Last week I started a series about the top ten things players do that can slow down a tournament. I daresay you saw yourself in at least a few of those segments, and I hope you’ll make a real effort to change from now on. Anyway, last week we looked at some things players do that can delay the start of the event, and this week we’re going to go over a few things players do during the event itself that can add to time between rounds and just generally slow things down. Let’s get started!
Not keeping track of your stuff so that it gets lost or misplaced (or stolen).
Players, you need to keep track of your stuff! If you leave your bag and jacket and binder spread all over, you’re going to lose them . . . and then create a delay while you’re bugging the judges and staff to find your things for you. If you lose your deck, that could knock you out of the tournament or at least delay the start of your next match while you struggle to find it or replace the cards in it. Most of the time, the head judge will let you rebuild the deck and provide your decklist so you can do it, but that does add time to the round. Don’t bring more things to the event than you can keep track of. Pay attention to your belongings and keep them safe and accounted for.
Besides, judges need to be focusing on the event and answering questions, not scooping up abandoned possessions from the tables and floor. If you do lose something, go up to the TO area and check for a lost and found. You’d be surprised—sometimes people lose things and don’t go up and claim them.
Making a mess in the tournament area.
You are not supposed to eat at the tournament tables, but that doesn’t stop a lot of players. There are good reasons why you’re not supposed to do it, too—spilled food and drink damages the tablecloths and cards. Wet or dirty tablecloths need to be replaced, tables might have to be moved, and occasionally a player is disqualified because his or her cards are damaged to the point that they can no longer be used. If you can’t replace the deck, you can’t continue to compete, and resolving all of these problems takes time and slows down the round.
You’re also supposed to throw out your own trash, but a lot of players seem to think the judges are actually a maid service, and just leave their garbage strewn all over everywhere. While judges do clean up trash, straighten the tables, and push in the chairs, they actually do have other work to do, especially at a large, busy event. Don’t add to the workload or confusion—if you make a mess, for goodness sake clean it up. Throw away the remains of your meal, your used card sleeves, your booster pack wrappers . . . whatever it is you usually leave all over the table. Push in your chair when you’re done, and if you mess up the tablecloth, pull it straight again. Piles of garbage, crooked tables, knocked-over chairs, and tablecloths pulled askew make the tournament environment feel chaotic. That can make players feel even less responsible for their actions. They see the mess and figure anything goes! That kind of attitude makes it even harder for the tournament to continue in a timely manner. Don’t contribute to the mess—clean up after yourself, and if you see a chair in the aisle, don’t step around it. Push it back in. I guarantee it won’t bite you.
Not handing in match slips, or filling them out incorrectly.
When your match is over, the winner needs to bring the match slip up to the scorekeeper as quickly as possible. Yes, I know you want to de-side your deck and talk to your opponent or your friends who were watching, but the scorekeeper needs that slip right away. Maybe you think scorekeepers save them up and enter them all at the end, but most scorekeepers enter the slips in batches as they come in, especially at larger events. Turn the slip in as close to immediately as you can manage, and that counts double if your match went over time. You’re holding up the whole event—get that slip turned in!
I’ve probably said this about a million times, but don’t sign your match slip until the match is over, the winner box is checked, and you have verified that the info is correct. Coming up as the next round is beginning to say, “Hey, I won my last match and you have me listed as losing!” causes a lot of delays that can be avoided. If you win the match, check the winner box and sign the slip. Give it to your opponent to sign. Look it over again to make sure you both did it correctly. Then take it up and hand it in, and you don’t have to worry about a mis-marked slip. If you are inadvertently marked as the loser as a scorekeeper error, the slip can be retrieved and all will be well . . . provided that you catch the error before the next round passes.
Not being on time for the start of the round.
If you’re really late, you’ll get a game or match loss. While a match loss will certainly make the round go faster, you probably won’t be very happy about it. If you’re kind of late, you’re just slowing down the start of your round and it might go past time. It’s sloppy behavior, so be punctual. Don’t go wandering off between rounds, and always listen for announcements.
Slow play extending past the scheduled end of the round.
Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG matches are forty minutes long, and in that time you are expected to be able to finish three duels. If you can’t seem to finish a match on time, you are definitely playing too slowly. It’s time to speed things up! You should not have to check both graveyards, repeatedly ask how many cards are in your opponent’s hand, check each and every set card on your field, and read and re-read all the cards in your hand whenever you’re going to make a move, or as a response to your opponent. If you are doing this, you are stalling, and eventually someone is going to call you on it. If you’ve got a complicated play to figure out or a bit of math to do, fine, but ordinarily you shouldn’t need more than fifteen seconds tops to decide what you’re going to do.
If you are deliberately playing slowly to force an end-of-match procedure, then shame on you. As judges become more willing to crack down on slow play, you’re going to risk some unsporting conduct penalties, which will go beyond a mere warning. The entire tournament should not have to wait for you to finish just because you’re trying to get a sneaky win.
If you’ve ever been to an event that never seemed to end, you most likely blamed the staff—you figured that the TO didn’t manage it well, or that the judges “sucked”—and you possibly went and posted about it someplace. I’ll bet you never spared much thought to what the players were doing to contribute to the slow pace. While it’s true that a too-small or unprepared staff can slow an event down, players have a huge amount of influence on how quickly the event runs. Was there an hour-long delay starting the event? It could have been a slow registration, but how about those eighty players who came in just before registration was closing? A missing match slip that held things up while the players were located? Hardly ever the fault of a judge. Three tables overturned as players jumped to get out of the way of a tipped-over Big Gulp? The TO wasn’t responsible for that! Ten matches going over time because players were trying to force an end-of-round sudden death? Apart from increased pressure from judges to play faster, this is a player issue.
If you want to complete your tournament at a reasonable time, then look at what you’re doing that could be delaying it, and make the appropriate changes. Encourage other players to avoid doing them too—don’t fall back on the “everyone else is doing it” excuse to justify slowing down the event. Do your part—you just might be surprised at how much faster your tournaments seem to go.