Moving Day
The first section of this article is one of a series of two articles on Failure based on a round table discussion-style seminar conducted at Pro Tour Hollywood. For those interested in the subject, the other part (a taxonomy of failure and ways to avoid common mistakes) will be posted to the DCI Judge Articles site in the relatively near future and a link will be added here in the forums.

For players, the Pro Tour is billed as the pinnacle of competitive Magic. It has a similar purpose for judges and serves as the flash point for discussions about policies and philosophies, learning the latest in how tournaments are run, meeting both professionally and socially with the best and brightest of the judge program, and to put faces to the names of the people who make the program run.

Pro Tour Hollywood was no exception, and brought together what Head Judge Sheldon Menery described as possibly the most ridiculous collection of judge experience and talent ever assembled. For those of you who weren't able to make it, here's a small collection of those lessons and experiences.

Moving On

It's the middle of round four of what looks to be a very long day of judging. A player calls you over and asks you a routine-but-slightly-tricky rules question and long story short, you blow it. Maybe you were distracted by other calls around the room, misunderstood the details of the question, forgot to check the latest Oracle wording of a card, or just plain got it wrong. As much as we'd like it to be otherwise, this happens to everyone at some point, no matter how hard we try and prevent it, and at that point, the question becomes, "what do you do now?"

When is the last time that you commended yourself on a call that you got right, or a tricky situation that you handled correctly? If you're anything like the majority of judges I've spoken with, the answer is an order of magnitude longer than the last time you've contemplated a ruling that you've blown. While it's the case that judges handle things correctly much more often than they make mistakes, by nature people tend to dwell on the mistakes. In our culture of self-improvement, the positive tends to wash away because it's something that we've already accomplished, while the negative lingers since it represents an opportunity for growth.

In the long term view, this serves its purpose and propels our progress. In the short-term, though, this tends to lead people to beat themselves up over their mistakes and to have trouble letting them go. Out of a group of about twenty-five highly skilled judges in our discussion, more than twenty, including myself, said that this was something they do regularly, even if it does have an adverse effect on their judging.

The problem is that before these situations can be useful in the longer-term, the immediate needs of the tournament stand in the way. The day doesn't end just because a mistake happened—there's still a tournament to get through, and it's easy for a mistake to spiral out of control and impair the rest of your judging. Here are some techniques suggested by judges as part of the seminar to try and help get kick-started again.

• Give yourself some (but not too much) time to dwell. It's natural to feel bad when you make a mistake—in fact, many players would be quite upset if judges weren't at least a little contrite when they make mistakes that affect their tournaments. Trying to stuff these feelings and jump straight back to feeling normal and happy again often doesn't work, and just causes those feelings to linger, popping up over the course of the day. Instead of trying to pretend that you aren't bothered, take some time to indulge yourself and let yourself feel bad. Just keep that time under control. Try giving yourself a few minutes to feel bad, talk about it, and get it out of your system, but set yourself a deadline after which it's time to move on (for now) and concentrate on the rest of the tournament. There'll be plenty of time for analysis afterward.
• Talk to the affected players and apologize for your errors. There's little as cathartic as doing the best you can to fix a mistake that you've made. Oftentimes in the case of tournaments, you won't realize that you've gotten something wrong until it's too late to actually fix, but the next best thing is to own up it and apologize to the player. Make sure you choose an appropriate time and way to do this. Sometimes you'll want to do this right away if the issue might come up again in the same match. Sometimes you'll need to wait until after the round so you don't disrupt the match further. Either way, though, you'll help better educate the player for the future and more often than not, you'll find that you're better respected and trusted when players can count on you to own up to your mistakes, and that can go a long way toward making you feel better.
• Remember that everyone makes mistakes. Misery loves company, as the cliché goes, and when it comes to making judging mistakes, you're definitely in good company. In the moment, it might feel like your errors are terminal and mean that you're never going to become the judge you'd like to believe, but every single senior judge has their own laundry list of stories they could tell you about the mistakes they've made. And ultimately, the powers that be in the DCI know that these things will happen. Failure doesn't come from making mistakes, it comes from not learning your lessons and not trying to do better in the future, and there is definitely life after your mistakes. They do have an impact, but don't fall into the trap of exaggerating that impact—it's rarely as bad to everyone else as it is in your own head.
• Keep the day in perspective. It's tough to remember after a mistake, but remember that a tournament day consists of dozens and dozens of rulings, and that you got the vast majority of them right. It's not as immediately obvious how those help the players' experience as it is how blown calls might hurt that experience, but consider the way that a tournament would go if it wasn't judged at all and it doesn't take much imagination to see how much more smoothly and accurately the game is played because of the things you've done right. This may not reduce the impact of your mistakes, but giving yourself equal time to consider those successes can help keep you from feeling as bad about your lapses.

Moving In
Some concrete advice for new Pro Tour judges who want to jump right into the social scene:

• Bring an Elder Dragon Highlander Deck. It's been mentioned a number of times in Feature Friday, among other places, but it's hard to overstate how much popularity this format has garnered among Pro Tour judges and staff. Among other sights at Pro Tour Hollywood was Aaron Forsythe, head of Magic R&D, playing EDH on Sunday night instead of drafting. Even though many regulars will have extra decks you can borrow, probably the easiest way for you to get to know some judges and have a bunch of fun at the same time is to bring your own and jump into the endless series of games that spring up all night after the day of judging is done. If you're not sure where games will be happening, public events or the lobby of the judge hotel are good bets.
• Plan some budget for food. A good amount of socialization, getting to know each other, and discussion happens over food, and while the judge dinner is one place where this happens, that crowd is oftentimes larger that is conducive for really getting to know people. There are dinners that will happen for all tastes and price ranges. If you don't hear about anything to your liking, grab some people you've met on your team during the day and organize something.
• Know where to look. If you got off your shift late or otherwise headed off on your own and later want to find some people to hang out with, there are some standard places to look. Some judges will usually be in Public Events for a good part of the night playing Magic. Some will hang out in the hotel lobby to chat. And some will find the bar/lounge/restaurant of the hotel a good place to kick back and relax with other judges. Between those three places, it's a good bet that you'll find something going on.

Moving Up
Players and judges who are fortunate enough to have a chance to meet and get to know the senior judges of the DCI—levels 4 and 5—tend to quickly find that each judge has some very notable specialties and strengths. Traits that set the standard for how things are done across all of the DCI and that make it obvious why that judge is a senior judge and what they add to the program.

Ask anybody familiar with Carter and they'll tell you that he knows how to make a tournament run, and has no compunctions about sharing that knowledge with you. Likewise, Toby Elliott is the guy to ask about policy philosophies and why things are done the way they are (or whether those ways ought to be changed). Jason Ness is the people and player interaction guy. David Vogin will tell it to you straight. Collin Jackson has the data and the answers, Sheldon Menery gets to the bottom of situations, and so on and so forth. [Next month: Nick covers the European X-Men, er... senior judges. -Seamus]

At first blush, Seamus Campbell, your Feature Friday editor and, as many people now know, the newest Level 4 judge, is tough to classify this way [and here I thought I was the ironic one. -S]. There's no easy label to put on him and when asked, many judges (even ones that have worked with him extensively) have a hard time putting their finger on how to describe him. But ask the judges that he's worked with or the players in his area about him and you'll be hard pressed to find anyone that doesn't think he's a great guy and a great judge. Things run better when he's there. His presence isn't always easy to see, but events run smoother, discussions flow more freely, and more fun is had when he's around. And while it's not in-your-face the way it is with some other senior judges, if you cycle through all of those positive traits that we attribute to the program's exemplars, you'll find that they're all there.

Seamus is far too humble to sell himself, but his advancement is absolutely the right thing for the program and he is the judge most deserving of this step that I can think of. The DCI is stronger for his contributions and I hope you'll all join me in adding our voices to the chorus of congratulations on his promotion. [Starting next week: no more Seamus-got-promoted content -S]

Moving Forward
Next month: A nugget of wisdom that David Vogin gave to me at Pro Tour Hollywood that I'm paying forward. Finding the balance between your brains and your legs - when to think, when to act, and when to just plain get off your ass and do something.

Note: If you're interested in reading more judge-related content, Riki Hayashi is now writing a weekly column separate from Ask the Judge—well worth checking out.

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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