Originally posted by Mitja Bosnic:

Why would you uphold a call you would not have mane, William?

I think it's pretty common to do so.
In cases where you are not sure what is the correct call, you generally uphold the floor judge's ruling even if you would rule differently (if you were the floor judge). I think I remember many judges saying that.

Originally posted by Petr Hudeček:

I think it's pretty common to do so.
In cases where you are not sure what is the correct call, you generally uphold the floor judge's ruling even if you would rule differently (if you were the floor judge). I think I remember many judges saying that.

At the risk of going somewhat off-topic, this seems to me to be the wrong approach. One of the reasons for the appeals process is to provide consistency of ruling, i.e. if a player does the same thing twice they should, in theory, get the same ruling. Under your approach, if the player did this twice and one FJ rules OoOS and one ruled DEC and both were appealed you would uphold both. This is a terrible experience for the player.

Edited Norman Ralph (June 20, 2015 02:25:40 PM)

Some thoughts on this - and I might have handled “one or two” appeals, over the years…

There are many calls - most of them, in fact - where there is a right answer. In those situations, my final ruling will be what I think is the right answer. (Yes, I too can make mistakes…)

If my floor judge has made a different ruling than what I will make, then (a) I tell them on the way to the call, if it's apparent that early, or (b) after listening to the players, I will usually step aside with the ruling judge, ask if they've heard anything different or “interesting”, then tell them why I think I have to overrule. That takes it away from the scrutiny of the players, and gives the ruling judge a chance to point out anything I'm missing.

Sometimes, it's just a judgment call - Slow Play being the most common - and if we don't hear anything different or interesting while I talk to the players, I'm more likely to uphold the original ruling than I am to overturn it. But that's when it's really close to 50-50 either way; if I feel it's more like 60-40, I'll go with the 60% more correct call (in my view), even at the expense of my judge's morale.

And that morale is why I don't want to overturn their ruling if I don't have to - but maintaining the integrity of the event is why I *have* to, if their ruling isn't as correct as mine.

d:^D

Edited Scott Marshall (June 20, 2015 04:02:55 PM)

There's a big IF in there Petr.. If a floorjudge came to me saying they want to give DEC for something I feel is OOOS, I would not give permission to give a GL.
If somehow the floorjudge forgot to ask first, and there was an appeal, I'd overturn.

The general rule is, if something is a judgement call, and either ruling is fine, then generally the HJ will let the ruling stand. Otherwise, no.

edit: Scott was faster..
edit2: and better..

Edited Kenny Koornneef (June 20, 2015 04:09:43 PM)