Talk:Trajectory Simulator/@comment-30220004-20180122211338/@comment-454133-20180125181503

I talked to the TO last night and it turns out the guy who won wasn't the same guy who did all these things. I had several players conflated in my head. But there was still a lot of unsportsmanlike conduct this year, including some from the winner? (my memory is foggy, and TO doesn't like to talk about it)  We had people come to our tournament from multiple states, and one state in particular brought a lot of what I consider cheating and borderline cheating. Those players were also big names and they had our TO a bit intimidated. There might even have been an undercurrent of "screw with us and we'll ruin you" but I'm not sure.

Looking back, TO says he's never going to allow that kind of crap again, no matter the cost; now he knows what to watch out for, and he's not going to let himself be intimidated. In Utah and Idaho we're such a relaxed environment and we go out of our way to be good sports and honor the rules, treat opponents and TOs nicely... we were all completely sidelined by this behavior. We had no idea we should expect it. My concept of the X-Wing community doesn't include this crap, so I'm amazed by it.

Some examples I know I can talk about (and that I remember; there were lots more):


 * Guy calls over the TO and says "When I eyeballed that arc, I thought he was in arc.  But now that we're measuring, he's not.  I need you to make a call."  He didn't say he thought the ships had been bumped or anything, and his opponent was just as baffled as the TO.  He was just trying to get the TO give him a free shot after he misjusdged an arc, and figured force of personality would make the TO bend.  TO did not go for this, and it makes him furious that the guy tried it.


 * Two players decided to play each other instead of their assigned matches, and later claimed it was a "mistake".  The matchup against each other favored getting one into the top 8 far better than the opponents they'd been assigned (both in terms of MOV and actual fleet design); they'd have both been wrecked if they had gone to the right tables.  Their shuffle caused other confusion, and probably cheated a lot of players out of their legitimate MOV.


 * Two players decided to skip to straight to the roll-off instead of playing the last match, since their positions in the top 8 were guaranteed.  They went and had a relaxing lunch and break so they'd be fresh-headed for the next fight.  Not sure if this is cheating, but... choosing to not play a match and still get points for it didn't feel right.


 * One guy (might have been the winner?) wanted to keep playing even after the TO called time; TO said don't even put your dials down, we need to wrap this up, but he wanted one more round.  Guy argued witht he TO about it, argued about end times, argued about how time is called, gave him a really hard time about it.  Remained grumpy with him after the tourney because that was the one match he'd lost all day, kept giving him a hard time.  Then e-mailed the TO the next day to tell him he was wrong.  TO chose to not reply.


 * My final Swiss opponent came to me while prizes were being handed out and exclaimed that we should have agreed before the fight to either win 100-0 or 0-100 to make sure one of us made it into top 8.  I'd lost 22-100 and he just barely failed to get into top 8 because I'd killed that one gunboat.  Agreeing to throw a match like that sounds like explicit cheating to me, and I know Magic The Gathering tournaments will perma-ban a player for even offering it to their opponent.  Turns out a lot of players were meta-gaming the meta like that.  We don't do that in Utah and it feels like explicit cheating.  I'm not sure of the actual rule.


 * One guy e-mailed the TO about a bunch of rules questions before the tourney, trying to push for the most munchiny interpretation possible, wasn't happy about the TO's reserved rules calls.  During play still called him over *constantly*.  I think this was the same guy who demanded that the TO sort his damage deck.  Constant source of trouble, nonstop efforts to push the TO to throw him a bone.  Exhausting.

And again, because a lot of these guys were well-known (podcasts and more), TO had the sense that he had to move carefully about reprimanding bad behavior or they'd find ways to take revenge, maybe even cause Utah to lose their Regionals. Looking back, he decided he'd prefer that happen than just sit and take it; we don't need a regional tourney, we can run the Intermountain Cup and other fun tourneys and shed the crowds that get so competitive they are willing to cheat and bend the rules. A lot of these guys apparently saw Utah as an easy mark, and traveled here to kick the crap out of us and get away with behavior that other TOs were experienced enough to recognize and block/punish. But this was our TO's first time dealing with it. They pulled so much infuriating crap, including some that might not be explicit rule-breaking, but it feels very wrong. Sportsmanlike conduct is... apparently negotiable in an important tournament.