Hi all,

I would like to know your opinion on the following topic.

1) We know what is a clear-cut bribery:
Player Andy: “If we split 50-50 then I will concede to you”.

2) We also know what is usually considered legal (unless some “eye winking” occurs):
Player Andy: “Wanna split 50-50?”
Player Nick: “Yes.”
Player Andy: “I concede.”

3) However, what if the offered split is NOT 50-50? For example:
Player Andy: “Wanna split 70-30?”
Player Nick: “Yes.”
Player Andy: “I concede.”

Such offer is legal by itself as Magic Tournament Rules allow uneven splits:

It is not bribery when players share prizes they have not yet received in the current tournament and they may agree to such before or during their match, as long as any such sharing does not occur in exchange for any game or match result or the dropping of a player from the tournament.

However, if the split is not even, I personally perceive it as a kind-of-an-eye-wink :-)
Moreover, what if the players still say nothing about any game result, but they start negotiating the percentages. This can be perceived as a discussion of “how much are you willing to give me if I concede”.

Personally, I would surely start investigating such uneven split situation, looking for the motives of players. For example: “why do you offer/accept uneven split?”
Have you ever encountered such situation during a tournament? If so, how did you proceed? Do you have any tips and tricks for such type of investigation?

Thanks!

Milan

The big difference to bribery is that after “Wanna split 70-30 ?”, no player is “obliged” to concede. They can still play it out and come to a usual game result.

I see no problem with anything between splitting winner takes all and 50/50. Anything in the range where the winner of the games receives at least equal prizes incentivises players to play for a win, which is natural.
Anywhere within that range a redistribution of the prizes is just a case of the players having a better understanding of their risk attitudes then the TO that set the prize structure. They might be more risk averse then the TO designed the prize structure for and redistribute to a more even prize payout, or they might be more risk seeking then the TO assumed and redistribute to a more top heavy prize pay-out. In any case within that 100/0 - 50/50 range trying to win is still going to be better for the players.

So the investigation that is going to happen is going to try to answer the question “Can I improve the prize structure of this type of event to better match the needs of my players?”

Hello Milan,

From my (limited) experience thus far, it seems that prize split either happens evenly when it is not the last round of the tournament (as for example a top 8 deciding to split the entire pot 8 ways) or in the finals (Winner gets the invitation, let's split the credit 30-70 for the W-L respectively).

As you said, in cases where the split is even, there is very little to investigate, unless some clear eye winking happens.

I would also like to bring this part of the MTR to light.
“It is not bribery when players in the announced last round of the single-elimination portion of a tournament agree to a winner and how to divide the subsequent tournament prizes. In that case, one of the players at each table must agree to drop from the tournament. Players receive the prizes according to their final ranking.”

It seems to me that in the case of uneven split between two players, even if we could perceive it as some eye winking in some sort of way, if it is in the finals of a single elimination part (usually top 8), then to me it seems legal as per the quoted paragraph.

Thoughts?

Hi Maxime,

that's right. I meant the scenario 3) for typical cases when a player is paired down in the last round of swiss, for example.

I should certainly hope that a non-50/50 split does not constitute bribary, because if so… I'm guilty of that!

At the recent Dominaria prerelease, in the last of 4 rounds, my opponent and I are both at 2-1. Whichever wins gets 5 boosters (for going 3-1) and the loser would get 2 (for a 2-2 record). This being a midnight prerelease and it's now around 4am, we're both pretty tired and I suggest that we split the 7 boosters we'll inevitably end up with (unless we end in a tie) so winner gets 4 and loser gets 3. Less at stake, we can both go home happy and have had a fun prerelease. My opponent accepts the proposed 4/3 split, whereupon I prompty extend my hand and say “Alright, then I concede to you. Wanna just play a single game for fun?”.

Since my proposed prizesplit was not contingent on either of us conceding or agreeing to any result, I felt this was well within the rules, and seems like what you're mentioning falls within this same scenario. One player offers an uneven split, then concedes (presumably thus getting the lesser part of the split). Once the uneven split is agreed upon, they could still play it out and the winner would take the lion's share of the prize. In my case, 1: I was tired, and 2: I didn't feel my deck was particularly strong, so by offering the 4/3 split, I would go home with 1 more booster than if I ended up losing the match, and if I ended up winning (which I wasn't going to, since I had already decided to concede if the split was accepted), I'd go home with 1 less booster than I would have otherwise.

Hope my little example from a real-life situation was helpful :)

Correct me if I m wrong but players that are in the finals of a single elimination can split the prizes as they want including the invitation.

Originally posted by Stanisław Buryan:

Correct me if I m wrong but players that are in the finals of a single elimination can split the prizes as they want including the invitation.

Close to accurate. The invitation cannot be split and is tied to whomever wins the event.

Alright, I think that the topic is getting a bit derailed. So, I would like you to focus just on the following scenario:

Andy is playing against Nick in a 27-player PPTQ. They are now in the final round of swiss (5th). Andy has 9 match points, Nick has 6 match points. The games are 1-1, time has been called and the 5th additional turn is about to end, meaning the match is about to end as draw. There was no draw in the tournament so far. Booster box prizes are just for the TOP8.
Andy: “Wanna split booster box prizes? I will have 1 booster, you will have the rest of the boxes we win.”
Nick: “Yes.”
Andy picks up the result slip and gives it to Nick empty.
Nick: “I concede” and fills out the result slip (1-2).

You witness the whole situation. Will you do anything (in addition to bringing the slip to the scorekeeper)? If yes, what and why?

Edited Milan Majerčík (May 3, 2018 10:49:56 AM)

You need to be there, and use your own judgement. If you believe that a player hinted to a result when proposing to a prize split, or hinted to a prize split when proposing a result, that's bribery.
Players don't have to spell out the proposition (otherwise people would just hint things like “I'm feeling generous today”), you just need to believe the implication was strong enough that there was no reasonable doubt left.

- Emilien

Thanks for your reply. Emilien. Will you ask any additional questions in the situation? I am trying to understand what would be the best approach to such investigation…

I can't find it now but I had a question on one on my practice test that answers the problem of bribery in the finals.

If the players are in the finals of a single elimination they can share the prices as they want.



Let's call them Ren and Nora. They are both in the final top 8 with a single elimination of a PPTQ. Ren says I got a invite from a different tournament so if you give me 100 % of pack I will concede. Nora responds with. OK but i want to hew something from this tournament so can we agree that I will get 30 % of packs and the invite and you will get 70 %. They both aggry for the split. This is OK as long Ren doesn't propose to Nora something outside the prizes like a Black lotus.

Originally posted by Milan Majerčík:

Thanks for your reply. Emilien. Will you ask any additional questions in the situation? I am trying to understand what would be the best approach to such investigation…

Once you have confirmation of what was the offer, and how it was made, I don't believe you need extra information to make up your mind.

I'm unsure what part you are confused about: is that about the bribery rules ou about how to conduct an investigation, regardless of the infraction? Because an investigation for bribery isn't really different than any other investigation, and we already have excellent articles on that, such as this serie or this one.

- Emilien

So I read that as AP essentially saying “concede to me, I’ll give you N-1 boxes”. They are in Swiss currently. That said the MTR allows for splitting prizes yet to be received. It is also certainly implied that NAP has to concede for this deal to be of value.

But they didn’t “do the thing”. I would frown heavily on this but I don’t think policy supports that this is Bribery.

So I read that as AP essentially saying “concede to me, I’ll give you N-1 boxes”. They are in Swiss currently. That said the MTR allows for splitting prizes yet to be received. It is also certainly implied that NAP has to concede for this deal to be of value.

But they didn’t “do the thing”. I would frown heavily on this but I don’t think policy supports that this is Bribery.