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THE SCREW-UP AT CHICAGO

The Infamous Screw-up by Games Workshop That Cost a Player the GT


The Screw up at Chicago

Ben Burns

I am sure Tim would not want me to put this up, but I cannot sit still. I am currently drafting a letter to the GW personnel (Jason in particular) concerning this matter. For those of you unfamiliar with the situation let me explain.

While Mike was awarded the Best General award, he won because of a screw up on both Tim Ray and the GW staff running the GT. Mike played a wonderful tournament and went undeafeted going 5 wins and 1 tie. I played him in the final round, not knowing the winner would take best general. Let me set up the situation as I saw it.

After 5 rounds of play I was 5 - 0 with 72 points. Mike was 4-0-1 with 68 points. Tim was also 5-0 with 72 points. When I drew Mike I was unsure what the situation was. Tim and I suspected they didn't pair us since we were from the same state. I was confused through the entire tournament why we were never paired, it all came clear later.

Mike and I played the final game and he played wonderfully. A very strong army that I was tentative to engage and it cost me. I made some stupid blunders and got some bad breaks. In the end I lost the King of the hill scenario by 3 models. (59-62). Since he also had a unit in my deployment and had won fewer games, he got 14 points putting him at 82 points. I got 6 putting me at 78. After all was said and done I am glad I lost. Even a tie would have put me at 81 and and dropped Mike down to 79 and I would have won best general.

Meanwhile Tim Ray won his game with a crushing 15 point victory. Going a full 6-0 with an 87 point Battle score. When Mike was announced as Best General I said "Way to go Mike", and immeditely leaned over to Tim and congratulated him for getting Best Overall. Tim told me "Not so fast" as he already suspected something was not right.

After looking at the final results everything became clear. They had marked Tim down for a loss on his first 2 games. And was only given a record of 4-2 with a score of 67. How was this possible? The matter was brought to Jason's attention. Tim was told they would look into the matter, but the awards were not changing. Mike was standing there going, "This belongs to Tim, I didn't win this."

After a short time period the mistake was uncovered. The 2nd loss was solely GW's fault. All paperwork was filled out properly, they had just reversed his and his opponent's score. The 1st score sheet was the problem. It had been filled out incorrectly.

The score sheet has a place for the winner, and his score, and the loser and his score. It showed Tim as the winner with 5 points and his opponent as the loser with 15. Anyone should have easily seen the descrepency and questioned it. They were obviously checking these as they had me fill out a 2nd score sheet for a previous game because it was missing something, they didn't tell me what.

Now we have the following situation.
1. GW and Jason feel the matter has been handled properly and is over with.
2. Mike is holding a trophy going "look, I won best general. Well almost..."
3. Tim is mad as hell, as would be me or you.
4. I who had a wonderful time during the event, had the entire weekend spoiled because GW failed to recognize and compensate for an obvious mistake during the tournament.

I am going to write a protest letter to Jason. His e-mail address is:

JasonB@Games-Workshop.com

I would encourage each person on this list to also write Jason if you feel Tim has been wronged here. I am going to suggest the following compensation.
Post a notice on their website on the results page that an error was uncovered later and that their were Co-Best Generals. Mike and Tim.
And that Tim will be receiving an award.
Either Give Tim a free GT next year, or a $50 - $100 Gift certificate.

I don't think the compensation is the important thing as much as the recognition. This would do several things.

1. GW is able to save face and correct an obvious glaring mistake.
2. Tim will be somewhat satified and might possibly return to a GT sometime in the future.
3. Mike will have the satisfaction of knowing he owns the trophy legitemently as he was announced as a co-Best General.
4. Everyone else who knows about the situation, will be happy and might attend more GT's in the future.

Sorry this got so long, but the more I think about this, the madder it makes me. Tim I know will probably blow this off and not do anything about it. I won't do that.

Thank you,

Ben Burns


Re: The Screw up at Chicago

H L Cowan

I agree 100% with Ben. The soon to be known as the "Great Screw Up" ruins the Tourney for innumerable people, especially Tim and Mike. Because the pairings are determined under the Swiss System, Tim never played the top players he should have played, cheating him out of his GT experience.

For those unfamiliar with the Swiss System, it pairs up opponents based on their previous scores. So, if in Game Three, for example, the Swiss "thought" Tim had only 9 points instead of 29, it gave Tim a 9 point player as an opponent. This was not fair to Tim, as he deserves more challenging opponents (not to mention what it did to the poor unfortunate soul who got trounced by one of the top players in the world).

Furthermore, it messed up the pairings for everyone else at the GT, people played people they wouldn't have otherwise played. It cannot be reversed or fixed...it would be like trying to unscramble eggs!

Mike "Green Gizmo" Marko has at best a tainted victory. Who knows if the pairings were done correctly if he wouldn't have met Tim in the final game and won it all anyway?

Bottom line, this is a huge mess and it would take the wisdom of Solomon to make it right. Anybody feeling Solomonic these days? Ben's suggestions are good for a start, but the most important thing is to get a GT system in place that can be verified as it goes along.

This is a simple as posting a running total of people's battle points so that mistakes such as this can be corrected and fixed before irreparable damage is done.

If the Battle Scores for Game One would have been posted with the pairings for Game Two, the mistake would have been immediately revealed and could have been fixed. GW's policy of keeping all the running totals "secret" serves no useful purpose and opens the door for serious screw ups like we have here.

Harold Cowan, who feels bad for everyone...Tim, Mike, Jason, Terry and all of us love this game.


GT Chicago and the Big ScrewUp

Tim Ray

Interesting view (though at first I was a bit stung; this event meant alot to me, and I spent a year of free time painting that army), and the one which I think will prevail. Because of the swiss system and the fact that the mistake was from round one, even if they had caught the mistake before round three, it would have been too late. Do I feel bad? Yes. I feel worse for Mike, who has the trophy, because he always has to wonder what would have happened if things had gone right. I'm pretty confident in 6-0-0; I had an army designed to do that. I was shooting for a perfect 90. 10 times the magic number you know...:) I feel worse yet for the poor schlubs who had to face it and shouldn't have had to! I mean, my round two and three opponents should not have had to play the Tzeentch killing machine. Anyway, it's too late to back up now, and yes my trophy from '97 is sitting on a shelf, gathering dust. But it's what I look at when I'm awake at 3 AM painting that last fig. If I get anything from GW out of this, I'd like my GT admission refunded. I don't want a free ride to the one next year. I'd just like my money back for this one. All $285 dollers.

Ben is right to be upset, and he's telling the story like it is. There are a few things he left out: I screwed up _big_ at this GT. I blew up at a guy in round three or four (don't remember) and really chewed his head off. He really didn't understand the rules (and I told him to hurry up and  learn), and had some very creative interpretations which were not only to his advantage but were at critical points in the game. It was like playing against a chinese chow; he was beligerently stupid. But I was very, very wrong for blowing up at the poor guy; I realize now he was just desperate to salvage something out of the mess I made of his army. Next, I forgot to put a name on my quiz, and got no points for it. Thus, there was no way I could have won overall. I really wanted to get best gen, with a 12 comp army (rather than 4). I ended up in that familiar last place for sportsmanship, with 15 points. I also got a 15 in paint, which was more than I expected.

So if you write to Jason, be nice, be firm, and ask him to refund my money. I was not happy with this GT, and I'd like a refund.

--T. Ray

PS: I was calm, because I was tired. I'm pretty mad about the way the whole thing turned out; mad at myself mostly. I was so focused on the games that I didn't fill out the paperwork right. And that (I guess), combined with GW's part in the screw up (Jason admitted that they miskeyed the second round score) was what it took to lose.

I'd love to see the scores published every round. It would make it easier to catch mistakes. It makes it a more competitive event, but the top players keep track of their own anyway. Competition is not a bad thing, and a GT does have winners and losers.


Just sent to GW

Tim Ray

This is what I just sent to GWUS:
=====================
Gents:
Sorry about how the GT came down, and especially sorry about how I acted. Perhaps I need to take a break from GTs for a while. I think I've decided what I want to do. Because the mistake was pretty bad (I was robbed of 10 points by your guy's miskey of the round two scores alone), I'd like to have my GT admission and extra room stay refunded. The total was $285 dollars. I really had a pretty bad go this time around guys, and I'm really still pretty upset. I realize that it's impossible to back things up under the swiss system, and Mike Redden deserves the best general prize; I certainly don't want that, under the circumstances. Please consider my proposal, and get back to me when you've recovered from the weekend. Thanks.
--Tim Ray
=====================


Comments about GT Chicago

Mike Marko ("Gizmo")

My Chicago GT experience was to try to win only four games. I wasn't out to take the big title. I never expected to do as well as I did... and out of the whole tournament I never expected to leave feeling as horrible as I did. People like this talking about my army, the fact I was in pain all weekend, only getting a total of seven hours sleep for the weekend (through no fault of my own)... and that wasn't the end of it.

I won best general. Or not. I did not expect to be called up for the trophy. When I did I believed Tim must have won best overall, so I revelled in my triumph. You may or may not imagine how I felt when I never heard Tim's name for overall winner. Did I deserve my trophy? I don't know the answer to that. I feel horrible that Tim didn't have a fair chance at winning the best overall. I am a victim of a big mistake on the part of GW. A mistake I still can't believe wasn't caught half way through the tournament. And now I can only look at the plaque I got and be reminded of my hollow victory. A great record, but not the best record...

The only reason why I may play in another tournament is because of the people I may get to meet. I had a great time meeting people last weekend, the best of all tournaments over the past three years. But now the only thing I can think about is "what people are thinking of me now..."

The disillusioned,
Green Gizmo


To Tim and GW if you are listening

Randy Fischer

I really feel bad for Tim. Especially when this has happened before. Jerimiah Karnes was similarly cheated out of some hard earned points at Baltimore two years ago. Ron Spitzer won Best General because of GW's mistake on Jer's score. At that time they rectified the mistake by making Jer and Ron Co-Best Generals. I don't see why they can't do that here. Being friends with Bill Edwards and Mark Havener allows me to dine with the "movers and shakers" of the warhammer world when I go to the Seattle GT. ;-) What I heard the most from the top players was their concession that they had to break down and get professionally painted armies in order to win the Overall Trophy. They are all so close to each other in the other categories. So I can really sympathize with Tim who still puts in the painstaking hours painting his own army and then getting a raw deal like this.

Hang in there Tim. And try to go a little easier on the "dumb" players. Some of us truly try to do it right but are limited by what our parents and God gave us.

Randy Fischer
formerly Ashen-Shugar
Lord of Elvandar