In the last part of this article, I talked about all the pre-event preparation that went into head judging this event. From organizing judge teams to going over floor plans, I cannot stress the importance of preparation enough. Today, we will look at some of the issues I had to deal with during the actual event itself.

Day 1 Tournament Highlights

As we got round 1 started, I noticed that the result slips were not being passed out in a timely manner. I had five judges responsible for passing out the result slips and it took about fifteen minutes to deliver them to all of the tables. I found Joey Harris, the result slips team leader, and asked him about the problem. Since Joey and I have worked together extensively in the past, our lines of communication remain courteous, efficient, and honest. He immediately told me that the paper cutter was not cooperating and therefore slowing down the process of cutting the slips. He said he was correcting the situation. I was relieved when I heard it. I had a very upset player receiving a match loss for sitting at the wrong table, who felt that he couldn’t confirm where he was sitting because he didn’t get the result slip. Of course, I cut off that argument immediately, and informed him that the result slip is just one tool a player can use to verify his correct seat at an event (the pairings board and his opponent are other tools). Ultimately, it was his responsibility. To be fair, I felt that some of his argument had merit, as the slips should have been passed out much faster.

When we started round 2, I noticed the same delay of about fifteen minutes again. This time, I observed that some people on the result slips team took rulings as they handed out the slips, thus delaying the whole process. I told Joey (and his team members) that if a player asked them for a rulings question to politely redirect him or her to another judge (preferably one on the pairings team). This tactic helped somewhat, but the thing that really did the trick was Simon Choy taking the initiative and showing the results slip team how to form an “assembly line” to cut the slips and pass them out in the most efficient manner. Thanks to Simon’s kind advice, I had no more significant delays in getting those slips out in a timely manner.

Due to the popularity of Zombie decks, the continuous spell card Card of Safe Return saw lots of play at this event. Unfortunately, about a third of the players running it had no clue what the term “optional trigger effect” meant. I personally fielded questions about exactly when and in what situation a player could use it to draw a card, and I’m sure all my floor judges had similar questions throughout the event.

One player in round 4 actually committed the infraction “Drawing Cards-Drawing Extra Cards” (and receiving a game loss) because he did not understand how that card worked. As I recall, Frank Debrito was the floor judge who took the call, and as I understand, the player with Card of Safe Return had chained his Call of the Haunted to get back Jinzo since his opponent had tribute summoned for Mobius the Frost Monarch to destroy both of those cards. The player was under the impression that he could draw even though his continuous cards were getting destroyed, and unfortunately for him, as soon as the whole chain resolved (and Card of Safe Return and Call of the Haunted were destroyed), he actually drew a card, and then shuffled his hand immediately. The player appealed Frank’s call for a game loss, and I arrived on the scene. After a brief explanation, I upheld Frank’s ruling and could only hope that the player now better understood the mechanics of the card.

“D.D. Survivor can come back when?!”

This thread in the OP forums had a lot of confused players coming up to the judges for clarification. I had tons of questions from players regarding this card, and I was extremely thankful that I had highlighted D.D. Survivor in my judge packet as a card that the whole staff needed to be familiar with. So while I did get a lot of questions regarding this card, I can confidently say that the staff was well equipped to handle them.

(At this point, I would like to thank Chris Goff for bringing the above thread to my attention the Thursday night before the event. It definitely is comforting to know that I have quality individuals watching my back before, during, and after the event.)

One spectator created significant problems during round 4. He was watching his son’s match and acting loud, vulgar, and disruptive. I initially came over to that table to handle an appeal, and upheld a ruling that was not favorable (in terms of game play) to the spectator’s son. He gave me his opinion on how I ruled, and I politely listened to his ranting for about a minute, then deftly excused myself back to the judges’ station.

Ten minutes later, Simon Choy told me that he needed my assistance in dealing with the spectator. Apparently, he was continuing to shout and use profanity. Another floor judge, Paul Fahy, asked him to please stop with the language since there were children in the area (including the spectator’s own nine-year-old son). The spectator proceeded to give Paul attitude, and when Simon went to intervene, he raised his voice to Simon.

Simon calmly asked the spectator to please moderate his voice and tone, to which the spectator replied, “I’m not yelling, this is a normal tone for me, you do not want to see me yell.” At this point, since it was obvious that this kind of person couldn’t be rationally dealt with, Simon came and got me.

Knowing that I was walking into a potentially volatile situation, I asked my TO, Matt Villamaino, to accompany me: it would be prudent to have someone on staff to act as an eyewitness if things turned unpleasant. I asked the spectator if I could speak to him alone, and he complied. When we were far away enough from the crowd, I attempted to tell him that his behavior was causing a disruption at my event. He interrupted me and started to complain how the judges did not know what they were doing. I tried to assert myself again and get a word in, but continued his tirade.

At this point, I shifted gears, and I calmly looked at him and said, “You know sir, I don’t want to interrupt you, so please go ahead and finish what you have to say so we won’t have to talk over each other.”

He looked at me threateningly and said, “You’d better not be patronizing me.”

I responded with, “Of course not sir, please continue with what you have to say.”

He pretty much just ranted illogically on how unfair the judges were treating him and his son, and could not see how his behavior was causing a disruption. After about two minutes of this, I felt his arguments were not constructive, so I told him that if he continued to be disrespectful to the judging staff, he would have to leave.

He didn’t like what I said, and proceeded to step closer towards me. At this point, I politely asked him to step back from me. He replied by saying, “Hey, I’m already standing the legal three feet away from you!”

He started into his rant again. I realized that this individual could not be reasoned with and told him that he would have to leave. He demanded that I give him a refund for his son, since if he left, his son would have to go with him. I told him I would have to check with my organizer, which made him very angry. He demanded that I give him the refund when Matt Villamaino stepped in and said, “The head judge cannot make that decision, but I can. Let me confer with the head judge here in private and we will be right back.”

After Matt and I left the spectator, Matt decided that the best thing to do would be to call hotel security and escort the man out of the event hall. Security arrived and the man complied, but he refused to leave the hotel completely and adopted a belligerent attitude toward hotel security as well. They called the police, and the man was forced to leave the hotel premises. Fortunately, the spectator had some friends in the event hall who could stay with his son, so the child could continue playing in the event.

“I was angry, that’s why I crumpled his cards and threw them in his face”

Between rounds 5 and 6, some players claimed that they witnessed another player getting into an argument and destroying someone’s cards. We tracked down the offending player in question, and I asked if it was true. The player looked me straight in the eye and told me that it was. Apparently, he had some sort of misunderstanding with his opponent, which led to an argument, which led to him grabbing the other player’s cards (two copies of D. D. Assailant), crumpling them up, and throwing them at the player’s face.

It was pretty much cut and dried from there. I wanted to make sure that he understood that what he did was most definitely unacceptable behavior in a tournament. He accepted what I said, and was very compliant and remorseful when I disqualified him for severe unsporting conduct.

Normally, if a player receives a disqualification for severe unsporting conduct, I have him or her removed from the tournament site. In this case, since the player cooperated and I sensed genuine regret in his tone, I allowed him to stay in the event hall. For the rest of the weekend, he did not create a single disturbance that I was aware of.

During round 6, a floor judge came up to me with a ruling he wanted clarified. Apparently, at table 13, the turn player had declared an attack with his Cyber Phoenix against his opponent’s Card Trooper. In response, the opponent activated Dimension Wall, and the turn player then chained with Phoenix Wing Wind Blast (targeting the opponent’s Card Trooper). Resolving the chain was easy enough, but it still left a question: since a replay had occurred, was Dimension Wall’s effect still active, or could the turn player attack with his Cyber Phoenix without worrying about losing 1200 of his life points?

I wasn’t really sure, and since time was of the essence, I decided to call for help. I got a hold of Dan Scheidegger, who graciously took time out of his personal schedule to help me with this ruling (this was a Saturday after all). After some consulting, we decided that the replay was a different battle than the one affected by Dimension Wall. Thus, in this case, Dimension Wall’s effect no longer applied, and if the turn player used his replay to attack with his Cyber Phoenix, he could do so without worrying about Dimension Wall. This whole process took about ten minutes.

I walked over to table 13, and the players had scooped up their cards! Apparently, they grew tired of waiting, and one player (the Dimension Wall player) was able to convince his opponent that he (the Cyber Phoenix player) would have lost anyway, regardless of how the ruling turned out. Since I was there, I told the players how I would have ruled it. I also told them that for future reference, if a judge is confirming a ruling, they should wait for the decision before continuing play. The losing player started to get upset, and refused to sign the match result slip.

While I was irritated that neither player decided to wait for the ruling, I was not going to take it out on either of them. To do so would have been excessive and wrong. I gauged the losing player’s demeanor: he was angry, but trying to get it under control. He didn’t shout or otherwise behave in an obnoxious manner. I felt that I should at least try to reason with him before I started to issue penalties for unsporting conduct.

In a nutshell, I told him that he must be a good player to make it to table 13 by round 6. I then told him that it would be a waste of his time and talent if he suffered a penalty for refusing to sign the slip. I tried to make him realize that he had nothing to gain by getting so angry. In the end (and it really didn’t take that long), he signed the result slip. I was just happy that we could defuse a potentially nasty situation.

I dealt with a number of appeals on Day 1, none of which I saw coming. They were rulings I assumed would be apparent to all competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! players who participate in events like this one. Here are some examples:

• One player thought that since his Banisher of the Radiance was out on the field, his opponent could not activate the effect of Exiled Force.

• Another player begged me to look up the supposed errata on Destiny Hero - Malicious that states he is a multi-trigger effect. I told him no.

• A player tried to convince me that tokens should not count as monster cards (he had Ojama tokens on his side of the field, and was taking a Secret Barrel to the teeth).

• A player was getting attacked by a swarm of monsters, and so activated Mirror Force to protect herself. Her opponent chained with Call of the Haunted (targeting Jinzo), which she felt was irrelevant. She claimed that her Mirror Force should still work since it was properly activated. She looked very betrayed when I explained how Jinzo’s continuous effect works in situations like this one.

During the first half of the event, I took appeals in the way that I normally do: I make sure the judge privately tells me the scenario, then I go up to the players and reiterate the scenario as I understand it. I then make my ruling, and briefly take the time to explain to the players why I ruled that way.

Towards the last half of the event, I decided to be more efficient about this. I would still do everything I normally did, with one notable difference: I would not explain my rationale. I would instead tell them, “Okay, I’m upholding the floor judge’s ruling. Please continue play. If you have any questions about the ruling or why I ruled it, feel free to see me after your match is over. Thank you.”

Initially, I didn’t feel totally comfortable with this approach, since I like to explain the rationale for my decisions to the players. For this event, however, I needed to maximize my time with my appeals as much as possible, since I wanted to make myself more available to the players and staff as a whole. Whatever my initial reservations were, it worked out rather well.

Tune in tomorrow for the conclusion of this tournament report where Simon deals with player investigations, day two, and other exciting drama.