Yesterday I HJed a Standard GPT where one player (let's call him Joe) arrived late for the start of the tournament and was subsequently registered late with a loss. Despite that, he scored 3-1-1 in the swiss portion and earned a Top 8 spot, eventually losing a semi-final match that I was following closely.
Just after I turned my back to follow the other semi-final, the TO came behind me and gave Joe his 9-booster prize shaking hands and complimenting him for the result; at this point a young player (who was placed in the bottom 3 places after the swiss portion) approaches him and tells something like “Heh!! If I had not conceded you that game, you would probably have no prizes now!”
That fully got my attention, as a loud bell started ringing in my head. I turned back and started questioning both, and discovering that Joe was paired with that young player at round 2, and (since they're good friends and play together a lot) Joe asked him for a concession telling that he's clearly the best player between the two, and therefore he's got more chances to reach a Top 8 and a prize. On top of that, Joe openly suggested a 50% prize split, but since Joe got 9 boosters they started opening them and manually splitting the cards inside while talking to me and explaining this stuff. Anyway: during round 2 they agreed to that proposal and they submitted a 2-0 result for Joe after spending the match time playing just for fun.

Now, this is where my L1 inexperience seriously kicked in: I was pretty sure that this was a DQ behaviour for both, but on one hand I had an unfinished tournament going on, and on the other hand I had two eliminated players who were openly talking about what happened right behind me – which could confirm their ignorance and/or poor knowledge of the policy rules, by the way.
I ultimately spent a long time explaining the situation to all the players around me and specifically reading the IPG chapter on USC - Bribery with the two players and the TO, ultimately telling something like “The tournament is over for you and I can't DQ you from a tournament you've ended with or without a prize, but I would have surely DQed you if this action was known before this moment.”

Did I get something wrong? What was the correct line of action I had to take at that point?
Or – if you prefer – what do I need to learn from that? :)

*** Bonus problem!
I also noticed a Top 8 player losing a game, and his good friend (who played in the event but did not qualify for Top 8) approaching him during the sideboarding process to talk about how he could have managed to survive and maybe win. It was clearly an OA offense, but (again!) we're talking about issuing a penalty to a player who is no longer playing in the tournament – which leads me to the ultimate question: can I still assign a penalty to a player, even if that player has been dropped from the tournament, and the tournament is still alive and running?


Thanks in advance :)

Splits and match results are a bit of a weird area to me, since it seems there are both legal and illegal ways to do exactly the same thing. Strictly speaking, players are allowed to split. Players are allowed to concede. They are NOT allowed to make some kind of agreement about prizes (or money or any other incentive) in EXCHANGE FOR a match result.

This means that the following would be legal:
A: Want to split?
B: Sure.
A: Want to concede?
B: Sure.

And this would be legal too:
A: Want to concede?
B: Sure. I concede. Here is the filled & signed result slip. Would you like to give me some of the packs you win?
A: Sure.

While the following would be illegal:
A: Do you want to concede if we split?
B: Sure.

And the following is pretty hazy to me (I'd like input on this):
A: Do you want to split and concede?

Provided that the concession did not depend on the split, players can split however they like. I don't care if they want to go 50/50, 70/30, split every pack like you said they did in your case, or run a winner-takes-all lap around the block for them. Their prizes are now theirs and they can do whatever they want with them.

So depending on what you find out if you ask them questions it could or could not be a DQ. This also means that yes, it's possible to DQ people who are not in the tournament. From the IPG definition of a disqualification: The recipient of a Disqualification does not need to be a player in the tournament. He or she may be a spectator or other bystander. If this happens, he or she must be entered in Wizards Event Reporter (WER) so that he or she may be disqualified and reported to the DCI.

Bonus: Obviously the penalty itself is meaningless in this case, but if you really want you could re-enroll (if WER even does this?) and enter it for tracking purposes, but I think that's usually only done for DQs.

Originally posted by Anniek Van der Peijl:

Splits and match results are a bit of a weird area to me, since it seems there are both legal and illegal ways to do exactly the same thing. Strictly speaking, players are allowed to split. Players are allowed to concede. They are NOT allowed to make some kind of agreement about prizes (or money or any other incentive) in EXCHANGE FOR a match result.

According to what they answered me, yesterday we were exactly in this scenario. Sort of:
Joe - “I'm a better player than you, would you concede to me and I'll give you 50% of the prize, if I get some?”
Opponent - “Could do, but I'd like to play…”
Joe - “We'll play friendly, but at the end we give a 2-0 for me as a result.”
Opponent - “Uhm… OK.”

My “you need to be there” impression is that the opponent has conceded to Joe because of the split: he was too inexpert to reach Top 8 on his own.

Originally posted by Anniek Van der Peijl:

So depending on what you find out if you ask them questions it could or could not be a DQ. This also means that yes, it's possible to DQ people who are not in the tournament. From the IPG definition of a disqualification: The recipient of a Disqualification does not need to be a player in the tournament. He or she may be a spectator or other bystander. If this happens, he or she must be entered in Wizards Event Reporter (WER) so that he or she may be disqualified and reported to the DCI.

I knew that part when talking of a spectator, but here I had players whose names were already in the WER. Does that rule still apply? Can I issue a DQ in turn 8 (which corresponds to the Top 8 final) for players who are no longer active?

As Anniek has pointed out it kind of comes down to what exactly has been said during the exchange. However if you do believe that there has been bribery then you can DQ a player once the event has finished just follow the same procedure as if it was during the event

I believe you're mistaken concerning when one can be Disqualified from a tournament. I don't have much experience in the matter, but I do know that removing a player from the current event is only one purpose of issuing a DQ. We use such a harsh punishment because the violation is equally as harsh, and thus it is important to track these behaviors. If we can enter a spectator into a tournament for the sole purpose of issuing him/her a disqualification, we can certainly disqualify a player who has finished their games and received prizes.

I can't say whether or not WER will allow you to mark someone as DQ'd after they've already dropped, and I'd be quite surprised if that's an option after a cut to Top 8.  However, you can always enter an Investigation in the Judge Center - even a few days later, if you learn of something that proves (to you) that a DQ is appropriate.

If you do enter an Investigation after the fact, please note in your statement if you weren't able to DQ the player via WER.  It's not critical, but we do look at DQs w/o Investigations and vice-versa.  (In an ideal world, there should never be one without the other - so it's nice to know why, when there's a mismatch.)

d:^D


On Monday, May 12, 2014 7:32 AM, Yonatan Kamensky <forum-10001-1c5a@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

I believe you're mistaken concerning when one can be Disqualified from
a tournament. I don't have much experience in the matter, but I do
know that removing a player from the current event is only one purpose
of issuing a DQ. We use such a harsh punishment because the violation
is equally as harsh, and thus it is important to track these
behaviors. If we can enter a spectator into a tournament for the
sole purpose of issuing him/her a disqualification, we can
certainly disqualify a player who has finished their games and
received
prizes.
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I wanted to take a firm stance and give (free) advice, but as many have pointed out, you needed to be there.

“Exchange for” is the phrase used a lot when discussing this topic, but according to the MTR:

5.2 Collusion and Bribery
The decision to drop, concede, or agree to an intentional draw cannot be made in exchange for or influenced by
the offer of any reward or incentive. Making such an offer is prohibited. Unless the player receiving such an offer
calls for a judge immediately, both players will be penalized in the same manner.

According to what they answered me, yesterday we were exactly in this scenario. Sort of:
Joe - “I'm a better player than you, would you concede to me and I'll give you 50% of the prize, if I get some?”
Opponent - “Could do, but I'd like to play…”
Joe - “We'll play friendly, but at the end we give a 2-0 for me as a result.”
Opponent - “Uhm… OK.”

My “you need to be there” impression is that the opponent has conceded to Joe because of the split: he was too inexpert to reach Top 8 on his own.

If you think that the purpose of “Joe” could boil down to: “you have no/little chance at prizes unless you do this for me”, I think that seems to be trying to influence them. It would seem that they “Joe” is trying to use packs to avoid the small chance of losing, and I'm unsettled by “Joe” not respecting the wish of the inexperienced player to play their match.

To be clear Uncle Scott, are you recommending Stefano enter an Investigation at this point, if he deems it appropriate?

Yeah, if you believe that Bribery (or other DQable offense) took place earlier in the event, you can still submit a DQ via Judge Center. Present your case there as usual, and make sure to state in the report that the player has already been eliminated. The case can still go on his record and we save it for later in case we see more of it.

Once the player receives prizes, please do not attempt to take them back, even with a DQ or any other reason. You might ask him once nicely, but don't press the matter at all. When he gets handed prizes for placing, those prizes become his. There have been cases, though in which a player has willingly returned prizes and we sometimes take that as a sign of good faith and honesty in determining their cases.

If the player goes on to win and recieve an invite, and then you DQ him, please write that in the report, so I can make sure that we expedite that case - his invite may be revoked, etc. You might even want to send me an email, to let me know - I might not look at cases for next month for several weeks.

Eric Shukan
Player Investigations
eshukan@verizon.net

I just want to pick up on one other point in Stefano's original post, here:

'…which could confirm their ignorance and/or poor knowledge of the policy rules, by the way.'

For Bribery, players do get DQed whether or not they were aware that what they were doing is prohibited.

Thanks to everyone for each of your answers – as a matter of facts, I feel a little torn here.

During the GP Trial I somehow managed the situation with a stern and long talk to both players (well heard by every other player, and by the TO as well) and they were very concerned about that. Now I would feel pretty bad changing my course of action and filing an Investigation, both from a personal opinion and a customer care level. However, I will do that if you think it's necessary.

To be clear, I created this thread more specifically on how I could manage a penalty for a player that has completed his event partecipation: I did not assign an OA and two DQs, and however I acted in the event I don't want to miss the opportunity to grow up as a Judge – which is my priority at the moment.

@Scott : to be honest, I did not even try to submit those penalties on WER, so I can't say if I was able or not to do it. I simply supposed I could not logically assign a penalty for a non-active player, and my head was in the middle of the storm at that point.

@Eric : specifically, the player did not win the GP Trial, and no Byes were awarded to him. But I see your point if it were the case.

@Kim : thanks for underlining that point, it's quite important actually.