Subject: Response to Dave Bryant's US Open report Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 22:54:17 -0400 From: "Barbara J. Allison" To: Lately, a lot of articles about cheating on the Pro Tour have been floating around The Dojo. Many of them talked about Mike Long, and other well-known cheaters. After I read Dave Bryant's report of the US Open at Origins, it became clear to me that players who have a reputation of cheating are being spoken of the most harshly in these articles. One thing that I would like to bring to light in this article is the sheer number of players who are not well-known for cheating on the Pro Tour that have also given in to immoral play. In Dave Bryant's report, he describes how Mike Flores literally stole a game win from him by lying about an illegal play on Dave's part. When I saw the name "Mike Flores", I remembered an incident that occurred when I played against him in NYC regionals this May. It was my main phase, and I had just attacked with a Spike Feeder and Bottle Gnomes, both having been Corpse Danced with buyback. I said. "Done. At the end of my turn, sac the Gnomes and Feeder." This way obviously a slightly informal way of saying "I advance to my cleanup phase, remove the counters from my feeder, sacrifice the gnomes, and end my turn." However, Mike Flores insisted that even though I made a single statement that sufficiently explained all of the effects that I was attempting, the Gnomes and Feeder should be removed from the game and I should gain no life because the "done" part of my statement immediately preceeded the "sac the gnomes and feeder" part. A head judge was called over, and Mike's explanation of the circumstances altered my quote by making it sound like I ended my turn, forgetting about the Gnomes and Feeder, and then tried to back up and bury them before they were removed. Even though a judge shouldn't have been called in the first place, I am confident that the judge would have ruled in my favor if he were correctly informed, for two reasons: 1) My saying "done" as I did it was clearly simply an explanation that I was putting off sacrificing the creatures until the last opportunity. 2) Even if Mike wanted to get technical, none of my statement "Done I sac the feeder and gnomes" was technical at all, and therefore declared nothing. Therefore, I should have been asked to back up, and clearly explain each of my actions one at a time. In my eyes, lying to the judge about how I said what I did exhibits the same attitude on Mike Flores' part as what Mike did to Dave Bryant (Dave's full article should still be in the Nationals reports section). >From the impression that I had of Mike Flores when I played him at regionals, he was not a player with a reputation of "cheating". But he was still willing to misrepresent circumstances to the judge at regionals, and lie to a judge about an illegal play at the US open. In both situations, the judge took Mike Flores' word over his opponent's. I would like to stress the fact that lying to a judge is just as bad as playing with a Cadaverous Bloom in one's lap, and if one player should be looked down upon for doing one thing, then all players who do equally unethical things should not be overlooked. Mike Flores has obviously gone through great efforts to build up a reputation as a sportsmanlike and ethical player just so he can take advantage of his opponents, and the process of calling over a judge to settle rules disputes. If we, as a magic-playing community and are to try to discourage cheating by revealing it on the individual level, we must not disillusion ourselves by using a preconceived list of "good guys" and "bad guys". That's about all. If anyone reading this agrees, disagrees, or in any other way cares about this article, they can email me at allisonb@digital-marketplace.net. - Raphael Zimmerman