The one time I played Roy St. Clair was in PCLA last November.

Although I didn't know his reputation, it seemed exceptionally odd that there was a judge hovering over our table the enitre game.

What put me on guard was that he tried to draw a hand without letting me cut (which I then insisted on).

He was playing Fat Bat (which I believe was a favourite of his) and I was playing old-school EMS.

Now, first off he was a real douche to play against —_pressuring me to 'speed up,' while his turns took forever.

There had been a number of odd turns of luck that game, but nothing I could put my finger on until the last turn.

There were no team-ups on his side of the board as I had targetted them with repeated have a blasts. He had me at slightly negative life (-2 if I recall correctly) after his turn-eight attack, but I was about to go for the infinite Doom.

Honestly, I probably would have picked up on the mistake sooner, but I was already furious with him for the borderline verbal abuse during the game.

After my first attack, he fizzled my Press The Attack, discarding a copy of Ant Man to do so. I scooped, thinking he had defeated me.

Literally a half second after picking up my resource row, I realized his mistake and asked him to prove he had a Gotham character for his Fizzle discard. He didn't.

However, since I had picked up my resource row, it was judged to be a concession.

Now on one hand this could have been "an honest mistake," but the expression on his face and his attitude afterward were dead giveaways.

Added his in-game douchebagerry and general sleeziness this incident made him the only Vs. player I have met that I didn't think well of.

-- Olav

P.S. Hans Höh is nothing like Roy. At worst Hans is a good player and overall decent person who got caught making a mistake.

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably a duck. How much circumstantial evidence does it take to damn a player? Do you honestly believe that Bonds hasn't taken steroids, when his personal trainer has admitted supplying him, other players have seen him shooting up, and his supplier has a calendar showing when he took steroids?

Neither I nor anyone I know thinks that Bonds' production is the result of legal substances. Therefore, Bonds' records mean nothing to any of us. Why should we care about a player who's cheated? With Bonds, there's no smoking gun, but Bonds is the only guy in the area, he has motive, he has no alibi, and he owns a gun that was used in the shooting--and conveniently can't be found.

Bringing this back around to Roy and Hans--if Hans was willing to cheat in the top 8 of a PC, do you think that Hans won his 10ks without cheating? Do you think that Roy got to the finals of a 10k with a 64-card Fat Bat deck on his playskill, given that everyone I've ever met that's played him considers him a scumbag and has a story about how they caught him (or didn't catch him) ghettoing them out of a game? In Roy's case especially, he finally got what everyone figured was coming to him.

I agree there is a lot of circumstancial evidence. However, why hasn't it come of anything? I guess we'll see if this new trial about perjuring himself comes to anything.

You also talk like before the age of 35 Bonds was a nobody. He was one of the top 5 power hitters in the game before he got big and broke the record. I don't see what's so hard to believe about an older player producing so highly. Aaron was still producing highly at an older age than that. Mantle was ailing late in his career and still produced at the highest level. Julio Franco is 47 years old and still plays at a level comparable to what he did in his early 30s. I personally think that Bonds production is a result of hard work and great skill (by saying this I'm not saying that steroids didn't help). It takes a lot more than steroids to achieve the kind of talent he has.

I think the same can be said for Hans. He has proven that he has a lot more talent than most everyone in VS without cheating. I don't think that because he got caught cheating once means that Hans is not 1 of the top 5 VS players in the world, still. I don't know what to say about Roy though. He is obviously gifted at card games in general. You have to have some natural skill to understand how to cheat on the level that he has been accused of cheating. Bottom line Hans and Roy got caught and are serving the penalty for it. Bonds hasn't been proven guilty of anything yet and should be treated with respect for what he has accomplished.

Innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply in the court of public opinion. Everyone I know thinks he's guilty and that is enough for us. If he breaks the marks set by Ruth or Aaron, no one will celebrate him. He was an amazing baseball player, but who knows how good he would have been w/out steroids. The same can be said of Roy and Hans. They were both really good card players, but who knows what they would have accomplished w/out cheating? If you get caught cheating it taints everything you've accomplished. That's just the way it is.

Thats untrue. Testimony given by trainers and even his ex-girlfriend do tell that he used illegal substances.

Honestly if very obvious that he did, and has been indicted for perjury so, he would have to been in alot of places at the wrong time.

All the near homers he has hit this year that have dropped off at the warning track or just 15 feet short of the stands are fairly good indicators too that he was on illegal substances.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! All the near home runs he has missed come as a result of bone chips in his elbow, a bone on bone rub in his knee, and not playing regularly in 2 years.

Dalton: Never a truer statement than your first sentence. (Hey look I didn't heckle you about one of your posts) See, more amazing things do happen than Bonds not taking steroids.

That's bull.

Regardless of what he claims you can point to any little thing like that but that would maybe effect his bat speed or something but he is still making contact, but how far it goes has less to do with something like that about more to do with the amount of force you can put on it.

The sad part is that for every "Roy Story" there is, there are likely about 50-100 times he cheated and got away with it without the opponent having the slightest clue.

For instance, Roy cheats by stacking the deck while shuffling it, which he has apparently learned to do exceptionally well. I have personally witnessed this. He will get your good cards at the middle of the deck and he will arrange his best or needed cards on the top, and then "forget" to give you a chance to cut.

If you ever play him (well, not now, but in 2010 lol), and he doesn't give you a chance to cut, you better make damn well sure you tell him you want to cut his deck and then either shuffle it really well or at worst just put the top half on the bottom lol.

The problem is there's likely nothing that can be done about him screwing with your deck after you shuffle it and present it to him for the same, which is why he continues to get away with it.

How is this even possible? He'd have to know for sure what you are playing, and where your "good cards" are when he begins to shuffle.

You can rig your own deck though shuffling practices, but it's impossible to rig someone else's when you are not allowed to look at anything other than the backs of the cards.

See through vision obviously.

I think Legend wrote a very good post about cheating a long time again. Basically, as long as there is a huge financial incentive for people to win, there will be those who try to bend the rules to do so. Just keep in mind, that while you may not have to worry about Roy cheating you out of your top 8... there certainly are many other people who are willing to do so and you know less about. I mean Roy certainly isn't the only cheater on the Circuit.

I don't understand why everyone is acting like "forgetting" about negative card effects is a shockingly new development. Maybe among Vs System pros everyone has the class to not do it...

But in most card games I've played, "forgetting" is quite common. That, in my opinion, is exactly what Hoh tried to do. He probably knew the rules on reservists, as Squad vs 4 drop Doom would be something he would obviuosly want to know every possible ruling on. He must've figured if he got caught he could claim it was a mistake and fix it. Otherwise, free benifits! There's no possible way he thought no one would notice the switch...

I witness this all the time. In Yu-Gi-Oh! a player is only allowed to play 1 monster from their hand to the field a turn. It's not uncommon to see someone set a 2nd monster and hope their opponent doesn't catch it. In fact, this is what prevented the winner of Canadian Nationals 2004 from being knocked out in the top 8. He somehow got away with it...

There is actually a rise in this kind of mentality. Time Seal is a Yu-Gi-Oh! card that prevents your opponent from drawing on his/her next turn. Often, players would use their Time Seal during an opponent's turn. Then take a long time to play that turn/their next turn. When their opponent started their next turn after that, they'd usually forget about Time Seal unless they marked the top of their deck (with a die or counter or something) and they would draw, at which point their opponent calls over a judge.

Penalties have been getting harsher for this kind of behaviour, which I'm happy to see. It's definitely cheating, but there's no way to prove it.

Obviously Roy St Clair is Superman. But yeah, the 2 games I've played vs a St Clair my draw was fine.

While I know little about VS compared to a Dalton or Slack, I am prepared to say that I know more about baseball than 99% of you. That above quote is completely and unbelievably false. Doesn't the amount of force you put on it have to do with the amount of force you are capable of generating? Don't bat speed and flexibility and hip rotation and the drive in the legs create such forces? Bonds has injuries that hindures all of these things, thus, creating less force.

I can't relate this one to VS, sorry!

To jump on the other side of the fence here, testimony and an indictment are not proof until there are consequences. An indictment means you've been charged with something, not that you're guilty of it, and testimony isn't proof.