Would have been nice if it were one week earlier. Would have avoided him winning the invitational, and the question of whether or not the suspension was due to all the uproar, or if it would have happened anyway.
Would have been nice if it were one week earlier. Would have avoided him winning the invitational, and the question of whether or not the suspension was due to all the uproar, or if it would have happened anyway.
I don't know if anyone was actually paying attention until he took "Player of the Year". At that point, people were like, "Wait, we have a problem! AlexGate is legit!" It's not that people don't want him held accountable...Lord knows we do. But people love drama! This was a dramabomb, and we all enjoyed it.
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Having watched the video a dozen times i am convinced that the second Kira was indeed bounced and scroll was used to hit Alex because BOTH players then adjust the life totals DIRECTLY after that series of plays
sequence in the video
3.25 Vidi acivates Jace bouncing Kiri
3.28 Alex puts Kiri in his hand and Vidi acivate Scroll revealing 2nd Jace
3.32 Alex adjusts his life total
3.35 Vidi clearly writes 18 on his notepad. as Alex was on 20 thats pretty obvious that he targets Alex not the Kiri.
Nice try.
Vidi writes 8 under a series of other numbers because he cracks TWO fetches.
You can clearly see the 20 in the column next to the series of numbers in which vidi writes.
He's marking his own life loss, not Alex's supposed life loss. Scroll never targeted Alex.
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Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
Is cheating at a card game as serious as child molestation? No.
It is very serious in the realms of Magic The Gathering in general though. If you really want to know why go do research on professional baseball 1919 on the White Sox.
Cheating, betting on, and manipulating game results threatens the integrity of the game at its core. Enough so in the case of baseball that it came damn close to destroying the entire game. The hard core results they took in throwing the eight out of baseball forever and the emergence of Ruth as a superstar kept baseball from going under completely.
Why do you think gambling on baseball as an active participant is the deadly sin in baseball? You now no longer know which games results are legitimate, that's why. Same with point shaving in college basketball or not calling strokes on yourself in golf. In professional golf they can DQ players for NOT calling infractions they knowingly see as a spectator if it gets backs to the tour officials. It's a honor code thing.
People won't go play in a game they don't feel is square. If you highly suspect you are being cheated and that the game is fixed you stop playing it actively. That is a very, very dangerous trend to start. Having all your results tainted by the idea that someone gained an edge by circumventing the rules is deadly to anything competitive.
It enters the realms of ethics and integrity. As for the backlash to SCG in general...it's quite simple. If you have tournaments and they rise to the scale they have with the SCG Opens than you need to be able to police them better.
If you want to keep running thousand player tournaments than you need to get more volunteers or pay your fricking judges for their efforts. How much money do they make from the people playing in those tournaments? Bite the bullet and hire enough judges for them. Figure out how many tables a judge can reasonably watch and give him those tables (much like a waiter in a restaurant). He won't catch everything - but it's better than letting players "police the game themselves" because it saves you a few pennies. See cake and eating it too analogy.
That idea is fine when you are playing in a fifty player FNM tournament where the prizes are some packs and a promo card. It is NOT fine when you're giving out several thousand dollars for the top 8 finalists in a huge competition.
If you can't get enough judges than you scale back the size of your tournaments. Simple as that. If you can't catch everything and you constantly have cheating you can't police than you have too much going on.
Again - I'm not saying catch everything and be infallible - I'm saying have enough officials that you can reasonably catch the majority of things that are going on. If you have a referee watching four tables or six tables that are their assigned area instead of randomly waiting for a "Judge!" call you'll catch a lot more stuff going on. Take the Explore thing with Bertoncini. You have a guy with a camera watching the game and he notices something and mentions it. He's not even an official or judge.
If you're getting up into the top tables - have a ref for every two or three tables where more scrutiny is needed. You get the camera to go along with your officiating. It shouldn't be "uncomfortable" to have an official watching your game. That's what they are there for. To impartially catch things you might miss that are important to the rules.
You can concentrate on what you're doing instead of trying to keep track of fifty other things along with your game play. Did he draw four cards with that Brainstorm? How many cards are in his hand? How many land drops did he make? Did he handle the trigger on that correctly?
Crap...I haven't even gotten to what MY correct play should be because I'm concentrating on a hundred other minute details - I shouldn't have to in a square game because I know an official is doing it for me to some extent in the shadows and it'll keep my opponent on the level. See the scene in Clerks where Donte just leaves a sign up for the people buying coffee and newspapers in the morning that says leave proper change/take proper change - be honest. His rational is that people that see money lying around and no one there are suspicious and assume someone is watching - so they are honest through paranoia. If a judge is in your area are you more or less likely to cheat because he "might be watching or overhear you without you meaning to"?
That Alex have had to put up with alot of stupid rulings/opponents/judges over the years, and thus that what he does is more like responding to the system ?
Does Organized Play with its written rules-ducuments, and how it works in practise, appeal to gamesmanship and the right moral in players ?
Some people, me included, thinks that stuff like the Concession-rule is deliberately included to make the competition uneven amongst players, in favour of teams. And that the cover of "we cant check all matches" is just a cover-up explanation, since what, for the matter of tournament-placings that mean anything for the player-field in general, only includes a tiny few matches and such their possible deliberate scoops could be checked anyway (at least to a significant extent). (erm, the english didnt feel all good there, but hope the content carried through)
Do you THINK, upon this, that players feel entitled to even out the competition with whatever non-violent means available ?
How many players for instance get agitated when stuff like illegal main-deck Timely Reinforcements happen against their RDW, and only a game-loss is issued for a Game1 one counts on winning anyway (but likely loose after sideboarding). How much good stuff "intent" am I supposed to give the Rules and Judges on this one ? "Aww, maybe I should have thought of this already when considering what deck to play today, and such I myself am really responsible for the dangers I put muself up to. ? But hey, WotC have never said anything about RDW being any worse choice than other decks, so no, its NOT for me to blame." Then who to blame ? Opponent that just got ruled, the judge that did the ruling by the book ? Hmm, there must be something wrong behind all of this. In the rules...
Maybe the judges shouldnt take the "try-to-see-all-possible-cheats" approach in every single approach they do, because that in practise makes the judges blind.. When you approach a certain table pre-match how about taking into consideration what match-up we are talking about here, and do the 1 minute, 2 metre away from table, sift-through deck check looking for only key spells - (on top of the normal deck-checks judges do way too few of anyway).
Imo, there is much practicality/efficiency for the judges to fetch in connecting each individual floor-judge to a defined/named number of players during a tournament. Connect some "computer-pattern-made-seatings" to this and one can limit the "run all over the floor(s)" that judges otherwise might have to do. Judges can start planning their round.
Start looking for "content" and not "intent". "Intent" doesnt belong in sports, unless chairs are thrown and people are injured.
EDIT: yes Loomis, we have written some of the same ideas =).
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- This is, honestly, a grotesque advantage.
Noah Weil on scouting, an attorney from Seattle with 20 Pro Tour appearances.
It shouldn't be "uncomfortable" to have an official watching your game. That's what they are there for. To impartially catch things you might miss that are important to the rules.
I tend to not like having people hover over me when I'm concentrating on other things. I believe that there should be enough judges around to fit the need of the event, sure; plenty of times at some places I see people waiting for ridiculously long times after calling "Judge!". But you make this sound like the ONLY WAY to BE SURE that EVERY ONE IS PLAYING THE RIGHT WAY is to enforce some sort of MTG Police State.
Also, the rant about Baseball was nice and all, but was only barely related to the topic at hand. Comparing sports and Magic is awkward like that.
That Alex have had to put up with alot of stupid rulings/opponents/judges over the years, and thus that what he does is more like responding to the system ?
Does Organized Play with its written rules-ducuments, and how it works in practise, appeal to gamesmanship and the right moral in players ?
Some people, me included, thinks that stuff like the Concession-rule is deliberately included to make the competition uneven amongst players, in favour of teams. And that the cover of "we cant check all matches" is just a cover-up explanation, since what, for the matter of tournament-placings that mean anything for the player-field in general, only includes a tiny few matches and such their possible deliberate scoops could be checked anyway (at least to a significant extent). (erm, the english didnt feel all good there, but hope the content carried through)
All I got was you going on again about how much you dislike the concession rule for whatever silly reason and maybe some vague point about Alex's actions being a reaction to "The System", which sounds stupid quite frankly. I'm willing to hear this out though.
Do you THINK, upon this, that players feel entitled to even out the competition with whatever non-violent means available ?
How many players for instance get agitated when stuff like illegal main-deck Timely Reinforcements happen against their RDW, and only a game-loss is issued for a Game1 one counts on winning anyway (but likely loose after sideboarding). How much good stuff "intent" am I supposed to give the Rules and Judges on this one ? "Aww, maybe I should have thought of this already when considering what deck to play today, and such I myself am really responsible for the dangers I put muself up to. ? But hey, WotC have never said anything about RDW being any worse choice than other decks, so no, its NOT for me to blame." Then who to blame ? Opponent that just got ruled, the judge that did the ruling by the book ? Hmm, there must be something wrong behind all of this. In the rules...
I might be missing something here, but this seems like even worse drizzle than your opening. First of all, is there a specific incident or reference you're making with the Timely Reinforcements bit? If it was indeed illegal and you brought it up to a judge and they got a game loss, isn't that enough? It was caught, they were punished, game on. Secondly, if you lose the match up after that it's probably because it's a bad match up (for RDW, in this instance). I will say that after something like an illegal card in game 1, I'd be very careful in analyzing every move my opponent makes.
So, I'm taking this right now as some half-assed theory about how random stuff about competitive Magic is somehow capable of MAKING someone like Alex run the cheats. But it's not the game; it's the player. Plenty of people work hard at something and meet plenty of roadblocks and headaches and deal with it like adults. It takes a certain kind of weasel to start thinking of easy-outs like cheating instead of taking life's lumps like a man. So no, I don't THINK it's the game or the rules or things like the concession rules or judges or opponents. It's the PLAYER. It's the PLAYER'S CHOICE.
Maybe the judges shouldnt take the "try-to-see-all-possible-cheats" approach in every single approach they do, because that in practise makes the judges blind.. When you approach a certain table pre-match how about taking into consideration what match-up we are talking about here, and do the 1 minute, 2 metre away from table, sift-through deck check looking for only key spells - (on top of the normal deck-checks judges do way too few of anyway).
Can't be sure because I suspect there's some sort of language barrier going on here, but this sounds like expecting the judges to babysit each and every match up which is, of course, ludicrous.
Imo, there is much practicality/efficiency for the judges to fetch in connecting each individual floor-judge to a defined/named number of players during a tournament. Connect some "computer-pattern-made-seatings" to this and one can limit the "run all over the floor(s)" that judges otherwise might have to do. Judges can start planning their round.
Start looking for "content" and not "intent". "Intent" doesnt belong in sports, unless chairs are thrown and people are injured.
From what I understand, good CAPABLE judges are hard enough to find, let alone ones that can and will make it to any given event for whatever reason. Plenty of you may think it's simple enough for these guys to just pay judges, as if somehow that just makes them randomly appear. I'd like to see someone come with the numbers about paying these guys, though. What springs to my mind first is that most of them volunteer to do this on their free time FROM OTHER JOBS, and I doubt most any promoter can match a career salary for running events once in a while.
People are all looking for things to blame this on and who to demonize for it. SCG has egg on their face, sure. DCI has to deal with questions about how to better officiate their events, sure. At the end of the whole shebang, however, it starts with ONE person and the choices they made and their responsibilities.
I can use a poker analogy too in regards to cheating needing to be policed heavily.
Do you think poker as a game was healthier in the 1800's where your reputation and skill as a player was based on how well you could manipulate decks and cheat, in the 1950-late 70's Vegas era where it was controlled by the mob, or now...where it gets massive television coverage, there is a non-interested third party dealing cards, and any cheating in a Vegas casino is a criminal offense that can get you heavy prison time?
Do you think Magic is healthier now or back in the mid 90's when Long was finding cards in his lap and stooping on chairs and claiming it as a medical condition? Chapin did a very good analogy as to how the game is now compared to the wild, wild west days when cheating was profitable because it wasn't heavily policed by the judges. You did it because it was worth it.
I also never said it has to be heavily policed - I just said you need enough judges on staff to be able to handle the number of entries. You need judges that are assigned a given number of tables. People are far, far less likely to cheat when the official is standing three feet away. Isn't that why you have judges in the first place? The degree of officiating you have should go up when you start running tournaments the size that SCG runs and with the prizes that are on the line. There is more at stake and cheating is much more profitable. Like $10k and P9 profitable.
Do you need a lot of judges at smaller venues like FNM or States? No. Take tournament size and importance into account of course.
If you aren't doing anything shady or questionable, than having a judge wandering around the section they are assigned to "just in case they are needed" shouldn't bother you at all. In fact...the less they have to do with the tables they are watching the happier they are. As opposed to having to try and cover a large field of tables every time somebody calls for a "Judge!" and having to run all over the place. It takes time and effort to do it that way.
I do not want to push the "problem" with number of judges at events. I want to push the way they work;
Judges can have decklists with them during rounds, and an assigned group of players to check.
Judges can at any time budge in, take a players deck and sift through it, while game-play is still happening, count copies of (key-)cards etc.
(If it takes (more) time judges can even give the player the top deck card in his draw-phase.) Check deck while not altering sequence of it, OR make the rule that it has to be reshuffled when handing library back.
Remember, judge can already have counted copies of that all-important card in hand, gy, exile and field before picking library up.
Decklists with them during rounds:
- Decklists can be copied so the main-station doesnt have to give up the original ones, electronic solutions etc. There must be ways to make this much more convenient than it DOES sound for all of us MtGplayers who have played under the same system for years.
If they just look at new ways to do it with technology that doesnt cost much.
Its important for game-integrity that judges have the possibility of "jumping at players' cards/decks" at all times. Like now f.ex. no judges check limited decks during game2/3.
There are basic rules that helps this that arent enforced well enough imo, like no other cards than MD+SB cards on table etc. Judges/Organizers slack on not evaluating how a player appears as a whole, and then dont use that as a pointer of where to look (is what I suspect at least). They seem to only do pre-game checks and respond to judge-calls.
Judges must get a much higher cowboy/marshall-factor !
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- This is, honestly, a grotesque advantage.
Noah Weil on scouting, an attorney from Seattle with 20 Pro Tour appearances.
I do not want to push the "problem" with number of judges at events. I want to push the way they work;
Judges can have decklists with them during rounds, and an assigned group of players to check.
Judges can at any time budge in, take a players deck and sift through it, while game-play is still happening, count copies of (key-)cards etc.
(If it takes (more) time judges can even give the player the top deck card in his draw-phase.) Check deck while not altering sequence of it, OR make the rule that it has to be reshuffled when handing library back.
Remember, judge can already have counted copies of that all-important card in hand, gy, exile and field before picking library up.
Decklists with them during rounds:
- Decklists can be copied so the main-station doesnt have to give up the original ones, electronic solutions etc. There must be ways to make this much more convenient than it DOES sound for all of us MtGplayers who have played under the same system for years.
If they just look at new ways to do it with technology that doesnt cost much.
Its important for game-integrity that judges have the possibility of "jumping at players' cards/decks" at all times. Like now f.ex. no judges check limited decks during game2/3.
There are basic rules that helps this that arent enforced well enough imo, like no other cards than MD+SB cards on table etc. Judges/Organizers slack on not evaluating how a player appears as a whole, and then dont use that as a pointer of where to look (is what I suspect at least). They seem to only do pre-game checks and respond to judge-calls.
Judges must get a much higher cowboy/marshall-factor !
Not only this, but also this:
The feeling of a judge discerning your whole deck (and can do so at any time, undisclosed to others/opponent), is a feeling of being touched on the eye-ball. And when players get THAT feeling Im certain they will listen when the judge also comments that they shouldnt;
- use the mobile phone (so much) during game play.
- fondle with bags on floor (so much) during game play.
- have other cards on table during game play, even in boxes.
- have their GY and Exile zones "confused".
- etc
- etc
- etc
The "present-ness" of judges equals awareness in players, which in turn chops much of the forest the cheaters manufacture and hide behind.
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- This is, honestly, a grotesque advantage.
Noah Weil on scouting, an attorney from Seattle with 20 Pro Tour appearances.
I bet there are hundreds of tournament players thinking to themselves, "They're saying he was a good cheater? He got caught. No one even suspects me..."
I don't know what conclusions have been reach since I last read the thread but I skipped about 7 pages or more.
Alex Bertoncini's suspension is perfect. Anything more than 18 months and it would be too much for sloppy play that benefited him more than not. We can't prove his intentions were on purpose but we can prove that a pro player, ranked 1st in the world made a LOT of mistakes. Even that gets punished. Anything less than 18 months and the players of the world roar about how poorly it was handled.
He deserves this. I can't say he did or didn't cheat but I can say he helped the game. I know now to avoid SCG and I know now to inspect every player a little more than I use to. Thank you Alex Bertoncini.
EDIT
I scrolled back about 3 pages. I noticed people still talking "if" he should get suspended or "if" he should lose his prizes.
Is everyone aware that the DCI suspended him for 18 months and that SCG announced that they will not be revoking prize?
I understand SCG's stance on letting Alex keep his winnings as getting the prize back would have been extremely hard. But there are two points that I don't understand.
1. SCG was well aware of Alex's on video cheats a long time ago. In fact during the interview, Alex had said he was pulled aside by a SCG official confronting him about his shady on video plays and was told to clean it up. What I don't understand is why SCG didn't go directly to DCI after noticing the questionable plays on camera.
2. Drew Levin had notified the DCI way before the SCG invitationl about Alex's cheats. What I don't understand is why it took DCI so long to make a decision. In fact because of the timing, I don't think DCI would have done anything if Drew hadn't made this public.
Yeah that's the true conundrum, and why so many people are calling "scam" to SCG... They had previous complaints. They had video footage. They had proof of decklist "fraud." Why did they even let him TRY to go this far?
I don't see how this is feasible for large scale events like SCG or even Grand Prix. The logistics of this is a nightmare. How many judges for 400 players? 500? 2000? I'm sure SCG or Wizards would love to have a judge at every table, but if I was a judge, I wouldn't volunteer for this - I would want compensation if I have to babysit every single table, and providing compensation for what I would assume is 100+ judges for an average SCG even and 200-300 judges for a Grand Prix is ridiculous (imagine the fire codes you would be breaking by adding another group of people...or the expense of adding another room for people since you are gonna have much more people).
Why don't you run an event like this first and have the other tournament organizers follow suit?
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I understand SCG's stance on letting Alex keep his winnings as getting the prize back would have been extremely hard.
At the very least, they can permanently ban him from SCG events unless he gives it back.
But there are two points that I don't understand.
1. SCG was well aware of Alex's on video cheats a long time ago. In fact during the interview, Alex had said he was pulled aside by a SCG official confronting him about his shady on video plays and was told to clean it up. What I don't understand is why SCG didn't go directly to DCI after noticing the questionable plays on camera.
2. Drew Levin had notified the DCI way before the SCG invitationl about Alex's cheats. What I don't understand is why it took DCI so long to make a decision. In fact because of the timing, I don't think DCI would have done anything if Drew hadn't made this public.
Indeed, these are both concerning. We still don't know the whole truth here.
An important point that a lot of people miss, that I have come to believe in my experience of judging: the vast majority of errors are just that, errors. Cheating is in the minority of times when things in a game go off-script and something happens that shouldn't. This means that the correct assumption when approaching a game where something is wrong (for example, more lands have been played than should have been) is that this is an error. Actively suspecting everyone who makes a mistake of cheating would be a huge waste of time and resources.
It's not a defense really to say something like "but player X is pro and doesn't make mistakes!". I've been in enough feature match areas to know that technical / rules mistakes and just plum forgetting happen to everyone. Magic is a complicated game and when you're focussing on strategy then sometimes things slip by people - and I mean all people.
This is not saying that Alex Bertoncini didn't cheat. I don't know if he cheated or not, because I've never met the guy. I can see the videos where clearly he plays an additional land, or where he bounces a Kira that was due to die. But without being there and talking to the players, I don't know if those specific cases were accidental or intentional and that makes all the difference.
What is important is how this impact the judges working SCG's events (and I should distinguish that from SCG, because although SCG employ Jared Sylva and some other judges most of their staff are applicant judges unaffiliated with SCG). Most judges will not assume someone is cheating. They will apply reasonable professional scepticism to what is presented to them, but will not get the HJ involved or carry out a significant investigation unless there is good reason. If no judge is involved in the game (because the players don't call one and there doesn't happen to be one nearby), then we won't make any ruling at all.
tl;dr version: Judges do their best to catch cheaters, but most of our time is rightly spent correcting innocent mistakes.
P.S.: Getting angry at SCG because a cheater won their event and took their money is odd and a bit misdirected. They can't take the money back because, whilst the Judge programme and WotC only need reasonable suspicion to make a DQ and/or a suspension, the courts would require quite a lot more to force a citizen to give money back to a company that already gave it him. They don't really have a magic wand that would suck the money out of his pockets.
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That would be the benefit of giving judges areas to operate in. Okay...you get tables 1-6 since you're our most qualified judge and those are the most important tables this round.
During games that gives them an area to wander around in and...yes...they could stop and check decks randomly during game-play. Watching people playing and make sure things are square from a distance.
Do a quick deck check at the end of a turn after both players pass or something for thirty seconds and add that time back into the round if you need to. It'd only take a minute and I'd like to think it wouldn't be too intrusive.
You know though...avoiding logistics nightmares and occasionally allowing Alex's to slip through is fine too. You can't police everything and I understand that. Just trying to figure out a way that might be a little less taxing on the officiating crews.
Did SCG and the DCI really have advanced notice of this before the invitational and just kind of let it slide until they were damned by evidence to actually do something about it? If so...that really needs to be addressed as well...
I feel like 95% of the people posting over the last couple of pages do not have any idea why judges are there and what purpose they serve at tournaments.
P.S.: Getting angry at SCG because a cheater won their event and took their money is odd and a bit misdirected. They can't take the money back because, whilst the Judge programme and WotC only need reasonable suspicion to make a DQ and/or a suspension, the courts would require quite a lot more to force a citizen to give money back to a company that already gave it him. They don't really have a magic wand that would suck the money out of his pockets.
The story broke shortly before the invitational and SCG had some knowledge even before that. People are angry because they handed him the check/P9 despite that.
The allegations should have at least been enough for SCG to delay giving him the prizes for a week until the investigation concluded.
I do not want to push the "problem" with number of judges at events. I want to push the way they work;
Judges can have decklists with them during rounds, and an assigned group of players to check.
Judges can at any time budge in, take a players deck and sift through it, while game-play is still happening, count copies of (key-)cards etc.
(If it takes (more) time judges can even give the player the top deck card in his draw-phase.) Check deck while not altering sequence of it, OR make the rule that it has to be reshuffled when handing library back.
Remember, judge can already have counted copies of that all-important card in hand, gy, exile and field before picking library up.
Decklists with them during rounds:
- Decklists can be copied so the main-station doesnt have to give up the original ones, electronic solutions etc. There must be ways to make this much more convenient than it DOES sound for all of us MtGplayers who have played under the same system for years.
If they just look at new ways to do it with technology that doesnt cost much.
Its important for game-integrity that judges have the possibility of "jumping at players' cards/decks" at all times. Like now f.ex. no judges check limited decks during game2/3.
There are basic rules that helps this that arent enforced well enough imo, like no other cards than MD+SB cards on table etc. Judges/Organizers slack on not evaluating how a player appears as a whole, and then dont use that as a pointer of where to look (is what I suspect at least). They seem to only do pre-game checks and respond to judge-calls.
Judges must get a much higher cowboy/marshall-factor !
A lot of this comprises good suggestions - which is why we've been doing a lot of these things for years.
We already: do mid-round deck checks at competitive events; deck-check during Round 1 as well as the rest of the time; do random spot-checks on sideboards; watch tables that are at risk of bribery or other cheating; spot-check libraries which look to be marked or otherwise problematic; remind players to present their sideboard at the start of their match; keep tables clear; and assign specific teams of judges to cover specific areas of play.
This is in addition to a long list of other things that we have to get up to - a GP is a very complicated beast and almost nothing happens unless some judge somewhere makes it happen!
My personal favourite activity is the mid-round deck check (i.e. taking a deck check from a table about to start Game 2). Most of the time, we get a reaction along the lines of "But it's Game 2!".
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That would be the benefit of giving judges areas to operate in. Okay...you get tables 1-6 since you're our most qualified judge and those are the most important tables this round.
During games that gives them an area to wander around in and...yes...they could stop and check decks randomly during game-play. Watching people playing and make sure things are square from a distance.
Do a quick deck check at the end of a turn after both players pass or something for thirty seconds and add that time back into the round if you need to. It'd only take a minute and I'd like to think it wouldn't be too intrusive.
You know though...avoiding logistics nightmares and occasionally allowing Alex's to slip through is fine too. You can't police everything and I understand that. Just trying to figure out a way that might be a little less taxing on the officiating crews.
Did SCG and the DCI really have advanced notice of this before the invitational and just kind of let it slide until they were damned by evidence to actually do something about it? If so...that really needs to be addressed as well...
Deck checks take more than a minute, it takes a judge about 3-4 minutes to check an average deck, and more for legacy where you tend to have a lot more 1-offs and less 4 ofs.
The DCI has had advanced notice and I'm sure SCG did too. SCG didn't want to make a ruling that would be in opposition with the DCI's findings. The DCI dragged their asses and SCG's event was damaged because of it.
I really don't see how SCG benefits from "letting" Alex cheat nor how they benefit from going around the DCI.
I feel like 95% of the people posting over the last couple of pages do not have any idea why judges are there and what purpose they serve at tournaments.
In general 95% of people posting on MTGS have a weak grasp of Magic in general, to say nothing of tournament organization and rules enforcement.
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I don't know if anyone was actually paying attention until he took "Player of the Year". At that point, people were like, "Wait, we have a problem! AlexGate is legit!" It's not that people don't want him held accountable...Lord knows we do. But people love drama! This was a dramabomb, and we all enjoyed it.
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Nice try.
Vidi writes 8 under a series of other numbers because he cracks TWO fetches.
You can clearly see the 20 in the column next to the series of numbers in which vidi writes.
He's marking his own life loss, not Alex's supposed life loss. Scroll never targeted Alex.
It is very serious in the realms of Magic The Gathering in general though. If you really want to know why go do research on professional baseball 1919 on the White Sox.
Cheating, betting on, and manipulating game results threatens the integrity of the game at its core. Enough so in the case of baseball that it came damn close to destroying the entire game. The hard core results they took in throwing the eight out of baseball forever and the emergence of Ruth as a superstar kept baseball from going under completely.
Why do you think gambling on baseball as an active participant is the deadly sin in baseball? You now no longer know which games results are legitimate, that's why. Same with point shaving in college basketball or not calling strokes on yourself in golf. In professional golf they can DQ players for NOT calling infractions they knowingly see as a spectator if it gets backs to the tour officials. It's a honor code thing.
People won't go play in a game they don't feel is square. If you highly suspect you are being cheated and that the game is fixed you stop playing it actively. That is a very, very dangerous trend to start. Having all your results tainted by the idea that someone gained an edge by circumventing the rules is deadly to anything competitive.
It enters the realms of ethics and integrity. As for the backlash to SCG in general...it's quite simple. If you have tournaments and they rise to the scale they have with the SCG Opens than you need to be able to police them better.
If you want to keep running thousand player tournaments than you need to get more volunteers or pay your fricking judges for their efforts. How much money do they make from the people playing in those tournaments? Bite the bullet and hire enough judges for them. Figure out how many tables a judge can reasonably watch and give him those tables (much like a waiter in a restaurant). He won't catch everything - but it's better than letting players "police the game themselves" because it saves you a few pennies. See cake and eating it too analogy.
That idea is fine when you are playing in a fifty player FNM tournament where the prizes are some packs and a promo card. It is NOT fine when you're giving out several thousand dollars for the top 8 finalists in a huge competition.
If you can't get enough judges than you scale back the size of your tournaments. Simple as that. If you can't catch everything and you constantly have cheating you can't police than you have too much going on.
Again - I'm not saying catch everything and be infallible - I'm saying have enough officials that you can reasonably catch the majority of things that are going on. If you have a referee watching four tables or six tables that are their assigned area instead of randomly waiting for a "Judge!" call you'll catch a lot more stuff going on. Take the Explore thing with Bertoncini. You have a guy with a camera watching the game and he notices something and mentions it. He's not even an official or judge.
If you're getting up into the top tables - have a ref for every two or three tables where more scrutiny is needed. You get the camera to go along with your officiating. It shouldn't be "uncomfortable" to have an official watching your game. That's what they are there for. To impartially catch things you might miss that are important to the rules.
You can concentrate on what you're doing instead of trying to keep track of fifty other things along with your game play. Did he draw four cards with that Brainstorm? How many cards are in his hand? How many land drops did he make? Did he handle the trigger on that correctly?
Crap...I haven't even gotten to what MY correct play should be because I'm concentrating on a hundred other minute details - I shouldn't have to in a square game because I know an official is doing it for me to some extent in the shadows and it'll keep my opponent on the level. See the scene in Clerks where Donte just leaves a sign up for the people buying coffee and newspapers in the morning that says leave proper change/take proper change - be honest. His rational is that people that see money lying around and no one there are suspicious and assume someone is watching - so they are honest through paranoia. If a judge is in your area are you more or less likely to cheat because he "might be watching or overhear you without you meaning to"?
That Alex have had to put up with alot of stupid rulings/opponents/judges over the years, and thus that what he does is more like responding to the system ?
Does Organized Play with its written rules-ducuments, and how it works in practise, appeal to gamesmanship and the right moral in players ?
Some people, me included, thinks that stuff like the Concession-rule is deliberately included to make the competition uneven amongst players, in favour of teams. And that the cover of "we cant check all matches" is just a cover-up explanation, since what, for the matter of tournament-placings that mean anything for the player-field in general, only includes a tiny few matches and such their possible deliberate scoops could be checked anyway (at least to a significant extent). (erm, the english didnt feel all good there, but hope the content carried through)
Do you THINK, upon this, that players feel entitled to even out the competition with whatever non-violent means available ?
How many players for instance get agitated when stuff like illegal main-deck Timely Reinforcements happen against their RDW, and only a game-loss is issued for a Game1 one counts on winning anyway (but likely loose after sideboarding). How much good stuff "intent" am I supposed to give the Rules and Judges on this one ? "Aww, maybe I should have thought of this already when considering what deck to play today, and such I myself am really responsible for the dangers I put muself up to. ? But hey, WotC have never said anything about RDW being any worse choice than other decks, so no, its NOT for me to blame." Then who to blame ? Opponent that just got ruled, the judge that did the ruling by the book ? Hmm, there must be something wrong behind all of this. In the rules...
Maybe the judges shouldnt take the "try-to-see-all-possible-cheats" approach in every single approach they do, because that in practise makes the judges blind.. When you approach a certain table pre-match how about taking into consideration what match-up we are talking about here, and do the 1 minute, 2 metre away from table, sift-through deck check looking for only key spells - (on top of the normal deck-checks judges do way too few of anyway).
Imo, there is much practicality/efficiency for the judges to fetch in connecting each individual floor-judge to a defined/named number of players during a tournament. Connect some "computer-pattern-made-seatings" to this and one can limit the "run all over the floor(s)" that judges otherwise might have to do. Judges can start planning their round.
Start looking for "content" and not "intent". "Intent" doesnt belong in sports, unless chairs are thrown and people are injured.
EDIT: yes Loomis, we have written some of the same ideas =).
Noah Weil on scouting, an attorney from Seattle with 20 Pro Tour appearances.
I tend to not like having people hover over me when I'm concentrating on other things. I believe that there should be enough judges around to fit the need of the event, sure; plenty of times at some places I see people waiting for ridiculously long times after calling "Judge!". But you make this sound like the ONLY WAY to BE SURE that EVERY ONE IS PLAYING THE RIGHT WAY is to enforce some sort of MTG Police State.
Also, the rant about Baseball was nice and all, but was only barely related to the topic at hand. Comparing sports and Magic is awkward like that.
All I got was you going on again about how much you dislike the concession rule for whatever silly reason and maybe some vague point about Alex's actions being a reaction to "The System", which sounds stupid quite frankly. I'm willing to hear this out though.
I might be missing something here, but this seems like even worse drizzle than your opening. First of all, is there a specific incident or reference you're making with the Timely Reinforcements bit? If it was indeed illegal and you brought it up to a judge and they got a game loss, isn't that enough? It was caught, they were punished, game on. Secondly, if you lose the match up after that it's probably because it's a bad match up (for RDW, in this instance). I will say that after something like an illegal card in game 1, I'd be very careful in analyzing every move my opponent makes.
So, I'm taking this right now as some half-assed theory about how random stuff about competitive Magic is somehow capable of MAKING someone like Alex run the cheats. But it's not the game; it's the player. Plenty of people work hard at something and meet plenty of roadblocks and headaches and deal with it like adults. It takes a certain kind of weasel to start thinking of easy-outs like cheating instead of taking life's lumps like a man. So no, I don't THINK it's the game or the rules or things like the concession rules or judges or opponents. It's the PLAYER. It's the PLAYER'S CHOICE.
Can't be sure because I suspect there's some sort of language barrier going on here, but this sounds like expecting the judges to babysit each and every match up which is, of course, ludicrous.
From what I understand, good CAPABLE judges are hard enough to find, let alone ones that can and will make it to any given event for whatever reason. Plenty of you may think it's simple enough for these guys to just pay judges, as if somehow that just makes them randomly appear. I'd like to see someone come with the numbers about paying these guys, though. What springs to my mind first is that most of them volunteer to do this on their free time FROM OTHER JOBS, and I doubt most any promoter can match a career salary for running events once in a while.
People are all looking for things to blame this on and who to demonize for it. SCG has egg on their face, sure. DCI has to deal with questions about how to better officiate their events, sure. At the end of the whole shebang, however, it starts with ONE person and the choices they made and their responsibilities.
Do you think poker as a game was healthier in the 1800's where your reputation and skill as a player was based on how well you could manipulate decks and cheat, in the 1950-late 70's Vegas era where it was controlled by the mob, or now...where it gets massive television coverage, there is a non-interested third party dealing cards, and any cheating in a Vegas casino is a criminal offense that can get you heavy prison time?
Do you think Magic is healthier now or back in the mid 90's when Long was finding cards in his lap and stooping on chairs and claiming it as a medical condition? Chapin did a very good analogy as to how the game is now compared to the wild, wild west days when cheating was profitable because it wasn't heavily policed by the judges. You did it because it was worth it.
I also never said it has to be heavily policed - I just said you need enough judges on staff to be able to handle the number of entries. You need judges that are assigned a given number of tables. People are far, far less likely to cheat when the official is standing three feet away. Isn't that why you have judges in the first place? The degree of officiating you have should go up when you start running tournaments the size that SCG runs and with the prizes that are on the line. There is more at stake and cheating is much more profitable. Like $10k and P9 profitable.
Do you need a lot of judges at smaller venues like FNM or States? No. Take tournament size and importance into account of course.
If you aren't doing anything shady or questionable, than having a judge wandering around the section they are assigned to "just in case they are needed" shouldn't bother you at all. In fact...the less they have to do with the tables they are watching the happier they are. As opposed to having to try and cover a large field of tables every time somebody calls for a "Judge!" and having to run all over the place. It takes time and effort to do it that way.
so if this was a poll thread, would the concensus be that SCG made the right call?
Judges can have decklists with them during rounds, and an assigned group of players to check.
Judges can at any time budge in, take a players deck and sift through it, while game-play is still happening, count copies of (key-)cards etc.
(If it takes (more) time judges can even give the player the top deck card in his draw-phase.) Check deck while not altering sequence of it, OR make the rule that it has to be reshuffled when handing library back.
Remember, judge can already have counted copies of that all-important card in hand, gy, exile and field before picking library up.
Decklists with them during rounds:
- Decklists can be copied so the main-station doesnt have to give up the original ones, electronic solutions etc. There must be ways to make this much more convenient than it DOES sound for all of us MtGplayers who have played under the same system for years.
If they just look at new ways to do it with technology that doesnt cost much.
Its important for game-integrity that judges have the possibility of "jumping at players' cards/decks" at all times. Like now f.ex. no judges check limited decks during game2/3.
There are basic rules that helps this that arent enforced well enough imo, like no other cards than MD+SB cards on table etc. Judges/Organizers slack on not evaluating how a player appears as a whole, and then dont use that as a pointer of where to look (is what I suspect at least). They seem to only do pre-game checks and respond to judge-calls.
Judges must get a much higher cowboy/marshall-factor !
Noah Weil on scouting, an attorney from Seattle with 20 Pro Tour appearances.
Local MTGO played Battleship style on laptops. Doesn't that just sound hideous?
I would say most people think that SCG's decision to do nothing makes them look bad.
The feeling of a judge discerning your whole deck (and can do so at any time, undisclosed to others/opponent), is a feeling of being touched on the eye-ball. And when players get THAT feeling Im certain they will listen when the judge also comments that they shouldnt;
- use the mobile phone (so much) during game play.
- fondle with bags on floor (so much) during game play.
- have other cards on table during game play, even in boxes.
- have their GY and Exile zones "confused".
- etc
- etc
- etc
The "present-ness" of judges equals awareness in players, which in turn chops much of the forest the cheaters manufacture and hide behind.
Noah Weil on scouting, an attorney from Seattle with 20 Pro Tour appearances.
Alex Bertoncini's suspension is perfect. Anything more than 18 months and it would be too much for sloppy play that benefited him more than not. We can't prove his intentions were on purpose but we can prove that a pro player, ranked 1st in the world made a LOT of mistakes. Even that gets punished. Anything less than 18 months and the players of the world roar about how poorly it was handled.
He deserves this. I can't say he did or didn't cheat but I can say he helped the game. I know now to avoid SCG and I know now to inspect every player a little more than I use to. Thank you Alex Bertoncini.
EDIT
I scrolled back about 3 pages. I noticed people still talking "if" he should get suspended or "if" he should lose his prizes.
Is everyone aware that the DCI suspended him for 18 months and that SCG announced that they will not be revoking prize?
1. SCG was well aware of Alex's on video cheats a long time ago. In fact during the interview, Alex had said he was pulled aside by a SCG official confronting him about his shady on video plays and was told to clean it up. What I don't understand is why SCG didn't go directly to DCI after noticing the questionable plays on camera.
2. Drew Levin had notified the DCI way before the SCG invitationl about Alex's cheats. What I don't understand is why it took DCI so long to make a decision. In fact because of the timing, I don't think DCI would have done anything if Drew hadn't made this public.
I don't see how this is feasible for large scale events like SCG or even Grand Prix. The logistics of this is a nightmare. How many judges for 400 players? 500? 2000? I'm sure SCG or Wizards would love to have a judge at every table, but if I was a judge, I wouldn't volunteer for this - I would want compensation if I have to babysit every single table, and providing compensation for what I would assume is 100+ judges for an average SCG even and 200-300 judges for a Grand Prix is ridiculous (imagine the fire codes you would be breaking by adding another group of people...or the expense of adding another room for people since you are gonna have much more people).
Why don't you run an event like this first and have the other tournament organizers follow suit?
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At the very least, they can permanently ban him from SCG events unless he gives it back.
Indeed, these are both concerning. We still don't know the whole truth here.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
It's not a defense really to say something like "but player X is pro and doesn't make mistakes!". I've been in enough feature match areas to know that technical / rules mistakes and just plum forgetting happen to everyone. Magic is a complicated game and when you're focussing on strategy then sometimes things slip by people - and I mean all people.
This is not saying that Alex Bertoncini didn't cheat. I don't know if he cheated or not, because I've never met the guy. I can see the videos where clearly he plays an additional land, or where he bounces a Kira that was due to die. But without being there and talking to the players, I don't know if those specific cases were accidental or intentional and that makes all the difference.
What is important is how this impact the judges working SCG's events (and I should distinguish that from SCG, because although SCG employ Jared Sylva and some other judges most of their staff are applicant judges unaffiliated with SCG). Most judges will not assume someone is cheating. They will apply reasonable professional scepticism to what is presented to them, but will not get the HJ involved or carry out a significant investigation unless there is good reason. If no judge is involved in the game (because the players don't call one and there doesn't happen to be one nearby), then we won't make any ruling at all.
tl;dr version: Judges do their best to catch cheaters, but most of our time is rightly spent correcting innocent mistakes.
P.S.: Getting angry at SCG because a cheater won their event and took their money is odd and a bit misdirected. They can't take the money back because, whilst the Judge programme and WotC only need reasonable suspicion to make a DQ and/or a suspension, the courts would require quite a lot more to force a citizen to give money back to a company that already gave it him. They don't really have a magic wand that would suck the money out of his pockets.
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During games that gives them an area to wander around in and...yes...they could stop and check decks randomly during game-play. Watching people playing and make sure things are square from a distance.
Do a quick deck check at the end of a turn after both players pass or something for thirty seconds and add that time back into the round if you need to. It'd only take a minute and I'd like to think it wouldn't be too intrusive.
You know though...avoiding logistics nightmares and occasionally allowing Alex's to slip through is fine too. You can't police everything and I understand that. Just trying to figure out a way that might be a little less taxing on the officiating crews.
Did SCG and the DCI really have advanced notice of this before the invitational and just kind of let it slide until they were damned by evidence to actually do something about it? If so...that really needs to be addressed as well...
The story broke shortly before the invitational and SCG had some knowledge even before that. People are angry because they handed him the check/P9 despite that.
The allegations should have at least been enough for SCG to delay giving him the prizes for a week until the investigation concluded.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
A lot of this comprises good suggestions - which is why we've been doing a lot of these things for years.
We already: do mid-round deck checks at competitive events; deck-check during Round 1 as well as the rest of the time; do random spot-checks on sideboards; watch tables that are at risk of bribery or other cheating; spot-check libraries which look to be marked or otherwise problematic; remind players to present their sideboard at the start of their match; keep tables clear; and assign specific teams of judges to cover specific areas of play.
This is in addition to a long list of other things that we have to get up to - a GP is a very complicated beast and almost nothing happens unless some judge somewhere makes it happen!
My personal favourite activity is the mid-round deck check (i.e. taking a deck check from a table about to start Game 2). Most of the time, we get a reaction along the lines of "But it's Game 2!".
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That makes SCG look even worse.
SCG's stance is just fine. I won't be participating in their events anymore if I can help it but their stance is just fine.
Deck checks take more than a minute, it takes a judge about 3-4 minutes to check an average deck, and more for legacy where you tend to have a lot more 1-offs and less 4 ofs.
The DCI has had advanced notice and I'm sure SCG did too. SCG didn't want to make a ruling that would be in opposition with the DCI's findings. The DCI dragged their asses and SCG's event was damaged because of it.
I really don't see how SCG benefits from "letting" Alex cheat nor how they benefit from going around the DCI.
In general 95% of people posting on MTGS have a weak grasp of Magic in general, to say nothing of tournament organization and rules enforcement.