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Competitive REL » Post: Players' taking photographs of the standings

Players' taking photographs of the standings

June 13, 2013 12:41:41 PM

Scott Marshall
Forum Moderator
Judge (Level 4 (Judge Foundry)), Hall of Fame

USA - Southwest

Players' taking photographs of the standings

If this discussion is going to devolve into a debate about the definition of “notes”, then it's probably past time for me to lock the thread.

Are there OTHER points that need discussion?

Also, when two people find themselves trading posts back & forth, I recommend they switch to the private messaging feature. Always be considerate of the other (thousands of) people that might be reading.

June 13, 2013 09:59:40 PM

Michael White
Judge (Uncertified)

Canada - Eastern Provinces

Players' taking photographs of the standings

Just a suggestion, I asked once and the only reason I had been told for the
standings only going up for a few minutes was to guarantee players get
equal access.

Would it be that terrible to print standings after each round and leave
them up until the end of the round?

Obviously this doesn't work at events as big as a gp, but what harm would
there be if we just left them up every round, for the entire round and
specifically allowed them to be looked at?

We can always slow play and tardy penalty players who dont get to their
seats reasonably fast, so why are we worrying that much about it?
On 2013-06-13 1:37 PM, “Scott Marshall” <

June 14, 2013 01:24:40 AM

Mark Brown
Forum Moderator
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy)), Regional Coordinator (Australia and New Zealand), Scorekeeper

Australia and New Zealand

Players' taking photographs of the standings

The most common reason for taking standings down is to encourage players to move to their seats and keep the tournament moving along. If you can manage to do that while keeping the standings posted and only take them down at the end of the round then go for it

June 14, 2013 02:00:54 AM

Dominik Chłobowski
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

Canada - Eastern Provinces

Players' taking photographs of the standings

You can always use that php site that Korean judge made. It's pretty good,
'cause anyone can check out the standings/pairings after any round. Th'only
issue is that there are still possibly some bugs with ties. Atm, it only
has problems with counting 0-0-3 properly afaik.

June 14, 2013 04:01:03 PM

John Shannon
Judge (Level 3 (Judge Academy))

USA - Northeast

Players' taking photographs of the standings


If standings are left up, players can't get up look at standings after they have completed their games (but not written down a result on their slip). According to MTR 2.4 a match is finished once game play is complete and a player leaves a table. To me that means if a games are done and a player gets up to look at the standings, the judge should just ask what the result is before they look at the standings and collect the slip.

1. If players can access photos, is there anything wrong with players who have finished a match looking at the standings in a photo before they turn in the results slip? I don't see how this runs afoul of any policy. But if this is legal, it means that a player who takes a photo has more information (maybe an advantage?) over a player who does not take a photo, especially if standings are taken down during the round.
2. Would there be anything wrong with a player looking at standings and pairings before round start and writing something like ‘If Jack loses to Lisa, and Akio wins his match, I can draw into top 8’ and then referencing this note after the player's match is done and he knows the result of these two matches? How is this different from looking at a photo of the standings?
3. Would a judge rule ‘Outside Assistance’ if a player finished their match and looked over two tables and asked ‘Who won that match?’ if that match would lead to a concession or ID in the current match?

Has anyone ever experienced the final round game of ‘chicken’ where a match is done, but the players don't want to fill out a results slip because they want to wait for the result of another match? If so, what did you do? I've discussed it but never seen it happen personally.

I think the conclusion I am leading to for myself is that restricting information is not good unless it is disruptive to the tournament. Disruptive in this context means delaying the tournament, or possibly running afoul of policy (and maybe leading to a DQ?). If players are waiting for results before they record their own, or not turning in slips because they are getting up to look at standings, then they are being disruptive. Also, once players sit down, they are seated until their match is completed so they can't get up to look at standings, check on other match results, etc. So my personal conclusion if I were HJ is that photos are ok if they are not referenced during a game, they do not lead to slow play, and players only reference them briefly after their match is done (i.e they aren't waiting on other matches to finish). I think I would still take standings down after players are seated though, because having them up could potentially lead to players checking as match results come in and either providing OA to other matches ‘Hey Joe, you can draw into top 8 now!’ It could also lead to players being tempted to check standings during the round, which could also be disruptive.
John Shannon