2018 Peninsula Invitational Finalist Interviews
Note: if you have questions you’d like us to ask, please let us know here, and we’ll ask them during the next set of tourney interviews!
Finalist Interviews
Viren Abhyankar (Northwood VA) defeated Patrick Aimone (Servite PA) to win the inaugural Peninsula Inviitational! Premier Debate has exclusive interviews with both these debaters!
Patrick Aimone (Servite PA), Finalist
Question: You marched through to finals and hit many skilled opponents along the way. DId you expect to do so well? How’d it feel?
Patrick Aimone: Felt great! The goal was always to reach finals, so I can’t say that I didn’t expect it, but I was particularly pleasantly surprised that even early elimination rounds at a finals bid yielded such competitive and high-quality rounds across the board. I was really impressed by the quality of the pool at Peninsula, especially in its first year, and I have no doubt it will continue to grow and attract more quality competition from the Southern California area and beyond.
Q: Given the high caliber opponents, what strategies did you pursue? Do you feel you adapted to your opponents or forced them to play your game?
PA: I think that in difficult rounds, debaters always do best when they stick to their guns, so to speak, and debate where they feel most comfortable. For me at Peninsula, that meant framework debate, and I had several really enjoyable rounds with opponents who engaged on the framework debate.
PA: There are a bunch of resources available for any debaters looking to explore philosophy, and they sort of fall into two camps. On the one hand, there are excellent general introductions to different philosophical traditions available on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy that can get debaters acclimated to philosophy as a whole; on the other, I would encourage debaters to look at resources on Circuit Debater and the wiki to see how debaters utilize different moral theories in the context of debate (and, of course, to follow up reading a case with reading the works that the case cites). A great middle ground, and a work that sort of sparked my own interest in ethics, is James Rachel’s The Elements of Moral Philosophy, which lucidly explains several common ethical theories while accurately representing them.
Q: Those are some great resources! Some debaters have community concerns they feel strongly about. Do you have anything you’d like to discuss?
PA: It seems to me that the circuit community is, in some cases, becoming less inclusive of more traditional styles of lay debate within Lincoln Douglas. This manifests itself in both in round and out of round conduct: whether it’s referring to lay debaters from less well-known schools as “randos,” disparaging judges who prefer debates with more structured cases and less rapid delivery, or spreading a one-off high theory kritik against a local debater who just concluded their conversationally-paced affirmative, members of this community often condone and participate in exclusionary conduct that wouldn’t be tolerated against any other group of LD debaters. We shouldn’t rely on judges to be the limiting factor of how progressive a particular debate round is– for, of course there’s no reason a policy judge can’t evaluate a lay debate. And if the circuit continues to colonize local tournaments with styles and arguments incomprehensible to the average lay debater, we risk not only making our own community less accessible by eliminating the stepping stone many independent debaters utilize on their way to circuit competition, but also inflicting irreparable harm on other communities of Lincoln Douglas debate.
PA: In no particular order, the panther bobblehead speaker awards, two extensive Kant vs util debates, and Jack Stern’s choice of pre-round paradigmatic questions (“How do you feel about formal wear theory?”) all brought a smile to my face over the course of the weekend. And, of course, shout out to Viren– a Servite LD close-out might never happen, but an Orange County close-out is as close as it gets.
Viren Abhyankar (Northwood VA), Champion
Question: You had an amazing tournament run to champion the tournament. Did you expect to do this well? How’d it feel?
Viren Abhyankar: To be honest, I wasn’t quite expecting the outcome, but winning the last few prelim rounds really gave me the confidence I needed to continue the streak into elims on Sunday. I’m always nervous before elims of any tournament, but I’ve found winning that first round is a huge boost for me and definitely set the tone for this tournament.
Q: What strategies did you pursue? What did you rely on for your success?
VA: I really enjoy straight-up, policy-style debates. I think at this tournament I went for the states CP with either the midterms or gerrymandering disad in 4 of my neg rounds.
Against affs that were less straightforward, however, my go-to strategy was the afropessimism kritik
VA: I really enjoy reading about politics, and I think a really good understanding of current events plus the drive to cut a lot of cards and make sure they’re updated before a tournament really helps.
For the K, as soon as I lost to the position at Voices sophomore year, I wanted to learn as much as possible from the perspective of beating it. I found it to be really intriguing and worked on it a lot at summer camp. I think with both positions, having a thorough understanding of American history and politics will really help make debaters connections to whichever aff they’re up against.
VA: The midterms disad because it’s so versatile and because the news is so volatile that the story of the disad keeps changing from week to week so answering it requires a little more nuance. I really enjoy it when 1ARs go for impeachment impact turns – I get to yell about how bad Trump is for 6 minutes. I’ve been hit with NoKo, Pence worse, Trump good, and civil war so far.
Q: Regarding politics, news, current events, etc., what news sources do you frequent? Any you might recommend?
VA: I frequently read The Washington Post and NPR. Just remember to clear cookies on your browser for the Post since they only give you a certain number of free articles.
VA: I seriously believe that disclosure is good. I’ve heard the arguments about how it’s bad for small schools and only works for them if they do K debate, but coming from a small school and still choosing to read plans and disads, it has definitely helped me. If people are afraid of losing to prep-outs, they should just cut better cards.
Q: Final question, any shout-outs before we close?
VA: Thanks to my teammates: Daniel Luo for teaching me about follow-on, Eric Gao for shredding through some miscut affs, and Karthik Krishnan for staying until the end – your bid is coming for sure. Thanks to Jonas LeBarillec and Srivatsav Pyda for making me better at debate. Friends I’ve made on the circuit this year made this tournament really enjoyable. I was also told I was Jeff Sessions in a costume.
Thanks to Patrick and Viren for sharing their perspectives! If you want your questions answered, be sure to let us know here!
