misruling

[Articjedi]

Just a quick question, when a judge makes a mistake on a ruling, can he change it later to the correct one, or should he stick to his guns.

A while back at the Federal Way CC, I misruled on expedition ninetales vs. ditto, I said that ditto can discard any energy to do additional damage, when obviously it should be fire only. It shouldn't have affected the outcome of the match that much, the ninetales player won regardless of what I did. However, later on the ruling came up again in a separate match and I did the correct ruling. Did I do the right thing?

 

[SD PokeMom]

In a word, YES.

I did the same type of thing (multi-energy on a Rayquaza-EX, used the original ruling from the EX-Dragons prerelease at the SD City tourney =/).

We all do the best we can...but we're not perfect, much as we'd like to be. Sure it might hurt the old pride a bit to admit a mistake but IMHO it takes the better judge to admit making a misrule than to be stubborn and stick to the wrong ruling because they don't want to admit to the mistake.

'mom

 

[DaytonGymLeader]

I've done the same thing as other folks on this board can attest to. Make sure that you find the folks that you made the ruling to earlier and explain that you mad a bad ruling and offer your appologies. The players shouldn't have too much heartache over it from what you described. There are cases that the players will have some heartache about it. At that point, it's obviously too late to go back and make a change. Learn from it and move forward.

 

[Sensei]

Definately.I agree with everyone here.If you find out you goofed on a ruling,by all means,use the correct ruling from then on and,like Steve said,explain it to the other players you misruled on.We all make mistakes an no one is perfect.

`Sensei

 

[GymLeaderPhil]

Like Dayton said, just make sure you tell the player you made the incorrect ruling on. Otherwise it totally breaks the appearance of consistency. Whenever you make a ruling or judgement, you've established a precedent. If the same problem arises in the future and you rule differently, without notifying the two players who had the incorrect answer, some one will (according to Murphy's Law) point out your difference in judgement calls. Then that opens up a whole new door for claims that the judge is treating players differently. While it's important to stand firmly with your rulings, it's also important to be open to fix incorrect rulings.
-Phil