April 2016 Anniversaries

Here are the April 2016 judge anniversaries!

10 years

Maxim Antipov from Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
Bryan Alcorn from Unknown, United States
Shaun Mack from Bristol, United States
Brandon Petitpren from Garden City, United States

5 years

Vicente Davis from Merced, United States
Drew Herr from Bangor, United States
Joshua McCurley from Lewisville, United States
William VanDyke from Hampton, United States
Nigel Garrett from Birmingham, England
Michael Lum from Victoria, United States
Pete Picard from , United States
Ronny Alvarado from Katy, United States
Violet Edgar from Sindelfingen, Germany
Lamberto Franco from Scandicci, Italy
James Vogel from Costa Mesa, United States
william christopher from nottingham, United States
John Laitinen from Fargo, United States
David Dean from Hickory, United States
Michael McCliment from Montreal, Canada
Bob Narindra from Grants Pass, United States
Lucas Piccoli from Santa Fe, Argentina
Dustin Gilliland from Tuscaloosa, United States
Milosz Krysinski from Groblice, Poland
Jose Estorga from Moerno Valley, United States
Alex Jerard Muhich from South Milwaukee, United States
Jim Horng from Taipei, Taiwan, Province of China
Joshua Gang from Highland Park, United States
Emily Blasdell from Seattle, United States
Walter Deshazo from Ruther Glenn, United States
Aaron Eng from Fayetteville, United States
Arrian Ordonez from Quezon City, Philippines
Cristiam Padilla from greenfield park, Mexico
Nick Rutkowski from El Cerrito, United States

Congratulations, and thank you for all your hard work!

This month, we have 2 features! Our first featured judge is Brandon Petitpren. His RC, Jarrod Williams, has this to say about Brandon:

“Brandon Petitpren’s impact on the Judge Program goes far beyond his L1 status. While many of us blur the line between Tournament Organizer and Judge in helping our Local Stores run tournaments Brandon has dedicated himself to making his store a hub for competitive play in the area as well as a place to train up judges. The drive to provide a top flight experience for players has resulted in committing to create one of the best programs for training up new judges. The “Shadow Judging” program employed by Pandemonium has been developed over time in partnership with some of the best judges in the program. It takes a monumental commitment to judge training to allow it to be done on your events, but Brandon has shown the willingness to allow judges to be taught and mentored at events and as a benefit some of the best judges in Michigan, the Great Lakes region and perhaps the program come out of this system. This level of commitment goes beyond simply being a Tournament Organizer and allows him to have made an impact across all levels of the program.”

Next we have Michael McCliment, a judge in Gavin Duggan‘s Region:

“Michael has been one of the most friendly and positive influences on the Canadian judge scene, for several years. He has excelled and contributed even as a dedicated family man, and has found ways to help build community even when he isn’t judging events. I first worked with him at GP Montreal many years ago, and have teamed up at GPs and open events across the continent since… he often has interesting ideas about judging based on his experiences outside magic, which is something I really value, and he’s someone I can rely on when I need local representation in the quixotic locale that is Montreal.”

After a few months off, Level 3 anniversaries are back! This month we celebrate two Level 3 anniversaries. Back in 2011, Kevin Binswanger and Kenji Suzuki each certified for L3.

Yoshitoki Sakai was certified L2 by Kenji and they have worked many PTQs, WMCQs, GPs and other events together. He offered some thoughts about Kenji’s impact on the region:

“Chiao, You’ve been one of the super leaders in the Japanese Region since many years ago. Especially online, you have a blog that has been updated every single time some important information is sent out from somewhere. You are exactly a vision of what a leader is supposed to be, I aim. I am very surprised you’ve been doing such hard work for so many years!! Please feel free to tell me if you get tired from doing it! I am ready to take it over from you. The most I was surprised, you may remember, is one time we were casually talking about feedback. You suddenly sent me an e-mail about coming to work at the store to write a review and mentor all of our judges and left the store! Thank you very much. All of us appreciate you very much. We all hope your life will be well!!”

We asked David Hibbs, Level 3 judge and long-time Texas judge, to gather some thought about Kevin’s impact. He offered his own thoughts and some thoughts of others:

“When Kevin moved to Texas in 2008, I didn’t know him. It wasn’t long, however, before he began to make his presence known in the Texas judge community. He became an L1 that year, and before the end of 2009 he was an L2. At a time when there weren’t many judges in Texas that were both willing and qualified to HJ PTQs, Kevin started picking up events that I simply couldn’t reach. I began to think of us as the two bishops on the chess board–each managing various aspects of the field yet never able to link and cross paths. I could see judge numbers increasing, and I could sense the quality of those judges improving as they moved between our events. I could feel his presence and effect, I just couldn’t seem to meet him!

Fast forward a few years, to 2011. As another long-time judge, Jeff Zandi, wrote to me, ‘When Kevin became a level three judge he firmly established a new face on judging in Texas. He immediately imparted a more professional and serious image for us all.’

Since that time, Kevin has grown and developed both the state of Texas and the region as a whole. When I asked others about him, I heard a few common themes. Kevin is a great judge who’s always quick to help when called upon. Kevin always thanks other judges for their hard work. He’s always willing to share his knowledge and experience with others. He knows when to trust another judge’s skills, and when to test those skills.

As area captain Alex Tune noted to me, there are so many judges in this region that could neither have advanced in the program nor continued to operate as part of it without his support and guidance.

Congratulations, Kevin, on 5 years as L3!”

Happy anniversary to all of you!  We look forward to many more years of judging from you all.