At my local game store, one of the players was talking about a call a judge made against him that he thought was a bad call. I was not involved in the call, but I was working at the event and a judge I respect a lot was directly involved, so I'd like to ask about this call so I can explain to this player why the call was made before agreeing about the bad call. Here was the situation as it was explained to me:

Player A and Player B played a match. Player A won the match 2-0, and since it put Player B out of contention, Player B checked the drop box and left the site. At the beginning of the following match, it was discovered that Player A had been paired as if he had lost, and in fact it was recorded in WER that he lost. Furthermore, upon checking the match slip, it was noted that the match was recorded 2-0 in favor of Player B, and both players signed the slip. Player A thinks that the match result should be fixed, because after all why would Player B take the win, dreamcrush Player A for no reason, and leave? The argument therefore being that because Player B left, the result is “clearly” incorrect and should be reversed without consulting Player B (who can't be consulted, because he left).

In the situation in question, the judge chose not to reverse the result. I have not spoken to the judge so I don't know why, but I respect this judge's knowledge of policy, so I presume he made the right call. I'm wondering if anyone can explain this to me in such a way that I can explain it to Player A so that the judge doesn't get a reputation in the community for making “bad” calls.

I wouldn't go so far as to say there is strict policy on this, but inferring people's “clear intentions” is dangerous. Maybe he needed the Planeswalker Points to hit a GP threshold and then wanted to leave. Assuming without verifying is dangerous.

Also, seriously, reinforce that YOU SIGNED THE SLIP. Why are you signing things that are not accurate? Someday, that is going to be a contract and the consequences are going to be a lot worse. http://www.whysogrumpy.com/2014/02/04/golden-ticket/

QFT:

Originally posted by Nicholas Fang:

http://www.whysogrumpy.com/2014/02/04/golden-ticket/

The whole tale of what happened is fundamentally irrelevant. The player signed the slip, and that is that. In some circumstances the results might get changed after the slip was turned in, if the slip had an error on it, but when the scorekeeper does that, that is them providing customer service above and beyond the call of duty, and it requires them to be able to actually verify that the revised result is correct.

In the situation given, the judge can't change the result as they can't verify that the “new” result is correct. They don't need to further verify the result on the slip, though - both players have signed it.

This is not so much an “explaining policy” situation as a “tactfully explaining to Player A that they have been rather foolish” situation.

If they're thick-skinned, you could just show them this classic photo (linked through to from whysogrumpy):

Edited James Winward-Stuart (Dec. 28, 2014 02:35:09 PM)

The L4s debated long & hard about leniency for players who sign an incorrect result slip. Our final decision was that, if the players approach us right away, and both agree (and are believable), it's reasonable to correct it (and swap their pairings, when applicable). And our agreed-upon definition of “right away” was “shortly after the next pairings or standings are posted, but before the end of the next round”. The idea was, the posting (pairings/standings) would be their first opportunity to realize their mistake - and wanting to correct it right away encourages us to provide that service.

Obviously, there was a tangent to that discussion, where the winning player notices and the losing player pretends not to notice, because it's to their advantage… like I said, that's a tangent.

A more relevant tangent - and the reason we don't extend that “grace period” beyond the end of the round - is the fear of collusion or even bribery.

Nick's right, no policy re: inferring intentions - but there is policy re: correcting results “typos”.

Lyle, in your case, (a) I agree with those who said “hey, YOU signed it!”, and (b) without agreement from both players, that judge was correct to leave the result as submitted. Unfortunate that A wasn't paying attention to what he signed - but fair and consistent application of policy.

d:^D