Subject: [ISSUE] Tournament Reporting and the Effects on DCI Ratings Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 21:23:23 -0400 From: ed@ebytes.com (E. Million) To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com I've been following this discussion since it cropped up on the Dojo and have finally been moved to post in it... As Bill Brown brought up in his post titled "DCI Fraud", there are a number of tournaments that never appear in the DCI Rankings Database. There are any number of possible explainations for this: a report being misplaced by the Organizer or the DCI, a tournament being invalidated for some reason by the DCI, or a Tournament Organizer simply not reporting it (to name a few)... What reason, you ask, might an Organizer have to do this? Well, the number one reason (and the worst one, I might add) brought up by people I have discussed this with is to manipulate and protect the DCI ratings of favored players so that they may qualify for Pro Tour events. Now by no means am I suggesting that all Tournament Organizers are corrupt, bad, or should have their ability to sanction tournaments stripped away. In fact, I'm almost certain that quite a number of Invalidated events are due to simple mistakes (such as a proper report not being turned in for an event that was cancelled). All that I am suggesting is that there are many opportunities for Tournament Organizers to abuse there positions, and there are a number of suspicious incedents that are shown by the DCI Ratings Database (with either the absence of tournaments or misreported/delenquent/invalidated tournaments). Let me give you a prime example of what I'm talking about... At Dragon*Con '98 (held September 3-6), David Doust was the Tournament Organizer of record for all of the Magic: the Gathering events. In the con's Gaming Schedule, there were 9 scheduled events over the 4 days of the con (one of them being a Rome PTQ). There were also many other sealed, draft, and possibly constructed events held that weren't listed in the con schedule (I know of at least 6 from the ones that my wife and I played in or witnessed as we played in other events). At the con, my wife and I played in two of the scheduled events, the Friday Standard tournament and the Saturday PTQ. I did fairly well in both events (3-1-1 in the Standard and 4-2 in the PTQ) and was looking forward to seeing their effects on my ratings. To my surprise, three weeks after the con, the PTQ showed up in the DCI Rankings Database but the Standard tournament did not. I did some further checking and found that EVERY SINGLE TOURNAMENT held by David Doust at the con was listed as Delinquent, with the exception of the Pro Tour Qualifier. Noting this, and being unable to reach David Doust for an explaination, I called and spoke at length with Jason Carl of the DCI about this situation... At the end of our conversation, he said he would contact David Doust to try and find out what happened to the other tournament reports and get them in before the 30 day deadline... Well, as of now the status of those events has not changed in the online database, and Jason Carl has not reponded to my followup email I sent him over a week ago (though I can only imagine the volume of email he must have to wade through). This is not the first time I have participated in an event run by David Doust that has never been reported. In 1997, a 32+ player Standard tournament the day before the SouthEast Regionals (in which I made it to the Semifinals) was never reported... I have also participated in several draft events that weren't reported. A number of other people I have spoken with have reported similar problems. Need more examples? Just think back to the whole Malaysia mess prior to Worlds... Better yet, go to the DCI Tournaments website and run a search on your State/Region (or even your City) for all events with an "Other" status and see how many of the resulting tournaments are Delenquent or Invalidated (especially any tournaments you participated in). That website URL is: http://events.wizards.com/dcitournament/default.asp There is an additional twist that can be thrown into all of this... There are a number of Judges/Organizers that are held in high regard by WotC, and have entered into agreements with WotC so that they may "Quick Sanction" events... In fact, this is what happens at many PTQs when you see the Sanctioned events that start as soon as 8 people sign up. Think about this for a moment, however. The DCI does not know about these events until the Organizer reports them. What happens if an Organizer misplaces the results, or simply does not report them to the DCI? All your efforts in that event are for naught, and the DCI is none the wiser. Why am I bringing this all out in the open? I'm doing it to illustrate why players must take a very active role in helping to clean up the DCI Ratings System... When you go to play in a tournament, use the DCI's website to make sure the tournament gets reported. If it does not show up, follow up with the Tournament Organizer and/or the DCI. Use every means at your disposal to insure that every tournament you participate in is reported, or the ratings system is a total sham (not that it's by any means perfect now)... The DCI has the means in place to police these things, but only if we (the players) take an active role in monitoring the events we participate in and make the DCI aware of the problems we see... Regards, Edwin Million -- Edwin Million ed@ebytes.com Ebytes Institute of Magic http://www.ebytes.net/magic/