Greetings Judges! Welcome back to The Knowledge Pool. This week we have a Gold scenario so you are welcome to post from now on!

The blog post for this scenario can be found here.

With 12 minutes left in the last Swiss round of a PPTQ you're head judging, two players call you over. They tell you that they intentionally drew their match during game 5, and didn't know how to report it. You ask what happened, and Allison tells you, “Well, we're best friends, and we both make Top 8 if we draw and the match at the next table doesn't draw. We both know this, so after we each won a game we intentionally drew the next two after about 10 turns. The next match over did finally end with a winner, so we're drawing the match now. Brad thinks intentional draws are always supposed to be 0-0-3, but I'm confused because we played 5 games. Who's right?”

You talk to a judge who's playing in the event, and he says they were playing pretty quickly the whole time he watched, but then abruptly drew the game when the match next to them ended. What do you do?

MTR 2.4, final sentence says “Intentional draws are always reported as 0-0-3”, so this seems straightforward. But, the sentence just before that says "Until that point, either player may concede to or draw with the other, though if the conceding player won a game in the match, the match must be reported as 2-1.“ (Emphasis mine.)

Question is: do these sentences mean precisely what they say, or should the penultimate sentence be understood as ”if the conceding or drawing player won a game…"? Put another day, does the ID 0-0-3 reporting requirement win, or does the report-games-won requirement win?

As a matter of interpretation of the text, I'll go with the words meaning precisely what they say. 0-0-3 for the win, er draw. No infraction.

That said, if this came up at my event, I would almost certainly have reported it as 1-1-3 because the desire to report actual games played is strong. I look forward to understanding the reasoning either why this desire is misguided, or whether the text of MTR 2.4 can be made more comprehensive.

Edited Gordon Lugauer (Oct. 23, 2015 03:37:11 AM)

Sadly, I'll give to both them a Unsporting Conduct - Improperly Determining a Winner > DQ.

I'll explain to them that they weren't determining a winner but they were determining the final result conform the beside table result.

Regards.

Based on the scenario as described, I see no reason to suspect Slow Play, Stalling or other inappropriate behaviour by the players. So they can report the match as a draw and there is no infraction to rule.

Reporting as 1-1-3 seems the most appropriate since it reflects games actually played. But the MTR is clear that IDs are reported as 0-0-3, and this is clearly an ID. So that is how I would have the players record it for the sake of consistently applying policy. Considering the impact this can have on tiebreakers, it's important to be consistent and predictable about this.

Fran, I would refer you to MTR 5.2, 4th paragraph.

“Players can make use of information regarding match or game scores from
other tables. However, players are not allowed to leave their seats during
their match or go to great lengths to obtain this information.”

Clearly, the players have not left their seats, and I would hardly say that
anything they've done constitutes going to great lengths. They have
continued to play their match within the time limits and have done so in a
timely manner and without abusing the time limit. Watching the match right
next to you is hardly “going to great lengths.”

Given that they have not broken MTR 5.2 and are expressly permitted to use
the information that they had available as per MTR 5.2, I see no grounds
for IDaW to be invoked.

As to how the match result should be entered, I would personally lean
towards reflecting the games played, but the letter of the law is certainly
on the side of 0-0-3, as Gordon pointed out. I would be likely to enter it
as such.

I forgot to mention, this scenario is a great example for why many TOs/HJs
opt to seat the final round of Swiss randomly rather than by standing so
that matches that are playing for Top 8 are unlikely to play next to each
other, making such information inaccessible.

Report it as 1-1-3 and have them turn in their slips.

Does drawing two games count as going to great lengths to obtain this information?

Given that drawing a game is a legal action (albeit only really seen if both players mulligan to stupid hand sizes) I don't think any infraction applies here. My question above is about an interpretation of policy, but even if we establish that they have gone to great lengths, is there a suitable infraction? I dont see how IDaW can be applied here without shoehorning the situation into the infraction.

Now that the annotated MTR is back online, here's a great snippit:

Originally posted by AMTR5.2:

For instance, players may play their match until the match next to them finishes and agree to draw because that result favors their chances at making top 8. But they cannot make any extraordinary effort to get the information they want, like pausing the match to recheck the standings or pairings or to find out the results of the match three tables over. Players may not play slowly to wait on relevant matches to finish.

(This is under the 4th paragraph that Justin found.

They've not gone to great lengths, Have them report 0-0-3, as already stated in the thread, since that is how IDs are supposed to be reported per the MTR.

AMTR2.4
The note for intentional draws codifies and standardizes the scorekeeping practice.

ref http://wiki.magicjudges.org/en/w/AMTR:Collusion_and_Bribery

I see no problem with this behaviour. While they are using the result of a different table to make a decision on the result of their match, it is information they are allowed to have, as long as they aren't going to great lengths to determine this information. Playing the game, and drawing to prevent a winner, is not going to great lengths when the table they need the information from is directly next to them.

Distinctly, something to remember with policy is we determine if there has been an infraction first, not try to make an infraction fit something that has happened. IDaW clearly stated what cannot be used. Playing a game of magic and deciding to draw in game 5 is not and example, nor something that can be extrapolated from, of IDaW in the IPG or MTR.

IDs are codified to 0-0-3 no matter the amount of games played, so that should be entered. If one player had to win in the end the result would have Ben recorded differently (Ie 2-1-2 in this scenario)

Edited Guy Baldwin (Oct. 23, 2015 05:59:19 AM)

No issues, fill out the slip as 1-1-3 and turn it in. I believe we should be accurately representing the games played in a match on the slip. While the MTR states IDs are coded as 0-0-3, this seems to me to be the case to cover when players do it at the start of a round.

Normally we report IDs as 0-0-3, but players also don't normally play more than three games. We want the slip to report the correct number of games won for both players and games drawn. Most of the time when players ID they don't play and win a game each, they just say let's draw and sign the slip. No games played, so 0-0-3.

The problem with reporting this result as 0-0-3 as the IPG suggests is it doesn't accurately reflect the amount of games they've played and therefor their tiebreakers would not be correct.
Because they did both win and lose a game that needs to be reflected in the slip so that their results also show these games. We do need some way to differentiate between intentional draws and games resolving in a draw, so reporting the match a 1-1-1 doesn't work here either.
The best entry to the event, that I can think of, would be 1-1-3 because it accurately reflects the number of games that they played and adds the draws to their score the same way a normal intentional draw would.

EDIT:
Phrasing and grammar.

Edited Elliot Garner (Oct. 23, 2015 11:16:25 AM)

(Not reading other answers first, forgive me if this the 20th response that says the same thing).

I don't have enough experience with WER to be certain. But my guess here is that you would report it as a 1-1-1 in WER and move on to the next problem. That's it, no need to be complicated.

Why?

Well, first, there may be a desire to refer to this as collusion and find an appropriate penalty. Here's the thing though - ‘collusion’ is never mentioned once in the MTR, the IPG or even the Comp Rules (side note, wouldn't it be cool to design a keyword ability called ‘collusion’ so that finally, it can be in the Comp Rules??). As such, you would have to apply some aspect of the IPG to this situation. And I just don't see it. It's not Stalling or UC. And no rules were actually broken that I could find.

I think this is no different then when players draw a game during their matches normally, and have to play 2-3 more games during the 50 minutes to find a winner. To determine a match winner, someone needs to be ahead by 1 game. Since this hasn't happened, and since I don't believe WER allows to enter multiple draws (since philosophically speaking, 1 draw is the same as 10), entering 1-1-1 in for their match seems to be the cleanest and best solution…from what I remember of WER.

I could be way off here, it's been a little bit of time since I've used WER and it was never my best friend in the world. :)

Originally posted by Charles Featherer:

(Not reading other answers first, forgive me if this the 20th response that says the same thing).

I don't have enough experience with WER to be certain. But my guess here is that you would report it as a 1-1-1 in WER and move on to the next problem. That's it, no need to be complicated.

And now, after reading the other responses, I see that I could enter 1-1-3 into WER. Two games were played to a conclusion, two were draws after that before the fifth game when they decided to intentionally draw. I don't see how any other option other than 1-1-3 would be correct so long as I'm allowed to enter multiple draws.

I clearly need to spend more time learning WER. :)