To quote S.C.G. forum "No, its like if stealing a car was legal and I stole one. Then stealing was made illegal and now I have to give the car back. Even though I stole it when it was legal. Do you agree that in this case, I should not have to give the car back?"
This statement is complete bullshit. I hope everyone can see through this severely pathetic attempt at logic. Who the fuck needs a law to decide if pooping on your best mates girlfriends chest is right? In this case the law against cheating is already in place so this guy was wrong in the first place. STEALING A CAR (or w/e) WAS NOT LEGAL IN THE FIRST PLACE! Fuck... Why are people still defending this fraud? We should be talking about the reprucusions of cheating in magic. It seems to be the forgotten link in this whole argument. I suggest casturation, we don't need people like this breeding. (In b4 you mad bro?)
P.S.
I would love to see this douche drag his name through the mud (in court) for 10,000. It would be the hardest he has worked for that money this entire season.
Originally Posted by thefringthing
Maaaan, that's some expensive research to do. All access is $$$, my West is only for my state and federal. I don't know how you'd start to look that up. There can't be much precedent on it, that's for sure.
Basically you've got a contract formed, but the terms of it are really, really weird because people haven't set what they are- they just rely on what's always been done. It's not as if there are clear rules even linked to the SCG Open events, nor are they posted at the event site in a conspicuous manner. What's also very important is that it doesn't seem in the DCI decision that they reference the SCG Invitational specifically. Even if you want to bring that in as a reason to rescind the big ol' check, if it doesn't reference that event, you could claim that AB played squeaky clean that day and legitimately won that event. Like I've said before, there's a lot here that you could put before a jury.
The 1919 World Series was fixed, but the best legal angle at the time was arguing in the suit that the fix defrauded one of the players. I'm no expert on that scandal, but MLB didn't exactly have a "seriously guys, don't fix the World Series" policy, and that hurt their chances for a civil recovery. These kinds of things don't come up that often.
As for the case of whether SCG will get the P9 back, I think they don't care that much about recovering it at this point, and they're probably glad to be done with it (though I'd much rather have GerryT wielding that power). Or, to reference another stellar lawyer, I'll quote Lionel Hutz when I say "It's a thorny legal issue, all right. I'll need to refer to the case of Finders v. Keepers. "
If you can point to a Virginia statute that specifically says that it is unlawful to cheat in a game of skill and describes the penalties, you'd save me a lot of typing!
IANAL
http://www.gambling-law-us.com/State-Laws/Virginia/
§ 18.2-327. Winning by fraud; penalty.
If any person while gambling cheats or by fraudulent means wins or acquires for himself or another money or any other valuable thing, he shall be fined not less than five nor more than ten times the value of such winnings. This penalty shall be in addition to any other penalty imposed under this article.
Tom? Is that you? I thought you were going to go work on DnD?
I'd thought to look at gambling laws, but Magic is most certainly not gambling and WOTC will work very hard to make sure it never gets viewed that way. I doubt someone could utilize them for relief.
From Jared Sylva's "An official statement from StarCityGames.com regarding the suspension of Alex Bertoncini" he clearly mentioned that "The prizes Alex previously received while eligible to participate in DCI-sanctioned events have already been issued, and will not be revoked."
Now today the big boss suddenly said that the Charlotte Invitational (totaling $10,250) will not be issued to Alex.
Ever since the announcement of DCI's decision on Alex's cheating issue the majority of the public seem to turn their arrows at SCG regarding the prize issue. If this sudden change of heart is not due to public pressure then Jared Sylva must be making "official" announcement behind Pete's back without his approval.
Either way Alex's cheating problems did not just "happened" within one day. The situation has been talked about for a while already just not as many people involved in the discussion as in the last few days. SCG could have allowed the DCI to start the investigation before Charlotte Invitational. In this case the prize could be held until the investigation is over (Don't tell me that this rule doesn't exist until today because if SCG truly believes in fair play they could get the rule changed way before today).
Now comes to the question "where are the Powers". Since Pete only mentioned about withdrawing the cash prize which means this may not include the P9s (of course I could be wrong but SCG never made any statement about it). It could be that Alex has already unload the Powers for cash and SCG has no way to get it back.
In any case as mentioned above if SCG asked the DCI to start the investigation before Charlotte Invitational then both the money and the Powers would be held back until the end of investigation. If this were done sooner then there is no way for Alex to unload the Powers since he could not get his hands on anything until the DCI said he is innocent (which he was not). Now I can only hope that the Powers were also somehow withdrew from Alex since he does not deserve anything after his actions.
Without the public pressure here and there all over the places the justice on this cheating matter could never be served. If not enough people talking about this issue Alex will still be SCG's golden poster child and nothing would be done to him regarding his "sloppy" play.
I think it is awesome you come on this site and help us understand SCG better.
Thumbs up to you good sir
Matt Bevenour in real life
I'm halfway interested in making a video for youtube about how to spot when someone is being crafty with their cards. A lot of the tricks used in little-"m"-magic (as opposed to Magic) involve exploiting peoples' assumptions of what you're doing, mechanically. A skilled operator could probably hold 10 cards in their hand and only show you five when you Thoughtseize them.
Who the hell wanted them to give the prize money away to charity? Every player participated to get that money ! If they wanted to do charity they would have given it themselves. They didn't even asked the players ffs! That's wrong. The top players busted their asses for that money and got none. I still hate SCG. I say fuck em.
P.s : in no way i say that charity is not a good thing to do. just saying...
I think the money going to charity is fair. I'm surprised they even took it back.
Good job and pretty much the only viable decision.
If they wouldn't have held the money back it would pretty much tell the players: If you would rather have 10000$ than play in further SCGs, feel free to cheat as long as possible.
Wow dude. Some people need to chill, cause they won't ever be happy.
Ok, I was just curious, since not very many people defend SCG. To be fair, I enjoy what SCG is doing in terms of coverage and bottom line is, I view what they do as a whole as a benefit to the game.
What I don't like (but understand it from business perspective) is that they made cult of personality out of people like AB to pull more unexperienced players to their events to make money (again, understandable, since they are not charity but business).
What I do respect though, is the last statement concerning giving AB's prize money to charity. This is exactly the kind of resolution I was hoping for.
What I would like them to work on in the future is actually trying to PREVENT this kind of behaviour/trickery - to actively pursue to get rid of players who scam their opponents and deliberately manipulate game states in their favor. I still think majority of players who play (legacy) have it as a competetive hobby - as do I. I go to tournamets to play legacy against good players playing good decks, not to count cards in opponents hand after each Brainstorm. This is an area that I think TO's crew should at least help me out, if not do it for me.
Peace.
Then I will assume SCG will distribute cash prizes at SCG's discretion, since they have no terms saying they're going to pay the winner under any and all circumstances.
My brain turned this abbreviation into hand-jobbed. I have nothing productive to add to the discussion.
They were backing off of this well before the Bertoncini thing; they flattened out the Players Club rewards and pretty much eliminated the stuff at the top for 2012. And to be fair, they were pretty much exactly folloing the WotC playbook.
If you think SCG isn't going to put a huge amount of effort into making sure something like this doesn't happen again, you're nuts. Part of that I hope is player education - in a competitive event with big bucks on the line, you have to watch your opponent whether you like to or not.What I would like them to work on in the future is actually trying to PREVENT this kind of behaviour/trickery - to actively pursue to get rid of players who scam their opponents and deliberately manipulate game states in their favor. I still think majority of players who play (legacy) have it as a competetive hobby - as do I. I go to tournamets to play legacy against good players playing good decks, not to count cards in opponents hand after each Brainstorm. This is an area that I think TO's crew should at least help me out, if not do it for me.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
Probably you are right and charity was the best thing to do because distributing the prizes in any other way might have been unfair anyway . Many more ppl would have had a chance at the top 8 if haven't played against the serial Bertoncheater. Its quite messed up as it is. They should have "patrolled" their events much better though.
I meant in terms of the game not in terms of state law.
Also +1.
So they really took back his 10250 Dollar and gave it to some charitiystuff?
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