Fair or Unfair Ruling?

[Garch]

At a tournament a while ago there was an odd happening and I want your opinion on what the ruling should be:

Player A Has Palkia G active, Crobat G and Regice benched. Palkia Has 3 energy and a gain. He has 2 prizes left.

Player B Has an active Spiritomb, benched Gengar X with 50 damage and Expert belt, Claydol, but no benched Spiritomb and 5 prizes left.

It's player A's turn. He plays 3 poketurn to flash bite the Gengar 3 times, then finishes it with Hydro Shoot. Player B acts angry and waits, not picking up. Player A shuffles his hand into his deck to pick up, when "conveniently" player B notices he had Spiritomb active when player A played 3 turns. Judges are called over, and, even though player A knows how many and what cards were in his hand, they issue a game lost for player A and a warning for player B. This turns the tide of the whole tournament.

The issue is this: Do you think this ruling was fair? Do you think player B cheated? And even if he did, do you think there was enough evidence to convict him of that? Should the judges have ruled differently? Please give your opinions.

I didn't post names or the place because I don't want to single the people out. If you know who did this please keep it to your self.

 

[RJG00]

I think its a fair ruling. Because players are supposed to both have field good management and understanding of the current field. Plus at the events I have attended the judges always ask keep game state as is until a judge rules the victory and signs the slip.

 

[Box of Fail]

Were I in that position, I would have given player A a GL. In fact, were I to have definitive proof that player B deliberately pulled that trick to get player A a GL, I would not change the result. Player A needed to pay more attention to game state.

If both players had picked up, I would order a SD.

 

[DarthPika]

Player B is complete and total scum, and should have been DQ'd for cheating under the rules of pokemon organized play. That move was DELIBERATE, and there should be no questions asked. You don't "just" notice a spiritomb in play, and beyond that, you don't just sit there after a game trying to find a game play error that get's you a win. What a creep. If I had seen that, I would have definitely given him a warning, if not straight up DQ. I am sick to death of people abusing Spiritomb and "forgetting" about it. I think the best move would have been warning, and keep a close eye on him from then on out.

Please ignore this post if this was in Juniors. ( I assume it's masters, but you never know)

 

[Jeremy Badeaux]

Smells like gamesmanship, but from a rules perspective, it was against the rules to play those cards with the spiritomb active.
Regardless of what the player could have done, what he/she actually did was a violation of the rules and shuffling everything in brought the game to a point that could not be reversed.

I personally think that it could be considered a dirty move, but as far as rules are concerned, one player made an illegal play and then made it something that could not be reversed.
The judges didn't really have a choice at that point.

I know it sucks, but if you were judging and somebody called you over and told you that the opponent made an illegal play and the person agrees that it was illegal, but he/she says they had a card out that could have made it legal (irrelevant because it wasn't used), what would you do?

 

[weavile#1]

It depends, what level of tournament was this?

 

[DarthPika]

Smells like gamesmanship, but from a rules perspective, it was against the rules to play those cards with the spiritomb active.
Regardless of what the player could have done, what he/she actually did was a violation of the rules and shuffling everything in brought the game to a point that could not be reversed.

I personally think that it could be considered a dirty move, but as far as rules are concerned, one player made an illegal play and then made it something that could not be reversed.
The judges didn't really have a choice at that point.

I know it sucks, but if you were judging and somebody called you over and told you that the opponent made an illegal play and the person agrees that it was illegal, but he/she says they had a card out that could have made it legal (irrelevant because it wasn't used), what would you do?

What bothers me about the situation is the player using gengar should be the one to remind that there's no trainers. When I used Palkia, I made sure I was 100% on top of the no powers deal. Not to mention, the fact that he just sat there and waited for his opponent to clean up before calling a judge smells really fishy to me.

 

[PokePop]

The problem is that we're hearing a description of what happened that may or may not be accurate.
Without being there and speaking with the players myself, I wouldn't dream of second guessing a ruling on something as subjective as this.

 

[Garch]

It depends, what level of tournament was this?

It was a Regionals. Player B went to top cut. He would have missed if this had gone the other way.

 

[gallade]

I always wait for my opponent to pick up his cards because I fear about this. I hate people like this.

 

[vanderbilt_grad]

Garch, I think that this one should have been reported to OP if you haven't already.

I'm in agreement with several of the above posts.

 

[Jeremy Badeaux]

What bothers me about the situation is the player using gengar should be the one to remind that there's no trainers. When I used Palkia, I made sure I was 100% on top of the no powers deal. Not to mention, the fact that he just sat there and waited for his opponent to clean up before calling a judge smells really fishy to me.

I agree that a player should, but it is not normally a player's responsibility to prevent an opponent from cheating.
I know what the issue is, but what other option did the judge have?
Like I said earlier, it smells like gamesmanship and POP should closely monitor for patterns of warnings for gamesmanship.
This is certainly a problem that shouldn't exist, but a judge pretty much has to make the call with what they know as fact.

 

[Lord Broly]

No offense to anyone but had the player not picked up his cards, I would
tryed to return the game to the game state before the PokeTurns took place.
Now if Player A had 2 extra cards in his hand then he could of just discarded
2 cards to make him switch the Spiritomb. I think it's easily reversable but
then again I don't think it was fair to Player B cause Player A had made an
incorrect play. So I can then see why a game loss would be handed to Player
A. I think it's a SOTG thing between the players to decide how it should go.

 

[The_Lurb]

I had the same situation happen to me but with Power Spray over Poke Turn and I believe it was ruled a prize penalty on the non-Spiritomb side. While I can understand where the ruling comes from I believe it should be changed. It's just way too easy to happen to "not notice" that your opponent played whatever game changing card they actually couldn't play. It should be the Spiritomb player's responsibility to make sure no trainers are played for the most part imo. Or at least, mostly. Basically, I just think whatever penalties are being given now to the non-Spiritomb player since they're almost always harsher should be given to the Spiritomb player instead. Same deal with Mesprit.

 

[baby mario]

No way do we have enough info to say someone cheated.

If Player B was trying to wait it out until Player A picked up his cards, then that is obviously disgusting.

On the other hand, if Player A goes 'Poke Turn, Poke Turn, PokeTurn, attack, I win', knowing that Tomb is out . . . then maybe they are trying to rush/confuse Player B into accepting a loss while making illegal moves.

Did Player B actually put anything in his discard after they were 'knocked out'? Did Player B acknowledge they had lost in any way? If not, then what was Player A doing picking up his cards?

The thing is, regardless of whether there was any gamesmanship going on, Player A really didn't give the Judge any choice.

 

[iamapwnda]

He had Regice on bench, he could have used its power... Unless the Gengar player played Mesprit before, or played 3 SP Pokemon and had Power Spray in hand, the game could have been won regardless, so the rush/confuse scenario doesn't seem plausible. My opinion is, if the kid put his Gengar in the discard pile, or allowed the other guy to draw the prizes, then he loses. It's like in chess, if you don't announce an illegal action, after a set number of turns or set amount of time, you just play as-is.

 

[baby mario]

He had Regice on bench, he could have used its power... Unless the Gengar player played Mesprit before, or played 3 SP Pokemon and had Power Spray in hand, the game could have been won regardless, so the rush/confuse scenario doesn't seem plausible.

That's very true (assuming he had the 2 cards to discard for Regice), but then . . . why didn't he?

The whole thing is a mess of misplays and players doing stuff they shouldn't be doing, so it's hard to be overly sympathetic to anyone apart from the Judge who has to sort it all out.

 

[Trican]

Ya know as a player I try to keep up with the game state the best I can, but lets be honest if you're 4-1 and the safe record is 5-1 to top cut a game becomes more pressured. While it is still the responsibility of the player to keep up with what is going on I could see getting caught up in following the opponent's play to forget part of the game state. I do think not being there and seeing how it played out makes it difficult to say who is right and who is wrong. In theory both players could be called on their play style:

1. Define "Waits to pick up" after a loss I do sit and look at the field for a good 30seconds-1minute making sure I agree with the outcome. I think Player A can be faulted not waiting for the match to be accepted.
2. How fast was shuffling hand in to deck after end of game? At a large event like that I always offer a handshake on the game as a show of 1. The game ended in an acceptable way and 2. A show of good sportsmanship. I feel like a hasty clean up can be taken as a sign of deceit that you don't want something noticed.

Now in the grand scheme of things if A & B accepted the game as being resolved THEN B reports A for their misplay I see B being at fault. However as has been pointed out in Maternal Comfort clean up it is the responsibility of both players to keep the game state correct and well lets be honest A did not hold up a correct game state by playing Trainers.

Since there is no time stamps of order of events this is a subjective ruling I can only go by my gut, which I'd prefer not to do. So take this as my opinion xD

 

[Box of Fail]

I primarily fault the non-Spiritomb player should they illegally play a trainer. Yes, the Tomb player is at fault as well, but most of the blame, IMO, lies with the one being locked. If A Psychic Binds B and B Cosmics, that's a straight-up GL for B IMO.

And in this case, intent actually has little bearing on my opinion. I understand that should B have noticed Tomb, it was sleazy to wait for A to pick up their cards. But this changes nothing; A failed to pay attention to their game state and rather hastily scooped their cards. And whether A had another way to win is irrelevant IMO.

Bottom line? If you play into a sleazeball's trick (IF B was pulling a fast one, which is undetermined), you deserve to be held to the rules.

 

[FunnyBear]

He had Regice on bench, he could have used its power....

Once he entered the attack phase, it is indeed "could have" not could. Personally, I would have a hard time believing player B was oblivious. I've played hit and run Spiritomb based decks and you don't forget about Spiritomb. Its central to your entire strategy and you are on top of the trainer lock.

It's like in chess, if you don't announce an illegal action, after a set number of turns or set amount of time, you just play as-is.

No, actually. In chess, the game is recorded and can always be unwound back to the original error. It does not seem to be possible to notate the complete gamestate in a TCG because of the deck and hand.

---------- Post added 05/22/2010 at 09:22 AM ----------

1. Define "Waits to pick up" after a loss I do sit and look at the field for a good 30seconds-1minute making sure I agree with the outcome.

Seriously? 30s - 1 min is a pretty long time to be staring at the board looking for a desperate out. 10 s maybe if the damage causing actions are complicated or its one of these "I need a calculator" type combos.