Judges, welcome to another exciting edition of the Knowledge Pool. This week's question is Silver. This week's topic was submitted to us by Level 2 Judge Matt Braddock. If you are L2 or higher, please allow the L0s and L1s a day or two before jumping in to the discussion.

The blog post can be found here.

Alan and Nate are playing in the penultimate round of a PTQ, and they are both high in the standings. Time has ended in the round and Alan just finished extra turn number 5, yet there is no winner. Both players agree that a draw will knock them out of top 8 contention, but neither player will concede to the other. They are the last match and the entire tournament is waiting for them to finish, so you ask them “please fill out the result slip for me.” They do not acknowledge you as they continue their discussion, so you firmly tell them, “I need you to fill out the result slip now.” After 10 seconds of not acknowledging, what do you do? Has an infraction been committed? If so, what is it and what is the penalty?

Edited Bryan Spellman (July 24, 2013 03:03:01 PM)

Allow me to emphasize: “If you are L2 or higher, please allow the L0s and L1s a day or two before jumping in”.

Thank you.

So my initial thought is that this is CPV. “Players must answer all questions asked of them by a judge completely and honestly, regardless of the type of information requested. Players may request to do so away from the match” The current game score is considered Free information. The appropriate penalty for this infraction is a warning.

That said, this instruction has been ignored once. Now it falls into “Unsporting conduct major- failure to follow the direct instruction of a tournament official”. This is accompanied by a game loss.

It really depends on the investigation at this point, as both players are intentionally not completing their match to gain an advantage (advancement into top 8), which is the textbook definition of Stalling- This penalty is a trip to Dairy Queen.

At this point, the players have committed Unsporting Conduct. If nothing is acknowledged by the players immediately, bad things happen.

At first, I thought this was Tournament Error - Failure to Follow Official Announcements, but it does seem to fit more into the textbook definition of Unsporting Conduct - Major. The difference seems to be that the former is for failing to follow an instruction to a “broad audience.” I am addressing these two specific individuals about one specific issue, and not the entire room about something more broad.

I wasn't really too sure about the philosophy of the infraction, since it's included with behaviors that seem more serious to me than delaying filling out a match slip. But it is very important for players to follow our instructions, and to respect our authority. Either way, this isn't any kind of exceptional situation in which deviation from written policy is warranted.

The penalty is a Game Loss for both players. Since this is the end of the game/match, I will apply the penalty to the following match.

Wow, I think that's the first time I'm quick enough to write something new on a KP scenario…

While it isn't specifically listed in the examples, it looks a lot like Tournament Error - Slow Play to me. The definition is “A player takes longer than reasonable to complete game actions” but the example about shuffling between games shows that this infraction can also apply to non-game actions. Similarly to how it's generally advised to remind a player to play faster before eventually giving a Slow Play Warning, I think the actions described in the scenario are only fair (although it would be expected that the players at least acknowledge the judge).
I know Unsporting Conduct - Major has “failure to follow a direct instruction from a tournament official”, however in that case I would prefer to use the infraction with the lower penalty first. Escalation is always an option if they keep ignoring me: it's not like 30 seconds more is going to change a lot of things, or the potential for advantage is so high that they must immediately receive a Game Loss.

After 10 seconds where they don't seem to start filling the result slip, I would inform them that they will both get a Warning for Slow Play, and that unless they immediately start filling that result slip I will involve the Head Judge as they are failing to follow a direct instruction from a judge. If I'm the HJ, instead I will tell them that unless they start immediately filling that result slip they might find themselves guilty of Unsporting Conduct - Major, which could earn them both a Game Loss.

If I have to hand them out a Game Loss (which I hopefully won't), I believe the score of the match is 2-2-0 (the last game wasn't completed yet and became obsolete with the penalties). I would also not bother with the Slow Play Warning from earlier, as this is clearly the same infraction.

Edited Nathanaël François (July 24, 2013 05:53:29 PM)

Let's see here, they're not in top 8, and they're playing for contention of top 8, so they're supposed to just mark the game as a draw, as it's not single-elimination yet.

I doubt a slow play warning applies here, as the game's pretty much done by this point. I think the appropriate penalty is UC - Major, Failure to Follow the Direct Instruction of a Tournament Official. Hand out game losses to both of them, and apply it to their next games. And a question, how would the match score be marked? 2-1-1? Or does the game loss carry over to the next match, if applicable?

We might have been in slow play territory if they were just dragging along and the judge hadn't said anything directly about completing the match slip…but since he did I'm in agreement, this drops squarely into USC-Major for failing to follow a direct instruction.

There definitely is an infraction, and I think the infraction is pretty clearly Unsporting Conduct - Major, “Fails to follow a direct instruction from a tournament official”. At this point we're at a Game Loss for each with the potential for removal from the tournament depending on their continued behavior.

Beyond the mechanics, this seems like a situation to be very careful around. I don't imagine this kind of thing happens often at a PTQ, so we've got folks who are tired, maybe hungry and dehydrated, and under high stress in a conflict. I'd be more focused on trying to resolve the situation first than make my ruling.

People are different, so the specifics may not fit, but some things that come to mind as I imagine this… Assuming I was standing when I made my initial instructions, I might crouch down to get more to their level, to get “into” their space a bit and connect. It might be worth one more shot saying something like “Ok guys, we're delving into Unsporting Conduct - Major territory here. What is the score so far… OK, now please fill the slip out.” If you can either of them to engage with you about the previous games results, you can probably use that momentum and get them going the rest of the way. This is a serious situation though, so I'd also be careful not to try to make light of it. You're still trying to connect, so you can help bring them down.

Regardless of how easily they come down, we have our ruling based on the facts. UC-Major, Game Loss.

If they still refuse to fill out the slip, then we're looking at a continuation of the behavior and they can be removed from the event. But we should take care to give things a chance to calm down rather than escalate things if they're getting tense. While we are there to enforce rules, we're also there to help preserve the integrity of the tournament and the game, and a table flip effects far more than just the person involved.

A reminder for everyone, do not add twists or alternative scenarios. Please
stick to the original discussion.

Thanks.

Is “I need you (guys) to fill out the result slip now” direct enough for an USC-Major, particularly if they don't acknowledge you?

Assuming I'm head judge, if I'm talking to 2 players and I'm sure they heard me then I'm perfectly fine in giving the GL, and adding that if they don't fill out the slip now I'm upgrading to a DQ. I'm not going to tolerate players ignoring any tournament official, and while it may seem harsh I feel we can't allow players to feel that they can get away with anything as ridiculous as ignoring judges.

Originally posted by Evan Cherry:

Is “I need you (guys) to fill out the result slip now” direct enough for an USC-Major, particularly if they don't acknowledge you?

I'm not sure if it is, especially since the definition of Failure to Follow Official Instructions says “instructions given directly to an individual and not followed are penalized as USC-Major.”

We're not giving an instruction to an individual; it's to two people, but two people isn't really a “broad audience” like an opening announcement or registration instructions.

Additionally, giving them each USC-Major doesn't really get us or them out of the situation. Presumably, if they're concerned about drawing, the match is currently 1-1(-1). If we give simultaneous game losses, the match score is now 2-2, and still a draw.

That's a big misinterpretation of the words. There's nothing in there that
states there has to be one individual at any given point in time. In this
situation, there exist two individuals have been given direct instructions.
If they don't follow them, the both get USC-Major.


2013/7/26 Michael Sell <forum-5186-8da3@apps.magicjudges.org>

Originally posted by Michael Sell:

Additionally, giving them each USC-Major doesn't really get us or them out of the situation. Presumably, if they're concerned about drawing, the match is currently 1-1(-1). If we give simultaneous game losses, the match score is now 2-2, and still a draw.

It states in the original scenario that turn 5 was completed. At that point the game ends. The match isn't completed until the slip is filled out, but the game is over after the final turn was taken. So the penalties should be applied in the next match.

Edited Cris Plyler (July 26, 2013 11:32:32 PM)

Originally posted by Evan Cherry:

Is “I need you (guys) to fill out the result slip now” direct enough for an USC-Major, particularly if they don't acknowledge you?

I think it is direct enough, though I personally would prefer to give a more explicit warning: “Look guys, the entire tournament is waiting for you. If you don't fill in that result slip right now, I'll have to start giving out game losses.”

I think I would personally give out one more caution along those lines, but I expect that caution to be acknowledged immediately.