Hi everyone, we're back for another week on Knowledge Pool. This week we have another Silver scenario. L2s should wait until Friday to jump in.

Peyton and Penelope are playing in your PPTQ. During round 3 they finished their match early, and went and got lunch from the Chinese restaraunt next door. They returned to their table and ate their lunch. You just announced pairings for round 4, and notice that they left their to-go boxes at the table they were eating at, as well as empty drink bottles, and some spilled General Tso's sauce. Players are moving to their seats, and the two players now paired at the table have arrived and point out the trash to you. What do you do?

Edited Joe Klopchic (Aug. 23, 2017 12:52:56 PM)

This is Unsporting Conduct - Minor (one example of UC-Minor in the IPG is “A player leaves excessive trash in the play area after leaving the table.”)

At this point, rather than ask Peyton and Penelope to clean up their trash and have three matches start late, I would apologize to the two new players, and quickly clean up the trashed area myself. I would give those players a time extension for the amount of time it takes me to clean the area.

When Peyton and Penelope are each done their respective matches, I would pull them each aside individually, and explain the need to keep our tournament environment clean of excessive trash, and especially trash that is extensive enough to affect other players' tournament experiences. I would issue Peyton and Penelope warnings for UC-Minor.

The only potential problem I can see with waiting to issue the penalty until after the round is that Peyton or Penelope might commit an additional instance of UC-Minor without realizing they will be receiving a first instance, which means the penalty for trash suddenly is upgraded to a Game Loss, but I think handling the situation this way falls under the directive that “ judges should focus first on calming a situation, and deal with infractions and penalties afterwards.”

Edited Logan Anbinder (Aug. 16, 2017 01:57:02 PM)

Before starting timer for the round 4, I would call Peyton and Penelope from their seats and respectful instruct them to clean up the thrash left on the table and apologize to the players that were going to play there if they didn't already.

Both Peyton and Penelope are issued Unsporting Conduct - Minor (IPG 4.1) and receive a Warning as penalty. As covered by the IPG, they couldn't manage to maintain a clean and confort place for other players to play on. I would also remind them to keep every place on the venue clean as they probably wouldn't like to play on a place full of thrash, so empathy is emphasized :)

Edited Leonardo da Luz (Aug. 16, 2017 02:03:03 PM)

I agree with parts of both of the above replies. I concur it's USC-Minor per the IPG for leaving excess trash. This is fairly straight-forward. I can also see why we would want to clean the trash ourselves (so that both rounds can go off immediately, instead of holding up two matches), but there's other potential issues if we do so.

If we wait until end of round to address the issue with the players, the action could change the result in the round. What if either player already has USC-Minor for the day? If we clean it now, and then assess this at the end of round four, we've effectively delayed a penalty that qualifies for an upgrade, which could have had an impact on the match. Also, if we've cleaned the trash up ourselves, the players can potentially argue it wasn't theirs. I hope that our investigation supports this fully before we take this route.

I completely concur with the desire to keep things moving and try not to impact multiple matches, but at a PPTQ or small (relative, of course) sized event, if you see a problem, it should be dealt with when it is found, and the players should be instructed (as they are informed about their perspective penalties) to clean the area themselves. Do feel free to assist with the cleaning process though to expedite things, once you've handled the infraction and penalties.

After reading your responses, Leonardo and Bernie, and discussing this a little more on Slack, I agree it makes sense to talk to the players more immediately than just after their match. However, I still think that since this is a sizable mess, we don't need to delay Penelope's and Peyton's matches for the length of time it would take for them to participate in the cleanup (if there's a spill, this probably means getting a wet paper towel, wiping down the table, etc.)

If there's space in the venue to relocate the players who are assigned to the trashed table, I would do that, then clean up the area, then briefly talk to Penelope and Peyton to issue their warnings. There's still some possibility for them to pick up another UC-Minor in the interim, but it's on the scale of a couple minutes instead of a full round.

The alternative would be talking to Penelope and Peyton before cleaning up the trash, which I might consider if it's not adjacent to another player's space, but if it is, I still think it's worth getting rid of the mess first.

Thanks again for all the participation this week.

This is an interesting situation that calls upon both policy knowledge, customer service, and tournament logistics experience. First, either clean up the boxes/bottles and wipe up the mess if possible, or find an appropriate alternate table for the two new players to sit, and ensure they receive their correct match slip.

Then, when Peyton and Penelope have finished their match, talk to each of them and let them know that it's not cool to leave their trash around so that someone else has to pick it up, and that it was disruptive to other players. Also let them know that they are receiving a Warning for Unsporting Conduct - Minor.

It's possible the players will be upset about receiving such a penalty. Our suggestion is to educate them on the significance of Warnings, how and how they are upgraded. USC-Minor is a reminder that this behavior is disruptive, and now that they know, it shouldn't happen again.

There was a bit of discussion about the order that you should do all of these things. Our belief is that the priority should be avoiding disruption to the tournament. It follows that we should focus on getting the delayed match started and cleaning up the mess, then addressing penalties. I'm not too concerned with not informing Peyton or Penelope right away, so waiting until the end of their match is reasonable. Of course, there are multiple ways of handling the logistics of this “fix”, and I don't think any of the specific ways mentioned in this thread are wrong.