Subject: hrm Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 03:51:33 -0400 From: "Brian H. Schneider" To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Normally, when school is in full session, I wouldn’t have the time to write a ‘Dojo article’. Luckily, due to circumstances that were unforeseeable (my professor’s house burned down, he couldn’t show up for class, and more importantly, he wasn’t there to give out new assignments...), I now have the time to write an article. To Brian Hacker: There’s a problem with the current system that makes you, Hammer, and even me, a cheater. The ‘rules’ aren’t adequately enforced...due to a number of absurd ‘gray areas’. If one is not breaking the rules, thereby not giving himself the best chance of winning (as admittedly, this is one’s intention when playing ‘professionally’), he is, in effect, cheating himself (as the punishments, presumably, aren’t effectively enforced). If there are few or no enforced punishments, and if you are abiding rules that you falsely assume to be in place, is it wrong for Mike Long to aim at a rule’s ‘gray area’ if it’s to his advantage? Honestly, I don’t want to continue manipulating the perverted usage of ‘cheat’, but simply stated, as Eric Taylor points out, the DCI needs to identify explicit punishments. No abstractions, no gray areas, no absent-minded play at the professional level. If there are explicit penalties in place, then the ‘honest players’ won’t appear ‘wrong’ for not breaking the rules. Otherwise, it seems obvious that I, along with Brian Hacker and a great number of other ‘honest professionals’ are currently employing some sort of ‘civil obedience’ in vain. Random Bits 1. About the cheating incident: As fun as it would have been to make up stories about Mike Long’s cheating tendencies (Such as, “Did you hear the story about how he shaved his head before the tournament, bought a card-dispensing hairpiece, and by pressing this button, he drew an extra card!), the judge claims that Mike didn’t cheat. But what do judges know? Let’s crucify him anyway. 2. If Mike Long does cheat, why doesn’t he feel bad about it when he looks in the mirror? I’ve decided to show what I assume Mike is really thinking about when looking in the mirror, and to do so I’d like to refer to a hypothetical mirror session, one which occurs the night before Pro Tour Chicago. (It is important to note from my experience that Mike Long is not a satanic being, and in my estimation does *not* cheat nearly as much as he is presumed to cheat; regardless, he, like John Chinnock, can be fairly manipulative in his reasoning, and because of this, I’ve decided to keep at a distance.) PT-Chicago, hotel room, 9:00. Players present: James Farr, Brian Schneider, Justin Schneider, Mike Long, a random Canadian. Mike takes a final look at the ‘Tongo deck,’ a deck he’s been playtesting with for well over a month, and comes to the same conclusion he’s come to for the past month or so: The Wheele — his name for the deck -- is ready to produce some serious beatings. But for Mike, this bit of confidence just simply isn’t enough to produce a Pro Tour win. He carefully lays the sleeved deck on the bed, looks around the room to see what everyone else is doing, and walks up to the mirror. Now I’ve read quite a few posts referring to this same ‘looking in the mirror’ session, implying that Mike couldn’t look himself in the face, as he would likely succumb to the pressures of shame. If there’s one thing I can guarantee, it’s that when Mike Long looks in the mirror, he’s not remotely concerned with his grasp on morality. In this instance, Mike looks himself over in the mirror, takes a few deep breaths, and sincerely asks those who are present, “How does my attitude look?” He’s not concerned with what he’s done wrong — he’s concerned with developing the proper ‘winning attitude.’ After Mike asks the question, James Farr and I are struck with rather puzzled looks, as we have no idea what one could possibly say, when Justin stands up while understanding Mike completely, pats him on the back, and half-heartedly exclaims, “Mike, it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game!” These two laugh hysterically about this for awhile, and Mike is ready for the first day of competition, and furthermore, for a good night’s sleep. End of scene. The message is self-evident. 3. Why I wrote this — Looking back, the only real point of this article is to support Eric Taylor’s point. The breaking of rules should warrant explicit punishment. The story about Mike Long is only meant to further the question, if Mike does cheat as much as people say...why doesn’t he feel bad about it? Perhaps he lacks all moral sense. Perhaps, although this may seem far-fetched, he simply doesn’t cheat as much as people say. I’ll leave that to you. Brian Schneider ‘Inactive Member — Pending on school workload’ of Team CMU