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Where is my reply?
By Hugh Glanville .

How many of you have actually read all of the floor rules for tournaments?

Not many I'd guess.

Let me set a senario for you.....some of you may remeber this.

Nationals 2003 Constructed Grinders.

Approximatly 10 mins left in round.

25'ish people watching a game, laughing, chatting, general banter.

Player 1: (lands, most untapped, a man land, 3-4 cards in hand, playing wake) Go.

Player 2: (nothing on board except land, less than 4 life) Concede.

Me: (thinking it was the third game) to Player 2: You should have cast the Biorhythm in your hand. Judge: Leave, I dont want to see you here till tomorrow, thats coaching.

Me: (incredulous) What, me telling my brother to cast Biorhythm was a joke...He had no creatures (i.e. it would kill him and his opponent would survive)!!

Judge: They haven't finished the match, your brother, hmm...., just go into the other room, we'll come and get you.

Me: But I'm in another grinder!!?!!

Judge: just go into the other room, we'll come and get you.

Rule to know, No 1: You always have the right to appeal to the head judge.

Problem No. 1: The head judge is not in the other room, therefore I can't appeal to him.

Rule to know, No. 2: keep your mouth shut about others matches

Problem No. 2: At this high rules enforcement level banter around matches is often allowed, i.e. comments from the crowd when the wake player casts a Cunning Wish "you better have a counter in your sideboard" are not allowed, which happened during the same match with a table judge there and nothing was done.

My brother was then separated from everyone while I was in the other room.

Debate between judges occured for approximatly half an hour while my brother was separated while his opponent was not.

(rule to know No. 3: both players must be separated) He pointed this out after 15 mins, and it was then rectified.

The grinder that I was in was continued in my absence (rule to know No. 4: judges aren't supposed to continue a tournament you are in while debating your penalty. (It being single elimination, you not being there is a match loss/disqualification anyway)

Then I was given a match loss, (I could hardly be given anything else, as my grinder had been going for 20 minutes).

The judges, after questioning me and others, admitted my breaking of the floor rules was probably not intentional; but I did break them so my match loss was fair.

There was a game left in the round my brother had been playing, and his opponent 'could' have forgotten to activate the man land making a game a draw if that situation came up during the next game, so it was deemed coaching.

Note: According to the current floor rules, if you're in a game and someone comes over to your opponent and tells them to cast something, and you call a judge your opponent will get a game to match loss depending on the rules enforcement level as will the advice giver.

The othet grinder which my brother was in continued after nearly an hour, with him receiving a warning.

While handing out the penalty the head judge told us we could write a letter of appeal, which he would submit to the DCI.

We did this and gave it to him by the end of Nationals, wanting to clear our DCI records of any serious misconduct (i.e. being known for cheating).

After this we heard nothing other than the incident was being discussed on the judge boards.

We have still not received any kind of reply from anyone.

I would like to know whats going on?

Can anyone help me find out what happened to our letter of appeal?