Another Person's Shoes

Before we dig into this month's topic, there's a little bit of unfinished business for me to wrap up. Those of you who have been following along from month to month will notice that this article doesn't match the teaser that I wrote last month. As it turns out, there was a bit of a miscommunication in the rotation of authors and Lee Sharpe ended up writing a great article about that very topic, one that I highly recommend you read if you haven't already. To reemphasize what Lee said, remember that if there's any doubt, you shouldn't deviate from the penalty guidelines. One thing that judges can forget in the heat of the moment is that you aren't searching for a reason not to deviate from the guidelines, not deviating is the default.

More From Less
Anyway, let's get down to business. If you're like me, I have a piece of advice for you. You should consider judging less in order to make yourself into a more effective judge.

But wait—haven't we already discussed in the past that judging more, and gaining more first-hand experience, is the most important thing you can do in becoming better? How can it make sense for me to advise you to both judge more and to judge less?

Take a moment and ask yourself these questions. Have you ever been annoyed at players asking you when the next round will be ready when you're moving as fast as you can and there hasn't been a break in the action in hours? Has it ever gotten on your nerves that you're always answering the same darned questions, over and over and over again? Are you ever angry that your announcements seem to go entirely unnoticed?

These are all common situations that plague those who judge frequently, and they just don't make any sense. At least, they don't from the judge's perspective. But—much like with just about everything in life that seems senseless—that's only one side of the story, and as long as you stay locked into that perspective, it's hard to view things any other way. This is why I suggest that you judge less. Not to get less experience with tournaments and to spend less time with Magic, but in order to have the opportunity to play more in the same tournaments that you might judge. To spend some time as a player and to understand how things feel from their point of view. As it turns out, when viewed from the player's point of view, all of these situations make sense and can be easily explained. Spending some time in the players' shoes can go a long way in helping to understand why these things happen, how best to deal with them, and how you might be able to avoid them in the first place.

I know, however, that this can be much easier said than done. For many judges, the opportunities might not exist because there aren't enough other staff to cover their events, or because they just don't have enough time. This is true for me personally, and this isn't advice that I've been able to follow nearly as often as I should or want to. From the small amount of time I've been able to spend on the other side of the curtain, though, I've already managed to learn a great deal.

Life as a Player
Players do not share a hive-mind: One player may have learned something after being told by tournament staff. That doesn't mean that all of the other players gain this knowledge for free. As a judge, if you learn nothing else from this article, this is probably the most important lesson to take with you. This explains why the same subjects, the same questions, and the same problems will come up time and again in the same tournament, and why it makes sense for them to do so.

Generally speaking, tournament staff is small compared to the player base, which means that the same few judges will be fielding all of the questions from all of the players. This means that by the time the day grows long, you'll likely have run into the same issues multiple times. Remember that, to the player asking you, it's probably the first time the issue has come up for them, even though you've already heard it a dozen times. Though remembering this can be difficult when it happens and you've had a long day, it can help make you less frustrated. It will also help you to do a better job with customer service, treating the player as an individual rather than just clumping them together with all others that have already asked.

Players do not have any idea how much is happening behind the scenes: This transcends tournaments and is a general life principle. Anytime you're in the loop on something, it's really easy to forget how much people who aren't in the loop don't know and how this can change their perception of things. In tournaments specifically, this applies to the information on what's happening in the tournament at large that everyone on tournament staff knows. It's very common to forget that players aren't privy to or tracking much of this information. Remembering this can help make seemingly-dumb questions seem very sensible and can explain why players don't seem to empathize with a situation that looms large in your mind.

A player's round ends when their match ends: Ever wonder why players always seem so impatient, clustering around the judge's station to ask how much longer it's going to take before the next round starts? This despite the fact that there are tons of matches still outstanding and you don't have enough staff to watch all the matches that have gone to time and deal with results slip entry at the same time?

From a player's perspective, there's only one match that actually is relevant to each round—their own. Once that match has completed, the rest of the round is waiting, no matter how many other people are still occupied with matches. This doesn't mean that players don't realize that there are more matches than their own. What it does mean is that even though they know this, it doesn't change the fact that they're waiting, and sometimes this means they are waiting for a long time. Couple this with the fact that players generally don't have good insight on everything else happening in the tournament, and that it happens round after round, and even the most understanding player can become antsy and impatient.

Lack of food can make you cranky: While it's not always the case that a lunch break is possible with the schedule of the day, it's really important to find some way to make sure people will be able to eat. This may mean making accommodations to have food available on site, or making sure to choose a site that is close enough to food that players can walk. If there's not enough time for players to get lunch, they will get cranky, and any understanding of why a lunch break wasn't possible goes straight out the window when a player gets cranky.

Magic is tiring: This was probably the most surprising thing I learned in the last Pro Tour Qualifier that I played in. From a judge's perspective, after spending a day on your feet, running around to take care of issues and keep the tournament running, it really feels like the players have it easy. They get to sit for most of the day, playing Magic, having a good time. So obviously players shouldn't end up tired out the way that judges are at the end of the day. Except … it turns out that they easily can be.  A day of playing Magic, concentrating on making the best plays and gearing yourself up for match after match, can be really, really tiring.

What does this mean, practically? Expect that fatigue will be a factor for players more than you may realize, and be willing to understand that the dumb thing that happens near the end of the day might just be something dumb rather than something malicious.

It can be really hard to keep track of announcements: Unless you have a really good announcement system, it's really easy to miss announcements simply by them being hard to hear over the din of the crowd. This is even worse if it's an announcement that happens in the middle of a round, when you're concentrating on a tight game and not primed to listen for an announcement. And even after you've heard them, as the day goes on and the announcements pile up, it's easy to forget them. It's easy to forget just how many announcements that you're giving out when you're on the judging end; from the player's point of view, the amount of data can be overwhelming.

The lesson here is pretty simple—keep the announcements brief, make them clear, and make sure that you have everyone's attention before you make them

Vice Versa
Of course, learning more about tournaments by viewing things from the other side doesn't only work in one direction. There is a lot that players could learn about why things work the way they do by spending some time on tournament staff. This isn't as easy to arrange as a judge stepping into the shoes of a player from time to time, but can be similarly instructive.

There is more going on in the tournament than your match: When you call for a judge, does it seem like it takes longer for them to get to you than it should? Wonder why you're waiting so long after your match finishes for the next round to start? Simply put, there's lots of other stuff for the judges to pay attention to than just your match. For starters, there are the other matches and other players that need help. This you probably already know, even if it's hard to internalize the effect that these other matches have.

But there's oftentimes more than that. Deck checks take time. Investigations into any special cases that have come up, discussions about policy, computer troubles, overflowing trash cans, dealing with site management, side events, and other such issues pile up. The demands on the oftentimes small tournament staff can really add up in a way that isn't obvious to players.

Ultimately, remember that there's a lot to keeping a tournament running smoothly, and oftentimes when things feel like they're going well, it's not because there aren't issues popping up, it's because the staff is spending time making those issues transparent to the players.

Time is of the essence: As much as it might not feel like it when there's a delay of any sort, judges are typically keenly aware of how much time things are taking and how long the tournament is running. For most players, the day ends when you feel like it—you can drop from the tournament and head home when you've had enough, or when the Swiss rounds end. For judges, though, they're in it for the long haul and have to stay until the whole thing is over, without the added adrenaline boost of having made the Top 8. Because of this, the judges that I've worked with are all very aware of time and how long the day is going to run. They're also trying to find a way to make things go even faster. So when something happens that delays the tournament, you can rest assured that it's not on purpose, and the judges aren't any happier about it than you are. When it comes to keeping things running quickly, everyone is on the same side.

As a side note on this topic, if you ever wonder why there isn't a lunch break at a lot of tournaments, this is why. It's not because the staff doesn't want you to have a chance to eat, it's because there just might not be time to have everyone take a break and not finish way too late at night (in many places, closing time of the venue is a very real concern).

The judges are not immersed in your current game state: When you call a judge over, they oftentimes have to digest the entirety of your game state in a single glance, which can be very challenging. This is directly in contrast to your view on the game, where you've been involved since the beginning and have been able to incorporate everything relevant as it's built up. This discrepancy tends to lead to skipping important information when describing what's going on. Make sure that you explain the entirety of what's happening, assuming that the judge doesn't have any knowledge of anything that's happened before they showed up. Most of the time, they don't.

Repetition is frustrating: Maybe it's only the first time that you've had to ask something, but if you're one of many players that have had to ask, that still adds up. While that doesn't mean that you shouldn't ask if it's something that you do need to know, it does mean that if you end up not needing to ask, then that's one less instance of the question from the judge's perspective. Sometimes this means asking a friend who might know. Other times this might mean paying a little closer attention to the announcements at the beginning of the round. It might mean looking for the sign to the bathroom on your own. No matter the method, finding a way to lessen the attention that the judging staff needs to pay to you will help to keep everyone feeling more chipper and keep things running more smoothly.

Everyone makes mistakes: Everyone wants to be perfect, but nobody is. Mistakes will happen, whether in playing or otherwise. There's been enough attention to the small play mistakes that players make over the course of a tournament that players are largely aware that these errors will happen. And yet, the idea that a judge might make a mistake from time to time seems to be a travesty, even though it's not really any different. Judges will make honest mistakes from time to time and a lot of things that players will chalk up to maliciousness or bias or other factors oftentimes will boil down to unfortunate mistakes. While judges shouldn't be complacent about making mistakes and should, of course, be aware of them and work on improving them, realize that they still will happen from time to time.

Summing Up
There's certainly more to say on this subject, but here I must profess that I'm not the expert on this subject, as I spend far more time judging than I ever do playing. My hope here is that all of you can teach me a thing or two in the forums. If you're one of the lucky ones that gets to spend ample time on both sides, let us know what you've learned. If you're primarily a player, what do you wish that judges knew about your tournament experience that would help to improve it? If you're a judge, what do you wish that players knew that would help things run more smoothly?

Ultimately, there's a lot that players and judges have to learn from each other if they're willing to listen and keep an open mind. Remember that there's always another perspective on things and that spending some time in someone else's shoes can help everyone to have a better time, which is what Magic is all about.

Next month: Once up on a time, there was a penalty known as, "failure to agree on reality." Though the penalty is gone, the situation still exists. We dig into techniques on arriving at a shared reality when players see the world from wildly different perspectives.

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