As Andrea said ealier in this thread, first you decide what infraction has been made, then you apply the penalty.
You have to decide on one or the other infraction before applying the penalty, so even before you “deal out a DQ”, you have to have had the internal discussion with yourself on what you think happened, even if that takes some time. You do not roll a dice to decide, but a decicion must be made. This is why we are “judges” and not “living rule books”…

Let me add; You have to decide on either infraction OR no infraction, but decide you must! ;)

Edited John Eriksson (Jan. 29, 2014 11:25:40 PM)

Originally posted by Philip Körte:

Easy:
You are at the last Table of the last Round of Swiss, which had x minutes extratime, obviously a big crowd has gathered around that table. Player Arnold offers a diceroll in front of your eyes. You Snap-DQ Arnold for IDAW. After giving the DQ and taking the result entry slip, Adam pokes you on the shoulder and says:
'He can't do that? My opponent offered me a diceroll after game 2 since we only had 5 minutes left and played the UW-mirror.'
Obvious questions: ‘Who was your opponent?’ - ‘Norbert Norrington was his name I think - we played at table 8’ - ‘Why didn’t you call a Judge?' - ‘I didn’t know it was illegal' - ‘Why do you come to me now?’ - ‘I saw you DQing that guy for offering to roll a die, and thought I’d better tell you my opponent did too' - ‘What do you hope/think will happen now’ - ‘I don’t know, I just want to do the right thing'.
To Norbert: ‘What happened during your last Round?’ - ‘I played against Adam Adamson, UW Mirror, we played 1-1-1, why do you ask?’ - ‘What happened after the second game?’ - ‘I shuffled for Game 3’ - ‘How much time was there left’ - ‘About 5 minutes I think’ - ‘Did you offer a diceroll?’ - ‘What? No, of course not, thats not allowed’

Further questions lead to the same answers.
Does either lie to you to get his opponent DQed/not get DQed? Well, yes of course. But which one?

Yes, there might be tells that push me to believing he lies/tells the truth…but what if that isn't the case? What if I feel it's a complete 50/50-decision, if I were to make one?
What do I write into the DQ-report? - ‘Adam told me this, Norman told me that, I didnt know if Adam was guilty of IDAW or Lying to me, so I rolled a 6-sided die and for even numbers, I DQ both for IDAW, for odd numbers, I DQ Adam for Lying. The dice landed on 4, so here is your DQ for IDAW. I still don’t believe that's what happened, but I don't believe Adam lied either, and this thread on Judgeapps told me to DQ at least one'?

EDIT: To clarify - I believe in the assumption of innocence, and if I, as a Judge, can't discard that assumption for either option - even if the options are mutually exclusive - I don't believe I should DQ someone just because ‘someone has to be DQed, so…Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, the DQed one will be you.’
I just don't see how that fits our goal of giving good customer service…at all.

Brilliant post :) I'm more on this line. If I can't determine it precisely or have more information available than a 50/50 on “you did!!, I didn't!!”, I won't change results or apply DQs. Most players are genuinely ignorant about the fact that rolling a die is strictly forbidden. The ones who know they could be DQed usually don't make such an offer, because if the opponent is aware of that, they'll just call a judge and get an easy 2-0 bye :) Reminds me of some kind of prisoner dilemma: apart from morality and personal ethics, you don't make such an offer as a player because you don't know how the other player will react. That keeps IDWs in relatively small numbers, I think.

Just to be clear again: I have no problem making a decision - as long as ‘I DQ neither’ is such a possibility, if I feel that I can't convince myself which story is more likely.

I can't think of a time when I have ended an investigation with a 50/50 opinion of the situation. If I'm 50/50, that means the investigation probably isn't over yet.

When you don't DQ here, you are deciding that you think nothing wrong has happened. That's a possible conclusion if you believe there was just a miscommunication. (Maybe N said something about his dice that wasn't related to IDW. A dismissed it without understanding what N was talking about. Then, when N saw actual IDW occur, it made him remember his scenario as being like that. People are suggestible. Stranger things have happened.)

However, “I can't decide what's wrong, so everything's fine by default” isn't really a good outcome.

I agree with Philip, and also with Joshua. There is a difference between
“I can't decide, so I DQ no one” and “I decide to DQ no one.”

Originally posted by Joshua Feingold:

However, “I can't decide what's wrong, so everything's fine by default” isn't really a good outcome.

I think what PhilipKörte said is he will not make random DQs without grounds. This seems to be the case when any investigation leaves you in a 50/50 situation. Sometimes, you can't find yourself convinced.

Not DQing anyone is not “i dont want to make a decision”. It is more “I will make decisions, not random guesses.”
Leaving both players not-DQed can be better than a wrong DQ. Afterall, we want to catch cheaters if possible, not just hand out one DQ per DQ-offense. Of course, keeping both in the tournament is not “fine by default”. DQing randomly is also not “fine by default” however.

The initial post described a situation where investigation leads to no concrete idea.

Originally posted by Philip Körte:

‘I didn’t know it was illegal'

- while that is a consideration when it comes to Game Rule Violations (committed intentionally, for advantage), it is not acceptable for Bribery, Wagering, or Improperly Determining a Winner.

That's why I mentioned the burden on us to maximize our educational efforts on this matter.

Teach your players well,
their DQ hell does slowly go by.
:)

I think that there shouldn't never occur a 50/50 finished investigation. There is always a way to do it 51/49, and then you should make action based on scenario you think is most probable.

Originally posted by Adam Kolipiński:

I think that there shouldn't never occur a 50/50 finished investigation. There is always a way to do it 51/49, and then you should make action based on scenario you think is most probable.

I'd have some more questions for Adam to get at what happened between the offer of a roll and his reporting it to me. “How long ago did this happen?” “How much time was left in the round?” “Why are you telling me now?”, etc. I want to know why he didn't call a judge when it happened. If a friend hearing the story told him it was illegal, I'd want to interview the friend.

I'd ask Nick to describe the scenario in which game three was played until it ended in a tie. What was the board position? Who was closest to winning? What did the judge look like that you handed the slip to after extra turns?

Others have mentioned observations to make during the interviews - eye contact, amout of detail, changing details, etc. Somewhere in the answers and the method of answering you'll get enough information to know how to act.

I'm curious how people would feel about punishing both players as if their story was true. Can you give one person an IDW for refusing to report an offer and not punish their opponent because you can't substantiate that such an offer really existed?

Also, can you continue the investigation and just post the top 8 results not including either player? It sounds like you've already got a match slip and if the tournament is between rounds you'd be applying results to the following round anyway (which there isn't one).

I have a question on this matter.

As a Judge how “in the weeds” does one get with these investigations? The reason I ask, is for larger events I know there are a lot of people there, so how dedicated to this one issue should a judge get? (I will be judging my first BIG event in Feb.)

To the actual question at hand, I have a law enforcement background and I know the value of asking those leading questions. And that is what I feel that I'd do in this scenario. If the nagging question is to DQ Adam because of either Not Reporting or Lying… Why didnt he report it? If the nagging question is whether or not Nathan offered…. Did Nathan do something that might be construed as offering? A big thing in investigations is giving the suspect (not the term I'd use at an Event, mind you) an “out”.

'You didnt MEAN to hit her, things just got out of control, right? Its not like you do this everyday, its just that you were so frustrated.'
'Yeah, I didnt mean to hit her…. she just frustrated me so much'
Admission of Guilt… proceed.

THAT BEING SAID AND ALL… it seems like it would take more of an effort and resources (i.e. time) than we'd really be able to commit. Maybe I'm wrong.

Originally posted by Darren Horve:

how dedicated to this one issue should a judge get? (I will be judging my first BIG event in Feb.)

Look to your Head Judge for guidance; generally speaking, a Floor Judge should determine that something is fishy, send a colleague to go get the Head Judge, then let the HJ guide the process. A judge should stay at the match, so the players aren't able to collaborate on a story before the HJ starts an investigation.

As for “in the weeds” - it varies so much, from case to case. Some are “slam-dunk”: you arrive at the table, say “I understand you did A, B, and C?”, the player says “yep”, and you hand them a sheet of paper and explain the purpose and process for writing a statement.
Most aren't that easy, of course…

In this scenario, how much time would you devote to figuring it out?

At what time do you just call it?

Edited Darren Horve (Jan. 30, 2014 03:43:06 AM)

Impossible to predict, as I don't know how anyone would respond to my questions, who else might be involved, etc., etc. I always try to be very efficient, to avoid delaying the event - yet still be as thorough as I can.

I want to echo Scott here and add the following:

There's no way for us to make an “official” determination given the information we have here in text about this DQ. Most of the time, you quite literally have to be there. A head judge is empowered to make decisions for his or her tournament based on the information he or she has. If you're the head judge of a tournament and you want to know a few things about investigations, here are a few bullet points:

Investigations often drag on too long. Make sure you know how you'll keep the tournament running - you may have to appoint a judge to take up the reins of the tournament while you investigate. Similarly, once you feel like you have most of the information you can get, think about the cost of getting the other little bits you're missing. If it'll take you 20 more minutes, you are on the wrong track.
There is no “what should I do in this situation” for every situation. Remember your role: you are a neutral arbiter whose job is to keep the tournament fun and fair for everyone. If you keep that in mind you are likely to ask the right questions.
We are not the police. We do not need to prove 100% that someone did something. We merely need to believe it to a degree where we think it has caused significant disruption to our event.
We are not inquisitors. Asking someone the same question over and over again, regardless of their innocence/guilt, will eventually get them to change their story. I have seen judges new to investigations try this tactic before. Please do not do that.

The odds are that you will not be required to perform a DQ investigation in any single tournament. If you are, conduct yourself professionally and efficiently, and remember to learn from your mistakes and share those lessons without shame.