Varun Bhave Takes USC
Congratulations to Del Mar’s Varun Bhave for defeating Harvard-Westlake’s Nick Steele to win the USC Damus Invitational on a 2-1 (Bistagne, Placido, *Lucas-Bolin). Varun is coached by Marshall Thompson. Nick is coached by Bietz, Travis Fife, Shania Hunt, and Steve Knell.
Prelims
Round 1 Pairings; Results
Round 2 Pairings; Results
Round 3 Pairings; Results
Round 4 Pairings; Results
Round 5 Pairings; Results
Round 6 Pairings; Results
Partial Octas
Loyola NR def Miramonte TK (Damerdji, Walton, *Helali)
Loyola RAg def Interlake AL (Grigsby, Alderete, Hunt)
Quarters
Harvard-Westlake NS def. Torrey Pines SS on a 3-0 (Bistagne, Placido, Torson)
Torrey Pines DB def. Loyola NR on a 3-0 (Hunt, Miyamoto, Walton)
La Canada AZ def. John Marshall DD on a 2-1 (*Helali, Placido, Bistagne)
Harvard-Westlake CC def. Loyola RAg on a 2-1 (*Walton, Torson, Conrad)
Semis
Harvard-Westlake NS def. La Canada AZ on a 2-1 (Helali, *Govari, Pena)
Torrey Pines VB def. Harvard-Westlake CC on a 2-1 (*Torson, Bistagne, Placido)
Finals
Torrey Pines VB def. Harvard-Westlake NS on a 2-1 (Bistagne, Placido, *Lucas-Bolin)
Preview
Entries: 31
(After one drop, the pool is now 30)
With 38 bids across 30 entries, the pool’s average debater has 1.27 bids.
Top 25
1 – Varun Bhave
21 – Cameron Cohen
Qual’d Debaters
Varun Bhave (10)
David Dosch (6)
Nick Steele (4)
Cameron Cohen (4)
Kevin Krotz (4)
Tom Kadie (4)
Debaters with One Bid
Alisa Liu (VBT)
Ash Israni (Voices)
Sujay Singh (Meadows)
Nick Rogers (St. Marks)
Connor Engel (Alta)
Louisa Melcher (Alta)
47 Comments
watch out for reece aguilar tho…the kid is fire
and when ur that good at policy, ld is a piece of cake
no offense to any of y’all ld’ers, but the top speaker at huge cx bids is infinitely more impressive than at a LD bid
And y’all already know probs, but the kid is super-fast – he just blazes. it’s kinda ridiculous
wow!
Jack Wareham be like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzjtPtOH-Hg
wow!
I srsly can’t tell whether you all are hating, but if y’all are, you should srsly stop. I don’t know if y’all have seen him debate, but reece is easily the best debater in the nation, maybe with the exception of jeffrey horn from green valley or harry from notre dame – all of u ld’ers would kill to be half as good as he is. smh at ld’ers pretending like there’re something hot – just admit that policy is where it gets real, hands down. all you larp-ing trutil-ers or wannabe k-hacks would die in policy, so y’all can just shut up plz.
Thanks for buttering my popcorn. LD flamewars have nothing on LD-Policy cross-over flamewars!
Jack, I know you’re better than this. Please don’t make yourself look like a jack— like this, show some respect for Reece please. He’s one of my best friends, and one of the best debaters in the nation – by a landslide actually. And not to sound rude, but Reece is a lot, lot better than you are at debate, and probably a lot better than you ever will be, no offense. The man has put in major work into his craft, and to see some cocky LD’ers try to diss his dedication and abilities srsly pisses me off, and is simply unacceptable.
So you’re one of the better debaters in a trashed, corrupted, and wannabe form of debate. Great – congratulations actually. Feel proud that you excel in a screwed activity, admit it or not. And just because you think LD is some nice competition or something doesn’t mean that you should look down on policy – let’s be honest, even the best LD’ers like Tomasi, Tambe, or even Jalan all readily admit that policy is far more legitimate than LD.
Reece Aguilar is a monster in policy – ask any policy-er, and Reece is a household name. He wasn’t always that way – I remember Reece as a novice. He was gifted, but was never the most naturally talented. But boy, has he put in the work. And if you’ve actually ever watched him in round, you’d shut up immediately. Look – Reece probably doesn’t care that some arrogant scrubs are trying to diss him. And to be honest, neither do I. But I just want to let you know that you’ve made yourself look like an idiot. Peace out.
I didn’t mean to diss Reece, I just think its annoying when people diminish LDers accomplishments by saying its a ‘piece of cake.’
Cake is swag
So good he went 6-1 at TOC? https://www.tabroom.com/index/tourn/postings/entry_record.mhtml?tourn_id=2299&entry_id=565271
Funny thing is you’d probably never even get to the TOC in policy as a junior, so I wouldn’t talk.
The only thing that can settle this is a Jack vs Reese throwdown. The panel is me, Dean Wareham, and Drake
YES – set it up id say to watch lol
Big ups Evan, that’s how you tell someone to shut up. tbh I do see why Jack might feel somewhat frustrated – LD has always been overshadowed by policy. But I’m really pissed off with how cocky, arrogant af ld’ers somehow believe that they’re better than the best policy’ers. A piece of advice Jack: don’t hurt your reputation by talking down on guys like Reece. Like Evan said, people have a lot of respect for what Reece has done in the community, and his abilities as a debater. And I highly doubt that you’ve ever seen Reece debate before – if you have, I think that you would agree that he could easily be the best LD-er in the nation, once he became acquainted to LD speech times and quirks. And so does every other debater in the state of California; if you disagree, you’ve been living under a rock.
And about LD being a “piece of cake” – I know that is really isn’t. But when you’re as good as Reece, anything is easy.
Look, you have a reputation, like I said before. If you tried to diss Reece in front of any other high school debater, whether LD or policy, they would be equally pissed as I am. Excellent if you think that LD is hard, and you’re a great debater, with a great future – just don’t diminish the abilities and skill of a debater that’s light years better than you.
see my response to evan-i dont think reece is bad. i’ve literally never watched him before-im not in the position to say he’s bad. i was just annoyed at people trashing LD. sorry my comment didn’t clarify that. i really don’t mean to offend anyone-i should have specified what i was responding to since JJs comment made two distinct claims
chill bruh, he never took shots at reece, y’all taking shots at LD. LD has ALOT MORE ARGUMENT GENERATION than policy ever will, we don’t give speeches right out of the computer….
Uh, yes he most definitely was. JJ was pointing out the obvious – that Reece is a beast, and – considering how he wrecks the policy circuit – would probably beast on the LD circuit.
And about taking shots at LD – get real Anon. Srsly, just get real. I have no idea what argument generation means, but if you mean diversity, I’m pretty damn happy that policy judges laugh at the mention of an RVI. And just admit it – every single LD arg is a bastardized version of the policy arg. I know so many LD’ers that think that they’re really something bcz they ripped a k from an open ev file. congratulations. you can read a 1nc shell, along with some trash blocks next. honestly, major congrats. maybe you read a cap k. WOW, good for you. Or maybe you read security. even better. or maybe ur proud that u read semiotic cap and bifo lit. honestly, really good for you, you learned that debate is capitalism! cuz if u try reading those args in policy, u’ll get exposed. Coming in with analytic and 1 card blocks – that gets exposed really, really fast in policy. it really sickens me when ld’ers try to pretend like they’ve exceeded policy – get used to it. REALITY CHECK plz.
And about “we don’t give speeches right out of the computer.” i have no idea wut this means, and i think it just shows that u should shut up. great – u came into the round without adequately blocking out ur args. and, when u dont have cards and resort to unwarranted analytics, u feel great. Well, let’s get this straight. I really advice you to watch any good policy debater – Reece, Ryan, Jeffrey, Elliot or Jaden, hell, even jerry wang from peninsula – they can make hot analytics when they need to. And those rebuttals would put any of y’all to shame. So please, stop pretending that LD is better than policy. I remember talking to a kid, fresh off the TOC (in LD, that is), thinking that he was somehow better than the best college policy’ers. he said, literally, “policy’ers only read trash util affs or identity ptx, omg.” and i was thinking, “omg omg omg SHUT UP! watch the ndt finals, and stop pretending like you know what a good util throwdown looks like.” it kind of pisses me off, really, to see these pricky LD’ers trying to defend a dying form. just admit it. ld died a long time ago. policy is more alive than ever.
finally, as a closing note: y’all probably know jerry wang and raam tambe from peninsula. they did Ld for a lil, then were actually dissuaded by their elder LD’ers around them from continuing. the same goes with atul jalan. Akhil, Arjun, etc – all of them – they all regret having put all their marbles in LD, and they probly would have made a different decision in different circumstances. keep that in mind.
K buddy. There are a couple problems with your post
1) The existence of LDers good at certain policy arguments: PV, harker, etc probably means we can do it too. Even if they wish they did policy that just proves the point. You can go through 4 years in LD be damn good at skills generally considered policy-ish. Yeah maybe akhil and arjun (which you are purely speculating) wish they did policy but that is probably because it is bettered suited to the types of debates they like to have.
2) Lots of things LDers can do Policy debaters don’t. a) Analytic Philosophy b) Theory justified down to the last argument which is in the eyes of most people in the LD community better than the gut check norm policy has c) an argumentative focus that allows teams without a history of success or lots of coaching to do well d) a non-impact justified debate.
I’m not tryna trash policy because they do a lot of things right that we do wrong but it’s a question of what suits you so don’t be so arrogant about it.
Last note: We don’t know what a good util throwdown is? Thats pretty bullshit. We’ve had a bunch of good larpers in our past and maybe they don’t stack up against the cream of the policy debate community but they’re damn good. To name a few: Bovering, Noah, Pat Donovan, Akhil, Arjun, Pranav, Tomasi, basically anyone from greenhill, etc.
not even sure why you think LD debators suck, LDers go to high school policy and crush y’all. all you guys do is read cards anyways, ever heard of analytics? 1ar so hard with a 2ac to set you up with a million cards… get real, LD is not easy and if you think policy is a lot harder its because you have never tried LD, you would get rolled by any phil at all
I don’t understand why all of these people are backing Reece so hard and getting so pissed at Jack…Reece is actually not THAT GOOD at debate and lost to LD’ers who are no where near the best in the country. Jack is actually very good and probably better than Reese was as a soph or junior.
I agree that people are over reacting to Jack’s comment. However, I’m not sure if Jack’s better than Reece. As a junior, I think he beat the TOC Finalist on a 3-0 and got numerous speaker awards. He’s been offered scholarships. No hate intended to Jack, but Reece is still an impressive debater without a doubt.
Wait a second there: Will, did you actually say that Jack is better than Reece? Are you crazy, stupid, or both? Bill has got it on the money – Reece is MUCH, MUCH better than Jack is. Even as a sophomore, I’d take Reece 10/10 over Jack. I seriously, seriously, SERIOUSLY doubt that you even know who Reece is, much less have seen him in-round. Ok, fine. He lost his bid round in his FIRST (and last) LD tourney ever. congrats. he was 6th speaker, while reading a generic cap ac on aff and heidegger on neg. basically, the most generic stuff; like backfile material. if you’ve ever seen him in round, you’d know that he’s a better kritikal debater, better on the impact-level debate, and just a generally smarter (and MUCH, MUCH faster) debater. So get out of here with that “Jack…is better than Reece as a soph or junior” bs. that’s some major, major bs. I’m not sure what circuit you debate on, but it’s definitely not the national circuit (or if it is, ur pretty naive). Reece is the man, hands down. Don’t detract from him like that.
Couldn’t agree more @even and @arron!!!! Jacks comment was rlly incensitive and it hurt all of r feelings!!!!!!!! Apologize or else!!!!!
Hey jack I just want to apologize for my comment. I realized I was way overstepping the line and i know you’re a good debater. Sorry if I came off as a jerk.
Don’t worry about it.
Ari mostow wrote both of the above comments
I swear to god i didn’t write those comments
$waguilar 4 president
aaron knows wuts up 😐 give $waguilar executive flex so that he can give the land back to the natives.
And srsly, makah is the biggest internal link to anthro. if u really want to stop colonialism, just give the landback and we’ll live on seasteads. after all, we should obviously have a discussion of the topic, not a topical discussion. I was talking with some other cali-ers, and we all agreed that y’all should totally read that when u win the toc. it’d be almost as good as st vincent’s bifo-audrillard 1ac
i still makah better than that weird quantum mechanics stuff y’all was on earlier this year tho. that was actly kinda of funny tho, but just srsly dumb. i think that ud agree, tbh
and lol @Will – bro u salty af tho, lolol. don’t u know that he #onlygetz30dollabillz ? i dare u to tell reece, to his face, that he’s trash. im sure that either way, aaron will have some poetic things to say about it. ask overing also, if u have a problem
Finally, good luck at the toc. u and reece have just as good a chance of winning it as anyone else (except maybe Green Valley, Notre Dame, etc…., but still). y’all really deserve it also, y’all are probly the coolest debaters on the cali circuit.
peace out man. go win it. it was a pleasure to debate in the same circuit as y’all. #forthenatives
This debate is stupid. Both forms of debate have harder and easier things about it. No doubt someone in policy would be crushed by an LD’er on theory. The same goes for debating framework. I know that Varun could kill Recce at kant v. util. But does this mean that LD is superior? Of course not. Policy is better at util debate (impact calc), they are WAY better at K args, they are faster, they require deeper research, their rounds are longer and subsequently requires more “stamina.” There are strengths and weaknesses in both activities.
Hey Bo,
You should really know better than this, knowing that you’re acquainted with some policy-ers (including Reece and Aaron). More than half of the policy 1ac’s are k-affs. like no plan-text affs. policy’ers would MURDER any LD’er on the T/FW/Theory debate. Wanna know why? because you LD’ers think about all impacts to theory/t/FW shells as being fairness or education mpx’s. thats terrible debate, tbh. I hate LD’ers screaming, “they kill education and fairness, which means they should lose!” Policy’ers actually flesh out the impact to the shell, down to specific strat skews and abuse claims, as well as specific portable skills (with FW DA’s, like decision-making skills key to deconstructing Imperialist hegemony, or key to environmental flex). This is one of the most annoying things I hear – that LD’ers are somehow better than policy’ers. Just because y’all read stupid shells like, “the RoB was on the bottom of the AC, that’s strat skew!” doesn’t make y’all good at the theory/t debate, AT ALL. get real. watch a good policy’er in action, defending a K-aff and versus a team that is going for 13 mins of t-usfg in the block, and you’ll understand why ur comment made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
I’ll concede that Varun might beat Reece on the Kant vs. util debate. But several problems here: first, you probly know this, but Reece is A LOT faster than Varun, and if came down to independent reasons on the ethical level, Reece could flesh out a hell of a more convincing story on FW, assuming that he knows what he’s doing (which, i’m sure, he does, although i’ve only seen him defend prefiat FW’s or straight util). But more importantly, i think that ur making a huge logical hole: the only reason why Varun would beat Reece on FW is that he’s A) better prepped or B) slightly more knowledgable. If Reece studied the FW debate hard for a week, I can assure you that he’d be almost as good, if not better, than Varun (or LD’er, for that matter). When you’re that good at debate in general, things come easy, trust me.
And finally, I agree that policy is better at the util game and at k args, as well as being A LOT faster. And when nat circuit LD has become an ugly mix of theory shells, “larp-ers”, and badly-run k’s (along with some ethical FW, sometimes), i think that you can easily see why people think that Reece would kill in LD. And, no offense Varun or Jack, but Reece is a lot better than you guys at debate. In pretty much every aspect. Attribute that to policy.
Hello. Today I’d like to bring up the value of the Afghanistan debate circuit. I believe it is important to have the lay skills to give back the rights of women within a culture that is so opposed to them expressing themselves. I think that the PF circuit has a good chance at changing the mindsets of those in that country, Thank You.
^This
Afghanistan> Reece+Varun
Hey guys,
so i’ve been reading all of these comments and I just wanted to say that I admit that although I’m very talented, I wouldn’t call myself the best debater ever, and I’m certainly not better than Jack Wareham. I want to apologize for some of these obnoxious comments, including JJ, Evan, Aaron, and several others. Let’s not get into a whole flamewar about policy and LD, okay guys? I think it’s really important to recognize the tremendous difficulty of competing in BOTH formats.
I did NOT actually write that
lol you obviously wrote that Reece
I did not make the above comment-someone is just using my name
This also was a fake comment
Guys I apologize for all the fake comments. Neither jack nor Reece wrote those
I didn’t write either of those two comments, and honestly I don’t care about what’s being said. I do indeed have an opinion about which activity is better, but I’m not bothering to force it in everyone’s face. Personally, it’s entertaining to sit in a chair and watch this epic flame war go down haha. You two jerks above, don’t EVER pretend to be me or I’ll ask bob for your emails and find you. My real email is epistoframework@gmail.com, which isn’t the registered email for either of you.
I can vouch, these comments were fake
Notr trying to start anything but reece didnt demolish lders. He lost to two very good but not elite debaters in sujay singh and alex zhao and while alisa is very good she isnt the cream of the crop. Not to take anythign away but he didnt destroy the ld community lol.
My applause to Policy. You guys and gals are sick at arguing, and I’ll admit that only Policy debaters can turn the comment “wow” into the biggest point of contention since the Civil War.
Wow.
Too true, to them wow=racism+ldsucks+imsogoodatutileventhoughIgetsmashedbylderswhodoapolicytournament
so much insecurity
i agree! ld’ers are 2 op! they are so much better than policy’ers! omg, policy’ers don’t even know how to do util debate! like omg at policy’ers who think that they’re good at kritiks or something, like lol, identity politics is soo bankrupt. i bet they dont even know that bob overing invented the idea of plans and counteradvocaies! or that og ld’ers creating kriitks! or that hot ld’ers pioneered the theory and topicality debate! wow!
Hi, I just saw this post again and I realized my mistake- I overstepped a bit. Sorry Jack, breaking at TOC is something I wouldn’t be able to do