roadhouse007
New Member
I head judged my first regional this weekend. And well, the building didn't burn down.
Actually, it went pretty well. A few stressful points happened during the day but I feel they were handled well, by me or the person who normally is head judge in our area. He is letting me get some experience so that I can be HJ when he cannot be there for whatever reason.
Pre-registration everything went really smoothly, as it should. We were working with a judge that had a WoW regional the same place that day, except his regional started an hour earlier and was much smaller (not that ours was large this time.) We put the table numbers up and got the computer and judges area ready for the day.
Registration also went smoothly. Had a few people who left the UDE number on the registration slip blank and when I called them up they didn't have one or know what it was for. I explained the UDE cards to them and had each of them fill one out. Besides that though, the only other thing was a few late arrivals had to be worked with. We were collecting decklists at registration, and since a few players were almost late and told me it was their first regional, I allowed those players to give me their lists by the end of round 1. One of them still wasn't done by round 2, but I'll get to that in a minute.
And then came the player meeting. I sometimes have a hard time making announcements in front of a group, no matter how comfortable I am with the group. I made all the neccesary announcements, but might have not made the best impression on the players due to the shakiness in my voice and pauses in my speech (you know how sometimes, even when reading from a note you go "um...."). Then we got started.
We only had 46 people. So it wasn't really that hard of a day. One illegal deck (2 copies of Dimension Fusion) and one player defacing property (wrote on the paper with the table numbers on them. I mean that he took the insert out of the laminate and wrote "(his name) was here" on them.) By the time this was brought to my attention he had dropped, but I still had a talk with him and told him the punishments he could be faced with. After speaking with him, I felt that a match loss in the system would be better served than a DQ with possible suspension. Now he knows not to act like a fool. Besides those 2 penalties, the only other ones were for tardiness.
The players who's first regional this was and were almost late to boot needed some direction. One of them was still filling out his decklist at the beginning of RD 2 and I noticed and came over to talk to him. He was writing his side deck......and on card 18 of it. I took him aside and told him the first 15 cards he wrote as side deck were the ones he would use, and to get things going I told him that I would separate those from the 20+ he was going to list. I did this because my other judges had everything on the floor well under control and the player needed to start playing his match, WITH his correct side deck. I think now looking back on it, I should have given that player a game loss for playing with an illegal deck round 1. Didn't cross my mind at the time becuase I was a bit nervous and just trying to get everything going.
Besides those few things though, swiss rounds went well. Had a few appeals questions here and there, answered them quickly and correctly. Anything I wasn't 100 percent sure on I consulted RONIN, which was installed on my laptop. Around round 4 of our regional the WoW regional was over, and that judge needed to leave. Being that we were on the same computer (which was his at the time), we had to import the tournament file and the printer driver to my laptop and begin using it. Believe it or not, this was probably the most complicated part of the day. The printer driver software ran into complications when installing it. Darn Vista. Players were wondering why I didn't have the next round up and the only reason I could give them is "my computer is busy installing a printer driver, so I can't enter results until it is done.". After it was though I immediately got the tournament back on track. There ended up being a short less than 10 minute delay between rounds 4 and 5 due to this.
After swiss was done, everything went quite smoothly again. While I had my 2 judges start watching the top 8 games, I handed out prizes for 9th through 16th. Then I quickly came to assist them when I was done. I gave top 8 prizes to players as they were eliminated. After top 4 was done, I let one of the judges go home. After the tournament was over, we packed up the table numbers and other equipment and went home.
Only a few things bothered me about the regional. First, one of my 2 judges must have felt that himself and the other floor judge had no reason to bring things to my attention at first occurence. Like the player who wrote on the table numbers. When my judge finally told me, it included "I've already warned him once, and he still did it again." I made sure that when I sat down with that judge before letting him go I let him know that he needs to bring that kind of thing to the attention of the HJ and other judges at first occurence, so we can all watch for him doing it again. The other is the person who normally head judges in my area was taking care of certain things that I should have done. The only reason this bothered me is it felt like he felt I wasn't doing things properly, which made me feel I wasn't doing well. I understand you were only trying to help, Glenn, but it made me feel like I wasn't doing things right. But it was only a few small details, like taking table numbers down and making some pre-registration announcements before I could get to the mic.
All and all, I think I was pretty much ready beforehand, and now I am definitely ready if I have to be HJ again sometime. The experience was good, and I feel that most of the players should have felt it went well also. Any feedback is appreciated.
Actually, it went pretty well. A few stressful points happened during the day but I feel they were handled well, by me or the person who normally is head judge in our area. He is letting me get some experience so that I can be HJ when he cannot be there for whatever reason.
Pre-registration everything went really smoothly, as it should. We were working with a judge that had a WoW regional the same place that day, except his regional started an hour earlier and was much smaller (not that ours was large this time.) We put the table numbers up and got the computer and judges area ready for the day.
Registration also went smoothly. Had a few people who left the UDE number on the registration slip blank and when I called them up they didn't have one or know what it was for. I explained the UDE cards to them and had each of them fill one out. Besides that though, the only other thing was a few late arrivals had to be worked with. We were collecting decklists at registration, and since a few players were almost late and told me it was their first regional, I allowed those players to give me their lists by the end of round 1. One of them still wasn't done by round 2, but I'll get to that in a minute.
And then came the player meeting. I sometimes have a hard time making announcements in front of a group, no matter how comfortable I am with the group. I made all the neccesary announcements, but might have not made the best impression on the players due to the shakiness in my voice and pauses in my speech (you know how sometimes, even when reading from a note you go "um...."). Then we got started.
We only had 46 people. So it wasn't really that hard of a day. One illegal deck (2 copies of Dimension Fusion) and one player defacing property (wrote on the paper with the table numbers on them. I mean that he took the insert out of the laminate and wrote "(his name) was here" on them.) By the time this was brought to my attention he had dropped, but I still had a talk with him and told him the punishments he could be faced with. After speaking with him, I felt that a match loss in the system would be better served than a DQ with possible suspension. Now he knows not to act like a fool. Besides those 2 penalties, the only other ones were for tardiness.
The players who's first regional this was and were almost late to boot needed some direction. One of them was still filling out his decklist at the beginning of RD 2 and I noticed and came over to talk to him. He was writing his side deck......and on card 18 of it. I took him aside and told him the first 15 cards he wrote as side deck were the ones he would use, and to get things going I told him that I would separate those from the 20+ he was going to list. I did this because my other judges had everything on the floor well under control and the player needed to start playing his match, WITH his correct side deck. I think now looking back on it, I should have given that player a game loss for playing with an illegal deck round 1. Didn't cross my mind at the time becuase I was a bit nervous and just trying to get everything going.
Besides those few things though, swiss rounds went well. Had a few appeals questions here and there, answered them quickly and correctly. Anything I wasn't 100 percent sure on I consulted RONIN, which was installed on my laptop. Around round 4 of our regional the WoW regional was over, and that judge needed to leave. Being that we were on the same computer (which was his at the time), we had to import the tournament file and the printer driver to my laptop and begin using it. Believe it or not, this was probably the most complicated part of the day. The printer driver software ran into complications when installing it. Darn Vista. Players were wondering why I didn't have the next round up and the only reason I could give them is "my computer is busy installing a printer driver, so I can't enter results until it is done.". After it was though I immediately got the tournament back on track. There ended up being a short less than 10 minute delay between rounds 4 and 5 due to this.
After swiss was done, everything went quite smoothly again. While I had my 2 judges start watching the top 8 games, I handed out prizes for 9th through 16th. Then I quickly came to assist them when I was done. I gave top 8 prizes to players as they were eliminated. After top 4 was done, I let one of the judges go home. After the tournament was over, we packed up the table numbers and other equipment and went home.
Only a few things bothered me about the regional. First, one of my 2 judges must have felt that himself and the other floor judge had no reason to bring things to my attention at first occurence. Like the player who wrote on the table numbers. When my judge finally told me, it included "I've already warned him once, and he still did it again." I made sure that when I sat down with that judge before letting him go I let him know that he needs to bring that kind of thing to the attention of the HJ and other judges at first occurence, so we can all watch for him doing it again. The other is the person who normally head judges in my area was taking care of certain things that I should have done. The only reason this bothered me is it felt like he felt I wasn't doing things properly, which made me feel I wasn't doing well. I understand you were only trying to help, Glenn, but it made me feel like I wasn't doing things right. But it was only a few small details, like taking table numbers down and making some pre-registration announcements before I could get to the mic.
All and all, I think I was pretty much ready beforehand, and now I am definitely ready if I have to be HJ again sometime. The experience was good, and I feel that most of the players should have felt it went well also. Any feedback is appreciated.
