Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

What constitutes cheating with randomizers, and what can a player do about it?

King Piplup

Active Member
There's a situation I witnessed that's been bothering me for awhile, which led me to seek an opinion here. During the early rounds of a Tier 2 event in the 2013-2014 season, I witnessed the following at the table next to me (Let's say that's table 2, and I'm at table 3):

One player at the match had been sitting/shuffling for awhile, while the second player arrived fairly close to the beginning of the round. Upon sitting down, the second player got his deck/dice out, and before shuffling at all, asks the opponent "Heads or tails?", without having a flipping die chosen. Behind (obscured from the opponent's view) the second player's deckbox sat two dice. Upon the opponent choosing Heads, the player picked up one of the dice, and rolled it. Almost immediately upon the die landing on a 3, the opponent snatched up the die, sharply noticing that the die had no 4, but instead had a second 3.

The opponent was contemplating what action to take, while the offending player was making statements such as "I'll throw the dice away," "I'll scoop the match to you," and "I'll never do it again" in an effort to convince the opponent to not call a judge. Incidentally, during the pre-round sweep of the tables, a judge walked by, and was alerted to the situation by a player at the the table next to them (table 1 according to what I listed earlier).

Upon the offending player's opponent detailing what happened to the judge (albeit, the opponent was not nearly as detailed as they should've been, and failed to mention the timing of asking "Heads or tails," or his pleas against calling the judge, and simply said that the die had 4 odd numbers on it), the judge ordered a reflip and said he'd be back to issue a penalty. A few minutes later, he issues a Caution.

At that point, I was certainly very sure that a Caution was not appropriate, but as I was a spectator, I resolved to play my match to its conclusion and decide on a course of action afterwards. There is absolutely no reason a player should have that dice with them at a tournament, unless they intend to cheat.

So, my question is twofold:
1. Are the judge's actions consistent with what should occur at a States/Regionals/Nationals tournament? Should the judge have examined the situation more, or was the depth of his questioning of the players prior to issuing a penalty sufficient?

2. As a player watching things occur, who believes cheating occurred, what action should I take? Of the following, which is the most appropriate?
a. Do nothing, as a spectator that's not my place. Section 6.2 of the General Event Rules makes me think this is incorrect. [QUOTE="General Event Rules Section 6.2] The only way a spectator is to interact with a tournament is through contacting a judge to inquire into the legality of a specific play. Comments and questions regarding games in progress should be made an appropriate distance from the match to prevent players in the active game from gaining an advantage due to outside information or distraction.



[/QUOTE]
b. Find the judge who made the call after my match and detail what I'd seen. At the time, I felt this was most appropriate.
c. Find any judge after the match and detail what I'd seen. I felt this, while potentially being best for getting a different opinion on the issue, was unfair to the judge who made the call, because he didn't have nearly enough information to arrive at an informed conclusion on the possibility of cheating.
d. Find the division head judge after the match, and report what I saw.
e. A combination of "b" and "d".
f. Another option I'm not seeing.

Thanks.
 
1. For me, this would be enough to start an investigation on "Cheating". I would certainly examine all the other dice of that player (especially if there would be a die with 4 even and 2 odd numbers, this would raise a red flag) and certainly ask for a detailed rundown of events and then go from there. What to ask in the following is always situation-dependent.

2. It is your duty as a spectator to inform a judge if you think something fishy is going on. Some judges will sometimes ask spectators, if they have seen anything. If this is not the case, I would not see it as outside of the rules to ask the judge, if you would be allowed to talk to him in private because you have something to contribute to the situation. In the end, it should be in everyones interest to stop people from cheating.


Marcos Marin-Galiano
Head Judge Masters Worlds
 
Fantastic Question!

First let me make this very clear, the penalty for cheating does not discriminate- Junior, Senior, Master, League Challenge, City Championships, all the way up to the World Championships. Cheating is the most serious offence. If Cheating occurs, all players regardless of Age Division and regardless of event in progress, is handled the same way.

To answer your question, What is Cheating. The Penalty Guidelines gives a good definition for that.

7.6.4. Cheating
Players who intentionally commit infractions are looking to gain an unfair advantage over other players at the event.

That being said, the next two sentences of the Penalty Guidelines advises Judges to carefully decide if a case of Cheating is present.

The Head Judge should carefully consider whether an infraction was intentional or not before applying this penalty. If the Head Judge feels that an infraction was unintentional, this penalty should not be applied.


If you are a player in an active match and you think there is an issue, CALL A JUDGE
If you are a player in another match or a spectator and you think there is an issue, CALL A JUDGE

Note, Judges have to analyze the whole situation, spectator account of what happen has to be taken with a grain of salt, as players/spectators can team up, make false statements to help their friends get a win by penalty.
 
That would be enough for me to launch an investigation myself. If i get confirmation that the offending player was "pleading" not to call a judge, they would be thrown out immediately for cheating, and a report written.

For my investigation, I would look at the offending players other dice. If I saw a 66/33 die for both heads and tails (which i assume is the other die), then they would also be out for cheating.
 
I am probably less nice than most here when it comes to this type of situation. I would have DQed on the sole basis of having that die once it got pointed out. There is absolutely no reason to have a rigged die readily available to you in a tournament unless you intend to rig something at some point.

I'm sure someone would try to weasel out of it claiming "it's my lucky die" -- yeah, I wonder why it's lucky </sarcasm>.

At the very minimum, just the mere act of rolling that die falls under "Attempting to manipulate a random result", penalty section 7.6.4, Cheating. The end of the story should write itself.
 
Thanks everyone, I figured this was the case. It felt fairly clear to me that there was no reason that die should be on the table (or with the player at all) unless their was intent to cheat, so I guess was a bit miffed when the judge not only let him keep the die ("Just don't roll it again") but also issued a caution of all things. I will credit the judge with the fact that the situation was not favorable to him discovering anything-the opponent was far too kind and didn't detail the sequence of events to the judge in a way that sounded at all incriminating (They more said "He rolled this die and it has no four."). Just a shame that it wasn't looked at more closely.

That said: Not that I am aware of the identity of the player in question, but if in the future someone is reading this and witnesses something along the lines of my experience and does happen to know the identity of the player, is there anything to gain by them contacting TPCI (would that be out of place?), or is it better to assume some form of information was likely disseminated during the judge meeting after the round?

Many thanks.
 
I'd recommend speaking to the judge along the lines of, "Hey, remember when...." and "you may not have been aware of the specifics..." and "do you think maybe the guidelines indicate cheating..."
 
King Piplup, I remember the player in question actually. He stuck out when you brought this up at Nationals because I played (and lost) to him last year.

Along those lines, is there any appropriate action that could/should be taken in this case? IE, discussing this with the area PTO or creating a support ticket?
 
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