Hello everyone! I am an L1 judge from the Czech Republic. In this blog
\npost, I would like to share with you my recent experience with running a
\nJudge Booth. I hope that it may inspire you to run one on your own.<\/p>\n
I have always been intrigued by the rules part of judging and teaching
\nplayers the delicacy of rules. Another major interest is in the diplomacy
\nbetween the judge and player communities. So, when I discovered it was
\npossible to run my own judge booth, I immediately decided I had to give
\nthat a try!<\/p>\n
I started planning my first judge booth. I picked the closest big
\ntournament at that time, which was a Pro Tour Qualifier that was to be held
\non June 8th in Prague, Czech Republic. I chose a PTQ because it was obvious
\nthere would be many players, and also for the audience of a competitive
\nevent. From my experience, most players at a PTQ see judges only as a
\nthreat that may stop their successful journey through the tournament.
\nHowever, a judge booth is a great instrument to build \u201cpublic relations\u201d of
\nour judge community, and to show players that judges are not just scary
\nmonsters.<\/p>\n
After I finalized where I would try my Judge Booth pilot attempt, the next
\nstep was to communicate my intent to the Tournament Organizer and the Head
\nJudge of the event. Luckily, both guys were OK with the idea. Of course, I
\nhad to ensure that the Booth would not interfere with the event itself, and
\naccept that no support (e.g. judge booth prizes) would be provided. I also
\nhad to manage everything by myself (I doubted that I would find another
\nfellow judge enthusiast to help me run the booth without expecting a
\ncompensation for it\u2026).<\/p>\n
The next step was to prepare the materials for the Booth. That meant
\nprinting the questions, going through them to be sure about detailed
\nanswers, and sorting the questions into three difficulty categories. I also
\nprepared some signs to use on site for advertising the Judge Booth area.
\nAnother thing was to prepare some \u201cprizes\u201d for the booth participants. I am
\na tournament organizer myself, so I had some promo cards I could spare
\n(albeit not of big monetary value – there went the days of mythic rare
\npromos like Emrakul\u2026).<\/p>\n
The D day arrived. I showed up early, so there was enough time to observe
\nthe situation on site, and find a good place for the Booth together with
\nthe Head Judge. Thanks to the tournament hall shape, it was quite simple –
\nwe just picked a corner opposite to the one with the judge station. There
\nwas plenty of time, so I made myself useful and helped the judges that were
\ndedicated to the tournament with their preparations (e.g. acquiring ice
\ncream from a nearby grocery, because we expected a heaty day).<\/p>\n
While everyone was playing in the first round of the event, I set up the
\nBooth. Just a few tables and chairs were sufficient to serve the needs. The
\naforementioned Judge Booth signs were posted, question piles sorted out and
\nprizes readied. The Head Judge did an announcement before the second
\ntournament round about my Booth.<\/p>\n
Apart from the start of tournament rounds, the Booth occupied all my time;
\nusually surrounded by a small crowd of curious players. The interaction
\nbetween the players and me was usually quite simple – a mix of chat, and
\nthen the prepared rules questions. When asking a question, I always let the
\nplayers discuss the scenario and form their own answers before I presented
\nmy solution together with an explanation (in case that a player’s answer
\nwas not already perfect). As mentioned, the prizes were not of a great
\nvalue so I gave them away quite generously.<\/p>\n
During the moments when there was no one at the Booth (all players were
\nplaying their games), I was either taking a break or helping to cover the
\ntournament floor.<\/p>\n
In the end, 32 of 168 players that registered in the tournament received a
\nJudge Booth prize. The rough number of people interested in my Judge Booth
\nwas around 50. The whole event was amazing for me and hopefully for others
\nas well. The Booth experience was full of interesting social interactions
\nbetween the players (who came not only from the Czech Republic but also
\nfrom Germany and Poland) and me.<\/p>\n
I really enjoyed running the Booth. The day left me with a feeling that my
\nmission – strengthening the relations between the judge and player
\ncommunities – was a great success! I hope to repeat this experience soon,
\nmaybe at a prerelease, and hopefully with the brand new, great asset in our
\nhands – the webapp created by Steffen Baumgart.<\/p>\n
Milan Majercik<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hello everyone! I am an L1 judge from the Czech Republic. In this blog post, I would like to share with you my recent experience with running a Judge Booth. I hope that it may inspire you to run one on your own. I have always been intrigued by the rules part of judging and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,3,11,7],"language":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-report","tag-journey-into-nyx","tag-judge-booth","tag-online-judge-booth","tag-ptq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/judgebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/judgebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/judgebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/judgebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/judgebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/judgebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/judgebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/judgebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/judgebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/judgebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/judgebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}