GP Disqualification at 13-1-2

[kramer733]

Can anybody tell me what the levin guy did wrong? Also if it's gambling, how is that an infraction. I don't understand dci's logic in dqing him

[T is for TOOL]

5.3 Wagering

Tournament participants, tournament officials, and spectators may not wager, ante, or bet on any portion (including the outcome) of a tournament, match, or game."

[Forbiddian]

Everyone gambles at every tournament. If tournaments didn't give out prizes, how many people do you think would show up?

The rule is bullshit, but it was made long before the tournament, and it's the responsibility of every player to know the floor rules. You can't talk about gambling, so it was the right call by the judge. And I can't really blame Wescoe, either. I mean, it was a total dick move that no human being would do, but as a Professional Magic player, he doesn't give a fuck what you think. When you're playing against a pro, they'll do anything they can to get that win.



I don't think it's at all like a bomb in an airport (which is actually dangerous, etc. etc.). It's more like when you're pulled over for a routine traffic stop, you don't joke to the police officer, "Sorry I was 5 mph over the speed limit, I need to get this pot home asap." I mean, he'd probably know you were jk, but he might also fuck you up. Turns out if the officer is Craig Wescoe....

[menace13]

Everyone gambles at every tournament. If tournaments didn't give out prizes, how many people do you think would show up?

The rule is bullshit, but it was made long before the tournament, and it's the responsibility of every player to know the floor rules. You can't talk about gambling, so it was the right call by the judge. And I can't really blame Wescoe, either. I mean, it was a total dick move that no human being would do, but as a Professional Magic player, he doesn't give a fuck what you think. When you're playing against a pro, they'll do anything they can to get that win.



I don't think it's at all like a bomb in an airport (which is actually dangerous, etc. etc.). It's more like when you're pulled over for a routine traffic stop, you don't joke to the police officer, "Sorry I was 5 mph over the speed limit, I need to get this pot home asap." I mean, he'd probably know you were jk, but he might also fuck you up. Turns out if the officer is Craig Wescoe....

Fuck The Wescoe.

[Aggro_zombies]

I seriously hope you realize how drastically different this scenario is from what we are talking about. Saying something that could clearly have an impact on whether or not hundreds of people live or die requires swift and deliberate action. This was an off handed comment on a 10 dollar bet, and completely subjective to interpretation. Abusing the rules is not sportsman like, which I also believe the DCI strictly enforces. This was not necessarily something that is so common sense to everyone, as I know Drew would not have said something like that if he were aware of the consequences. I suppose now more people will know to keep their mouths shut as much as possible during high level magic events.

I'm mostly just venting as I really hate it when bad shit happens to friends, I take it 100x worse than things that happen to me. That all being said I'm pretty proud of how Drew is handling the situation, and have already stated my opinion on Wescoe.

The point is that both jokes are inappropriate in a given situation because the consequences of your jokes not actually be jokes are pretty serious. Yes, in one case lots of people could die, whereas in the other the integrity of tournaments using cardboard rectangles from a game ripped off D&D is "merely" lost; the point here is that you need to have a certain level of situational awareness in any event, and he apparently didn't.

I mean, yeah, it sucks that it happened to him. I would be pissed if it happened to one of my friends, too. But he would also deserve it on some level for doing something stupid that could have been avoided had he thought about it beforehand. That rule is in place for a variety of reasons, including not explicitly breaking state/federal laws on gambling by allowing underage participants to bet money/cards/whatever on the outcome of a competition. Yeah, it's kind of stupid, but it's one of those rules that's in place to prevent really bad things from happening (because people would gamble real amounts of money on their friends, especially if they know those friends are going to cheat to rig the outcomes in their favor).

[T is for TOOL]

Even though Drew said something that stupid, not realizing the potential repercussions, it was escalated from a non-issue by Wescoe as a spiteful classless retaliation.

[Aggro_zombies]

Even though Drew said something that stupid, not realizing the potential repercussions, it was escalated from a non-issue by Wescoe as a spiteful classless retaliation.

It's not entirely clear to me that Wescoe wasn't just watching his own back there.

I mean, if you know there's a possibility your opponent was gambling on the match, in violation of the rules, and yet you don't report it, don't you also get in trouble? What if one of the people in the crowd reported it instead? I mean...

EDIT: Although, from the reports of his behavior when reporting it, it certainly seems like he had other motivations than simply not wanting to get in trouble.

[xXxBretWeedxXx]

It's not entirely clear to me that Wescoe wasn't just watching his own back there.

I mean, if you know there's a possibility your opponent was gambling on the match, in violation of the rules, and yet you don't report it, don't you also get in trouble? What if one of the people in the crowd reported it instead? I mean...

EDIT: Although, from the reports of his behavior when reporting it, it certainly seems like he had other motivations than simply not wanting to get in trouble.

What can happen to him? All he has to do if the situation comes up is to say he didn't hear anything. That's what I would do. Even if he did hear it what's the penalty for such a thing? I can't find the answer in the floor rules.

[caiomarcos]

Everyone gambles at every tournament. If tournaments didn't give out prizes, how many people do you think would show up?

The rule is bullshit, but it was made long before the tournament, and it's the responsibility of every player to know the floor rules. You can't talk about gambling, so it was the right call by the judge.

Here is why I think the judges were wrong. The rule says you can't gamble or bet on results, not that you can't talk about it. This wescoe guy has the right to call the judges so they find out what was going on, but once they find out it is was joke, why DQ the poor guy?

The same goes for the pot/officer and bomb/airport situations. You're going to go through a lot of trouble but you won't be punnished for having pot if you don't have any or for having bombs if you don't. In the GP case, the judges were right to investigate but were wrong to punnish for something that didn't happen.

[dschalter]

Here is why I think the judges were wrong. The rule says you can't gamble or bet on results, not that you can't talk about it. This wescoe guy has the right to call the judges so they find out what was going on, but once they find out it is was joke, why DQ the poor guy?

The same goes for the pot/officer and bomb/airport situations. You're going to go through a lot of trouble but you won't be punnished for having pot if you don't have any or for having bombs if you don't. In the GP case, the judges were right to investigate but were wrong to punnish for something that didn't happen.

Well, I mean how do they tell it was a joke? He would say so, but so would anyone with a few thousand dollars and t8 on the line.

[caiomarcos]

Well, I mean how do they tell it was a joke? He would say so, but so would anyone with a few thousand dollars and t8 on the line.

That's why the judges are there.
If they found out it was not a joke and there really was some betting going on, they were wrong because there wasn't.
If they DQ'd him because they weren't sure what was going on, they did a poor job finding out.
If they found out it was a joke and still DQ'd him only for saying what was said, they made a terrible mistake.

Also, I think the logic of innocent until proven guilty apllies here, otherwise it opens a very bad precedent where we can all balme our opponents for something and in the end is word against word and the accused is always punnished without enough evidence.

[Anusien]

If the guy actually had a bet on whether he'd T8, he wouldn't confess to it even now. Retain healthy skepticism.

It sucks that we have to have infractions against this sort of thing, because betting on yourself to win is unlikely to compromise tournament integrity. However, Wizards probably has to be pretty strict on this one. Remember the European GP where they couldn't give out cash prizes because of gambling laws?

[jazzykat]

1. If I personally knew Wescoe and knew that he was truly morally upstanding and never did anything underhanded or even slightly grey and that he wasn't fishing, then I would support his decision to turn over the guy joking or not. He'd probably have to be like Ghandi or something but if he was then I couldn't complain. He walks the walk and doesn't want to go against his moral compass.

2. If he is like the rest of us, i.e. not a Saint then I would conclude that he is an opportunist and could not be trusted. Therefore I would:
1. Try to avoid him personally.
2. Not trade or conduct any business with him.
3. If I had an SCG premium membership I would cancel it with a note saying you will not support Wescoe. When he packs up, you will resubscribe.

3. The judges had their hands tied on this. They need to crucify anyone who is gambling or even smells like it. If MTG makes even more money then the IRS may look closer and start investigating other practices.


Oh, and if you say: "He broke the rules he should be punished." I hope that one day you are driving and get pulled by a cop who is just fishing, that your upstanding buddy in the passenger seat tells the cop that you were speeding 2 miles back and have a dime bag in your glove box. It's also against the law not to report a crime that you witness occurring...

EDIT: I personally won't be giving SCG any money including store purchases, until Wescoe does not work for them anymore.

[Rico Suave]

Also, I think the logic of innocent until proven guilty apllies here, otherwise it opens a very bad precedent where we can all balme our opponents for something and in the end is word against word and the accused is always punnished without enough evidence.

You mean evidence like there are several witnesses who heard him say he was betting on the game?

Make no mistake, there is plenty of evidence here to support the DQ. The point at hand is whether or not people think Wescoe is a man of poor constitution.

[sauce]

why does DCI give a shit if you bet on magic?
how is it any of their damn business what you do outside the boundary of the match?

[Kuma]

IBA raised an interesting question in another thread: "Why is it illegal to gamble on yourself to do well?" How would this in any way compromise the integrity of the game? Every time you pay a tournament entry fee, you're essentially gambling on yourself to do well. If you make top-whatever, you win money. Otherwise you lose the investment.

The other thing to keep in mind is how does the judge, who didn't hear any of the statement's context, know that it was a joke? For that matter, how does Wescoe know? It really sounds to me like Levin was joking, but who would admit to a DQ-able offense? The judge had no choice but to disqualify him or risk losing her judgeship.

I'm actually amazed how well Levin is handling it. I know if it were me, despite being five years his senior, I'd be raging mad and spreading my rage all over the internet. We really need to give him props.

[cdr]

The judge had no choice but to disqualify him or risk losing her judgeship.

There's obviously a lot of garbage and baseless speculation in this thread, but I'll fix this.

The Head Judge (the sole person responsible for DQ investigations) is not ever going to "risk losing her judgeship" on a call.

The Head Judge makes a decision based on her knowledge of policy and the circumstances of the case. No doubt it was not an easy decision.

[Muradin]

Wow, the guy that got disqualified is mad how calmly he takes this. Even if you don't care at all about Magic it is still, well, 1000 $ he would have gotten if the other guys wasn't such an asshole. What the judge did here was just fine, but this Craig Wescoe must be an idiot. Perhaps if I was the judge I would have disqualified the pro guy for unsportive conduct, or what it's called in English.

[Michael Keller]

Shit happens. Get over it.

[Vacrix]

Verbal warning for awfulness. - Bardo