You are judging a competitive REL event and you notice Player A is holding their hand in a way that lets Player B see some of the cards in it. What do you do, if anything?

Would the situation be any different if Player B had called you over and privately told you that he could see Player A's hand?

No infraction, no penalty, no matter the REL, both cases.

Edited Joaquín Pérez (Dec. 14, 2015 09:10:59 AM)

You can “indirectly” let player A know that he/she could be accidentally revealing hidden information.

There are events where I witness this as a head judge and when I do, I sometimes make a quick, comedic announcement at the beginning of the following round for players to be mindful of how they are holding their cards because, “I happen to notice some of you in the tournament right now like to hold your cards like this.” (as I demonstrate holding a few basic lands from a pile of garbage left on the table.)

If its the player A´s fault… sry but it´s allowed show cards in hand…
If its the player B´s secret tech or mirrors trap… of mind control… ITS CHEATS! but sure this isnt the way ^_^

Fix: Call player A take more care with his/her hand…

It would be sporting for player B to say “hey, I can see your hand”.
It is not unsporting for player B to see something that player A is revealing.

Originally posted by Joaquín Pérez:

No infraction, no penalty, no matter the REL, both cases.

Agreed.

d:^D

Originally posted by Eric Paré:

You can “indirectly” let player A know that he/she could be accidentally revealing hidden information.

There are events where I witness this as a head judge and when I do, I sometimes make a quick, comedic announcement at the beginning of the following round for players to be mindful of how they are holding their cards because, “I happen to notice some of you in the tournament right now like to hold your cards like this.” (as I demonstrate holding a few basic lands from a pile of garbage left on the table.)

This sounds uncomfortably like OA to me. Technically “don't show your hand to your opponent when you don't have to” is strategic advice (extremely basic strategic advice, admittedly), and telling the players to do this or not is thus giving strategic advice.

< judgehat > We'd really prefer players didn't do this, but if a player is doing this, it is sloppy play and not penalty-worthy. For the same reasons as we don't penalize the opponent when the player reveals a card by a dexterity error of dropping it while shuffling, I wouldn't penalize anyone here. </ judgehat >

< playerhat > If my opponent does something like this where they reveal information to me, I'm unlikely to say or do anything except keep aware of the information that's being handed to me. Obviously I wouldn't do anything untoward to try to get the information, but if it's literally being handed to me I will happily accept it. I would also be extremely upset if a judge came in during my match and notified my opponent that they were handing me free information, as that could easily be the difference between a win and a loss for me.

Uncle Scott is a much more “sporting” player than I :P </ playerhat >

Edited Lyle Waldman (Dec. 15, 2015 07:39:25 PM)

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

This sounds uncomfortably like OA to me.

I'm not sure I agree, as long as the announcement between rounds. Consider the BfZ mulligan scry: It's possible and legal for a player to forget to scry, but judges in my area mad multiple announcements per event to make sure players remembered this new “strategy”/rules change.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

This sounds uncomfortably like OA to me. Technically “don't show your hand to your opponent when you don't have to” is strategic advice (extremely basic strategic advice, admittedly), and telling the players to do this or not is thus giving strategic advice.

I think it's more than a little bit of a stretch to suggest that noticing that a particular player is holding their cards in a way that leaks information is OA. After all, we routinely give specific reminders to players who, while drafting, are not holding their packs closely enough.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

After all, we routinely give specific reminders to players who, while drafting, are not holding their packs closely enough.

Players aren't allowed to *intentionally* share their packs, though, whereas they are free to intentionally share the content of their hands.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

This sounds uncomfortably like OA to me. Technically “don't show your hand to your opponent when you don't have to” is strategic advice (extremely basic strategic advice, admittedly), and telling the players to do this or not is thus giving strategic advice.

< judgehat > We'd really prefer players didn't do this, but if a player is doing this, it is sloppy play and not penalty-worthy. For the same reasons as we don't penalize the opponent when the player reveals a card by a dexterity error of dropping it while shuffling, I wouldn't penalize anyone here. </ judgehat >

< playerhat > If my opponent does something like this where they reveal information to me, I'm unlikely to say or do anything except keep aware of the information that's being handed to me. Obviously I wouldn't do anything untoward to try to get the information, but if it's literally being handed to me I will happily accept it. I would also be extremely upset if a judge came in during my match and notified my opponent that they were handing me free information, as that could easily be the difference between a win and a loss for me.

Uncle Scott is a much more “sporting” player than I :P </ playerhat >

When I return decks after a deck check, they're generally more or less sorted. After thanking players for their patience and explaining their time extension, I'll generally remind them, “I've sorted your decks, so make sure you give them a really thorough shuffle.”

Under your interpretation of Outside Assistance, is this strategic advice? If not, what's the distinction?

Originally posted by John Brian McCarthy:

Lyle Waldman
This sounds uncomfortably like OA to me. Technically “don't show your hand to your opponent when you don't have to” is strategic advice (extremely basic strategic advice, admittedly), and telling the players to do this or not is thus giving strategic advice.

< judgehat > We'd really prefer players didn't do this, but if a player is doing this, it is sloppy play and not penalty-worthy. For the same reasons as we don't penalize the opponent when the player reveals a card by a dexterity error of dropping it while shuffling, I wouldn't penalize anyone here. </ judgehat >

< playerhat > If my opponent does something like this where they reveal information to me, I'm unlikely to say or do anything except keep aware of the information that's being handed to me. Obviously I wouldn't do anything untoward to try to get the information, but if it's literally being handed to me I will happily accept it. I would also be extremely upset if a judge came in during my match and notified my opponent that they were handing me free information, as that could easily be the difference between a win and a loss for me.

Uncle Scott is a much more “sporting” player than I :P </ playerhat >

When I return decks after a deck check, they're generally more or less sorted. After thanking players for their patience and explaining their time extension, I'll generally remind them, “I've sorted your decks, so make sure you give them a really thorough shuffle.”

Under your interpretation of Outside Assistance, is this strategic advice? If not, what's the distinction?

The distinction I would make is twofold:

————————
1) If they fail to shuffle thoroughly, then their decks are still partially sorted. Therefore they are presenting a sorted deck and can be caught for Insufficient Randomization.

2) This issue of Insufficient Randomization is no fault of the players themselves, it's the fault of an outside force (specifically the judge who did the deck check) that the players had no control over (note that I am not blaming the judge for this, just making note of the cause of the issue)
———————–

Issue 1 means that the player is guilty of an infraction if they fail to follow instructions. Failure to not reveal one's hand to an opponent while playing is not an infractable offense, whereas IR is. We as judges should tell players when they're about to be infracted, if it's something that can reasonably be stopped; that's just good customer service. I mean, you /can/ just return the decks, watch them not shuffle, draw their hands, step in and be like “HAH! INSUFFICIENT RANDOMIZATION! GOTCHA!”, but that would be a jerk move. It's well within your realm of possibility, but you probably shouldn't do that. However, you're not going to step in and be like “HAH! YOU'RE REVEALING YOUR HAND! THAT'S…uh…not in the IPG…ok, I'll go away now”. Or maybe you would. I dunno.

Issue 2 means that the player(s) may not be aware that their decks are sorted, particularly if the player(s) are new. Once again, customer service, and not randomly handing out infractions for no reason (well, I guess IR is a reason, but in this case it's a pretty bad reason). Furthermore, when they handed the decks to you, they were random, and thus when they are handed back, the reasonable expectation is for them to still be random. If they're not, you should probably correct that expectation. Again, IR, customer service, etc, and again, you /can/ be a jerk and gotcha the players, but that's probably not a good idea.

One additional issue is that this also protects the opponent and enforces fair play. While in the original case you are hindering the opponent (by not letting them have the free information they are “entitled” to, in the sense of being entitled to it if it is handed to them, not in a general sense), in the case of deck checks and IR you are protecting the opponent from playing against a player with a sorted deck. For example, if I was playing Abzan and I got deck checked, I could do a couple overhand shuffles, maybe a rough cram, and get a reasonable hand with 3 Abzan trilands (I forgot the name), a basic land, and 3 Siege Rhinos, with the 4th Rhino on top. That would be pretty crappy. But if you say “look, your decks are sorted”, the opponent knows that I could potentially gain an advantage in this way and will be extra vigilant making sure I shuffle thoroughly.

Eli Meyer

Lyle Waldman
This sounds uncomfortably like OA to me.

I'm not sure I agree, as long as the announcement between rounds. Consider the BfZ mulligan scry: It's possible and legal for a player to forget to scry, but judges in my area mad multiple announcements per event to make sure players remembered this new “strategy”/rules change.

Right, and a pre-event announcement is appropriate: “look, the rules changed, you should probably remember to do this”. I'd be loathe to do a mid-event one though, especially if my decision to do so was spawned by watching players not do this. The announcement was made once at the beginning of the event, and that's it; if you forget from then on, not my problem. Other judges may disagree though, and that's fine. This is my opinion.

Edited Lyle Waldman (Dec. 16, 2015 03:35:05 AM)

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

We as judges should tell players when they're about to be infracted, if it's something that can reasonably be stopped

Should we be stepping in a telling a player they're about to be infracted?

Do you do this for all infractions, if you think a player is about to play a spell without the correct mana would you step in? If not which infractions would you step in for?

So, to get this discussion back on track, there are 2 questions here.


First off, is telling a player that they are revealing hidden information OA? The definition of OA is “gives play advice to players who have sat for their match.” So is “your opponent can see your hand” play advice? I feel it's not, since revealing your hand isn't a game action. On the other hand, sideboarding or missing a trigger isn't a game action either, and that does fall under OA. So I'm not sure.


Secondly, assuming that it isn't OA, should we tell the player? The MTR states “players are responsible for making reasonable efforts to prevent hidden information from being revealed”. This could be interpreted in one of 2 ways:

A) It's the player's responsibility to make the effort, if they're not doing a good enough job, it's none of our business.

B) The player is not making a good enough effort and is in violation of the MTR. We should therefore intervene to fix the problem.

Which one of these is correct? It's also possible that the next sentence- “players may choose to reveal their hands or any other hidden information available to them”- covers this. We could simply assume that the player is doing it by choice, and leave it alone.



Nothing here has to do with penalties. We're obviously not going to give a warning to a player revealing his hand, and the other player is perfectly in the right to not mention it. “Players are not required to inform opponents who are accidentally revealing hidden information.”

Edited Isaac King (Dec. 17, 2015 12:30:43 AM)

I won't say anything to a player who is playing his match to hide their hand. It's his responsibility and shifts the pressure of reminding it over me, as a judge. If you or other judge forget to advice another player in the future, other people can see this as some sort of “favoritism”.

Apart from generic announcements at the beginning of round, I'd choose not to say anything. We have enough possible accusations of bias and “he'syourfriendImgonnarage” to add one more to the list :)

OA only applies during a match.

You are welcome to tell a player after a match “Hey, I noticed you're holding your cards a little low. You might want to fix that, as your opponent might see it”. Had to do this once with a player who had particularly reflective dogtags.