An interesting situation happened today at our WMCQ:

Before the last round, standings are posted. There are 2 players with 19 points and 6 players with 18 points. 9th player has 15 points. If the first 4 tables intentionally draw, all players will be in TOP8.

Let's call the 1st player on standings (the player with 19 points) player A.
The 9th player is player B.

After the pairings are posted (but before players are seated), player B approaches player A and makes him this offer: “If you will not ID and will fairly play your next match, I will concede to you in TOP8 if we will be paired against each other.”

Here are some facts for you to make your opinion:
Player B has no chance on making TOP8 if player A will not play and WIN his match.
Player A will make TOP8 no matter the result.
Player A's opponent will most probably not make TOP8, if he loses.

Here are some viewpoints we were considering:
Player B is incentivising player A to actually play Magic.
Both player A and B can only profit from this deal - Player B improves his chance of getting into TOP8, while player A gets a potential free win in TOP8 with no drawback.
No player has any right to demand an ID.
No other player is harmed by this deal. Player A's opponent still has his chance to get into TOP8 by winning the game of Magic.

And some questions we have been asking ourselves:
Does this deal matches IPG description of “player incentivises player to change match result”?
Is it possible to change result of a match with no result?
And finally, is it bribery?

And one more extra question: If player B presents this offer to you, as a judge instead of player A asking for its legality, what would you do?

I really really want to say that this is Bribery, or at least Wagering, but I'm unable to find the backup for this in IPG, so I'm going to say this is kosher. I feel really bad saying this is kosher, but according to the documents there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this.

EDIT: Aha, found it:

Originally posted by MTR 5.2, paragraph 1:

The decision to <…> agree to an intentional draw cannot be made in exchange for or influenced by the offer of any reward or incentive.

Not only is it prohibited to offer an incentive to ID, it's also prohibited to offer an incentive in any way related to IDing or, in this case, not.

Edited Lyle Waldman (Sept. 13, 2014 04:12:43 PM)

If you “match result or similar related to tournament”, i give you “incentive = concede later”.

That sounds like bribery to me.

I don't see how this isn't a major problem.

“Unsporting Conduct — Bribery and Wagering” - “A player offers an incentive to entice an opponent into conceding, drawing, or changing the results of a match, or accepts such an offer. Refer to the Magic Tournament Rules for a more detailed description of what constitutes bribery.”

Further, from the MTR on Bribery - “The decision to drop, concede, or agree to an intentional draw cannot be made in exchange for or influenced by the offer of any reward or incentive.”

I wouldn't get too worked up about trying to mash this into explicitly fitting one of the sentences of the IPG. The IPG says to look at the MTR, and the MTR seems crystal clear on this one.

Player B is offering Player A a future win in return for Player deciding not to ID. This looks like text book Bribery to me.

> No other player is harmed by this deal

I think the player who fought his/her way to what is currently 8th place would differ with your assessment =)

That's an interesting one indeed…

By the letter of the rules I do not believe Bribery has occurred. B is not enticing A to concede, ID or otherwise alter the result of the match. On the contrary, B is enticing A to do the exact opposite: B is asking A not to ID and to play a normal, fair match of Magic to determine the match result. He is enticing A to do exactly what we *want* A to do.

Looking at the promise, this is also not Bribery. B is not offering to concede in exchange for an incentive. It's again the opposite: the concession *is* the incentive.

Ideally you don't want to allow this. Ideally every match is decided only by playing a normal, fair match of Magic. But we live in a world where strategically motivated IDs without incentives are legal, and I would consider this to be in the same general ballpark with similar downsides.

I would be content to just go with the letter of the law and rule no infraction.

Now, in A's shoes I would be very wary of accepting this deal. If B were to decide to break his promise, there is nothing I could do to enforce it…

In addition to the comments posted above, I'd like to add that “No other player is harmed by this deal” is not true. Player A's opponent benefits greatly from a draw, or if not him, whichever player does not make the top 8 because Player B gets in from the draw.

When we are looking at the perspective of the game player A is about to play, the rules aren't quite clear. But what if we look at things from the perspective of the game that A and B are going to be playing in the next round?

The IPG says “A player offers an incentive to entice an opponent into conceding, drawing, or changing the results of a match, or accepts such an offer.”

In the game between A and B, A is offering (well… has accepted) an incentive (playing out his previous match) in exchange for the opponent conceding this game. This seems similar to a player approaching several other players in round one and telling them “For two booster packs, I will scoop to you if we ever play each other.” The offer is for a game that hasn't happened yet (or may never happen), but this is clearly not acceptable behavior.

Bribery. B offered an incentive with the intent of changing the outcome of a match; unlike some forms of Cheating, we really don't want to accept “I didn't know!” as an excuse. DQ for B - and if A accepted the offer, for A, too.

d:^D

Originally posted by Robert Blanckaert:

When we are looking at the perspective of the game player A is about to play, the rules aren't quite clear. But what if we look at things from the perspective of the game that A and B are going to be playing in the next round?

The IPG says “A player offers an incentive to entice an opponent into conceding, drawing, or changing the results of a match, or accepts such an offer.”

In the game between A and B, A is offering (well… has accepted) an incentive (playing out his previous match) in exchange for the opponent conceding this game. This seems similar to a player approaching several other players in round one and telling them “For two booster packs, I will scoop to you if we ever play each other.” The offer is for a game that hasn't happened yet (or may never happen), but this is clearly not acceptable behavior.

This doesn't seem quite right to me. The only offer was “please play, and I will then concede”. This was only offered by player B. If the match the IPG refers to is the next (Top8) match, ok, but then the player B did not offer any incentive.

Player B is offering incentive. This much is clear.

So the question is, what is he offering incentive for? The answer is, for Player A to play his match a certain way. In cases of Bribery, what Player A was going to do does not matter, nor what Player A chooses to do.

Even if Player A had planned on dream-crushing Player C, the fact that Player B offered incentive makes it Bribery.

This is not particularly different from someone offering me money to concede to them, when I planned on scooping because I'm tired and want to go home. It doesn't matter that I planned to scoop, they still attempted to bribe me.

Just curious: what if Player B does some wordsmithing?

1) “Hi Player A! I just wanted to let you know that I plan to scoop to you if I play against you in Top 8.”

2) “Hi Player A! I just wanted to let you know that I plan to scoop to you if I actually manage to make Top 8; it's dependent on my tiebreakers.”

3) “Hi Player A! I just wanted to let you know that I plan to scoop to you if I actually manage to make Top 8; it's only possible if you win your next match.”

Does (3) cross the line, or does (2) or (1) as well? Or are all of these technically okay, since Player B is not technically asking A to do anything? Is this basically another scenario where, if Player B had just “been nice, and hoped for a good outcome for himself”, it would have been fine; but since he asked for a result, it's not?


One final consideration: is it reasonable to equate asking someone to “play out their game fairly” with “changing the results of a match” as quoted from the IPG?

“Wordsmithing” is just a way to try and get away with something that you probably know is wrong. Will it work, in certain circumstances? Quite possibly. But does that change whether or not the intent is still wrong? Nope.

Of course, I find it interesting that we've created a scenario in which a player is motivated to make Top 8, even though he will happily concede to one of the other players - i.e., he accepts that he probably won't get 1st place prize, but apparently there's something tangible for losing in Top 8 that inspires this attempt at carefully crafted Bribery. (Yes, I'm once again back up on my soapbox, stumping for “prizes based on Swiss, Top 8 for invites/byes/etc”!)

d:^D

Hi people. Does the magic soapbox work? .)

I see it as bribery offer, perhaps obscured by few extenuating circumstances.

For the record, the player repeatedly asked a judge to get an approval, thus he cannot be DQed. We now have to make sure our players know exactly what is legal and what is not for next time.
(or perhaps I should say very likely shouldn`t be DQ, except for corner cases where players fake questions to judges to make offers to opponents. This doesn`t seem to be the case)

First, there is a clear relation between a request for a specific result (victory for A), and incentive (future concession). I do not see how this could not be bribery. Yes, the rules do not exactly say,
“A player offers an incentive to entice an opponent into conceding, drawing, or winning, if he otherwise wouldn`t without the incentive” Perhaps they should.


ectenuating/obscuring circumstances>
1. The rules do not have that sentence

2. The player offering the bribe is bribing someone at a different table. It still works to his benefit, he is clearly doing it to get into top8. However that makes the request unusual. It looks more innocent. He is asking A to do what might sound like something we should promote, that is, for his friend to play. IDs are something we allow in the game. The game would be certainly clearer if no one made IDs. It would be much less clean if people regularly did what B did.

3. The player asked a judge nicely first.

4. At some versions of the story the concession was planned ahead


I was also very interested in what Scott asking about. IE> Why did B then do it? A was going to be first if he wins - he will play B. If B fullfills his part of the bargain and concedes, why did he do it in the first place? Boosters? No. Not for a B. He is not that stupid/without morale.

At first I thought it was vengeance, as the originally eight player was someone not much liked in the local community. When i was in the shop where B works today, he claimed something of the sort that he did it because he wanted ot help A to win, that he deserves it. I understand it that A is very much liked and good player.

B also mentioned that this was negotiated in advance, that if he meets A he would concede. If this is true, this could be interpreted as only a reminder that B promised A that he wound concede to him in top8. It is not unheard of teammembers to concede to each other depending on skill or other things. But team members do not have to remind each other that they would concede later. If the deal really exists longterm or they depend on honor, they would just go remind their teammates: “You need to play, otherwise i am 9th and done”. And anyway, who wants this behavior at tournaments?

btw - there was a risk for A involved. He would be third if he lost to the original 8th player after refusing the ID. It is not much - but he would be playing different, theoretically stronger opponent.

I must be missing something here…

B offers to concede if A plays. He's requesting a bribe. Case closed.

I do not consider it relevant that the finals may or may be between these two players.