Grand Moff Boris wrote:
Veto it? You mean, like when the president vetoes a bill Congress passed? Reality check time. We're a committee, and you have one vote just like the rest of us. Not sure what "vetoing" would accomplish. At least you are willing to admit the action was in "bad taste." I have to wonder if you would take this stance if we
weren't talking about a situation involving Tim Ballard.[/quote]
No I mean veto as in voice my dissent and vote my vote against such a thing.
I've consistently been against any rule attempting to legislate when and where a player can choose to win/lose. It's impossible to enforce in any fair way at all, and honestly, it's against the "spirit" of the rules to even try. You can't dq someone for making what amounts to a game losing play. Whether you believe they did it on purpose or not. Nor should the judge ever have the power to even begin to try to decide. Remember the slow play vs stalling arguments? You never wanted slow play called because you assumed you had to prove intend. So we defined them differently, with only one using intent. Consequently, slow play is called often, I've never heard of anyone called for stalling.
If we go back to the rule of adding the 30 minute requirement for a concession, you will recall that I was generally opposed to any such idea. I conceded the point to the community, and I think it's a fine enough rule. And this one is similarly related, although more atrocious. We cannot ever tell someone they have to win or even play to win. If they play to lose, that's their choice, and we cannot make a rule against it. I suppose you could try, and all you do is make a player simply not say a word about it. In the end you've accomplished nothing, but create an unnecessary arbitrary rule that could easily be abused by a judge. Now I trust our judges, but come on.
Sorry Trevor, you are dqed from the 2008 National Championship because you didn't move Boba away for evade. Clearly you were trying to hand Bill the match. No prizes for you and Matt Peterson is awarded second place.... My example may seem ridiculous, but it should be clear that there is no line.
And further, would you object if Tim had simply said, "you know what, I'm hungry, I'm in top 4 already, I concede my final match and am going to get something to eat". Unless you are prepared to legislate the validity of all concessions every tournament, and dictate to players which kind is legal and which is not, this cannot be done.