With 12 minutes left in the last Swiss round of a PPTQ you’re head judging, two players call you over. They tell you that they intentionally drew their match during game 5, and didn’t know how to report it. You ask what happened, and Allison tells you, “Well, we’re best friends, and we both make Top 8 if we draw and the match at the next table doesn’t draw. We both know this, so after we each won a game we intentionally drew the next two after about 10 turns. The next match over did finally end with a winner, so we’re drawing the match now. Brad thinks intentional draws are always supposed to be 0-0-3, but I’m confused because we played 5 games. Who’s right?”
You talk to a judge who’s playing in the event, and he says they were playing pretty quickly the whole time he watched, but then abruptly drew the game when the match next to them ended. What do you do?
Judges, feel free to discuss this scenario on Judge Apps!
AnswerLet’s have a look at some official documents to justify this answer:
IPG 4.7 Stalling
A player intentionally plays slowly in order to take advantage of the time limit. If the slow play is not intentional, please refer to Tournament Error — Slow Play instead.
MTR 2.4 Conceding or Intentionally Drawing Games or Matches
If a game or match is not completed, players may concede or mutually agree to a draw in that game or match. A
match is considered complete once the result slip is filled out or, if match slips are not being used, a player leaves
the table after game play is finished. Until that point, either player may concede to or draw with the other, though
if the conceding player won a game in the match, the match must be reported as 2-1. Intentional draws are always
reported as 0-0-3.
MTR 5.2 Bribery
Players may not reach an agreement in conjunction with other matches. Players can make use of information regarding match or game scores of other tables. However, players are not allowed to leave their seats during their match or go to great lengths to obtain this information.
The players were not slow playing, so this is not Stalling, and while it doesn’t make much strategic sense, they’re completely within their rights to draw the current game and move on to the next at any point. Neither have they gone to great lengths to obtain this information. So, these actions are legal.
Instruct Allison that she’s right – because they each won a game before eventually drawing three games and the match, and all games that are played are expected to be reported, their match slip should list one win for each of them, and three draws, 1-1-3.
The MTR specifies 0-0-3 for Intentional Draws; this applies if players just agree to a draw without playing any games. Once a game has begun, it should be reflected on the result slip.
Thanks all for participating and see you soon!