Looking at Side Deck Penalty
from UDE's Player Management Forums
from UDE's Player Management Forums
As per request, this is being brought over from a public forum. For reference, the link below leads to the thread that this issue originated from:
Original Thread
To sum up the situation: during the middle of a Game, a player accesses and begins looking at cards in his/her Side Deck. This is a clear violation of policy and is to be penalized. The issue before us is, exactly what infraction is being committed?
There are a few ideas being tossed in the air. The main two being supported are Procedural Error - Minor or Unsporting Conduct - Minor. Though the possibility of Procedural Error - Major has been suggested. I also suggested Procedural Error - Slow Play at one point, but that was rather quickly abandoned, heheh. However, one person insists that by the current Penalty Guidelines document, that the only possible infraction it can be classified as is Unsporting Conduct - Cheating.
And with that, I leave things in the capable hands of the many Judges who check these forums to add to the discussion. Please enlighten us with your thoughts on what infraction you believe this would fall under and why.
I personally, for starters, hold a firm stance that this is not Unsporting Conduct - Cheating. There are very few instances where an action can be considered Cheating as a generic rule to every instance without investigating each situation and whether or not the person intended to violate the rules. Intent is to be applied to whether or not the player knowingly violated the rules and did so to gain a benefit, not whether or not a player intentionally made a move that was otherwise illegal (players rarely accidentally pay costs and verbally announce an action by accident).
It may be the responsibility of the players to learn and know the rules, but part of the reason we have Judges is because not all players are going to know all of the rules and issues will arise. A player cannot be held accountable as intentionally violating the rules simply because they did something they should not have, no matter how basic it may seem to others.
That said, I suppose that Procedural Error - Minor would be best suited for this type of infraction. It has minimal impact on gameplay and is easily repaired. The player would be assigned a Warning and reveal the cards he viewed to his opponent (similar to a Looking an Extra Cards infraction) and gameplay would continue.
Click here to view the full discussion Then feel free to return to discuss the subject here.Original Thread
To sum up the situation: during the middle of a Game, a player accesses and begins looking at cards in his/her Side Deck. This is a clear violation of policy and is to be penalized. The issue before us is, exactly what infraction is being committed?
There are a few ideas being tossed in the air. The main two being supported are Procedural Error - Minor or Unsporting Conduct - Minor. Though the possibility of Procedural Error - Major has been suggested. I also suggested Procedural Error - Slow Play at one point, but that was rather quickly abandoned, heheh. However, one person insists that by the current Penalty Guidelines document, that the only possible infraction it can be classified as is Unsporting Conduct - Cheating.
And with that, I leave things in the capable hands of the many Judges who check these forums to add to the discussion. Please enlighten us with your thoughts on what infraction you believe this would fall under and why.
I personally, for starters, hold a firm stance that this is not Unsporting Conduct - Cheating. There are very few instances where an action can be considered Cheating as a generic rule to every instance without investigating each situation and whether or not the person intended to violate the rules. Intent is to be applied to whether or not the player knowingly violated the rules and did so to gain a benefit, not whether or not a player intentionally made a move that was otherwise illegal (players rarely accidentally pay costs and verbally announce an action by accident).
It may be the responsibility of the players to learn and know the rules, but part of the reason we have Judges is because not all players are going to know all of the rules and issues will arise. A player cannot be held accountable as intentionally violating the rules simply because they did something they should not have, no matter how basic it may seem to others.
That said, I suppose that Procedural Error - Minor would be best suited for this type of infraction. It has minimal impact on gameplay and is easily repaired. The player would be assigned a Warning and reveal the cards he viewed to his opponent (similar to a Looking an Extra Cards infraction) and gameplay would continue.