PPTQ Finals.
Both players want to play.
Prizes are 12 boosters for the winner, 24 boosters for the runner-up.

Finalist1: “Winner qualifies, loser gets a box. Deal?”
Finalist2: “I'd rather not, if I win I would like some boosters”
Finalist1: “Fine. Let's stay 12-24 then. However, in case I win, I will gift you my prize”.

Legal? Illegal?
What do you do?

Same situation in semifinals (really, every time but in finals). What do you do?

Legal on the finals
Illegal on any other portion of the tournament

From the MTR 5.2 Bribery:

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.

On the

I'm fine with that in finals, otherwise it's clear-cut bribery for me. It's no different to saying “if you concede, I will give you all my prizes”

It is different, and in fact this situation isn't Bribery at all.

MTR 5.2
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.

Saying “you can have my prizes if I win” is a statement of how prizes will be shared among the players, and is not an offer or exchange for a result.

Of course you do have to be vigilant that it doesn't turn into such an offer. If the statement is along the lines of “You can have my prizes if I ‘win’ wink wink”, that's a problem. If the opponent doesn't concede but loses via gameplay and the player then refuses to give them their prizes, that's also a problem. (It indicates that the original prize split was actually dependent on a concession, thus making it Bribery retroactively.)

Originally posted by Isaac King:

Saying “you can have my prizes if I win” is a statement of how prizes will be shared among the players, and is not an offer or exchange for a result.

Of course you do have to be vigilant that it doesn't turn into such an offer. If the statement is along the lines of “You can have my prizes if I ‘win’ wink wink”, that's a problem. If the opponent doesn't concede but loses via gameplay and the player then refuses to give them their prizes, that's also a problem. (It indicates that the original prize split was actually dependent on a concession, thus making it Bribery retroactively.)

The problem is that as soon as you say that, you're basically giving an incentive for your opponent to concede. It's already an offer.

It is an offer. The opponent can still expect to get something if they win. It doesn't matter, that it's worded differently and there's no “wink wink nudge nudge”.

Edited Piotr Łopaciuk (July 27, 2018 08:48:09 AM)

Originally posted by Carlos Ho:

The problem is that as soon as you say that, you're basically giving an incentive for your opponent to concede.

Sure, but how is that different from agreeing to split prizes 40%/60% in favor of the loser for example? That's a very common prize structure that provides an incentive to concede if you don't care about the invite, and we've historically had no problem allowing that.

Hi Isaac,

the following thread may help you.
https://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/42991/

From that thread:

Originally posted by Emilien Wild:

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.

That seems to agree with what I was saying. The offer to split prizes on its own is not Bribery, regardless of what that split is. We only care when the split is linked to a result, explicitly or implicitly.

Not exactly; we do care if the split rewards someone for conceding. If it's truly a split - i.e., 50-50 - then it's far less of a concern.

d:^D

So are you saying that offering a split of 60% - 40% is Bribery?

Edited Isaac King (July 28, 2018 12:42:37 AM)

No, but this is not a split 60-40. Using numbers from OP, we have this sentence:
Finalist 1: “Fine. Let's stay 12-24 then. However, in case I win, I will gift you my prize”

We can have two outcomes.
If Finalist2 win, he gets 12 packs, Finalist1 gets 24.
If Finalist1 win, he gets 0 packs and Finalist2 gets 36.

True split would end up with situation, when no matter who will win, outcome would be that same. Here outcome depends on result and highly encourages Finalist2 to concede (not counting RPTQ invite, it's better for him from EV point of view)

Originally posted by Isaac King:

So are you saying that offering a split of 60% - 40% is Bribery?

No, I'm saying that an offer weighted in favor of the loser might be Bribery.

Of course, if we're in the finals - as in the original post - then the players can agree to divide the available prizes as they see fit. Bribery can still happen in the finals (“if I win, I've got $100 in my pocket I'd like to give away”), but the rules are a bit different than previous matches.

If we're not in the finals, then any offer that favors the loser is - well, let's say “curious”, at the very least.

Isaac, I think we may be in agreement on this, but I'm covering finals and not-finals, where perhaps you're exclusively considering a finals match? The example in the original post specified Finals, so it's fine; a subsequent post mentioned that this would be Bribery in other matches (i.e., not the finals). I don't want someone to come along later, see any of my answers, and “quote me out of context” (like that's never happened before, heh!).

d:^D

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

If we're not in the finals, then any offer that favors the loser is - well, let's say “curious”, at the very least.

Hi Scott,

I understand why you might be hesitant to make absolutist statements here, since such pronouncements can be and have been taken out of context, but this comment in particular leaves me more confused than enlightened. Are you saying that outside the finals, a split that favors the loser is automatically bribery? Are you saying we should investigate, and DQ if we believe the conceding player was directly motivated by the split? Or do you simply mean that we should look closely at such a split offer since it was likely accompanied by other conversation topics that crossed the line?

Thanks!

Eli

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Isaac, I think we may be in agreement on this, but I'm covering finals and not-finals, where perhaps you're exclusively considering a finals match?

No, I understand how Bribery works in the finals. I'm asking specifically about non-finals matches, where the rules are more murky. You've implied that a split that favors the loser might be Bribery in those cases, but unless I've missed something you haven't gone into any detail about what specific circumstances make it Bribery and what circumstances make it not Bribery.

Edited Isaac King (July 30, 2018 11:25:13 AM)