Weevil was not a happy duelist. So far, all the judges had ruled against him whenever he asked for a ruling. Which meant, of course, that all the judges there didn’t know how the game really worked. They thought you couldn’t use Book of Moon on Scapegoat tokens, and another judge said that Spirit Reaper wasn’t destroyed when Creature Swap was used on it. Trying to concentrate on his current duel, Weevil declared an attack with his Insect Knight against his opponent’s X-Head Cannon. The opponent had no response until the damage step, when he activated Limiter Removal—clearly an illegal play, Weevil thought, since you can’t activate anything on the damage step. Raising his hand for a judge, Weevil was surprised when the head judge himself appeared. The head judge looked at Weevil and said, “I’m going to get a floor judge to answer your question”. Weevil was dumbfounded. The head judge was right next to them, and he couldn’t even be bothered to answer a very simple question. Adding the word “lazy” to his opinion of the judges there, Weevil fumed while waiting for a ruling.

At a point in time not so long ago, I would have agreed with Weevil that the head judge was lazy. I’m sure to most players it would appear that way as well. After all, the head judge is right there, so why do the players have to waste away precious moments of their duel waiting for another judge to make a ruling? Isn’t the head judge supposed to know more than the other judges? Don’t the other judges defer to the head judge’s knowledge and experience? Are head judges so full of themselves that they enjoy bossing around the other judges? I don’t know about you, but those are the questions that would have popped in my head if that would have happened to me. Anyway, let me give you a complete perspective and start from the very beginning to explain how my whole view on head judging was changed.

For those of you who don’t know, I live in South Florida. When the Premier Tournament Organizer in that area started to host Regionals, my friends and I were asked to judge those events, mainly because we had helped out with rulings at local tournaments at the store we all played at. Luckily for us, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Mall Tour made a stop in Miami (this was January 2004), and my friends and I took and passed the Level 2 Judge Test, an accomplishment we were all proud of. Even though I was designated the head judge most of the time at our events, I viewed effective judging to be an exercise in teamwork, and I tried to pitch in where I was needed instead of just directing the other judges to follow my orders.

This was the philosophy that dictated how we ran our events—that all of us worked as a team, and that one person was not more important than the others. As head judge, I felt that my title did not entitle me to special treatment, and that if certain tasks needed to be completed, and if I was in a position to help, then I simply would. For example, if pairings needed to be posted and I was right next to the printer, then I would go post them myself. I would usually be roaming the tournament floor, helping to answer rulings questions and picking up other people’s garbage. It worked out quite nicely, and I have many fond memories of those simpler times.

In late May 2004, Feroze Ramcharan (a fellow judge and good friend) and I traveled to Philadelphia to take the Level 3 Judge Test. Fortunately, we passed, and UDE asked if we would each head judge the two “Last Chance” qualifiers for Nationals, and if we would help floor judge the National Championship. Being asked was a privilege and honor, so obviously we said yes. If you all remember, last year’s National Championship was in late June, and when Feroze and I were there, the organizers who were present gave us their interpretation of what a head judge should be doing. They felt that the head judge should assign and delegate duties to the other floor judges, that the head judge should stay in one spot, and that the head judge should remain aloof and distant. If there was a task that needed to be done, the head judge was not to do the task him or herself, but to tell a floor judge to do it instead. Now, I was all for delegating assignments and responsibilities, but I was not going to stand idly by if one part of the floor was being flooded with questions and the other judges were preoccupied at the other end of the tournament. I was not going to order someone to fetch me the tape for the pairings when I could just go get it myself. Feroze and I just looked at each other and pretty much ran those two “Last Chance” qualifiers using our own hands-on approach. After that fun weekend was over, I remember thinking about the odd philosophy of head judging that the organizers seemed to embrace, and it really confused me. I finally just chalked it up to personality quirks on the part of the organizers and let it lie at that.

We now fast forward to February 27, 2005, the day of the Shonen Jump Championship in Orlando, Florida. I was the head judge for this event, and I was a little nervous due to the fact that I would be working with ten other judges that I was not familiar with. At the judges’ meeting before the tournament, Feroze and I split the judges into teams, and those teams were given specific tasks they had to do. Whether it was deck checking, posting pairings, or floor judging, they all knew what they had to do. When the tournament actually got underway, I proceeded to do what I normally do at any event—I went where I was needed and helped out if I could.

By the start of round 3, I could tell that my style of head judging was baffling to the administrative staff helping with the event. They were not used to a head judge constantly roaming the tournament floor and actively helping the other judges out. During round 4, things came to a head when an administrative staffer actually said to me, “You’re not delegating enough, and it seems that you don’t trust your judges to do their jobs.” Wow. He couldn’t have picked a worse time to say that to me. As a matter of fact, I don’t know if there was a good time to say that to me. In any case, I felt my temper start to rise, and the reptilian part of my brain had already made up its mind on how to deal with this staffer. Luckily for me, years of teaching and dealing with close-minded parents have taught me to rein in my temper. I simply looked at him, smiled the biggest insincere smile I could muster, and said, “Thank you for your input.” Then I walked away.

It became apparent that I fooled no one with my polite response. After many reassurances from UDE staff members and local staff members that I was doing a good job, it became clear that they were worried that I took that comment to heart. I was extremely irritated that some outsider would presume to know how I felt towards the judges working with me. I guess my irritation really showed, because Andy Fletcher himself, who is the Premier Events Manager at UDE, came up to me and started to chat. He got right to the point, but in a very courteous fashion. He proceeded to tell me that although it was very considerate of me to actively help out my judges, especially when issuing rulings to players, by doing so I was circumventing the appeals process. Well, that got my attention. He said that the only power players have over judges is the right to appeal a ruling, any ruling, to the head judge. If they appeal, that is their right, and the head judge then makes a final determination, and whatever the head judge rules is the final ruling. Andy looked at me and simply asked, “Simon, if you were to give a ruling right now, and a player didn’t agree with it, who could he appeal to? You? But you’re the head judge, and you already gave the ruling. You’ve denied the player a fair shot at the appeals process by making a ruling before your floor judges could.”

Comprehension hit me like a bolt of lightning, and it finally made sense why those organizers wanted the head judge to stay away from the chaos of the tournament floor. However, I still had some concerns. For example, what if there were players not five feet from me, and they needed a ruling? In those circumstances, it must be okay for the head judge to lend a helping hand, right? When I asked him this, Andy replied, “It’s going to be tough, but you will have to resist the temptation to issue a ruling. Just tell them that you will be getting a floor judge to help them. It will be one of the hardest things you will ever do and, at times, may seem ridiculous. But it’s vital that the player’s right to the appeals process not be disrupted.” He also pointed out that I should conserve as much energy as I could and save it for the important rulings. That although it was nice of me to help with pairings or making announcements about the time left in a round, there are other judges that could do that, and I should leave those tasks to those judges.

I thanked Andy for his very kind and enlightening words of wisdom. For the rest of the tournament, I adopted an “aloof but approachable” posture, and I worked those floor judges to exhaustion. It was extremely difficult for me not to issue rulings and instead yell out “judge” and point to a table where one was needed. I had a tough time telling a judge to go make sure the results slips made it safely to the scorekeeper. I had a tougher time when a player came up to me with a problem and I had to grab the nearest available judge and tell the player this was the person who could help him. But I learned and adapted, and I’m still sane enough to share it with you all. Just in case you were wondering, I went up to the staffer who I was mad at and told him I was sorry if I acted in a cold and impolite manner. He simply smiled and told me not to worry about it and was glad I wasn’t being overworked anymore. We had a good laugh about that.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. I hope that to all you aspiring head judges out there, you’re all able to gain a little something from reading this article. Even if you just laugh, well, you still got something out of it. For those of you who have been sending me email at sangpukdee_simon@yahoo.com, I apologize if I haven’t yet responded to you as real life obligations have been keeping quite busy. Rest assured, I will respond to whatever comments or questions you send to me, even if it’s just a thank you reply for writing in. Thanks again to all of you, and please be nice to your judges.