Hello,

I've recently noticed IPG does not instruct to DQ a player that was offered something in exchange for the match result, but refuses and does not call a judge:

A player offers an incentive to entice an opponent into conceding, drawing, or changing the results of a match, or accepts such an offer. Refer to section 5.2 of the Magic Tournament Rules for a more detailed description of what constitutes bribery.

but MTR states that player should be penalized the same way:

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, nor may any in-game decision be influenced in this manner. 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. Players may not make any offers to tournament officials in an attempt to influence the outcome of a ruling.

(emphasis mine)

Is it a real inconsistency and IPG should be fixed or am I missing something?

Edited Alexey Chernyshov (March 21, 2017 03:53:54 PM)

Good point. I think that the idea behind it is, if the player that is offered an incentive to decide the outcome of the match and does not call for a judge immediately, they are either A) not immediately turning down the offer, or B) know that it's wrong and are choosing to call a judge at a later point if they believe they're going to lose the match.

By not immediately turning down the offer, it makes it seem like the IPG is saying ‘if you don’t immediately say no, you're either considering the request, or considering using the request to your advantage, and neither of these are things we want you to do'. At least, in an ideal world, I would hope that's what it's trying to do.

That said, I agree, unless there's a specific reason for the difference in the wordings of these documents, it might be a good idea to get them more in line with each other.

I think the reference in the IPG to the more detailed explanation of the
MTR covers this. It's similar to CPV in that regard

2017-03-21 18:01 GMT-03:00 Alexey Chernyshov <

Originally posted by Bernie Hoelschen:

I think

Originally posted by Federico Verdini:

I think

Bernie, Federico, I'm sure you have the best intentions, but - when a judge asks a question like this, one that clearly needs an ‘O’fficial answer, please don't tell the whole community what you think. (Nothing personal, I'm just using your posts as examples for everyone's benefit.) Posting an opinion on a clear-cut question only increases the “signal-to-noise ratio” for several thousand other judges, esp. those searching the archives at a later date…

The MTR is more complete, and the IPG notes this in the text quoted by Alexey. Bribery and Wagering includes offering or accepting, but MTR 5.2 provides a more complete definition. While it might seem that repetition of the full definition in both places would be better, the drawback is having to maintain two separate blocks of text - and two (mostly unique) teams are responsible for the two documents. (IPG is the Judge Program's Policy Team; MTR is Wizards' Organized Play.)

d:^D