This sets a very dangerous and bad precedent. I feel bad for any director who has to deal with 100+ people who takes said precedent, and I think you'd find it very hard to make friends this way. It is important to separate illegal and malicious behavior. Use discretion.
This is especially true in an open. A lot of games are spent playing against lower rated players, which are the players that make playing in opens possible. You want to treat these people well: they are by and large donating to the prize pool with little chance of getting their money back. They know this in advance and are perfectly happy with doing so, but they won't be happy doing so if their opponents are calling the director on them every 3rd game.
Calling the director when you believe malicious behavior is involved is fine. And, just as an aside, just because the game is over doesn't mean you can't talk to the director THEN. I've made many complaints to directors about behavior I felt was malicious after the game or even tournament is over. I think this is far more appropriate, as it doesn't embarrass the player and doesn't cause a scene nearly as much as a stern warning (make sure it's loud enough that neighboring tables hear it though.)
I suppose after the second infraction I could have called the director, but I didn't think that it mattered at that point since both blanks and all 4 Ss were gone. Also, calling the director mid-game doesn't exactly put you in a good mental mindframe (unless you call it on yourself, which I've done several times.) I don't really regret not calling him over, but even at this point I wasn't that sure he was cheating, or more accurately, I didn't want to believe he was cheating.
As a person I generally don't believe that there are bad people in the world, and it's hard for me to account for cheating Scrabble players. Even in Hodges' case I can at least say to myself (well, he put himself in a really bad financial situation and wanted to account for himself and other people). With this opponent I know that's not the case: if he's cheating (and I still feel it is very likely that he did, even with David Whitley's comments) he's doing it out of pure ego.
I'm not even really hoping for a suspension right now, because I'm pretty sure that you can't get him for cheating under the current rule set. What I want right now is a rule change so that this doesn't happen again, and so that if I play this player again and he does the same thing THEN he can be thrown out of the tournament, and I can play the rest of my games with peace of mind and a forfeit win.
they won't be happy doing so if their opponents are calling the director on them every 3rd game
Then they should learn how to draw correctly! If it's important enough to be a rule, it's important enough to enforce.
I think Jason is correct... if we all forced our opponents to draw correctly, that would go a long way toward preventing people from cheating. That's a lot of work though so I don't think I would do anything unless I was playing someone suspected of cheating. Usually I pay no attention at all to my opponent when he or she is drawing.
As an example of this rule being annoying, I played someone at SDO who is not at all suspected of cheating. This person blatantly violated the rules for drawing, but I did not call him/her on it, as it would only cause an annoying fuss by disrupting the director, the game, me, my opponent, and the surrounding players.
i long suspected this individual of cheating. in addition, s/he used to (not sure if s/he does anymore. i am happy to report i haven't played him/her in ages) do some tsk noises during games (a doctor should heal hisself or herself, no?), talk during my turn, etc. i had called the director on him in reno a couple of times, many years ago. would have been helpful if others had backed me up then. perhaps kenji woulda been spared this anguish. to be fair, none of the youngsters like cesar, kenji, jesses, conrad, pickaxes, jamez et al used to be in the tourney scrabble scene then.
exasperated, i posted on cgp a contest called "quoth the maven": "an apple a day keeps Dr. Poe away. PLEASE eat an apple a day!"
absent fellow players' support, this was my way of dealing with the bastard.
This is especially true in an open. A lot of games are spent playing against lower rated players, which are the players that make playing in opens possible. You want to treat these people well: they are by and large donating to the prize pool with little chance of getting their money back. They know this in advance and are perfectly happy with doing so, but they won't be happy doing so if their opponents are calling the director on them every 3rd game.
Calling the director when you believe malicious behavior is involved is fine. And, just as an aside, just because the game is over doesn't mean you can't talk to the director THEN. I've made many complaints to directors about behavior I felt was malicious after the game or even tournament is over. I think this is far more appropriate, as it doesn't embarrass the player and doesn't cause a scene nearly as much as a stern warning (make sure it's loud enough that neighboring tables hear it though.)
I suppose after the second infraction I could have called the director, but I didn't think that it mattered at that point since both blanks and all 4 Ss were gone. Also, calling the director mid-game doesn't exactly put you in a good mental mindframe (unless you call it on yourself, which I've done several times.) I don't really regret not calling him over, but even at this point I wasn't that sure he was cheating, or more accurately, I didn't want to believe he was cheating.
As a person I generally don't believe that there are bad people in the world, and it's hard for me to account for cheating Scrabble players. Even in Hodges' case I can at least say to myself (well, he put himself in a really bad financial situation and wanted to account for himself and other people). With this opponent I know that's not the case: if he's cheating (and I still feel it is very likely that he did, even with David Whitley's comments) he's doing it out of pure ego.
I'm not even really hoping for a suspension right now, because I'm pretty sure that you can't get him for cheating under the current rule set. What I want right now is a rule change so that this doesn't happen again, and so that if I play this player again and he does the same thing THEN he can be thrown out of the tournament, and I can play the rest of my games with peace of mind and a forfeit win.
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Then they should learn how to draw correctly! If it's important enough to be a rule, it's important enough to enforce.
I think Jason is correct... if we all forced our opponents to draw correctly, that would go a long way toward preventing people from cheating. That's a lot of work though so I don't think I would do anything unless I was playing someone suspected of cheating. Usually I pay no attention at all to my opponent when he or she is drawing.
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i long suspected this individual of cheating. in addition, s/he used to (not sure if s/he does anymore. i am happy to report i haven't played him/her in ages) do some tsk noises during games (a doctor should heal hisself or herself, no?), talk during my turn, etc. i had called the director on him in reno a couple of times, many years ago. would have been helpful if others had backed me up then. perhaps kenji woulda been spared this anguish. to be fair, none of the youngsters like cesar, kenji, jesses, conrad, pickaxes, jamez et al used to be in the tourney scrabble scene then.
exasperated, i posted on cgp a contest called "quoth the maven":
"an apple a day keeps Dr. Poe away. PLEASE eat an apple a day!"
absent fellow players' support, this was my way of dealing with the bastard.
Reply
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