To continue in my response to some of the things mentioned above, here's my second post:
Here's a situation, interesting no doubt to all aspiring professors, and judges. Responsibilities of the respective parties when it comes to an event. Overall the PTO has to be responsible to lots of different people. To PUI - since they pay his salary for putting on the events, To POP - since they expect him to run a well judged event in a safe environment for the players, To the owners of the venue - since he must make sure their event does not leave accidental or intentional damage to the venue, and to pay them, To the judges - he has to take into considerations their abilities and strengths, and their feelings as he organizes, and runs the events, and to fairly compensate them for their vollunteering their time and effort, and to the players - of which he has to take the most care of, since they are the backbone of his business, the basis of why they are in business in the first place. I think Marvin does a great job juggling his responsibilities, but you can't please all the people, all the time. In some events I've organized I've done random deck checks, but still checked for any major problems beforehand in decklists. I've also been there for full deck checks at the beginning of the event. No matter how you slice it, deck checks take time, and the more you have to do, the more time it takes. If you have unlimited resourses to deckcheck, your event will probably run much smoother, but with the rating and ranking system, there are less and less volunteers to do that, since they would rather work on their ratings than help out - or judge. Players must take a certain amount of responsibility in this since many show up later than the recommended time, and expect to be allowed to play, even if they have a base Blastoise in their decks. Therefore not all problems will be caught, even with the unlimited resourses mentioned earlier. Marvin made the call to check the lists first, then deckcheck fully of a few players decks on a random basis later. Was it a good call? I'm not one to judge, but I'm willing to say yes, since the event started on time, and the players weren't complaining about not being able to start playing before 1pm instead of the posted 11 am start time. Was it the only possible call? Well, perhaps we could have done more checks, I'm sure of that much. However there's no guarantee we would have caught the same problem earlier. The player has the responsibility to arrive with a deck that conforms to the standards that POP has set out for playing in their events. Non sanctioned art sleeves are a no-no. We even had that show up. But we didn't see that, and corrected the problem until the second round. As far as being informed about his having Japanese cards, I don't know where ilc got his/her information, but I guarantee I WAS NOT INFORMED. However, when I did Sabastian's deckcheck, I found the problem right away. Another judge could pick the 2 cards out of a bunch from 5 feet away, and at an angle. He said he didn't have money to get the English cards, or sleeves, or something of that extent. However he could borrow the 2 Japanese cards. Why couldn't he borrow some sleeves as well that would cover his cards properly? As a judge team, we felt he had gained a significant advantage, knowing where 2 Cessation Crystals were in his deck. So at this point I'm going to direct the comments specifically to Sabastian:
As per the 2006/2007 penalty guidelines:
“The penalties for infractions are simply recommendations and can be increased or decreased in severity based on circumstances”
And in the same document, it says
If a judge deems that a rules violation has been made intentionally, the Unsporting Conduct: Cheating penalty should be applied.
It says there that the recommended penalty is disqualification. Just between you and I, I think you got off light with just the penalty that you got. No one wants to disqualify you or anyone else from playing in an event, but let’s face it, you are not new to this game are you? You know better than to make these types of infractions, don’t you?
In the same document it mentions that some players do multiple infractions at times, sometimes just due to the fact that they are “genuinely uninformed,” but does this apply to you? I honestly don’t think so. You’ve been here for a while and have a good idea about what’s going on. You’re a good player, no doubt about that. And it's not that you are in the Junior age group. So perhaps this section applies to you:
“… it is also important to recognize that some players attempt to gain extra leverage at an event by committing several different errors “accidentally,” and these players should be encouraged to discontinue this type of behavior.”
The penalty applied hopefully will do the job that this section suggests. So have I explained it better to you as to the thinking behind the applied penalties? I hope my discussion with you on Saturday, along with this continued discussion (most of which I outlined last night anyway), will be sufficient to show you that we aren’t out to get you or anyone. Had it been my son, or one of my friends, or league members, the penalties would have been the same. Neither I or the rest of the judging staff singled anyone out more than what was necessary to make a proper judgment. However if you feel there is still room for discussion, when the event is uploaded, you are more than welcome to voice your opinion through the options in your my pokemon account, and/or send an email to
[email protected]
If anyone else has any comments, or suggestions, or perhaps some extra evidence I am not aware of, please by all means come forward. I welcome the effort to get to the bottom of this, however don’t waste anyone’s time or effort if these are just your opinions if you were not there. Pm’s will suffice. If you’d like to get in touch with the PTO who organized the event, most from the Toronto area will be able to direct you to Marvin P, at Skyfoxgames. I’d rather not quote any contact info online, but he does have a website of the same name.
