ryanvergel
New Member
This is backwards thinking, really. The guidelines are there for a reason, and as a head judge I need a very good justification to deviate from them.
The good justification might be the PURPOSE of the rules/guidelines? If both players are satisfied with the pace- why are you overstepping your boundaries and undermining your very purpose by intruding and assigning a penalty (this is a general you)? The guidelines are there to help explain what might constitute, and what is usually an acceptable amount of time. They should not determine, but should help determine when slow play is occurring, as I said earlier. When you begin to mold your thoughts and purposes around the law/rules, it shows a problem. The guidelines are the help- you should remember that.
I quote this as an excellent example of the above point. Without being involved I will assume that there was a good reason behind the scenes, but on the surface this looks like playing favorites. The penalty recommendations exist in large part to help temper some of the inherent subjectivity of penalties, and to help encourage more consistency across all judges at all events. That in turn helps prevent situations from looking like this.
Any time I choose to go with something other than the recommended penalty, I make my reasoning clear to the player and write that same reasoning on the penalty report I submit to Organized Play. If it's a Junior player, I try to involve the parent as well, so there is understanding with all parties. The parent can also help when a particularly harsh penalty is simply mandated by the situation.
I wholly agree there are some judges out there that have no business being in the role. These are also not the judges you are going to find at Nationals level. (Yes, as much as we want to complain about some select judges at Nationals, there is far worse out there.) But bad judges are just problems anywhere they go. Poor judging discourages growth. If a bad judge does it one way at a Battle Road, then you (as a newer tournament player) step up to the next tier (with competent judges) and find something completely different, you might just decide that this game isn't worth the hassle.
The good news is that there are initiatives being developed to improve judge training and consistency. But these take time to deploy, and even then there are (sadly) some judges that are simply not among the teachable.
My personal goal is to ensure that myself and all of my judge staff are capable of operating at the Nationals level. Even if they never do get invited to that, I want to see consistent judging from the local level all the way up to the highest tier of play. The penalties assessed may differ between a Battle Road (Tier 1) and a Regional (Tier 2), but the level and quality of the judging behind them should not.
QFT. The next round can't be paired until every result from the prior round is in. That means waiting on time extensions, sudden deaths, etc. This is also why they are reticent to give time extensions except in the most egregious of cases.
20 minutes is a pretty good turnaround on an 800+ person event. People that are complaining about it have some rather unrealistic ideas on how such a large event should operate.
That would be great if that made any sense. Drew and others said IN BETWEEN rounds. Time extensions and sudden deaths mean, inherently, that the round isn't over. He even clarified himself and said the time between the playing area being EMPTY and the time the player pairings are put up for the next round. Using any defense like waiting on time extensions is just wrong. No wonder you think you're right- you completely misrepresent everything lol.
Yeah, it's any amount of time. I know I've waited longer than 20 minutes in between rounds. I know I've waited more than 30 minutes.so now it's not the '20 minutes' but a LONGER time?
Most, if not all, of those are bad points. Slips with incorrect results? Unsigned slips? The vast majority of those problems and matches (actually, the vast majority of all matches) finish under 40 minutes. Id say more a large portion finish with at least ten minutes left. Before the round is even over the 40 minute mark most of the slips should be reported, etc. Not only should those physical slip discrepancies be dealt with AT THE TABLE (why is a runner getting a slip that isnt properly noted?) and never make their way to the computers, but the minute number that actually do make it that far should make it there well before the round is even over- before extensions and rulings, etc.more reasons: re-pairings? match result corrections? unsigned match slips whose results need to be verified? slips with no winner circled, or both players circled? drops/no shows/'oh, i changed my mind i don't want to drop after all' slips?
I can see a re-pairing needing 5 minutes or so to work on. I still don't see a justification for a 30 minute break in between rounds- and this is NOT counting any time AFTER the pairings are posted or before ALL games are completed for an age division.
It's not that I think any of the staff is lazy or anything. But we do have a right to wonder why it takes so long at times. There is probably great reasoning- I just don't think we've seen good arguments yet. My/our? guess is that the process is probably a bit inefficient.
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