The first round is now over, and we have 49 stories going on to the semifinals, of the 196 original entries. As stated, there will be five groups, and in each group you're only allowed to vote for two stories. It's about to get real people.
The first semifinal group will be posted about 24 hours from now, with a new group posted every day after that. Semifinal groups are made randomly, with the only considerations being that each group has *roughly* equal amounts of first, second, and third place stories - and that no story is against another story from it's initial league.
At some point today, all the winning stories will vanish from their league, not to be seen again until their semifinal group is posted.