Ask the Judge, 05/19/2006: Feature Friday

[I first worked with Johanna at Worlds 2004 in San Francisco. She's thoughtful, quiet, and usually deadly accurate with her thoughts on Magic and her dark sense of humor. She's not afraid of criticism, from herself and others, and for all of these reasons she's a great judge and a great addition to the FF lineup. I'm also excited to hear regularly from a judge working the Euro circuit, and as long as that judge can't be me, flame- will get the job done. Kippis! -Seamus]

Hi there. My name is Johanna Virtanen and, as Seamus told you two weeks ago, I'm a Level 3 judge from Finland. For those of you who didn't pay attention in geography class, Finland is a country in northern Europe. We are famous for our trees and lakes (we have plenty of those), our cellphones (Nokia), our drinking habits, our Conan O'Brien lookalike president, and our general tendency to not talk a whole lot. We also have some pretty decent Magic players, and we give them bizarre nicknames like "Jelly".

People on the Internet call me flamedash, and this is my heartwarming tale of adventure and defenestration [?! -S] in the streets of Prague, where a magical Pro Tour was recently held.

Usually when I travel to big events, I get there on the day before the event starts, and leave the day after it ends, which doesn't leave much time for sightseeing (though even on that schedule, I got to see Dr. Phil's house and get into a car accident in Los Angeles last year). This time, I travelled to Prague on a Tuesday, and spent a really nice two days sightseeing with my husband Pasi, who also happens to be a Level 3 judge. Prague is a beautiful city, and well worth the trip even when the Pro Tour is not in town. Stay out of the really touristy parts, and you'll find plenty of good, inexpensive restaurants. Then after you've had your lunch of meat, meat, meat, and cheese, go back to the touristy parts and look at all the pretty old buildings.

This Pro Tour was a rather strange one for me. Sometimes I felt happy, confident, and useful, and at other times I felt tired and unhappy and wondered why I was there. Yet, at the end of the weekend, it all seemed worth the trouble again and I knew I would be coming back.

I had different tasks on each day of the event. On Friday, I was a member of one of the deck check teams, except for a few hours when I was pulled out to participate in a Level 3 interview team. On Saturday, I judged a Team Constructed PTQ in the side event area, except for about 45 minutes, when I was calling one of the drafts in the main event. On Sunday, I judged drafts in the side event area, except that I was constantly running out to participate in seminars. Judges at the Pro Tour won't necessarily spend all three days judging the main event, and some high level judges may spend very little time on the floor because there are so many other things to do. At this Pro Tour, the main event staff was also responsible for sides, so almost everyone got to experience both parts of the event.

I also spent a lot of time talking to my fellow judges. One of these conversations was with a judge who had been with the program for a long time, but seemed to not know where his career was going. He seemed to have lost the spark.

People keep judging for many reasons. Not all reasons are desirable. You won't go far if money is your only motivation [This may be the understatement of the Ask the Judge year -S]. I find that at the higher levels of judging, it's some combination of a sense of duty to the community, a desire to keep things fair, enjoying the perks (the travel) and the power (the authority and the cool shirts), and the satisfaction that comes with doing something well and improving your skills. But it probably doesn't matter why exactly you're there, as long as you know why and care about the game. If you stop caring, you're not going to do the best job.

Knowing why you're there and what your goals are helps you to have a good time at a tournament. I feel good when I know I've accomplished something, and accidentally accomplishing something is not easy. Set out a goal for yourself, and it becomes easier. These days, most Pro Tour and Grand Prix head judges expect you to write down goals and then review them after the event. I feel that I achieved both of my stated goals for this Pro Tour (which were to learn more about the Level 3 interview process, and to learn more about difficult players and situations), but I also ended up with a few small accidental victories. A couple of these came from simply talking to my fellow judges. They asked me for my advice, and it seemed that the things I had to say made sense to them. I was able to help them, which is an important part of what judges at the Pro Tour are supposed to be doing.

Calling a draft in the main event was another unexpected victory. It was something I've wanted to do for a while, but never asked for because microphones are scary and English is not my native language. However, I happened to be close by when Jaap the Head Judge was talking to someone else about calling a draft. David Vogin, the Level 4 judge shadowing Jaap at this event, asked me if I wanted to call a draft as well. I don't think he expected me to say yes. He promised to "set it up" and was amused by my nervousness.

The first thing I did on Saturday was sit down and wrote a draft script for myself. I simply wrote down the numbers from 15 to 1 and the number of seconds given for each pick. I also wrote down all the commands, such as "count the booster face down", because although I can do this without a cheat sheet in my native language, it's slightly different to do it in English with the whole Pro Tour listening. I tried to calm down, but when Jaap handed the microphone to me, my legs were still shaking. Fortunately my voice was not shaky. Somewhere during Guildpact, I was actually able to relax. It was actually one of the best parts of the Pro Tour for me.

Sunday morning, on the other hand, was the worst part. That's when two days of sightseeing and two full days of judging caught up to me, and I felt like I was too tired to move. I was not having fun and just wanted the day to be over. That's not a good state of mind to be in when you have five drafts to take care of, and seminars to attend. Make sure to get enough breaks when you're judging a big event, even if you're tempted to stay on the job so you don't miss anything exciting. Don't ignore your physical limits.

We had five or six seminars on various topics (team leading, investigations, community building) between 9 AM and 7 PM, and all the side event judges were supposed to attend at least two of them. Everyone got a couple of nice long breaks from patrolling the floor, but it also made the day rather fragmented and strange. I was always just back from a seminar or just about to go to the next one. My team leader didn't see much of me during the day, and I'm sure some of the players were confused by the disappearing and reappearing judges. It was probably not the perfect way to arrange seminars.

I was the co-facilitator for one of the seminars. We talked about the Level 3 test and how to prepare for it. Neither me or my partner are great public speakers and we had some problems sticking to the plan and structure we had written down some days ago.

After the last seminar I spent some time talking to people I had worked with and some people I hadn't seen for a long time. I had a chat with David, who reminded me that judging has its ups and downs, just like everything else, and that not every tournament will be fantastic. You're there to make the rulings and push in the chairs, and at the end of the weekend you get to sit down for dinner with some good friends, which is always the best part of life.

Finally, I want to congratulate three colleagues who were promoted to Level 3 in Prague: David Gallien, Richard Drijvers (who liked Prague so much that he almost didn't leave) and Ryan Dare (who made sure I had enough wine at dinner) . Well done, guys!

Next month: I travel to Torino, Italy to find out if it's true what they say about GPs in Southern Europe [No, I don't know either -S].

Johanna Virtanen
DCI Level 3 Judge
flame- on #mtgjudge
flame (is at) bore () org
-----