Subject: Slander, Powell vs Pacifico, and DOJO integrity Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 11:37:23 -0500 From: bcowley@gdys.com To: Frank I rarely write anything other than tourney reports but I recently read an article that really distressed me. I love the DOJO and what you have done for Magic, but I think you need to start practicing some "journalistic integrity". Why post articles that are based solely on speculation, hearsay, and conjecture? Sure it is OK that you post articles on Mike Long and the Cad Bloom incident, because it was a fact that he was caught with the Bloom in his lap (whether he was actually cheating is then left up to everyone else to decide based on the facts given them) ... HOWEVER, articles like the one written by Jason Powell are pure speculation and all they do is tarnish a mans reputation without providing any proof other than "I saw him do this"- which any one of us could claim. Before I go into detail on his post, let me first state that I have NEVER met Andrew Pacifico. I know him only through his DOJO posts, and I saw him play once before in the semi's of a PTQ in which he lost to a friend of mine. In Powell's letter that you posted on the DOJO he basically accuses Pacifico of cheating... which is where it really starts getting hazy. Let me go through his article and then maybe someone else can explain to me what the heck Powell was thinking about when he wrote it... ----------- Powell writing: ---------- Here is my recollection of the event. Since this was a sealed deck tournament, I was waiting to get my sealed deck to register it, when, lo and behold, Andrew Pacifico sits beside me. Well after decks are passed out and I register mine, I ask Mr. Pacifico what he thinks about it. He says it is so-so with a couple good cards and no broken cards. So while I am sitting around waiting for them to collect the decks back up, I see Andrew doing something very strange with his cards. I notice that he is palming the rare cards from his sealed deck, and changing them with another deck that he just HAPPENED to have with him. I saw him do this with all the rares in the deck, before it was registered. Now, I felt that I should report this to the judge, but before I had the chance to tell them, I saw him give the cards to his friend and say "Here, will you put these in your folder. I just traded for them. " ----------- OK I am just wondering, does MR Powell understand how sealed deck PTQ's work? For starters, there is a 20% chance that you get your own deck back. SO why the heck would Pacifico mess with his deck prior to getting it back? You could only come up with a few reasons: 1- the rares were amazing, and maybe he wanted to keep them for trade 2- the rares sucked and he wanted to replace them with good ones either way he would be playing very poor odds. if he replaced bad rares with good ones, he is still taking an 80% chance that he will not get that deck back and instead would have given someone else his deck with good rares. if he assumed he wasn't going to get his deck back, so took out good rares and replaced with bad ones, well there is still a 20% chance that he would get his deck back which would totally screw him over. i seriously doubt that he would replace ALL 5 RARES though which is really the bizarre part of Mr Powell's accusation. when have you ever received a pack where all 5 rares were good? I could see maybe replacing a cursed scroll for something but all 5 rares? usually you are talking cursed scroll, precognition, and energizer so why replace all 5 rares? this makes no sense. the bottom line is that if pacifico wanted to cheat, DURING DECK REGISTRATION is really the WORST time for him to do so!!!!! anyone should realize this. --------------- So I go and tell the Head Judge what I saw happen and he goes and looks through Andrew's deck. He says there is no way to prove what happened unless somebody else also saw this occur. So I told him that I know one of the rares that he switched in and asked if that could help. He said he would look through Mr.Pacifico's deck and see if it was there, and, there it was. The judge came back to me and said that unless I can get another witness, the only thing he could do is let him use that same deck. So I say sure and try to find somebody else, but nobody else saw anything that happened so I was forced to just sit there and do nothing even though Mr. Pacifico had cheated. I don't know if there is anything else that I can do. ---------------- OK now this gets confusing as well. Are you saying that AFTER registration pacifico got his deck back? well switching the rares would do no good afterwards because the deck had already been registered!!!! it's not like he could cross out his old rares and pencil in the new ones. the fact is that without any other witnesses this whole accusation is hearsay- MR Powell's word against Pacificos. why should i believe either one over the other? Frank while the majority of the time I think you do a great service for the magic community, i think you should impose at least a modicum of "journalistic" integrity and stop printing slanderous accusations that really can only hurt those accused. ------------ Jason Powell Level II DCI Judge ------------ Mr Powell I am sure you saw something that looked maybe like pacifico was swapping cards but i seriously doubt he was. all you have done is slander his name which without any other evidence i don't think you should have posted your letter to the Dojo. Thanks, bruce cowley