The Bottleneck
There's an adage out there that says that there's no such thing as doing a good job as a scorekeeper. Either you did a bad job—i.e., you screwed something up enough for people to notice that you delayed the tournament—or you didn't. Experienced players and staff (particularly Tournament Organizers who deal with large tournaments) know that this isn't true, but it is demonstrative of the fact that the scorekeeper is the single person in a tournament most likely to affect how quickly or slowly that tournament runs (it's certainly the case that anybody can pull a fire alarm or otherwise slow down the tournament beyond the scorekeeper, but this is a rare case). Why is this?

Think about the role of the scorekeeper at various points in the tournament. During registration, all of the players registering pass their names and DCI numbers in... to the scorekeeper. During the beginning of rounds, all of the data from DCI Reporter needed to start a round funnels through... the scorekeeper. At the end of the round, all of the results need to be entered... by the scorekeeper. All of these things involve a large quantity of information, all of which is channeled through a single person. The scorekeeper is an information bottleneck, and until all of the information makes its way through, everybody has to wait.

Thinking of the scorekeeper in this way can provide hints for scorekeepers, judges, tournament organizers, and players about how to help make that information flow faster, and thereby increase the efficiency of the tournament. Serving as scorekeeper at Grand Prix Vancouver, a number of experiences came up that provided some good examples on how to do this, and my hope is that the following anecdotes are helpful to you all in getting home just a little earlier at the end of the day the next time you're at a large tournament.

Registration and Byes
After a mostly pleasant drive from Seattle up to Vancouver, marred by the sudden onset of a vicious flu and a long wait for a search at the border crossing (which was both the first time I've ever been stopped at the border and the first time Level 5 judge Toby Elliott has driven with me—coincidence?), we arrived at the venue about 90 minutes before registration was slated to start. Not as early as we would have liked, but still ample time to get set up and get the tournament files ready before it was time to start registering players.

Once registration began, it was a pretty straightforward affair. Players would fill out a small registration form that listed their names and DCI numbers, pay the tournament organizer (the inimitable Jason Ness, who doubles as a Level 4 judge), and then get entered into the system and have their byes for the tournament verified, after which they were free for the night.

Registration was, as at most tournaments, an interesting blend of organized chaos. The line was mostly orderly near the front of the line, but further back where people couldn't see what was happening, it was more of a mess. As groups would come up to the front, they'd find out that they had to fill out the form and the batch of them that could hear would all grab forms, but further back in line people wouldn't be able to hear and would have to be told again when they got up to the front of the line. Overall this lead to a series of bursts of order, punctuated by people randomly milling around, but it's always a challenge to improve beyond this at a tournament.

Fortunately, compared to any local tournament of this size I've ever been to (generally Prereleases or Regionals), a lot more of the players knew that they needed to have their DCI numbers and made it a point to bring them, but from time to time we still ran into somebody who needed a lookup, which gummed up the works slightly (either demanding extra staff or slowing down the line), and generally elicited wistful thoughts tattooing people with their DCI number. Nonetheless, two hours of coughs, aches, and chills later, a little over 200 players had registered and we turned in for the night.

Lessons:

• Scorekeeper: While it doesn't take a lot of time to set up the tournament files if you're experienced at it, it's still something that will block registration from starting and, like everything in DCI Reporter, can take some fumbling with if you aren't familiar with the interface. If you don't know how to do this in your sleep, it's worth doing so before the last minute just to avoid a delay when players start showing up. If you happen to be scorekeeping an event with byes, checking them during pre-registration or as players sign up can prevent you from being the bottleneck dealing with errors when the tournament is otherwise ready to start – doing this as they register is one idea, but an even better one (pointed out by John Carter) is to have them write down how many byes they have on their registration form, then go through after the fact to check them. This avoids the bottleneck at registration of having to look up the byes in real time.
• Tournament Organizer: It's certainly difficult to try and make the process more streamlined such that most players know exactly what to do (particularly because signs don't always work with players who don't happen to read them), but it's still worth trying. If you can put instructions on big signs near the entrance, that might help. Also, one thing that tends to happen is a bottleneck near wherever the registration forms are as people don't want to go anywhere else to fill them out, so making sure there are lots of places with forms, and that none of them are near the front of the line where players are being processed, can prevent an additional logjam there, where there is already a natural bottleneck.
• Players: As a player, your job is to provide the information necessary as efficiently as possible. This means bringing a pen and your DCI number, knowing how many byes you expect, if relevant, taking the time to find out what the process is, finding any relevant forms and filling them out, and having your money out and ready. If you're ever worried about not having your DCI number, try programming it into your cell phone as a contact. Also, if you have a chance to register earlier than the morning of a tournament, take advantage of that chance. It's less hectic for you and helps reduce the information bottleneck the morning of the tournament.
• Judges: If you're on the judging staff and not otherwise occupied, a useful thing that you can help out with is in making sure everyone knows the process behind registration and has access to all the necessary forms, particularly those who are not close enough to the front of the line to hear instructions as they're given out. Making sure players have the forms in advance and know what to fill out and what to have ready can speed things up considerably.

The Monitor
A great thing to do before each tournament is to try and think of something new you can do or try to improve on how your tournaments have gone in the past. With this in mind, before the Grand Prix, I was considering the issue of the sheer number of repetitive questions that are brought up to the staff at the registration desk and how we might go about fixing this.

Technology to the rescue—the solution I tried was to bring a separate LCD monitor to connect to the scorekeeping computer, sitting right next to the scorekeeper and facing the crowd. Projected on this screen was data relevant to what was happening at any given time. During registration, it showed the registration procedures. During the tournament, it displayed a clock as well as data about when the current round ends (or ended), as well as some answers to frequently asked questions ("The bathroom is …"). As a side benefit, it allowed me to display whatever data was necessary on that screen—most conveniently, Oracle text for judges.

What was the net result of this setup? Many of the same questions got asked—players just aren't used to expecting data this way and many didn't read it before asking. Saying "please read the monitor" was quicker than answering, however, and got them in the habit of checking the monitor first, so overall there was certainly some benefit. And as a tool for presenting information from the computer on request for staff or players, it was indispensible. Overall, it was useful and highly recommended, and coming up with some tools that allowed quick display of pairing data and other information directly from DCI Reporter would increase the usefulness even further, as would consistent use at tournaments to get the player base accustomed to it.

Lessons:

• Scorekeeper: It's definitely worth trying this if you have access to the equipment, and the bigger the monitor, the better. As best as you can, try and minimize the amount of information displayed—if the text gets too small or too dense, players won't read it. Also, remember that though you are the bottleneck for a lot of the information regarding a tournament, you aren't the only one with all the answers. While it may go against your customer service instincts, if you're in the middle of handling data entry or something else that might affect the turnaround time for a round and get asked something that somebody else on staff can answer, direct them to ask the other staff. It might feel like not the best service for that player, but it's worse service for all of the players if you delay a round because too much time goes into answering questions.
• Players: It's natural to have questions, and the staff is definitely there to help. Before you ask, though, consider what you're asking, who's likely to know (whether that's anyone on staff or just one individual in particular), and how busy the person you're going to ask is. There certainly are questions that only can be answered by the scorekeeper or the head judge, and in those cases, go ahead and ask, being considerate of the fact that they may be busy and you might need to wait. But if it's something that any other staff person might know, you'll help prevent the bottleneck from getting any worse if you find somebody to ask other than the scorekeeper.
  
  Oh, and if there are announcements posted, whether that's on paper, posters, or a monitor, take the time to read them. You just might find what you need.

Mistakes, or Facsimiles Thereof: A tale of two "mistakes"

1. At the end of round 2, after organizing the final mass of result slips to face the same way, entering them, and setting aside the ones with penalties to enter, one slip was missing. While waiting for that last slip to come in, I took advantage of the time to enter in the penalties from the last batch. The last slip finally showed up and was hastily glanced at, entered, and the next round started. Shortly after the pairings were posted, the two players involved in the final match from round 2 came up and indicated that their result had been entered wrong, which was true (unfortunately—while mistakes are inevitable over the course of enough tournaments, they should really only be happening on an every Nth tournament basis and a Grand Prix is not the Nth tournament that you want), so we quickly fixed the issue, rearranged the pairings, and moved forward.
2. At the end of round 12, near the end of the Swiss portion of the tournament, a player came up to us and said that his point tally wasn't right and that somewhere in the last 4 rounds, the result must have been entered incorrectly. He hadn't, however, been checking every round so we had to track down what round it might have been. After finding the one that he claimed was misentered, we went back to the conveniently sorted slips and pulled out his slip, which had been entered correctly and showed a loss for the player (despite the fact that he signed it and a judge verified it). While it's occasionally possible, depending on circumstances, for fixes to data entry errors to happen after a round has passed, a player error caught that far after the fact stands as is, and the player ended up with a loss to show for his carelessness.

Lessons:

• Scorekeeper: As a bottleneck, the natural inclination of the scorekeeper is to try and process information as fast as you can. This instinct is correct with one caveat – the actual job of the scorekeeper is to enter the data exactly as fast as they can accurately, but no faster. Don't let the instinct to be fast cause you to make any careless errors. An important thing to be able to do is verify your data entry in a fast way, but allowing for you to verify at the same time, and the most important tip to doing this is to turn off keyboard hotkeys. The hotkeys may feel faster, but they are much more prone to error and also do not leave the results on the screen for you to see before they disappear. Learning to enter in number, tab, number, d, enter (with the right number of "d"s to match the number of draws) allows you to see and verify the result against the result slip one more time before you press the final enter and drastically cuts down on errors without slowing entry down.
  
  Speaking of the keyboard, learn to use it in every circumstance possible—everything you can do on the keyboard without having to reach for the mouse saves you time. Knowing that F9 prints pairings by player, or that Ctrl-H will bring up the Results Slip printing screen can save you a lot of time compared to navigating through menus, and can help you keep the printer working at full speed.
  
  Finally, be proactive about taking advantage of dead time while waiting for results to get penalties entered as you go and keep slips sorted. This may feel like unnecessary work that could be done after the fact, but as long as you treat them as lower priority and don't let them slow you down when more critical things come up, they're very handy. Trying to look up a penalty history or looking up a disputed result can be very slow and disruptive at a much more inconvenient time if you haven't been keeping these tasks in order.
• Players: Too many players treat the signature field on the result slip as something they just have to do without thinking, dashing it off without ever paying it another thought. Most of the time, this works out, but once in a while can lead to serious disappointment. The signature field is there as your insurance to make sure that the result is right, and that's something worth taking seriously. Make sure that the results are written in pen and are written correctly before you sign, and certainly don't sign the slip before the match has finished and a result has been written (something I've seen disturbingly often)—that's just like signing a blank contract that gets filled in later. If judges are collecting slips, they should verify the result and you should make sure that this verification is right. If judges aren't collecting slips and you were the winner, bring the result slip up to make sure nothing happens to it and to ensure that it gets entered. If there are any mistakes made filling out the slip, call for a judge to verify and correct it. Your goal is to make sure the information that you pass to the scorekeeper is both correct and clear.
  
  Also, mistakes sometimes do happen, and they can be handled if caught immediately far more often than if they are caught sometime in the future. Because of this, it's important to check your point total on the pairings every round. Next to your name on the pairings list will be a number of points listed that indicates your record. A win gives you three points, a draw gives you one, and a loss gives you zero. Take the time to keep a running tally and verify that the total matches your record, and make sure to alert the scorekeeper immediately if you see an issue.
  
  Finally, don't sit on your result slips—it may feel like you can leave it in your pocket and play a few matches for fun as long as you get it in before the end of the round, but plenty of result slips get lost this way, or end up holding up the end of a round because a player loses track of time.
• Judges: Help make sure that the data that makes it to the scorekeeper is accurate. If you are collecting slips, make sure you verify with both players verbally that the result is as they wrote it. If you see somebody scribbling out a mistake, verify it for them and initial any changes, making sure that the resulting slip is very clear. If you see a player holding a slip, encourage them to turn it in, and similarly, if you have any slips, make sure you turn them in regularly rather than sitting on them for a whole round.
  
  Also, consistency is key to helping the scorekeeper sift through all of the data that piles up, and anything you can do to make things more consistent will reduce the bottleneck. It seems like a minor thing, but it takes very little time for you (or for players, though it's much tougher to get the entire player base to do this) to make sure that you put the slip into the box in the same orientation as all of the other slips, whereas a lot of time can be eaten up by the scorekeeper trying to sort a disorganized pile of slips that faces every which way. Minor things like this that you can do to improve consistency can make a big difference.

Wrapping Up
All in all, as the stories show, nothing particularly noteworthy or dramatic happened at Grand Prix Vancouver. And while that might not be good for readers of tournament reports, it's a great testament to how smoothly the tournament went [... clearly the work of a brilliantly talented Head Judge... -Seamus]. Still, there are lessons to be learned in any tournament, and hopefully the ones I took out of this event are helpful to you as well.

Next month: The levels, they are a changing. One level in particular, that is—a recent announcement from the DCI revealed that over the course of the next months, the role formerly known as the Level 2 Trainer will be rolled out across all Level 2 judges as part of the next phase of development in the judge program. What exactly do these changes mean for judges and players, and what do potential and existing Level 2 judges need to do to ensure their success in their new role?

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Nicholas J. Fang
DCI Certified Level 3 Judge – Redmond, WA
mtgjudge@live.com
Agbaar and Ag|Work on EFnet's #mtgjudge