will be a surprise.