To what length is a player allowed to go to intentionally upset his or her opponent?

We've established that a player is allowed to lie about the cards in his hand- especially when he thinks that doing so will put his opponent on tilt. To some extent, we allow players to needle other players to some extent. For example, we probably allow Player A whose opponent, Player B, is starting to get upset about drawing a bunch of lands to comment on it in order to put his opponent on tilt. I couldn't envision a judge intervening when Player A says “The top 3 cards of your library are all lands.”

“What is the absolute most I'm allowed to do in order to upset my opponent or otherwise make him or her uncomfortable so that he or she will play poorly?”

Edited William Anderson (March 4, 2014 02:23:51 AM)

I believe the answer you are looking for is “there is no hard line,” and you just need to apply USC Minor as you feel appropriate in this regard.

Even if we wanted to articulate a hard line, I don't think its possible to do. There's no objective linear scale we can use - each person has their own pet peeves.

Simple exercise: Which of these messes with opponents more?

- Flicking the cards in hand loudly so that they can't concentrate as well.
- Putting lands-in-front so they don't have the cues they're accustomed to for processing combat math.

There's no uniform, coherent answer, and therefore no way to draw a definitive line.

Sections 4 of the MIPG and 5.4 of the MTR define what behavior or actions are considered unsporting conduct as oppose to just lack of sporting conduct.

There are countless things I imagine a player can do to deliberately upset their opponents. It will be up to you to determine whether something falls under USC according to the documents.

There is no hard limit between “allowed” and “USC-Minor”. You should use your best judgement :)

And while a bit of “trash-talking” can be permitted, a player who constantly engages on this behaviour should be Cautioned and probably USC-Minor if continues. I don't think we can really allow that. Tournaments could easily get ruined for things like this.

Originally posted by Joshua Feingold:

I believe the answer you are looking for is “there is no hard line,” and you just need to apply USC Minor as you feel appropriate in this regard.

What Josh said, basically. Taunting an opponent for making a bad play is a USC Minor example. Unlike William, I absolutely could see myself intervening for “your next 3 cards are lands”, even if only to say, in the Irish way, “there'll be less of that now please”.

While it's hard to describe a hard line, your example certainly fits the definition of USC minor.

Originally posted by IPG:

A player takes action that is disruptive to the tournament or its participants. It may affect the comfort level of those around the individual, but determining whether this is the case is not required.

William Anderson
For example, we probably allow Player A whose opponent, Player B, is starting to get upset about drawing a bunch of lands to comment on it in order to put his opponent on tilt.

This is clearly disruptive to player A. If player A goes on tilt, it will certainly affect his comfort level. So it's not unreasonable to give the penalty here.

However, giving the formal warning should not be the first priority. Make sure the situation doesn't escalate because a player is tilting, and also make sure the situation is not escalating because a player is taunting.

In many cases, the worst trashtalk happens between friends and teammates, making it even harder to spot someone being genuinely upset about this. Take into account the age (difference) of the players, the experience in tournaments, the current round, whether the players know each other, the current game score and the current match records of both players when de-escalating the situation.

If a player routinely trashtalks to all his opponents, have a chat with him in private. Even if he never crosses the line, it won't hurt to tell him that his behavior is not unsporting, it certainly won't make him friends and will hurt him in the long run. That approach might not work for / with everyone, but in many cases, it will help in the long run.

A player is actively taking actions that are directly effecting the comfort level of those around him, while a bit of “good natured smack talk” is mostly OK continues smack talk that could be upsetting the opponent is not. Yes that line is a little blurry but I think having stricter towards the player who might be upsetting is better than having a player who might not show there upset going away having a horrid event due to it.

Related question: Is a player allowed to call for a table judge to watch for USC-Minor? In particular, if a player has negative past history with another player at the same event and the 2 players get paired against one another, to what extent are we able/allowed to protect the one player against these sorts of situations?

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

Is a player allowed to call for a table judge to watch for USC-Minor?

We can always try to accommodate such requests, if we have sufficient staff to do so without neglecting other duties. And, after all, since we definitely prefer an environment that feels friendly, fun, and SAFE, it seems like a reasonable request.

I will nitpick, however, about the term “table judge” - no such thing. But I don't think that's the crux of your question, so we'll just gloss over that! :)

d:^D

I had a strange situation show up at the last PTQ I had judged here in Indianapolis.

Two players begin the game antagonistic towards each other. The antagonism slowly escalated through the entire course of the match. They had called another judge for small minor infractions on the other players such as incorrect shuffling or looking at extra cards during shuffling. Each player was choosing to escalate the problem rather than stopping it or slowing it or talking to a judge about it. As the head judge I was finally called over when one player refused to sign the match slip sort of demanding that a penalty be held on the other player without directly asking for a penalty to be assigned.

At this point I chose to interview them separately to see if there was a more serious infraction involved. I spoke with all the players on the neighboring matches and while the play was somewhat disruptive it didn't prevent them from completing their matches. Moreover each player did not use excessive profanity, vulgarity, racial slurs, or anything else that might lean me towards looking for a disqualification.

In the end I ended up giving them each a USC minor warning. I limited my investigation to under 10 minutes since it was the end of the match and we were trying to head into top eight. Oddly enough neither player was going to be ending up in the top eight but they were in contention for top 16 prizes.

At the end of the day I feel like I took an adequate amount of time if anything too much time in deciding to simply settle on minors for these players. But I would rather have spent the time being thorough to be sure that the players well being disruptive with each other did not damage the integrity of the event nor cause any serious problems for other players.

It was totally a judgment call, and I'm not sure if I made the right call, but I made the call that I made at the time. What is really important as I found no grounds to disqualify the players and their behavior fit perfectly the examples and methods given in the USC minor warning penalty.

It was truly a surreal experience that I did not expect any tournament, let alone a pro tour qualifier.

Sorry for reviving a days-old thread. Just had some thoughts while browsing ye olde board of messages :)

There's occasionally a bit of “salty” attitude at PTQs - particularly later in the evening as the event reaches its end. I've found that reminding the players “nothing good can come from arguing with each other” or asking them to “let it go and move on” is enough to get them to stop. The rules provide for a method of intervening in a situation without issuing a tracked penalty (Cautions.) A gentle reminder that a certain behavior is undesirable is my preferred approach. Now, if they've outright insulted their opponent, then we've crossed the line.

Edited Sean Stackhouse (March 6, 2014 03:51:08 PM)