Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Tournament Organizer Gary Warren

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Ice'Cold said:
In my experience you're totally wrong on that one. The threat of big lawsuits have kept most "professional" companies from saying anything to employees other than that they are terminated. It's a much much safer play for them as a company to say nothing at all (which they legally are allowed to do) than to give anything at all that can be held against them at a later time.
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Read this article, especially the section titled "Provide Feedback so the Employee Knows That He Is Failing." Obviously, we have different definitions of the definition of "professional." I'm using the word professional to mean a "high standard of professional ethics/behavior" (definition #4 here), while it seems like you are using the word professional more generally than the definition of the word allows.

Contrary to what you believe, the threat of big lawsuits often encourages companies to be transparent and document the reasons why each employee is being fired. For example, in this memorandum written by some lawyers advising employers on ways to fire people and not get sued, they recommend that employers should "Inform the employee of the true reason he or she is let go." An employer documenting an employee/contractor's performance and behavior is one way to prove that an employee isn't being wrongfully terminated, and thus is a defense mechanism against wrongful lawsuits, even if the employee is employed-at-will.

You might point out that a company can document the reason for termination without telling their employee. That's where the professionalism I was talking about earlier comes into play. Employees have connections too. For example, I work at a software company, but I have friends who work for all the major software companies in the U.S. who I talk to about work. If my company were to terminate me, they would want to give me a reason for the termination, as they don't want to gain the reputation among the software industry as "that company that fires people without giving them a reason."

Let me try to put this into another context for you. Let's say you were meeting with your friend for lunch. You have every right to cancel that meeting at any time, with or without warning. In fact, it is perfectly legal for your to cancel for no reason at all. However, if you don't want to be seen as a massive jerk by your friend (and if you don't want your friend to talk with your mutual friends about what a massive jerk you are), then you should give your friend a good reason for why you need to cancel lunch.

In the same way, while employers aren't legally obligated to provide any reason for termination, those companies that wish to maintain a level of professionalism do in fact establish open discourse with their employees about their performance. That being said, there are exceptions to the rules where the reason for termination is implied. However, in those examples (generally inappropriate behavior or ethical issues), the company's HR department would have a talk with that employee anyway, thereby implicitly imparting the employee with the reason for termination.

I'm sorry that your experience with companies you believe to be "professional" have not been as professional as you think. Typically, companies (1) without much vertical capacity for movement or (2) with a highly replaceable workforce, such as Wal-Mart, GameStop, McDonalds, etc. are the ones that can afford to act less professionally and terminate employees without giving a reason. I would not hold these particular companies as a standard for corporate professionalism, but I guess everyone has different definitions.
 
You would be surprised how many people are let go without a real (or any) reason. I do employment law. I'd be out of a job if employers were actually that good.
 
^
only b/c you blew their cover of hacking the site(or is that only pokebeach i can never keep track?)
also i woud definitely think they would give some sort of explanation given the fact that he co-invented a major part of our tournament structure(i would argue marathons are a major part of tournament structure) so hopefully we'll hear from someone.
 
Came upon this forum after Googling Banned Pokemon League Organizers.

My friends and I were informed today as we arrived at our local comic book/gaming store for Pokemon League that Gary had been, in the owner of the stores words - booted, from hosting Pokemon tournaments. The owner of the store knew this because one of the top 5 judges - one who lives in Georgia, which is where our league is - had called the store owner asking if there were any League members at the League that meets at his store who are Pokemon Professor certified to help with upcoming tournaments.

From what the owner was told, and what the owner told my friends and I, and this isn't confirmed and I have no idea if there is evidence but it SEEMS there might be, Gary was booted/banned because of 'irregularities with reporting'. So we are assuming this means maybe the reporting of wins and losses was altered. Not saying his reports were, but the TCPi must have found something fishy about his reports, thus why I stated there might be evidence behind the decision to ban Gary. But only the TCPi would have this evidence.

Gary is nice, and I certainly haven't had problems with him personally but I have been witness to acts of favoritism on Gary's behalf to certain players. I've seen a player show up late to a tournament but still was allowed in, even though pairings were up, just because he knew them. If it had been a case of someone else showing up late, like not such a seasoned player as this late-comer was, Gary probably would have turned them away. There also has been fishy-ness regarding the pairings during his tournaments, where all the out-of-town players don't get matched up with each other until further into the tournament. Some League members have wondered if the pairings were altered in favor of veteran players.

I am not accusing Gary of falsifying reports or altering pairings, I am merely stating what I have been witness to. I posted this to maybe shed some light on what could have the reason for the banning situation. In the end, I think everyone just wants to know the truth. I don't know if what the store owner said is true but I have no reason not to believe what he said.

I know no one has posted on this thread in a couple of days but since today was a League day for many people, maybe other people from Leagues Gary visited were reached out to by the new organizer as well.
 
I'm not here to comment on Garry Warren, as I feel that's a topic best left to the individual parties involved at this time.

I will, however, comment on the way that TPCi treats both its customers and those that it works with.

Yahoo! Fantasy Sports went down this past weekend. That evening, Monday November 12th at 2:49am Central, I got this email.

Yahoo! said:
Dear Yahoo! Fantasy Users,

I want to sincerely apologize to all of you about today's Yahoo! Sports Fantasy outage. As the head of Yahoo! Sports and as a Yahoo! Sports fantasy player myself, I am disappointed that we failed all of our fans today. Our first priority is having the best experience for our users, and today we fell short.

The outage started around Noon ET (awful timing we know) and while our team was on it immediately we are still working on various pieces. Our team is continuing to work on identifying and resolving the root cause. We have restored full functionality on the website, and we're working for a final fix for our mobile apps. Currently data and scores can be viewed but for now you cannot make transactions or change line-ups from the apps.

We will also use today as an opportunity to improve our set-up so that we hopefully never have an outage like this again. Our fantasy commissioners and players are our biggest priority - we pride ourselves in being able to offer our users with the best fantasy sports experience possible and we take our job to deliver that to you very seriously. Rest assured we will work hard to make sure we continue to deliver on that commitment.

Thanks for playing with us and your patience today,

Ken Fuchs
Head of Yahoo! Sports
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On Friday at 9:47am, I received this followup email.

Yahoo! said:
Dear Yahoo! Fantasy Users,

As I mentioned in my earlier email, Yahoo! works hard to provide great experiences for our users every day. For you, we understand that Fantasy is a core part of your daily routine during this time of year. On Sunday we experienced technical issues which caused the Fantasy experience to be inaccessible. We're sorry. Our entire team worked tirelessly to re-establish the service - however, we had a significant outage. We know this created inconvenience and frustration for millions of our fans, and we feel we owe you an explanation.

So what happened? At Yahoo!, we have giant machines called "filers" that process a lot of the real-time data and stats for us and for you. We do millions of calculations every hour for our games, and normally our machines can handle this with no problem. Recently, we discovered a hardware issue in one of the filers that caused the other one to overload. We replaced some hardware, re-configured the setup, and did some testing. However this Sunday - at approximately 12:15 p.m. Eastern - the new configuration failed. This created an overload on storage capacity and took the Fantasy part of our site down.

We had dozens of engineers from various teams working together to try to determine the cause and fix it. One option was to fall back on another data center, but that would have meant shutting the game down and losing scoring data. We wanted to avoid that at all costs. Ultimately, we were able to move our mobile apps to a back-up data center, free up storage to get the PC version of the game working, and get the mobile apps up in a "read-only" state - meaning you could see scores and data, but you still couldn't set lineups and interact.

We spent Sunday night and most of Monday looking at dozens of potential causes. Monday afternoon, we stress-tested our system. Everything seemed to be in working order, so we turned on all our mobile app functions in time for Monday Night Football. Everything performed as expected and continues to do so. We'll have all hands on deck this coming Sunday to closely monitor performance and ensure we can respond quickly in case of any abnormal activity.

We know many of you have questions about your leagues and games, so we've also set up a FAQ here that will explain how we are going to handle various scenarios.

Finally, we know we failed you this weekend, and there's no way to fix that. As a token of our appreciation for your patience and continued support, we wanted to give something back. First, we're offering a complimentary football weekly Scouting Report for the remainder of the year. Hopefully this will help you down the stretch. The report includes weekly expert analysis, rankings and news to help you make smart decisions. Second, we are offering all our users a 20% discount for the rest the year at the Yahoo! Sports Store.

For any updates, we will keep you informed on @YahooSports and facebook.com/yahoosports.

We won't stop working to provide you with new and improved features that help you enjoy your Sundays.

Thanks again for playing and for your patience.

Best,

Ken Fuchs
Head of Yahoo! Sports
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So here's what I see from this relatively tiny portion of a massive media empire that I don't see from TPCi.

I see a tiny portion of a massive media empire sending out a message to its customers explaining what happened in clear, concise language without giving up too much proprietary information. Not only that, but that message went out as soon as they could possibly manage (when they sent it, it was just after midnight their time). They further followed up on the issue, releasing another email after they had time to digest it as much as possible. They issued an apology and offered reparations for everybody, not just those that were affected by the issue. And, from what I can tell, they sent this email out to all of their Fantasy Users. Not just the Commissioners, and not just the Football guys. They sent it out to everybody.

I can't remember the last time I saw TPCi put out anything like that. Neither to explain and correct a mistake, nor to inform of new information about products, events, or promotions. League Owners and some League Leaders do receive email reminders to send in their League Reports and order for a new season, but that's IMO different. I don't see why TPCi doesn't do a mass email for every Premier Event cycle (Prerelease, City, BR, etc). I don't see why TPCi doesn't do a mass email for new information, such as the new League prizes and structure, the new Invite structure, or the new Regionals structure. It's left to the Players and the local Organizers to try and dole out this information piecemeal. And IMO it's hurting attendance at every level. Sending mass emails costs basically nothing once you get the initial infrastructure in place (which they already have as judging by the League Report emails). It costs very little to create the email text, and much of that text can be stolen directly from materials already being used for the Pokemon website.

If TPCi already does this stuff, then I apologize for this little rant. But I've never seen any of it. And I'm pretty certain that I'm opted in to receive just about everything first-party from the Pokemon website.
 
Wow. It took a long time to read this thread... lol

I have seen situations like this in other contexts.
I'm involved in local government and this is eerily similar to a "closed session" situation regarding personnel matters.

My immediate reaction to this was "uh oh..."

If, in fact, there was a BAN (a VERY serious consequence) without specific notification. Then, there are two possibilities that come to mind:

1. There's a mistake (computer-induced error or someone banned the wrong "Gary"). or...
2. This is something that we'd be better-off NOT knowing about (that could even have legal ramifications).

So, for all we know, TPCi could be doing EXACTLY what they should be doing.

Ryan stated that Gary is a very active and respected TO within the Pokemon Community that has done great things to grow and promote the game.

I would submit that it for THIS reason that the ban and its proceedings remain a private enterprise between the two parties previously acknowledged in this discussion.

Think about it. Why would someone so good for the game be banned? Do you REALLY want to know the answer to this?

I don't. Ignorance is bliss in this circumstance.

JMHO.

RA
 
Also too, (I feel safe to say this because I do not know the guy personally, thus my "feelings" on this is 0% influentual about the matter)- and I am in no way "supporting" TCPI or "sticking up for/defending" TCPI:

TCPI could be just as upset that they had to ban this guy.

Really.

If a person works for a company for xxx amount of years, the employer has some small amount of relationship to the employee, and a good one at that.

Both the employee and employer can part ways at any time- by choice or by reasons known/unknown, on either end.

The employee decides to leave, the employer could be "upset" at the loss of a good employee. The employer get's their hands "tied" in a situation and has to send the employee away.

Thus, the reason I say it could be a sort of "mutual" loss on both ends.

Also it is only fair to consider both sides, regardless of knowing the full story.

Just my thoughts is all.
 
I think there is two obvious scenarios and RA hit it on the head. The problem is, if it really were a mistake, its hard to believe its not corrected that day or within a few days, especially at this point, two weeks later.

Either way, surely there can be no harm in informing him of WHY he was banned, especially to a man that has given so much to TPCI.

As for any speculation as to "reporting," find me one TO in any TCG, intentionally or not, favor their players. I've seen many, many TO's Pokemon start events late and even saw a to in another TCG start REALLY late because the friend of the main organizer (who was playing, not judging) was late. I don't think the assumption was "hey, lets let these guys be late but not others," I think the intention is always to give the most favorable experience to all attendees, but he knows his players are coming late, so he plans for it. Often times, you may be in go mode and unexpected players show up, that ruffles feathers. If he paired a round expecting people to show up late, it wouldn't hurt my feelings (as a player) if he repaired them. What I'm getting at is that I find that very, very hard to believe that he got banned for stuff like that.

The most likely truth is, he was banned for a....good enough reason. And, since all things associated with Pokemon (ie, an undeserved loyal fan/organizer base) will do what ever they are willed like a good zombie, we'll never know.
 
Rogue Archetype said:
Wow. It took a long time to read this thread... lol

I have seen situations like this in other contexts.
I'm involved in local government and this is eerily similar to a "closed session" situation regarding personnel matters.

My immediate reaction to this was "uh oh..."

If, in fact, there was a BAN (a VERY serious consequence) without specific notification. Then, there are two possibilities that come to mind:

1. There's a mistake (computer-induced error or someone banned the wrong "Gary"). or...
2. This is something that we'd be better-off NOT knowing about (that could even have legal ramifications).

So, for all we know, TPCi could be doing EXACTLY what they should be doing.

Ryan stated that Gary is a very active and respected TO within the Pokemon Community that has done great things to grow and promote the game.

I would submit that it for THIS reason that the ban and its proceedings remain a private enterprise between the two parties previously acknowledged in this discussion.

Think about it. Why would someone so good for the game be banned? Do you REALLY want to know the answer to this?

I don't. Ignorance is bliss in this circumstance.

JMHO.

RA
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No one is asking for an explanation.

No one is speculating as to the reason.

Repeatedly, dozens of times, it has been made clear that the point of this post is to highlight the fact that Gary (from what he has said) did not receive any REASON as to the ban when it was given. Furthermore, avenues of communication were severely limited. Without these avenues of communication, and with such cloed discussion, people wanted confirmation that this was the correct move, and as you point out, not some weird computer error or something.

These facts are what people are disgruntled about and critical.

t's none of our business why he got banned. It is his business, and it shows poorly when he isn't given information as to his own situation.
 
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