The new penalty guidelines form an impressive document. Obviously the author had the best intentions in mind, and I believe he did a very good job. However the collusion rules are by their very nature much harder to construct than the other rules. Consider that the majority of rules are either for deck errors (such as misresgistering a deck), or are in a duel and are infractions that work to the disadvantage of the opponent. In the first case, the errors can be caught by judges, and the infractions are clearly identified. In the latter case, there is someone who is motivated to catch the errors, and is in the correct location to find them. However collusion rules are less clear. I believe that for collusion rules to work, the rules should point out who are the actors, and who the victims are. For example, if I let everyone know that in my next draft I will force blue, am I rigging a draft by agreeing in advance on what colors I will play? I think this is rather hard to determine. With whom am I making an agreement, and to what end? Certainly it is possible that this will work to my advantage (because my neighbors might be scared away from blue...), but is what the rule intends? I have a teammate (Mike Turian) who I believe has a strong tendancy to draft green. For example, he drafted a Rootwalla over a Fireslinger at PT NY. I consider this a very bizarre decision, and one that shows he has an extreme green bias. Am I colluding if I decide in advance not to draft green when I sit next to him? If not, what is it that serperates this from an agreement on colors? Surely Mike must know that I don't want to draft green when I sit next to him, but then he knows the same thing about other players who are not teammates. I simply don't see enough text to determine whether or not I am cheating. Unless the rules are specific enough so I can determine whether my actions are legal or not, I don't understand how the rules can possibly change my behavior. At a very recent tournament (GP Boston), I had a very disturbing incident. The game had reached a point where I was definitely going to lose in two turns, and had more than thirty minutes left to play. In my mind this game was a completely lost cause. My opponent sacrificed a thrull surgeon, and targeted me with the discard effect. This would allow him to view my hand. Since it was possible I would play the same person later in the day, I wanted to concede the game. I got the attention of a judge and told her I wanted to concede the game. She asked the game score of the match, and when I told her I would lose the match if I lost this game, she refused my request. I asked to have the head judge come and rule on this. The head judge did not dispute that the game was lost, and would be definitely to my disadvantage to let my opponent view my hand, but still refused to let me concede. I think it is worth noting that this is a level IV judge, and I was appealing to his discretion -- his understanding that the point of the collusion rules is to stop people from colluding! Obviously I was not colluding with my opponent, and yet still the judge ruled against me. I think it is obvious that if a level IV judge is going to interpret the rules in this manner, something should be changed. In general, I think the whole idea behind "call over a judge and ask if you can concede" is very very flawed. Rules should be engineered to work to the advantage of the honest players, not the cheaters. Clearly someone with the intent of throwing a game to help his opponent is NOT going to call over a judge! This is what makes collusion rules more difficult ; most good players are better at determining if their opponent is cheating than most good judges. However with collusion rules judges are asked to find the cheaters. In this case the judges are supposed to find people who are cheating by not getting the attention of the judge. On the other hand, honest players are forced to call over a judge (already there is a flaw ; the first purpose of concession is to save time, here one must wait for a judge), then risk having the judge decide "no you can not concede". What is the purpose of any of this? I believe this was a worthwhile experiment, but should now stricken from the rules. Penalty guidelines are a major project, and one should expect to have certain aspects not work as intended. In this case the more difficult anti collusion rules simply don't work well. However there is no reason to reduce the integrity of the rest of the well written document by leaving in this flaw ; flawed rules lead people to start disregarding the rules, that is a very dangerous path. Overall I am very happy with the new guidelines. Having the penalties clearly written out is a huge benefit to tournament play. I especially like the idea of having different penalties for different levels of tournament play ; there is no reason to give people at a pro tour event the same tolerance for errors as first time players at a store event. I also believe there is a strong motivation to have the known problems with the document quickly edited, or removed. Erik Lauer Team CMU |
Subject: New Penalty Guidelines
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 15:14:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: Erik Lauer