So having had a couple weeks to reflect and recover from Grand Prix Vancouver, I thought I'd share some of my experiences and the lessons I took away from them. Some of these are lessons that I probably learned my first time out as a Pro Tour Qualifier head judge, my first time out as a Regionals head judge, and so on, but that's the way it goes. I'll just say, right off the bat: it was a lot of fun, and in a lot of ways, tougher than I expected.

Five Things I Learned Head Judging My First Grand Prix

1. It's Bigger Than You Think—I've run a lot of events, of various sizes: Grand Prix Trials, Champs, PTQs, Regionals, and a prerelease for every set since Betrayers of Kamigawa. I've had hundreds of players slinging cards in the same room, over a dozen staff to manage, and I'm no stranger to the floor judging side of pro events. But it's different, somehow. One of the minor mistakes I made illustrates that point. I forgot, at our all-hands meeting before day 1 play started, to have judges introduce themselves. We had twenty-three floor judges. I finished the day without having associated every judge's face with a name. That's a first for me, at any event that I can recall. It's a little embarassing, too. The sheer amount of stuff I was trying to track got the better of me. Some of that, probably, was complexity that I created. Some of it was organizational. Next time, I expect to be more on top of it. But it still caught me off guard. Next time: minimize distractions. Introductions are also a good idea.
2. Don't Try To Be Everywhere—My worst mistake, in a lot of ways, was that I tried to do too much. This is probably better than not trying to do nearly enough, but it definitely creates some challenges. Many of you may be familiar with the team system that we use at large events: the floor judges are divided up into teams, each with particular responsibilities—deck checks, posting pairings, etc. It's not unreasonable to think of the head judge at these events at the team lead for the TL team. Having been blessed with a large number of Level 3 judges at this event, I gave some special assignments to the L3s who weren't assigned to team lead roles. This was a fine idea, I think, and addresses one of the key jobs of the head judge: how to best make use of your staff. The mistake I made was mentally thinking of the special-assignment judges as judges who needed as much of my attention as the team leads. So instead of having four TLs to supervise and oversee, I had nine. The end result was that I don't think any of the L3s got the right amount of attention from me. The floor-judge L3s got more attention than they needed (the nature of the assignments meant that I could easily have waited until the end of the day to check in), while the team leads got less time than they deserved. Next time: work top-down in prioritizing.
3. The Devil Is In The Details—This is a notion that cuts both ways. Did I try to take on too many details? Yes. What was the price that I paid for it? Other details got lost in the shuffle. For instance, when I ran a Dreamblade 10K a year or so ago, I took copious notes on basically everything that happened: round start times, end times, rulings I was involved in, thoughts on judges. At the end of the tournament, I had a blow-by-blow record that covered essentially the entire tournament. That document isn't anything anyone needs, but in preparing the head judge's report (one of the tasks required of any HJ at a pro-level event) and writing feedback on my judges, it was great. At GP Vancouver, I was too busy to be good about taking notes. Lots of stuff that strikes me as note-worthy never made it to paper. What I do have is a small mountain of paper scraps with various bits of scribbling on them. I've got what I need, but I can do better. Next time: bring a pocket-sized notebook, don't get distracted by tasks that don't require my attention.
4. Take Care Of Yourself—I have spent (quite literally) years telling my staff judges at prereleases to take care of themselves, to drink water, to take breaks. So it strikes me as a little funny that one of the things that L5 judge Toby Elliott told me at the end of day one was, "Skip lunch again tomorrow and I will kill you with my bare hands." Then he cackled and noted that the red and black stripes would make it easy to conceal the act. I can't fault him, really. We had probably a half-dozen judges who would have been capable of handling things while I took time for lunch. Sunday, around 12:30, I took an appeal on the floor, found that the judge had handled things properly, and gave a stumbling, tongue-tied explanation to the players. I walked over to side events and let John Carter know that he'd be filling in for me as soon as the next round started. Things perked up noticeably after that. Next time: take breaks, and eat lunch... numbskull.
5. I Can Do This—The happiest lesson of the weekend, for me: this is something I can do. I didn't do it perfectly, but I came away very satisfied with my performance, for a first-timer. Of course, I wasn't expecting to fail. In fact, I spent some of the time in the week before the event wondering if the requirements that we have for a GP head judge were much too high, given how well organized things are and the general level of competence out there on the floor. They're not. But alternating with that line of thought was the concern that I might somehow be in over my head, and I'm happy to report that I wasn't. One of the real pleasures of this event was the number of players who spoke to me at the end (and throughout the weekend) to tell me how happy they were with the event. As I told the staff at the dinner, that probably reflects most highly on the floor judges, who have many, many more interactions with players than I do. But I can take some credit for my own interactions with players, as well as setting the rest of the judges on the right path. I can't wait to do it again. I'm sure I'll find a whole new set of lessons-I-learned-a-long-time-ago to botch. I'm sure I'll have a great time doing it. Next time: bring an EDH deck.

Until next time, keep shufflin'.