[Ingrid Lind-Jahn is one of the many strong judges out of Wisconsin these days. She got the nod this year to run the Super Series Championship, and it is my pleasure to bring you her Head Judge's report for that event. Thanks Ingrid! -Seamus]

Behind the Stripes at the MSS Championships
I had the opportunity to head judge the Magic Super Series Champs last weekend in Baltimore, as part of Magic Weekend. Magic Weekend is actually three major events all at one venue: US Nationals, the Magic Scholarship Series Championship and a plethora of side events. I was amazed at the amount of coordination required to keep all three events moving.

Preparation for head judging the MSS actually started weeks ahead of time. We had many judges who were sponsored fully or partially for the weekend, but we also had several volunteers. The roster kept changing right up until fairly close to the event itself. Andy Heckt actually did the incredibly hard work of dividing the judges between events for each day. It know it is difficult, because I sat down one night and tried it myself. Figuring out how many judges you need for a single event—your local PTQ—is relatively easy. Dividing judges among two large main events, three shifts at side events, and for other judge related activities such as L3 interviews makes this task complex—and more so because judges generally work different events each day—and because side events, for instance, has multiple, overlapping shifts.

Once I knew which judges were working the MSS each day, I had the relatively easier job of deciding what my teams were and distributing judges amongst them. Even this requires some thought. One strategy might be to make teams the same size, regardless of their tasks. Another is to staff them appropriately for the relative amount of judge-power it takes to perform those tasks. Deck checks, for example, takes a minimum of two judges per match checked, and the team leader should not be checking decks so they're available in the event of a deck problem. It's also a good idea to divide the judges between teams based on relative known major tournament experience—you don't want all your new judges by themselves on one team.

Even selecting team leaders should not just be a matter of picking your best known or most experienced judges. Your needs might vary depending on the event. Sometimes you may need your experienced L3's to be the team leads; at other events you may need to be evaluating a new L3, or some L2's on the cusp of becoming L3. Even at the start, it's a mix of doing what is best for your event to run smoothly and doing what is best for the judge program and for developing each judge's skills.

I had nine judges and essentially two teams—paper (which handles pairings and results slips) and deck checks (which does [Wait for it... -S] deck checks.) The MSS is Standard, which means that the relative demands of logistics are minimal and are concentrated at the start of the day—numbering tables and collecting deck lists. For me, that wasn't worth a separate team.

I did my final work on assigning teams for Friday and Saturday on Thursday. I was technically floating on a grinder [That's a single-elimination qualifier tournament -S] on Thursday, but I had time for some final preparatory details. This included figuring out which tables I wanted to use for both the MSS open and for the MSS itself, as well as getting team schedules printed. I also checked my roster of judges to see if any were working the late Grinders—if someone is working until 4 AM or so, letting them sleep in a bit is a good idea, while making them a team lead the following day may not be a good idea.

Scott Marshall and I had mandatory meetings for all judges on Thursday. The purpose of meetings like this—like the morning meetings before the event itself—is mainly to share information efficiently at the start of the event. Large events like this are often a testing ground for changes in policy, for example, but you cannot test changes efficiently unless everyone is on the same page. These meetings also let you share instructions with everyone so that all the associated tournaments are run consistently. This is also an opportunity for judges to ask questions about the event. It may, depending on the size of the meeting, be an excellent opportunity for judges to introduce themselves briefly. We ran two separate meetings—8:30 AM and 2:30 PM—to be able to meet with all judges while not requiring everyone to be there at 8:30, especially those who didn't need to report to work until 4 PM or later.

When it comes to judge meetings (and announcements), I like to jot down notes ahead of time. A meeting is most efficient if you can impart necessary information in one shot. I took part of Thursday to compose my notes for the judge meeting for my event, my team leader meeting, and my player meeting. I used those same outlines on later days, skipping over some things and adding in new topics that arose.

On Friday I had the MSS Open—the last chance qualifier for the MSS. It was a regular Swiss tournament, but instead of a fixed number of players advancing, all players with 15 or more match points (out of a total of 7 rounds) advanced to the MSS Champs. We had 129 players.

On Saturday the MSS itself started. We ultimately had 272 players for day 1, which went for 9 rounds and cut to all players with 15 or more match points. Sunday after the cut we had 121 players for the final four rounds before the top 8.

When you are running a tournament out of your local area, and especially when it is alarger or higher profile event, there are a number of decisions you will need to make. You can make these in conjunction with the TO or, as I had here, the tournament manager. Would we let in a late entry? If so—how late: what's the cut off? Does the late entry get a bye, or take a first round loss? For an event like the MSS open, which was not Swiss with a cut to Top 8, if we went slightly over a traditional cut off number, would we add another round or not? Would game losses for being tardy occur at 0 and 10 minutes or 3 and 10 minutes? What announcements would be necessary? Where would the pairings be posted? Would we do deck mid-round checks, or only check decks at the start of the round? What policy would we have toward spectators? What problems would we want to warn judges to be on the lookout for? What would our policy be for food and drink?

That's hardly an exhaustive list of questions, but it does help to illustrate the thought process required at a larger event. While on the one hand, it is, at its bones, running a Magic tournament, on the other hand, it requires the head judge to be able to step back from the basic nuts and bolts of running a tournament and periodically (and regularly) look at the big picture. You cannot micromanage your judges and run the event effectively. You must delegate a lot of tasks, but you must also take time to make sure that everything is being done as well as possible.

An event like this is different from a similarly sized event in your home area. There you are likely to know most, if not all, of the judges. When you are out of your home area, you may know a few of your judges, but many will be strangers. If the judge program is functioning as we hope it does, the staff should be familiar with working Magic events That let's you make some assumptions about their skills, enough to get the tournament going, but you have to learn their strengths and weaknesses during the event. You may need to make adjustments to your staff as the day goes on.

You need to observe your staff. Moreso than any other event I've worked, I felt myself pulling back and observing it from a more distant vantage point. Not only did I watch what individual judges were doing, but I also watched what the teams were doing. I also kept an eye on all my judges in relation to the entire tournament. Was there sufficient floor coverage? Were all our necessary tasks being covered? Were they able to respond to judge calls promptly? If not, why not? Were they interacting with one another? Was everyone involved in the event? Did they get breaks periodically? When they were taken off the floor for one reason or another, were the tasks for their team still performed?

Microphone skills are vital at an event such as this. It took me most of the first day to realize just how loudly I needed to speak to be sure my voice carried throughout my tournament—which was held in a large, echoey room. This is more difficult the larger the room and the more microphones there are in use throughout the venue. The challenge is not to overshadow other announcements that may be going on at the same time. In truth, it is better to be louder than too quiet. As for competing announcements: when they came from side events I would speak over them. When they came from Nationals, I tried to fit them around so we weren't competing. My final words: You cannot be self-conscious about how your voice sounds at a large event. Speak somewhat slowly and enunciate clearly.

When you head judge an event, you are the face of that event. This is true at the local level, although you may not be aware of it in those terms. At a major event such as this, even though you are not constantly in the spotlight, you have to act as though you are. That's because you never know at what moments you will be center stage. The obvious moments are when you're at the mic or dealing with players directly. The less obvious moments are all the other times throughout the day when your judges or players may see you. Even if you're feeling tired, or frustrated, or stressed out, or anything else, you can't show it. You need to appear to be in control and, better yet, to be having fun.

A case in point: Saturday, one of my judges [A member of the team I was leading, as well -S] became dizzy and collapsed right at the main stage. EMTs were called, and he was taken out on a stretcher. He had been a part of my event, and I had been the first person to reach him after he collapsed. I was very relieved that he was apparently doing well and that he was being taken care of, but I was also shaken up. Apparently it showed on my face. After a quick reminder from Toby Elliot, I made an effort to look more cheerful than I may have felt at that moment and went on from there. The injured judge was in good hands and I still had a tournament to run, and that meant I had to put my worries aside and keep going. It sounds inhuman, but there are moments when you have to hold your humanity aside to do your job. (The judge in question is back home and doing okay, in case you were wondering.)

You also need to be accessible pretty much all the time. I was in red and black stripes (which are used only for multi-day events), and that does help increase one's visibility. Another thing that helps is staying on or around the main stage much of the time. It isn't so much that I wanted to be that distant from the event; it was a central place where everyone could find me. It also gives you a nice vantage point over the entire event. That being said, I wasn't tethered to the stage. I made regular forays out onto the floor—talking to judges, talking to players, moving spectators along, etc., but I always returned to where I could be found. When I needed to be away, I designated someone else to be in charge. I was probably off the floor for a couple minutes at a time, a handful of times the entire weekend, but staff needs to know when you're gone and who's in charge when you're away.

Communication is absolutely key at an event like this. You need to keep in touch with your judges, particularly your team leaders. You also need to be in communication with your scorekeeper so they can be prepared to help you keep things on track. It's a good idea for your scorekeeper to know who is the leader for the paper team, for example. At the MSS, I also had a tournament manager—at local events you may be doing TO tasks as well. You need to know who is responsible for every aspect of your event.

And above all this, you need to have clear communication with your players. If you have any particular or unusual expectations of them, they must know about it—hence the player meeting at the start of the day. At the MSS, I had younger players at least some of whom may not have been used to playing at the Competitive REL or receiving game losses immediately for tardiness, for example. In this tournament, I made an announcement at one minute before I started the round so that players knew to get to their seats. I don't normally do this, but in this particular situation, I thought it would be helpful.

If you are not clear in your communication with players, or a particular player, it can lead to further difficulties later. Here's an example where that happened.

At the start of the Top 8, we did deck checks of all the players. We discovered a problem in DJ Kastner's deck. All of his maindeck cards were significantly bent from shuffling. All of his sideboard cards were much flatter than those in the maindeck, enough so that they were clearly distinguishable from the rest of the deck. When sideboard cards were in the deck, it naturally cut such that a sideboard card was left as the top card in the deck.

This was obviously unacceptable for play. The potential for advantage is huge. It's also a situation which is not easy to resolve. I've since learned that I need to quell my desire to fix all situations that come up—we can fix a lot of them, but we cannot fix everything. I told him that he had the choice of playing without his sideboard, or he had to get the deck and the sideboard to match somehow. I was not clear enough in communicating, though, that the responsibility of fixing his deck, and making the assessment as to whether his deck was fixed enough to play with, was his.

He chose to attempt to bend his sideboard cards to match the main deck cards. When I started the player meeting for the Top 8, I allowed a judge to continue trying to bend the cards in the interest of saving time. There is a problem with this, however; it can lead to the impression that we are condoning the fix.

It's like being asked by a player whether or not his sleeves are okay. At any given point in time—such as before the tournament—they may appear to be okay, but that cannot be a guarantee that they will continue to be so as they are handed and shuffled throughout the tournament. The player could scratch his cards shuffling two minutes after you check them—and get deck checked a minute later. The same thing applied with the card situation here. Simply by shuffling the deck, it could alter the amount of bend present in the cards. When we returned Mr. Kastner's deck, it was as good as could be under the circumstances. It was still, and I could have communicated this better, Mr. Kastner's decision as to whether it was actually good enough.

As it turned out, on observation, the sideboard cards continued to be marked with a pattern. Unfortunately, by the time we did establish this, it was in the third game of a three game match. The penalty for marked cards with a pattern is a game loss—and losing the third game of the match meant he lost the match.

There are actually a couple lessons to be learned from this example. One is still that clear communication is absolutely vital. The other is that the decisions you make during the course of a tournament, some of which you will have very little time to think about, may have ramifications further down the line. When you make a suboptimal decision, you have to deal with the consequences as best you can.

Going back in time is never an option—even if you wish you could. You just need to move on.

Head judging the MSS was a fantastic experience. I had a terrific staff and overall, I think things went very smoothly. I learned a lot about running a higher profile event. I've tried to share some of my experiences here because I did find it to be very interesting and I hope that you will too.

Ingrid Lind-Jahn