I ran the Game Day in my LGS (Standard, Regular), and during registration the TO/store owner took me apart and introduced me to the father of one of our younger players. This gentleman requested that I'd not pair his son against a specific other player. They go to the same school and apparently there's some rivalry. I'm not privy to details, but I do know that this is a school caters to kids with social/emotional issues. I said they seemed to get along, but I was assured that this could easily change. I have no reason to assume that this request was made to manipulate the outcome of the tournament. It was just bona fide concern.

I remarked that this was a sanctioned event, and that fiddling with the pairing would compromise the event's integrity. The store owner took note of my formal objection and very resolutely instructed me to do it anyway. So I said I would. Risking the social/emotional minefield could potentially cause serious damage to the event, and since I didn't expect either player to advance far in the standings, the damage to the event's integrity would be minimal at worst.

Turned out they never got paired up anyway, but I'd still like to hear other people's thoughts.

Honestly I wouldn't said I would, and I wouldn't: if the TO thinks he can do whatever he wants this would be the perfect time to remind him how he's wrong. I would add: “if you want to run the event yourself you are welcome, if you want me to run it, I will without improperly messing with pairings”.

If they cannot behave correctly there are infractions and penalties for it.

Sometimes, though (round 1 being the obvious example), there are random sets that do not create the customer service issue, and random sets which do.
There is no risk to the tournament integrity with telling WER to randomly repair the round (as opossed to doing it manually), so if they are paired against each other why not do a repair and see if it can be avoided? In some rounds, their records will mean this is not possible, but in rounds where it is, this seems like a good idea.

While the TO's desire to cater to the needs of players is commendable, it's important that this catering is only done within reason. For example, a player with limited visibility may require assistance in order to see her cards. I hear there are devices which magnify the cards and allow players in this circumstance to read them. If she requests to use this device, at least attpting to accomodate for this is reasonable. On the other hand, if this player requests a second person go with her to assist, this compromises tournament integrity by explicitly allowing outside assistance.

I agree with Andrea: purposefully not matching two players together is clearly violating tournament integrity, and cannot be allowed. If the TO requests you to do this, refuse. If they continue to insist, explain to them why you can't and what damage that would cause.

Can anyone find guidance for this in the documents? I've poured over the
MTR and there isn't anything there about pair/re-pairing. Is this the
exclusive providence of the tournament organizer? What is restricting us as
judges in this instance?

Manipulating tournament pairings can be considered a type of manipulating tournament results. It is never advised that judges re-pair a round to get or to avoid a specific pairing. Regardless of the WPN's stance, player (customers) can easily interpret manipulating pairings as favoritism. This leads to two problems: expectations that they can request such service or impression that the TO has favorites.

Telling a TO he or she is wrong is tricky. No TO wants to be told they're wrong, and doing so can lead judges to appear as pedantic rules-mongers. Instead, express concern over potential outcomes and offer alternatives. Alternatives can be as simple as an alternative narrative: “We treat everyone equally, and sometimes pairings aren't what we want, too.” Sometimes an alternative might be taking a different approach in special cases: “I understand these guys bicker. It's not good form to manipulate pairings, but I'd be happy to keep an eye on their match if they get paired so it doesn't escalate. Is that ok?” Notice in that example you're asking for the person's buy-in on the alternative. If they feel they had a choice (even an obvious one), they'll feel Bette about the plan.

MTR

10.4 Pairing Algorithm
Unless otherwise announced, tournaments are assumed to follow the Swiss pairing algorithm.

The MTR does not specify more about “Swiss pairing algorithm” as far as I know, however..

a) Manually re-pairing because “someone doesnt want to play another” seems wrong, I personally just cant prove its illegality yet. Feeling bad about it entitles me as HJ of an event to not do it however.

b)Ancient WotC source
Interestingly, a wizards.com reference showed up in “Swiss pairing algorithm” of wikipedia:
http://wizards.com/DCI/downloads/Swiss_Pairings.pdf from 1999!
http://www.wizards.com/dci/downloads/TOHndBk_Feb_5_07.pdf from 2007
3. For all subsequent rounds after the first, pair players with the same match points against each other randomly. (If there is
an odd number, match one player from that group with a person from the group with the next-highest match points.)

c)Scrabble tournaments use Gibsonization for last rounds to not affect results. When one player in n-1'th round (of n) is already secured the win, he will be paired against whoever isn't in contention anymore. That way, the remaining topX still have an actual competition. There's a tournament setting where manual fixes to the algorithm are supported. The difference to the two kids is that their points/tournament has nothing to do with them not playing. Instead their personal rivalry, I believe damages the integrity of the tournament.

So to sum up, I found
my intuitive idea: Feels wrong to do manual repairings
an ancient WotC doc: Pairings are always random!
and a Scrabble exception: Gibsonization

Overall, although WotC documents can be outdated, I don't see why they'd change in this case. I will not allow manual repairings.

Instead, I'll try to explain to the father something along the lines of
“This is a tournament where I have no influence on the pairings. If those pals don't get along well during a match, they will be educated and/or punished. Tournaments require a polite interaction of its players the same way they require random pairings. ”

+ what Carter said.

Edited Philip Böhm (May 24, 2014 02:27:58 PM)

It's definitely a “this feels wrong and probably IS wrong” situation.
Thanks for the research, Philip!

On Saturday, May 24, 2014, Philip Böhm <

Please do not fix pairings to match or avoid matching players. This is tournament fraud.

________________________________
From: John Kmiecik <forum-10263-73a3@apps.magicjudges.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 12:30 PM
To: Heckt, Andy
Subject: Re: “Don't pair these two players!” (Tournament Operations)


It's definitely a “this feels wrong and probably IS wrong” situation.
Thanks for the research, Philip!

On Saturday, May 24, 2014, Philip Böhm <

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Andy, is there anywhere we can point TOs toward (aside from this message)
that they can read that for themselves? Could help against stubborn TOs.

Read that they *not* do it? No. That is not written. It is written, as described earlier here, that sanctioned events use swiss-pairing.


Meddling with pairings is unfair, shows bias, not competitive, very hard to prove that the organizer is NOT committing fraud. Fraud carries significant penalties. What this organizing is trying to do is misuse a tool to correct errors, to instead do something else. Just educate them on all of that.


Andy


________________________________
From: John Kmiecik <forum-10263-73a3@apps.magicjudges.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 1:54 PM
To: Heckt, Andy
Subject: Re: “Don't pair these two players!” (Tournament Operations)


Andy, is there anywhere we can point TOs toward (aside from this message)
that they can read that for themselves? Could help against stubborn TOs.

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These replies unanimously imply that I should have risked a severe emotional outburst, screaming, fighting, crying, the inevitable DQ(s), etcetera. (Remember, we're not talking about emotionally stable kids here!) I still think that would have caused far more damage to the event (and by association to the store, the TO, me, the game, and future events) than enforcing the “do not pair” house rule. I understand the desire to take the hard line, but this seems too great a cost. At Competitive I would have refused flat out and told the father that perhaps he shouldn't let his son compete, but this was the Game Day, it's Regular, everybody is supposed to have a good time playing Magic.

That said, I completely understand that Wizards can't officially give the nod to any such stuff. So, just how bad is this? Should I report the TO (and, presumably, myself) to Wizards?

If a TO has serious reasons to believe that a player will, for sure, cause massive disruption to his event, he still has the solution to protect his other customers and his business by refusing entry to this player (but should also check for local regulations on this topic).

Whoa there, Jochem. No one said you should start a minor riot. Andy was explicit in saying that manipulating pairings is tournament fraud. What I'm suggesting is that there is a middle road you could try. Your original post has a lot of conjecture about what could happen without a lot of mitigation on your part. You could try working with the people involved to manage their behavior within the confines of the event. For a casual LGS event, I suspect you'd be able to give a special match special attention if it came up.

The simple truth is that judges by their nature must learn to handle conflict. Your scenario is a hard one, but it's not that uncommon–rivalries pop up for many reasons among otherwise fine people. You asked to hear other people's thoughts. Your peers agree that this is a case where you're going to have to lean on your ability to handle people and conflict rather than perform a clerical trick. Sure, we'd like to take the easy way out, but that's not the approved way. But I'm reasonably certain that your fellow judges would happily help you find coping mechanisms to manage the situation if that's the help you need. In the meantime, I appreciate your honesty in bringing up what is a hard part about being a judge, and I wish you all the best in finding a way forward that works for all.

On 25/05/2014 14:04, John Carter wrote:
>
> Whoa there, Jochem. No one said you should start a minor riot. Andy
> was explicit in saying that manipulating pairings is tournament fraud.
> What I'm suggesting is that there is a middle road you could try. Your
> original post has a lot of conjecture about what could happen without
> a lot of mitigation on your part. You could try working with the
> people involved to manage their behavior within the confines of the
> event. For a casual LGS event, I suspect you'd be able to give a
> special match special attention if it came up.
>
> The simple truth is that judges by their nature must learn to handle
> conflict. Your scenario is a hard one, but it's not that
> uncommon–rivalries pop up for many reasons among otherwise fine
> people. You asked to hear other people's thoughts. Your peers agree
> that this is a case where you're going to have to lean on your ability
> to handle people and conflict rather than perform a clerical trick.
> Sure, we'd like to take the easy way out, but that's not the approved
> way. But I'm reasonably certain that your fellow judges would happily
> help you find coping mechanisms to manage the situation if that's the
> help you need. In the meantime, I appreciate your honesty in bringing
> up what is a hard part about being a judge, and I wish you all the
> best in finding a way forward that works for all.
>
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I think the fact that Andy has defined this as tournament fraud should
be enough for everyone to accept this is a practice that should not be
followed. To be honest if the the two parties involved relationship is
that bad, why are they playing in an event where they know the other
attends. They choose to enter the tournament with that knowledge so why
should they expect special treatment? The point is if we allow this what
is stopping anyone else claiming they are in the same position when
their real motive is to avoid playing each other. Also as Andy said it
opens a can of wurms of claims that the tournament organiser is biased.

Graham