I know that I have not been especially kind to the DCI in the past. I've accused them of letting cheaters roam free. I've accused them of a bad rankings system that disfavors non-Americans. I've accused them of being too preferential to obviously bad Tournament Organizers. I've accused them of being in the pocket of Wizards of the Coast.

Lest anyone think I was developing a "Destroy the DCI" mentality, I've got good news! There's at least one thing the DCI does right, and that least one thing the DCI does right, and they do it right in a really big way. I'm talking about how they enter the Tournament Results.

I've been concerned for a long time about this subject, mostly because it seemed like an awful lot of tournament results weren't being entered. This is particularly true for anyone outside the United States. Their results routinely take months to get into the database, if at all.

Then, one day a little over a week ago, I was surfing through one of MTGnews.com's affiliates, called Magic in Australia. On this Australian site, I found a little link to an e-mail exchange between an Australian and Gordon Culp, the DCI database manager. The text of the actual exchange is at http://australia.ccgnews.com/news/1607dcirespond.shtml.

The summary of the e-mail is something like this: <Australian> Why are our rankings never updated? Are you people slow? <DCI> We're not slow, in fact we don't have anything here that hasn't been entered. If it isn't in the database, your TO never sent it.

Pretty interesting stuff, eh? Especially for me, since I was so used to thinking that the DCI was this understaffed basement workffed basement workshop with crates of rankings flying in every day. I filed this revelation in the back of my mind and then went about my business.

What brought this topic to the forefront of my mind again was a small article I saw on Newwave's site. The article is http://www.newwave.org/featuredarticles/adbr990722.html. The summary of it is: Adam Brown, a regular of Neutral Ground Atlanta, is complaining that his rankings haven't changed in months despite playing in numerous sanctioned events. He asked NG Atlanta's Tournament Organizer, David Doust about it, and Mr. Doust said he turned in all the results. Adam concludes, therefore, that the DCI lost the results or has been neglecting their duties.

Now, whenever I see such a hotly debated issue come up twice within a small period of time, I begin to think that maybe it is an important issue. Gordon Culp's answer to the Australians gave me the feeling that something bigger was at work here, and it wasn't the fault of the DCI. So I sat down a day later and I wrote a quick e-mail to Mr. Culp. I asked him for a lot of details about the DCI and the process they use to enter their tournament reports. I figured that with this knowledge, I could judge for myself whether the organization was truly and compet truly and competently entering every result they received.

This morning, I received the reply I feared would never come. I will share it with you now, so that everyone can have the benefit of this most outstanding e-mail. Mr. Culp's words are indented, so that they stand out from my comments on them. All bold text is my addition, for emphasis.

  The status of any DCI sanctioned tournament can be found at: 

  http://events.wizards.com/dcitournament

  The player simply needs to locate the tournament in question using the 
  various search criteria that are available - Organizer Name, Event Date, 
  Location City, Region, Metro Area, or Country. Once the tournament in 
  question is located, the player can click on the tournament and see the 
  event details, including the status. The various status are: 

  Pending - A future event 
  
  Processed - Included in the published DCI ratings 
  
  Received - Acknowledged as received by the DCI but not yet included in the 
  published DCI Ratings and Rankings 
  
  Not Received - Not yet received but not more than 14 days after the event 
  date 
  
  Delinquent - More than 14 days late. 
  
  Invalidated - Either more than 30 days late, or invalidated for not meeting 
  DCI Toalidated for not meeting 
  DCI Tournament Reporting policy. 
  
  Returned - Report returned to the Tournament Organizer due to not meeting 
  DCI Tournament Reporting policy. 

  The DCI formally receives all paper reports on a daily basis, and the status 
  of the reports is updated to the web each week night when we are not 
  calculating ratings. Electronic reports submitted via DCI Reporter are also 
  processed on a daily basis and will reflect as being received after the 
  nightly web update. 
  	

This above paragraph emphasizes that every concerned player can check on the status of any particular tournament. Not only does the DCI actively keep track of reported results, but they also track results that are received but not entered, or delinquent! This seems to verify my suspicion that it would be hard to send in a report without some acknowledgement from the DCI. If they've put it aside until later, it will still appear in their database as Received.

I took a brief jaunt to this section and found it to be well laid out and intuitive to use. It's thumbs up for the tournament search page!

	
  Any DCI Member can see the last reported tournament in his/her match history 
  at: 

  http://events.wizards.com/DCIMember 

  Once durinDCIMember 

  Once during the year the player will be asked to update his/her personal 
  information (address info is optional) so that we can correctly locate the 
  player in the various rankings. Once this renewal has occurred, any DCI 
  member can see a complete list of tournaments that are included in their DCI 
  Rating. Access to the online mana renewal form is password protected. 

  Members can request a password by emailing dci@wizards.com. 
  
  Members can also renew their membership by filling out a information update 
  card at any sanctioned tournament. 	
   	

So if you're wondering where all your points have gone, renew your membership and you can see every tournament that counted towards your rating! You don't need to fill out an appeal form and pay the fee, which Adam Brown feared. A side note, however: I asked for a password from the DCI for three consecutive months and did not receive a reply. That was six months ago.

	
  Additionally, Tournament Organizers can view the status of all the 
  tournaments with which they are associated online at the Tournament 
  Organizer Information Centre: 

  http://events.wizards.com/download/dcicoords.asp 

  This password protected site is home to downloadable DCI forms and 
ownloadable DCI forms and 
  documents, as well as free DCI Reporter tournament operation software. 
  Tournament Organizers are asked to take responsibility for keeping track of 
  the status of their events. With the online event status report, and the 
  monthly statements that the DCI is sending to Tournament Organizers that 
  sanction their events in advance, we are giving Tournament Organizers a 
  great deal of visability into the status of their event reports. We ask 
  Tournament Organizers to take responsibility for ensuring that their 
  tournament results make it to the DCI and get into the ratings. The most 
  difficult situation occurs when a TO is certain they have forwarded the 
  results of an event and the DCI is certain that they did not receive the 
  results. We ask TO's to keep copies of all their tournament results so that 
  these problems can be resolved as rapidly as possible. 
   	

I interpret this to mean that TO's know exactly what they've submitted and haven't submitted, and they know this at least once a month. Since all TO's are required to keep copies of events, every month if the DCI complains that results have not been received, those TO's can whip out their results copies and ship them to the DCI to rectify the situation. In my opinion, this is so intuitively obvious that I wonder why so many TO's have delinquent and missing requent and missing results. With such a system in place, all delinquent TO's can be spotted, and should be reprimanded.

  The use of DCI Reporter tournament organization software greatly reduces the 
  amount of effort required for a TO to run an event and submit the results to 
  the DCI. The software submits valid tournament results directly to the DCI 
  ratings database, skipping past all the people who could either delay or 
  prevent the submission of the results to the DCI. The TO does not have to 
  fill out forms and go the expense of sending the results by mail, the 
  shipment cannot be lost in transit, and the various humans that deliver the 
  mail to the DCI cannot make a mistake. With DCI Reporter, after the results 
  are imported directly into the ratings database, the registered tournament 
  organizer is emailed a confirmation report that includes any detected 
  problems. As of September 1, 1999, all Tournament Organizers running 
  Qualifiers and Grand Prix in North America will be required to use DCI 
  Reporter to run and report their premier events. Serious players should seek 
  out TO's that use DCI Reporter to run and report their events. A quarter of 
  a million matches have been reported using this method since Reporter 
  launched in mid 1998.
    

Oh thank goodness for this! After the fiasco over the for the fiasco over the four-slot PTQ in Las Vegas that has never been entered (and never will be), it's nice to see that all such big events will be required to use DCI Reporter. In my opinion, all TO's should eventually be required to use this software, so that there can never be another excuse for mistakes and missing reports ever again.

  Players with concerns should check the status of their events on our web 
  site first, then contact their TO if the DCI shows the results have not been 
  received. If the TO indicates that results have been forwarded and the DCI 
  does not show receipt, the player should ask both the DCI (dci@wizards.com) 
  and the TO to solve the problem using the copies of the report that the TO 
  is required to maintain. Players should keep records of their opponents and 
  outcomes along with the event name, date and coordinator name. Players 
  should also always verify that their DCI# has been recorded correctly before 
  they leave an event. Everyone can do their part to make sure that the 
  ratings are as accurate as possible.
    

So to Adam Brown, I say: Talk to David Doust and the DCI and let them settle your ranking with the copies he's required to keep for every event. This is an easy way to rectify the situation, and it will make everyone happy. Likewise, any other player suspecting that critical toucting that critical tournaments are not in the database should do the same.

  The DCI is committed to the timely processing and publishing of incoming 
  tournament reports. Wizards of the Coast has made considerable technological 
  and staffing investments in order to make this possible. We will continue to 
  do everything we can to put our tournament organizer friends into a position 
  from which they can benefit from organizing DCI Sanctioned tournaments. 

  Let me know if I can provide any more information. 

  Gordon Culp 
  Organized Play Database Administrator 
  Wizards of the Coast   	
    

Maybe I'm a gullible sap, but after reading this, I'm inclined to believe Gordon Culp and all of his assurances. The webpages are useful, attractive, and intuitive after the recent site redesign. All the necessary systems are in place to ensure the integrity of DCI tournament reporting. The DCI is doing a more than competent job in this area, in my opinion.