Star City Games Legacy Events and Credibility

[Fossil4182]

So to catch anyone up who hasn't been paying attention, here's the cliff notes version of what happened.

-Drew Levin posted a blog post accusing Alex Bertoncini of cheating at numerous SCG events
http://mixedknuts.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/unlocking-the-cheats-of-scg-player-of-the-year-alex-bertoncini/

-The DCI banned Alex Bertoncini for 18 months

-SCG Response to the banning of Alex Bertoncini
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/23275_Statement_Regarding_the_Suspension_of_Alex_Bertoncini.html

-SCG President Pete Hoefling issues a statement announcing new policies for the SCG Open Events and retroactive action to be taken against Alex Bertoncini
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/23283_Statement_from_SCG_President_Pete_Hoefling_Regarding_Alex_Bertoncini.html

So, one of the most relevant questions moving forward is how credible does everyone find the SCG Legacy events?

Personally, I have a few problems with the resolution to these issues.

1. SCG's response seems rather weak. Basically, the only real action that SCG took toward Alex was the revoking of his SCG player club status which isn't relevant anyway. There are two reasons it is not relevant. The first is that one has to attend and participate in events to receive benefits from being in the player's club; Alex can't participate in events since he's been banned so its a mute point. Additionally, he would of lost his standing when the new season starts anyway. I understand that attempting to recover prizes that have been already issued would be difficult, but at least one of the instances noted in Drew's blog occurred during a top eight (the Platinum Angel incident) which would seem to be a justifiable reason to attempt to retrieve the prizes for that event. Even if it would be difficult (or even impossible), I would rather hear that SCG made some attempt or an actual reason why they cannot retrieve the money back as opposed to the justification that its "already been issued".

2. The statement SCG made was reactionary and does not have any proactive elements in it. The argument that the players are the best deterrent against cheating is true. That being said, many of these instances noted in Drew's blog in which Alex cheated (or misplayed) were feature matches. These matches (especially the top eight matches) were all observed by judges. I'll be the first to concede that judges, like players, are human and will miss misplays or cheating from time to time. However, judges by definition are knowledgeable on the rules and missed these misplays over an extended period of time. At some level, I hold the judges who observed these events responsible for not catching these instances of cheating. The connection to SCG is that I feel they hired poor or incapable judges who were not able to catch these things. Additionally, as the cheating had persisted for months and over several events, do these judges not communicate these misplays to the TOs and how did SCG not connect the dots or see the writing on the wall if this had been happening for so long? As a general theme to this point, nothing in the SCG response outlined an internal assessment of how this was allowed to persist for so long. More importantly, there was no outline or statement regarding how SCG plans to solve whatever issues allowed this to occur.

The reality for SCG is that arguably the most recognizable person associated with their events has been just been banned for 18 months for cheating. Fair or not, this fact does impact the credibility of SCG's events in a negative way. Their responses to this have done nothing to assure the player base that they are taking steps to prevent this from happening in the future.

Update 12-16-11
Pete Hoefling (President of SCG) issued a statement which outline a new policy regarding players under investigation by the DCI (and those who are ultimately suspended) and retroactive action against Alex. The with holding of Alex's payment for the Invitational and the stripping of the titles he won this past weekend are a strong statement. Proactively speaking, the new rules regarding players under investigation and those found to be cheating appear to be a significant deterrent against such acts. I know some may find it harsh, but the investigation rules are especially potent since it further encourages players to be vigil of the game-state and their opponent's plays.

[honestabe]

Everyone needs to get over this. Alex got caught cheating, and the DCI suspended him. StarCityGames would be extremely hard pressed to take back prizes they have already given or garunteed him; especially if they can't prove he cheated in every event.

It's the player's responcibility to maintain the gamestate, and make sure their opponent isn't cheating. It's the judges job to clearify and rules, and in important matches, make sure no mistakes are made. The people to blame for Alex's cheating are him for doing it, and his opponents for not catching it.

The DCI handles all diciplinary actions. Star City Games handed the issue right over to them when they were presented it.

It happened, it's done. Alex cheated, got caught, and now is being punished. No more complaining, no more blame. The system worked. The End.

[cdr]

These matches (especially the top eight matches) were all observed by judges. I'll be the first to concede that judges, like players, are human and will miss misplays or cheating from time to time. However, judges by definition are knowledgeable on the rules and missed these misplays over an extended period of time.

The judge at a SCG feature match is working as spotter, essentially part of coverage. They are not working primarily as a judge at that time.

Misplays were noticed by players, spectators, commentators, and judges, but none caught intent of cheating. Alex to my knowledge did receive a higher number than average number of warnings, but no more than other sloppy (but presumably honest) players.

[UnderwaterGuy]

I think it's uncool of scg to let him keep the prize. It's not like they immediately gave him the money, right? I'm sure they could rescind the award since there is evidence he cheated at least in the tournaments that got him access to this tournament. The second place finisher deserves that prize and I feel really bad for him. scg should give the award to someone deserving.

[dahcmai]

It just kind of sucks that they didn't bring all this up before the invitational. Could have had some better timing to be sure. As for the rest, it was kind of expected at that point.

[Whippoorwill]

I don't really see how this changes the image of SCG and the opens considering they handled everything on their end properly. In this situation, the correct line of action was to let the DCI investigate, which is what happened.

The Open series is still relatively new and things like this are bound to come up. When they do, rules will have to be updated to compensate for the issue(s) as we saw when the grinders were scooping each other in to higher player level status. I'm sure something will be added/adjusted for the 2012 season due to this.

Off-topic: Why is there no Bertoncini shop of Veteran Explorer yet even though everyone calls him one of the greatest explorers?

[dontbiteitholmes]

So to catch anyone up who hasn't been paying attention, here's the cliff notes version of what happened.

-Drew Levin posted a blog post accusing Alex Bertoncini of cheating at numerous SCG events
http://mixedknuts.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/unlocking-the-cheats-of-scg-player-of-the-year-alex-bertoncini/

-The DCI banned Alex Bertoncini for 18 months

-SCG Response to the banning of Alex Bertoncini
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/23275_Statement_Regarding_the_Suspension_of_Alex_Bertoncini.html


So, one of the most relevant questions moving forward is how credible does everyone find the SCG Legacy events?

Personally, I have a few problems with the resolution to these issues.

1. SCG's response seems rather weak. Basically, the only real action that SCG took toward Alex was the revoking of his SCG player club status which isn't relevant anyway. There are two reasons it is not relevant. The first is that one has to attend and participate in events to receive benefits from being in the player's club; Alex can't participate in events since he's been banned so its a mute point. Additionally, he would of lost his standing when the new season starts anyway. I understand that attempting to recover prizes that have been already issued would be difficult, but at least one of the instances noted in Drew's blog occurred during a top eight (the Platinum Angel incident) which would seem to be a justifiable reason to attempt to retrieve the prizes for that event. Even if it would be difficult (or even impossible), I would rather hear that SCG made some attempt or an actual reason why they cannot retrieve the money back as opposed to the justification that its "already been issued".

2. The statement SCG made was reactionary and does not have any proactive elements in it. The argument that the players are the best deterrent against cheating is true. That being said, many of these instances noted in Drew's blog in which Alex cheated (or misplayed) were feature matches. These matches (especially the top eight matches) were all observed by judges. I'll be the first to concede that judges, like players, are human and will miss misplays or cheating from time to time. However, judges by definition are knowledgeable on the rules and missed these misplays over an extended period of time. At some level, I hold the judges who observed these events responsible for not catching these instances of cheating. The connection to SCG is that I feel they hired poor or incapable judges who were not able to catch these things. Additionally, as the cheating had persisted for months and over several events, do these judges not communicate these misplays to the TOs and how did SCG not connect the dots or see the writing on the wall if this had been happening for so long? As a general theme to this point, nothing in the SCG response outlined an internal assessment of how this was allowed to persist for so long. More importantly, there was no outline or statement regarding how SCG plans to solve whatever issues allowed this to occur.

The reality for SCG is that arguably the most recognizable person associated with their events has been just been banned for 18 months for cheating. Fair or not, this fact does impact the credibility of SCG's events in a negative way. Their responses to this have done nothing to assure the player base that they are taking steps to prevent this from happening in the future.

SCG can't take back anything they've already given him without taking him to court. It's not like SCG can just send him a bill for checks he's already received and if his most recent check hadn't cleared yet and you can't just cancel a check that someone has already cashed even if it hasn't cleared and say they don't deserve it without potentially getting sued. Trust me, SCG is probably more unhappy with the current situation than everyone else put together. They put together a string of huge events with great prizes to generate support for their business and now this happens and it ends up casting all of their hard work in a negative light.

If I understand things correctly SCG reported the suspected cheating to the DCI and the DCI dropped the ban hammer. It's exactly how it should have happened. All big events should leave the bannings to the DCI unless it's something that isn't covered by DCI policies, example selling cards @ SCG opens, or it's a safety/security issue that can't wait for DCI intervention, example player A hates player B and publicly states he's going to come to SCG Denver and beat him up or player C doesn't have a DCI number and doesn't play but gets caught stealing cards at an SCG event (and should rightly be banned from stepping on the property of any future events).

If SCG would have jumped the gun and banned Alex before the DCI that sets a dangerous precedent. Say another player cheats just as much but not on camera and gets banned by SCG, do other events blacklist this player as well? If other major events pop up and another player gets banned from those events for something game related does SCG blackball this player as well? What if there is no video evidence to confirm what this other player did/did not do? It's a Pandora's Box no one wants to open. There is already a process for dealing with cheating and it is the DCI. If SCG bans someone then the next time when the cries of cheater go out and the evidence is not as rock solid as in this case they start to move into a dangerous grey area.

Alex took so long to get banned because he was a good cheater. This kind of thing has happened before. If I remember correctly Mike Long played 2 lands in a turn at some PT event back when Magic was a nationally televised event in front of everyone watching on ESPN2 and several high level judges and no one said a word, and he was the most notorious cheater in the game at the time (there's no way the judges weren't aware of his rep at that event). That's the thing about cheating, if it's obvious you get caught fairly quickly. It's quite possible that if Alex didn't insist on cheating on camera he would still be playing today. Anyone who has ever seen street magic should know it's not hard for someone to distract you or to appear to pick up one card and have it be more, have cards magically appear from sleeves/lap. The best defense against this kind of trick is to constantly be aware of how many cards your opponent should have in hand. If someone who practices slight of hand and has moral issues knows you aren't paying attention it's pretty easy for them to slip back one less card off a Brainstorm or pick up two cards at the start of the turn.

[Hopo]

It would be interesting to figure out how the top8'ing cheaters skew the metagame. As in they win games they are not supposed to win with given decks and so on, thus infulencing other peoples' deck choices. It's interesting, as I believe SCG Opens are a big factor in determining the US metagame. For example: if a deck which is usually not considered too powerful ends up in several top8's in a hands of, say, Bertoncini, what can it tell us? Until now the most obvious explanation was that the pilot just happens to be good, but I guess that in inbred tournaments like these, you could sometimes find other explanations also.

I don't think that this is a widely spread phenomenon, rather a really interesting one.

[zulander]

It seems that more people have a stick up their butt that Alex got the prizes than SCG. Omfg it's their stuff if they want to take it back they will. Get the eff over it. You don't like it don't play, no one cares.

Move on with life.

[snappingbowls | ಠ_ಠ]

pretty sure people do care bra. damages the appeal and integrity of competitive play.

[Tao]

They lost a ton of credibility.

And the community should stop the Bertoncini celebrations and go for Edgar Flores. His blatant draw-8 is still unpunished.

[Mark Sun]

go for Edgar Flores. His blatant draw-8 is still unpunished.

Yeah, if it was only just that.

[Tao]

Yeah, if it was only just that.

I know he is banned from Yugi-Oh but is there more?

[Jim Higginbottom]

Alex losing his player's club membership matters because he was going to get 4x sets for the next year.

[Mark Sun]

I know he is banned from Yugi-Oh but is there more?

Basic angle shooting and similar behavior, not unlike what we've heard over the past week. Just from SCG Charlotte alone one of my opponents and I had a conversation about what Edgar tried to do in a previous round to him -- leave a countered Spellstutter Sprite in play, "knock over" the dice on his Jitte to go from 3 --> 6, mostly blaming sloppy play. He generally doesn't keep life/notes during a match unless it's on camera; I've been there from both perspectives of watching him play and playing against him.

He's also been known to take advantage of something like Phyrexian Revoker, where he actually uses it as a Pithing Needle on legs. This came up on Twitter the other night; spot the mistake: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21427_Round_5_Adam_Cai_vs_Edgar_Flores.html

Iirc, he was called out on coverage via Twitter about naming lands with his Revoker, but continued doing so well into SCG Orlando -- five events later. This isn't a type of mistake that you just "make," especially not multiple times over the course of a month and a half of pretty much straight MTG every weekend. If SCG didn't put 2 and 2 together and take a good look at his history with his current success, I'd be surprised.

[saspook]

They lost a ton of credibility.

If SCG was aware of Bertoncini cheating, they would have DQ'ed him from an event as soon as possible.

THEY DID NOT WANT TO GIVE THEIR MONEY TO A CHEATER. This is bad for their image and if they would have known Alex was cheating, they would have caught him.

Alex got away with it just barely long enough. There is nothing that SCG can do about prizes that they have already given away, no matter how much it would please them to name Proszak as the invitational winner and GerryT as the POTY.

[Hoojo]

Were they actively investigating him before the event? Something about this just seems like a slap in the face.

[Darkenslight]

Were they actively investigating him before the event? Something about this just seems like a slap in the face.

As I understand it, Levin sent his info to Sheldon Menery the day before, which isn't enough time to actively investigate. It is, however, long enough to say to judges, "keep an eye out for this dude, 'kay?"

I may be horribly wrong in my timeline, however. Even so, do SCG want a protracted legtal battle instead of focussing on their business?

[cdr]

As I understand it, Levin sent his info to Sheldon Menery the day before, which isn't enough time to actively investigate. It is, however, long enough to say to judges, "keep an eye out for this dude, 'kay?"

I may be horribly wrong in my timeline, however. Even so, do SCG want a protracted legtal battle instead of focussing on their business?

According to Levin, he sent an email to Sheldon (and other people) in August. That letter was not the same as the blog piece he published and I haven't seen it, so I have no idea how compelling or not it was.

I don't know whether SCG was aware of it or not. If they were, you can bet an eye was being kept on Bertoncini.

[CorpT]

I don't know whether SCG was aware of it or not. If they were, you can bet an eye was being kept on Bertoncini.

They were not keeping an eye on him. I played him twice, once in Indy and once in St. Louis and we were given no more scrutiny than any other match I played. And the one in Indy was at a non-camera feature match in round 8. It took several minutes for a judge to even show up when we called one.

[Tao]

If SCG was aware of Bertoncini cheating, they would have DQ'ed him from an event as soon as possible.

THEY DID NOT WANT TO GIVE THEIR MONEY TO A CHEATER. This is bad for their image and if they would have known Alex was cheating, they would have caught him.

Alex got away with it just barely long enough. There is nothing that SCG can do about prizes that they have already given away, no matter how much it would please them to name Proszak as the invitational winner and GerryT as the POTY.

Even if they were not aware of his cheating it still damages their reputation a lot. Their top two players, their poster childs, are cheaters. #1 is now convicted, for #2 the Video is there. That means that the competition was massively distorted.

[BenBleiweiss]

A statement from the President of StarCityGames.com regarding Alex Bertoncini and the creation of a new StarCityGames.com Open Series Prize Policy.

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/23283_Statement_from_SCG_President_Pete_Hoefling_Regarding_Alex_Bertoncini.html

[Sims]

A statement from the President of StarCityGames.com regarding Alex Bertoncini and the creation of a new StarCityGames.com Open Series Prize Policy.

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/23283_Statement_from_SCG_President_Pete_Hoefling_Regarding_Alex_Bertoncini.html

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Ben.

[Royal Ass.]

Did he have to return the Power 9?

[Fossil4182]

A statement from the President of StarCityGames.com regarding Alex Bertoncini and the creation of a new StarCityGames.com Open Series Prize Policy.

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/23283_Statement_from_SCG_President_Pete_Hoefling_Regarding_Alex_Bertoncini.html

This is actually pretty good. The ex post facto nature of this action may bother some, but I'm happy that SCG is deciding to take a strong stance on this.

[oRen]

"The ex post facto nature" of the handling of this situation seems incredibly ridicules if you are judging from a rather neutral point of view. Changing the rules after a finished game to give the raging people what they want is by far the most improper TO sided handling of a situation like this I have ever heard of.

Is this handling legit or can AB sue SCG to get the money ?

[cdr]

The lawyerly mtg types seem to think he'd have a case. Would be quite interesting, but it's pretty unlikely he'd actually do it.

[Fossil4182]

"The ex post facto nature" of the handling of this situation seems incredibly ridicules if you are judging from a rather neutral point of view. Changing the rules after a finished game to give the raging people what they want is by far the most improper TO sided handling of a situation like this I have ever heard of.

Is this handling legit or can AB sue SCG to get the money ?

It would depend on what sort of contract, if any, Alex could prove he had with SCG. The Open Events are run by a private company (SCG) and by participating, one agrees to all of the terms and conditions. Additionally, if they have the power to retroactively change the rules or without hold prizes for whatever reason (which it seems like they do), then that is also something that one agrees to. I don't know if this is ridicules, but it certainly is unprecedented.

As has been suggested by others on here and given the cautious nature by which SCG approached this situation, I'm inclined to believe that SCG looked into any possible legal liability for withholding the prizes.

[Tha Gunslinga]

He obtained access to the invitational through fraud (cheating). This means that his win was fraudulently obtained, which means SCG can withold it.

[Fossil4182]

He obtained access to the invitational through fraud (cheating). This means that his win was fraudulently obtained, which means SCG can withold it.

That's the position I would take and only add that since its a private event, SCG has the right to change the rules unless a contract can be proven to of existed between the two. If there was a contract, I don't know how or in what way that may impact the outcome of this.