You’re walking the floor at a PTQ when you notice a table with only one player. You glance at the clock and see that just over 10 minutes have elapsed, so you step in, pick up the match slip, and ask the player across from you “Are you Anton or Nikolai?” He replies “Oh, Nikolai’s here. We’ve played game one already. He saw I was going to sideboard and I think he went to get a soda.” What do you do?

Judges, feel free to discuss this scenario on Judge Apps!

[expand title=”View Answer”]Thanks to everybody who participated this week! While the IPG says players not in their seats at 10 minutes into the round will be given a match loss, this pertains to players who have been absent since the beginning of the round. A player leaving their match in progress without a tournament official’s permission is guilty of slow play. The absent player will receive a warning, and the players will have two additional turns should their match go to extra time.

Kenneth Woo made a very good point that we’d like to highlight: If Nikolai won game one, this has a chance of being USC- Stalling. When Nikolai returns, a quick investigation to try to determine his motivations for leaving is a good idea.[/expand]