LD Rankings

This is a ranking of Lincoln Douglas debate teams.

Recently, we have received a lot of feedback that our rankings system has been disproportionately weighting smaller tournaments and high win-loss ratios for debaters that haven’t competed much. We take feedback very seriously, and we have made a series of changes that we believe will make the rankings more accurate:

  • We are only including tournaments that have a semis, octos or quarters bid to the TOC.
  • We will include player-decay in our rankings. The rating of a debater that competes less often will slowly diminish.
  • For a debater to be included in the rankings, they must have competed at at least two tournaments in their career. This increases the likelihood that a debater’s rating is representative.
View information about the rankings.
The algorithm used for these rankings is the Glicko-2 ratings system, a variation of the Glicko system. The basics of the system are simple: each debater starts out with a rating of 1500. Your rating is based on the result of every round you debate, weighted by the rating of your opponent and (for elimination rounds) by the margin of victory. If you win a round, your rating increases; if you lose a round, your rating decreases. Defeating a high-ranked opponent provides a larger boost than beating a low-ranked opponent, and losing to a low-ranked opponent yields a larger drop than losing to a high-ranked opponent. Every round counts.

We switched from the Elo system to the Glicko-2 system for the 2016-2017 season. While the two systems are quite similar, Glicko-2 system weights the effect of each round based on the reliability of the ratings of each debater. This change will correct for problems that arise in Elo when some teams compete in rated tournaments more often than others. More details are available here.

Ratings do carry over from season to season for debaters as long as they continue to compete.

These rankings do not claim to be a definitive ranking of all debaters, and are, admittedly, simply a minor contribution to the speculation and conversation that exists among some “national circuit” debaters and coaches. While we try to stick to data instead of opinion in our rankings, we do understand that the nature of debate is subjective and sometimes random.. So, enjoy the idle discussion and potential entertainment that rankings can bring, but please do not put too much stock into their reflection of the accuracy into the quality or ability of any given debater.

If you think you see an error, please let us know at rankings@victorybriefs.com!

 

View the list of tournaments included from this season.
Grapevine
Loyola
Yale
Greenhill
Valley
Holy Cross
Presentation
Bronx
St. Marks
Beltway
Meadows
Damus
Apple Valley
Scarsdale
Glenbrooks
Alta
Princeton
University of Texas
Isidore Newman
Blake

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Our other LD services include the Card of the Day and our classic topic handbooks.

Rank Debater Rating Record
1 Sekou Cisse (Success Academy) 1994.94 8-1
2 Brianna Aaron (Newark Science) 1977.21 49-6
3 Shruthi Krishnan (Greenhill) 1970.76 45-5
4 Ariel Azbel (Lake Highland Preparatory) 1935.11 41-6
5 Danielle Dosch (Immaculate Heart) 1925.71 64-6
6 Ishan Bhatt (St. Andrew’s Episcopal) 1904.46 44-6
7 David Min (American Heritage Plantation) 1893.49 10-0
8 Muhammad Khattak (Lake Highland Preparatory) 1866.02 39-7
9 Lindsey Perlman (Byram Hills) 1851.26 52-8
10 Ryan Younger (Brentwood) 1814.46 22-5
11 Reed Weiler (Lexington) 1776.52 30-8
12 Jake Davidson (Harvard-Westlake) 1773.66 32-7
13 Indu Pandey (Harvard-Westlake) 1772.15 33-11
14 Niko Battle (Kamiak) 1769.52 37-7
15 Whit Jackson (Brentwood) 1765.87 28-7
16 Ronak Ahuja (Chaminade Prep) 1755.00 15-4
17 Kyle Yuan (Collegiate) 1753.58 14-5
18 Matthew Chen (Strake Jesuit College P) 1743.86 37-13
19 Jaya Nayar (Harvard-Westlake) 1740.48 35-12
20 Chakra Jonnalagadda (Cypress Woods) 1732.81 28-11
21 Conal Thomas-Mcginnis (WDM Valley) 1725.13 28-11
22 Michael Kurian (Dulles) 1716.92 23-5
23 Alan George (Klein Oak) 1715.93 30-6
24 Alexandra Mork (Harvard-Westlake) 1711.00 40-14
25 Rohith Mandavalli (Westwood) 1705.14 31-11
26 Michael Gao (Law Magnet) 1702.76 22-10
27 Sebastian Williams (Gilmour Academy) 1701.19 12-5
28 Farzaan Kaiyom (Torrey Pines) 1700.02 11-5
29 Frances Zhuang (Palo Alto (Independent)) 1696.70 17-9
30 Tiffany Chang (Phillips Academy Andover) 1689.51 28-8
31 Arnold Jia (Millburn) 1687.97 30-10
32 Tess Welch (Cy-Fair) 1686.48 23-12
33 Anna Myers (Greenhill) 1686.13 28-11
34 Kevin Li (Stuyvesant) 1684.64 25-10
35 Spencer Paul (Harvard-Westlake) 1681.33 31-13
36 Rishabh Shah (Westwood) 1672.45 21-8
37 Zachary Vlessing (Pine Crest Preparatory) 1671.92 14-4
38 Vishan Chaudhary (Harvard-Westlake) 1668.93 17-6
39 Michael Ning (Hunter) 1658.37 18-7
40 Mihir Rai (Greenhill) 1655.82 28-10
41 Andrew Garber (Cambridge Rindge and Latin) 1655.26 17-8
42 Joshua Herrera (Strake Jesuit CP) 1648.41 29-15
43 Saavan Myneni (Westwood) 1646.95 9-3
44 Camille Caldera (Walt Whitman) 1645.42 23-13
45 Marie-Rose Sheinerman (Hunter College) 1642.73 13-5
46 Rex Evans (Santa Monica) 1638.52 33-15
47 Joseph Thornhill (Chaminade Prep) 1636.46 5-3
48 Osmane Sanogo (Newark Science) 1629.14 39-15
49 Adam Keller (Nueva) 1629.11 11-4
50 Barry He (Palo Alto (Independent)) 1625.59 16-7
51 William Coltzer (Winston Churchill) 1625.36 13-4
52 Jerome Nashed (Lake Highland Preparatory) 1624.36 17-6
53 Jugal Amodwala (Westwood) 1614.64 18-4
54 Lucas Bryant (West Des Moines Valley) 1614.56 22-8
55 Sachin Shah (Lake Highland Preparato) 1614.27 17-6
56 Charles Karcher (Sarasota) 1614.01 5-3
57 Kenan Anderson (Apple Valley) 1613.18 21-11
58 Martino Boni Beadle (Cambridge Rindge and Latin) 1608.05 19-7
59 Khoa Pham (Garland) 1606.74 7-4
60 Varun Paranjpe (Mountain View) 1603.60 12-4
61 Kyle Kopf (WDM Valley) 1603.32 27-17
62 Eric Deng (San Marino) 1603.28 18-7
63 Lindsey Williams (Spragu) 1600.13 10-5
64 Maddie Couling (Woodla) 1600.00 3-2
65 Abhilash Datti (American Heritage Boca Delray) 1599.25 16-7
66 Mina Lee (Edgemont) 1598.26 20-11
67 Brian Zhou (Greenhill) 1596.02 18-8
68 Julia Wu (Lake Highland Preparato) 1595.56 19-9
69 Arlo Weiner (Oakwood Secondary School) 1594.62 16-9
70 Truman Le (Westwo) 1594.36 6-1
71 Jason Kraynak (Bellaire) 1593.34 5-3
72 Carl Spana (Harrison) 1591.45 11-6
73 Steven Goldware (Lake Highland) 1589.12 16-7
74 Samantha McLoughlin (Harvard-Westlake) 1587.02 9-4
75 Lauren Cole (Harrison) 1586.38 29-15
76 Animesh Joshi (WDM Valley) 1586.05 21-9
77 Nate Galang (Klein) 1585.07 18-10
78 Jack Stern (North Hollywood) 1584.95 39-14
79 Jason Chan (Arcadia) 1584.45 14-7
80 Arjun Goyal (Byram Hills) 1580.68 4-3
81 John Michael Magloire (Chaminade) 1580.40 7-6
82 Emma Blum (Brentwood) 1579.49 16-7
83 Saianurag Karavadi (Quarry Lane) 1576.48 32-14
84 Daniel Lin (Princeton) 1575.51 23-10
85 Simran Gandhi (Lexington) 1573.21 20-10
86 Patrick Aimone (Servite) 1572.41 9-5
87 Charles Li (Strake Jesuit CP) 1562.12 28-18
88 Kevin Wang (Millburn) 1561.77 9-6
89 Maya Xia (Texas Academy) 1558.77 14-8
90 Madeleine Conrad-Mogin (Immaculate Heart) 1554.39 37-20
91 Daniel Harris (Walt Whitman) 1552.87 23-14
92 Carolyn Zou (Pennsbury) 1552.45 21-11
93 Neville Tom (Strake Jesuit CP) 1551.75 10-4
94 Carly Rieger (WDM Valley) 1549.67 19-9
95 Jett Poskey (StrJes) 1549.27 4-2
96 Jeffrey Zhang (Dulles) 1548.03 4-2
97 Amanda Huang (Millburn) 1546.84 13-8
98 Amber Wang (Katy Taylor) 1546.19 24-14
99 Alec Antonakakis (Prosper) 1545.55 21-12
100 Zachary Lu (Needham) 1545.37 27-15
101 Luis Arbelaez (Loyola) 1543.03 24-15
102 Ved Roy (Lexington) 1542.06 13-8
103 Grayson Constantine (Montgomery) 1540.54 21-13
104 Aman Patel (Southlake Carroll) 1537.09 18-14
105 Kumail Zaidi (Oak Hall) 1536.97 15-11
106 Asher Towner (La Salle) 1535.85 19-11
107 Claire Liu (Stuyvesant) 1534.93 22-11
108 Camryn Manley (Woodla) 1534.63 5-2
109 Vincent Liu (San Marino) 1533.70 13-4
110 Nicholas Newton-Cheh (Lexington) 1531.29 7-6
111 Drew Thorburn (Strake Jesuit) 1528.33 24-12
112 Arthur Wayne (Millburn) 1527.73 23-12
113 Sam Segal (Kinkaid) 1526.34 12-7
114 Ansuman Bardalai (Dougherty Valley) 1524.17 14-12
115 Lauren Morganbesser (Harvard-Westlake) 1523.98 14-8
116 Jackson Deconcini (Brentwood) 1523.54 12-8
117 Andrew Qin (HouMem) 1522.47 18-11
118 Pacy Yan (Stuyvesant) 1522.17 28-17
119 Robbie Gillespie (American Heritage School – Plantation) 1521.67 15-8
120 Sophia Danielpour (Marlborough) 1517.45 26-16
121 Lena Mizrahi (Immaculate Heart) 1514.25 35-22
122 Abby Grifno (Westwood) 1513.25 13-12
123 Dhruva Mambapoor (Westwood) 1512.16 13-10
124 Natalie Isak (Scarsdale) 1511.91 7-7
125 Aida Bathily (Success Academy) 1511.81 18-10
126 Cassidy Condray (Edmond North) 1511.50 3-2
127 Rachitha Jadala (Stony Point) 1510.78 8-4
128 Eve Levenson (Brentwood) 1510.50 26-17
129 Sesh Joe (LC Anderson) 1510.43 20-13
130 Oliver Rourke (Lexington) 1509.13 14-9
131 Rohith Sudhakar (Westview) 1508.68 13-8
132 Asher Bykov (Roslyn) 1506.04 14-8
133 Spencer Klink (Harvard-Westlake) 1504.11 12-9
134 Michelle Li (Hunter) 1503.09 19-11
135 Andrew Whitaker (Montgomery) 1501.56 16-11
  • counterplan.supersaiyangod101

    sekou wore a durag and raptors jersey to harvard and placed first in varsity ld lmao

  • UPDATE RANKINGS

    YALL UPDATE THIS SHIT

  • Anon

    I think it pertinent that more tournament results be posted very soon, as college apps are coming up and people who did well at recent tournaments will probably want to write in their rankings.

  • Anonymous

    Are you guys going to incorporate TOC? Because I think it would be best if you did at some point.

  • MB

    Hello. I just wanted to point out that Kumail Zaidi’s wins from Harvard were not entered, only his losses. Please check to ensure that his wins from the Harvard tournament are appropriately entered.

  • UPDATE RANKINGS

    Are Blue Key and Sunvite going to be included? Both used Speechwire, but they probably still deserve to be included in the rankings as there were quite a lot of good debaters at both.

  • Sotoni

    y r rankings only until 187, instead of 250?

    • MB

      It only shows people who have a score of at least 1500.

  • guest

    lowkey confused as to why Rachana Jadala is ranked considering she graduated several years ago..?

  • jessica boone

    Are the results from the Ridge Debates going to calculated into this list?

  • hbv

    when’s UT posting?

  • aiosd

    these ratings are ridiculous. i’m sorry, but they’ve lost all credibility for me.

  • Semper Idem II

    This year, results for Florida Blue Key were recorded on Speechwire rather than Tabroom or Joy of Tournaments. With that in mind, Speechwire should probably be added to the tournament suggestion page. Also, here is a result Speechwire missed: David Min (American Heritage) beat Stephen Scopa (Pembroke Pines) on a 2-1 decision in finals.

  • wonderingstuff

    When will marks be included?

  • Ron p

    Ron’s name is actually spelled Ron Packin

  • s

    arlo weiner and alex bauman are ranked twice

  • The Tsar

    If you’re having trouble inputting Yale because of Tabroom’s failure to post the final round results, Oliver Sussman (Cambridge Rindge and Latin) defeated Sekou Cisse (Success Academy) on a 3-0.

  • Bob

    Why haven’t the 2016-2017 season results carried over?

    • Zach Kirsch

      They have. We only display this year’s record, but the ratings (and thus the rankings) have carried over.

      • Bob

        I don’t see people like Oliver Sussman on the rankings even though he debated last year.

        • As explained above, debaters do not appear until a tournament they have debated at this season is added to the rankings. The ratings from last year do carry over, but no one is displayed until they debate this year. This is to ensure that debaters who have graduated/quit are not displayed.

  • Justice

    Where is Raffi?

    • I believe debaters only appear in the rankings once they have competed at a tournament this season. Greenhill has not yet been added to the system.

    • Zach Kirsch

      Yeah, as Chris said, Raffi was in the rankings until he competed this year. Now that Greenhill is in the rankings Raffi is on the list.

  • aisjfioj

    out of curiosity do you know when the new ratings will be up? for example will it be up by voices etc

  • anon

    what’s happening with 2016-2017 rankings?

  • 7off

    Ari Mostow is ranked twice

  • RankingsPlease

    Hey can you all upload Columbia to the rankings please? Thank you.

  • Nelson Ok

    Will you guys be adding TFA state or churchill?

  • Whit Jack

    damus + usc?

  • So Blade

    Okay cool you added Berkeley and Harvard. Any possible ideas on UNLV? It’s a semis bid and it was over a month ago

    • Andrew Perez

      Nobody cares. This is stupid, and no, you will not be ranked higher than 100.

      • So Blade

        Oh thanks buddy, really appreciate that

  • txexes

    Will you be including Churchill Results in the data?

  • angrycalikid

    it’s been a month and Berk still isn’t in? and Harv

  • WR0NGNESS K

    remove isaac swedlow he is bad

  • The Archduke

    Jack Wareham, Jacob Ronkin, and Karan Choudhary are all listed twice under slightly different school names. I can assure you that there is only one of each of those who is prominent in Lincoln-Douglas debate.

  • JustAsking

    Will finals bid tournaments every apply?

  • debat

    Harvard ?? berkeley ??

  • Debater2

    Harvard and Berkeley?

  • Curiositykilledthecat

    When will Harvard be added?

  • eyyy

    Is there any way to include finals bid tourneys?

  • debater

    where’s UPS?

  • Little Frydman

    Alejandro Frydman (University School FL) graduated last year

  • Guest123

    University JR and NSU University JR are the same person. I think this happened to everyone associated with University School as well who debated at Lex (KC, GF, and ZL)

    • Guest123

      The same thing happened to Valley debaters. Trent Gilbert and TJ Foley are rated twice, and I assume the same happened to Dani Reyes and the other debaters from Valley at Lex. They are in as both WDM Valley and West Des Moines Valley

      • Guest123

        This happened again. Jacob Ronkin and Karan Choudhary and ranked twice. I don’t know if the same thing happened to the Valley kids because neither of them are ranked twice, but they might have been too

        • Debater123

          Also Jack Warhead is rated twice

  • DB8Er

    Lexington isn’t included in the posted LD Rankings despite stating it is in the tournament listings.

    • Debater2

      Yeah.

  • question

    aren’t cps results on tabroom?

  • Anonymous

    When are the rest of the semis bids going to be posted? I see that only grapevine is right now

  • Anonymous

    When’s the next round of rankings coming out?

  • RamPradad2.0

    When will these be updated? I know it takes time, but this only contains like 6 tournaments and college apps are due and people would want to put their ranking on those.

  • joe

    Can we get an actual lder to input these rankings? I’m sure there are a lot of people who would be down. The pf ones always seem to be updated faster and its taking a really long time,especially for kids who want to use this for college apps,expanding past 50 could be really helpful.

  • CLEMENTS HEG

    YOU GUYS FORGOT FELIX ASDJNSOADNBOASD ASD HES NUMBA 1 BOYSSSS

  • kinkaid??

    hows jason yang on the list

    • Stop Hating

      Because he is good

  • bob

    Think you forgot Felix

  • Hunter Martin

    Why Isn’t Mikey Speiser Rank #1?

    • lololol, good one

      because mikey speiser is literally a dung wad

  • questions

    Do these rankings include last years results? And will it be expanded beyond 50 in the future

    • These rankings do include last years results. In most contexts t is common practice for ELO rankings to carry over between seasons. ELO is more accurate as more rounds are included.

  • Curious

    will new ranking be out for this year soon?

    • jnebel

      Yes they will!

      • just wondering

        Any guess for exactly what time?

      • boi

        yeet

        • boi

          wow

        • much 3 u

          boi

        • kk boo

          too too

  • Anon1

    When do the 2015-16 Rankings going to come out, I’m excited to see my boy Jonas Le Barillec on there

  • Question

    Hey, someone already asked this, but do the rankings restart every year? Like if I had losing records last year, will they hold back my ranking this year? Thanks!

  • anonymous

    will the rankings restart for the new season or continue off of last year?

  • tadam omasi (not actually him)

    Sounds like a really bad idea to include locals in the rankings. The judging usually sucks. If we’re trying to compile rankings for real debate-flow debate-It makes no sense to include locals. It would probably be better to just include bid tournaments, from octos to finals.
    Unrelated question: Will a double-octos bid tournament ever exist?

    • Guest

      “Real Debate” and “Flow Debate” are not necessarily synonymous. Local, non-technical debate rounds certainly have merit. “The judging usually sucks” is such a huge generalization, have you even attended a decently run local?

  • Just Wondering

    Are the semis/finals bid tournament results going to be uploaded?

    • Zach Kirsch

      Yep! The rankings will be updated with all semis-bid tournaments in the next few days.

  • Confused

    Do these rankings take the NDCA tournament into account? If they don’t will they soon?

    • Zach Kirsch

      No they don’t, but yes they will soon!

  • smaller bids

    when will sems and finals bids be added?

  • permthedisad

    Emily Hu and Xinlan Hu are the same person. lul.

  • Master_Yoda

    I WOULD LOVE TO GIVE A HUGE SHOUT OUT TO MY BOYS ARJUN TAMBE AND AKHIL JALAN FROM PALOS VERDES PENINSULA WHO HAVE MANAGED TO CLOSE OUT THE VBRIEFLY RANKINGS!!!!!!!! #MasHeg #OP

  • anonymous

    how are ram prasad, annie kors, and srikar pyda on this list?

    • Zach Kirsch

      Sorry, we inputted Stanford 2014’s results by accident. Everything’s fixed and updated now!

  • Graduated Maybe

    Sam Azbel, Dana Councilman, Claire Kueffner, Charlotte Lawrence, Travis Chen, Yael Caplan, Leah Shapiro, Salim Damerdji, Chris Kymn, and Ram Prasad are all ‘ranked’ despite being graduated?

    • Zach Kirsch

      Sorry, we inputted Stanford 2014’s results by accident. Everything’s fixed and updated now!

  • YODA

    congrats on being ranked Sam Azbel!!!

  • MR.Dipplestick

    Whats the third number in the records

    • Certain round robins have two judge panels. The third number indicates a tie (split) two judge panel.

  • Rank Lex

    Since Emory is already calculated in when will Lex be?

  • rankings

    Sujay Singh is ranked twice

    • rank

      Hes a very talented debater

  • why no newark results mang

    are you not not including the results for the newark invitational?

    • Chris Theis

      As explained above the current rankings only include Octos and Quarters bids. It is time consuming to enter tournaments so we have been working from the largest tournaments down. Newark will be included soon 🙂

  • Elo Ranking Questions

    When do you plan in expanding to all TOC bid tournaments?
    And eventually those local tournaments?
    And when the expansion does occur will it only be from expansion –> future or include past tournaments?
    Also will it re-start next year?

    Sorry for all the questions! This is a REALLY cool thing you all are doing! Thanks for the impact on the community!

    • jnebel

      1. As soon as we can, but unfortunately I can’t give you an ETA.
      2. After round robins.
      3. We will include past tournaments, at least from the present season.
      4. We do plan on continuing it next year.

      It is possible that extracting the massive amount of data (e.g., from locals) ends up taking too much time. We have considered a self-reporting system in which debaters just enter all the information from each round into a form, which you (at least sometimes) would have an incentive to do to boost your rating, perhaps with a strict policy against lying (e.g., banning people after some number of warnings) and a system for cutting out duplicates. But not sure about this: it would, for example, mean that people who never report their own wins but get their losses reported by others (e.g., because they don’t know or care about the rankings, which is totally fair) would be severely underrated. What do you think?

      • Elo Ranking Questions

        Thank you, sounds good. Sorry for the late reply I didn’t realize I wouldn’t get a notification.

        Yeah, I was very confused how you will be able to analyze all the local tournaments.I think a properly structured self-reporting system could work, especially if people are motivated to be ranked it could add to be beneficial to them.

  • jnebel

    We are still missing Crestian round 5. So if you won that round and know where to find the results, please let us know!

  • Rankings

    Voices is a quarters bid but isnt listed. Was it included in the calculations?

    • Chris Theis

      Voices=Presentation

  • William Park

    shout out to my boy Dario Madyoon for being ranked

  • Josh Roberts

    The records listed are overall (prelims + elims)? or just prelims? If overall, I assume a W in elims, regardless of if it’s a 2-1 or 3-0 just counts as 1 win, correct?

    • jnebel

      Right, they include both prelims and elims, and winning an elim round counts as 1 W regardless of ballot count. The ballot count enters into the rating formula in basically the same way that the goal difference index is used in the World Football Elo Ratings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings).

      And of course these records are not people’s actual total records but only reflect the rounds in our current data set.

      • PSmith

        Is it possible to post which tournaments have been included in the rankings listed above? That would be very helpful.

        • jnebel

          All of the ones listed here: http://vbriefly.com/side-bias/. (For Valley, only prelims are included right now, but that will be fixed shortly.)

        • PSmith

          Thanks. Have you considered posting a link to the calculations by round and team as they do for similar ratings for public forum and policy?

        • jnebel

          We can do that next time. Thanks for the feedback!

        • jnebel

          (Still working on this, despite the update.)